It depends not on the zeal and firmness only of the reformers, but on their wisdom and moderation also.

Stoicism, that had no charity for error, never converted any human society to virtue; Christianity, that remembers the true nature of man, has encompassed a large portion of the globe.

How long emancipation may be delayed, is among the things concealed from our knowledge, but not so the certain result.

The perils of the enterprize are already passed--its difficulties have already been removed--when it shall have been accomplished it will be justly regarded as the last noble effort which rendered the Republic imperishable.
Then the merit of the great achievement will be awarded to John Quincy Adams; and by none more gratefully than by the communities on whom the institution of slavery has brought the calamity of premature and consumptive decline, in the midst of free, vigorous, and expanding States.
If this great transaction could be surpassed in dramatic sublimity, it was surpassed when the same impassioned advocate of humanity appeared, at the age of seventy-four, with all the glorious associations that now clustered upon him, at the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, and pleaded, without solicitation or reward, the cause of Cinque and thirty other Africans, who had been stolen by a Spanish slaver from their native coast, had slain the master and crew of the pirate vessel, floated into the waters of the United States, and there been claimed by the President, in behalf of the authorities of Spain.

He pleaded this great cause with such happy effect, that the captives were set at liberty.