I say now, however, as I have all the while said, that on the territorial question - that is, the question of extending slavery under the national auspices, - I am inflexible. I am for no compromise which assists or permits the extension of the institution on soil owned by the nation.

An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of property in a slave in not "distinctly and expressly affirmed" in it.

The slave-breeders and slave-traders, are a small, odious and detested class, among you; and yet in politics, they dictate the course of all of you, and are as completely your masters, as you are the master of your own negroes.

We want, and must have, a national policy, as to slavery, which deals with it as being wrong.

Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease.

I wish to see, in process of disappearing, that only thing which ever could bring this nation to civil war.