I am greatly obliged to you, and to all who have come forward at the call of their country.

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

The written word may be man's greatest invention. It allows us to converse with the dead, the absent, and the unborn.

When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.

Again, a law may be both constitutional and expedient, and yet may be administered in an unjust and unfair way.

Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap - let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primmers, spelling books, and in Almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice.