Henry Ward Beecher: “It is the only basis on which the poor, the ignorant, the weak, the laboring masses can entrench against oppression.”

Northern ideas must become American, or Southern ideas must become American, before there will be peace.

Let us give sap to the tree of Liberty, that it may not wither and die!

And if by an insane blindness you shall contrive to put off the issue, and send this unsettled dispute down to your children, it will go down, gathering volume and strength at every step, to waste and desolate their heritage.

Dying, we will leave it a legacy to our children, and they shall will it to theirs, until the work is done, our fathers' prayers are answered, and this whole land stands clothed and in its right mind--a symbol of what the earthly fruits of…