As I Would Not Be A Slave,

Must A Government Be Too Strong For The Liberties Of Its People Or Too Weak To Maintain Its Own Existence?

It Is Better Then, To Save The Work While It Is Begun. You Have Done The Labor; Maintain It - Keep It. If Men Choose To Serve You, Go With Them; But As You Have Made Up Your Organization Upon Principle, Stand By It; For As Surely As God Reigns Over You, And Has Inspired Your Mind, And Given You A Sense Of Propriety, And Continues To Give You Hope, So Surely Will You Still Cling To These Ideas, And You Will At Last Come Back After Your Wanderings, Merely To Do Your Work Over Again.

I Have Seen Your Despatch Expressing Your Unwillingness To Break Your Hold Where You Are. Neither Am I Willing. Hold On With A Bull-dog Gripe, And Chew & Choke, As Much As Possible.

I Can Not But Hate The Prospect Of Slavery's Expansion. I Hate It Because Of The Monstrous Injustice Of Slavery Itself. I Hate It Because It Deprives Our Republican Example Of Its Just Influence In The World-enables The Enemies Of Free Institutions, With Plausibility, To Taunt Us As Hypocrites-causes The Real Friends Of Freedom To Doubt Our Sincerity.

I See A Very Dark Cloud On America's Horizon, And That Cloud Is Coming From Rome.