Abraham Lincoln Quotes About Slavery

• Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Freedom, 4th Of July, Patriotic

  Letter to Henry L. Pierce and Others, 6 Apr. 1859

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

  Abraham Lincoln

  Wisdom, Freedom, Humor

  "Definition of Democracy," ca. 1 Aug. 1858

• Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Life, Strong, Freedom

  Speech to 140th Indiana regiment, 17 Mar. 1865

• My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save 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. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Believe, Struggle

  Letter to Horace Greeley, 22 Aug. 1862

• A house divided against itself cannot stand.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Leadership, Inspirational Life, Twilight

  Speech at Republican state convention nominating him to run for U.S. senator, Springfield, Ill., 16 June 1858

• I believe this Government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Believe, Patriotic, Government

  Speech at Republican state convention nominating him to run for U.S. senator, Springfield, Ill., 16 June 1858

• We were proclaiming ourselves political hypocrites before the world, by thus fostering Human Slavery and proclaiming ourselves, at the same time, the sole friends of Human Freedom.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Hypocrite, Political, World

  Speech, Springfield, Ill., 4 Oct. 1854

• Slavery is founded on the selfishness of man's nature - opposition to it on his love of justice. These principles are in eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Love, Men, Justice

  Address on the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, delivered 16 October 1854, Peoria, Illinois

• If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Presidential, Civil War, Slavery

  Letter to Albert G. Hodges, 4 Apr. 1864

• In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Congress And The President, Giving, Civil War

  Annual Message to Congress, 1 Dec. 1862

• This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Would Be, World, Slavery

  Letter to Henry L. Pierce and Others, 6 Apr. 1859

• I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Hate, Example, World

  Speech, Peoria, Ill., 16 Oct. 1854

• I know there is a God, and that He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that his hand is in it. If He has a place and work for me - and I think He has - I believe I am ready.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Hate, Believe, Thinking

  Abraham Lincoln, Archer Hayes Shaw (1980). “The Lincoln encyclopedia: the spoken and written words of A. Lincoln arranged for ready reference”, Greenwood Pub Group

• 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.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Congress And The President, Giving, Free Spirit

  Annual Message to Congress, 1 Dec. 1862

• In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Sight, Ohio, Iron

  Abraham Lincoln (1989). “Abraham Lincoln: Speeches & Writings Part 1: 1832-1858: Library of America #45”, p.360, Library of America

• A house divided against itself cannot stand." 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.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Believe, Fall, Government

  Speech at Republican state convention nominating him to run for U.S. senator, Springfield, Ill., 16 June 1858

• Do the people of the South really entertain fears that a Republican administration would, directly, or indirectly, interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you, as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears.

  Abraham Lincoln

  People, Civil War, Enemy

  Abraham Lincoln (2017). “The Complete Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln”, p.1237, Open Road Media

• So plain that no one, high or low, ever does mistake it, except in a plainly selfish way; for although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Selfish, Mistake, Men

  "Fragment on Slavery" ca. 1 July 1854

• He [Stephen Douglas] is blowing out the moral lights around us, when he contends that whoever wants slaves has a right to hold them; that he is penetrating, so far as lies in his power, the human soul, and eradicating the light of reason and the love of liberty, when he is in every possible way preparing the public mind, by his vast influence, for making the institution of slavery perpetual and national.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Lying, Light, Soul

  Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas, Paul M. Angle (1958). “The Complete Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858”, p.311, University of Chicago Press

• I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others. Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Strong, Freedom, Men

  Speech to 140th Indiana regiment, 17 Mar. 1865

• What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other's consent. I say this is the leading principle - the sheet anchor of American republicanism.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Men, Anchors, Principles

  Speech, Peoria, Ill., 16 Oct. 1854

• I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

  Abraham Lincoln

  Believe, Purpose, Slavery

  Abraham Lincoln (2008). “The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln”, p.250, Wildside Press LLC

• In the first place, I insist that our fathers did not make this nation half slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I insist that they found the institution of slavery existing here. They did not make it so, but they left it so because they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Father, Half, Slavery

  Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, James Ford Rhodes, John Esten Cooke (2017). “CIVIL WAR – Complete History of the War, Documents, Memoirs & Biographies of the Lead Commanders: Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant & William T. Sherman, Biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis & Robert E. Lee, The Emancipation Proclamation, Gettysburg Address, Presidential Orders & Actions”, p.503, Madison & Adams Press

• Our political problem now is, "Can we as a nation continue together permanently - forever - half slave and half free?"

  Abraham Lincoln

  Political, Together, Half

  Abraham Lincoln's letter to George Robertson of Lexington, Kentucky (August 15, 1855), later published in "Early speeches of Abraham Lincoln, 1830-1860" by Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection, 1909.

• I think that one of the causes of these repeated failures is that our best and greatest men have greatly underestimated the size of this question (slavery). They have constantly brought forward small cures for great sores-plasters too small to cover the wound. That is one reason that all settlements have proved so temporary-so evanescent.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Men, Thinking, Slavery

  Abraham Lincoln (1989). “Abraham Lincoln: Speeches & Writings Part 2: 1859-1865: Library of America #46”, p.134, Library of America

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