Abraham Lincoln: “I certainly wish that all men could be free, while I suppose you do not.”

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

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.

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.