Abraham Lincoln

I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington.

This is essentially a People's contest. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men--to lift artificial weights from…

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

That some achieve great success is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.

I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.

In the end, it's not the years in your life that count, it's the life in your years.

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves.

If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty fearlessly and effectively.

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the…

A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!

But you will not abide the election of a Republican President!

An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of property in a slave is not "distinctly and expressly affirmed" in it.

We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any existence in the Constitution, even by implication.

But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of your constitutional rights.

You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which has been formed into order in the face of your heaviest fire; but if you could, how much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which created it out of the peaceful channel of the…

You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling--that sentiment--by breaking up the political organization which rallies around it.

There is a judgment and a feeling against slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a half of votes.

An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them.

The Federal Government, however, as we insist, has the power of restraining the extension of the institution--the power to insure that a slave insurrection shall never occur on any American soil which is now free from slavery.

True, we do, in common with "our fathers who framed the government under which we live," declare our belief that slavery is wrong; but the slaves do not hear us declare even this.

You need not be told that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true is simply malicious slander.

If you would have the peace of the old times, readopt the precepts and policy of the old times.

We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed the government under which we live"; while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy…

Could Washington himself speak, would he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who sustain his policy, or upon you, who repudiate it?