Peace will come soon to stay, and so come as to be worth keeping in all future time. It will then have proved that among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure their cases and pay the costs.

Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in. That every man may receive at least a moderate education...appears to be an object of vital importance...

Any society that takes away from those most capable and gives to the least will perish.

Violence begins where knowledge ends.

The land-grant university system is being built on behalf of the people, who have invested in these public universities their hopes, their support, and their confidence.

I hear you have abolitionists here. We have a few in Illinois, but we shot one the other day.

Now what is Judge Douglas Popular Sovereignty? It is, as a principle, no other than that, if one man chooses to make a slave of another man, neither that other man nor anybody else has a right to object.