U.S. President (1809-1865)
But where is the philosophy or statesmanship which assumes that you can quiet that disturbing element in our society which has disturbed us for more than half a century, which has been the only serious danger that has threatened our institutions--I say, where is the philosophy or the statesmanship based on the assumption that we are to quit talking about it, and that the public mind is all at once to cease being agitated by it?
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
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debate with Stephen Douglas, October 15, 1858
On the question of liberty, as a principle, we are not what we have been. When we were the political slaves of King George, and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that "all men are created equal" a self-evident truth, but now when we have grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim "a self-evident lie." The Fourth of July has not quite dwindled away; it is still a great day--for burning fire-crackers!
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to George Robertson, August 15, 1855
There is a vague popular belief that lawyers are necessarily dishonest. I say vague, because when we consider to what extent confidence and honors are reposed in and conferred upon lawyers by the people, it appears improbable that their impression of dishonesty is very distinct and vivid. Yet the impression is common, almost universal. Let no young man choosing the law for a calling for a moment yield to the popular belief. Resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer. Choose some other occupation, rather than one in the choosing of which you do, in advance, consent to be a knave.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
memorandum for law lecture, 1850
I have never manifested any impatience with the necessities that spring from the actual presence of black people amongst us, and the actual existence of slavery amongst us where it does already exist; but I have insisted that, in legislating for new countries where it does not exist, there is no just rule other than that of moral and abstract right. With reference to those new countries, those maxims as to the right of a people to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" were the just rules to be constantly referred to. There is no misunderstanding this, except by men interested to misunderstand it.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 7, 1858
Our national strife springs not from our permanent part, not from the land we inhabit, not from our national homestead. There is no possible severing of this but would multiply and not mitigate evils among us. In all its adaptations and aptitudes it demands union and abhors separation. In fact it would ere long force reunion, however much of blood and treasure the separation might have cost.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
annual message, December 1, 1862
The provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to William H. Herndon, February 15, 1848
I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.... I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior assigned to the white race.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
fourth debate with Stephen Douglas, Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858
I went yesterday to hunt the little plaid stockings, as you wished; but found that McKnight has quit business, and Allen had not a single pair of the description you give, and only one plaid pair of any sort that I thought would fit "Eddy's dear little feet." I have a notion to make another trial tomorrow morning.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to his wife, April 16, 1848
I entertain the opinion, upon evidence sufficient to my mind, that the fathers of this government placed that institution where the public mind did rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. Let me ask why they made provision that the source of slavery--the African slave-trade--should be cut off at the end of twenty years? Why did they make provision that in all the new territory we owned at that time, slavery should be forever inhibited? Why stop its spread in one direction and cut off its source in another, if they did not look to its being placed in the course of ultimate extinction?
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 15, 1858
If you have ever studied geometry, you remember that by a course of reasoning Euclid proves that all the angles in a triangle are equal to the two right angles. Euclid has shown how to work it out. Now, if you undertake to disprove that proposition, and to show that it is erroneus, would you prove it to be false by calling Euclid a liar?
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, September 18, 1858
I will add this, that if there be any man who does not believe that slavery is wrong in the three aspects which I have mentioned, or in any one of them, that man is misplaced and ought to leave us. While, on the other hand, if there be any man in the Republican party who is impatient over the necessity springing from its actual presence, and is impatient of the constitutional guaranties thrown around it, and would act in disregard of these, he too is misplaced, standing with us. He will find his place somewhere else; for we have a due regard, so far as we are capable of understanding them, for all these things.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 13, 1858
Judge Douglas has said to you that he has not been able to get from me an answer to the question whether I am in favor of negro citizenship. So far as I know, the judge has never asked me the question before.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, September 18, 1858
I say today, that we will have no end to the slavery agitation until it takes one turn or the other. I do not mean that when it takes a turn toward ultimate extinction it will be in a day, nor in a year, nor in two years. I do not suppose that in the most peaceful way ultimate extinction would occur in less than a hundred years at least; but that it will occur in the best way for both races, in God's own good time, I have no doubt.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, September 18, 1858
I have found that it is not entirely safe, when one is misrepresented under his very nose, to allow the misrepresentation to go uncontradicted.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech at Columbus, Ohio, September 16, 1859
If we do not allow ourselves to be allured from the strict path of our duty by such a device as shifting our ground and throwing us into the rear of a leader who denies our first principle, denies that there is an absolute wrong in the institution of slavery, then the future of the Republican cause is safe, and victory is assured.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech in Chicago, March 1, 1859
Have we ever had any peace on this slavery question? When are we to have peace upon it if it is kept in the position it now occupies? How are we ever to have peace upon it? That is an important question.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, September 18, 1858
This slavery element is a durable element of discord among us, and ... we shall probably not have perfect peace in this country with it until it either masters the free principle in our government, or is so far mastered by the free principle as for the public mind to rest in the belief that it is going to end.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech at Columbus, Ohio, September 16, 1859
He who does something at the head of one regiment, will eclipse him who does nothing at the head of a hundred.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to Major General David Hunter, December 31, 1861
That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles--right and wrong--throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 15, 1858
There is something so ludicrous in promises of good or threats of evil a great way off as to render the whole subject with which they are connected easily turned into ridicule.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech, February 22, 1842