Abraham Lincoln Quotes

We want, and must have, a national policy, as to slavery, which deals with it as being wrong.

I have watched how steadily the general feeling, as shown at elections, has been rising against Slavery. What a proud thing for England if she is the first European nation which utterly abolishes it! I was told before leaving England that after living in slave countries all my opinions would be altered; the only alteration I am aware of is forming a much higher estimate of the negro character.

I wish all men to be free. I wish the material prosperity of the already free which I feel sure the extinction of slavery would bring.

The Convention thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men.

Let there be no compromise on the question of extending slavery. If there be, all our labor is lost, and, ere long, must be done again.

I rejoice that I have lived to see this day, when the colored people of this favored land, by law, have equal privileges with the most favored. And I have faith to believe that ere long equal justice will be granted to the poor Indians and the Chinese.

Not the Christian religion only, but nature herself, cries out against the state of slavery.

It is hard for the old slave holding spirit to die. But die it must.

You know I dislike slavery; and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it.

There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil.

If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that ‘all men are created equal,' and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another.

Those of us who always abhorred slavery as an atheistical iniquity, gladly we join in the exulting chorus of humanity over its downfall.

It seems almost incredible that the advocates of liberty should conceive of the idea of selling a fellow creature to slavery.

When you think about the abolition of slavery for example, for the ruling class with the rich white people owning plantations and states, and things like that, slavery was to their benefit. To oppose it didn't make any sense at all on a rational basis. But on a rights basis, on a principle basis, it made obvious, overwhelming sense.

I hold it to be a paramount duty of us in the free states, due to the Union of the states, and perhaps to liberty itself (paradox though it may seem) to let the slavery of the other states alone; while, on the other hand, I hold it to be equally clear, that we should never knowingly lend ourselves directly or indirectly, to prevent that slavery from dying a natural death--to find new places for it to live in, when it can no longer exist in the old.

Slavery is wrong. If Slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and Constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and should be silenced, and swept away.

I could not comprehend the justice of that law, or that religion, which upholds or recognizes the principle of slavery.

Now, I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate slavery as a moral, social and political evil, having due regard for its actual existence amongst us and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to all the constitutional obligations which have been thrown about it; but, nevertheless, desire a policy that looks to the prevention of it as a wrong, and looks hopefully to the time when as a wrong it may come to an end.

Roll, years of promise, rapidly roll round, till not a slave shall on this earth be found.

In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border.

I wish from my soul that the legislature of this State could see the policy of a gradual Abolition of Slavery.

To end slavery, you must overcome the mental and physical inertia of the masses and quicken their intelligence and creative faculty.

I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil. Everything we do is to improve it, if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot and an abhorrence of slavery.

Another of my wishes is to depend as little as possible on the labour of slaves.

I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world.