This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

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

The silver trump of freedom roused in my soul eternal wakefulness.

It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.

I do not think much of the good luck theory of self-made men. It is worth but little attention and has no practical value.

I hear the mournful wail of millions!

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