Whatever.
I don't post for you.
Here's the thing. You cite some people who clearly didn't much like Lincoln. That's okay, a lot of people didn't.
What you are getting me to do is dive into my pedant's bag of quotes to prove again what has been known for 138 years. Abraham Lincoln was a great and good man.
Whoever would understand in his heart the meaning of America will find it in the life of Abraham Lincoln...
-- Ronald Reagan , first inaugural address, January 20, 1981
A hundred and twenty years ago the greatest of all our Presidents delivered his second State of the Union Message in this chamber. "We cannot escape history," Abraham Lincoln warned. "We of this Congress and this Administration will be re membered in spite of ourselves." The "trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation." Well, that President and that Congress did not fail the American people. Together, they weathered the storm and preserved the union. Let it be said of us that we, too did not fail ; that we, too, worked together to bring America through difficult times. Let us so conduct ourselves that two centuries from now, another Congress and another President, meeting in this chamber as we're meeting, will speak of us with pride, saying that we met the test and preserved for them in their day the sacred flame of liberty this last, best hope of man on Earth.
-- Ronald Reagan , State of the Union Address -January 26, 1982
We knew then what the liberal Democrat leaders just couldn't figure out....I heard those speakers at that other convention saying "we won the Cold War" -- and I couldn't help wondering, just who exactly do they mean by "we"? And to top it off, they even tried to portray themselves as sharing the same fundamental values of our party! What they truly don't understand is the principle so eloquently stated by Abraham Lincoln: "You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves." If we ever hear the Democrats quoting that passage by Lincoln and acting like they mean it, then, my friends, we will know that the opposition has really changed. Until then, we see all that rhetorical smoke, billowing out from the Democrats, well ladies and gentlemen, I'd follow the example of their nominee. Don't inhale.
---Ronald Reagan, 1992 Republican Convention Speech
It was this spirit that helped black folks in America to survive and even begin to move toward prosperity during the years of legalized oppression after the Civil War and well into the 20th century . It was also this spirit, when it came to light in the Civil Rights movement of the late 50's and 60's, that had the power to transform the hardened conscience of America. Surprised and edified by the quiet dignity of black Americans seeking justice, the people of this country were called back to some respect for the first principles of America's life. For the Civil Rights movement followed the example of the American Founders, and of Lincoln, who had proclaimed that every single human being had a worth that comes not from laws and constitutions, but from the hand of God. With quiet determination the freedom marchers insisted that every government, every law and every power whatsoever is obliged to respect that worth....the temptation to succumb to worldly judgment about the dignity of individuals, particularly those not favored by fortune with wealth, position and beauty, can be overwhelming. Black Americans have faced this temptation, and defeated it. Lincoln led the public battle against the doctrine of human inequality, but countless anonymous others have steadfastly done their work over the decades to keep the flame alive and to spread it
--Alan Keyes, Februrary 17, 2001 Restoring the mantle of Lincoln to the Republican Party is a noble goal and, indeed, an essential one. But it is not enough to adopt the slogan. To lead the party in the footsteps of Lincoln requires that we understand clearly and deeply the soul of Lincoln's own deepest ambition
-- the wellsprings of the sometimes heartbreaking and, ultimately, healing acts of political and presidential leadership that constitute the legacy of Lincoln. What was the real purpose that animated the striving of that great man, for which he spent the last resources of his noble soul and ultimately paid with his life? The answer occurring readily to most Americans would probably be that Lincoln's career, and his presidency, were devoted to the task of freeing the slaves. How then are we to understand the following words, written by Lincoln during the war, to one of the foremost abolitionists of the day? "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it."This quotation can seem almost scandalous in its apparent disregard for the abolitionist cause, particularly for those who are perceptive enough to realize that not all "unions" justify such devotion -- the Soviets, after all, had a "union" and freely accepted the necessity of slavery in their attempt to perpetuate it. Soviet acceptance of slavery in the cause of its union was, of course, deeply wrong. Was Lincoln wrong as well? If we wish to understand, to wear again, the mantle of Lincoln, we must follow his thought deeper, and ask what it was about the Union that could move such a man -- whose deepest moral sentiments were outraged by the institution of slavery -- to defer the cause of abolition if it meant allowing the end of the political union of the American Republic.At stake was the survival of a community of free men still devoted, however imperfectly, to the attempt at just self-government. Lincoln understood the Founders to have formed a Union dedicated to vindicating the possibility of such a community. He believed that the Founders had understood that the institution of slavery, although it ultimately contradicted the principles of the republic, did not vitiate the solemn founding commitment to the pursuit of just self-government.
