Life of Abraham Lincoln: Presenting His Early History, Political Career, and Speeches in and Out of Congress; Also a General View of His Policy as President of the United States; with His Messages, Proclamations, Letters, Etc., and a Concise History of the War
Written in 1864 by a political contemporary, this is a work of nineteenth-century American biographic literature. It contains Lincoln's most masterful speeches and writings, along with a contemporary history of the Civil War.
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Page 202 - That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively...
Page 143 - I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction ; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful...
Page 412 - If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.
Page 456 - But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
Page 264 - This is essentially a people's contest. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of Government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men ; to lift artificial weights from all shoulders ; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.
Page 433 - In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of earth.
Page 423 - Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other ; but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face; and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them.
Page 415 - That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free...
Page 456 - We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final restingplace of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
Page 424 - Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends ? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you.