Interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a glorious liberty document. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? It is neither.

I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it.

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

Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains.

Right is of no sex, truth is of no color.

I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the South is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes—a justifier of the most appalling barbarity…a shelter under…which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection

To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony.