ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUOTES IV
U.S. President (1809-1865)
The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
fragment of a speech from July 1, 1854, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert to fleece the people, and now that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people's money to settle the quarrel.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech to Illinois legislature, Sangamo Journal, January 28, 1837
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
attributed, The Wit & Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln
Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to Edwin Stanton, July 14, 1864
In law it is a good policy never to plead what you need not, lest you oblige yourself to prove what you cannot.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to Usher F. Linder, February 20, 1848
The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to William H. Herndon, July 10, 1848
Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
address to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838
Great distance in either time or space has wonderful power to lull and render quiescent the human mind.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech, February 22, 1842
In this sad world of ours sorrow comes to all, and to the young it comes with bittered agony because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to expect it.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to Fanny McCullough, December 23, 1862
I do not believe it is a constitutional right to hold slaves in a Territory of the United States. I believe the decision was improperly made, and I go for reversing it.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 15, 1858
On my return from Philadelphia, yesterday, where, in my anxiety I had been led to attend the whig convention, I found your last letter. I was so tired and sleepy, having ridden all night, that I could not answer it till today; and now I have to do so in the H. R. The leading matter in your letter, is your wish to return to the side of the mountains. Will you be a good girl in all things, if I consent? Then come along, and that as soon as possible. Having got the idea in my head, I shall be impatient till I see you.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to his wife, June 12, 1848
If a man will stand up and assert, and repeat and reassert, that two and two do not make four, I know nothing in the power of argument that can stop him.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech at Peoria, Illinois, in reply to Senator Douglas, October 16, 1854
Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech in the United States House of Representatives, January 12, 1848
And you are entirely free from head-ache? That is good -- good -- considering it is the first spring you have been free from it since we were acquainted. I am afraid you will get so well, and fat, and young, as to be wanting to marry again.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to his wife, April 16, 1848
And I do think--I repeat, though I said it on a former occasion--that Judge Douglas, and whoever, like him, teaches that the negro has no share, humble though it may be, in the Declaration of Independence, is going back to the era of our liberty and independence, and, so far as in him lies, muzzling the cannon that thunders its annual joyous return; that he is blowing out the moral lights around us, when he contends that whoever wants slaves has a right to hold them; that he is penetrating, so far as lies in his power, the human soul, and eradicating the light of reason and the love of liberty, when he is in every possible way preparing the public mind, by his fast influence, for making the institution of slavery perpetual and national.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 7, 1858
Without the assistance of that Divine Being ... I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech, February 11, 1861
We cannot escape history.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
annual message, December 1, 1862
If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech, June 16, 1858
If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B. Why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A? You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own. You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own. But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
fragment of a speech from 1854, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
The judge has alluded to the Declaration of Independence, and insisted that negroes are not included in that Declaration; and that it is a slander upon the framers of that instrument to suppose that negroes were meant therein; and he asks you: Is it possible to believe that Mr. Jefferson, who penned the immortal paper, could have supposed himself applying the language of that instrument to the negro race, and yet held a portion of that race in slavery? Would he not at once have freed them? I only have to remark upon this part of the judge's speech (and that, too, very briefly, for I shall not detain myself, or you, upon that point for any great length of time), that I believe the entire records of the world, from the date of the Declaration of Independence up to within three years ago, may be searched in vain for one single affirmation, from one single man, that the negro was not included in the Declaration of Independence; I think I may defy Judge Douglas to show that he ever said so, that Washington ever said so, that any President ever said so, that any member of Congress ever said so, or that any living man upon the whole earth ever said so, until the necessities of the present policy of the Democratic party in regard to slavery had to invent that affirmation. And I will remind Judge Douglas and this audience that while Mr. Jefferson was the owner of slaves, as undoubtedly he was, in speaking upon this very subject, he used the strong language that "he trembled for his country when he remembered that God was just."
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 7, 1858