The Public Record
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. A member of the Republican Party, he is best known for leading the nation through the Civil War and for his efforts to abolish slavery, notably through the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Lincoln's leadership during this tumultuous period helped to preserve the Union and set the stage for the eventual passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States.
I have never said anything to the contrary; 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…
Anything that argues me into his idea of perfect social and political equality with the negro is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse.
I certainly cannot introduce testimony to show the negative about things, but I have a right to claim that if a man says he knows a thing, then he must show how he knows it.
A man cannot prove a negative, but he has a right to claim that when a man makes an affirmative charge, he must offer some proof to show the truth of what he says.
The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.
In pointing out that more has been given you, you cannot be justified in taking away the little which has been given him.
Still, in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he is the equal of every other man, white or black.
I have said that I do not understand the Declaration to mean that all men were created equal in all respects.
I have again and again said that I would not enter into any one of the States to disturb the institution of slavery.
It was my purpose and expectation that this canvass would be conducted upon principle, and with fairness on both sides, and it shall not be my fault if this purpose and expectation shall be given up.
I planted myself upon the truth and the truth only, so far as I knew it, or could be brought to know it.
So I hope those with whom I am surrounded have principle enough to nerve themselves for the task, and leave nothing undone that can fairly be done to bring about the right result.
I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.
Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal.
My friends, I have detained you about as long as I desired to do, and I have only to say, let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man, this race and that race and the other race being inferior, and therefore they…
Let us, then, turn this government back into the channel in which the framers of the Constitution originally placed it.
If we cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do nothing that will impose slavery upon any other creature.
So I say in relation to the principle that all men are created equal, let it be as nearly reached as we can.
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; but, having by necessity submitted to that much, it does not…
If that Declaration is not the truth, let us get the statute-book in which we find it, and tear it out!
If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man?
I should like to know--taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal, upon principle, and making exceptions to it--where will it stop?
Politicians like Abraham Lincoln
