From “Speech when under Sentence of Death.”

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When the law is the will of the people, it will be uniform and coherent; but fluctuation, contradiction, and inconsistency of councils must be expected under those governments where every evolution in the ministry of a court produces one in the State—­such being the folly and pride of all ministers, that they ever pursue measures directly opposite to those of their predecessors.  Samuel Adams.

From “American Independence.”

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I refer to the past not in malice, for this is no day for malice, but simply to place more distinctly in front the gratifying and glorious change which has come both to our white fellow citizens and ourselves and to congratulate all upon the contrast between now and then, the new dispensation of freedom with its thousand blessings to both races, and the old dispensation of slavery with its ten thousand evils to both races—­white and black.  In view, then, of the past, the present, and the future, with the long and dark history of our bondage behind us, and with liberty, progress and enlightenment before us, I again congratulate you upon this auspicious day and hour.  Frederick Douglass.

From “Inauguration of the Freedmen’s Memorial Monument to Abraham Lincoln.”

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In all popular tumults the worst men bear the sway at first.  Moderate and good men are often silent for fear of modesty, who in good time may declare themselves.  Those who have any property to lose are sufficiently alarmed already at the progress of these public violences and violations to which every man’s dwelling, person, and property are hourly exposed.  Numbers of such valuable men and good subjects are ready and willing to declare themselves for the support of government in due time, if government does not fling away its own authority.  Lord Mansfield.

From “The Right of England to Tax America.”

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In jurisprudence, which reluctantly admits any new adjunct, and counts in its train a thousand champions ready to rise in defense of its formularies and technical rules, the victory has been brilliant and decisive.  The civil and the common law have yielded to the pressure of the times, and have adopted much which philosophy and experience have recommended, altho it stood upon no test of the pandects and claimed no support from the feudal polity.  Commercial law, at least so far as England and America are concerned, is the creation of the eighteenth century.  It started into life with the genius of Lord Mansfield, and, gathering in its course whatever was valuable in the earlier institutes of foreign countries, had reflected back upon them its own superior lights, so as to become the guide and oracle of the commercial world.  Joseph story.