U.S. President (1809-1865)
Judge Douglas has said to you that he has not been able to get from me an answer to the question whether I am in favor of negro citizenship. So far as I know, the judge has never asked me the question before.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
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debate with Stephen Douglas, September 18, 1858
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
The provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to William H. Herndon, February 15, 1848
I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.... 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 assigned to the white race.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
fourth debate with Stephen Douglas, Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858
Now my opinion is that the different States have the power to make a negro a citizen under the Constitution of the United States, if they choose.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, September 18, 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
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
I went yesterday to hunt the little plaid stockings, as you wished; but found that McKnight has quit business, and Allen had not a single pair of the description you give, and only one plaid pair of any sort that I thought would fit "Eddy's dear little feet." I have a notion to make another trial tomorrow morning.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to his wife, April 16, 1848
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
Once admit the position that a man rightfully holds another man as property on one side of the line, and you must, when it suits his convenience to come to the other side, admit that he has the same right to hold his property there.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech in Chicago, March 1, 1859
We know, Southern men declare that their slaves are better off than hired laborers amongst us. How little they know, whereof they speak! There is no permanent class of hired laborers amongst us. Twenty-five years ago, I was a hired laborer. The hired laborer of yesterday, labors on his own account today; and will hire others to labor for him tomorrow.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
fragmentary manuscript of a speech on free labor, September 17, 1859?
Whatever motive a man or a set of men may have for making annexation of property or territory, it is very easy to assert, but much less easy to disprove, that it is necessary for the wants of the country.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 7, 1858
I entertain the opinion, upon evidence sufficient to my mind, that the fathers of this government placed that institution where the public mind did rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. Let me ask why they made provision that the source of slavery--the African slave-trade--should be cut off at the end of twenty years? Why did they make provision that in all the new territory we owned at that time, slavery should be forever inhibited? Why stop its spread in one direction and cut off its source in another, if they did not look to its being placed in the course of ultimate extinction?
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 15, 1858
If you have ever studied geometry, you remember that by a course of reasoning Euclid proves that all the angles in a triangle are equal to the two right angles. Euclid has shown how to work it out. Now, if you undertake to disprove that proposition, and to show that it is erroneus, would you prove it to be false by calling Euclid a liar?
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, September 18, 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
Judge Douglas has again, for, I believe, the fifth time, if not the seventh, in my presence, reiterated his charge of a conspiracy or combination between the National Democrats and Republicans. What evidence Judge Douglas has upon this subject I know not, inasmuch as he never favors us with any.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 7, 1858
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
I don't want to be unjustly accused of dealing illiberally or unfairly with an adversary, either in court, or in a political canvass, or anywhere else. I would despise myself if I supposed myself ready to deal less liberally with an adversary than I was willing to be treated myself.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, September 18, 1858
I will add this, that if there be any man who does not believe that slavery is wrong in the three aspects which I have mentioned, or in any one of them, that man is misplaced and ought to leave us. While, on the other hand, if there be any man in the Republican party who is impatient over the necessity springing from its actual presence, and is impatient of the constitutional guaranties thrown around it, and would act in disregard of these, he too is misplaced, standing with us. He will find his place somewhere else; for we have a due regard, so far as we are capable of understanding them, for all these things.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 13, 1858
That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles--right and wrong--throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 15, 1858