While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.

I can only say that I have acted upon my best convictions, without selfishness or malice, and that by the help of God I shall continue to do so.

With the Catching Ends the Pleasure of the Chase.

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war.

If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. -Speech at Clinton, Illinois, September 8, 1854.

Such will be a great lesson of peace: teaching men that what they cannot take by an election, neither can they take it by war.

Surely He intends some great good to follow this mighty convulsion which no mortal could make, and no mortal could stay.