I thought it altogether proper that I should take a brief furlough from official duties at Washington to mingle with you here to-d...ay as a comrade, because every President of the United States must realize that the strength of the Government, its defence in war, the army that is to muster under its banner when our Nation is assailed, is to be found here in the masses of our people.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Nobody in this army thinks of giving up to Rebels their fugitive slaves. Union men might perhaps be differently dealt with--probab...ly would be.... The man who repudiates all obligations under the Constitution and laws of the United States is to be treated as having forfeited those rights which depend solely on the laws and the Constitution. I don't want to see Congress meddling with the slavery question. Time and the progress of events are solving all the questions arising out of slavery in a way consistent with eternal principles of justice. Slavery is getting death blows. As an "institution" it perishes in this war. It will take years to get rid of its debris, but the "sacred" is gone.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I incline to think that the people will not now sustain the policy of upholding a State Government against a rival government, by ...the use of the forces of the United States. If this leads to the overthrow of the de jure government in a State, the de facto government must be recognized.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Within us, the people of the United States, there is evident a serious and purposeful rekindling of confidence, and I join in the ...hope that when my time as your President has ended, people might say this about our Nation: That we had remembered the words of Micah and renewed our search for humility, mercy, and justice.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account... of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Suffragists, hear this last call to a suffrage convention! The officers of the National American Woman Suffrage Association hereby call their State auxiliaries, through their elected delegates, to meet in annual convention at Chicago, Congress Hotel, February 12th to 18th, inclusive. In other days our members and friends have been summoned to annual conventions to disseminate the propaganda for their common cause, to cheer and encourage each other, to strengthen their organized influence, to counsel as to ways and means of insuring further progress. At this time they are called to rejoice that the struggle is over, the aim achieved and the women of the nation about to enter into the enjoyment of their hard-earned political liberty. Of all the conventions held within the past fifty-one years, this will prove the most momentous. Few people live to see the actual and final realization of hopes to which they have devoted their lives. That privilege is ours.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If the dignity as well as the prestige and influence of the United States are not to be wholly sacrificed, we must protect those w...ho, in foreign ports, display the flag or wear the colors of this Government against insult, brutality, and death, inflicted in resentment of the acts of their Government, and not for any fault of their own.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am blamed for the pardon of [Ezra Hervey] Heywood, convicted in Boston of sending obscene matter through the mails. A man guilty... of circulating, writing, or publishing obscene books--books intended or calculated to corrupt the young--would find no favor with me.... I think the real objection to Heywood's act is ... that he was on the wrong side of the question ... as to marriage.... But it is no crime by the laws of the United States to advocate the abolition of marriage. In this case the writings were objectionable but were not obscene, lascivious, lewd, or corrupting in the criminal sense.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I now have next to no hope of a restoration of the old Union.... If it is the settled and final judgment of any slave State that s...he cannot live in the Union, I should not think it wise or desirable to retain her by force, even if it could be done. But am I, therefore, to oppose the war? If it were a war of conquest merely, certainly I should oppose it.... But the war is forced on us. We cannot escape it. While ... perhaps in all the cotton-growing States, a deciding and controlling public judgment has deliberately declared against remaining in the Union, it is quite certain that in several States rebellious citizens are bent on forcing out of the Union States whose people are not in favor of secession.... If force had been employed to meet force, I believe several States now out of the Union would have remained in it.... The war ... for the defence of the capital, for the maintenance of the authority of the Government and the rights of the United States, I think is necessary, wise, and just.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The President of the United States ... should strive to be always mindful of the fact that he serves his party best who serves his... country best.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As a colored woman I might enter Washington any night, a stranger in a strange land, and walk miles without finding a place to lay... my head.... The colored man alone is thrust out of the hotels of the national capital like a leper.... Surely nowhere in the world do oppression and persecution based solely on the color of the skin appear more hateful and hideous than in the capital of the United States, because the chasm between the principles upon which this Government was founded, in which it still professes to believe, and those which are daily practiced under the protection of the flag, yawn so wide and deep.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »