Quotes from Ronald C. White Jr.

Without the assistance of that Divine Being, who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him, who can go with me, and remain with you and be every where for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me.

Public sentiment is everything.13 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.

Don't kneel to me. That is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank Him for the liberty you will enjoy hereafter.

context, spoke of the threat of a "mobocratic spirit"18 seen in an outbreak of mob violence that

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another, drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still must it be said, that the judgments of the Lord are righteous altogether.

If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

With malice toward none; with charity for all.

Almost 6,500 Union and Confederate soldiers were killed in one day at Antietam. This staggering number was four times the number that would be killed in the landings at Normandy on June 6, 1944. The total for this one day was more than the deaths in all of the other wars of the nineteenth century—the War of 1812, the Indian wars, the Mexican War, and the Spanish-American War—combined.

The struggle of today, is not altogether for today—it is for a vast future also. With a reliance on Providence, all the more firm and earnest, let us proceed in the great task which events have devolved upon us.

The dogmas of the quiet past,76 are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new,77 so we must think anew, and act anew.

Crittenden Plan because it would permit slavery to expand into the West. Congressman

he looked like some hoosier just starting for home from California, with store clothes and a biled shirt on.

He believed "the leading rule"21 for any lawyer was "diligence." Lincoln counseled, "Leave nothing for to-morrow which can be done today.… Whatever piece of business you have in hand, before stopping, do all the labor pertaining to it which can then be done.

Though he recognized that there were many qualities of a successful lawyer, he believed this one virtue trumped all others. "However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a speech.

Fellow Citizens, I presume22 you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by my friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance. I am in favor of a national bank. I am in favor of the internal improvement system and a high protection tariff. These are my sentiments and political principles. If elected I shall be thankful; if not it will be all the same.

Broken to it, I, too may be; bow to it I never will.