“How can I hold that all men are created equal, when here before me...”

How can I hold that all men are created equal, when here before me stands, stinking, the moral carcass of the gentleman from Ohio, proof that some men are inferior, endowed by their Maker with dim wits, impermeable to reason, with cold, pallid slime in their veins instead of hot red blood! You are more reptile than man, George! So low and flat, that the foot of man is incapable of crushing you!

More from Lincoln

I want the amendment to pass, so that the Constitution's first and only mention of slavery is its absolute prohibition. For this amendment, for which I have worked all my life and for which countless colored men and women have fought and died and now hundreds of thousands of soldiers... No, sir, no, it seems there's very nearly nothing I won't say. The greatest measure of the 19th century was passed by corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America. No one's loved as much as you, no one's ever been loved so much, by the people. You might do anything now. Don't, don't waste that power on an amendment bill that's sure of defeat.