U.S. President (1809-1865)
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
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
"Definition of Democracy", August 1, 1858
Whatever may be the result of this ephemeral contest between Judge Douglas and myself, I see the day rapidly approaching when his pill of sectionalism, which he has been thrusting down the throats of Republicans for years past, will be crowded down his own throat.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 7, 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
The slave-breeders and slave-traders are a small, odious, and detested class among you; and yet in politics they dictate the course of all of you, and are as completely your masters as you are the master of your own negroes.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to Joshua F. Speed, August 22, 1855
Judge Douglas declares that if any community wants slavery they have a right to have it. He can say that logically, if he says that there is no wrong in slavery; but if you admit that there is a wrong in it, he cannot logically say that anybody has a right to do wrong.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 7, 1858
I would like to call upon his friends everywhere to consider how they have come in so short a time to view this matter in a way so entirely different from their former belief; to ask whether they are not being borne along by an irresistible current--whither, they know not.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 15, 1858
Property is the fruit of labor--property is desirable--is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
reply to New York Workingmen's Democratic Republican Association, March 21, 1864
The judge tells us in proceeding, that he is opposed to making any odious distinctions between free and slave States. I am altogether unaware that the Republicans are in favor of making any odious distinctions between the free and slave States. But there still is a difference, I think, between Judge Douglas and the Republicans in this. I suppose the real difference between Judge Douglas and his friends and the Republicans, on the contrary, is that the judge is not in favor of making any difference between slavery and liberty.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 7, 1858
The judge has also detained us awhile in regard to the distinction between his party and our party. His he assumes to be a national party--ours a sectional one. He does this in asking the question whether this country has any interest in the maintenance of the Republican party? He assumes that our party is altogether sectional--that the party to which he adheres is national; and the argument is that no party can be a rightful party--can be based upon rightful principles--unless it can announce its principles everywhere. I presume that Judge Douglas could not go into Russia and announce the doctrine of national Democracy; he could not denounce the doctrine of kings and emperors and monarchies in Russia; and it may be true of this country, that in some places we may not be able to proclaim a doctrine as clearly true as the truth of Democracy, because there is a section so directly opposed to it that they will not tolerate us in doing so. Is it the true test of the soundness of a doctrine, that in some places people won't let you proclaim it? Is that the way to test the truth of any doctrine?
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
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
No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 15, 1858
Judge Douglas and I have made perhaps forty speeches apiece, and we have now for the fifth time met face to face to debate, and up to this day I have not found either Judge Douglas or any friend of his taking hold of the Republican platform or laying his finger upon anything in it that is wrong.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 7, 1858
It strikes me there is some difference between holding a man responsible for an act which he has not done, and holding him responsible for an act that he has done.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 13, 1858
Is it not a false statesmanship that undertakes to build up a system of policy upon the basis of caring nothing about the very thing that everybody does care the most about?
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 15, 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
I cannot but express gratitude that the true view of this element of discord among us--as I believe it is--is attracting more and more attention.
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