You watch the Supreme Court in action on these cases, and they are a conflicted court. However, when it comes to speech issues generally, the court has been protective.

It has always been a great wrong that these men and their families should be held in bondage. We of the North have hitherto acquiesced in it, lest, in the endeavor to redress it in violation of the Constitution, greater evils might ensue.

If anyone tells you that you cannot legislate morality, remeber that legislation IS morality.

The court has said you are entitled to robust speech on public sidewalks, even insulting speech.

As a private lawyer, I could bill $750 an hour, but I don't.

We can constitutionally extirpate slavery at this time. But if we fail to do this, then unless we intend hereafter to violate the Constitution, we shall have a fugitive slave law in operation whenever the war is over.

So we need the same strategy, we need young, aggressive judges to be appointed, and that's what the President has done, but getting them through is the challenge.