It is a struggle for maintaining in the world, that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men.

I believe the Declaration that 'all men are created equal' is the great fundamental principle upon which our free institutions rest.

I hold if the Almighty had ever made a set of men that should do all the eating and none of the work, he would have made them with mouths only and no hands.

I have some little notoriety for commiserating the oppressed condition of the negro; and I should be strangely inconsistent if I could favor any project for curtailing the existing rights of white men, even though born in different lands, and speaking different languages from myself.

I think the negro is included in the word 'men' used in the Declaration of Independence.

Any man who seeks to deny equality among all his brothers betrays the spirit of the free and invites the mockery of the tyrant.