He may suffer all wrong, and the courts will not hearken to his testimony; but for the first wrong he does, the same courts inflict their severest punishments upon him.

If they hear the word “slave” used in reference to those who have been deprived of their natural rights in other countries, they will apply that word to their own condition in this.

If they hear the word “tyrants” used in reference to one who deprives others of their rights, for “tyrants” they will read “masters;” and no mortal power, or law, or art, can help it, but by blotting out all that is human within them.

The slaves in this city are constantly hearing what must remind them that they are slaves; and therefore they are constantly incited to escape from their bondage.

How different would have been the struggle for liberty to be secured by republicanism, if there had been no example of a stable republican government to which the patriot could point, for the encouragement of his people!

We do not, indeed, propagate our principles with the sword of power; but there is one sense in which we are propagandists.

And even in the barren sands of tyranny they are destined to take root.

The tree of liberty will spring up every where, and nations shall recline in its shade.

And thus, gentlemen of the jury, I say that while some of the seeds of liberty which we scatter are wafted to a foreign realm, and fall upon a foreign soil, others will drop upon the hearts of bondmen and bondwomen at home, and will there…

It is not the mere taking of another man’s property, therefore, which constitutes stealing, but the taking of it in order to convert it to the use of the taker, and so to save himself the labor of earning it.

The doctrine, gentlemen, which I wish to enforce upon your minds, is, that every act of taking another man’s property is not stealing.

The reason why, in each of these cases, one would not be guilty of stealing, is, that he does not mean to make the article taken his own.

This avowal of General Cass was rendered more signal and valuable to the south, because, for the greater part of his political life, he had taken oaths, held offices, and administered laws, in undeniable contradiction to the declaration…

The common notion is, that a man shows his love for a cause by the amount of sacrifice he will make for it; and as consistency, honor, and truth, are the most precious elements in character, he showed his devotion to the south by…

Webster had spoken more eloquent words for liberty than any other living man, and this distinguished neglect was doubtless intended to teach him the lesson, that the path to presidential honors did not lie through an advocacy of the rights…

The appropriation bill is one on which the working, and even the continuance of the government, depend.

If long continued, all judges would resign, and courts be broken up; and when justice should cease to be administered, violence, robbery, and every form of crime would run riot through the land.

Through that memorable night the friends of freedom wrestled like Jacob with the angel of God, and though the session did not close until the sun of a Sabbath morning shone full into the windows of the capitol, yet a holier work never was…

It was with a joy such as no words can ever express, that I saw the territories rescued from the clutch of slavery by the expiration of the Thirtieth Congress.

Our first disaster was the election of a most adroit, talented, and zealous pro-slavery speaker.

Would to God we could do as much for the cause of freedom.

There stands the record, to survive through all time and to be read of all men.

But California is free already; free by her own act; free without any concession of theirs, and without any grace but the grace of God.

Or, rather, they will never suffer institutions to exist which tolerate such unrighteousness.

So far from facilitating the increase of individual or national wealth, slavery retards both.