The dogmas of the quiet past 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, so we must think anew, and act anew.  We must disenthrall ourselves, 
and then we shall save our country.

 Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.  We of this Congress and this administration 
will be remembered in spite of ourselves.  No personal significance or insignificance can 
spare one or another of us.  The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor 
or dishonor to the last generation.  We say we are for the Union.  The world will not forget 
we say this.  We know how to save the Union.  The world knows we do know how to save it.  
We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility.  In giving freedom to the 
slave, we assure freedom to the free honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.  
We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of earth.  Other means may succeed; 
this could not fail.  The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just a way which if followed the 
world would forever applaud and God must forever bless. 

    Abraham Lincoln, Second Annual message to Congress, December 1st, 1862