Is there no way to arrest the insane course of the President in ‘reorganization’?

If something is not done, the President will be crowned king before Congress meets.

The danger is that so much success will reconcile the people to almost anything.

Get the Rebel States into a territorial condition, and it can be easily dealt with.

To me all appears gloomy.… The salvation of the country devolves upon Congress and against the Executive.

One way is to pass a law by two-thirds over the President’s veto, prescribing the conditions of reconstruction of any State government, and declaring none republican in form which excludes negroes from voting.

Such a law the President will be obliged to obey and execute.… The other mode of solving the problem, over the head of the President, is to pass an Amendment of the Constitution prescribing universal suffrage.… We have the requisite…

I have too often failed to inspire my political friends with that elevated sense of their own authority to dictate the course of affairs, to be sanguine of success in measures which require so much unity, energy, and singleness of purpose…

I trust no petty personal ambition will prevent my full appreciation of the immensely important work for our country and humanity which you have so well performed.

It is a noble monumental record, worthy both of the subject and of the Senator, and which will stand a landmark in our parliamentary history.

Every new day, as it comes, brings new attestation of your wisdom and foresight, and of the truthful views which from the first, and almost, if not altogether, alone in Congress, you took and faithfully expounded on the whole question of…

Pray, honored Sir, do not be discouraged by the stupid prejudices with which you have to contend, but fight it out, and you may save the nation; for at no time during the war was it in greater peril than it is at this moment.

The Ship of State has gallantly borne up through the storms of war, but I fear that President Johnson, with the best intentions, is running her straight upon the rocks.

Let us call Senator Sumner a fanatic, if we will; let us pronounce him a man of one idea, if we choose; but let us at least award him the honor he deserves.… If Charles Sumner is wrong, his example is right.

We have not so many politicians true to eternal principle, we have not so many statesmen devoted with a single purpose even to their own conception of the best interests of the country, we have not so many counsellors studious only of…

Whether we regard him as right or wrong, there is something sublime in his steady, persistent, unwavering devotion to his idea.

Such fidelity cannot be misinterpreted.… Senator Sumner has always been in advance of the mass.

He is a leader a long way ahead, a pioneer through trackless mazes.

It is his mission to discover a path where the throng shall follow.

The man who has no curiosity to know what the first statesman in America says on all these heads would go to bed without asking whether the fire in the next street was put out, or if the house next his own began to smoke.

He has had but one object,--a noble object, worthy any calculable amount of struggle and sacrifice; and he has pursued it ardently, bravely, disregarding both party and personal consequences, and letting no other object stand in the way or…

He has sought only the Abolition of Slavery, and has deemed nothing else worth fighting for.

That noble speech of yours at the Worcester Convention, so complete in its analysis of our national condition, dangers, and duties, ought to be printed in letters of gold, and emblazoned henceforth as the established moral code of every…

I never doubted the final success of our arms; but when the sword should be sheathed, I have always expected to see our worst crisis in our last grapple with slaveholders.

Shakespeare says, ‘Things by season seasoned are.’ Never was a word more fitly spoken.