Quote collection
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"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."
"Near eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration, that for SOME men to enslave OTHERS is a "sacred right of self-government." These principles can not stand together. They are as opposite as God and mammon; and whoever holds to the one, must despise the other."
"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it."
"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war."
"Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease."
"I have always hated slavery, I think as much as any Abolitionist."
"If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business."
"Knavery and flattery are blood relations."
"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."
"Dear Sir: Yours of the 24th. asking 'the best mode of obtaining a thorough knowledge of the law' is received. The mode is very simple, though laborious, and tedious. It is only to get the books, and read, and study them carefully. Begin with Blackstone's Commentaries, and after reading it carefully through, say twice, take up Chitty's Pleading, Greenleaf's Evidence, & Story's Equity &c. in succession. Work, work, work, is the main thing."
"What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other's consent. I say this is the leading principle - the sheet anchor of American republicanism."
"Kindness is the only service that will stand the storm of life and not wash out. It will wear well and will be remembered long after the prism of politeness or the complexion of courtesy has faded away."
"Tell the truth and you won't have so much to remember"
"Should my administration prove to be a very wicked one...or a very foolish one, if you, the people, are true to yourselves and the Constitution, there is little harm I can do, thank God."
"The legalized liquor business is the tragedy of our civilization. Alcohol is the greatest and most blighting curse of our modern civilization. The liquor seller is simply and only a privileged malefactor - a criminal."
"I shall not do more than I can, and I shall do all I can to save the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination. I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing."
"Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully."
"You are young, and I am older; You are hopeful, I am not- Enjoy life, ere it grow colder- Pluck the roses ere they rot."
"By all means, don't say, "if I can," say "I will.""
"The written word may be man's greatest invention. It allows us to converse with the dead, the absent, and the unborn."