William H. Seward quotes

William H. Seward was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman, best remembered for serving as Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln. His leadership played a crucial role during the Civil War, and he is famous for negotiating the purchase of Alaska from Russia. He left a lasting legacy in American diplomacy and governance. Here are 40 of his quotes:

Whatever policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution of it. For this purpose it must be somebody's business to pursue and direct it incessantly.

William H. Seward

There is not only no free state which would now establish it, but there is no slave state, which, if it had had the free alternative as we now have, would have founded slavery.

William H. Seward

Therefore, states are equal in natural rights.

William H. Seward

Sir, there is no Christian nation, thus free to choose as we are, which would establish slavery.

William H. Seward

There is no social life outside of Christendom.

William H. Seward

I have learned, by some experience, that virtue and patriotism, vice and selfishness, are found in all parties, and that they differ less in their motives than in the policies they pursue.

William H. Seward

Douglas, no man will ever be President of the United States who spells 'negro' with two gs.

William H. Seward

If slavery, limited as it yet is, now threatens to subvert the Constitution, how can we as wise and prudent statesmen, enlarge its boundaries and increase its influence, and thus increase already impending dangers?

William H. Seward

There is a higher law than the Constitution.

William H. Seward

The nation thus situated, and enjoying forest, mineral, and agricultural resources unequalled, if endowed also with moral energies adequate to the achievement of great enterprises, and favored with a Government adapted to their character and condition, must command the empire of the seas, which alone is real empire.

William H. Seward

The government of the United States, under the conduct of the Democratic Party, has been all that time surrendering one plain and castle after another to slavery.

William H. Seward

Such is the Democratic Party.

William H. Seward

Remember always that the cause of the United States is the cause of human nature.

William H. Seward

He is the most gentle-looking and amiable of men. Every word and look indicate sincerity of heart, even to guilelessness.

William H. Seward

The history of the Democratic Party commits it to the policy of slavery. It has been the Democratic Party, and no other agency, which has carried that policy up to its present alarming culmination.

William H. Seward

Love one another.

William H. Seward

But assuming the same premises, to wit, that all men are equal by the law of nature and of nations, the right of property in slaves falls to the ground; for one who is equal to another cannot be the owner or property of that other.

William H. Seward

But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes.

William H. Seward

But I deny that the Constitution recognizes property in man.

William H. Seward

It is the maintenance of slavery by law in a state, not parallels of latitude, that makes its a southern state; and the absence of this, that makes it a northern state.

William H. Seward

The proposition of an established classification of states as slave states and free states, as insisted on by some, and into northern and southern, as maintained by others, seems to me purely imaginary, and of course the supposed equilibrium of those classes a mere conceit.

William H. Seward

The right to have a slave implies the right in some one to make the slave; that right must be equal and mutual, and this would resolve society into a state of perpetual war.

William H. Seward