Friday, August 17, 2007

Abraham Lincoln's Own Words on Slavery

"Free them, and make them politically and socially, our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not."

"There is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the people of the free States to enter into the slave States, and interfere with the question of slavery at all."

"Judge Douglas, and whoever like him teaches that the negro has no share, humble though it may be, in the Declaration of Independence, is going back to the era of our liberty and independence"

"It is nothing but a miserable perversion of what I have said, to assume that I have declared Missouri, or any other slave State shall emancipate her slaves. I have proposed no such thing."

"It does not follow that social and political equality between whites and blacks, must be incorporated, because slavery must not."

"I say that we must not interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists, because the constitution forbids it, and the general welfare does not require us to do so."

"My paramount object in this struggle, is to save the Union and it not either to save or 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..."

"I have no purpose directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

Abraham Lincoln

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