Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils.

Elimination of illiteracy is as serious an issue to our history as the abolition of slavery.

We are advocates of the abolition of war, we do not want war; but war can only be abolished through war.

I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery.

There are a million boys growing up in the United States who have never seen a saloon, and who will never know the handicap of liquor and this excellent condition will go on spreading over the country when the wet press and the paid propogandists of booze are forgotten. The abolition of the commercialized liquor trade in this country is as final as the abolition of slavery.

When you think about the abolition of slavery for example, for the ruling class with the rich white people owning plantations and states, and things like that, slavery was to their benefit. To oppose it didn’t make any sense at all on a rational basis. But on a rights basis, on a principle basis, it made obvious, overwhelming sense.