More Proof How Liberal Abraham Lincoln Was

[hoosier_daddy]

Read more: http://bluenationreview.com/6-quotes-will-convince-abraham-lincoln-liberal/#ixzz3as5UFYd2

Quotes that Will Remind Republicans Lincoln Was a Liberal

Republicans have a hard time reconciling the thought that President Abraham Lincoln, the founder of their party, espoused core liberal values.  The real truth is that Lincoln wouldn’t fit in all that well in today’s Grand Old Party. In fact, despite legend of his vampire hunting skills, Lincoln’s liberalism was so pronounced that modern day conservatives either ignore his quotes or they invent things he never said.

WITHOUT WORKERS YOU HAVE NO SUCCESS:
Lincoln on Workers and Labor

“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
– Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln’s First Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1861.


“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
– Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 (letter to Col. William F. Elkins)


“The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves in their separate, and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere. The desirable things which the individuals of a people can not do, or can not well do, for themselves, fall into two classes: those which have relation to wrongs, and those which have not. Each of these branch off into an infinite variety of subdivisions. The first that in relation to wrongs embraces all crimes, misdemeanors, and nonperformance of contracts. The other embraces all which, in its nature, and without wrong, requires combined action, as public roads and highways, public schools, charities, pauperism, orphanage, estates of the deceased, and the machinery of government itself. From this it appears that if all men were just, there still would be some, though not so much, need for government.”
– Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on government The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 2, pp.

[hoosier_daddy]

where is revisionist history jerkwater feverishly trying to deny these truths?

[bhsgrad1972]

Lincoln was not a "vampire hunter" in real life.

That is from a NOVEL.

[takncarabizniz]

Everyone knows the parties evolve, change direction, redirect or fail, some, most or all the time...

Abraham Lincoln was just as human as the rest of us...and apparently held his own opinions, as well as understood the use of Constitutional privilege, and obligation.

What's wrong with that?

[hoosier_daddy]

NOTHING!!  abe is one of my heroes. 

[August West]

The only great president this country has ever had.

[KensanIV]

I think Lincoln said it best in his letter to Horace Greeley.

Horace Greeley Library of Congress

Letter to Horace Greeley Written during the heart of the Civil War, this is one of Abraham Lincoln's most famous letters. Greeley, editor of the influential New York Tribune, had just  addressed an editorial to Lincoln called "The Prayer of Twenty Millions," making demands and implying that Lincoln's administration lacked direction and resolve. President Lincoln wrote his reply when a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation already lay in his desk drawer. His response revealed his concentration on preserving the Union. The letter, which received acclaim in the North, stands as a classic statement of Lincoln's constitutional responsibilities. A few years after the president's death, Greeley wrote an assessment of Lincoln. He stated that Lincoln did not actually respond to his editorial but used it instead as a platform to prepare the public for his "altered position" on emancipation.

Executive Mansion,
Washington, August 22, 1862.
Hon. Horace Greeley:
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.