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

Sir, there is no Christian nation, thus free to choose as we are, which would establish slavery.

The proposition of an established classification of states as slave states and free states, as insisted on by some, and into northern and southern, as maintained by others, seems to me purely imaginary, and of course the supposed equilibrium of those classes a mere conceit.

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.

Idea is a noble one — an idea that fills and expands all generous souls; the idea of equality — the equality of all men before human tribunals and human laws, as they all are equal before the Divine tribunal and Divine laws.

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.

The United States are a political state, or organized society, whose end is government, for the security, welfare, and happiness of all who live under its protection.