[DiogenesLamp]

I have been waiting for you to respond to message #74 because it contains more of the quote, and also another quote by Lincoln which is similar, (So much for what John Nicolay says about it) and the link I gave you goes to a webpage where the guy claims to have found the actual source of the quote.

For some reason you have ignored message #74, and at first I thought it was because you didn't like the ramifications of it and didn't want to address it.

Did you just overlook it?

[BroJoeK]

"I have been waiting for you to respond to message #74 because it contains more of the quote, and also another quote by Lincoln which is similar, (So much for what John Nicolay says about it)..."

I didn't see an issue in your post which needed a response from me.
Today I'm satisfied that the alleged quote first appeared in the:

"Journal of United Labor (Vol 8, no. 20, Nov. 19, 1887, pg. 2). The Journal of United Labor was published in Marblehead, near Boston, MA, and was house organ for the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, an early radical labor union."

I'm also satisfied that the denunciation of the quote by Lincoln's secretary John Nicolay, in 1887 is also real:

"This alleged quotation from Mr. Lincoln is a bald, unblushing forgery.
The great President never said it or wrote it, and never said or wrote anything that by the utmost license could be distorted to resemble it."

Of course, Nicolay's words by themselves do not prove the alleged quote is fake, but since the original source is a Knights of Labor house organ, I think we'd need to see positive proof that the KOL was not just putting their own words into Lincoln's mouth.

As for your allegedly similar words from 1837, I don't think the context of those words shows any similarity whatever to that of the quote alleged from 1864 -- 27 years later.

"These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert to fleece the people, and now that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people’s money to settle the quarrel."

Lincoln's 1837 "State Bank Speech" in the Illinois State legislature involves strictly a dispute amongst capitalists as to who owned how much of a certain stock.
In it, Lincoln merely argues that the government should not be required to pay for the disputed stocks -- that's all!

Here's the whole quote:

"It is an old maxim and a very sound one, that he that dances should always pay the fiddler.
Now, sir, in the present case, if any gentlemen, whose money is a burden to them, choose to lead off a dance, I am decidedly opposed to the people's money being used to pay the fiddler.
No one can doubt that the examination proposed by this resolution, must cost the State some ten or twelve thousand dollars; and all this to settle a question in which the people have no interest, and about which they care nothing.
These capitalists generally act harmoniously, and in concert, to fleece the people, and now, that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people's money to settle the quarrel."

In 1837, Lincoln is talking about settling a dispute amongst bankers, not worrying that "corporations have been enthroned", as alleged in 1864.

Who are very worried that "corporations have been enthroned" are the 1887 Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, an early radical labor union.