Quotes from Ronald C. White Jr.

I will not hesitate to exhaust the powers thus vested in the Executive…for the purpose of securing to all citizens of the United States the peaceful enjoyment of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution and laws. —ULYSSES S. GRANT, Proclamation, May 3, 1871

Lincoln's genius was his ability to draw upon the talents of others, meld together diverse personalities who often did not trust one another, and then listen to their advice, recognizing that it was sometimes wiser than his own.

Lincoln's political grammar always gravitated to the future tense.

After a siege of 293 days, Grant forced the Confederates to abandon Petersburg and Richmond on the same day.

Lincoln enhanced the ability of his audience to hear him by his practice of speaking slowly.

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 can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors. 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.

The Amboy Times captured the distinctiveness of Lincoln's maturing political speaking, observing, "His language is pure11 and respectful, he attacks no man's character or motives, but fights with arguments.

All the romance of feeling that men in high places are above personal considerations and act only from motives of pure patriotism, and for the general good of the public has been destroyed. An inside view proves too truly very much the reverse. —ULYSSES S. GRANT to WILLIAM T. SHERMAN, September 18, 1867

Loyalty to the nation ALL THE TIME. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.

Abraham's first teacher24 in Indiana was Andrew Crawford. In addition to teaching spelling and grammar, he instructed the children in courtesy and manners, including the art of introducing and receiving guests. A student would leave the schoolhouse, and as he or she reentered another student would introduce the guest to all the children in the room.

Grant's aggressive decision to press forward toward Vicksburg in November 1862, stood in stark contrast with the tentativeness of other major Union commanders. McClellan hesitated after his incomplete victory at Antietam on September 17, allowing Lee to cross back over the Potomac into the safety of Virginia. Buell, following his strategic victory at Perryville on October 8, did not pursue a bloodied Bragg.

American Presbyterians strove to balance a high view of God with a low view of humanity.

AN EARLY FOUNDATION of Lincoln's ability to speak was laid in his reading of William Scott's Lessons in Elocution.

He followed events in Tennessee and Kentucky, where guerrilla attacks by Confederate generals Nathan Bedford Forrest and John Hunt Morgan behind Union lines dispelled any lingering notions that widespread Unionist sentiment remained in the South.

The shepherd drives the wolf19 from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially if the sheep was a black one.

I, Abraham Lincoln, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. Never, before or since, has there been such congruence between a speech addressing the meaning of the oath and the taking of the oath.

Proverbs 16:9: "A man's heart deviseth his way; but the Lord directs his steps.

Charles Dickens, visiting the United States five years earlier, had described Washington as "the City of Magnificent Intentions,"12 with "spacious avenues, that begin in nothing, and lead nowhere; streets, mile-long, that only want houses, roads, and inhabitants; public buildings that need but a public to be complete.

I BELIEVE THIS GOVERNMENT CANNOT ENDURE, PERMANENTLY HALF SLAVE AND HALF FREE. I DO NOT EXPECT THE UNION TO BE DISSOLVED—I DO NOT EXPECT THE HOUSE TO FALL—BUT I DO EXPECT IT WILL CEASE TO BE DIVIDED. ABRAHAM LINCOLN Speech at the Republican convention, Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858

Lincoln learned self-discipline and the art of case preparation from Logan, who had served previously as a circuit judge and had taught Lincoln to see cases from every possible point of view.

In two days, Lincoln wrote two completely different letters to the commanders who had won victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. The letters reflected his quite different views of the two generals. Meade had fought well in a defensive posture in a battle he had not sought, but had failed to follow up that victory.

With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently he who moulds sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.

Scott's "Anaconda Plan" failed to consider what the Southern troops would be doing while the Northern troops took several months to travel to and sail down the Mississippi. Lincoln knew that the public would never have the patience for Scott's plan. In listening to his daily visitors, he came to understand that his Northern audience needed to see some results if he and the Union would retain their support.

Look, men, there is Jackson34 standing like a stone wall.