Governments rest on the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them at will whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established.

It is our duty to keep the memory of our heroes green. Yet they belong to the whole country; they belong to America.

Lay aside all rancor, all bitter sectional feeling, and to make your places in the ranks of those who will bring about a consummation devoutly to be wished—a reunited country.

Our armies were in as much chaos in victory as theirs in defeat.

African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing.

Your little army, derided for its want of arms, derided for its lack of all the essential material of war, has met the grand army of the enemy, routed it at every point, and now it flies, inglorious in retreat before our victorious columns. We have taught them a lesson in their invasion of the sacred soil of Virginia.

The authors of all our misfortune.