Suggestive programs for special day exercises/Lincoln Day/Language of Lincoln
MEMORABLE LANGUAGE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
[For Quotation Exercise.]
The Union must be preserved.
Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.
A nation may be said to consist of its territory, its people, and its laws.
I believe this government cannot permanently endure half slave and half free.
No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty.
I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.
If our sense of duty forbid slavery, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively.
I hope peace will come soon and come to stay, and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time.
In giving freedom to the slaves we assure freedom to the free, honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.
Having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God and go forward without fear and with manly hearts.
If this country cannot be saved without giving up the principle of Liberty, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it.
To sell or enslave any captured person on account of his color and for no offense against the laws of war, is a relapse into barbarism and a crime against the civilization of the age.
Do not worry, eat three square meals a day, say your prayers, be courteous to your creditors, keep your digestion good, steer clear of biliousness, (exercise, go slow and go easy. Maybe there are other things that your special case requires to make you happy; but, my friend, these I reckon will give you a good lift.
Gold is good in its place; but living, patriotic men are better than gold.
God must like common people or he would not have made so many.
I am indeed very grateful to the brave men who have been struggling with the enemy in the field.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it.
Let us have that faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.
The reasonable man has long since agreed that intemperance is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of all evils among mankind.
The purposes of the Almighty are perfect and must prevail, though we erring mortals may fail to accurately perceive them in advance.
Of the people, when they rise en masse in behalf of the Union and the liberties of their country, truly may it be said,—“The gates of hell can not prevail against them.”
I appeal to you again to constantly bear in mind that with you (the people), and not with politicians, not with Presidents, not with office seekers, but with you, is the question. Shall the Union and shall the liberties of the country be preserved to the latest generation?
(The following lines were written by him on a leaf of his copy-book, when he was about eight years old.—)
Abraham Lincoln
his hand and pen.
he will be good but
God knows when.