Abraham Lincoln Quotes About Freedom

• We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Freedom, Men, Democracies Have

• America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Wisdom, Religious, Freedom

• Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Inspirational, Leadership, Wisdom

• 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

• Freedom is the last, best hope of earth.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Freedom, Earth, Lasts

  Annual Message to Congress, 1 Dec. 1862

• Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Strength, Hope, Peace

  Speech in House of Representatives, 12 Jan. 1848

• 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

• Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Freedom, Fire, Democracies Have

• As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Country, Freedom, Taken

  Letter to Joshua F. Speed, 24 Aug. 1855

• 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
• 

  The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Freedom, Democracies Have, Presidential

  Speech, 19 May 1856

• This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Country, Freedom, 4th Of July

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1861

• We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving Grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

  Abraham Lincoln

  Freedom, Humility, Heart

  "The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln".

• Freedom is not the right to do what we want, but what we ought

  Abraham Lincoln

  Freedom, Want, Ought

• Lets have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Life, Faith, Freedom

  Address at Cooper Institute, New York, N.Y., 27 Feb. 1860

• 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

• Do not destroy that immortal emblem of humanity, the Declaration of Independence.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Freedom, Humanity, Independence

  Abraham Lincoln, Mario Matthew Cuomo, G. S. Boritt (2004). “Lincoln on Democracy”, p.123, Fordham Univ Press

• I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the Declaration of Independence that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence, I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Freedom, Spring, Should Have

• 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

• Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion, can change the government, practically just so much.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Freedom, Government, Public Opinion

  Abraham Lincoln (2008). “The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln”, p.385, Wildside Press LLC

• I intend no modification of my oft-expressed wish that all men everywhere could be free.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Freedom, Men, Wish

  Letter to Horace Greeley, 22 August 1862

• And then, the negro being doomed, and damned, and forgotten, to everlasting bondage, is the white man quite certain that the tyrant demon will not turn upon him too?

  Abraham Lincoln

  Freedom, Men, White

  Abraham Lincoln (2012). “The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln”, p.551, Modern Library

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