The whole fabric of southern society must be changed, and never can it be done if this opportunity is lost. Without this, this government can never be, as it never has been, a true republic.

The greatest measure of the nineteenth century was passed by corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America.

I don’t hold with equality in all things only with equality before the law and nothing more.

The future condition of the conquered power depends on the will of the conquerer.

Strip the proud nobility of their bloated estates, reduce them to a level with plain republicans, send forth to labor, and teach their children to enter the workshops or handle the plow, and you will thus humble proud traitors.

No government can be free that does not allow all its citizens to participate in the formation and execution of her laws.

I can never acknowledge the right of slavery. I will bow down to no deity however worshipped by professing Christians - however dignified by the name of the Goddess of Liberty, whose footstool is the crushed necks of the groaning millions, and who rejoices in the resoundings of the tyrant's lash, and the cries of his tortured victims.