"We can not have free government without..." - Quote by Abraham Lincoln
We can not have free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us.
More by Abraham Lincoln
“We have all heard of Young America. He is the most current youth of the age. Some think him conceited, and arrogant; but has he not reason to entertain a rather extensive opinion of himself? Is he not the inventor and owner of the present, and sole hope of the future?”
“I understand that it is a maxim of law, that a poor plea may be a good plea to a bad declaration.”
“I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.”
More on Government
“Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness.”
“Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison, the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor. They do not know how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose.”
“The Presidency is not merely an administrative office. Thats the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership. All our great Presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified.”
More on Democracy
“I am a firm believer in the importance of democracy, not only as the ultimate goal, but also as an essential part of the process.”
“All the experience the Chinese people have accumulated through several decades teaches us to enforce the people's democratic dictatorship, that is, to deprive the reactionaries of the right to speak and let the people alone have that right.”
“The true policy of government is to make use of aristocracy, but under the forms and in the spirit of democracy.”