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.

We must ask where we are and whither we are tending.

As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.

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

It has been said of the world's history hitherto that might makes right. It is for us and for our time to reverse the maxim, and to say that right makes might.

Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature - opposition to it is his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.

There is really no crisis except an artificial one...If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the trouble will come to an end.