Those who give to others such rights perform acts that are void as they are given.… Those who give and those who receive arbitrary power are alike criminal, and there is no man but is bound to resist it to the best of his power, wherever…

To be a man is a sufficient title-deed for the rights of man, which we seek to establish.

Clearly, where all are equal, there can be no Slavery.

Nobody in the community too high, nobody too low, not to feel the new-found boon filling every household and travelling on every highway.

Nay, at this juncture, when our object is, above all things, to secure a national currency, the reason for exemption is of special and unanswerable force.

This bill is based upon the most equitable, the most sincerely republican, and the most progressive principles as yet adopted in any country.

Nothing but confusion and conflict of authority can result.

Freedom already declared must be secured completely, so that it may not fail through any pretension or fraud of wicked men.

We desire to secure for them opportunity,--opportunity to work: that is the main point, and that can be secured only by bringing them in connection with the lands.

A majority is the natural base of a republic.

A new civil government, to be recognized as a State of this Union, cannot be born of military power.

Yet if we glance at the latter, we find the power of Congress declared beyond question.

Now this is the last support in the statute-book, and I entreat the Senate to remove it.

I would place it under the highest sanction which our country knows.

And now Congress is about to leave, to flee away, without performing this essential duty.

Nay, more, Sir,--I protest against any desertion until that work is done.

Fellow-citizens, in all this vast Union, whether as it was or as it is, there is not a single Republican in arms against the Government, or sympathizing with those who are.

I know full well that among the honest masses there are many, once Democrats, who have given their lives to their country, and there are some of the old leaders at the North who have spurned all the traditions of the party.

There, also, are our generals,--Grant, Sherman, Hooker, Butler,--a goodly cluster,--once Democrats, but now forgetting party and dedicating themselves completely to their country.

But the patriotism of Democrats like these is not an apology for the Democrat Jefferson Davis, or for his Democratic sympathizers among us, seeking to arrest the strong blows under which Rebellion reels.

It is because the Democratic party is at this moment so utterly mischievous and disloyal, so really dangerous to our country, and so bitterly hostile to Liberty, that I speak thus plainly.

Suffice it to say that the Convention at Baltimore openly and frankly pledged all its energies to the suppression of the Rebellion, and to the utter and complete extirpation of Slavery from the soil of the Republic, without compromise or…

The Chicago platform may be seen in two aspects,--first, in what it does say, and, secondly, in what it does not say.

I ask more, because without more the Union is but a name.

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.