U.S. President (1809-1865)
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
Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech delivered as candidate for the state legislature, March 9, 1832
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
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
The truth about the matter is this: Judge Douglas has sung paeans to his "popular sovereignty" doctrine until his Supreme Court, cooperating with him, has squatted his squatter sovereignty out. But he will keep up this species of humbuggery about squatter sovereignty. He has at last invented this sort of do-nothing sovereignty--that the people may exclude slavery by a sort of "sovereignty" that is exercised by doing nothing at all. Is not that running his popular sovereignty down awfully? Has it not got down as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death?
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 13, 1858
I have believed that in the Republican situation in Illinois, if we, the Republicans of this State, had made Judge Douglas our candidate for the Senate of the United States last year, and had elected him, there would today be no Republican party in this Union. I believe that the principles around which we have rallied and organized that party would live; they will live under all circumstances, while we will die. They would reproduce another party in the future. But in the meantime all the labor that has been done to build up the present Republican party would be entirely lost, and perhaps twenty years of time, before we would again have formed around that principle as solid, extensive, and formidable an organization as we have, standing shoulder to shoulder, tonight, in harmony and strength around the Republican banner.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech in Chicago, March 1, 1859
But where is the philosophy or statesmanship which assumes that you can quiet that disturbing element in our society which has disturbed us for more than half a century, which has been the only serious danger that has threatened our institutions--I say, where is the philosophy or the statesmanship based on the assumption that we are to quit talking about it, and that the public mind is all at once to cease being agitated by it?
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 15, 1858
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
Take these two things and consider them together, present the question of planting a State with the institution of slavery by the side of a question of who shall be governor of Kansas for a year or two, and is there a man here--is there a man on earth--who would not say the governor question is the little one, and the slavery question is the great one? I ask any honest Democrat if the small, the local, and the trivial and temporary question is not, Who shall be governor?--while the durable, the important and the mischievous one is, Shall this soil be planted with slavery?
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech at Columbus, Ohio, September 16, 1859
If we do not allow ourselves to be allured from the strict path of our duty by such a device as shifting our ground and throwing us into the rear of a leader who denies our first principle, denies that there is an absolute wrong in the institution of slavery, then the future of the Republican cause is safe, and victory is assured.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech in Chicago, March 1, 1859
Now, at this day in the history of the world we can no more foretell where the end of this slavery agitation will be than we can see the end of the world itself.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, September 18, 1858
But if the judge continues to put forward the declaration that there is an unholy, unnatural alliance between the Republicans and the National Democrats, I now want to enter my protest against receiving him as an entirely competent witness upon the subject.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
debate with Stephen Douglas, October 7, 1858
Each man shall do precisely as he pleases with himself, and with all those things which exclusively concern him.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech at Columbus, Ohio, September 16, 1859
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
Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech, February 27, 1860
Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
attributed, Abraham Lincoln, Constitutionalism, and Equal Rights in the Civil War Era
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
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