William Seward: “We cannot expect, with the agency of free and universal suffrage, to be always governed by the wise and the good.”

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

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.

The perils of the enterprize are already passed--its difficulties have already been removed--when it shall have been accomplished it will be justly regarded as the last noble effort which rendered the Republic imperishable.

It depends not on the zeal and firmness only of the reformers, but on their wisdom and moderation also.