As our case is new, we must think and act anew.

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present... we must think anew and act anew.

Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.

I have always hated slavery, I think, as much as any abolitionist. I have been an Old Line Whig. I have always hated it, but I have always been quiet about it until this new era of the introduction of the Nebraska Bill began.

Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.