38 Quotes by 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.

The whole hope of human progress is suspended on the ever-growing influence of the Bible.

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.

The circumstances of the world are so variable that an irrevocable purpose or opinion is almost synonymous with a foolish one.

It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces.

Therefore, states are equal in natural rights.

Revolutions never go backward.

The constitution regulates our stewardship; the constitution devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defense, to welfare, and to liberty. But there is a higher law than the constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes. The territory is a part, no inconsiderable part, of the common heritage of mankind, bestowed upon them by the Creator of the universe. We are his stewards, and must so discharge our trust as to secure in the highest attainable degree their happiness.

A party with one idea; but that is a noble idea ... the idea of equality - the equality of all men before human tribunals and human laws.