22 quotes
I love the Constitution. It is enshrined in my heart. I love it better than any dozen Democrats in the land do tonight.
Speech (1860)
The equality of the human race is the pivot upon which our government rests and resolves.
Speech (1862)
The doors will be forever barred and bolted against those miserable Democrats who scoff the rights of man.
Speech (1860)
I always defended it and always will, whether it be against the Democrats who pervert it, or the dis-unionists who trample on it.
Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives (1860)
The estimation of the Democratic Party is iniquity!
Speech (1860)
I warn you, be careful and consider the consequences of your vote.
Speech (1860)
We thank thee for the wisdom of the fathers in the formation of this government, and for the assistance thou didst render them in arriving at the great principles relating to the equality of man. We thank thee for the glorious declaration.
Prayer (1863)
Now comes the objection which you hear in the mouths of Democrats everywhere. Negro equality! Negro equality! The "Black Republicans" are in favor of negro equality!
Speech (1860)
The testimony of all religious societies in the slave states is that the slaves are heathen and it is an utter impossibility to Christianize them and civilize them by this process.
Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives (1860)
The Republican Party, of which I am a member, stands pledged since 1856 to the extermination, so far as the federal government has the power, the twin relics of barbarism, slavery, and polygamy. They have this power in the territories of the United States.
Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives (1860)
I will stand where I please... Nobody can intimidate me.
You say this is horrid. I know it is horrid. I know it is horrid to hold men in slavery. I know it is horrid to doom four million human beings to condition of chattels.
Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives (1860)
I believe that the love of freedom and the hatred of oppression under-girds and vitalizes the whole republican movement. The principles of our fathers in regard to human liberty and equality still live in the hearts of their descendants, and will find appropriate expression and suitable exponents.
Speech at the Joliet Convention in Illinois (1858)
We firmly believe in the natural equality of man; we believe the people are independent. Sovereign, if you please. As far as a nobility, hereditary, or otherwise are concerned, we are grounded and settled in belief that 'all men are created equal'.
Address to the Liberty Party of Illinois (1842)
I poured on a rainstorm of fire and brimstone as hot as I could, and you know something of what that is. I believe that I never said anything more savage in the pulpit or on the stump.
I will never degrade my manhood, and stifle the sympathies of human nature. It is an insult to claim it. I wish I had nothing worse to meet at the judgement day than that. I would not have the guilt of causing that wail of man's despair or that wild shriek of woman's agony, as the one or the other is captured, for all the diadems of all the stars in heaven.
The Fanaticism of the Democratic Party (1859)
I will stand where I please.
I know that this is a pro-slavery rebellion, for it is nothing else. Slavery and rebellion are identical and freedom and loyalty are identical, and those slave-holders who are truly loyal will soon become abolitionists, for that is the logic of their position and they will see as I see, that slavery must perish and pro-slavery men will be secessionists.
The principle of enslaving human beings because they are inferior, is this. If a man is a cripple, trip him up. If he is old and weak, and bowed with the weight of years, strike him, for he cannot strike back. If idiotic, take advantage of him, and if a child, deceive him. This, sir, this is the doctrine of Democrats and the doctrine of devils as well, and there is no place in the universe outside the five points of hell and |the Democratic Party where the practice and prevalence of such doctrines would not be a disgrace.
Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives (1860)
I always defended the Constitution, because it was for liberty. It was ordained by the people of the United States. Not by a superannuated old mummy of a judge, and a Jesuit at that, but by the people of the United States. To establish justice, secure the blessing of liberty for themselves and their posterity, and to secure the natural rights of every human being within its exclusive jurisdiction. Therefore, I love it. These men can perceive nothing in the Constitution but slavery.
Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives (1860)