Gary Brown: Lincoln in his own words

For a country lawyer who went to Washington, President Abraham Lincoln had a lot to say – first in Congress and later the White House.

And Americans are dedicated to remembering the wisdom of the man who led the nation through the dark days of the Civil War.

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An abundance of pages at websites throughout the internet are dedicated to preserving Lincoln's words, which were sometimes homespun, other times eloquent, and in either style almost always profound.

No doubt some of the Lincoln quotations – in the manner of the much misquoted Mark Twain or the mistakenly remembered Yogi Berra – are erroneously attributed to the country's 16th president.

Still, enough trusted historical and scholarly websites exist to have collected a wealth of reliable and thought-provoking remarks made by Lincoln during a life that had a profound effect on the history of the United States.

Today, as we recognize the birthday of one of the country's most revered presidents, it seems an appropriate time to recall just a few of the things that Lincoln is credited with saying, as compiled by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum in Springfield, Illinois.

Lincoln possessed ambition early in life

According one of the first quotations listed, along with its date, at the museum's website, talk of ambition began early in Lincoln's law and political career.

"Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men." (March 9, 1832)

Lincoln served in the Illinois state legislature from 1834 to 1842. And, he realized that his actions in that office would often would speak for him.

"Mr. Chairman, this movement is exclusively the work of politicians; a set of men who have interests aside from the interests of the people, and who, to say the most of them, are, taken as a mass, at least one long step removed from honest men. I say this with the greater freedom because, being a politician myself, none can regard it as personal." (Jan. 22, 1937)

Lincoln moved on to the U.S. House of Representatives late in the 1940s. But, it was even before that when Lincoln's morality – raging against an issue that would shape our memory of him – showed in his relating of a personal observation.

"The (slaves) were strung together precisely like so many fish upon a trot-line. In this condition they were being separated forever from the scenes of their childhood, their friends, their fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters." (Sept. 27, 1841)

Later, Lincoln would be more specific in his moral judgement.

"There can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another." (Oct. 16, 1853)

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Lincoln's service came as a war president

Long before Lincoln was elected president in 1860, he made known his intentions regarding a war between the states. '"The Union, in any event, won't be dissolved. We don't want to dissolve it, and if you attempt it, we won't let you." (Aug. 1, 1856)

During his campaign, he offered himself as a candidate as the conduit to powering a solution to ending the discord that tore apart the nation prior to the Civil War. He reasoned that the division in the country could not remain.

"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." (June 16, 1858)

War came because of the differences in thinking by the nation's people. Lincoln, long before he was shot at Ford's Theatre, was willing to give up his life for cause of keeping the country together.

"If this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle ... I would rather be assassinated on this spot than to surrender it." (Feb. 22, 1861)

While opposing slavery, Lincoln knew full well his ultimate objective.

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it." (Aug. 22, 1862)

In the end of the war, all slaves indeed were free. The first in rebel states through the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and the rest following the Civil War by the 13th Amendment. Lincoln thought all Americans should celebrate relieving slaves of a life of servitude.

"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free." (Dec. 1, 1862)

In the end, the cause of freedom would take his own life. Before his assassination, he seemed to have come to terms with threats against him, both verbal and physical.

"I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I cannot properly offer an answer." (April 11, 1865)

When Lincoln was gone, dying from his assassin's bullet on April 15, 1865, he left his words, and by them he is remembered.

"I do the very best I know how – the very best I can," he once said, though the date is unknown to those compiling his quotations at the Lincoln museum, "and I mean to keep doing so until the end."

Reach Gary at gary.brown.rep@gmail.com. On Twitter: @gbrownREP.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Gary Brown: Lincoln in his own words