The compact which exists between the North and the South is a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.

We may be personally defeated, but our principles never!

Enslave the liberty of but one human being and the liberties of the world are put in peril.

With reasonable men, I will reason with humane men I will plead but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.

The success of any great moral enterprise does not depend upon numbers.

I will be as harsh as truth, and uncompromising as justice... I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard.