Historical voices

An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them.

The Federal Government, however, as we insist, has the power of restraining the extension of the institution--the power to insure that a slave insurrection shall never occur on any American soil which is now free from slavery.

True, we do, in common with "our fathers who framed the government under which we live," declare our belief that slavery is wrong; but the slaves do not hear us declare even this.

You need not be told that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true is simply malicious slander.

If you would have the peace of the old times, readopt the precepts and policy of the old times.

We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed the government under which we live"; while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy…

Could Washington himself speak, would he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who sustain his policy, or upon you, who repudiate it?

Then you really believe that the principle which "our fathers who framed the government under which we live" thought so clearly right as to adopt it, and indorse it again and again, upon their official oaths, is in fact so clearly wrong as…

The fact that we get no votes in your section is a fact of your making, and not of ours.

You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to "Black Republicans." In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an unconditional condemnation of "Black Republicanism" as the first thing to be…

As those fathers marked it, so let it again be marked, as an evil not to be extended, but to be tolerated and protected only because of and so far as its actual presence among us makes that toleration and protection a necessity.

Let all who believe that "our fathers who framed the government under which we live understood this question just as well, and even better than we do now," speak as they spoke, and act as they acted upon it.

But he has no right to mislead others who have less access to history, and less leisure to study it, into the false belief that "our fathers who framed the government under which we live" were of the same opinion--thus substituting…

To do so, would be to discard all the lights of current experience--to reject all progress, all improvement.

I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did.

To arms all!—all!—and the oppressors, the supremely powerful, shall be turned into dust.

This stupendous page of our history must be followed by one more glorious still; and the slave will finally show to the free brother a sharpened iron which belonged to the links of his chains.

You have conquered, and you will conquer, because you are now trained to the tactics which decide battles.

On a strong and wholesome education of the people depend the liberty and greatness of Italy.

Education gives liberty—education gives to the people the means and the power to secure and defend their own independence.

Educate them to be Christian—educate them to be Italian.

You who are here—you, the educated and cultivated portion of the citizenship—you have the duty to educate the people.

Let no one misunderstand my words—let no one confound Popery with Christianity—the Religion of Liberty with the avaricious and sanguinary Politics of Slavery.

Well, the Genius of Evil for Italy is the Pope-king.