President Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln once said "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt." Today , on what would be his 199th birthday, I agree. So instead of giving you some "He was a great man. The civil war was Our bloodiest war, and the great emancipator subverted freedoms and liberties during it." memorial web log, I leave you instead with some of his own words:

Some are quite timely:
"I do not mean to say that this government is charged with the duty of redressing or preventing all the wrongs in the world; but I do think that it is charged with the duty of preventing and redressing all wrongs which are wrongs to itself."
--September 17, 1859 Speech at Cincinnati, Ohio

"What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?" Lincoln's Cooper Institute Address, February 27, 1860.

"I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him. "
Letter to Allen N Ford (11 August 1846)

Some downright prescient:
“These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people”

""Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose. If to-day he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, — "I see no probability of the British invading us"; but he will say to you, "Be silent: I see it, if you don't."
The provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood."
Letter, while US Congressman, to his friend and law-partner William H. Herndon, opposing the Mexican-American War (15 February 1848)

"I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we begin by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty-to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy."
On the Know-Nothing Party (anti-immigrant party)
Letter to Joshua F. Speed on August 24, 1855

Some remind Us what is great about this Country:
"What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not the reliance against the resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where. "
From a speech at Edwardsville, Illinois on September 11, 1858

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it. "

And then there's the downright "Hope Mongering"
"My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth. "

Happy Birthday President Lincoln! You should have your own holiday!

Just a quick note:
Abraham Lincoln's only government "experience" before becoming President was eight years in the Illinois State Legislature and One term (two years) as a member of the US House of Representatives.