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

We can not have free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us.

I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.

Democracy is "government of, by and for the people".

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

I think that one of the causes of these repeated failures is that our best and greatest men have greatly underestimated the size of this question (slavery). They have constantly brought forward small cures for great sores-plasters too small to cover the wound. That is one reason that all settlements have proved so temporary-so evanescent.

As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.