We want, and must have, a national policy, as to slavery, which deals with it as being wrong.

[I]f the policy of the Government, upon vital questions affecting, the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased, to be their own rulers, having, to that extent, practically resigned their Government, into the hands of that eminent tribunal.

The worst thing you can do for anyone you care about is anything that they can do on their own.

I have just read your dispatch about sore-tongued and fatigued horses, Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the Battle of Antietam that fatigues anything?

It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong.

Never change horses in midstream.

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