home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Cream of the Crop 26
/
Cream of the Crop 26.iso
/
database
/
dg53.zip
/
LINCOLN.SAM
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1997-03-17
|
9KB
|
184 lines
7th debate, 10/15/1858
It may be judged that there are certain conditions that make
necessities and impose them upon us, and to the extent that a
necessity is imposed upon a man he must submit to it. I think that
was the condition in which we found ourselves when we established
this government, we had slaves among us, we could not get our
Constitution unless we permitted them to remain in slavery, we could
not secure the good we did secure if we grasped for more; and having
by necessity submitted to that much, it does not destroy the
principle that is the charter of our liberties. Let that charter
remain as our standard.
*
6th debate, 10/13/1858
I will say now that there is a sentiment in the country contrary to
me-- a sentiment which holds that slavery is not wrong, and
therefore it goes for policy that does not propose dealing with it
as a wrong. That policy is Democratic policy, and that sentiment is
the Democratic sentiment. If there be any doubt... that this is the
central idea of the Democratic party, in relation to this subject, I
ask him to bear with me... while I prove that proposition.
*
1st debate, 8/21/1858
This...zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it
because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it
because it... especially because it forces so many really good men
among ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental
principles of civil liberty... insisting that there is no right
principle of action but self interest.
Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice against
the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their
situation.
*
1st debate, 8/21/1858
I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between
the white and the black races. There is a physical difference
between the two, which in my judgement will probably forever forbid
their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and
inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference,
I...am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior
position. ... 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 Justice
Douglas he is not my equal in many respects....but in the right to
eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand
earns, he is my equal and the equal of Justice Douglas, and the
equal of every living man.
*
Speech on the Dred Scott Decision, 6/26/1857
How differently the respective courses of the Democratic and
Republican parties ... The Republicans inculcate... that the negro
is a man; that his bondage is cruelly wrong, and that the field of
his oppression ought not to be enlarged. The Democrats deny his
manhood; deny or dwarf to insignificance, the wrong of his bondage;
so far as possible, crush all sympathy for him....and call the
indefinite outspreading of his bondage "a sacred right of self-
government."
*
Address at Cooper Institute, 2-27-1860
...What will convince them? (the southern people) "This and this
only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it
right. And this must be done thoroughly-- done in acts as well as in
words. Silence will not be tolerated-- we must place ourselves
avowedly with them.... the whole atmosphere must be disinfected from
all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to
believe that all their troubles proceed from us."
...Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the
precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it
right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full
recognition, as being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can
we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against
our own? In view of our moral, social, and political
responsibilities, can we do this?....
*
Address at Cooper Institute, 2-27-1860
...Let us be diverted by none of those sophisticated contrivances
wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored-- contrivances
such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the
wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living
man nor a dead man-- such as a policy of 'don't care' on a question
about which all true men do care...
...Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let
us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.
*
Speech at New Haven, Conn, 3-6-1860
What we want, and all we want, is to have with us the men who think
slavery wrong. But those who say they hate slavery, and are opposed
to it, but yet act with the Democratic Party-- where are they?
Let us apply a few tests. You say that you think slavery is wrong,
but you denounce all attempts to restrain it. Is there anything
else that you think wrong, that you are not willing to deal with as
a wrong? Why are you so careful, so tender of this one wrong and no
other?....There is no place where you will allow it to be even
CALLED wrong! ... we must not call it wrong in politics because that
is bringing morality into politics, and we must not call it wrong in
the pulpit because that is bringing politics into religion... there
is no single place, according to you, where this wrong thing can be
properly called wrong!
*
Speech at New Haven, Conn. 3-6-1860
In all matters but this of Slavery the framers of the Constitution
used the very clearest, shortest, and most direct language. But the
Constitution alludes to Slavery three times without mentioning it
once! The language used becomes ambiguous, roundabout, and
mystical. They speak of the "immigration of persons," and mean the
importation of slaves, but do not say so. In establishing a basis
of representation, they say "all other persons," when they mean to
say slaves-- why did they not use the shortest phrase?... Why didn't
they do it? We cannot doubt that it was done on purpose. Only one
reason is possible, and that is supplied to us by one of the framers
of the Constitution...they expected and desired that the system
would come to an end, and meant that when it did, the Constitution
should not show that there ever had been a slave in this good free
country of ours!
*
Letter to Horace Greeley, 8-22-1862
I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall
adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
*
Address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore MD 4-18-1864
The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and
the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all
declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean
the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to
do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while
with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please
with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two,
not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same
name-- liberty.
... The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which
the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf
denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty,
especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the
wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty...
*
Second Inaugural Address, 3-4-1865
Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes
His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should
dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the
sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not
judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither
has been answered fully.
*
Second Inaugural Address, 3-4-1865
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 do all
which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among
ourselves, and with all nations.
*