William Seward: “That freedom and that security required that the nations of Europe should relax their grasp on the American Continent.”

The recital of heroic actions loses its chief value, if we cannot discover the principles in which they were born.

For the rest, the work of emancipation abides the action, whether it be slow or fast, of the moral sense of the American people.

By the blessing of the Author of those rights, they have prevailed over all opposition, and form the basis of thirteen independent States.

Stoicism, that had no charity for error, never converted any human society to virtue; Christianity, that remembers the true nature of man, has encompassed a large portion of the globe.