Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States (February 12, 1809 - April 15, 1865)
"Now he belongs to the ages." ~ Edwin M. Stanton
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/05/28/070528fa_fact_gopnik
Abraham Lincoln and Public Opinion:
http://abrahamlincolnsclassroom.org/Library/newsletter.asp?ID=124&CRLI=172
"Lincoln had the most comprehensive, the most judicious mind; he was the least faulty in his conclusions of any man I have ever known." ~ Charles A. Dana
?From the genuine abolition view, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent, but measuring him by the sentiment of his country ? a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult he was swift, zealous, radical and determined." ~ Frederick Douglass
?Lincoln is the most truly progressive man of the age, because he always moves in conjunction with propitious circumstances, not waiting to be dragged by the force of events or wasting strength in premature struggles with them." ~ John W. Forney
"As James Russell Lowell wrote, he never played the Cleon ? the demagogue. Instead, he presented the people with careful arguments, addressed to their reason and their loftier instincts. ?I beg of you,? he once said, after listing a certain set of arguments, ?a calm and enlarged consideration of them. On minor questions he believed the people could err grievously; but on fundamental issues he would trust them, in the end, to decide aright." ~ Allan Nevins
"(Mr. Lincoln was) never leading public opinion, but always following its wave so closely that, when it breaks, it is found swimming upon the crest. To the unobservant he appeared to lead, whereas he only followed. He had an unerring and rapid perception of the popular will, and the policy which he from time to time adopted was but the crystallization of that will.? ~ Maunsell B. Field
?Lincoln is a strong man, but his strength is of a peculiar kind; it is not aggressive so much as passive, and among passive things, it is like the strength not so much of a stone buttress as of a wire cable. It is strength swaying to every influence, yielding on this side and on that to popular needs, yet tenaciously and inflexibly bound to carry its great end; and probably by no other kind of strength could our national ship have been drawn safely thus far during the tossings and tempests which beset her way. Surrounded by all sorts of conflicting claims, by traitors, by half-hearted, timid men, by Border States men, and Free States men, by radical Abolitionists, and Conservatives, he has listened to all, weighed the words of all, waited, observed, yielded now here and now there, but in the main kept one inflexible, honest purpose, and drawn the national ship through.? ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe
?Lincoln emphasized that it was public sentiment not opinion, not belief, but sentiment. Lincoln chose his words with care, and it is worth noting the difference between ?sentiment? and other terms he might have used. Public sentiment is more enduring than public opinion; it touches deeper roots in an individual?s system of beliefs and values. And it is not purely cognitive and rational; it reflects emotion wellsprings, too. If public sentiment held that slavery was doomed to eventual extinction, that meant something more than acceptance of an abstract proposition. It meant a commitment that sprang from the nexus of religious and ethical conviction, cultural tradition and narrative, and intellectual principle and reason.? ~ David Zarefsky
"Men moving only in an official circle are apt to become merely official, not to say arbitrary, in their ideas, and are apter and apter, with each passing day, to forget that they only hold power in a representative capacity. Now this is all wrong. I go into these promiscuous receptions of all who claim to have business with me twice each week, and every applicant for audience has to take his turn as if waiting to be shaved in a barber?s shop. Many of the matters brought to my notice are utterly frivolous, but others are of more or less importance, and all serve to renew in me a clearer and more vivid image of that great popular assemblage, out of which I sprang, and to which at the end of two years I must return. I tell you, Major, that I call these receptions my public-opinion baths." ~ A. Lincoln to Charles G. Halpine
?He managed to leave his visitor not only free to utter his opinions, but by a wise reserve in the manner of insisting upon his own, he got even a little more from his visitor than his visitor got from him." ~ Frederick Douglass
?Mr. Lincoln was a genuine democrat in feelings, sentiments, and actions. How patiently and considerately he listened amid the terrible pressure of public affairs to the people who thronged his ante-room! I remember calling upon him one day during the war on pressing business. The ante-room was crowded with men and women seeking admission. He seemed oppressed, careworn, and weary. I said to him, ?Mr. President, you are too exhausted to see this throng waiting to see you; you will wear yourself out and ought not see these people today.? He replied with one of those smiles in which sadness seemed to mingle, ?They don?t want much; they get but little, and I must seem them.'" ~ Henry Wilson
President Lincoln?s Summer Home:
http://abrahamlincolnsclassroom.org/Library/newsletter.asp?ID=16&CRLI=93
"Lincoln had the most comprehensive, the most judicious mind; he was the least faulty in his conclusions of any man I have ever known." ~ Charles A. Dana
"The ideas of the Gettysburg Address were not more original with Lincoln that those of the Declaration of Independence were with Jefferson. The principles of each of these great statements of American democracy were widely held and had been often expressed. But they had never been put so well. Jefferson and Lincoln each for his time and for all time, crystallized in superb language the ideals and aspirations of millions of men and women." ~ Richard N. Current
. . . a new birth of freedom . . . a more perfect Union . . .
