The trial of a president is a terrible thing for a country to endure. We can be grateful that in the Senate, at least, the proceedings have been conducted in a more civil manner than we have been subjected to over the last several years. Although we have been told that just underneath the surface, in the Senate as well, there are deep divisions and the same partisan acrimony that has characterized the investigation and the impeachment.

There has always been division in the world. In our own society, in America, there has always been difference of opinion. That is just the way life is. But in the past, at least in my memory, the divisions could be transcended when parties would compromise for the sake of the unity of the nation, especially in times of crisis in the nation, when it was gene…