Are you willing, Sir, now at this early moment of her history, when she is just beginning to grow, or rather when her growth is just beginning to be apparent, to despoil her of this unquestionable attraction, where the useful and the…

I think you will act against the best interests of the city, whether you look at health, beauty, or enjoyment; for a park ministers to all these.

By no consent of Congress would I allow any business interest or disturbing railroad company to fasten itself upon this inclosure.

If you put a railway station as is proposed, you will bring on the Avenue all that glut and accumulation of carriages and wagons always concentrated about the terminus of a great line of travel.

That alone would be a reason with me against the bill.

But as often as I think of the question, I come back to the Park, which, say what you will, is destined to be one of the most important possessions of this metropolis, and for the special enjoyment of the people.

Stand on that portico, Sir, and survey the amphitheatre; your eye will then rest with satisfaction on the outline of this very Park, stretching from the Capitol beyond the Executive Mansion, and destined to be a breathing-place for the…

And now it is proposed not only to diminish that breathing-place, but to disturb it by the smoke of steam-engines, and to confuse it by the perpetual din of locomotives.

There is a place for all things; and this I know, the place for a railway-station is not a public park.

I therefore insist that the experiment of an eight-hour law in the national workshops shall be fairly tried, so that, if successful, it may be extended.

Here let me confess that I find this law especially valuable, because it promises more time for education and general improvement.

If the experiment is successful in this respect, I shall be less curious on the question of pecuniary profit and loss; for to my mind the education of the human family is above dollars and dividends.

Resolved, That any withdrawal from a treaty recognizing Arbitration, or any refusal to abide the judgment of the accepted tribunal, or any interposition of technicalities to limit the proceedings, is to this extent a disparagement of the…

Amongst the foremost purposes ought to be the downfall of this odious, insulting, degrading, aide-de-campish, incapable dictatorship.

It is a maxim in politics, which we readily admit as undisputed and universal, that a power, however great, when granted by law to an eminent magistrate, is not so dangerous to Liberty as an authority, however inconsiderable, which he…

I began at the beginning, and from that early day have never failed to sustain its candidates and to advance its principles.

For these I have labored always by speech and vote, in the Senate and elsewhere,--at first with few only, but at last, as success began to dawn, then with multitudes flocking forward.

In this cause I never asked who were my associates or how many they would number.

In the consciousness of right I was willing to be alone.

Not without regret can I see it suffer; not without a pang can I see it changed from its original character, for such a change is death.

Therefore do I ask, with no common feeling, that the peril which menaces it may pass away.

I stood by its cradle; let me not follow its hearse.

Such, on the eve of the Presidential election, was my description of the Republican Party and my aspiration for its future.

For such a party there was no death, but higher life and nobler aims; and this was the party to which I gave my vows.

It is not difficult to indicate when this disastrous change, exalting the will of one man above all else, became not merely manifest, but painfully conspicuous.