Accordingly, Lincoln argued, the Founders had placed the institution of slavery "in the course of ultimate extinction" partly through a series of practical political concessions such as the constitutional time limit on the slave trade. Far more important, however, was the fact -- as Lincoln argued in scholarly depth -- that the founding generation universally understood that they were committing the country to a perpetual struggle to conform their lives and political institutions to the principles stated in the Declaration that gave birth to the Union itself. They, and Lincoln, knew that slavery could not survive such a commitment.A Union that had formally broken its commitment to the Declaration, Lincoln believed, would no more be the Union of the founding. It would in fact be no less broken than the divided polity which the secession of the Southern states threatened to cause. Preserving the Union meant preserving the national commitment to the pursuit of justice in self-government, a goal never perfectly attained, but most definitely not to be abandoned because of any dispute about the manner of its accomplishment. This, I believe, is what Lincoln meant in the famous words at Gettysburg, when he identified the "great task remaining before us." That task, he said, was "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.".....or save the Union on the basis of the Declaration, Lincoln knew, required that slavery be returned to its condition at the Founding -- namely, that it be put firmly on the course of ultimate extinction. The delay in its extinction might be painfully long. But if it was necessary to endure that delay rather than admit that we could not govern ourselves under the principles of the Declaration, Lincoln was prepared to do so.....The resolve to evoke from his fellow citizens their assent to the eventual triumph of justice was Lincoln's greatest ambition, and his failure to do it without war was his greatest sorrow. In our time, the mantle -- the burden -- of the Declaration remains the source of what must be our own greatest ambition. The Republican Party must indeed reclaim the mantle of Lincoln -- we must highly resolve, as Lincoln said, to lead the nation to a renewed determination to seek justice according to the principles of the Declaration
. --Alan Keyes, August 12, 2000
Walt
You have been singularly unsuccessful in finding one contemporary of Lincoln who praised his alleged virtues while he was alive. I have been quoting from Lincoln's own administration, hand-picked by Lincoln. Lincoln's Secretary of War, Lincoln's Secretary of State, Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury and appointee to the Supreme Court. I have quoted military leaders Lincoln selected for their positions of leadership.
[Walt] What you are getting me to do is dive into my pedant's bag of quotes to prove again what has been known for 138 years. Abraham Lincoln was a great and good man.
You cannot prove Lincoln was great and good by quoting Reagan. I note your pedant's bag of quotes contains not a single one of his contemporaries praising him before his assassination. You are unlikely to find one where he ever preached Black equality either. But he did use the N-word and he called Mexicans "mongrels."
You may continue to worship at the altar of your lord god abraham. I will continue to quote the gospel according to Abraham.
Quoting from James McPherson, "Frederick Douglass believed that Lincoln was 'allowing himself to be ... the miserable tool of traitors and rebels."
More McPherson:
The president asked the black leaders to recruit volunteers for a government-financed pilot colonization project in Central America. If this worked, it could pave the way for theemigration of thousands more who might be freed by the war.
Most black spokesmen in the North ridiculed Lincoln's proposal and denounced its author. "This is our country as much as it is yours," a Philadelphia Negro told the president, "and we will not leave it." Frederick Douglass accused Lincoln of, "contempt for negroes" and "canting hypocrisy." The president's remarks, said Douglass, would encourage "ignorant and base" white men "to commit all kinds of violence and outrage upon the colored people."
. . .
Two-thirds of the Republicans in Congress became sufficiently convinced of the need to conciliate this sentiment that they voted for amendments to the District of Columbia emancipation bill and the confiscation act appropriating $600,000 for colonization. As a practical matter, said one Republican, colonization "is a damn humbug. But it will take with the people."
In the August 1862 issue of Douglass Monthly, Frederick Douglass said, "that ABRAHAM LINCOLN is not more fit for the place he hold than was JAMES BUCHANAN, and that the latter was no more the miserable tool of traitors and rebels that former is allowing himself to be."
Frederick Douglass said:
Illogical and unfair as Mr. Lincoln's statements are, they are nevertheless quite in keeping with his whole course from the beginning of his administration up to this day, and confirm the painful conviction that though elected as an anti-slavery man by Republican and Abolition voters, Mr. Lincoln is quite a genuine representative of American prejudice and Negro hatred and far more concerned for the preservation of slavery, and the favor of the Border States, than for any sentiment of magnanimity or principle of justice and humanity"
The Life and Writing of Frederick Douglass, edited by Philip S. Foner, 4 Vols, New York, 1955, vol 3, page 268
Frederick Douglass said:
With the single exception of the quesiton of slavery extension, Mr. Lincoln proposes no measure which can bring him into antagonistic collision with the traffickers in human flesh, either in the States or in the District of Columbia .... Slavery will be as safe, and safer, in the Union under such a President, than it can be under any President of a Southern Confederacy"
The Life and Writing of Frederick Douglass, edited by Philip S. Foner, 4 Vols, New York, 1955, vol 2, page 527
Wendell Phillips said Lincoln was "not an Abolitionist, hardly an anti-slavery man."
Liberal Republicans said Lincoln's policies prolonged the war and increased the cost and casualties.
Said Charles Sumner:
It is hard to read of all this blood & sacrifice, & to think that it might have been averted -- which I most solemnly believe"
The Selected Letters of Charles Sumner, edited by Beverly Wilson Palmer, Vol. 2, Boston, 1990, page 124
Said Sumner, Lincoln's "delays tended to prolong the war" and "if ever the account is impartially balanced he & the Secy of State must answer for much treasure & bloodshed"
The Selected Letter of Charles Sumner, edited by Beverly Wilson Palmer, Vol. 2, Boston, 1990, page 306
Senator Trumbull said a better president might have won the war "in half the time, and with half the loss of blood and treasure."
