God must love the common man, he made so many of them.
I wish all men to be free. I wish the material prosperity of the already free which I feel sure the extinction of slavery would bring.
If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.
To stand in silence when they should be protesting makes cowards of men.
You must remember that some things legally right are not morally right.
But the proclamation, as law, either is valid, or is not valid. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it can not be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life.