As I Would Not Be

If Ever This Free People, If This Government Itself Is Ever Utterly Demoralized, It Will Come From This Incessant Human Wriggle And Struggle For Office, Which Is But A Way To Live Without Work.

To Ease Another’s Heartache Is To Forget One’s Own.

I Hold It To Be A Paramount Duty Of Us In The Free States, Due To The Union Of The States, And Perhaps To Liberty Itself (paradox Though It May Seem) To Let The Slavery Of The Other States Alone; While, On The Other Hand, I Hold It To Be Equally Clear, That We Should Never Knowingly Lend Ourselves Directly Or Indirectly, To Prevent That Slavery From Dying A Natural Death--to Find New Places For It To Live In, When It Can No Longer Exist In The Old.

With Educated People, I Suppose, Punctuation Is A Matter Of Rule; With Me It Is A Matter Of Feeling. But I Must Say I Have A Great Respect For The Semicolin; It's A Useful Little Chap

I Am Not In Favor Of Making Voters Or Jurors Of Negroes, Nor Of Qualifying Them To Hold Office.