Lincoln, Abraham

[unionblue]

"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today."

Unionblue

[samgrant]

"In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human
right is endangered if our enemies succeed. There is more involved in this
contest than is realized by every one."
--From the August 18, 1864 Speech to the 164th Ohio Regiment

[samgrant]

"My purpose is to be, in my action, just and constitutional; and yet
practical, in performing the important duty, with which I am charged, of
maintaining the unity, and the free principles of our common country."
--From the August 7, 1863 Letter to Horatio Seymour

[samgrant]

"I freely acknowledge myself the servant of the people, according to the
bond of service -- the United States constitution; and that, as such, I am
responsible to them."
--From the August 26, 1863 Letter to James Conkling

[samgrant]

"Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be
maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties. And not to
Democrats alone do I make this appeal, but to all who love these great and
true principles."
--From the August 27, 1856 Speech at Kalamazoo, Michigan

[hoosier]

"Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all."

[Rad2duhbone53]

"I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day."

A. Lincoln

"In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book."

A. Lincoln September 7, 1864

[samgrant]

To Joshua Speed, circa 1838:

"he had done nothing to make any human being remember that he had lived - and that to connect his name with the events transpiring in his day & generation and so impress himself upon them as to link his name with something that would redound to the interest of his fellow man was what he desired to live for."

This 21 year old would never have guessed that 168 years later he would be be judged by major historians (in The Atlantic magazine) as the most influential figure in American history.

[AwaydownSouth]

A. Lincoln’s Inaugural Address: “I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”

[unionblue]

Also from Lincoln's First Annual Message, December 3, 1861, Washington, DC.

"From the first taking of our national census to the last are seventy years; and we find our population at the end of the period eight times as great as it was at the beginning. The increase of those other things which men deem desirable has been even greater. We thus have at one view, what the popular principle applied to government, through the machinery of the States and the Union, has produced in a given time; and also what, if firmly maintained, it promises for the future. There are already among us those, who, if the Union be preserved, will live to see it contain two hundred and fifty millions. The struggle of today, is not altogether for today--it is for a vast future also. With a reliance on Providence, all the more firm and earnest, let us proceed in the great task which events have devolved upon us."

Unionblue