William Seward

It remains for you only to transmit the same peerless legacy, unimpaired, to your children of the next succeeding age.

You have maintained through times of trial and danger the inheritance of freedom, of union, of independence bequeathed you by your forefathers.

But, were the breath which now gives utterance to my feelings the last vital air I should draw, my expiring words to you and your children should be, Independence and Union forever!

There are events, the monuments of which, surviving every other memorial of human existence, eternize the nation to whose history they belong, after all other vestiges of its glory have disappeared from the globe.

Fellow-citizens: There are moments in the progress of time which are the counters of whole ages.

As George Washington, I would do this man any kindness in my power--as President of the United States, I can do nothing.

Marble columns may, indeed, moulder into dust, time may erase all impress from the crumbling stone, but their fame remains; for with American liberty it rose, and with American liberty only can it perish.

Although no sculptured marble should rise to their memory, nor engraved stone bear record to their deeds, yet will their remembrance be as lasting as the land they honored.

It is not my voice, it is this cessation of ordinary pursuits, this arresting of all attention, those solemn ceremonies, and this crowded house, which speak their eulogy.

Their highest, their best praise, is your deep conviction of their merits, your affectionate gratitude for their labors and services.

Fellow-citizens: I will detain you no longer by this faint and feeble tribute to the illustrious dead.

The tears which flow, and the honors that are paid, when the Founders of the Republic die, give hope that the Republic itself may be immortal.

These walls, which were consecrated, so long ago, to the cause of American liberty, which witnessed her infant struggles and rung with the shouts of her earliest victories, proclaim now, that distinguished friends and champions of that…

In unfolding to my countrymen the principles by which I shall be governed, in the fulfilment of those duties, my first resort will be to that constitution which I shall swear, to the best of my ability, to preserve, protect, and defend.

And a people which should deliberately, by the organization of its authorized power, deprive itself of the faculty of multiplying its own blessings, would be as wise as a creator who should undertake to constitute a human being without a…

Roads and canals are among the most essential means of improving the condition of nations.

The first object of human association is the improvement of the condition of the associated.

I still hold the same opinions; and, although highly respecting the purity of intention of those who object, on constitutional grounds, to the exercise of this power, it is with heartfelt satisfaction that I perceive those objections…

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all--she is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.

Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be.

From whatever cause war between other nations, whether foreign or domestic, has arisen, the unvarying law of the United States has been peace with both belligerents.

The policy of the United States, with reference to foreign nations, has always been founded upon the moral principle of natural law--Peace with all mankind.

I will not stand by and see my fellow-man drowning, without stretching out a hand to help him, till he has, by his own efforts and presence of mind, reached the shore in safety, and then encumber him with aid.

No man was a more ardent lover of liberty, or was more anxious that its institutions should be established throughout the earth, at the earliest practicable moment.