Abraham Lincoln: “To sell or enslave any captured person on account of his color, and for no offense against the laws of war, is a relapse…”

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?

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

I am considering, and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will be proper.