—R. W. Emerson
The life of Lincoln should never be passed by in silence by old or young. He touched the log cabin and it became the palace in which greatness was nurtured. He touched the forest and it became to him a church in which the purest and noblest worship of God was observed. In Lincoln there was always some quality which fastened him to the people and taught them to keep time to the music of his heart. He reveals to us the beauty of plain backwoods honesty.
—Prof. David Swing
The shepherd of the people! that old name that the best rulers ever craved. What ruler ever won it like this dead President of ours? He fed us with counsel when we were in doubt, with inspiration when we faltered, with caution when we would be rash, with calm, trustful cheerfulness through many an hour when our hearts were dark. He fed hungry souls all over the country with sympathy and consolation. He spread before the whole land feasts of great duty, devotion and patriotism, on which the land grew strong. He taught us the sacredness of government, the wickedness of treason. He made our souls glad and vigorous with the love of liberty that was his.
—Rev. Phillips Brooks
WITH malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
I have one vote, and I shall always cast that against wrong as long as I live.
In every event of life, it is right makes might.
The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the angels of our nature.