The Constitution of the United States knows no distinction between citizens on account of color. Neither does it know any difference between a citizen of a state and a citizen of the United States.

You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed.

The mind does not take its complexion from the skin.

The Federal Government was never, in its essence, anything but an anti-slavery government.

People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.

Your national greatness, swelling vanity; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

The law on the side of freedom is of great advantage only when there is power to make that law respected.