Abraham Lincoln

If he knows his own heart, the writer can truly declare, with his hand upon it, that it bears neither hatred, malice, nor uncharitableness, to those who, misled by the cunning secrecy of the Conspirators, and without an inkling or even a suspicion of their fell purposes, went manfully into the field, with a courage
worthy of a better cause, and for four years of bloody conflict, believing that their cause was just, fought the armies of the Union, in a mad effort to destroy the best government yet devised by man upon this planet. […]

The President, like old King Saul, when his term was about to expire, was in a quandary concerning a further lease of the Presidential office. He consulted again the "prophetess" of Georgetown, immortalized by his patronage. She retired to an inner chamber, and, after raising and consulting more than a dozen of distinguished spirits from Hades, she returned to the reception-parlor, where the chief magistrate awaited her, and declared that General Grant would capture Richmond, and that "Honest Old Abe" would be next President. She, however, as the report goes, told him to beware of [Treasury Secretary] Chase. […]

“It has long been a grave question whether any government not too strong for the liberties of its people can be strong enough to maintain its existence in great emergencies. On this point, the present rebellion brought our republic to a severe test, and the Presidential election, occurring in regular course during the rebellion, added not a little to the strain…. The strife of the election is but human nature practically applied to the facts
in the case. What has occurred in this case must ever occur in similar cases. Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us therefore study the incidents in this as philosophy to learn wisdom from and none of them as wrongs to be avenged…” […]

Abraham Lincoln was watching this play when he was assassinated.
(Act III, halfway through Scene 2.) […]

“A house divided against itself cannot stand. 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. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South.” […]