16 quotes
Come all you true friends of the nation, attend to humanity's call!
The Confederacy stands for slavery and the Union for freedom.
This is a world of compensation; and he would be no slave must consent to have no slaves. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.
Letter to Henry L. Pierce (1859)
Don't kneel to me, that is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank him for the liberty you will hereafter enjoy.
Tour of Richmond (1865)
What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence?
God created all men free, giving to each the same rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Tour of Richmond (1865)
We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.
Is there no danger to liberty itself, in discarding the earliest practice, and first precept of our ancient faith?
Speech at Peoria, Illinois (1854)
Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere.
I intend no modification of my oft-expressed wish that all men everywhere could be free.
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.
Speech at Chicago (1858)
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
This is a world of compensation; and 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.
The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
Freedom has given us the control of 200,000 able bodied men, born and raised on southern soil. It will give us more yet.
Interview with Alexander W. Randall and Joseph T. Mills (1864)