The slave-breeders and slave-traders are a small, odious, and detested class among you; and yet in politics they dictate the course of all of you, and are as completely your masters as you are the master of your own negroes.
In a letter to his friend Joshua Speed, Lincoln criticizes the disproportionate political influence of slave-breeders and slave-traders over the broader Southern populace.
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If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business.
As a general rule I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I cannot properly offer an answer.
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.
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?
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