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Quotes from Fourth of July Address to Congress — Abraham Lincoln

1809–1865 United States

← All quotes by Abraham Lincoln

6 quotes

Must a government of necessity be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?

Fourth of July Address to Congress (1861)

The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.

Fourth of July Address to Congress (1861)

And having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God and go forward without fear and with manly hearts.

Fourth of July Address to Congress (1861)

Such will be a great lesson of peace, teaching men that what they can not take by an election neither can they take it by a war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war.

Fourth of July Address to Congress (1861)

One of the greatest perplexities of the Government is to avoid receiving troops faster than it can provide for them. In a word, the people will save their Government if the Government itself will do its part only indifferently well.

Fourth of July Address to Congress (1861)

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. Yielding to partial and temporary departures, from necessity, this is the leading object of the Government for whose existence we contend.

Fourth of July Address to Congress (1861)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Abraham Lincoln (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.