Chapter IX: Section 2: Debts and liabilities incurred in aid of rebellion are (5)

Against this assumption I protest with mind, soul, and heart. It is false in religion, false in statesmanship, and false in economy. It is an extravagance, which, if enforced, is foolish tyranny. Show me a creature, with lifted countenance looking to heaven, made in the image of God, and I show you A MAN, who, of whatever country or race, whether browned by equatorial sun or blanched by northern cold, is with you a child of the Heavenly Father, and equal with you in all the rights of Human Nature. You cannot deny these rights without impiety. And so, as God linked the national welfare with national duty, you cannot deny these rights without peril to the Republic. It is not enough that you have given Liberty. By the same title that we claim Liberty do we claim Equality also. One cannot be denied without the other. What is Equality without Liberty? What is Liberty without Equality? One is the complement of the other. The two are necessary to begin and complete the circle of American citizenship. They are the inseparable organs through which the people have their national life. They are the two vital principles of republican government, without which, government, although republican in name, cannot be republican in fact. These two vital principles belong to those divine statutes graven on the soul of Universal Man, even of the slave who forgets them, and of the master who denies them, and, whether forgotten or denied, more enduring than marble or brass, for they share the perpetuity of the human family.

The Roman Cato, after declaring his belief in the immortality of the soul, added, that, if this were an error, it was an error he loved. And now, declaring my belief in Liberty and Equality as the God-given birthright of all men, let me say, in the same spirit, if this be an error, it is an error I love,--if this be a fault, it is a fault I shall be slow to renounce,--if this be an illusion, it is an illusion which I pray may wrap the world in its angelic forms.