Free labor has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope.

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races... A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas...

Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything.

My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them.

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.