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It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces.

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
Irrepressible
Enduring
Opposing
Forces
Endure
Conflict
Force

More quotes by William H. Seward

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It would be contrary to the spirit of the American Government to use force to subjugate the South.
William H. Seward
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Whatever policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution of it. For this purpose it must be somebody's business to pursue and direct it incessantly.
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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
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Sir, there is no Christian nation, thus free to choose as we are, which would establish slavery.
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The circumstances of the world are so variable that an irrevocable purpose or opinion is almost synonymous with a foolish one.
William H. Seward
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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
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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
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Idea is a noble one — an idea that fills and expands all generous souls the idea of equality — the equality of all men before human tribunals and human laws, as they all are equal before the Divine tribunal and Divine laws.
William H. Seward
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Therefore, states are equal in natural rights.
William H. Seward
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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
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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.
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There is a higher law than the Constitution.
William H. Seward
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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
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Revolutions never go backward.
William H. Seward
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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
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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
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There is no social life outside of Christendom.
William H. Seward
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No man will ever be President of the United States who spells 'negro' with two gs.
William H. Seward
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It is the maintenance of slavery by law in a state, not parallels of latitude, that makes its a southern state and the absence of this, that makes it a northern state.
William H. Seward
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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