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Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature,--opposition to it in his love of justice.

What I do say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.

This declared indifference, but, as I must think, real, covert zeal, for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate.

If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must cease.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in

Men of the best intentions and soundest views may differ in their construction of some parts of the Constitution, but there are others on which dispassionate reflection can leave no doubt.

The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.

Our Constitution does not contain the absurdity of giving power to make laws, and another power to resist them.

The American system rests on the assertion of the equal right of every man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, to freedom of conscience, to the culture and exercise of all his faculties.

Only the BLACK WOMAN can say “when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me.”

The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class,—it is the cause of human kind, the very birthright of humanity.

Let us then, here and now, recognize this force and resolve to make the most of it—not the boys less, but the girls more.

Nay, ’tis woman’s strongest vindication for speaking that the world needs to hear her voice.

The case before us illustrates better than most that the judicial power is often difficult in its exercise.

A State cannot so deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws.

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family.

But through the process of amendment, interpretation and court decision I have finally been included in “We, the people.”

No political party can long pursue advantage at the expense of public honor or by rude and indecent methods without protest and fatal disaffection in its own body.

They will presently themselves be compelled to appeal to the law for protection, and those who would use the law as a defense must not deny that use of it to others.

The man who has come to regard the ballot box as a juggler's hat has renounced his allegiance.

We should hold our differing opinions in mutual respect, and, having submitted them to the arbitrament of the ballot, should accept an adverse judgment with the same respect that we would have demanded of our opponents if the decision had been in our favor.

Men do not make laws. They do but discover them.

The suspension of one man's dividends is the suspension of another man's pay envelope.

The welfare of the weakest and the welfare of the most powerful are inseparably bound together.

The fact that the liberty of the press may be abused by miscreant purveyors of scandal does not make any the less necessary the immunity of the press from previous restraint in dealing with offical misconduct.