I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.

Let us render the tyrant no aid; let us not hold the light by which he can trace the footprints of our flying brother.

The Constitutional framers were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was "settled" that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were "final;" not slavery and oppression.

I could, as a free man, look across the bay toward the Eastern Shore where I was born a slave.

The District of Columbia is the one spot where there is no government for the people, of the people and by the people.

Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.

It's a poor rule that won't work both ways.