But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes.

The right to have a slave implies the right in some one to make the slave; that right must be equal and mutual, and this would resolve society into a state of perpetual war.

I mean to say that Congress can hereafter decide whether any states, slave or free, can be framed out of Texas. If they should never be framed out of Texas, they never could be admitted.

The constitution regulates our stewardship; the constitution devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defense, to welfare, and to liberty. But there is a higher law than the constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes. The territory is a part, no inconsiderable part, of the common heritage of mankind, bestowed upon them by the Creator of the universe. We are his stewards, and must so discharge our trust as to secure in the highest attainable degree their happiness.

No man will ever be President of the United States who spells 'negro' with two gs.

The two systems slave and free-labor are incompatible. They have never permanently existed together in one country, and they never can.

The circumstances of the world are so variable that an irrevocable purpose or opinion is almost synonymous with a foolish one.