Abraham Lincoln on Elections
← Back to Abraham Lincoln ProfileLincoln repeatedly emphasized the power of peaceful ballots over violent conflict, contrasting them as the righteous path to victory in his political messaging.
“To give the victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.”
“I am superstitious. I have scarcely known a party, preceding an election, to call in help from the neighboring states, but they lost the state.”
“This issue embraces more than the fate of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man the question whether a constitutional republic, or democracy—a government of the people by the same people—can or can not maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes. It presents the question whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control administration according to organic law in any case, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or on any other pretenses, or arbitrarily without any pretense, break up their government, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us to ask, Is there in all republics this inherent and fatal weakness? Must a government of necessity be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?”