The eyes of that species of extinct giant, whose bones fill the mounds of America, have gazed on Niagara as our eyes do now.

Our strife pertains to ourselves-to the passing generations of men-and it can without convulsion be hushed forever with the passing of one generation.

Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.

It's not me who can't keep a secret. It's the people I tell that can't.

We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word many mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny.

Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease.

President Lincoln was once criticized for his attitude toward his enemies. "Why do you try to make friends of them?" asked an associate. "You should try to destroy them." "Am I not destroying my enemies," Lincoln gently replied, "when I make them my friends?"