Speak Forcefully

Abe Lincoln on Slavery and Union

Although Abe Lincoln would have a hard time getting elected in this day and age (Bush would defeat him in a heartbeat assuming Lincoln fought him for the nomination) - his comments regarding a certain Surpreme Court decision that sought to ... uhm ... settle the issue of slavery illustrates the quick and sharp mind Lincoln had the good fortune of owning:

"The Republicans inculcate, with whatever of ability—they can, that the negro is a man; that his bondage is cruelly wrong, and that the field of his oppression ought not to be enlarged.

The Democrats deny his manhood; deny, or dwarf to insignificance, the wrong of his bondage; so far as possible, crush all sympathy for him, and cultivate and excite hatred and disgust against him; compliment themselves as Union-savers for doing so; and call the indefinite outspreading of his bondage "a sacred right of self-government."

The plainest print cannot be read through a gold eagle; and it will be ever hard to find many men who will send a slave to Liberia, and pay his passage while they can send him to a new country, Kansas for instance, and sell him for fifteen hundred dollars..."

- Abe Lincoln, 1857
Lawyer (self-taught)

posted by majqa @ 6:24 PM