Abraham Lincoln: “Persuade your neighbours to compromise whenever you can.”

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…

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

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.

Important principles may and must be inflexible.