We shall meanly lose or nobly save the last hope of earth.

Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object

I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races: that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people.

Free labor has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.

The surest way to reveal one's character is not through adversity but by giving them power.

I do not think I could myself, be brought to support a man for office, whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at, religion. Leaving the higher matter of eternal consequences, between him and his Maker, I still do not think any man has the right thus to insult the feelings, and injure the morals, of the community in which he may live.