In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along admitted, the design on my part to free the slaves... [The Bible] teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me, further, to "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them."… I believe that to have interfered as I have done as I have always freely admitted I have done in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right.

Speech to the Court (1859)