I wished that I were the owner of every southern slave, that I might cast off the shackles from their limbs, and witness the rapture which would excite them in the first dance of their freedom.

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

There can be no fanatics in the cause of genuine liberty. Fanaticism is excessive zeal. There may be, and have been fanatics in false religion; in the bloody religions of the heathen.

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

I wish the Indians had newspapers of their own. If they had, you would have horrible pictures of the cold-blooded murders of inoffensive Indians.

The freedom of a government does not depend on the quality of its laws, but upon the power that has the right to create them.

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