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The proposition of an established classification of states as slave states and free states, as insisted on by some, and into northern and southern, as maintained by others, seems to me purely imaginary, and of course the supposed equilibrium of those classes a mere conceit.

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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Southern
Maintained
Seems
Slave
Equilibrium
States
Supposed
Conceit
Mere
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Imaginary
Northern
Free
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Proposition

More quotes by William H. Seward

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There is no social life outside of Christendom.
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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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.
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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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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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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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Therefore, states are equal in natural rights.
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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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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Revolutions never go backward.
William H. Seward
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There is a higher law than the Constitution.
William H. Seward
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I know and all the world knows, that revolutions never go backwards.
William H. Seward
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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
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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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The whole hope of human progress is suspended on the ever-growing influence of the Bible.
William H. Seward
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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
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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
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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
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It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces.
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