SALMON P. CHASE

What you have said, Mr. President, fully satisfies me that you have given to every proposition which has been made, a kind and candid consideration. And you have now expressed the conclusion to which you have arrived, clearly and distinctly.

Once I should have been, if not satisfied, partially, at least, contented with suffrage for the intelligent and those who have been soldiers; now I am convinced that universal suffrage is demanded by sound policy and impartial justice.

The Constitution in all its provisions looks to an indestructible union disposed of indestructible States.

A resignation is a grave act; never performed by a right minded man without forethought or with reserve.

What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?

All men are born equally free.

The Proclamation does not, indeed, mark out exactly the course I should myself prefer. But I am ready to take it just as it is written, and to stand by it with all my heart.

The way to resumption is to resume.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of all mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

The child is pronounced pretty. I think it quite otherwise.

I never refused my help to any person black or white; and I liked the office nonetheless because there were neither fees nor salary connected with it.

The President then proceeded to read his Emancipation Proclamation, making remarks on the several parts as he went on, and showing that he had fully considered the whole subject, in all lights under which it had been presented to him.

The law of the Creator, which invests every human being with an inalienable title to freedom, cannot be repealed by any interior law which asserts that man is property.

…separation was in everyone’s best interest…blacks would find happier homes in other lands.

The judicial cannot prescribe to the legislative departments of the government limitations upon exercise of its acknowledged powers. The power to tax may be exercised oppressively on persons, but the responsibility … not to the courts, but to the people by whom its members are elected.

When a slave leaves the jurisdiction of a state he ceases to be a slave, because he continues to be a man and leaves behind him the law which made him a slave

[The] fundamental principal of all just legislation [is] that the legislature shall not take the property of A and give it to B.

We have assembled, as a union of freedom for the sake of freedom, forgetting all past differences in a common resolve to maintain the rights of free labor against the aggressions of Slave Power, and to secure a free soil for a free people.... Our calm but final answer is, no more slave states, and no more slave territory. Let the soil of our extensive domain be kept free.

There is no probability that a vote of two thirds can be commanded for any amendment of the Constitution touching slavery …

Freedom of the Press and Constitutional Liberty must live or perish together.

No more slave States and no more slave territory.

No more slave States; no slave Territories.

No nation can be strong except in the strength of God, or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins.

True Democracy makes no enquiry about the color of the skin, or the place of nativity. Wherever it sees a man, it recognizes a being endowed by his Creator with original inalienable rights

If Congress sees fit to impose a capitation, or other direct tax, it must be laid in proportion to the census; if Congress determines to impose duties, imposts, and excises, they must be uniform throughout the United States. These are not strictly limitations of power. They are rules prescribing the mode in which it shall be exercised... This review shows that personal property, contracts, occupations, and the like have never been regarded by Congress as proper subjects of direct tax.