Friday, December 15, 2006
Abe Linkum's Quote of the Week, #3
Abraham Lincoln, as a congressman and speaking on James Polk's invasion of Mexico:
"I more than suspect already that he is deeply concious of being in the wrong; that he feels the blood of this war, like the blood of Abel, is crying to heaven against him; that originally having some strong motive...to involve the two countries in a war, and trusting to escape scrutiny by fixing the public gaze upon the exceeding brightness of military glory...he plunged into it and has swept on and on, till, disappointed in his calculation...he now finds himself he knows not where....His mind, tasked beyond its power, is running hither and thither, like some tortured creature on a burning surface, finding no position on which it can settle down and be at ease....He is a bewildered, confounded, and miserably perplexed man. God grant he may be able to show there is not something about his conscience more painful than all his mental perplexity!"
"I more than suspect already that he is deeply concious of being in the wrong; that he feels the blood of this war, like the blood of Abel, is crying to heaven against him; that originally having some strong motive...to involve the two countries in a war, and trusting to escape scrutiny by fixing the public gaze upon the exceeding brightness of military glory...he plunged into it and has swept on and on, till, disappointed in his calculation...he now finds himself he knows not where....His mind, tasked beyond its power, is running hither and thither, like some tortured creature on a burning surface, finding no position on which it can settle down and be at ease....He is a bewildered, confounded, and miserably perplexed man. God grant he may be able to show there is not something about his conscience more painful than all his mental perplexity!"
Labels: Bush, Iraq, Joint Chiefs, Lincoln, quotes, Round Heads
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Abe Linkum's Quote of the Week, #2
Abraham Lincoln responding to the ultra-Republican Carl Schurz after taking a thumpin' in the 1862 mid-term elections:
"I understand you now to be willing to accept the help of men who are not Republicans, provided they have 'heart in it'. Agreed, I want no others. But who is to be the judge of hearts, or of 'heart in it'? If I must discard my own judgement and take yours, I must also take that of others; and by the time I should reject all I should be advised to reject, I should have none left, Republicans or others -- not even yourself. For be assured, my dear sir, there are men who have 'heart in it' that think you are performing your part as poorly as you think I am performing mine.... I wish to disparage no one, certainly not those who sympathize with me; but I must say I need success more than I need sympathy, and that I have not seen the so much greater evidence of getting success from my sympathizers than from those who are denounced as the contrary."
"I understand you now to be willing to accept the help of men who are not Republicans, provided they have 'heart in it'. Agreed, I want no others. But who is to be the judge of hearts, or of 'heart in it'? If I must discard my own judgement and take yours, I must also take that of others; and by the time I should reject all I should be advised to reject, I should have none left, Republicans or others -- not even yourself. For be assured, my dear sir, there are men who have 'heart in it' that think you are performing your part as poorly as you think I am performing mine.... I wish to disparage no one, certainly not those who sympathize with me; but I must say I need success more than I need sympathy, and that I have not seen the so much greater evidence of getting success from my sympathizers than from those who are denounced as the contrary."
Labels: Lincoln, quotes, schisms
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Abe Linkum's Quotes of the Week, #1
Chicago minister to Abraham Lincoln: "What you have said to us, Mr. President, compels me to say to you in reply, that it is a message to you from our Divine Master, through me, commanding you, sir, to open the doors of bondage that the slave may be free."
Lincoln to minister: "That may be, sir, for I have studied this question by night and by day, for weeks and for months. But if it is as you say, a message from your Divine Master, is it not odd that the only channel he could send it by was the roundabout route by way of that awful wicked city of Chicago?"
Lincoln to minister: "That may be, sir, for I have studied this question by night and by day, for weeks and for months. But if it is as you say, a message from your Divine Master, is it not odd that the only channel he could send it by was the roundabout route by way of that awful wicked city of Chicago?"
*******
Lincoln, to a Quaker woman with similar visions: "I have neither the time nor disposition to enter into a discussion with the Friend, and end this occasion by suggesting for her consideration the question whether, if it be true that the Lord has appointed me to do the work she has indicated, it is not probable he would have communicated knowledge of the fact to me as well as to her?"
Labels: Lincoln, quotes, religious right
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Abe's Quote of the Day
"I never suspected there was music in such a thing as that."
-Abraham Lincoln, in response to an Ohio admirer who presented him a whistle made from a pig's ear as Lincoln travelled from Springfield, Ill. to Washington, D.C. for his first term.
