William Seward

You have devoted the energies of a mind unperverted, the learning and experience acquired through more than sixty years, and even the influence and fame derived from your high career of public service, to the great cause of universal…

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

For when before has it happened that in such a condition of society the son has, by mere civic achievement, attained the eminence of such a sire, and effaced remembrance of birth by justly acquired renown?

We not merely deny hereditary claims to civil trust, but regard even hereditary distinction with jealousy.

The homage paid you, dear sir, is sincere, for it has its sources in the just sentiments and irrepressible affections of a free people, their love of truth, their admiration of wisdom, their reverence for virtue, and their gratitude for…

I have done only my duty; and I shall do it again under the same circumstances, even though they recur to-morrow.

I am not to be frightened from the discharge of a sacred duty, by their indignation, by their violence, nor, sir, by all the grand juries in the universe.

We degrade and disgrace ourselves; we degrade and disgrace our constituents and the country.

Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again; Th' eternal years of God are hers: But Error, wounded, writhes with pain, And dies among her worshippers.

The very exertions of its supporters to perpetuate wrong, will but hasten its death.

Truth, however unpalatable, or however it may be obscured for a season, must eventually triumph.

No man of intelligence can hope, in this age of the world, to perpetuate that which is wrong and destructive, by bravado and threatening--by refusing to look it in the face, or to allow others to scrutinize it.

I simply take the position that George Washington was an abolitionist in the most extensive sense of the term; and I defy any man in this House to the discussion, and to prove to the contrary if he can.

Adams said, that even admitting the object of the petitioners is abolition, as has been alleged, they had the right to petition for that too; for every individual in the country had a right to be an abolitionist.

If we have rules we had better either obey them or burn them.

And so far from refusing to present a petition because it might come from those low in the estimation of the world, it would be an additional incentive, if such incentive were wanting.

Does it say that, before presenting a petition, you shall look into it, and see whether it comes from the virtuous, and the great, and the mighty?

There is no absolute monarch on earth, who is not compelled, by the constitution of his country, to receive the petitions of his people, whosoever they may be.

And where is the degree of vice or immorality which shall deprive the citizen of the right to supplicate for a boon, or to pray for mercy?

Where, in the land of freemen, was the right of petition ever placed on the exclusive basis of morality and virtue?

There must be an end to this constant attempt to raise excitement, or the Union could not exist much longer.

If the reading of a paper was to be suppressed in his person, so help him God, he would only consent to it as a matter of record.

If this practice was to be reversed, let the decision stand upon record, and let it appear how entirely the freedom of speech was suppressed in this House.

Adams said, that so long as freedom of speech was allowed to him as a member of that House, he would call up that question until it should be decided.

It was the true homage which virtue and patriotism must ever receive--more honorable, and far more grateful to its object, than all the servility and flattery which power and patronage can so easily purchase.