ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUOTES V

U.S. President (1809-1865)

Abraham Lincoln quote

Notice: Undefined variable: id in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter.php on line 25

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
Notice: Undefined variable: id in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter.php on line 35

fragment of a speech from 1854, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln


Notice: Undefined variable: id in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter.php on line 61

Tags: slavery


The negative principle that no law is free law, is not much known except among lawyers.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

speech at Peoria, Illinois, in reply to Senator Douglas, October 16, 1854


Nobody has ever expected me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank face, nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

speech, July 17, 1858


It follows as a matter of course that a half-hour answer to a speech of an hour and a half can be but a very hurried one.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

debate with Stephen Douglas, September 18, 1858


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


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


I see the signs of the approaching triumph of the Republicans in the bearing of their political adversaries. A great deal of their war with us nowadays is mere bushwhacking.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

speech at New Haven, Connecticut, March 6, 1860

Tags: Republicans


I hold that if the Almighty had ever made a set of men that should do all the eating and none of the work, he would have made them with mouths only and no hands, and if he had ever made another class that he intended should do all the work and none of the eating, he would have made them without mouths and with all hands.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

notes for speech in Cincinnati, Ohio, September 17, 1859


Military glory -- that attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

speech in opposition to the Mexican-American War, January 12, 1848

Tags: war


I hope nobody has understood me as trying to sustain the doctrine that we have a right to quarrel with Kentucky or Virginia, or any of the slave States, about the institution of slavery--thus giving the judge an opportunity to make himself eloquent and valiant against us in fighting for their rights. I expressly declared in my opening speech that I had neither the inclination to exercise, nor the belief in the existence of the right to interfere with the States of Kentucky or Virginia in doing as they pleased with slavery or any other existing institution. Then what becomes of all his eloquence in behalf of the rights of States, which are assailed by no living man?

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

debate with Stephen Douglas, October 13, 1858


I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

letter to John T. Stuart, January 23, 1841

Tags: depression


You say men ought to be hung for the way they are executing the law; I say the way it is being executed is quite as good as any of its antecedents. It is being executed in the precise way which was intended from the first, else why does no Nebraska man express astonishment or condemnation? Poor Reeder is the only public man who has been silly enough to believe that anything like fairness was ever intended, and he has been bravely undeceived.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

letter to Joshua F. Speed, August 22, 1855


If the Republicans, who think slavery is wrong, get possession of the general government, we may not root out the evil at once, but may at least prevent its extension. If I find a venomous snake lying on the open praire, I seize the first stick and kill him at once. But if that snake is in bed with my children, I must be more cautious. I shall, in striking the snake, also strike the children, or arouse the reptile to bite the children. Slavery is the venomous snake in bed with the children. But if the question is whether to kill it on the prairie or put it in bed with other children, I think we'd kill it!

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

"Speech at Hartford", Evening Press, March 5, 1860

Tags: slavery


If you intend to go to work, there is no better place than right where you are; if you do not intend to go to work, you cannot get along anywhere. Squirming and crawling about from place to place can do no good.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

letter to John D. Johnston, November 4, 1851

Tags: work


The man does not live who is more devoted to peace than I am, none who would do more to preserve it, but it may be necessary to put the foot down firmly.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

speech, February 21, 1861

Tags: peace


Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature -- opposition to it, in his love of justice.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

speech at Peoria, Illinois, in reply to Senator Douglas, October 16, 1854


I believe I shall never be old enough to speak without embarrassment when I have nothing to talk about.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

response to a serenade, December 6, 1864


Many free countries have lost their liberty, and ours may lose hers; but, if she shall, be it my proudest plume, not that I was the last to desert, but that I never deserted her.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

speech to the Sub-Treasury, Sangamon Journal, March 6, 1840


All I ask for the negro is that if you do not like him, let him alone. If God gave him but little, that little let him enjoy.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

speech, July 17, 1858


The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861

Tags: memory