10 Abraham Lincoln Quotes Made Before And During The Civil War

#1. “Plainly, the central idea of secession, is the essence of anarchy.”
– From President Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address made on March 4, 1861.

#2. “That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
– President Abraham Lincoln. Words from his Gettysburg Address given at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on November 19, 1863. The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1-3, 1863. It was a Union victory.

#3. “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.”
– Abraham Lincoln, from his prophetic House Divided speech made on June 16, 1858, at the Illinois State Capital in Springfield. Lincoln was accepting the Illinois Republican Party’s nomination for United States senator. He would lose to Stephen A. Douglas.

#4. “John Brown’s effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to participate.”
– Abraham Lincoln on February 27, 1860, in his Cooper Union Address. Radical and violent abolitionist John Brown raided the Harpers Ferry arsenal during October 16-18, 1859. John Brown’s raid was a failure, he was hanged on December 2, 1859.

#5. “All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not, by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.”
– Abraham Lincoln, from a speech he made at the Springfield, Illinois Young Men’s Lyceum on January 27, 1838.

#6. “At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
– A young Abraham Lincoln seems to be portending the Civil War. From a speech Lincoln made at the Springfield, Illinois Young Men’s Lyceum on January 27, 1838.

#7. “Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”
– Abraham Lincoln gives a strong moral argument for ending the spread of slavery into the territories. These words are from his February 27, 1860, Cooper Institute (Cooper Union) address made in New York City. Lincoln was speaking to members of the Young Men’s Republican Union.

#8. “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan–to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
– From President Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address made on March 4, 1865. Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address is regarded as one of the best speeches ever made in United States history.

#9. “In your hands my dissatisfied fellow-country-men, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you.”
– From President Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address given on March 4, 1861. The Southern states began to secede from the Union soon after Lincoln was elected president. He challenges and warns the South.

#10. “If we do not make common cause to save the good old ship of the Union on this voyage, nobody will have a chance to pilot her on another voyage.”
– Abraham Lincoln, from a speech made in Cleveland, Ohio on February 15, 1861. Abraham Lincoln came to Cleveland twice, once in life and once in death. In death, Abraham Lincoln’s casket would return to Cleveland when his funeral train arrived there in April 1865. At Monument Park (now known as Public Square) thousands viewed his open casket.