Abraham Lincoln: “I think the greater punishment can not be constitutionally inflicted in a different form for the same offense.”

Important principles may and must be inflexible.

Grant that he desires the elective franchise, will he not attain it sooner by saving the already advanced steps towards it, than by running backward over them?

As a general rule I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I cannot properly offer an answer.

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.