Us Civil War Quotes

• Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Long, Gettysburg

  Gettysburg Address, Gettysburg, Pa., 19 Nov. 1863

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• Let us strive on to finish the work we are in.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Motivational, Civil War, Charity

  Second Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1865

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• With firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Military, Giving, Civil War

  Second Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1865

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• the better angels of our nature

  Abraham Lincoln

  Angel, Civil War, Apocalypse

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1861

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• 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 poor power to add or to detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

  Abraham Lincoln

  4th Of July, Men, Long

  Gettysburg Address, Gettysburg, Pa., 19 Nov. 1863.

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• The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, 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. --as quoted in THE RIVER OF WINGED DREAMS

  Abraham Lincoln

  Dream, Nature, Memories

  Harold Holzer, Abraham Lincoln (1998). “The Lincoln Mailbag: America Writes to the President, 1861-1865”, p.7, SIU Press

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• 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

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• The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here so nobly advanced.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Unfinished Work, Long

  Gettysburg Address, Gettysburg, Pa., 19 Nov. 1863.

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• It is rather for us here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Civil War, Tasks, Lasts

  Gettysburg Address, Gettysburg, Pa., 19 Nov. 1863.

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• That we 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.

  Abraham Lincoln

  God, Patriotic, Government

  Gettysburg Address, Gettysburg, Pa., 19 Nov. 1863.

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• Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Change, Freedom, Father

  Gettysburg Address, Gettysburg, Pa., 19 Nov. 1863

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• With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.

  Abraham Lincoln

  God, Business, Work

  Second Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1865

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• We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Patriotic, Civil War, Politics

  Gettysburg Address, Gettysburg, Pa., 19 Nov. 1863.

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• Fondly do we hope, ferverently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Peace, War, Ubuntu

  Second Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1865

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• I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than the dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation.

  Robert E. Lee

  Country, War, Sacrifice

  Letter to his son, G. W. Custis Lee, January 23, 1861.

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• It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it.

  Robert E. Lee

  Memorial Day, Peace, War

  Attributed; after the battle of Fredericksburg, December 1862

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• What a cruel thing war is... to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors.

  Robert E. Lee

  Peace, War, Heart

  Robert E. Lee (2016). “The Life and Letters of Robert E. Lee (Abridged)”, p.206, BIG BYTE BOOKS

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• 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

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• We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Mean, Civil War, Liberty

  Address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore, Md., 18 Apr. 1864

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• Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Prayer, War, Men

  Second Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1865

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• America has no north, no south, no east, no west. The sun rises over the hills and sets over the mountains, the compass just points up and down, and we can laugh now at the absurd notion of there being a north and a south. We are one and undivided.

  Sam Watkins

  War, America, History

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• We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word many mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Party, Mean

  Abraham Lincoln (2012). “The Complete Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln (Biographically Annotated Edition)”, p.1338, Jazzybee Verlag

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• We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Life, Friendship, Memories

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1861

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• As a nation we began by declaring that all me are created equal. We now practically read it, all men are created equal except Negroes.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Men, Despotism

  Letter to Joshua F. Speed, 24 Aug. 1855

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• Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

  Alexander H. Stephens

  Philosophical, Men, Race

  Cornerstone Speech, Delivered 21 March 1861, Savannah, Georgia

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