And whereas it is fit and becoming in all people, at all times, to acknowledge and revere the Supreme Government of God; to bow in humble submission to his chastisements; to confess and deplore their sins and transgressions in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and to pray, with all fervency and contrition, for the pardon of their past offences, and for a blessing upon their present and prospective action. --Abraham Lincoln
Roy Prentice Basler published the definitive collection of Lincoln quotes.
ALL LINKS go to the Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, Roy P. Basler. Italics in original.
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Speech at Carlinville, Illinois, August 31, 1858
He [Lincoln] said the question is often asked, why this fuss about niggers?
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Speech at Elwood, Kansas
December 1 [November 30?], 1859
People often ask, "why make such a fuss about a few niggers?''
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CW 2:396
Springfield, May 25, 1857.
There is no longer any difficult question of jurisdiction in the Federal courts; they have jurisdiction in all possible cases, except such as might redound to the benefit of a "nigger'' in some way.
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First Debate with Stephen Douglas, Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858
CW 3:20 When my friend, Judge Douglas, came to Chicago, on the 9th of July, this speech having been delivered on the 16th of June, he made an harangue there, in which he took hold of this speech of mine, showing that he had carefully read it; and while he paid no attention to this matter at all, but complimented me as being a "kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman,'' notwithstanding I had said this; he goes on and eliminates, or draws out, from my speech this tendency of mine to set the States at war with one another, to make all the institutions uniform, and set the niggers and white people to marrying together.
CW 3:27 There is no danger that the people of Kentucky will shoulder their muskets and with a young nigger stuck on every bayonet march into Illinois and force them upon us.
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Third Lincoln-Douglas debate. September 15, 1858, Jonesboro, Illinois
We have seen many a "nigger'' that we thought more of than some white men.
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Speech at Springfield, Illinois, June 10, 1856
He would occasionally launch out and lead his hearers to think that the most ultra abolitionism would follow, when, under the old whig eyes we have mentioned, he would soften his remarks to a supposed palatable texture. In this way, backing and filling, he frittered away anything of argument that he might have presented, convincing his audience, however, that his niggerism has as dark a hue as that of Garrison or Fred Douglass but that his timidity before the peculiar audience he addressed prevented its earnest advocacy with the power and ability he is known to possess. ... To attain power, by whatever means, was the burden of his song, and he pointed to the complexion of the Bloomington ticket as evidence of the desire of the factions to attain it by any process.
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August 9, 1856
Lincoln then took the stand and made a three hours speech. It was prosy and dull in the extreme---all about "freedom,'' "liberty'' and niggers.
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Then if Mr. Douglas did not invent this kind of Sovereignty, let us pursue the inquiry and find out what the invention really was. Was it the right of emigrants in Kansas and Nebraska to govern themselves and a gang of niggers too, if they wanted them? Clearly this was no invention of his, because Gen. Cass put forth the same doctrine in 1848, in his so-called Nicholson letter, six years before Douglas thought of such a thing. Gen. Cass could have taken out a patent for the idea, if he had chosen to do so, and have prevented his Illinois rival from reaping a particle of benefit from it. Then what was it, I ask again, that this "Little Giant'' invented? It never occurred to Gen. Cass to call his discovery by the odd name of "Popular Sovereignty.'' He had not the impudence to say that the right of people to govern niggers was the right of people to govern themselves. His notions of the fitness of things were not moulded to the brazen degree of calling the right to put a hundred niggers through under the lash in Nebraska, a "sacred right of self-government." And here, I submit to this intelligent audience and the whole world, was Judge Douglas' discovery, and the whole of it. He invented a name for Gen. Cass' old Nicholson letter dogma. He discovered that the right of the white man to breed and flog niggers in Nebraska was POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY!
Chicago Press and Tribune, September 11, 1858.
Way to go Abe!! Dropped the N-bomb four times in one paragraph in a public speech.
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Speech at Edwardsville, Illinois, September 11, 1858
Then, if Mr. Douglas did not invent this kind of sovereignty, let us pursue the inquiry and find out what the invention really was. Was it the right of emigrants in Kansas and Nebraska to govern themselves and a gang of niggers too, if they wanted them? Clearly this was no invention of his, because Gen. Cass put forth the same doctrine in 1848, in his so-called Nicholson letter---six whole years before Douglas thought of such a thing. Gen. Cass could have taken out a patent for the idea, if he had chosen to do so, and have prevented his Illinois rival from reaping a particle of benefit from it. Then what was it, I ask again, that this "Little Giant'' invented? It never occurred to Gen. Cass to call his discovery by the odd name of "Popular Sovereignty.'' He had not the impudence to say that the right of people to govern niggers was the right of people to govern themselves. His notions of the fitness of things were not moulded to the brazen degree of calling the right to put a hundred niggers through under the lash in Nebraska, a "sacred right of self-government." And here, I submit to this intelligent audience and the whole world, was Judge Douglas' discovery, and the whole of it. He invented a name for Gen. Cass' old Nicholson letter dogma. He discovered that the right of the white man to breed and flog niggers in Nebraska was POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY!---[Great applause and laughter.]
Alton Weekly Courier, September 16, 1858.
Way to go Abe!! Quite a stump speech you have going there! Different newspaper, four n-bombs.
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Seventh and Last Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Alton, Illinois ,October 15, 1858
We profess to have no taste for running and catching niggers---at least I profess no taste for that job at all. Why then do I yield support to a fugitive slave law? Because I do not understand that the Constitution, which guarantees that right, can be supported without it.
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Editor of the Central Transcript. Springfield,
Dear Sir: July 3, 1859
Your fling about men entangled with the "Matteson Robbery" as you express it; and men indicted for stealing niggers and mail-bags, I think is unjust and impolitic. Why manufacture slang to be used against us by our enemies? The world knows who are alluded to by the mention of stealing niggers and mail-bags; and as to the Canal script fraud, the charge of being entangled with it, would be as just, if made against you, as against any other Republican in the State.
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Speech at Council Bluffs, Iowa
August 13, 1859
He then, with many excuses and a lengthy explanation, as if conscious of the nauseous nature of that Black Republican nostrum, announced his intention to speak about the "eternal Negro," to use his own language, and entered into a lengthy and ingenious analysis of the Nigger question, impressing upon his hearers that it was the only question to be agitated until finally settled.
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Speech at Clinton, Illinois, October 14, 1859
He then spoke of the evils and disasters attending the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, by which the barriers protecting freedom and free labor were broken down and the Territories transformed into asylums for slavery and niggers....
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Speech at Hartford, Connecticut, March 5, 1860
[Daily Courant Version]
They say that between the nigger and the crocodile they go for the nigger. The proportion, therefore, is, that as the crocodile to the nigger so is the nigger to the white man.
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Speech at a Republican Banquet, Chicago, Illinois
December 10, 1856
Their conduct reminded him of the darky who, when a bear had put its head into the hole and shut out the daylight, cried out, "What was darkening de hole?'' "Ah,'' cried the other darky, who was on to the tail of the animal, "if de tail breaks you'll find out.'' [Laughter and cheers.] Those darkies at Springfield see something darkening the hole, but wait till the tail breaks on the 1st of January, and they will see. [Cheers.] The speaker referred to the anecdote of the boy who was talking to another as to whether Gen. Jackson could ever get to Heaven. Said the boy "He'd get there if he had a mind to.'' [Cheers and laughter.] So was it with Col. Bissell,---he'd do whatever he had a mind to.