I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.
Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.
I have always been an old-line Henry Clay Whig.
I can express all my views on the slavery question by quotations from Henry Clay.
The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.
If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
I will prepare and some day my chance will come.
Everybody likes a compliment.
Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.
Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should be, as the egg is to the fowl; we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.
My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
Whether slavery shall go into Nebraska, or other new territories, is not a matter of exclusive concern to the people who may go there. The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these territories. We want them for the homes of free white people.
I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.
We can succeed only by concert. It is not, 'Can any of us imagine better,' but, 'Can we all do better?'
If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.
Being elected to Congress, though I am very grateful to our friends for having done it, has not pleased me as much as I expected.
He who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.
Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
I can make more generals, but horses cost money.
