It would be contrary to the spirit of the American Government to use force to subjugate the South.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.