You are the first President to whom the opportunity was ever offered constitutionally to inaugurate such a day. If you fail us now, you may be the last.

You would violate usage only if you should act without the advice, or even contrary to the opinions, of your constitutional advisers.

But he tempts Providence who suffers that spirit of anarchy to grow and gather strength before striking a blow for its destruction.

I do not mean that you could continue to do this with propriety or even with safety; I merely assert that the power is, in point of fact, in your hands. And for such a...

It has always been a great wrong that these men and their families should be held in bondage. We of the North have hitherto acquiesced in it, lest, in the endeavor to redress it in...

Our enemies, like the Grecian hero, have one vulnerable point. You have not touched it yet. What should have been their element of weakness has been suffered to remain an element of strength.