Lincoln Ami's SOA Lincoln Quote of the Day

“My enemies pretend I am now carrying on this war for the sole purpose of abolition. So long as I am president . It shall be carried on for the sole purpose of restoring the union”
-Abraham Lincoln Aug 15 1864
In my humble opinion, that was said by Lincoln the politician. But his actions reflected Lincoln the Statesman. There's a difference.
 
In my humble opinion, that was said by Lincoln the politician. But his actions reflected Lincoln the Statesman. There's a difference.


I may be sounding like a broken record but this is another case of Presentism. Personally, I think, in his day, Lincoln had the highest moral character. Also, with age comes wisdom, beyond pure knowledge. Those who disparage Abe need to know how courageous he was, North and South, by takiung the positions he did on slavery.

Also, in short, thos efolks on this site who say the USA was the last country to abandon slavery are either ill informed or lieing to themselves. Slavery, in many forms, exists on planet earth today.
 
“I have said a hundred times, and I have now no inclination to take it back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the people of the free States to enter into the slave States, and interfere with the question of slavery at all.”
-Abraham Lincoln 1858
 
“I have said a hundred times, and I have now no inclination to take it back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the people of the free States to enter into the slave States, and interfere with the question of slavery at all.”
-Abraham Lincoln 1858

Indeed. He voiced that sentiment over and over and over again. He was also just as adamant about the flip side of that coin:

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively.

- Abraham Lincoln, February, 1860

Source: http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/cooper.htm
 
“I wish to make and to keep the distinction between the existing institution, and the extension of it, so broad, and so clear, that no honest man can misunderstand me, and no dishonest one, successfully misrepresent me.
-Abraham Lincoln
 
"The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these [new western] territories. We want them for the homes of free white people."
-Abraham Lincoln 1854
 
"The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these [new western] territories. We want them for the homes of free white people."
-Abraham Lincoln 1854

From the same speech:

This declared indifference, but as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I can not but hate. 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 enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty criticising the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest...

And yet again; there are in the United States and territories,including the District of Columbia, 433,643 free blacks. At $500per head they are worth over two hundred millions of dollars. How comes this vast amount of property to be running about without owners? We do not see free horses or free cattle running at large. How is this? All these free blacks are the descendants of slaves, or have been slaves themselves, and they would be slaves now, but for SOMETHING which has operated on their white owners,inducing them, at vast pecuniary sacrifices, to liberate them. What is that SOMETHING? Is there any mistaking it? In all these cases it is your sense of justice, and human sympathy,continually telling you, that the poor Negro has some natural right to himself-that those who deny it, and make mere merchandise of him, deserve kickings, contempt and death.

- Abraham Lincoln, Oct 16, 1854

Source: http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/pre-civil-war/1854-2/speech-at-peoria-october-16-1854/
 
From the same speech:

This declared indifference, but as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I can not but hate. 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 enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty criticising the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest...

And yet again; there are in the United States and territories,including the District of Columbia, 433,643 free blacks. At $500per head they are worth over two hundred millions of dollars. How comes this vast amount of property to be running about without owners? We do not see free horses or free cattle running at large. How is this? All these free blacks are the descendants of slaves, or have been slaves themselves, and they would be slaves now, but for SOMETHING which has operated on their white owners,inducing them, at vast pecuniary sacrifices, to liberate them. What is that SOMETHING? Is there any mistaking it? In all these cases it is your sense of justice, and human sympathy,continually telling you, that the poor Negro has some natural right to himself-that those who deny it, and make mere merchandise of him, deserve kickings, contempt and death.

- Abraham Lincoln, Oct 16, 1854

Source: http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/pre-civil-war/1854-2/speech-at-peoria-october-16-1854/


I think you missed the purpose of the quote. It in no way describes his views of slavery. More his views of wanting the western american lands for whites only. Just as he wished America to be white and ship the blacks to Africa.
 
I think you missed the purpose of the quote. It in no way describes his views of slavery. More his views of wanting the western american lands for whites only. Just as he wished America to be white and ship the blacks to Africa.

Actually, no I didn't miss it. He didn't want the western territories for "whites only". Those are your words, not his. Read the quote again.

In fact, a year into his Presidency, he signed a Homestead Bill that gave cheap government access to western lands without distinction of race, and over the next few decades hundreds of thousands of African Americans took advantage of that to homestead in the territories.

