U.S. President (1809-1865)
If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must cease. There is no other alternative, for continuing the Government is acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority in such a case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them, for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such a minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy a year or two hence arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it?... Plainly the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861
I ask, then, if experience does not speak in thunder-tones, telling us that the policy which has given peace to the country heretofore, being returned to, gives the greatest promise of peace again.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 15, 1858
I am afraid of the result upon organized action where great results are in view, if any of us allow ourselves to seek out minor or separate points, on which there may be difference of views as to policy and right, and let them keep us from uniting in action upon a great principle in a cause on which we all agree.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech in Chicago, March 1, 1859
Accounts of outrages committed by mobs form the every-day news of the times. They have pervaded the country from New England to Louisiana, they are neither peculiar to the eternal snows of the former nor the burning suns of the latter; they are not the creature of climate, neither are they confined to the slaveholding or the non-slaveholding States. Alike they spring up among the pleasure-hunting masters of Southern slaves, and the order-loving citizens of the land of steady habits. Whatever then their cause may be, it is common to the whole country.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
address to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838
It has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have laboured, and others have, without labour, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
"Fragments of a Tariff Discussion", December 1, 1847
Whenever the issue can be distinctly made, and all extraneous matter thrown out, so that men can fairly see the real difference between the parties, this controversy will soon be settled, and it will be done peaceably too. There will be no war, no violence.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 15, 1858
We expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech at Bloomington, May 29, 1856
On this subject of treating [slavery] as a wrong and limiting its spread, let me say a word. Has anything ever threatened the existence of this Union save and except this very institution of slavery? What is it that we hold most dear amongst us? Our own liberty and prosperity. What has ever threatened our liberty and prosperity save and except this institution of slavery? If this is true, how do you propose to improve the condition of things by enlarging slavery,--by spreading it out and making it bigger? You may have a wen or a cancer upon your person, and not be able to cut it out lest you bleed to death; but surely it is no way to cure it, to engraft it and spread it over your whole body.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Douglas, October 15, 1858
Let none falter who thinks he is right, and we may succeed. But if, after all, we shall fail, be it so: we still shall have the proud consolation of saying to our consciences, and to the departed shade of our country's freedom, that the cause approved of our judgment and adored of our hearts, in disaster, in chains, in torture, in death, we never faltered in defending.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech to the Sub-Treasury, Sangamon Journal, March 6, 1840
I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist among them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist among us, we should not instantly give it up. This I believe of the masses North and South. Doubtless there are individuals on both sides who would not hold slaves under any circumstances, and others who would gladly introduce slavery anew if it were out of existence. We know that some Southern men do free their slaves, go North and become tip-top abolitionists, while some Northern ones go South and become most cruel slave masters.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech at Peoria, Illinois, in reply to Senator Douglas, October 16, 1854
Understanding the spirit of our institutions to aim at the elevation of men, I am opposed to whatever tends to degrade them.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to Theodore Canisius, May 17, 1859
Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time. It will then have been proved that among freemen there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case and pay the cost.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to J. C. Conkling, August 26, 1863
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
attributed, The Lincoln Treasury
This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert real zeal, for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world; enables the enemies of free institutions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites; causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity; and especially because it forces so many good men among ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty, criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech at Peoria, Illinois, in reply to Senator Douglas, October 16, 1854
It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: And this, too, shall pass away.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, September 30, 1859
Again the institution of slavery is only mentioned in the Constitution of the United States two or three times, and in neither of these cases does the word "slavery" or "negro race" occur; but covert language is used each time, and for a purpose full of significance.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 15, 1858
The victor shall soon be the vanquished, if he relax his exertion; and ... the vanquished this year, may be the victor in the next, in spite of all competition.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, September 30, 1859
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
address to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838
It really hurts me very much to suppose that I have wronged anybody on earth.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 13, 1858
The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown, and proclaim his subjects free republicans sooner than will our American masters voluntarily give up their slaves.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to George Robertson, August 15, 1855