What justice would there be to take this life? Justice, gentlemen? Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this.

The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state.

Truth between candid minds can never do harm.

Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. ... With hearts fortified ... we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare that... we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverence, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves.

Principle will, in... most... cases open the way for us to correct conclusion.

[Oppose] with manly firmness [any] invasions on the rights of the people.

Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. The small landowners are the most precious part of a state