Historical voices

I do not want to issue a document that the whole world will see must necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope's bull against the comet!

The subject is difficult, and good men do not agree.

I must study the plain, physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right.

I am sure that either the one or the other class is mistaken in that belief, and perhaps, in some respects, both.

I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally certain that they represent the Divine will.

I have here stated my purpose according to my views of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.

I shall try to correct errors where shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views as fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I shall do less whenever I shall believe that what I am doing hurts the cause; and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.

What I do about slavery and the coloured race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and not either to save or to destroy slavery.

If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them.

Those enemies must understand that they cannot experiment for ten years trying to destroy the government, and if they fail still come back into the Union unhurt.

This government cannot much longer play a game in which it stakes all, and its enemies stake nothing.

Now is the time, if ever, for honest men who love their country to rally to its support.

Trying to please everybody, he will satisfy nobody.

I shall not do more than I can; but I shall do all I can to save the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination.

Would you drop the war where it is, or would you prosecute it in future with elder-stalk squirts charged with rose-water?

If they will not do this, if they prefer to hazard all for the sake of destroying the government, it is for them to consider whether it is probable that I will surrender the government to save them from losing all.

It does not lie in rounding the rough angles of the war, but in removing the necessity for the war.

How much better for you as seller, and the nation as buyer, to sell out and buy out that without which the war could never have been, than to sink both the thing to be sold and the price of it in cutting one another's throats!

If the war continues long, as it must if the object be not sooner attained, the institution in your States will be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion,--by the mere incidents of the war.

Discarding punctilio and maxims adapted to more manageable times, and looking only to the unprecedentedly stern facts of our case, can you do better in any possible event?

Once relieved, its form of government is saved to the world, its beloved history and cherished memories are vindicated, and its happy future fully assured and rendered inconceivably grand.