Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of the wily agitator who induces him to desert? I think that in such a cse to silence the agitator and save the boy is not only constitutional but withal a great mercy.

Wise statesmen ... established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity should look up again at the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began.

I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.

I am not an accomplished lawyer.

The enthusiastic uprising of the people in our cause, is our great reliance; and we can not safely give it any check, even thoughit overflows, and runs in channels not laid down in any chart.

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.

I walk slowly, but never backwards.