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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.
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
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Constitutional
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Void
Nations
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More quotes by William H. Seward
But I deny that the Constitution recognizes property in man.
William H. Seward
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
I know and all the world knows, that revolutions never go backwards.
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
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
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
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
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
It would be contrary to the spirit of the American Government to use force to subjugate the South.
William H. Seward
The whole hope of human progress is suspended on the ever-growing influence of the Bible.
William H. Seward
Therefore, states are equal in natural rights.
William H. Seward
Sir, there is no Christian nation, thus free to choose as we are, which would establish slavery.
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 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
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.
William H. Seward
It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces.
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
I deem it established, then, that the Constitution does not recognize property in man, but leaves that question, as between the states, to the law of nature and of nations.
William H. Seward
There is a higher law than the Constitution.
William H. Seward
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
