The great coalition which was to stand so strong and to work such wonders during the next half-century doubtless had a period of feebleness in the first months of its existence; but never in its history has it had stronger or more…

You will go in by two doors, but you will all come out through one." Then everything went by acclamation.

In this action the anti-slavery members of other Northern States, led with great ability and courage by Henry Wilson of Massachusetts, refused to acquiesce, preferring to abandon the Order rather than sacrifice their principles.

He had wit and humour, and spoke with the refinement of a cultivated scholar.

The variety of his intellectual sympathies, controlled by the constancy of a high moral impulse, wholly exempted him from the rashness of a conceited zealot; and, though often brilliant and at times rhetorical, his style was quiet and…

It stifles its voice, and suppresses your own free speech, lest it may be overheard beyond the Potomac.

In the slave-holding States it justifies all wrongs committed against you.

What is it but the same party which has led in the commission of all those aggressions, and claims exclusively the political benefits?

It was moved by panics and fears to emulate the Democratic party in its practised subserviency; and it yielded in spite of your remonstrances, and of mine, and now there is neither Whig party nor Whig south of the Potomac.

It committed a grievous fault, and grievously hath it answered it.

The Republican organisation has laid a new, sound, and liberal platform.

Its principles are equal and exact justice; its speech open, decided, and frank.

Things could not long remain in this unhappy condition, and when, at last, a free-state man was killed it amounted to a declaration of hostilities.

One young lady of South Carolina set the example of selling her jewelry to equip men with rifles.

But the speech of Seward, who took the floor on the 9th of April in favour of the immediate admission of Kansas as a State, seems to have impressed the country as far the ablest.

He sketched the history of the Kansas territory; reviewed the sacrifices of its people; analysed and refuted each argument in support of the President's policy; and defended the settlers in maintaining their struggle for freedom.

The North received this outrage with horror as the work of the slave power.

In public meetings, the people condemned it as a violation of the freedom of speech and a blow at the personal safety of public men having the courage to express their convictions.

To complete the list of crimes against free speech and freedom, the commander of a force of United States troops dispersed the Topeka Legislature at the point of the bayonet.

For twelve years the party had been divided and weakened, until, at last, it had neither presidential candidate to offer nor cabinet position to expect.

Such brutal outrages, it was thought, would certainly discredit any party that approved the policy leading to them.

He argued that, although Republicans were sure of 114 electoral votes, it was essential to carry Pennsylvania to secure the additional 35, and that Pennsylvania could not be carried.

It was deemed advisable not to put in issue either the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, or the repeal of the fugitive slave law, and Seward's pronounced attitude on these questions, it was asserted, would involve them in…

It was argued, also, that although the Whigs were numerically the largest portion of the Republican party, a candidate of Democratic antecedents would be preferable, especially in Pennsylvania, a State, they declared, which Seward could…

The absence of violent democratic innovations was the Constitution's remarkable feature.