But we desire to reach out beyond those personal outrages and establish a rule that will apply to all, and so prevent any future outrages.

If we lose Kansas to freedom, an example will be set which will prove fatal to freedom in the end.

By every principle of law, a negro in Kansas is free; yet the bogus legislature makes it an infamous crime to tell him that he is free!

The masses were against it, but party necessity carried it; and it was passed through the lower house of Congress against the will of the people, for the same reason.

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.

In my humble sphere, I shall advocate the restoration of the Missouri Compromise so long as Kansas remains a Territory; and when, by all these foul means, it seeks to come into the Union as a slave State, I shall oppose it.

I do oppose the extension of slavery, because my judgment and feeling so prompt me, and I am under no obligations to the contrary.

I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down and caught and carried back to their stripes and unrequited toil; but I bite my lips and keep quiet.

If for this you and I must differ, differ we must.

I look upon that enactment, not as a law, but as a violence from the beginning.

It was conceived in violence, is maintained in violence, and is being executed in violence.

It was passed in violence, because it could not have passed at all but for the votes of many members in violence of the known will of their constituents.

It is maintained in violence, because the elections since clearly demand its repeal, and the demand is openly disregarded.

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…

If, like Haman, they should hang upon the gallows of their own building, I shall not be among the mourners for their fate.

I am very loath in any case to withhold my assent to the enjoyment of property acquired or located in good faith; but I do not admit that good faith in taking a negro to Kansas to be held in slavery is a probability with any man.

Standing as a unit among yourselves, you can, directly and indirectly, bribe enough of our men to carry the day, as you could on the open proposition to establish a monarchy.

All decent slaveholders talk that way, and I do not doubt their candour; but they never vote that way.

The slave-breeders and slave-traders are a small, odious, and detested class among you; and yet in politics they dictate the course of all of you, and are as completely your masters as you are the master of your own negroes.

How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes be in favour of degrading classes of white people?

As a nation, we began by declaring that all men are created equal.

We now practically read it, all men are created equal except negroes.

When the Know-nothings get control, it will read, all men are created equal except negroes and foreigners and Catholics.

When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty--to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy....

It is not fair for you to assume that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable.