By every principle of law ever held by any court North or South, every negro taken to Kansas is free; yet in utter disregard of this--in the spirit of violence merely--that beautiful Legislature gravely passes a law to hang any man who shall venture to inform a negro of his legal rights.
In a letter to Joshua Speed, Lincoln condemned the Kansas territorial legislature for passing a law that would punish anyone informing enslaved people of their legal rights to freedom.
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Let us strive to deserve, as far as mortals may, the continued favor of Almighty God.
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.
Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.
If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
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