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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  Abraham Lincoln (1809–65)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 1701
AUTHOR: Abraham Lincoln (1809–65)
QUOTATION: Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We—even we here—hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth.
ATTRIBUTION: President ABRAHAM LINCOLN, annual message to Congress, December 1, 1862.—The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 5, p. 537 (1953).
SUBJECTS: Slavery