Abraham Lincoln: “I recommend the appropriation of the amount of the award of the referee.”

He said, with a great deal of emphasis, and with an expression of countenance I shall never forget: "When a man is sincerely penitent for his misdeeds, and gives satisfactory evidence of the same, he can safely be pardoned, and there is no…

I do the very best I know how--the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end.

If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything.

If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.