Excerpt from The Purchase by Blood: A Tribute to Brig.-Gen. Charles Russell Lowell, Jr., Spoken in the West Church, Oct; 30, 1864 That is to say, the blood has in it a certain price or power to purchase. Any thing in the world is worth what you can buy with it; and blood is incomparable treasure, by this rule. So I claim to-day the blood nowhere more copious or pure than has marked your lintels and these church-doors. It were impertinent for us to live on, and not recognize its rate. It is a universal law. Blood, shed in testimony to any truth or principle, is the chief riches of mankind. It is not money, or what we commonly mean by value, - a commodity named in books of political economy, like coin or coupon, exchange or merchandise, harvest, work of art, piece of mechanical labor or skill; yet the wealth of it, as demonstrated in what it obtains and is bartered for, mounts beyond bullion or bank-bill, any growth of the field, monument of skill, best note of hand, or royal promise to pay. There are times when nothing else will pass; but on this alone as a specie basis all beside depends. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.