But should any power, against the precedents of the past, the spirit of our people, the theory of our civil polity and the rights of individual man succeed, and make headway against free speech, and put it in jeopardy, it would convulse the very frame-work of society.
He warns that any threat to free speech could lead to societal upheaval, reflecting the importance of this right in a democratic society.
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Northern ideas must become American, or Southern ideas must become American, before there will be peace.
All attempts at evasion, at adjourning, at concealing and compromising are in vain.
These are symptoms only, not the disease; the effects, not the causes.
If the South shall give to the country a policy derived from her heathen notions of men, there will be such a peace as men have overdrugged with opium, that deep lethargy just before the mortal convulsions and death!