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| Preface | |
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| Prologue: "Not much of me," Autobiography, December 20, 1859 | |
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| "Peculiar Ambition," 1831-1853 | |
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| "I am young and unknown," Communication to the People of Sangamo County, March 9, 1832 | |
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| "I shall be governed by their will," Letter to the Editor of the Sangamo Journal, June 13, 1836 | |
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| "Founded on both injustice and bad policy," Protest in the Illinois Legislature on Slavery, March 3, 1837 | |
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| "Cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason," Speech to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, January 27, 1838 | |
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| "Bow to it I never will," Speech on the Subtreasury, December 26, 1839 | |
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| "The most miserable man living," Letter to John T. Stuart, January 23, 1841 | |
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| "An evil tree can not bring forth good fruit," Letter to Williamson Durley, October 3, 1845 | |
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| "I am not a member of any ... Church," Handbill Addressed to the Voters of the Seventh Congressional District, July 31, 1846 | |
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| "No one man should hold the power," Letter to William Herndon, February 15, 1848 | |
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| "I like the letters very much," Letter to Mary Todd Lincoln, April 16, 1848 | |
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| "Resolve to be honest," Notes for a law lecture, July 1, 1850? | |
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| "More painful than pleasant," Letter to John D. Johnston, January 12, 1851 | |
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| "Half Slave and Half Free," 1854-1860 | |
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| "The legitimate object of government," Fragment on government, July 1, 1854? | |
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| "Our republican robe is soiled," Speech at Peoria, October 16, 1854 | |
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| "Where I now stand," Letter to Joshua Speed, August 24, 1855 | |
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| "Can we not come together, for the future," Speech at a Republican banquet, December 10, 1856 | |
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| "All the powers of earth seem rapidly combining against him," Speech in Springfield, June 26, 1857 | |
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| "A question of interest," Fragment on slavery, 1857-1858? | |
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| "A house divided," Speech to the Republican state convention, June 16, 1858 | |
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| "Construed so differently from any thing intended by me," Letter to John L. Scripps, June 23, 1858 | |
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| "Public sentiment is every thing," Notes for speeches, August 1858 | |
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| "Blowing out the moral lights around us," First debate, at Ottawa, August 21, 1858 | |
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| "The social and political equality of the ... races," Fourth debate, at Charleston, September 18, 1858 | |
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| "A moral, a social and a political wrong," Sixth debate, at Quincy, October 13, 1858 | |
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| "The eternal struggle between ... right and wrong," Seventh debate, at Alton, October 15, 1858 | |
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| "For, and not against the Union," Last speech of the campaign, October 30, 1858 | |
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| "Opens the way for all," Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, September 30, 1859 | |
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| "Right makes might," Speech at the Cooper Union, February 27, 1860 | |
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| "I am not the first choice of ... many," Letter to Samuel Galloway, March 24, 1860 | |
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| "The taste is in my mouth," Letter to Lyman Trumbull, April 29, 1860 | |
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| "I accept the nomination," Letter to George Ashmun, May 23, 1860 | |
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| "A piece of silly affection," Letter to Grace Bedell, October 19, 1860 | |
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| "The Perpetuity of Popular Government," 1860-1861 | |
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| "The tug has to come," Letter to Lyman Trumbull, December 10, 1860 | |
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| "There is no cause for such fears," Letter to Alexander H. Stephens, December 22, 1860 | |
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| "It is the end of us," Letter to James T. Hale, January 11, 1861 | |
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| "An affectionate farewell," Farewell Address at Springfield, February 11, 1861 | |
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| "The Union ... is perpetual," First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861 | |
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| "To suppress said combinations," Proclamation calling the militia, April 15, 1861 | |
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| "The most prompt, and efficient means," Letter to Winfield Scott, April 25, 1861 | |
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| "A People's contest," Message to Congress, July 4, 1861 | |
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| "Constantly drilled, disciplined, and instructed," Memoranda of military policy suggested by the Bull Run defeat, July 23, 27, 1861 | |
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| "To conform to ... the act of Congress," Letter to John C. Fremont, September 2, 1861 | |
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| "I cannot assume this reckless position," Letter to Orville H. Browning, September 22, 1861 | |
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| "For a vast future also," Message to Congress, December 3, 1861 | |
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| "Grumbling despatches and letters," Letter to David Hunter, December 31, 1861 | |
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| "We Cannot Escape History," 1862 | |
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| "Making our advantage an over-match for his," Letter to Don Carlos Buell, January 13, 1862 | |
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| "Gradual ... emancipation, is better for all," Message to Congress, March 6, 1862 | |
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| "But you must act," Letter to George McClellan, April 9, 1862 | |
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| "Questions ... I reserve to myself," Proclamation revoking General Hunter's order of emancipation, May 19, 1862 | |
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| "I expect to maintain this contest," Letter to William H. Seward, June 28, 1862 | |
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| "The incidents of the war can not be avoided," Appeal to the border state representatives, July 12, 1862 | |
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| "Leaving any available card unplayed," Letter to Reverdy Johnson, July 26, 1862 | |
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| "A single half-defeat," Letter to Agenor-Etienne de Gasparin, August 4, 1862 | |
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| "The ban is still upon you," Address on colonization, August 14, 1862 | |
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| "I would save the Union," Letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862 | |
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| "The will of God prevails," Meditation on divine will, September 2?, 1862 | |
