In the Words of Abraham Lincoln

“Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.”
– Address Before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, January 27, 1838

“Let none falter, who thinks he is right, and we may succeed.”
– Speech at Springfield, December 26, 1839

“Most governments have been based, practically, on the denial of equal rights of men…ours began, by affirming those rights. They said, some men are too ignorant, and vicious, to share in government. Possibly so, said we; and, by your system, you would always keep them ignorant, and vicious...We proposed to give all a chance; and we expected the weak to grow stronger, the ignorant wiser; and all better, and happier together.”
– Fragment on slavery, circa July 1854

“Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man’s nature—opposition to it is in his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks, and throes, and convulsions must ceaselessly follow."
– Speech at Peoria, October 16, 1854

Repeal the Missouri Compromise—repeal all compromises—repeal the declaration of independence—repeal all past history, you still can not repeal human nature. It still will be the abundance of man’s heart, that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.
– Speech at Peoria, October 16, 1854

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.”
– Letter to Isham Reavis, November 5, 1855

“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.”
– House Divided Speech, June 16, 1858

“If we cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do nothing that will impose slavery upon any other creature.”
– Speech at Chicago, July 10, 1858

“Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.”
– Debate at Ottawa, August 21, 1858

“I believe the declaration that ‘all men are created equal’ is the great fundamental principle upon which our free institutions rest.”
– Letter to James N. Brown, October 18, 1858

“I have found that it is not entirely safe, when one is misrepresented under his very nose, to allow this misrepresentation to go uncontradicted.”
– Speech at Columbus, September 16, 1859

“A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems. And not only so. It gives a relish, and facility, for successfully pursuing the [yet] unsolved ones.”
– Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, September 30, 1859

“The people—the people—are the rightful masters of both congresses and courts—not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it.”
– Speech in Kansas, December 1859

“I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind; and therefore, I will simply say that I am for those means which will give the greatest good to the greatest numbers.”
– Speech at Cincinnati, February 12, 1861

“I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.”
– Speech at Philadelphia, February 22, 1861

“May our children and our children’s children to a thousand generations, continue to enjoy the benefits conferred upon us by a united country, and have cause yet to rejoice under those glorious institutions bequeathed us by Washington and his compeers.”
– Speech at Frederick, Maryland, October 4, 1862

“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.”
– Message to Congress, December 1, 1862

"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."
– Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863

“War at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible.”
– Speech at Philadelphia, June 16, 1864

“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.”
– Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865