The Works of William H. Seward, Volume 3

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Page 167 - Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay: Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade; A breath can make them, as a breath has made: But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
Page 94 - While foreign nations less blessed with that freedom which is power than ourselves are advancing with gigantic strides in the career of public improvement, were we to slumber in indolence or fold up our arms and proclaim to the world that we are palsied by the will of our constituents, would it not be to cast away the bounties of Providence and doom ourselves to perpetual inferiority?
Page 627 - ... in the most sincere and earnest manner, to settle the differences so arising, and to preserve the state of peace and friendship in which the two countries are now placing themselves, using, for this end, mutual representations and pacific negotiations. And. if, by these means, they should not be enabled to come to an agreement, a resort shall not, on this account, be had to reprisals, aggression, or hostility of any kind, by the one republic against the other, until the Government of that which...
Page 77 - I know that Great Britain is determined on her system; and that very determination determines me on mine. You know I have been constant and uniform in opposition to all her measures. The die is now cast, I have passed the Rubicon; sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, with my country, is my unalterable determination.
Page 112 - who with nice discernment knows What to his country and his friends he owes ; How various Nature warms the human breast, To love the parent, brother, friend, or guest, What the great offices of judges are, Of senators, of generals sent to war.
Page 86 - In this state of things, could my refusal to accept the trust thus delegated to me, give an immediate opportunity to the people to form and to express with a nearer approach to unanimity, the object of their preference...
Page 88 - He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow; He who surpasses or subdues mankind, Must look down on the hate of those below. Though high above the sun of glory glow, And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow Contending tempests on his naked head, And thus reward the toils which to those summits led.
Page 53 - It was a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.
Page 94 - ... our arms and proclaim to the world that we are palsied by the will of our constituents, would it not be to cast away the bounties of Providence, and doom ourselves to perpetual inferiority ? In the course of the year now drawing to its close, we have beheld under the auspices and at the expense of one State of this Union, a new university unfolding its portals to the sons of science, and holding up the torch of human improvement to eyes that seek the light...
Page 608 - ... in looking forward to the probable course of events, for the short period of half a century, it is scarcely possible to resist the conviction that the annexation of Cuba to our federal republic will be indispensable to the continuance and integrity of the Union itself.

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