William Seward: “He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow.”

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.

But power, confessedly derived from the people, must be exercised in obedience to their will, and must be resigned to them again, at least in death.

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