#refounding father

[foundingfatherquotes]

Fellow countrymen - Americans south, as well as north, shall we make no effort to arrest this? Already the liberal party throughout the world, express the apprehension, “that the one retrograde institution in America, is undermining the principles of progress, and fatally violating the noblest political system the world ever saw.” This is not the taunt of enemies, but the warning of friends.

Abraham Lincoln, Speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Act, October 16, 1854

Listen to the past.

[foundingfatherquotes]

When we were the political slaves of King George, and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that “all men are created equal” a self-evident truth; but now when we have grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim “ a self-evident lie.” The fourth of July has not quite dwindled away; it is still a great day - for burning fire-crackers!!!

Abraham Lincoln, letter to George Robertson, August 15, 1855

[foundingfatherquotes]

But you will not abide the election of a Republican President! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, “Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!”

Abraham Lincoln, Address at Cooper Institute in New York City, February 27, 1860

Republicans to Democrats - Pay for our wall or we’ll cut health insurance for millions of low-income people and it will be your fault.

[foundingfatherquotes]

This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.

Abraham Lincoln, letter to Henry L. Pierce and others, April 6, 1859

[foundingfatherquotes]

Great distance, in either time or space, has wonderful power to lull and render quiescent the human mind. Pleasures to be enjoyed, or pains to be endured, after we shall be dead and gone, are but little regarded, even in our own cases, and much less in the cases of others.

Abraham Lincoln, Address to the Washington Temperance Society of Springfield, Illinois, February 22, 1842

Climate change is after we are dead and gone, right?

[foundingfatherquotes]

In the early days of the world, the Almighty said to the first of our race “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread”; and since then, if we except the light and the air of heaven, no good thing has been, or can be enjoyed by us, without having first cost labour. And, inasmuch as most good things are produced by labour, it follows that all such things of right belong to those whose labour has produced them. But it has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have laboured, and others have, without labour, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To secure to each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government.

Abraham Lincoln, Fragments on the Tariff, 1847

We seem to be going in the opposite direction.

[foundingfatherquotes]

We have Judge Douglas giving his exposition of what the Declaration of Independence means, and we have him saying that the people of America are equal to the people of England. According to his construction, you Germans are not connected with it. Now I ask you in all soberness, if all these things, if indulged in, if ratified, if confirmed and endorsed, if taught to our children, and repeated to them, do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and to transform this Government into a government of some other form.

Abraham Lincoln, speech at Chicago, Illinois, July 10, 1858

And if Germans are equal too, then it also applies to people of other countries, including the ones south of here.

[foundingfatherquotes]

I presume I hardly need enter into an argument to prove to you, that our old revenue system, ..... could not longer continue to answer the purpose of it’s creation. That proposition is little less than self-evident. The only question is as to sustaining the change before the people. I believe it can be sustained, because it does not increase the tax upon the “many poor” but upon the “wealthy few” by taxing the land that is worth $50 or $100 an acre, in proportion to its value, instead of, as heretofore, no more than that which was worth but $5 per acre. This valuable land, as is well known, belongs, not to the poor, but to the wealthy citizen.

On the other hand, the wealthy can not justly complain, because the change is equitable within itself, and also a sine qua non to a compliance with the Constitution. If, however, the wealthy should, regardless of the justness of the complaint, as men often are, when interest is involved in the question, complain of the change, it is still to be remembered, that they are not sufficiently numerous to carry the elections.

Abraham Lincoln, letter to William S. Wait, March 2, 1839

There aren’t enough wealthy to carry the elections. If only they didn’t get so much help.