I know that a vellum page is a luxury, coveted always by the refined book-collector; but it has long since ceased to be anything else.

Paper is good enough and durable enough for all practical purposes.

The President cannot be held responsible for the misfeasance of subordinates, unless adopted, or at least tolerated, by him.

Let a single stave be taken out, and the whole barrel falls to pieces.

I am happy to let you know that he has no sympathy with Stanly in his absurd wickedness, closing the schools, nor, again, in his other act of turning our camps into a hunting-ground for slaves.

The latter point has occupied much of his thought, and the newspapers do not go too far in recording his repeated declarations, which I have often heard from his own lips, that slaves finding their way within the national lines are never…

Proceeding from the President, it must take its place among the great events of history.

If disposed to be impatient at apparent short-comings, think, I pray you, what has been done in a brief period, and from the past discern the sure promise of the future.

I say to you, therefore, Stand by the Administration.

If need be, help it by word and act; but stand by it, and have faith in it.

You might, perhaps, wish he were less cautious, but you would be grateful that he is so true to all you have at heart.

Therefore, when you consent to the independence of the Rebel States, you disband the whole company of States, and blot our country from the map of the world.

If I write strongly, it is because I feel strongly; for my constant and intimate intercourse with the President, beginning with the fourth of March, not only binds me peculiarly to his Administration, but gives me a personal as well as a…

Short as life may be, it is too long for Slavery.

If it be adopted, and the bill becomes a law, a new Slave State will take its place in our Union,--it may be with but few slaves, and for the present generation only, but nevertheless a new Slave State.

How often have I said, and how painful that I must now repeat what all know, that it takes but little Slavery to make a Slave State with all the virus of Slavery!

Now my vote shall help no new State to take a place in this Union, with Senators in this body, unless purged of this poison.

Enough has our nation been disturbed, and enough has the Constitution been perverted.

There are ten thousand slaves there, who, according to the bill, are to remain in bondage during life.

Thus, for one whole generation, shall we be afflicted by another Slave State, with two slaveholding representatives in this body.

I cannot by my vote consent that there shall be two additional slaveholding Senators for another generation.

The admission of West Virginia with a condition recognizing Slavery for a full generation will be an extension of the Slave Power and a new sanction of Slavery.

Why, Sir, it is simply the old Jeffersonian ordinance, which, when originally adopted for the great Territory of the Northwest, operated upon Slavery already there, and absolutely forbade this wrong from that time forward.

In point of fact, slaves were freed by this ordinance.

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