"when a once virile race have grown too effeminate to bear arms..."

   "Those who have studied the republics of antiquity have observed that so long as they retained their original simplicity and pristine valor, so long as their young men were instructed in mind and exercised in body, so long as they preserved inviolate the purity of elections, just so long did they retain and continue to deserve the freedom won by their forefathers. But when those in authority have been allowed to forget that "public office is a public trust," when corruption in high places has been surely followed by corruption among the people, when a once virile race have grown too effeminate to bear arms, and when self-abasement has paved the way to villain bonds and despot sway, then the people, debased and degenerate, no longer worthy of the freedom of their ancestors, have surely passed under the dominion of an imperial Caesar."--C.T. Lassiter, Petersburg, VA., June 10, 1895. [The Times, Richmond, VA., Tuesday, June 11, 1895. Vol. 9--New Series No. 104. Page 3]