This is a book about Courage and Patriotism. It tells the dramatic stories of a number of American politicians of various political and regional allegiances whose one overriding loyalty was to the United States and to the right as God gave them to see it. They range from born aristocrats to self-made men. Some are well-known, some almost forgotten. But all of them, in the face of dreadful consequences, exhibited a special kind of greatness. These stories about them remind us sharply that there is, in addition to a courage with which men die, a courage by which men must live.
