There is always a certain glamour about the idea of a nation rising up to crush an evil simply because it is wrong. Unfortunately, this can seldom be realized in real life; for the very existence of the evil usually argues a moral weakness in the very place where extraordinary moral strength is called for.
W. E. B. Du Bois (2014). “Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America: 1638-1870”, p.195, Courier Corporation