In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man.

While I am deeply sensible to the high compliment of a re-election; and duly grateful, as I trust, to Almighty God for having directed my countrymen to a right conclusion, as I think, for their own good, it adds nothing to my satisfaction that any other man may be disappointed or pained by the result.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

The better part of one's life consists of his friendships.

The demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and of generosity. What one of us but can call to mind some relative more promising in youth than all his fellows, who has fallen a sacrifice to his rapacity?

Labor is the great source from which nearly all, if not all, human comforts and necessities are drawn.

I cannot speak so confidently about the fighting qualities of the Eastern men, or what are called Yankees - not knowing myself particularly to whom the appellation belongs - but this I do know - if the Southerners think that man for man they are better than our Illinois men, or western men generally, they will discover themselves in a grievous mistake.