Men ever follow willingly a daring leader: most willingly of all, in great emergencies.

The dangers which threaten us are twofold: First, from the Confederate forces, composed of men whose earnest convictions and reckless bravery it is idle to deny.

In the due exercise of your official power, in strictest accordance with law and the Constitution, you can deprive the enemy of that which, above all else, has given, and still gives him, aid and comfort.

We can constitutionally extirpate slavery at this time.

It is idle to await unanimity.

The worship of words is more pernicious than the worship of images. Grammatolatry is the worst species of idolatry.

Men acquiesce in a thousand things, once righteously and boldly done, to which, if proposed to them in advance, they might find endless objections.