Josiah Quincy: “The equality of rights, which includes an equality of burdens, is a vital principle in our theory of government.”

Though conscious, being then in his seventy-eighth year, that he stood on the threshold of human life, he sought no relaxation from duty, no exemption from its performance.

The charge, therefore, that our government did really give up that important territory, when it was at its option to retain it, is purely and unqualifiedly untrue; and I now charge that it was known by Mr.

The argument for the annexation, or reännexation, of Texas is as gross an imposture as ever was palmed upon the credulity of an honest people.

He knew how little a majority of the men of his own time were disposed or qualified to estimate his character with justice.