Lincolnics: Familiar Sayings of Abraham Lincoln

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Putnam, 1906 - 202 pages

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Page 95 - I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it." I am loath to close. 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 battlefield 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.
Page 159 - Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure We are met on a great battle-field of that war We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live...
Page 162 - I am not accustomed to the use of language of eulogy; I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women ; but I must say, that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct during this war.
Page 82 - No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.
Page 54 - I guess I surpassed him in charges upon the wild onions. If he saw any live fighting Indians, it was more than I did, but I had a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes ; and, although I never fainted from loss of blood, I can truly say I was often very hungry.
Page 53 - By the way, Mr. Speaker, did you know I am a military hero? Yes, sir, in the days of the Black Hawk War, I fought, bled, and came away.
Page 151 - I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship.
Page 82 - That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings.
Page 95 - God, it is now proving itself — a stumblingblock to all those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should reappear in this fair land and commence their vocation, they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack." I have now briefly expressed my view of the meaning and object of that part of the Declaration of Independence which declares that
Page 92 - 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.

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