" Nowhere in the world is presented a government of so much liberty and equality. To the humblest and poorest amongst us are held out the highest privileges and positions.”– Speech to the 148th Ohio Regiment, August 31, 1864
" Every man, black, white or yellow, has a mouth to be fed and two hands with which to feed it – and that bread should be allowed to go to that mouth without controversy.”– Speech at Hartford, Connecticut, March 5, 1860
" To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as nearly as possible, is a worthy object of any good government.”– Temperance Address, February 22, 1842
" You dislike the emancipation proclamation; and, perhaps, would have it retracted. You say it is unconstitutional — I think differently.”– Letter to James Conkling, August 26, 1863
" I hold, that in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual.”– First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861
" You dislike the emancipation proclamation; and, perhaps, would have it retracted. You say it is unconstitutional — I think differently.”– Letter to James Conkling, August 26, 1863
" Happy day, when, all appetites controlled, all poisons subdued, all matter subjected, mind, all conquering mind, shall live and move the monarch of the world. Glorious consummation! Hail fall of Fury! Reign of Reason, all hail!”– Temperance Address, February 22, 1842
" The man does not live who is more devoted to peace than I am. None who would do more to preserve it.”– Address to the New Jersey General Assembly, February 21, 1861
" The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776.”– First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861
"When you got below Vicksburg and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should down the river and join General Banks; and when you turned northward east of the Big Black I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right, and I was wrong."
Letter to General Grant after capture of Vicksburg.
"They [the founding fathers] did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all men were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet that they were about to confer it, immediately, upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement might follow as fast as circumstances should permit."
" Happy day, when, all appetites controlled, all poisons subdued, all matter subjected, mind, all conquering mind, shall live and move the monarch of the world. Glorious consummation! Hail fall of Fury! Reign of Reason, all hail!”– Temperance Address, February 22, 1842
" Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.”– Lyceum Address, January 27, 1838
" War, at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and its duration, is one of the most terrible.”– Speech at Sanitary Fair, June 16, 1864
" Let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his children’s liberty.”– Lyceum Address, January 27, 1837
" Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.”– Reply to New York Workingmen’s Democratic Republican Association, March 21, 1864