Mind is above matter, right is more than force, and it is vain to attempt conquest merely by matter or by force.

If this can be done in small affairs, it cannot in large; for these yield only to moral influences.

A government only able to crush its enemies on the field of battle would very soon be destroyed.” In these authoritative words of the warrior and the thinker there is warning not to put trust in batteries or bayonets, while an…

Time will be gained for new efforts, and Slavery will coil itself to spring again.

Thus, for the sake of peace, which we all desire, do I now plead for Freedom, through which alone peace can be secured.

Are you earnest for peace? then must you be earnest for Freedom also.

Would you uphold the Union against treason? then must you uphold Freedom, without which bloody treason will flourish over us.

Therefore it must be maintained with all our souls and all our hearts and all our might.

The hour of debate has passed, the hour of action has sounded.

According to a venerable maxim of jurisprudence, “Whoso would have equity must do equity”; and God plainly requires equity at our hands.

And be it further enacted, That in all judicial proceedings in the District of Columbia there shall be no exclusion of any witness on account of color.

We cannot expect success while setting at nought this requirement, proclaimed in His divine character, in the dictates of reason, and in the examples of history,--proclaimed, also, in the events of this protracted war.

And now, thank God, the word is spoken!--greater word was seldom spoken.

Emancipation has begun, and our country is already elevated and glorified.

Its object now, as at the beginning, is simply to put down the Rebellion; but its character is derived from the new force at length enlisted, stamping itself upon all that is done, and absorbing the whole war to itself.

Vain will it be again to delude European nations into foolish belief that Slavery has nothing to do with the war, that it is a war for empire on one side and independence on the other, and that all generous ideas are on the side of the…

The National Government, so long as it was ruled by Slavery, could not tolerate a Black Republic.

And vain, also, will be that other European cry,--whether from an intemperate press or the cautious lips of statesmen,--that separation is inevitable, and that our Government is doomed to witness the dismemberment of the Republic.

With this new alliance, such forebodings will be falsified, the wishes of the fathers will be fulfilled, and the rights of human nature, which were the declared object of our Revolution, vindicated.

But, fellow-citizens, the war we wage is not merely for ourselves, it is for all mankind.

Slavery yet lingers in Brazil, and beneath the Spanish flag in those two golden possessions, Cuba and Porto Rico; but nowhere can it survive extinction here.

In ending Slavery here we open its gates all over the world, and let the oppressed go free.

As sure as you live, Sir, if this course is permitted to go on, the sun of this Union will go down,--it will go down in blood, and go down to rise no more.

Man throughout his long pilgrimage on earth has been compelled to suffer much, but Slavery is the heaviest burden he has been called to bear: it is the only burden our country has been called to bear.

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