De Alexander

In less than twelve months we shall be in war, and that the bloodiest in history.

If any further evidence were needed to show the utter collapse of the dwindling, discouraged convention, the dejected, despairing appearance of Richardson, until now supported by a bright heroism and cheery good humour, would have…

Two-thirds of the vote given in this convention" was the language of the rule, he argued, and it could not mean two-thirds of all the votes originally in the convention.

The claim that precedent required two-thirds of the electoral vote to nominate was rejected by Stuart as not having the sanction of logic.

The North have maintained their position, but, while doing so, they have not acknowledged the rights of the South.

You of the North say it means one thing; we of the South another.

When I was a schoolboy in the Northern States, abolitionists were pelted with rotten eggs.

But you have gone down before the enemy so that they have put their foot upon your neck; you will go lower and lower still, unless you change front and change your tactics.

If you had taken the position directly that slavery was right ... you would have triumphed.

Altogether, it was a disappointing delegation, distrusted by the Douglas men, feared by the South, and at odds with itself; yet, it is doubtful if the Empire State ever sent an abler body of men to a national convention.

The spirit of an unsectarian patriotism that characterised Seward's speech proved highly satisfactory to the great mass of Republicans.

It has been noted with increasing admiration that Lincoln and Seward, without consultation and in the presence of a great impending crisis, paralleled one another's views so closely.

An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people, until he fancies himself commissioned by heaven to liberate them.

He argued that the Republican party was not revolutionary, but conservative, since it maintained the doctrine of the fathers who held and acted upon the opinion that Congress had the power to prohibit slavery in the territories.

His encounter with the great Illinoisan had marked him as a powerful and logical reasoner whose speeches embraced every political issue of the day and cleared up every doubtful point.

You may elect Seward to be President of the North; but of the South, never!

Henry Wilson, senator and Vice President, declared that he would give ten years of his life if he could blot out his membership in the Know-Nothing party, since it associated him throughout his long and attractive public career with…

Republicans looked upon the doctrine announced as the well-weighed conclusion of a profound thinker and of a man of wide experience, who united the political philosopher with the practical politician.

The eminence of the man combined with the startling character of the doctrine to make it engross the public mind.

It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slave-holding nation, or entirely a free labour nation.

They who think it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether.

The intense earnestness of purpose, the marvellous power of rapidly absorbing knowledge, the quickness of wit, and the firmness which Cato never surpassed, marked him then, as afterward upon the floor of Congress, a mighty power amidst…

It was an easy and plausible way of settling the slavery question, and one which commended itself to those who wished it settled by the Democratic party.

He was of a most gracious and sweet nature, and, although he never flinched from uttering or maintaining his opinions, he was a lover and maker of peace.

Twenty millions of a moral people, politically dedicated to Liberty, are asking themselves whether their government shall be administered solely in the interest of three hundred and fifty thousand slave-holders." He did not believe that…