"IT RESTS ME TO SAVE A LIFE!"
Schuyler Colfax, then Speaker of the House, pleaded with Lincoln for the life of an elector's son, sentenced to be shot. Though he intruded on the arbiter very late after a long spell of official duties, Lincoln accorded the boon.
"Colfax," explained he, "it makes me rested after a hard day's work, if I can find some good excuse for saving a man's life, and I go to bed happy as I think how joyous the signing of my name will make him, and his family, and his friends."