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.

There was the strangest combination of church influence against me. Baker is a Campbellite; and therefore, as I suppose with few exceptions, got all of that Church. My wife had some relations in the Presbyterian churches, and some in the Episcopal churches; and therefore, wherever it would tell, I was set down as either one or the other, while it was everywhere contended that no Christian ought to vote for me because I belonged to no Church, and was suspected of being a Deist and had talked of fighting a duel.

Nowhere in the world is presented a government of so much liberty and equality. To the humblest and poorest amongst us are held out the highest privileges and positions. The present moment finds me at the White House, yet there is as good a chance for your children as there was for my father's.

Our political problem now is, "Can we as a nation continue together permanently - forever - half slave and half free?"

All creation is a mine, and every man a miner. The whole earth, and all within it, upon it, and round about it, including himself ... are the infinitely various "leads" from which, man, from the first, was to dig out his destiny.

Among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet.

We shall not fail - if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come.