Yes, he wanted the territories for free white people, but without restrictions to free black people. And yes, he thought the government had an obligation to colonize blacks back to Africa - if they voluntarily chose to go there - but he never considered making that compulsory or insisted on it as a precondition for emancipation.
 
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I think you missed the purpose of the quote. It in no way describes his views of slavery. More his views of wanting the western american lands for whites only.

The entire speech you extracted the quote from is about slavery. Your quote comes from the portion of the speech where Lincoln is arguing against the idea that the people in a territory should be able to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery. Here is the transition into that section of the speech:

But one great argument in the support of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, is still to come. That argument is "the sacred right of self government." It seems our distinguished Senator has found great difficulty in getting his antagonists, even in the Senate to meet him fairly on this argument.

Some poet has said, "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." At the hazard of being thought one of the fools of this quotation, I meet that argument---I rush in, I take that bull by the horns.​

The paragraph you quoted from reads:

Whether slavery shall go into Nebraska, or other new territories, is not a matter of exclusive concern to the people who may go there. The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these territories. We want them for the homes of free white people. This they cannot be, to any considerable extent, if slavery shall be planted within them. Slave States are places for poor white people to remove FROM; not to remove TO. New free States are the places for poor people to go to and better their condition. For this use, the nation needs these territories.​

Brass Napoleon already pointed out that this nowhere says whites only. Lincoln is pointing to the economic development of the territories, and its economic effects on the rest of the country, to establish the legitimacy of the rest of the country concerning itself with the question of slavery in Nebraska. He has other arguments to the same end:

There are constitutional relations between the slave and free States, which are degrading to the latter. We are under legal obligations to catch and return their runaway slaves to them---a sort of dirty, disagreeable job, which I believe, as a general rule the slave-holders will not perform for one another. Then again, in the control of the government---the management of the partnership affairs---they have greatly the advantage of us.... The slaves do not vote; they are only counted and so used, as to swell the influence of the white people's votes.... Now all this is manifestly unfair; yet I do not mention it to complain of it, in so far as it is already settled. It is in the constitution; and I do not, for that cause, or any other cause, propose to destroy, or alter, or disregard the constitution....

But when I am told I must leave it altogether to OTHER PEOPLE to say whether new partners are to be bred up and brought into the firm, on the same degrading terms against me. I respectfully demur. I insist, that whether I shall be a whole man, or only, the half of one, in comparison with others, is a question in which I am somewhat concerned; and one which no other man can have a sacred right of deciding for me.​

And further:

I insist, that if there is ANY THING which it is the duty of the WHOLE PEOPLE to never entrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity, of their own liberties, and institutions. And if they shall think, as I do, that the extension of slavery endangers them, [they should not] submit the question, and with it, the fate of their country, to a mere hand-full of men, bent only on temporary self-interest.​

In short, the whole speech is about keeping slavery out of the territories, not blacks. I hope I've done enough quoting from it to make this posting on topic in this thread.
 
Actually, no I didn't miss it. He didn't want the western territories for "whites only". Those are your words, not his. Read the quote again.

In fact, a year into his Presidency, he signed a Homestead Bill that gave cheap government access to western lands without distinction of race, and over the next few decades hundreds of thousands of African Americans took advantage of that to homestead in the territories.

Yes, he wanted the territories for free white people, but without restrictions to free black people. And yes, he thought the government had an obligation to colonize blacks back to Africa - if they voluntarily chose to go there - but he never considered making that compulsory or insisted on it as a precondition for emancipation.


Are you than suggesting if slavery was allowed in the territories, no whites would be allowed?

"The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these [new western] territories. We want them for the homes of free white people."

"in favor of our new territories being in such a condition that white men may find a home … as an outlet for free white people everywhere, the world over."


He, as was common at the time, wanted america white, he wanted it for the white man. He said he did not want the west to become

"an asylum for slavery and ******s"

its the same reason he was against whites and black marrying or blacks being allowed to enter Illionios. As for the claim there was no distinction of race in the homestead act, that is because it was for white not slaves. That decades later blacks used it has nothing to do with Lincolns quote in 54 for what he wanted, what purpose he wanted the lands for.
 
The entire speech you extracted the quote from is about slavery. Your quote comes from the portion of the speech where Lincoln is arguing against the idea that the people in a territory should be able to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery. Here is the transition into that section of the speech:

But one great argument in the support of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, is still to come. That argument is "the sacred right of self government." It seems our distinguished Senator has found great difficulty in getting his antagonists, even in the Senate to meet him fairly on this argument.

