"But the advocates of slavery have affirmed a strange doctrine in regard to the Constitution. They think that because I swore to support the Constitution, I swore to support the practice of slaveholding. Sir, slaveholding in Virginia is no more under the control or guarantee of the Constitution than slavery in Cuba, or Brazil, or any other part of the world is under the control or guarantee of the Constitution. Not one principle."

“I know that this is a pro-slavery rebellion, for it is nothing else. Slavery and rebellion are identical and freedom and loyalty are identical, and those slave-holders who are truly loyal will soon become abolitionists, for that is the logic of their position and they will see as I see, that slavery must perish and pro-slavery men will be secessionists.”

“The Republican Party is for positive intervention. They propose, as our fathers did, to erect a wall of intervention, of prohibition, and station an angel of liberty at the gates in that wall, who shall keep watch and ward there day and night, and guard the territories against the entrance of slavery, as the cherubim of God kept sin out of Eden.”

“I love the Constitution. It is enshrined in my heart. I love it better than any dozen Democrats in the land do tonight.”

“I will stand where I please.”

“The Lovejoy Homestead”

“I poured on a rainstorm of fire and brimstone as hot as I could, and you know something of what that is. I believe that I never said anything more savage in the pulpit or on the stump.”