Seeing it as clearly as I do, and feeling it as strongly as I do, I cannot avoid expressing it.

Beyond that sentiment of duty which is with me a rule of life, I am encouraged to this effort by the hope that, even if the present Committee cannot be corrected in conformity with Parliamentary Law, its incompetency is so clearly exposed…

I have letters very often from learned professors in different parts of the country, complaining of the cost of books that they are constrained to purchase in order to carry on their studies and to enable them to teach.

It is also the case with men of science, who desire works in the Continental languages; they complain bitterly of the expense to which they are put.

I think, if these could be put on the free list, an essential service would be done; the revenue would lose very little, and no considerable interest in our country would suffer.

Now I ask whether we should not do all we can to make the school-books as cheap as possible?

My amendment reaches the large amount of works concerning science and literature and jurisprudence in ancient and in foreign languages; and why should these be subjected to a duty?

Why should those scholars, those enlightened professional men who import these books, be subjected to this additional expense?

Every such work becomes a fountain in the neighborhood: but I would not put a duty on that fountain; I would unseal it; I would open it, and let it flow as amply as possible.

For instance, take most of the considerable works of scholarship in German, annually produced, bearing on the classics; they are not republished in our country, but our professors import them at cost.

Why not help the man of science, or the learned professor, who aspires to enlarge his library in this way?

Finding me less at home than himself with his favorite humorist, he said pleasantly, “I must initiate you,” and then repeated with enthusiasm the message he had sent to the author: “For the genius to write these things I would gladly give…

Above all, let them insist on the rights of their own much-abused and insulted people.

It is absurd for anybody to say that he “accepts the situation,” and then deny the equal rights of the colored man.

If the “situation” is accepted in good faith, it must be entirely,--including not merely the abolition of Slavery and the establishment of equal suffrage, but also all those other rights which are still denied or abridged.

There must be complete equality before the law, so that in all institutions, agencies, or conveniences, created or regulated by law, there can be no discrimination on account of color, but a black man shall be treated as a white man.

There can be but one liberty and one equality, the same in Boston and New Orleans, the same everywhere throughout the country.

The colored people are not ungenerous, and therefore will incline to any measures of good-will and reconciliation; but I trust no excess of benevolence will make them consent to any postponement of those equal rights which are still…

The disabilities of colored people, loyal and long-suffering, should be removed before the disabilities of former Rebels; or at least the two removals should go hand in hand.

It only remains that I should say, “Stand firm!” The politicians will then know that you are in earnest, and will no longer be trifled with.

It is, that our representatives abroad must be kept always above all suspicion of acting under foreign influence, or the temptation of foreign reward.

I use the language of another, when I say that parks are the lungs of a great city; but where will be the lungs of this metropolis, if you begin now to reduce the Park?

Rather should we sacredly keep it all intact, so that hereafter, when you and I, Sir, have passed away, and this metropolis has grown to a grandeur and beauty which imagination cannot now conceive, that Park may remain in its entirety, a…

There is in Boston what is known as The Common, set apart in the very earliest days of the old town, when it was in fact what the name implies,--a common for the pasturage of cattle; but, though often assailed, it has been preserved…

The jealous city fathers have saved that beautiful piece of earth, till now it is the first treasure of Boston,--unless we except her common schools, where all are equal before the law.