As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

I think the authors of that notable instrument [the Declaration of Independence] intended to include all men.

These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.

Four score and seven years ago, our father brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal