The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.
From Abraham Lincoln
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.
With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.
I think that slavery is wrong, morally, socially and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.
Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.
Among the friends of Union, there is great diversity of sentiment and of policy in regard to slavery and the African race among us.
We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.
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