Let the people know the truth and the country is safe.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you.... You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.

I sincerely wish war was a pleasanter and easier business than it is, but it does not admit of holidays.

As President, I have no eyes but constitutional eyes; I cannot see you.

Military glory-that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood-that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy.

What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not...the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army...our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms...

No State, upon it own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union. Resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally nothing. I therefore consider that the Union is unbroken. There needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless forced upon the national authority.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.

And then, there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonnet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation.