Category: Quote of the Day

The people will save their government, if the government itself will do its part only indifferently well.”– Message to Congress in Special Session, July 4, 1861

The people’s will, constitutionally expressed, is the ultimate law for all.”– Response to Serenade, October 19, 1864

The power of hope upon human exertion, and happiness, is wonderful.”– Fragment on Free Labor, circa September 17, 1859

The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me.”– Speech on the Sub-Treasury in the Illinois House of Representatives, December 26, 1839

The slave-breeders and slave-traders, are a small, odious and detested class, among you; and yet in politics, they dictate the course of all of you, and are as completely your masters, as you are the master of your own negroes.”– Letter to Joshua Speed, August 24, 1855

The struggle of today, is not altogether for today –it is for a vast future also.”– Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1861

The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776.”– First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861

The United States don’t need the services of boys who disobey their parents.”– Letter to Gideon Welles, undated

The world is agreed that labor is the source from which human wants are mainly supplied. There is no dispute upon that point.”– Speech before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, September 30, 1859

There are two ways of establishing a proposition. One is by trying to demonstrate it upon reason; and the other is to show that great men in former times have thought so and so, and thus to pass it by the weight of pure authority.”– Speech at Columbus, Ohio, September 16, 1859