Abraham Lincoln on Democracy
Travel photo and words to ponder for President's Day
Abraham Lincoln grew up in exceptionally modest circumstances. He was born in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky and then moved with his family to Indiana, where they continued to scrape out a meager existence. As an adult, he eventually made his way to Springfield, Illinois, where through singular determination and self-study, he became a lawyer, Congressman, orator, and finally president.
The above photo is of Abraham Lincoln’s home in Springfield, Illinois. As you can see, his career as a lawyer enabled him to afford a home that was miles beyond the one-room log cabin of his birth. The home is a National Historic site and the surrounding neighborhood has been restored to look much as it did in Lincoln’s day, just before he became president.
Here is a partial view of the parlor in Lincoln’s home:
And the kitchen:
What’s fascinating, though, is how a man who came from here, whether this home or his log cabin beginnings — and who attended school for no more than one year of his life and thus was entirely self taught — became one of the nation’s greatest presidents. Not to mention that Lincoln, who John Avlon called the “poet of democracy,” is also unrivaled as a writer among presidents.
So, for President’s Day (and five days past the 216th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth on February 12, 1809), I thought it’d be interesting to look back on a few of Lincoln’s words on democracy. It’s a perfect day for it, and it’s even a nice companion piece to my last post.
Here are four quotes. Peruse and ponder at your leisure:
1. Here is Lincoln on what democracy means to him:
“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this … is no democracy.”
2. On the battle for democracy fought by the Founders:
“Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began.”
3. On how American democracy could not be defeated by a foreign enemy, but could only be destroyed by the actions of its own people:
“All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth … could not, by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge … 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. … If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freeman, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
4. And finally, Lincoln in his first inaugural address — in one of the most famous passages of any inaugural — speaking of how Americans must remain friends, not enemies, despite passionate differences:
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
See more Travel Photos here.
Images: All photos by Bob Riel; Lincoln signature via Wikimedia Commons.
insightful words that stand the test of time