15

(December 10, 1856, Speech at banquet in Chicago, Il.-Complete Works, Vol. I, p. 226.)

Thus let bygones be bygones, let past differences as nothing be and with steady eye on the real issue let us reinaugurate the good old "central ideas” of the republic. We can do it. The human heart is with us! God is with us! We shall again be able not to declare that "all States as States are equal," nor yet that all "citizens as citizens are equal,” but to renew the broader, better declaration, including both these and much more, that all men are created equal!

16

(October 16, 1854, Speech at Peoria, Ill.-Howells, p. 294.)

Let us readopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it the practices and policy which harmonize with it. Let North and South-let all Americans -let all lovers of liberty everywhere join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only save the Union, but we shall have so saved it as to make and keep it forever worthy of the saving. We shall have so saved it that the succeeding millions of free, happy people, the world over, shall rise up and call us blessed to the latest generations.

17

(August 15, 1855, Letter to George Robertson-Complete Works, Vol. I, p. 216.)

When we were the political slaves of King George, and wanted to be free we called the maxim that “all men are created equal" a self-evident truth; but now when we have grown fat and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim "a self-evident lie." The Fourth of July has not quite dwindled away; it is still a great day—for burning fire-crackers!

18

(February 21, 1861, Speech at Continental Hotel, Philadelphia, Pa. -Complete Works, Vol. I, p. 690.)

Your worthy Mayor has expressed the wish, in which I join with him, that it were convenient for me to remain in your city long enough to consult your merchants and manufacturers; or, as it were to listen to those breathings rising within the consecrated walls wherein the Constitution of the United States, and I will add, the Declaration of Independence, were originally framed and adopted. I assure you and your Mayor that I had hoped on this occasion, and upon all occasions during my life, that I shall do nothing inconsistent with the teachings of these holy and most sacred walls. I have never asked anything that does not breathe

from these walls. All my political warfare has been in favor of the teachings that came forth from these sacred walls. May my right hand forget its cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if ever I prove false to those teachings.

(October 16,

19

1854, Speech at Peoria, Ill.-Howells, p. 292. By the phrase "Nebraska men" Mr. Lincoln meant supporters of the Nebraska Bill.)

Little by little, but steadily as man's march to the grave, we have been giving up the old for the new faith. Near eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but, now, from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration that for some men to enslave others is a “sacred right of self-government." These principles cannot stand together. They are as opposite as God and Mammon; and whoever holds to the one must despise the other. When Pettit, in connection with his support of the Nebraska Bill, called the Declaration of Independence "a self-evident lie" he only did what consistency and candor required all other Nebraska men to do. Of the forty odd Nebraska Senators who sat present and heard him, no one rebuked him. Nor am I apprised that any Nebraska newspaper or any Nebraska orator in the whole nation has ever yet rebuked him. If this had been said among Marion's men, Southerners

though they were, what would have become of the man who said it? If this had been said to the men who captured André, the man who said it would probably have been hung sooner than André was. If it had been said in old Independence Hall seventy-eight years ago, the very doorkeeper would have throttled the man and thrust him into the street.