I Will Either Be America's Greatest President

In Using The Strong Hand, As Now Compelled To Do, The Government Has A Difficult Duty To Perform. At The Very Best, It Will By Turns Do Both Too Little And Too Much. It Can Properly Have No Motive Of Revenge, No Purpose To Punish Merely For Punishment's Sake. While We Must, By All Available Means, Prevent The Overthrow Of The Government, We Should Avoid Planting And Cultivating Too Many Thorns In The Bosom Of Society.

In The Early Days Of The World, The Almighty Said To The First Of Our Race "in The Sweat Of Thy Face Shalt Thou Eat Bread"; And Since Then, If We Except The Light And The Air Of Heaven, No Good Thing Has Been, Or Can Be Enjoyed By Us, Without Having First Cost Labour.

You Dislike The Emancipation Proclamation; And, Perhaps, Would Have It Retracted. You Say It Is Unconstitutional - I Think Differently.

Nations Do Not Die From Invasion; They Die From Internal Rottenness.

The Foregoing History May Not Be Precisely Accurate In Every Particular; But I Am Sure It Is Sufficiently So, For All The Uses I Shall Attempt To Make Of It, And In It, We Have Before Us, The Chief Material Enabling Us To Correctly Judge Whether The Repeal Of The Missouri Compromise Is Right Or Wrong.