Who said this ??

Its either Eugene V Debs or Abe Lincoln. Both are considered two of the greatest orators of American history and I can see either of them saying that

Namely, Dwight Eisenhower.

Original poster: If I'm right, you don't have to say so if you want people to keep guessing...

if i had eight hours to chop down a tree, i would spend six hours sharpening my axe.

but I could be wrong.

i typed it ... well, actually i copied and pasted it ...

well, OK ... you can have a prize anyway ...

tonight's special prize is a lifetime supply of "keyboard ink" ... it's already been added to your keyboard ... type all you want ... you'll never run out ...

this.

as anyone familiar with Mr Lincoln's life and political beliefs can readily attest.

For those who believe Mr Lincoln would write something so diametrically opposed to his everyday efforts, spend a few hours searching the electronic version of the multivolume Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, which most Lincoln biographers & Civil War historians consider the basic source for Lincoln's writings. Both the collected works and supplemental volumes are available at www.alincolnassoc.com. You will not find this quote -- or anything like it -- in anything that Mr Lincoln ever wrote.

For those still interested, further research on the web will reveal the quote is a forgery which surfaced during the presidential campaign of 1888 -- 23 years after Mr Lincoln's death (eg, http://www.illinoishistory.gov/facsimiles.htm).

i, of course, had found the quote attributed to Lincoln ... it really is a very powerful quote ... too bad he didn't say it ...

from the link you posted comes the following elegant and somewhat amusing (and biting) writings of Robert Todd Lincoln:

I cannot remember just when
it was, but it is a number of years
ago that I discovered what I think
is the true and only source of the
supposed quotation. It originated,
I think, at what is called a
Spiritualist Seance in a country
town in Iowa, a number of years
ago, as being a communication by
President Lincoln through what is
called a Medium, and belief in its
authenticity should therefore be
held only by those who place confidence
in the outgivings of so
called Mediums at the gatherings
held under their auspices. <skip>

In considering the subject
yourself it does not seem to have
occurred to you to take into
account the condition of public
affairs in 1864 and for a considerable
time after President Lincoln’s
death. I am old enough to
remember that time very well, but
I do not recall that there was then,
or for a good many years thereafter,
any public discussion of the
danger to the public of corporations
or of combinations of corporations
and I do not believe that
there was then any feeling whatever
adverse to corporations large or
small. Yet in the quotation President
Lincoln is made to say that
"as a result of the war, (which was
by no means then ended,) corporations
have been enthroned," and
to express a dread on his part in
regard to a condition, the alleged
description of which to me seems
as much of an anachronism as is
shown in the famous ivory carving
at Antwerp representing soldiers
with muskets as being present at
the Adoration of the Magi.
In short, I regard the quotation
as being simply an impudent
invention.”

both intended for a young audience, and strive in both my writing and frequent lectures to present as clear and accurate a picture of the man as possible. I first read this quote a few years ago on the internet, on DU if I remember correctly, and each time it recurs I try to debunk it as quickly and painlessly as possible.

To study Mr Lincoln's life and works is to immerse yourself in a man who held passionate, irrefutable beliefs. In the final years of his life he was consumed with the effort to win the war. Nothing was more important to him, for without victory in the war everything else he believed in would fade away. It was only when the war effort finally began to show success that he was willing to entertain the issues of freedom for the slaves and the revamping of our national purpose (for that is what is encapsulated in his remarks at Gettysburg).

The point here is that Mr Lincoln never allowed anything to interfere with the war effort. And dependent as he was on tax revenue raised from the businesses and nascent corporations of his time, Mr Lincoln could not afford to risk alienating those financial interests, especially in something so flip as a personal letter to a low-ranking military officer.

When going back to read the things people wrote and said, they often seem contradictory.

Myths "scholars" like to tell us:

Lincoln was not anti slavery.
The civil war was not about slavery.

(Greely was publisher of the New York Tribune)

(Emphasis added)


Dear Sir,

I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I ``seem to be pursuing'' as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be ``the Union as it was.'' If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. 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; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free. Yours,

A. Lincoln

to prove the point. Where's the wiggle room in that? Hardly seems fair... ;-)

A wild guess based on nothing other than the fact he had a great mind.

Yup, that was me.

I'm not telling

before I try guessing. Was it Lincoln?

"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government,to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statemenship of the day"

Any guesses?

and looked it up. Some folks in this thread are going to be more than a little surprised. Others will not be. Is that sufficiently ambiguous...?

on edit: welshTerrier2, you are both wicked and devious. I'm lovin' it! Here's a vote for the greatest page...

So, how does John Nicolay sound? Never heard of him? Lots of people knew about him in the 1880s, and he was the first one accused when that forged quote came out.

How about Emanuel Herz and then Archer Shaw whose sloppy editorial work saw that quote go into a 1950 Lincoln Encyclopedia.

Apparently, one of the great difficulties of being a Lincoln historian is weeding out the spurious quotes that people love to atribut to him.