If slavery be the destined sword, in the hand of the destroying angel, which is to sever the ties of this Union, the same sword will cut asunder the bonds of slavery itself.

They have threatened and entreated, bullied and wheedled, until their more simple adversaries have been half coaxed, half frightened into a surrender of their principles for a bauble of insignificant promises.

There must be, some time, a conflict on this very question between slave and free representation.

Adams considered that the greatest danger of the Union was in the overgrown extent of its territory, combining with the slavery question.

Individual, personal jealousies, envyings, and resentments, partisan ambition, and private interests and hopes, mingle in the motives which prompt this policy.

But there are two modes of obtaining their ends: the one, by subserviency; the other, by opposition.

He replied: "An independent newspaper is very necessary to make truth known to the people; but an editor really independent must have a heart of oak, nerves of iron, and a soul of adamant, to carry it through.

His first attempt will bring a hornet's nest about his head; and, if they do not sting him to death or to blindness, he will have to pursue his march with them continually swarming over him, and be beset on all sides with obloquy and…

From the nature of our institutions, competitors for public favor and their respective partisans seek success by slander of each other.

I disdain the ignoble warfare, and neither wage it myself or encourage it in my friends.

Where is the man who ever served in a legislative capacity in your councils whose character could stand a test like this?

The best actions may be, and have been, and will be, traced to impure sources, by those to whom troubled waters are a delight.

The people took the nomination of President into their own hands, and the insolent assumption of members of Congress to dictate their choice in respect of this office was henceforth rebuked.

Adams remarked, "there are two sources of eloquence: the one, with reference to sentiment and enthusiasm; the other, to action.

Adams there were sanguine hopes of his success; on which he remarked: "We know so little of that in futurity which is best for ourselves, that whether I ought to wish for success is among the greatest uncertainties of the election.

Were it possible to look with philosophical indifference to the event, that is the temper of mind to which I should aspire.

But who can hold a firebrand in his hand by thinking of the frosty Caucasus?

Yet a man qualified for the duties of chief magistrate of ten millions of people should be a man proof alike to prosperous and adverse fortune.

If I am able to bear success, I must be tempered to endure defeat.

He who is equal to the task of serving a nation as her chief ruler must possess resources of a power to serve her, even against her own will.

The humiliation of failure will be so much more than compensated by the safety in which it will leave me, that I ought to regard it as a consummation devoutly to be wished.

His talents were unquestionable, and a long career in public life rendered him more conspicuous and suitable for the office than any other statesman of the period.

These qualifications weighed nothing in the scale of popular opinion and prejudice.

It is that of discarding every remnant of rancor against each other, of embracing as countrymen and friends, and of yielding to talents and virtue alone that confidence which, in times of contention for principle, was bestowed only on…

These have been, through life, perpetual admonitions to do nothing unworthy of it.