Hobgoblin

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.

Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance (1841).
Emerson was staunchly opposed to slavery, but he did not appreciate being in the public limelight and was hesitant about lecturing on the subject. Before the Civil War Emerson  was a pacifist. For Emerson, the soul transcends all conflict and has no enemies; soldiers he considered to be ridiculous. War is "abhorrent to all right reason" and against human progress. From the perspective of spiritual oneness he spoke of "the blazing truth that he who kills his brother commits suicide."

Before the war started the north was divided on wither to fight or compromise. When the rebels took Fort Sumter, Emerson found himself touring the Charleston Navy Yards. He is reported to have said, "Sometimes, gunpowder smells good." He looked at the Civil War as a retribution to purge the nation of the evil of slavery.