Abraham Lincoln: “Reason--cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason--must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence.”

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?

If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything.

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.

Important principles may and must be inflexible.