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.

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.

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.

War, at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible.

Lincoln called laughter "the joyous, beautiful, universal evergreen of life."

The Cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at the end of one, or even one hundred defeats.

As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.