The Republican Party was organized in 1854-55, upon the platform of liberty and independence, to maintain the union of the States and the rights of the States; freedom of speech and the press; to resist the spread of slavery and the aggressions of the slave power; the equal rights of all persona to impartial protection at home and abroad, and in the enjoyment of religious freedom; and of all American citizens, whether native or naturalized, to the free exercise of the elective franchise and the enjoyment of its benefits; and requiring no test for office except honesty, capacity, and devotion to American institutions.
Elbridge G. SpauldingRelated topics
abroad american capacity devotion elective enjoyment equal exercise franchise free freedom home honesty independence liberty native office party persona platform power press protection religious republican requiring resist slave slavery speech spread test union statesRelated quotes
I will not weary you with the proof of this. James Madison, who knew perhaps as well as any one what the makers of the Constitution meant, said, 'We intend this Constitution to be the great charter of Human Liberty to the unborn millions who shall enjoy its protection, and who should never see that such an institution as slavery was ever known in our midst'. And the Congress of 1787, in resigning its functions, echoed the meaning of his words in saying, 'Let it never be forgotten that the cause of the United States is the cause of human nature' - not of white men nor black men nor red men nor brown men - but of man, of mankind.
George William Curtis
For stories teach us, that liberty sought out of season, in a corrupt and degenerate age, brought Rome itself to a farther slavery: for liberty hath a sharp and double edge, fit only to be handled by just and virtuous men; to bad and dissolute, it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands: neither is it completely given, but by them who have the happy skill to know what is grievance and unjust to a people, and how to remove it wisely; what good laws are wanting, and how to frame them substantially, that good men may enjoy the freedom which they merit, and the bad the curb which they need.
John Milton
And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of time press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless when necessary for the defence of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions.
Samuel Adams
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land Whose heart hath neer within him burnd, As home his footsteps he hath turnd From wandering on a foreign strand If such there breathe, go mark him well For him no Minstrel raptures swell High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonord, and unsung.
Walter Scott
The good Lord had had a chance for a long time before the abolition. I believe that there is a moral government; and that God reigns. I am no pessimist; I give thanks to the good Lord, and also to the good men through whom He has worked. Prominent among them was Garrison, and scarcely less so was Phillips. It was they and their associates who made Abraham Lincoln and the Republican party possible. What abolished slavery was the moral sentiment which had been created, not by the pulpit, but by the Garrisonian platform. The churches did not do much to abolish slavery; but they did much to keep the agitation down.
Frederick Douglass
