We must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued.

If any man tells you he loves America, yet hates labor, he is a liar. If any man tells you he trusts America, yet fears labor, he is a fool.

He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.

Of our political revolution of '76, we all are justly proud. It has given us a degree of political freedom, far exceeding that of any other nation of the earth. In it the world has found a solution of the long mooted problem, as to the capability of man to govern himself. In it was the germ which has vegetated, and still is to grow and expand into the universal liberty of mankind.

Must a government be too strong for the liberties of its people or too weak to maintain its own existence?

Better give your path to a dog than be bitten by him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite

Oh, that [his Thanksgiving Message] is some of Seward's nonsense, and it pleases the fools.