Lincoln Ami's SOA Lincoln Quote of the Day

"We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them--they are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors. Their's was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys, a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; 'tis ours only, to transmit these, the former, unprofaned by the foot of an invader; the latter, undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation, to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task of gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.

How then shall we perform it?--At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?-- Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." -- Abraham Lincoln address to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, 1838
 
"If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B. Why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A? You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own. You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own. But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you." -- Abraham Lincoln, circa 1854
 
"Then came the Black-Hawk war; and I was elected a Captain of Volunteers -- a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since."

December 20, 1859 – Abraham Lincoln Autobiography
 
"Then came the Black-Hawk war; and I was elected a Captain of Volunteers -- a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since."

December 20, 1859 – Abraham Lincoln Autobiography

Pride in serving his country and his state? Only you would consider that a negative.
 
Would it be any better if he had been elected as captain of a company that escorted on the Trail of Tears.
 
I would definitely consider volunteering for service in the Black Hawk War a negative.

What about lying about serving in the Blackhawk war, like Jeff Davis did and which William J. Cooper detailed in his biography Jefferson Davis, American? Is that even more negative or less negativc?
 
What about lying about serving in the Blackhawk war, like Jeff Davis did and which William J. Cooper detailed in his biography Jefferson Davis, American? Is that even more negative or less negativc?

Does what Jefferson Davis did or didn’t do have something to with Abraham Lincoln bragging about his Black Hawk War service in 1859?
 
The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for to-morrow which can be done to-day.
 
I assume you're so down on the Blackhawk war because Lincoln was involved and Davis wasn't, regardless of what he claimed?

You may assume it was my Lincoln quote of the day as I assumed post 63 was your Lincoln quote of the day, a quote, I might add, I made no comment on until now despite the hypocrisy given Lincoln’s racial duplicity during the 1850s.
 
...a quote, I might add, I made no comment on until now despite the hypocrisy given Lincoln’s racial duplicity during the 1850s.

Then I would beg the moderator's indulgence and ask that you comment now. By all means please elaborate on this hypocrisy you speak of.
 
Let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his children’s liberty.”- Lyceum Address, January 27, 1837
 
Then I would beg the moderator's indulgence and ask that you comment now. By all means please elaborate on this hypocrisy you speak of.

I misspoke, you are absolutely right that Lincoln was straight forward and honest when he said:

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything."

-Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858 (The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, pp. 145-146.)
 
I misspoke, you are absolutely right that Lincoln was straight forward and honest when he said:

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything."

-Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858 (The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, pp. 145-146.)

Y'all love that quote and then totally ignore what Lincoln said in the first debate. Let me add a little to your store of knowledge -

"I will say here, while upon this subject, that 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. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races...but I hold that, notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects-certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man."

Now, if you can provide a single quote from a single Southern leader of the period indicating that they thought that the Black man was their equal in any single way, if you can provide a quote from a single Southern leader indicating that the Black man had any rights whatsoever that a White man was bound to respect, then you can claim the moral high-ground over Lincoln. And when you all stop referring to the Southern cause as a fight for independence, when it was in fact a fight to deny independence from a third of your population, then you can accuse others of hypocrisy. Until then you're just making fools of yourselves.
 
Y'all love that quote and then totally ignore what Lincoln said in the first debate. Let me add a little to your store of knowledge -

"I will say here, while upon this subject, that 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. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races...but I hold that, notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects-certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man."

Now, if you can provide a single quote from a single Southern leader of the period indicating that they thought that the Black man was their equal in any single way, if you can provide a quote from a single Southern leader indicating that the Black man had any rights whatsoever that a White man was bound to respect, then you can claim the moral high-ground over Lincoln. And when you all stop referring to the Southern cause as a fight for independence, when it was in fact a fight to deny independence from a third of your population, then you can accuse others of hypocrisy. Until then you're just making fools of yourselves.

I thought the thread was supposed to be about Lincoln quotes, I can come up with a whole bunch of Southern quotes indicating all sorts of things, but I imagine the moderators would insist they be on a thread of their own.
 
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