Writing is the great invention of the world.

I hold it to be a paramount duty of us in the free states, due to the Union of the states, and perhaps to liberty itself (paradox though it may seem) to let the slavery of the other states alone; while, on the other hand, I hold it to be equally clear, that we should never knowingly lend ourselves directly or indirectly, to prevent that slavery from dying a natural death--to find new places for it to live in, when it can no longer exist in the old.

Be not deceived. Revolutions do not go backward.

I hope to stand firm enough to not go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country's cause.

I am much indebted to the good Christian people of the country for their constant prayers and consolations; and to no one of them, more than to yourself.

We must work earnestly in the best light He gives us.

He [Stephen Douglas] is blowing out the moral lights around us, when he contends that whoever wants slaves has a right to hold them; that he is penetrating, so far as lies in his power, the human soul, and eradicating the light of reason and the love of liberty, when he is in every possible way preparing the public mind, by his vast influence, for making the institution of slavery perpetual and national.