Can you source this please? I can't find it in his writings, and it certainly wasn't in his Pittsburgh speech.
He also said this (espousing early facist thinking):
“The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot do so well, for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities."
Let's take it in context, shall we?
"Government is a combination of the people of a country to effect certain objects by joint effort. The best framed and best administered governments are necessarily expensive; while by errors in frame and maladministration most of them are more onerous than they need be, and some of them very oppressive. Why, then, should we have government? Why not each individual take to himself the whole fruit of his labor, without having any of it taxed away, in services, corn, or money? Why not take just so much land as he can cultivate with his own hands, without buying it of any one?"
"The legitimate object of government is ``to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they can not, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves.'' There are many such things---some of them exist independently of the injustice in the world. Making and maintaining roads, bridges, and the like; providing for the helpless young and afflicted; common schools; and disposing of deceased men's property, are instances."
"But a far larger class of objects springs from the injustice of men. If one people will make war upon another, it is a necessity with that other to unite and cooperate for defense. Hence the military department. If some men will kill, or beat, or constrain others, or despoil them of property, by force, fraud, or noncompliance with contracts, it is a common object with peaceful and just men to prevent it. Hence the criminal and civil departments."
Positively Hitlerian. </sarcasm>
This dramatically illustrated Lincoln's dictatorial mentality. He would place his subjective impressions over the decisions of individual consumers. Lincoln proposed that he, rather than consumers, would determine which goods and services would exist. This is Lincoln as the advocate of central planning.
This is DorisKearnsGoodwad running off at the mouth again. A careful reading of the quote, again in context, shows how wrong you are. Link