Abraham Lincoln Quotes

Democracies have been, and governments called, free; but the spirit of independence and the consciousness of unalienable rights, were never before transfused into the minds of a whole people....The feeling of equality which they proudly cherish does not proceed from an ignorance of their station, but from the knowledge of their rights; and it is this knowledge which will render it so exceedingly difficult for any tyrant ever to triumph over the liberties of our country.

The State is the altar of political freedom and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for the purpose of human sacrifice.

When there is state there can be no freedom, but when there is freedom there will be no state.

The Constitution means that each one of us counts.

The Constitution doesn't follow the flag abroad.

Whenever a specially important matter or a great emergency is presented before the Confederate Council and the nature of the matter affects the entire body of the Five Nations, threatening their utter ruin, then the Lords of the Confederacy must submit the matter to the decision of their people and the decision of the people shall affect the decision of the Confederate Council. This decision shall be a confirmation of the voice of the people.

In the United States the people are the government; and their united voice is the only sovereign that should rule; the only power that should be obeyed; and the only gentlemen that should be honored; at home and abroad; on the land and the sea.

Our Constitution of 1787 was not a perfect instrument; it is not perfect yet. But it provided a firm base upon which all manner of men, of all races and colors and creeds, could build our solid structure of democracy.

Sovereignty resides originally in the people, and in each individual with regard to himself; and that it is the transferring and uniting the several rights of individuals in the person of the sovereign, that constitutes him such, and really produces sovereignty.

I cast my vote for Independence

True republicanism is the sovereignty of the people. There are natural and imprescriptible rights which an entire nation has no right to violate

The authority of the people is a necessary foundation for a constitution

The rights given in the Constitution are given to all people—the most popular and the least popular.

The Federal and State governments are in fact but different agents and trustees of the people, constituted with different powers and designed for different purposes…. The ultimate authority … resides in the people alone.

The Constitution is not about restricting the people; it is about restricting the government.

If we carefully consider what our constitution is, we will conclude that it is, in fact, a limited monarchy.

I have often asked Americans wherein they consider their freedom superior to that of the English, but have never found them able to indicate a single point in which the individual is worse off in England as regards his private civil rights or his general liberty of doing and thinking as he pleases. They generally turn the discussion to social equality, the existence of a monarchy and hereditary titles and so forth - matters which are, of course, quite different from freedom in its proper sense.

Before the formation of this Constitution it had been affirmed as a self evident truth, in the Declaration of Independence, very deliberately made by the Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled that 'all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights' This declaration of Independence was received and ratified by all the States in the Union & has never been disannuled. May we not from hence conclude, that the doctrine of Liberty and Equality is an article in the political creed of the United States.

Liberty cannot live apart from constitutional

If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people.

A share in the sovereignty of the state, which is exercised by the citizens at large, in voting at elections is one of the most important rights of the subject, and in a republic ought to stand foremost in the estimation of the law...That portion of the sovereignty, to which each individual is entitled, can never be too highly prized. It is that for which we have fought and bled.

And what has come to prevail in democracies is the very reverse of beneficial, in those, that is, which are regarded as the most democratically run. The reason for this lies in the failure properly to define liberty. For there are two marks by which democracy is thought to be defined: "sovereignty of the majority" and "liberty." "Just" is equated with what is equal, and the decision of the majority as to what is equal is regarded as sovereign; and liberty is seen in terms of doing what one wants.

No people and no part of a people shall be held against its will in a political association that it does not want.

He who would save liberty must put his trust in democracy.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men. We...solemnly publish and declare, that these colonies are and of a right ought to be free and independent states...and for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour.