Josiah Quincy

This opinion struck directly at all right of property held under the authority of the royal charter, and, followed to its logical conclusions, would have proved the utter impotence of the royal charter to confer power of government, any…

The first of these opinions was that the royal charter to the Colony of Massachusetts was a nullity, because the King of England had no right to grant lands in foreign countries, which belonged of right to their native inhabitants.

Above all, let no tincture of party politics be mingled with the pure stream from the fountain of temperance.

Self-government is the foundation of all our political and social institutions; and it is by self-government alone that the laws of temperance can be enforced....

Go, with the commendation of the Saviour to his apostles when he first sent them forth to redeem the world: 'Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.' In the ardor of your zeal for moral reform forget not the rights of…

Were it not for this curse of slavery, there are some of them with whom I should be on terms of the most intimate and confidential friendship.

With such consequences staring us in the face, what are we to think when we are told that the government of the United States is a democracy of numbers--a government by a majority of the people?

It is so much a matter of course to see such a person in the chair, that, if a Northern man but thinks of aspiring to the chair, he is only made a laughing-stock for the house.

As to the house itself, if an article of the constitution had prescribed, or a standing rule of the house had required, that no other than a slaveholder should ever be its Speaker, the regulation could not be more rigorously observed than…

Of six heads of the executive departments, three are slaveholders; securing thus, with the President, a majority in all cabinet consultations and executive councils.

Its practical operation has been to give the balance of power in the house, and in every department of the government, into the hands of the minority of numbers.

The principle is that the House of Representatives of the United States is a representation only of the persons and freedom of the North, and of the persons, property, and slavery, of the South.

But the associated wealth of the slaveholders outweighed the principles of the Revolution, and by the constitution of the United States a compromise was established between slavery and freedom.

At the expense of one hundred millions of dollars, it abolished slavery, and emancipated all the slaves in the British transatlantic colonies; and the government entered upon a system of negotiation with all the powers of the world for the…

From the suppression of the African slave-trade, therefore, the British Parliament, impelled by the irresistible influence of the British people, proceeded to point the battery of its power against slavery itself.

In the sight of the same God who abhors the iniquity of the African slave-trade, neither the American slave-trade nor slavery itself can be held guiltless.

If the African slave-trade was piracy, the coasting American slave-trade could not be innocent, nor could its aggravated turpitude be denied.

But the curse fastened by the progress of Christian charity and of human rights upon the African slave-trade could not rest there.

Reflect now upon the tendencies of twelve hundred millions of dollars of associated wealth, directly represented in your national legislature by one hundred members, together with one hundred and forty members representing persons…

The Southern or slave party, outnumbered by the free, are cemented together by a common, intense interest of property to the amount of twelve hundred millions of dollars in human beings, the very existence of which is neither allowed nor…

Slavery stands aghast at the prospective promotion of the general welfare, and flies to nullification for defence against the energies of freedom, and the inalienable rights of man.

Never, never was amalgamation so preposterous and absurd as that of nullification and democracy.

What communion, what affinity, can there be between that principle and nullification, which is the despotism of a corporation--unlimited, unrestrained, sovereign power?

Democracy is self-government of the community by the conjoint will of the majority of numbers.

It is founded on the natural equality of mankind.