What has ever threatened our liberty and prosperity save and except this institution of Slavery?

Military necessity does not admit of cruelty - that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, . . . nor of torture to extort confessions.

The power of hope upon human exertion, and happiness, is wonderful.

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

I was raised to farm work.

Tangible language, which often tells more falsehoods than truths.

I hold it to be a paramount duty of us in the free states, due to the Union of the states, and perhaps to liberty itself (paradox though it may seem) to let the slavery of the other states alone; while, on the other hand, I hold it to be equally clear, that we should never knowingly lend ourselves directly or indirectly, to prevent that slavery from dying a natural death--to find new places for it to live in, when it can no longer exist in the old.