Abraham Lincoln: “I do not speak of emancipation at once, but of a decision at once to emancipate gradually.”

Important principles may and must be inflexible.

I believe that it is not only possible, but in fact easier, to do this without deciding or even considering whether these States have ever been out of the Union, than with it.

Unlike a case of war between independent nations, there is no organized organ for us to treat with,--no one man has authority to give up the rebellion for any other man.

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