Quoted in The Life of Lyman Trumbull, Horace White, New York, 1913, page 428. To Judge Stephen Douglas, the lord god abraham said:
When we shall get Mexico, I don't know whether the Judge will be in favor of the Mexican people that we get with it settling that question for themselves and all others; because we know the Judge has a great horror for mongrels, and I understand that the people of Mexico are most decidedly a race of mongrels. I understand that there is not more than one person out there out of eight who is pure white, and I suppose from the Judge's previous declaration that when we get Mexico or any considerable portion of it, that he will be in favor of these mongrels settling the question, which would bring him somewhat into collision with his horror of an inferior race.
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler, 11 vols, Rutgers, 1955, vol. 3, page 235
[italics added]
In a Carlinville speech, according to the Carlinville Democrat, Lincoln started thus:
"He said the question is often asked, why this fuss about n-----s?"
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler, 11 vols, Rutgers, 1955, vol. 3, page 77
The answer, according to the lord god lincoln:
"Sustain these men and Negro equality will be abundant, as every white laborer will have occasion to regret when he is elbowed from his plow or his anvil by slave n-----s"
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler, 11 vols, Rutgers, 1955, vol. 3, pp. 77-8 [elision added to the N-word which Lincoln used like Mark Fuhrman.]
In Elwood, Kansas, a year later, the great lincoln said:
"People often ask, why make such a fuss about a few n-----s?"
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler, 11 vols, Rutgers, 1955, vol. 3, page 495
Lincoln saw fit, to the dismay of Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts, to interrupt a White House discussion of the tragically high union mortality rate to tell a group of English visitors a story about "darky" arithmetic.
Reminiscenses of Abraham Lincoln by Distinguised Men of His Time, Allen T. Rice, New York, 1888, pp. 286-8
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln are available at:
http://www.hti.umich.edu/l/lincoln/
For the below letter, just search on the N-word.
This is Lincoln, the lawyer, at work.
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865.: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 2.
To Newton Deming and George P. Strong [1] Springfield, May 25, 1857.
Messrs. N.D. & G.P. Strong
Gentlemen
Yours of the 22nd is just received. The admiralty case now stands on appeal to the circuit court and consequently, can only be tried by Judge McLean; and I understand he will remain here only one week, commencing the first Monday of June. Of course, the other side will press for a hearing during that week.
I have just been to see Stuart & Edwards and they suggest that you see the plantiff's lawyer in St. Louis (I forget his name) and make an arrangement with him as to a day of taking up the case, and notify us.
I do not think any defence has been presented based on the fact of Messrs Page & Bacon [2] having purchased under the Deed of Trust. Quere. Does not the Libellants right, attach to the specific thing---this case---regardless of who may own them?
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 ``n****r'' in some way.
Seriously, I wish you to prepare, on the question jurisdiction as well as you can; for I fear the later decisions are against us. I understand they have some new Admiralty Books here, but I have not examined them.
Yours truly
A. LINCOLN
Annotation
[1] ALS, IHi. Newton D. Strong married Matilda R. Edwards, eldest daughter of Hon. Cyrus Edwards, Alton, Illinois. Strong later moved to St. Louis and set up a law practice.
[2] Daniel D. Page and Henry D. Bacon were bankers and merchants in St. Louis.
[elision of N-word added]
On January 5, 1836 the Honorable Abraham Lincoln, then a 26-year old representative, voted for a resolution which stated in part:
"Resolved, That the elective franchise should be kep pure from contamination by the admission of colored votes."
That's Abe preventing pollution of the ballot box.
Lincoln at Worcester, Massachusetts, September 1848, referring to the killing of abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy in Illinois:
"I have heard you have abolitionists here. We have a few in Illinois and we shot one the other day"
Herndon's Informants, edited by Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, Urbana 1998, p. 681
Said Congressman John B. Alley of Massachusetts:
"many of the most distinguished men of the country, who were in daily intercourse with him [Lincoln], thought but little of his capacity as a statesman. And while entirely true, it is hardly to be believed that those in both houses of Congress who knew him best had so little confidence in his judgment and ability to administer the government that few of the members of the Senate and of the House were in favor of his renomination for the Presidency in 1864"
Reminiscenses of Abraham Lincoln by Distinguised Men of His Time, Allen T. Rice, New York, 1888, pp 573-4
Lincoln's "I Have a White Dream"
Seventh and Last Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Alton, Illinois
October 15, 1858
Now irrespective of the moral aspect of this question as to whether there is a right or wrong in enslaving a negro, I am still in favor of our new Territories being in such a condition that white men may find a home---may find some spot where they can better their condition---where they can settle upon new soil and better their condition in life. [Great and continued cheering.] I am in favor of this not merely, (I must say it here as I have elsewhere,) for our own people who are born amongst us, but as an outlet for free white people everywhere, the world over---in which Hans and Baptiste and Patrick, and all other men from all the world, may find new homes and better their conditions in life. [Loud and long continued applause.]
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865.: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 3, p. 312
[bold face added, italics in original]