Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address Quotes

“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 battlefield 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.”
― Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address

“A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people.”
― Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address

“Will you hazard so desperate a step while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones you fly from—will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake?”
― Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address