It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known.

Teach hope to all, despair to none.

When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.

I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women; but I must say that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct during this war.

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.

And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God ... and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.