By what principle of original right is it that one-fiftieth or one-ninetieth of a great nation, by calling themselves a State, have the right to break up and ruin that nation as a matter of original principle?Abraham Lincoln
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.Abraham Lincoln
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.Abraham Lincoln
Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.Abraham Lincoln
No policy that does not rest upon some philosophical public opinion can be permanently maintained.Abraham Lincoln
If there should prove to be one real, living Free State Democrat in Kansas, I suggest that it might be well to catch him and stuff and preserve his skin as an interesting specimen of that soon-to-be-extinct variety of the genus Democrat.Abraham Lincoln
I perhaps ought to say that individually I never was much interested in the Texas question. I never could see much good to come of annexation, inasmuch as they were already a free republican people on our own model.Abraham Lincoln
