This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.
From Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, affirming the people’s power over the government.
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More from Abraham Lincoln
If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business.
As a general rule I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I cannot properly offer an answer.
Unlike a case of war between independent nations, there is no organized organ for us to treat with,--no one man has authority to give up the rebellion for any other man.
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