It’s Presidents’ Day. We spent it with grandkids. Went to a
fun little rock shot to satisfy a granddaughter’s new interest in geology, went
to the park, did some artwork, and some cooking.
We are living after the manner of happiness[i]—which
is something we can still do in this great country.
To mark the holiday here today, I’ll share a few quotes
(mostly that I think I haven’t shared before) from some favorite presidents.
Just one from George Washington today (shared on Facebook today by Wallbuilders), the rest from Abraham Lincoln.
The world has never had a good definition of liberty,
and the American people, just now, are much in need of one. We all declare for
liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.
With some the word liberty may mean for each man to
do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others
the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and
the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but
incompatible things, called by the same name—liberty. And it follows that each
of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and
incompatible names—liberty and tyranny.
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat,
for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf
denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the
sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a
definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails
today among us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love
liberty. Hence we behold the processes by which thousands are daily passing
from under the yoke of bondage, hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and
bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty.— Abraham Lincoln, in his
Address at a Sanitary Fair, Baltimore, Apr. 18, 1864
 |
| Abraham Lincoln |
I have
been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had
nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient
for that day. Lincoln Observed: The Civil War Dispatches of Noah Brooks,
edited by Michael Burlingame (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998),
p. 210.
I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not
bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand
with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part
with him when he goes wrong.—Abraham Lincoln
As each man has
one mouth to be fed, and one pair of hands to furnish food, it was probably
intended that that particular pair of hands should feed that particular mouth.—Abraham
Lincoln
Responding to a question about which side God was on
during the Civil War: “I am not at all concerned about that, for I know that
the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and
prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord’s side.” Abraham
Lincoln’s Stories and Speeches, ed. J. B. McClure, Chicago: Rhodes and
McClure Publishing Co., 1896, pp. 185–86.)
This, and this only (will satisfy the South): cease
to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right… Holding, as they do,
that slavery is morally right, and socially elevating, they cannot cease to
demand a full national recognition of it, as a legal right, and a social
blessing…Let us be diverted by none of these sophistical contrivances…such as
groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong.—Abraham Lincoln
If
slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.—Abraham Lincoln
No oppressed[ii]
people will fight, and endure, as our fathers did, without the promise of
something better than a mere change of masters.—Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on
the Constitution and Union, January 1, 1861
Shall
we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a
blow? Never! 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. 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.—Abraham Lincoln, Lyceum Address
 |
| Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC |
I have been driven many times upon my knees by
the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and
that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day. Lincoln Observed: The
Civil War Dispatches of Noah Brooks edited by Michael Burlingame
(Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), p. 210.
We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and
the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who
pervert the Constitution.—Abraham Lincoln
[i] 2
Nephi 5:27 “And it came to pas that we lived after the manner of happiness.”
[ii]
The quote as I found it had a comma here, after “oppressed,” and also after “better.”
It doesn’t make sense to include these,
so I have omitted them, in hopes of clarifying.
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