The case of Andrews is really a very bad one, as appears by the record already before me. Yet before receiving this I had orderedhis punishment commuted to imprisonmentand had so telegraphed. I did this, not on any merit in the case, but because I am trying to evade the butchering business lately.

I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were felt by the whole human race, there would not be one cheerful face left on earth.

Nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world.

Oh, that [his Thanksgiving Message] is some of Seward's nonsense, and it pleases the fools.

If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution.

I destroy my enemy if I make him my friend.

As the chief speaker at the dedication of the national cemetery at the Gettysburg Battlefield, statesman Edward Everett wrote to Lincoln: I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.