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But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes.
William H. Seward
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William H. Seward
Age: 71 †
Born: 1801
Born: May 16
Died: 1872
Died: October 10
Diplomat
Former Governor Of New York
Lawyer
Politician
Florida
New York
William Henry Seward
William Seward
Law
Regulates
Purpose
Devotes
Domain
Purposes
Noble
Constitution
Authority
Higher
More quotes by William H. Seward
The United States are a political state, or organized society, whose end is government, for the security, welfare, and happiness of all who live under its protection.
William H. Seward
Simultaneously with the establishment of the Constitution, Virginia ceded to the United States her domain, which then extended to the Mississippi, and was even claimed to extend to the Pacific Ocean.
William H. Seward
Therefore, states are equal in natural rights.
William H. Seward
But assuming the same premises, to wit, that all men are equal by the law of nature and of nations, the right of property in slaves falls to the ground for one who is equal to another cannot be the owner or property of that other.
William H. Seward
The circumstances of the world are so variable that an irrevocable purpose or opinion is almost synonymous with a foolish one.
William H. Seward
Revolutions never go backward.
William H. Seward
I speak on due consideration because Britain, France, and Mexico, have abolished slavery, and all other European states are preparing to abolish it as speedily as they can.
William H. Seward
There is not only no free state which would now establish it, but there is no slave state, which, if it had had the free alternative as we now have, would have founded slavery.
William H. Seward
But you answer, that the Constitution recognizes property in slaves. It would be sufficient, then, to reply, that this constitutional recognition must be void, because it is repugnant to the law of nature and of nations.
William H. Seward
There is a higher law than the Constitution.
William H. Seward
I have learned, by some experience, that virtue and patriotism, vice and selfishness, are found in all parties, and that they differ less in their motives than in the policies they pursue.
William H. Seward
I know and all the world knows, that revolutions never go backwards.
William H. Seward
There is no social life outside of Christendom.
William H. Seward
The two systems slave and free-labor are incompatible. They have never permanently existed together in one country, and they never can.
William H. Seward
Sir, there is no Christian nation, thus free to choose as we are, which would establish slavery.
William H. Seward
But the Constitution was made not only for southern and northern states, but for states neither northern nor southern, namely, the western states, their coming in being foreseen and provided for.
William H. Seward
I mean to say that Congress can hereafter decide whether any states, slave or free, can be framed out of Texas. If they should never be framed out of Texas, they never could be admitted.
William H. Seward
But I deny that the Constitution recognizes property in man.
William H. Seward
We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them, and holding them in bondage where we can set them free.
William H. Seward
The right to have a slave implies the right in some one to make the slave that right must be equal and mutual, and this would resolve society into a state of perpetual war.
William H. Seward
