Historical voices

And the promise being made, must be kept.

If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive, even the promise of freedom.

Why should they do anything for us, if we will do nothing for them?

I certainly wish that all men could be free, while I suppose you do not.

The meeting is to be of all those who maintain unconditional devotion to the Union; and I am sure my old political friends will thank me for tendering, as I do, the nation's gratitude to those and other noble men whom no partisan malice or…

The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just,--a way which, if followed, the world will for ever applaud, and God must for ever bless.

We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of earth.

We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility.

The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honour or dishonour, to the latest generation.

In fact, it would ere long force reunion, however much of blood and treasure the separation might have cost....

In all its adaptations and aptitudes, it demands union and abhors separation.

There is no possible severing of this but would multiply and not mitigate evils among us.

Our national strife springs not from our permanent part, not from the land we inhabit, not from our national homestead.

True to themselves, they will not ask where a line of separation shall be, but will vow rather that there shall be no such line.

But separate our common country into two nations, as designed by the present rebellion, and every man of this great interior region is thereby cut off from one or more of these outlets,--not perhaps by a physical barrier, but by…

As part of one nation, its people now find, and may for ever find, their way to Europe by New York, to South America and Africa by New Orleans, and to Asia by San Francisco.

In the production of provisions, grains, grasses, and all which proceed from them, this great interior region is naturally one of the most important in the world.

Whatever shall appear to be God's will, I will do.

Let me say one thing more: I think you should admit that we already have an important principle to rally and unite the people, in the fact that constitutional government is at stake.

I will also concede that emancipation would help us in Europe, and convince them that we are incited by something more than ambition.

The ambition of politicians may have instigated them to act, but they would have been impotent without slavery as their instrument.

I admit that slavery is at the root of the rebellion, or at least its sine qua non.

I view this matter as a practical war-measure, to be decided on according to the advantages or disadvantages it may offer to the suppression of the rebellion.

Would my word free the slaves, when I cannot even enforce the Constitution in the rebel States?