Abraham Lincoln: “I most cordially recommend that Captain John Rodgers, United States Navy, receive a vote of thanks from Congress for the…”

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…

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.

Important principles may and must be inflexible.

The question is, will it be wiser to take it as it is and help to improve it, or to reject and disperse it?