I will never degrade my manhood, and stifle the sympathies of human nature. It is an insult to claim it. I wish I had nothing worse to meet at the judgement day than that. I would not have the guilt of causing that wail of man's despair or that wild shriek of woman's agony, as the one or the other is captured, for all the diadems of all the stars in heaven.

As quoted in His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838–64 (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, p. 178 - The Fanaticism of the Democratic Party (February 1859)