Existing comment:
Union
I am loath to close. 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 battle-field, 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.
My enemies pretend that I am now carrying on the war for the sole purpose of abolition.
So long as I am president, it shall be carried on for the sole purpose of restoring the Union.
A house divided against cannot stand.
I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.
I don 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.
I would save the Union...
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not to save or 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.
The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.
We say we are for the Union.
The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We -- even we here -- hold the power and bear the responsibility.
In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.
We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope on earth. |