This outrage did not impair the intellect which it sought to destroy; that survived the trial, enlarged, strengthened, purified, to set forward in a new and more glorious career in the cause of Freedom and Humanity.

Happy, then, for us, and for our country, has been the suffering of these martyrs in the cause of Freedom.

The name of James Otis has descended to posterity on the brightest pages of our history, associated with those of Hancock, and Adams, and Jay, and Jefferson, and Henry, and Rutledge, and there it will remain forever.

Charles Sumner, not of Massachusetts, but of the United States of America, one and indivisible.

PRESIDENT,--It is my nature to be more touched by the kindness of friends than by the malignity of enemies; and I know something of both.

The ancient poet, longing to sing of Achilles and the house of Atreus, found that he could sing of love only; and he snatched from his lyre its bloody string.

I can speak to you of war only; but be assured, that, if I speak of war, it is because, unhappily, war has become to us the only way of peace.

Rarely do men know the full significance of the period in which they live, and we are inclined to sigh for something better in the way of opportunity,--such as was given to the hero of the Past, or as imagination allots to the better hero…

There is nothing in the Past, and it is difficult to imagine anything in the Future, more inspiring than our Present.

Even with the curtain yet slightly lifted, it is easy to see that events are gathering, which, in their development, must constitute the third great epoch in the history of this Western Hemisphere,--the first being its discovery by…

The ancient Spartan, being asked, “Which is the greater virtue, justice or valor?” answered in memorable words, “Where justice is, there can be no need of valor.

But we are now in the midst of a war which, whatever the reasons assigned by the unhappy men who began it, or by those who sympathize with them elsewhere, has an origin and mainspring so clear and definite as to be beyond question.

Such was that earliest rebellion waged by fallen spirits against the Almighty Throne; and such is that now waged by fallen slave-masters of our Republic against the National Government.

If victorious, they will be only Satanic saints of Slavery, with place in a most hateful hagiology.

You cannot set aside or deny such an election, without assailing not only the whole framework of the Constitution, but also the primal principle of American institutions.

You become a traitor at once to the existing government and to the very idea of popular rule.

You snatch a principle from the red book of despotism, and openly substitute the cartridge-box for the ballot-box.

Their avowed object was the dismemberment of the Republic, by detaching State after State, in order to found a Slaveholding Confederacy.

The object avowed is hideous in every aspect, whether we regard it as treason to our paternal government, as treason to the idea of American institutions, or as treason to those commanding principles of economy, morals, and Christianity…

And now we stand front to front in deadly conflict with this double-headed, triple-headed treason.

It is not merely a Rebellion, but it is a Rebellion begun in conspiracy; nor, in all history, ancient or modern, is there any record of conspiracy so vast and so wicked, ranging over such spaces both of time and territory, and forecasting…

But no conspiracy could ripen such pernicious fruit, if not rooted in a soil of congenial malignity.

The slave-trade, whose annual iniquity no tongue can tell, was placed for twenty years under safeguard of the Constitution, thus giving sanction, support, and increase to Slavery itself.

Regrets for the past are not entirely useless, if out of them we get wisdom for the future, and learn to be brave.

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