I now have next to no hope of a restoration of the old Union.... If it is the settled and final judgment of any slave State that s...he cannot live in the Union, I should not think it wise or desirable to retain her by force, even if it could be done. But am I, therefore, to oppose the war? If it were a war of conquest merely, certainly I should oppose it.... But the war is forced on us. We cannot escape it. While ... perhaps in all the cotton-growing States, a deciding and controlling public judgment has deliberately declared against remaining in the Union, it is quite certain that in several States rebellious citizens are bent on forcing out of the Union States whose people are not in favor of secession.... If force had been employed to meet force, I believe several States now out of the Union would have remained in it.... The war ... for the defence of the capital, for the maintenance of the authority of the Government and the rights of the United States, I think is necessary, wise, and just.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I think the people over here are coming to realize what would happen if Germany and Italy won a European war. We would be out of t...he picture entirely.... If I were a German conqueror what would I do? Obviously I would have the British navy out of the way and the French army out of the way.... The first thing I would do is look around and say, "What outside territories do I want to take for myself?"... We are not quite ready to take on the United States but we can do it by indirection very nicely. We are going to dominate South America ... without violating the Monroe Doctrine. [FDR set forth a scenario of economic domination of Latin America by giving Argentina a choice of agreeing to German domination of its army by economic blackmail by virtue of the fact that Germany controlled all the agricultural markets in Europe on which Argentina depended for livelihood and the same for Brazil.] It is a perfectly open and shut thing and, if you have the complete, physical power to do it, you win.... [F]rom Hitler's point of view, it is rational. And, if any of us were in his place, with his methods, we would do it. I made myself a hump-back, dyed my skin in several places with great spots of yellow; so that, when I look'd in the glass, I was almost frighten'd at my own figure.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I thought it altogether proper that I should take a brief furlough from official duties at Washington to mingle with you here to-d...ay as a comrade, because every President of the United States must realize that the strength of the Government, its defence in war, the army that is to muster under its banner when our Nation is assailed, is to be found here in the masses of our people.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Nobody in this army thinks of giving up to Rebels their fugitive slaves. Union men might perhaps be differently dealt with--probab...ly would be.... The man who repudiates all obligations under the Constitution and laws of the United States is to be treated as having forfeited those rights which depend solely on the laws and the Constitution. I don't want to see Congress meddling with the slavery question. Time and the progress of events are solving all the questions arising out of slavery in a way consistent with eternal principles of justice. Slavery is getting death blows. As an "institution" it perishes in this war. It will take years to get rid of its debris, but the "sacred" is gone.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The great questions of freedom for the slaves and the unity of the Nation, liberty and nationality, are now settled. No political ...or party revolutions can unsettle the established facts, that all men are to have in this country equal civil and political rights, and that the United States form one people, one nation. The small questions of today about taxation, appointments, etc., etc., are petty and uninteresting. I cannot consent, after having borne my part in the glorious struggle against slavery during the last seventeen years, now to endure the worry and anxiety belonging to political life for the sake of the honors merely, and without subjects interesting me deeply involved in the struggles.... I am not a candidate, and shall avoid being made one, for the senatorship or for any other high office.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Disunion and civil war are at hand; and yet I fear disunion and war less than compromise. We can recover from them. The free State...s alone, if we must go on alone, will make a glorious nation. Twenty millions in the temperate zone, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, full of vigor, industry, inventive genius, educated, and moral; increasing by immigration rapidly, and, above all, free--all free--will form a confederacy of twenty States scarcely inferior in real power to the unfortunate Union of thirty-three States which we had on the first of November.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If the dignity as well as the prestige and influence of the United States are not to be wholly sacrificed, we must protect those w...ho, in foreign ports, display the flag or wear the colors of this Government against insult, brutality, and death, inflicted in resentment of the acts of their Government, and not for any fault of their own.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.... Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Within us, the people of the United States, there is evident a serious and purposeful rekindling of confidence, and I join in the ...hope that when my time as your President has ended, people might say this about our Nation: That we had remembered the words of Micah and renewed our search for humility, mercy, and justice.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »