It is as an expounder of Public International Law that his name will be most widely cherished.

In the progress of Christian civilization, many of the rules now sustained by learned subtilty or unquestioning submission, shaping the public concerns of nations, will pass away.

The Institution of War, with its complex code, now sanctioned and legalized by nations, as a proper mode of adjusting their disputes, will yield to some less questionable arbitrament.

But a profound interest must always attach to the writings of those great masters who have labored to explain, to advance, and to refine that system, which, though incomplete, has helped to keep the great Christian Commonwealth in the…

It were wrong to close this imperfect tribute without a renewed testimony to the purity of his life.

From youth to age his career was marked by integrity, temperance, frugality, modesty, industry.

He stood with serene simplicity in the presence of kings.

The effort to establish a political test in the Whig party in opposition to the extension of Slavery failed; but the Antislavery sentiment was constantly active.

Those who coöperated in the movement were denounced as disturbers, and finally obtained an epithet, applied often in sarcasm, which may be considered their highest praise.

This was the beginning of the separate Free-Soil organization in Massachusetts, which afterwards grew into the Republican party.

As many as five thousand persons appeared at Worcester, quickened by hostility to Slavery.

No great movement ever showed at the beginning more character and power.

One thing, at least, I can do: I can join them in renunciation of party relations, so plainly inconsistent with the support of Freedom.

It represents no longer the moral sentiments of the country.

A party which renounces its sentiments must expect to be renounced.

In the coming contest I wish it understood that I belong to the party of Freedom,--to that party which plants itself on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

It is a REVOLUTION,--not beginning with the destruction of a Bastile, but destined to end only with the overthrow of a tyranny differing little in hardship and audacity from that which sustained the Bastile of France,--I mean the Slave…

By the Slave Power I understand that combination of persons, or, perhaps, of politicians, whose animating principle is the perpetuation and extension of Slavery, with the advancement of Slaveholders.

It is still worse apparent in a succession of acts by which the National Government has been prostituted to Slavery.

This combination is unknown to the Constitution; nay, it exists in defiance of that instrument, and of the recorded opinions uttered constantly by its founders.

It was established to perpetuate, in organic law, those rights which the Declaration had promulgated, and which the sword of Washington had secured.

However culpable my conduct, I will so far pay my devoir to Virtue as to own the excellence and rectitude of her precepts, and lament my want of conformity to them.

Surely, then, it is right to say that the combination which seeks to perpetuate and extend Slavery is unknown to the Constitution,--that it exists in defiance of that instrument, and also of the recorded opinions uttered constantly by its…

Time would fail me to dwell on the perpetual influence, growing with time, which the Slave Power has exerted from the foundation of the government.

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