"The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us... I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief.…"

"If he knows as much when he is sober as an Irishman knows when drunk, he knows enough to vote, on good American principles. [Laughter and applause.]"

"I would rather be a slave in form than in fact."

"I was sometimes prompted to take my life, and that of Covey, but was prevented by a combination of hope and fear."

"The Republican Party is only negatively anti-slavery. It is opposed to the political power of slavery, rather than to slavery itself."