Abraham Lincoln Quotes

… that the authority of the Government of the United States may be restored, and that peace, order and freedom may be established, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, do proclaim and declare, that I hereby grant to all persons who have directly or indirectly participated in the existing rebellion, except as hereinafter excepted, amnesty and pardon, with restoration of all rights of property, except as to slaves, … but on the condition, nevertheless, that every such person shall take and subscribe to the following oath or affirmation, and thenceforward keep and maintain said oath inviolate:

If it is a crime to love the South, its cause and its President, then I am a criminal. I would rather lie down in this prison and die than leave it owing allegiance to a government such as yours.

I, ______ do solemnly swear, (or affirm) in the presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Union of the States thereunder, and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all laws and proclamations which have been made during the existing rebellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves. So help me God.

I grew up in the South, so a huge part of our American History education revolved around the Civil War.

The very first act of the Confederate Government was to send commissioners to Washington to make terms of peace, and to establish relations of amity between the two sections.

I am passionately interested in understanding how my country works. And if you want to know about this thing called the United States of America you have to know about the Civil War.

When I see the Confederate flag, I see the attempt to raise an empire in slavery. It really, really is that simple. I don't understand how anybody with any sort of education on the Civil War can see anything else.

Perhaps most perniciously, neo-Confederates now claim that the South seceded over states' rights. Yet when each state left the Union, its leaders made clear that they were seceding because they were for slavery and against states' rights.

The slave-owning South won the subsequent ideological war…the consensus of history was that the Civil War had little to do with slavery.

You know how absurd is the fiction put forward by our enemies in the Northern states that the great Civil War which raged between 1861 and 1865 would never have taken place but for Jefferson Davis and myself. Such mighty convulsions, which amount indeed to revolutions, are never the work of individuals, but of divided nations.

Gentlemen, radical abolitionism must be put down. This great and glorious country will be shattered into fragments if it is not, or else we shall find ourselves at last brought under the iron rule of military despotism.

[Jefferson] Davis and the whole gang of them ought to be hung.

Every man that lowered our flag was a Democrat.... Every preacher that said slavery was a divine institution was a Democrat. Recollect it! Every man that shot a Union soldier was a Democrat. Every wound borne by you Union soldiers is a souvenir of a Democrat.

No solid South, no solid North, save when solid for the flag and the Union.

The Union we intend to keep, and loyal states will not let disloyal ones break it.

I have often thought Dixie to be one of the finest songs which the Confederates have appropriated. I put the question to the Attorney General, and he determined that it is our property.

Any understanding of this nation has to be based, and I mean really based, on an understanding of the Civil War. I believe that firmly. It defined us.

Reelect Abraham Lincoln Save the Union Heal the Nation Give Me Another Shot

In the mid 19th century, it had taken a generation of political rhetoric to induce southern soldiers to fight for the interests of a small ruling class in the name of democracy.

From infancy, I had been accustomed to hear pro and con discussions of slavery and the American Civil War. Although the British government finally decided not to recognise the Confederacy, public opinion in England was sharply divided on the questions both of slavery and of secession.

As long as it served his purpose, Mr. Lincoln boldly advocated the right of Secession.

I pledged California to a Northern Republic and to a flag that should have no treacherous threads of cotton in its warp, and the audience came down in thunder.

We can only imagine the history of the free world today if, at the end of the Civil War, there had been two countries: the United States and the Confederate States of America.

To the best of my judgment, I have labored for, and not against, the Union. As I have not felt, so I have not expressed any harsh sentiment towards our Southern brethren. I have constantly declared, as I really believed, the only difference between them and us is the difference of circumstances.

If the Confederacy fails, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a Theory.