Great Speeches of Abraham Lincoln
About this ebook
In one of his most famous speeches, he said: "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe the government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free." He predicted that the country eventually would become "all one thing, or all the other." Again and again he insisted that the civil liberties of every U.S. citizen, white as well as Black, were at stake. The territories must be kept free, he further said, because "new free states" were "places for poor people to go and better their condition."
About the author
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the USA. He was credited for preserving the Union during the American Civil War. He was also known as the great emancipator as he brought about the emancipation of enslaved people in the USA. Lincoln continues to have a unique appeal for his fellow countrymen and also for people of other lands, especially among American heroes. His relevance endures and grows especially because of his eloquence as a spokesman for democracy. In his view, the Union was worth saving not only for its own sake but because it embodied an ideal, the ideal of self-government.
After about 20 years after launching his legal career, Lincoln became a prominent personality in national politics. He was noted not only for his shrewdness and practical common sense but also for his invariable fairness and utter honesty. During his tenure as the president, he combined statecraft and the overall direction of armies with an effectiveness that increased year by year.
