We come down to 1851, and find Senator Choate, in a speech before the United States Congress, referring to the state of affairs in the Old World, and saying: “What that state and aspect exactly is, that shadows, clouds, and darkness appear to rest upon, you entirely appreciate; how wholly unsettled. It has seemed to me as if the prerogatives of crowns, and the rights of men, and the hoarded up resentments of a thousand years were about to unsheathe the sword for a conflict in which blood shall flow, as in apocalyptic vision, ‘to the bridles of the horses,’ and in which a whole race of men shall pass away; in which the great bell of time shall sound out another hour; in which society itself will be tried by fire and steel, whether it be of nature and of nature’s God or not.” GSAM 272.4