I am the friend of peace and mean to preserve it for America so long as I am able. . . . No course of my choosing or of their (nations at war) will lead to war. War can come only by the wilful acts and aggressions of others.

It was necessary to put the South at a moral disadvantage by transforming the contest from a war waged against states fighting for their indepdence into a war waged against states fighting for the maintenance and extension of slavery...and the world, it might be hoped, would see it as a moral war, not a political; and the sympathy of nations would begin to run for the North, not for the South.

When I give a man an office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is swelling or growing.

Has justice ever grown in the soil of absolute power? Has not justice always come from the ... heart and spirit of men who resist power?

A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.

Death comes along like a gas bill one can't payand that's all one can sayabout it.

The history of liberty is a history of resistance.