Lincoln - in his own words
Links
- Abraham Lincoln Institute
- Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress
- Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Michael Burlingame)
- Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
- Gilder Lehrman's Abraham Lincoln Page
- House Divided at Dickinson College
- Making of America
- Papers of Abraham Lincoln
- The Lincoln Log
- Top 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents
Primary source excerpts
- 1845 - Letter to Williamson Durley
- "....It is possibly true, to some extent, that with annexation, some slaves may be sent to Texas and continued in slavery, that otherwise might have been liberated. To whatever extent this may be true, I think annexation an evil. I hold it to be a paramount duty of us in the free states, due to the Union of the states, and perhaps to liberty itself (paradox though it may seem) to let the slavery of the other states alone; while, on the other hand, I hold it to be equally clear, that we should never knowingly lend ourselves directly or indirectly, to prevent that slavery from dying a natural death---to find new places for it to live in, when it can no longer exist in the old.... "hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/40360
- 1854 - Peoria Speech
- "... 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 plausability, to taunt us as hypocrites--causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good mean amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty--criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest...." hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/40536
- 1857 - Speech at Springfield, Illinois
- "...There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people, to the idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races; and Judge Douglas evidently is basing his chief hope, upon the chances of being able to appropriate the benefit of this disgust to himself. If he can, by much drumming and repeating, fasten the odium of that idea upon his adversaries, he thinks he can struggle through the storm. He therefore clings to this hope, as a drowning man to the last plank. He makes an occasion for lugging it in from the opposition to the Dred Scott decision. He finds the Republicans insisting that the Declaration of Independence includes ALL men, black as well as white; and forth-with he boldly denies that it includes negroes at all, and proceeds to argue gravely that all who contend it does, do so only because they want to vote, and eat, and sleep, and marry with negroes! He will have it that they cannot be consistent else. Now I protest against that counterfeit logic which concludes that, because I do not want a black woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. I need not have her for either, I can just leave her alone. In some respects she certainly is not my equal; but in her natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands without asking leave of any one else, she is my equal, and the equal of all others...." (Abraham Lincoln, June 26, 1857) quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln2/1:438?rgn=div1;singlegenre=All;sort=occur;subview=detail;type=simple;view=fulltext;q1=There+is+a+natural+disgust
- 1858 - Speech at Bloomington, Illinois
- "...It will not cease until a crisis has been reached and passed. When the public mind rests in the belief that the evil is in a course of ultimate extinction, it will become quiet..." quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln3/1:10?rgn=div1;singlegenre=All;sort=occur;subview=detail;type=simple;view=fulltext;q1=Speech+at+Bloomington+Illinois
- 1858 - House Divided Speech
- "....A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other...." housedivided.dickinson.edu/sites/lincoln/house-divided-speech-june-16-1858/
- 1863 - Emancipation Proclamation
- “That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/40363
- 1864 - Letter to Albert Hodges
- "....I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel....." hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/36472
- 1865 - Speech to One Hundred Fortieth Indiana Regiment
- "...I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others. Whenever [I] hear any one, [2] arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally..."
- 1865 - Second Inaugural Address
- "If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? " hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/40368
Douglass - in his own words
- 1845 - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- "I expose slavery in this country because to expose it is to kill it. Slavery is one of those monsters of darkness to whom the light of truth is death."
- 1852 - 4th of July Oration (Rochester, NY)
- "My subject, then, fellow citizens, is American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing there identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine. I do not hesitate to declare with all my soul that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July!" www.freemaninstitute.com/douglass.htm
- 1852 - 4th of July Oration (Rochester, NY)
- "Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery-the great sin and shame of America!" www.freemaninstitute.com/douglass.htm
- 1876 - Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln “His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible.” teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/oration-in-memory-of-abraham-lincoln/