An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of property in a slave in not "distinctly and expressly affirmed" in it.

In the early days of the world, the Almighty said to the first of our race "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread"; and since then, if we except the light and the air of heaven, no good thing has been, or can be enjoyed by us, without having first cost labour.

The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society.

If you are resolutely determined to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already.

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.

I never did ask more, nor ever was willing to accept less, than for all the States, and the people thereof, to take and hold their places, and their rights, in the Union, under the Constitution of the United States. For this alone have I felt authorized to struggle; and I seek neither more nor less now.

I believe the declaration that ‘all men are created equal’ is the great fundamental principle upon which our free institutions rest.