They look upon it as being a moral, social, and political wrong; and while they contemplate it as such, they nevertheless have due regard for its actual existence among us, and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to all the constitutional obligations thrown about it.
In the final debate with Stephen Douglas, Lincoln articulated the Republican Party's complex stance on slavery, acknowledging it as a wrong while respecting its constitutional protections and the challenges of its eradication.
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Let us strive to deserve, as far as mortals may, the continued favor of Almighty God.
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.
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…
Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.
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