Free labor has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope.

Prevent ... our friends from demoralizing themselves, and our cause, by entertaining propositions for compromise of any sort, on 'slavery extention.' ... On that point hold firm, as with a chain of steel.

Whether we will or not, the question of Slavery is THE question, the all absorbing topic of the day.

Many poor whites, however, were the derivative victims of slavery. As long as labor was cheapened by the involuntary servitude of the black man, the freedom of white labor, especially in the South, was little more than a myth.

I have always hated slavery, I think as much as any Abolitionist.

We must have though a man who recognizes the slavery issue as being the living issue of the day; who does not hesitate to declare slavery a wrong, nor to deal with it as such; who believes in the power and duty of Congress to prevent the spread of it.