Our political problem now is, "Can we as a nation continue together permanently - forever - half slave and half free?"

When I lay down the reins of this administration, I want to have one friend left. And that friend is myself.

I am very glad indeed to see you to-night, and yet I will not say I thank you for this call, but I do most sincerely thank Almighty God for the occasion on which you have called.

We shall meanly lose or nobly save the last hope of earth.

We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.

There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, 'Truth is the daughter of Time.'

Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.