Abraham Lincoln Liberty Quotations

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.

I am for . . . each individual doing just as he chooses in all matters which concern nobody else.

The Democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when in conflict with another mans right of property. Republicans, on the contrary, are for both the man and the dollar; but in cases of conflict, the man before the dollar.

The Cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at the end of one, or even one hundred defeats.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

Let all Americans - let all lovers of liberty everywhere - join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union; but we shall have so saved it, as to make, and to keep it, forever worthy of the saving.

Cling to liberty and right; battle fro them; leed for them; die for them, if need be; and have confidence in God.

We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.

What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence?

What has ever threatened our liberty and prosperity save and except this institution of Slavery?

No state, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union. Plainly, the central idea of secession, is the essence of anarchy.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. We here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Four score and seven years ago, our father brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal

Many free countries have lost their liberty, and ours may lose hers; but, if she shall, be it my proudest plume, not that I was the last to desert, but that I never deserted her.

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty

If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution.

I hold it to be a paramount duty of us in the free states, due to the Union of the states, and perhaps to liberty itself (paradox though it may seem) to let the slavery of the other states alone; while, on the other hand, I hold it to be equally clear, that we should never knowingly lend ourselves directly or indirectly, to prevent that slavery from dying a natural death--to find new places for it to live in, when it can no longer exist in the old.

Don't kneel to me, that is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank Him for the liberty you will hereafter enjoy.

If there is anything which it is the duty of the whole people to never entrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions.

It is your business to rise up and preserve the Union and liberty, for yourselves, and not for me. I desire they shall be constitutionally preserved.

Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms.