There is not only no free state which would now establish it, but there is no slave state, which, if it had had the free alternative as we now have, would have founded slavery.

But I deny that the Constitution recognizes property in man.

We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them, and holding them in bondage where we can set them free.

Revolutions never go backward.

I deem it established, then, that the Constitution does not recognize property in man, but leaves that question, as between the states, to the law of nature and of nations.

There is a higher law than the Constitution.

The whole hope of human progress is suspended on the ever-growing influence of the Bible.