Life Sketches of Eminent Lawyers, American, English and Canadian: To which is Added Thoughts, Facts and Facetise, Volume 2

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Lawyers' International Publishing Company, 1895 - Law - 752 pages

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Page 78 - If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it ; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it ; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union : and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.
Page 337 - When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union ; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood!
Page 337 - On this question of principle, while actual suffering was yet afar off, they raised their flag against a power, to which, for purposes of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome, in the height of her glory, is not to be compared ; a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England.
Page 114 - I wish popularity; but it is that popularity which follows, not that which is run after ; it is that popularity which, sooner or later, never fails to do justice to the pursuit of noble ends by noble means.
Page 29 - Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing. He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath, "I am better now.
Page 31 - I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine, contemplating suicide. I saw him at Toulon — I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of Paris — I saw him at the head of the army of Italy — I saw him crossing the bridge of Lodi with the tri-color in his hand — I saw him in Egypt in the shadows of the Pyramids — I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags.
Page 155 - No man in this country is so high that he is above the law. No officer of the law may set that law at defiance with impunity. All the officers of the government, from the highest to the lowest, are creatures of the law, and are bound to obey it.
Page 330 - All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.
Page 348 - I know not how others may feel,' (glancing at the opponents of the College before him,) ' but, for myself, when I see my Alma Mater surrounded, like Caesar in the senatehouse, by those who are reiterating stab upon stab, I would not, for this right hand, have her turn to me, and say, Et tu quoque mi fili ! And thou too, my son !'
Page 347 - Sir, you may destroy this little institution ; it is weak; it is in your hands ! I know it is one of the lesser lights in the literary horizon of our country. You may put it out. But, if you do so, you must carry through your work! You must extinguish, one after another, all those greater lights of science which, for more than a century, have thrown their radiance over our land!

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