Not for the love of war

Statue of Rufus Choate, by famed American sculptor Daniel Chester French, at the John Adams Courthouse, Boston.

John Whipple House, built in 1677, in Ipswich, Mass. It looks transplanted from England.

— Photo by Elizabeth B. Thomsen

“The courage of New England was the courage of conscience. It did not rise to that insane and awful passion, the love of war for itself.“

—  Rufus Choate (1799-1859), American lawyer, orator and U.S. senator, in a 1834 address at Ipswich, Mass., of which he was a native. The town calls itself “The Birthplace of American Independence.’’ You can look up why.

A view from Castle Hill of Ipswich’s famously beautiful marshes, beloved of painters.

— Photo by John Phelan