We are contending with an enemy who, as I understand, drives every able-bodied man he can reach into his ranks, very much as a butcher drives bullocks into a slaughter-pen.

Meanwhile, the loyal millions of the North, longing for victory in the field, found their prayers answered.

The rift in the war cloud had, indeed, let in a flood of sunlight, and, while it lasted, gave fresh courage and larger faith.

His power rested upon the strength of his character as a well-poised student of affairs.

What he believed came forcefully from a mind that formed its own judgments, and whether his words gave discomfort to the little souls that governed caucuses, or to the great journalists that sought to force their own policies, he was in no…

Of all the distinguished men who had filled that office none exhibited a more inflexible firmness than Robinson in holding the public purse strings.

Neither threats nor ingenious devices disturbed him, but with a fidelity as remarkable as it was rare he pushed aside the emissaries of extravagance and corruption as readily as a plow turns under the sod.

To this charm of manner were added a singularly attractive presence, a pleasing voice, and the oratorical gifts that won him recognition even before he left Yale College.

From the first he exhibited a marked capacity for public life.

In conventions few men were heard with keener interest, and every Republican recognised the fact that a new force had come into the councils of the party.

With direct and forceful language Lincoln took the people into his confidence.

There are but three ways, he said, to stop the war; first, by suppressing rebellion, which he was trying to do; second, by giving up the Union, which he was trying to prevent; and third, by some imaginable compromise, which was impossible…

Any offer of terms made by men within that range, in opposition to that army, is simply nothing for the present, because such men have no power whatever to enforce their side of a compromise if one were made with them.

To be effective a compromise must come from those in control of the rebel army, or from the people after our army has suppressed that army.

If slaves are property, is there any question that by the law of war such property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when needed?

Some of the commanders who have won our most important victories believe the emancipation policy the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebels, and that in one instance, at least, victory came with the aid of black soldiers.

Whenever you are urged, after resistance to the Union is conquered, to continue to fight, it will be time enough to refuse.

Do you not think, in the struggle for the Union, that the withdrawal of negro help from the enemy weakens his resistance to you?

But why should negroes do anything for us, if we will do nothing for them? and if they, on the promise of freedom, stake their lives to save the Union, shall the promise not be kept?

When it comes, it will prove that no appeal lies from the ballot to the bullet, and that those who take it are sure to lose their case and pay the costs.

He denounced the Radicals as craven Americans, devoid of patriotic feeling, who were trying to make the humiliation and degradation of their country a stepping-stone to continued power.

At this very moment, when the fate of the nation and of individuals trembles in the balance, these madmen ask us to plunge into a bottomless pit of controversy upon indefinite purposes.

Does not every man know that we must have a united North to triumph?

Can we get a united North upon a theory that the Constitution can be set aside at the will of one man, because, forsooth, he judges it to be a military necessity?

The Vice-President says, 'There are men in your midst who want the Union as it was and the Constitution as it is,' and he adds, sneeringly, 'They can't have it.' We will tell him there are many such men, and we say to him we will have it.