William Seward: “Let it be remembered, that it has ever been the pride and the boast of America, that the rights for which she contended…”

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.

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.

That freedom and that security required that the nations of Europe should relax their grasp on the American Continent.