War & Peace Quote by George William Norris

A rare political tightrope act: Norris manages to condemn a war while pre-pledging loyalty to the nation that might choose it. The line is engineered to disarm the oldest accusation in American politics - that dissent equals disloyalty. By declaring himself "bitterly opposed", he signals moral seriousness, not mere policy quibbling; "bitterly" is an admission of stakes, even anger. But he immediately builds an escape hatch: if the democratic machinery turns the other way, he will not become a permanent oppositionist feeding on failure. He will fall in behind "our flag", the cleanest available symbol of unity, and redirect his personal authority toward "victory" rather than vindication.

The subtext is less about war than about legitimacy. Norris is asserting that opposition is part of governance, not treason, while also conceding that once the decision is made, the state will demand a kind of emotional conscription from its leaders. It's a promise to constituents and colleagues: I will fight you on the threshold, not on the battlefield.

Context matters because Norris was one of the era's most prominent progressive Republicans, often resisting executive overreach and corporate influence. In the run-up to American entry into World War I, "preparedness" politics and loyalty policing were already heating up. This sentence anticipates the trap awaiting antiwar figures: get painted as un-American, then silenced. Norris tries to keep his conscience intact without becoming a casualty of the coming patriotic crackdown.