Speech in Springfield, Illinois (June 26, 1857)
http://afroamhistory.about.com/library/bllincoln_dred_scott.htm
http://www.mrlincolnandthefounders.org/inside.asp?ID=1&subjectID=1
http://www.mrlincolnandthefounders.org/content_inside.asp?ID=6&subjectID=4
" . . . And now as to the Dred Scott decision. That decision declares two propositions--first, that a negro cannot sue in the United States courts; and secondly, that Congress cannot prohibit slavery in the Territories. It was made by a divided court--dividing differently on the different points. Judge Douglas does not discuss the merits of the decision, and in that respect I shall follow his example, believing I could no more improve on McLean and Curtis than he could on Taney.
He denounces all who question the correctness of that decision, as offering violent resistance to it. But who resists it? Who has, in spite of the decision, declared Dred Scott free, and resisted the authority of his master over him? Judicial decisions have two uses--first, to absolutely determine the case decided; and secondly, to indicate to the public how other similar cases will be decided when they arise. For the latter use, they are called "precedents" and "authorities."
We believe as much as Judge Douglas (perhaps more) in obedience to, and respect for, the judicial department of government. We think its decisions on constitutional questions, when fully settled, should control not only the particular cases decided, but the general policy of the country, subject to be disturbed only by amendments of the Constitution as provided in that instrument itself. More than this would be revolution. But we think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it to over rule this. We offer no resistance to it.
Judicial decisions are of greater or less authority as precedents according to circumstances. That this should be so accords both with common sense and the customary understanding of the legal profession.
If this important decision had been made by the unanimous concurrence of the judges, and without any apparent partizan bias, and in accordance with legal public expectation and with the steady practice of the departments throughout our history, and had been in no part based on assumed historical facts which are not really true; or, if wanting in some of these, it had been before the court more than once, and had there been affirmed and reaffirmed through a course of years, it then might be, perhaps would be, factious, nay, even revolutionary, not to acquiesce in it as a precedent.
But when, as is true, we find it wanting in all these claims to the public confidence, it is not resistance, it is not factious, it is not even disrespectful, to treat it as not having yet quite established a settled doctrine for the country . . .
Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the Dred Scott case, admits that the language of the Declaration is broad enough to include the whole human family, but he and Judge Douglas argue that the authors of that instrument did not intend to include negroes, by the fact that they did not at once actually place them on an equality with the whites. Now this grave argument comes to just nothing at all, by the other fact that they did not at once, or ever afterward, actually place all white people on an equality with one another. And this is the staple argument of both the chief justice and the senator for doing this obvious violence to the plain, unmistakable language of the Declaration.
I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what respects they did consider all men created equal--equal with "certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit.
They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere. The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be--as, thank God, it is now proving itself--a stumbling-block to all those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should reappear in this fair land and commence their vocation, they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack.
I have now briefly expressed my view of the meaning and object of that part of the declaration of Independence which declares that "all men are created equal." ~ A. Lincoln
GL
