Quotes of Abraham Lincoln
"If as the friends of colonization hope, the present and coming generations of our
countrymen shall by any means, succeed in freeing our land from the dangerous presence
of slavery; and, at the same time, in restoring a captive people to their long-lost fatherland, with bright prospects for the future; and this too, so gradually, that neither races nor
individuals shall have suffered by the change, it will indeed be a glorious
consummation."
-- July 6, 1852 - Eulogy on Henry Clay
"You know I dislike slavery; and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it."
-- August 24, 1855 - Letter to Joshua Speed
"I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who
abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our
progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by
declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created
equal, except Negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are
created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this, I
shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of
hypocrisy."
-- August 24, 1855 - Letter to Joshua Speed
"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure
permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not
expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one
thing or all the other."
-- June 16, 1858 - House Divided Speech in Springfield, Illinois
"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the
social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have
been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office,
nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a
physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid
the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as
they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior
and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position
assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the
white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything."
-- September 18, 1858 - Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois
"Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God,
can not long retain it."
-- April 6, 1859 - Letter to Henry Pierce
"By the 'mud-sill' theory it is assumed that labor and education are incompatible; and any
practical combination of them impossible. According to that theory, a blind horse upon a
tread-mill, is a perfect illustration of what a laborer should be -- all the better for being
blind, that he could not tread out of place, or kick understandingly. According to that
theory, the education of laborers, is not only useless, but pernicious, and dangerous. In
fact, it is, in some sort, deemed a misfortune that laborers should have heads at all."
-- September 30, 1859 - Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society
"I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied
in the Declaration of Independence."
-- February 22, 1861 - Address in Independence Hall
"The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed in fact, by the Articles of
Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in
1776."
-- March 4, 1861 - Lincoln's First Inaugural Address
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to
destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I
could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some
and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored
race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear
because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall
believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe
doing more will help the cause."
-- August 22, 1862 - Letter to Horace Greeley
"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what
we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope
of earth."
-- December 1, 1862 - Lincoln's Second Annual Message to Congress
"And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all
persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and
henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States,
including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the
freedom of said persons."
-- January 1, 1863 - Final Emancipation Proclamation
"You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you;
but, no matter. Fight you, then exclusively to save the Union."
-- August 26, 1863 - Letter to James Conkling
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation,
conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so
conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."
-- November 19, 1863 - Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not
remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have never understood that the
Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment
and feeling."
-- April 4, 1864 - Letter to Albert Hodges
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us
to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's
wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his
orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among
ourselves, and with all nations."
-- March 4, 1865 - Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address
"Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on
him personally."
-- March 17, 1865 - Speech to One Hundred Fortieth Indiana Regiment