ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUOTES V

U.S. President (1809-1865)

Abraham Lincoln quote

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


For several years past the revenues of the government have been unequal to its expenditures, and consequently loan after loan, sometimes direct and sometimes indirect in form, has been resorted to. By this means a new national debt has been created, and is still growing on us with a rapidity fearful to contemplate--a rapidity only reasonably to be expected in a time of war. This state of things has been produced by a prevailing unwillingness either to increase the tariff or resort to direct taxation. But the one or the other must come. Coming expenditures must be met, and the present debt must be paid; and money cannot always be borrowed for these objects. The system of loans is but temporary in its nature, and must soon explode. It is a system not only ruinous while it lasts, but one that must soon fail and leave us destitute. As an individual who undertakes to live by borrowing soon finds his original means devoured by interest, and, next, no one left to borrow from, so must it be with a government. We repeat, then, that a tariff sufficient for revenue, or a direct tax, must soon be resorted to; and, indeed, we believe this alternative is now denied by no one.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Whig circular, 1843

Tags: national debt


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


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


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

Tags: capitalism


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


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


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


Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

letter to Edwin Stanton, July 14, 1864

Tags: slander


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

Tags: slavery


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


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


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

Tags: slavery


We cannot escape history.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

annual message, December 1, 1862

Tags: history


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

Tags: reason


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

Tags: government


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 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

Tags: slavery


Free labor has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope. The power of hope upon human exertion, and happiness, is wonderful. The slave-master himself has a conception of it; and hence the system of tasks among slaves. The slave whom you can not drive with the lash to break seventy-five pounds of hemp in a day, if you will task him to break a hundred, and promise him pay for all he does over, he will break you a hundred and fifty. You have substituted hope, for the rod. And yet perhaps it does not occur to you, that to the extent of your gain in the case, you have given up the slave system, and adopted the free system of labor.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

fragmentary manuscript of a speech on free labor, September 17, 1859?

Tags: hope


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