In Louis P. Masur’s article, “Diary of a New York Lawyer,” he uses George Templeton Strong’s diary of his life to show how the Civil War was both “momentous and trivial.” I found it interesting when Strong said the “the proceedings at the secession convention look childish. He found that the issue of slavery was similar to a domestic dispute. I agree with this point that he made because the Civil War was within the same country. Why would you want to go to war with your own fellow Americans over a disagreement? Why didn’t they just have a vote for slavery instead of a war? I also found it interesting when he said, “domestic institutions, like slavery, need not to be respected.” What does he mean? What made him feel this way? This showed