Words of a great wartime president...
Each of these is a different quote, all taken out of context, but the spirit of each should still be clear.I would like to speak in terms of praise due to the many brave officers and soldiers who have fought in the cause of the war.
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.
I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for the day.
I shall try to correct errors where shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views as fast as they shall appear to be true views.
Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.
I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.
I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.
Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts — not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose — and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived.
The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
— Abraham Lincoln
- October 31, 2006
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