Lincoln Ami's SOA Lincoln Quote of the Day

We meet this evening, not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart. The evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, and the surrender of the principal insurgent army gives hope of a righteous and speedy peace whose joyous expression cannot be restrained. "
Lincoln's last public speech - April 11, 1865
 
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But the proclamation, as law, either is valid, or is not valid. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it can not be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life.

Letter to James Conkling - August 26,1863
 
The old general rule was that educated people did not perform manual labor. They managed to eat their bread, leaving the toil of producing it to the uneducated. This was not an insupportable evil to the working bees, so long as the class of drones remained very small. But now, especially in these free States, nearly all are educated--quite too nearly all, to leave the labor of the uneducated, in any wise adequate to the support of the whole. It follows from this that henceforth educated people must labor. Otherwise, education itself would become a positive and intolerable evil. No country can sustain, in idleness, more than a small percentage of its numbers. The great majority must labor at something productive.

Speech to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society - September 30, 1859
 
The point you press -- the importance of thorough organization -- is felt, and appreciated by our friends everywhere. And yet it involves so much more of the dry, and irksome labor, that most of them shrink from it...

September 1, 1860 Letter to Henry Wilson
 
But the proclamation, as law, either is valid, or is not valid. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it can not be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life.

Letter to James Conkling - August 26, 1863
 
I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. So while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else.

March 6, 1860 Speech at New Haven, Connecticut
 
“In my opinion Mr. Lee caused this trouble...”
Lincoln to General William K. Strong, refusing to blame Burnside for the army's defeat at Fredericksburg
In this he was incorrect. Just like today, all the trouble was started by a few politicians that think they have a lot of power, and a lot of would be politicians that wish they had a lot of power. One of my favorite Lincoln quotes is, "People are just as happy as they make their mind up to be."
 
Nowhere in the world is presented a government of so much liberty and equality. To the humblest and poorest amongst us are held out the highest privileges and positions. The present moment finds me at the White House, yet there is as good a chance for your children as there was for my father's.

Speech to 148th Ohio Regiment - August 31, 1864
 
Adhere to your purpose and you will soon feel as well as you ever did. On the contrary, if you falter, and give up, you will lose the power of keeping any resolution, and will regret it all your life.

Letter to Quinton Campbell - June 28, 1862
 
" We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

First Inaugural Address - March 4, 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. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition, is yet to be developed."

Lincoln's first campaign statement - March 9, 1832
 
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