Laughter is the joyous universal evergreen of life!
All things desirable to men are contained in the Bible.
We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.
And whereas this House desires to obtain a full knowledge of all the facts which go to establish whether the particular spot of soil which the blood of our citizens was so shed was, or was not, our own soil.
Laws change; people die; the land remains.
The people when rightly and fully trusted will return the trust.
While I have often said that all men out to be free, yet I would allow those colored persons to be slaves who want to be; and next to them those white persons who argue in favor of making other people slaves. I am in favor of giving an opportunity to such white men to try it on for themselves.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it.
We should avoid planting and cultivating too many thorns in the bosom of society.
It is your business to rise up and preserve the Union and liberty, for yourselves, and not for me. I desire they shall be constitutionally preserved.
So viewing the issue, no choice was left but to call out the war power of the Government; and so to resist force, employed for its destruction, by force, for its preservation.
The struggle of today, is not altogether for today – it is for a vast future also. With a reliance on Providence, all the more firm and earnest, let us proceed in the great task which events have devolved upon us.
Thoughtful men must feel that the fate of civilization upon this continent is involved in the issue of our contest. Among the most satisfying proofs of this conviction is the hearty devotion everywhere exhibited by our schools and colleges to the national cause.
May the Almighty grant that the cause of truth, justice, and humanity, shall in no wise suffer at my hands.
Peace will come soon to stay, and so come as to be worth keeping in all future time. It will then have proved that among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure their cases and pay the costs.
The love of property and consciousness of right and wrong have conflicting places in our organization, which often makes a man’s course seem crooked, his conduct a riddle.
It is a pleasure to be able to quote lines to fit any occasion...
Talk to the jury as though your client’s fate depends on every word you utter.
No client ever had money enough to bribe my conscience or to stop its utterance against wrong, and oppression.
A universal feeling, whether well or ill founded, cannot be safely disregarded.