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| "Shall be ... thenceforward, and forever free," Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, September 22, 1862 | |
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| "The Writ of Habeas Corpus is suspended," Proclamation, September 24, 1862 | |
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| "Breath alone kills no rebels," Letter to Hannibal Hamlin, September 28, 1862 | |
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| "If we never try, we shall never succeed," Letter to George McClellan, October 13, 1862 | |
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| "I do not see that their superiority of success has been so marked," Letter to Carl Schurz, November 10, 1862 | |
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| "The last best, hope of earth," Message to Congress, December 1, 1862 | |
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| "In this sad world of ours," Letter to Fanny McCullough, December 23, 1862 | |
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| "A New Birth of Freedom," 1863 | |
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| "Are, and henceforth shall be free," Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863 | |
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| "Broken eggs can not be mended," Letter to John A. McClernand, January 8, 1863 | |
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| "I will risk the dictatorship," Letter to Joseph Hooker, January 26, 1863 | |
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| "There is no eligible route for us into Richmond," Memorandum on Joseph Hooker's plan of campaign against Richmond, ca. April 6-10, 1863 | |
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| "Constantly denounced and opposed," Letter to Isaac Arnold, May 26, 1863 | |
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| "Lee's Army ... is your true objective point," Letter to Joseph Hooker, June 10, 1863 | |
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| "Indispensable to the public Safety," Letter to Erastus Corning, June 12, 1863 | |
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| "Few things are so troublesome," Letter to William Kellogg, June 29, 1863 | |
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| "You were right, and I was wrong," Letter to Ulysses S. Grant, July 13, 1863 | |
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| "I am distressed immeasureably," Letter to George G. Meade, July 14, 1863 | |
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| "The same protection to all its soldiers," Order, July 30, 1863 | |
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| "I can not consent to suspend the draft," Letter to Horatio Seymour, August 7, 1863 | |
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| "It works doubly," Letter to Ulysses S. Grant, August 9, 1863 | |
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| "I am not watching you with an evil-eye," Letter to William S. Rosecrans, August 10, 1863 | |
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| "A fair specimen of what has occurred to me through life," Letters to James H. Hackett, August 17, November 2, 1863 | |
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| "The heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion," Letter to James C. Conkling, August 26, 1863 | |
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| "Give up all footing upon constitution or law," Letter to Salmon P. Chase, September 2, 1863 | |
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| "An idea I have been trying to repudiate for quite a year," Letter to Henry W. Halleck, September 19, 1863 | |
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| "Quarrel not at all," Letter to James M. Cutts, Jr., October 26, 1863 | |
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| "Give me a tangible nucleus," Letter to Nathaniel P. Banks, November 5, 1863 | |
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| "A new birth of freedom," Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863 | |
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| "Events Have Controlled Me," 1863-1864 | |
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| "The new reckoning," Message to Congress, December 8, 1863 | |
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| "A full pardon," Proclamation of amnesty and reconstruction, December 8, 1863 | |
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| "The jewel of liberty," Letter to Michael Hahn, March 13, 1864 | |
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| "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong," Letter to Albert G. Hodges, April 4, 1864 | |
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| "The world has never had a good definition of ... liberty," Address at Sanitary Fair, April 18, 1864 | |
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| "I wish not to obtrude any constraints ... upon you," Letter to Ulysses S. Grant, April 30, 1864 | |
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| "Not best to swap horses when crossing streams," Reply to delegation from the National Union League, June 9, 1864 | |
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| "Unprepared ... to be inflexibly committed to any single plan," Proclamation concerning reconstruction, July 8, 1864 | |
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| "Will be received and considered," Letter "To Whom it may concern," July 18, 1864 | |
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| "Not ... an entirely impartial judge," Letter to John McMahon, August 6, 1864 | |
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| "Hold on with a bull-dog gripe," Telegram to Ulysses S. Grant, August 17, 1864 | |
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| "The curses of Heaven," Letter to Charles D. Robinson, August 17, 1864 | |
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| "Equal privileges in the race of life," Speech to One Hundred Sixty-sixth Ohio Regiment, August 22, 1864 | |
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| "This Administration will not be re-elected," Memorandum, August 23, 1864 | |
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| "Go far towards losing the whole Union cause," Letter to William T. Sherman, September 19, 1864 | |
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| "I am struggling to maintain the government, not to overthrow it," Response to a serenade, October 19, 1864 | |
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| "The election was a necessity," Response to a serenade, November 10, 1864 | |
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| "To Bind Up the Nation's Wounds," 1864-1865 | |
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| "So costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom," Letter to Lydia Bixby, November 21, 1864 | |
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| "An issue which can only be ... decided by victory," Message to Congress, December 6, 1864 | |
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| "The honor is all yours," Letter to William T. Sherman, December 26, 1864 | |
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| "Time ... is more important than ever before," Letter to Edwin Stanton, January 5, 1865 | |
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| "My son ... wishes to see something of the war," Letter to Ulysses S. Grant, January 19, 1865 | |
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| "Three things are indispensable," Letter to William H. Seward, January 31, 1865 | |
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| "A King's cure for all the evils," Response to a serenade, February 1, 1865 | |
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| "With charity for all," Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865 | |
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| "A truth which I thought needed to be told," Letter to Thurlow Weed, March 15, 1865 | |
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| "Let the thing be pressed," Telegram to Ulysses S. Grant, April 7, 1865 | |
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| "No exclusive, and inflexible plan can safely be prescribed," Speech, April 11, 1865 | |
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| Chronology of Abraham Lincoln | |
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| Selected Bibliography | |