In those days, our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all, and thought to include all; but now, to aid in the making the bondage of the negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, and sneered at, and construed, and hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it.

Be not deceived. Revolutions do not go backward.

Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us therefore study the incidents in this as philosophy to learn wisdom from and none of them as wrongs to be avenged.

The Bible is not my book and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma.

Thus let bygones be bygones. Let past differences, as nothing be.

The occasion is piled high with difficulty. We must rise to the occasion.

Writing, the art of communicating thoughts to the mind through the eye, is the great invention of the world.