Abraham Lincoln

With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed. ”

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. ”

I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known. ”

The legal right of the Southern people to reclaim their fugitives I have constantly admitted. The legal right of Congress to interfere with their institution in the states, I have constantly denied. ”

Why was the amendment, expressly declaring the right of the people to exclude slavery, voted down? Plainly enough now, the adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott decision. ”

Among the friends of Union, there is great diversity of sentiment and of policy in regard to slavery and the African race among us. ”

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in that we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. ”

We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. ”

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. ”

He who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves and, under a just God, cannot long retain it. ”