Some poet has said, "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." At the hazard of being thought one of the fools of this quotation, I meet that argument---I rush in, I take that bull by the horns.​

The paragraph you quoted from reads:

Whether slavery shall go into Nebraska, or other new territories, is not a matter of exclusive concern to the people who may go there. The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these territories. We want them for the homes of free white people. This they cannot be, to any considerable extent, if slavery shall be planted within them. Slave States are places for poor white people to remove FROM; not to remove TO. New free States are the places for poor people to go to and better their condition. For this use, the nation needs these territories.​

Brass Napoleon already pointed out that this nowhere says whites only. Lincoln is pointing to the economic development of the territories, and its economic effects on the rest of the country, to establish the legitimacy of the rest of the country concerning itself with the question of slavery in Nebraska. He has other arguments to the same end:

There are constitutional relations between the slave and free States, which are degrading to the latter. We are under legal obligations to catch and return their runaway slaves to them---a sort of dirty, disagreeable job, which I believe, as a general rule the slave-holders will not perform for one another. Then again, in the control of the government---the management of the partnership affairs---they have greatly the advantage of us.... The slaves do not vote; they are only counted and so used, as to swell the influence of the white people's votes.... Now all this is manifestly unfair; yet I do not mention it to complain of it, in so far as it is already settled. It is in the constitution; and I do not, for that cause, or any other cause, propose to destroy, or alter, or disregard the constitution....

But when I am told I must leave it altogether to OTHER PEOPLE to say whether new partners are to be bred up and brought into the firm, on the same degrading terms against me. I respectfully demur. I insist, that whether I shall be a whole man, or only, the half of one, in comparison with others, is a question in which I am somewhat concerned; and one which no other man can have a sacred right of deciding for me.​

And further:

I insist, that if there is ANY THING which it is the duty of the WHOLE PEOPLE to never entrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity, of their own liberties, and institutions. And if they shall think, as I do, that the extension of slavery endangers them, [they should not] submit the question, and with it, the fate of their country, to a mere hand-full of men, bent only on temporary self-interest.​

In short, the whole speech is about keeping slavery out of the territories, not blacks. I hope I've done enough quoting from it to make this posting on topic in this thread.

But once more you have missed the reason I quoted him. That he found it advantageous to free northern whites to prohibit slavery in the territories has nothing to do what he wanted western territories for. By saying he wants them for whites, its clear he is speaking of poor whites to make a new start. He does not say we want them for free people, for everyone. No he says he wants them for whites.

The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these [new western] territories. We want them for the homes of free white people."

"in favor of our new territories being in such a condition that white men may find a home … as an outlet for free white people [ not free people] everywhere, the world over."


He, as was common at the time, wanted america white, he wanted it for the white man. He said he did not want the west to become

"an asylum for slavery and ******s"

its the same reason he was against whites and black marrying or blacks being allowed to enter Illionios. As for the claim there was no distinction of race in the homestead act, that is because it was for white not slaves. That decades later blacks used it has nothing to do with Lincolns quote in 54 for what he wanted, what purpose he wanted the lands for.
 
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to add to the responses above.

"As Lind notes, the Free Soil movement so crucial to Lincoln's achieving the presidency was closely related to the colonization movement that preceded it. Both were concerned with sparing white workers from having to compete with black ones, initially in the newer states of the Midwest and then as far as California....As Lincoln said in the 1850's, "Is it not rather our duty to make labor more respectable by preventing all black competition, especially in the territories?"...What might have been seen as separate questions -- the extension of black slavery and the existence of black people in America -- were rendered as one, because free black laborers, not just black slaves, were also expected to "degrade" white labor"

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/books/review/what-lincoln-believed-the-great-democrat.html?_r=0
 
quote of the day- Lincoln on the emancipation proclamation

“For a length of time it had been hoped that the rebellion could be suppressed without resorting to it [emancipation] as a military measure
-Abraham Lincoln
 
Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream By Leron bennett JR.

So you can't provide a primary source of Lincoln saying these things himself? You know, there's a reason for that. Because Lincoln DIDN'T say them.

Here's a friendly suggestion. You might try actually reading Lincoln himself, rather than trolling this thread with words that other people have put in his mouth.

Here's a good starting point:

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/

Of course it would appear that you'll read a lot of things you don't want to hear, but you'll actually be reading some history, and not misquotes and fabrications that happen to suit your own agenda.
 
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