They have seen in his round, jolly fruitful face, post-offices, land-offices, marshalships and cabinet-appointments, charge-ships and foreign missions, bursting out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. Nobody has ever expected me to be president. In my poor, lean lank face nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting.

Speech in Springfield, Illinois (17 July 1858), referring to Stephen Douglas. Quoted in Charles Sumner (1861), The Promises of the Declaration of Independence