17 quotes
As a general truth, communities prosper and flourish, or droop and decline, in just the degree that they practise or neglect to practise the primary duties of justice and humanity.
On the Irrepressible Conflict (1858)
I know and all the world knows, that revolutions never go backwards.
There is no social life outside of Christendom.
He is the most gentle-looking and amiable of men. Every word and look indicate sincerity of heart, even to guilelessness.
They who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether.
Remember always that the cause of the United States is the cause of human nature.
Letter to Charles F. Adams (1863)
Douglas, no man will ever be President of the United States who spells 'negro' with two gs.
The slave system is one of constant danger, distrust, suspicion, and watchfulness.
On the Irrepressible Conflict (1858)
I have learned, by some experience, that virtue and patriotism, vice and selfishness, are found in all parties, and that they differ less in their motives than in the policies they pursue.
On the Irrepressible Conflict (1858)
The Union is a confederation of States. But in another aspect the United States constitute only one nation.
On the Irrepressible Conflict (1858)
Whatever policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution of it. For this purpose it must be somebody's business to pursue and direct it incessantly.
It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation.
On the Irrepressible Conflict (1858)
The Democratic Party is inextricably committed to the designs of the slaveholders.
Speech (1859)
The history of the Democratic Party commits it to the policy of slavery. It has been the Democratic Party, and no other agency, which has carried that policy up to its present alarming culmination.
Speech (1859)
The government of the United States, under the conduct of the Democratic Party, has been all that time surrendering one plain and castle after another to slavery.
Speech (1859)
The color of the prisoner’s skin, and the form of his features, are not impressed upon the spiritual immortal mind which works beneath. In spite of human pride, he is still your brother, and mine, in form and color accepted and approved by his Father, and yours, and mine, and bears equally with us the proudest inheritance of our race — the image of our Maker. Hold him then to be a Man.
Such is the Democratic Party.
Speech (1859)