Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
| NUMBER: | 1269 |
| AUTHOR: | Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) |
| QUOTATION: | I have got you together to hear what I have written down. I do not wish your advice about the main matter—for that I have determined for myself. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Attributed to President According to the Chase account, Lincoln spoke these words at a cabinet meeting he had called to inform the members of his decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. This quotation is also used in Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, p. 584 (1939). Although these words are not used, the same thought is conveyed in the diary of another member of Lincoln’s cabinet, Gideon Welles. See his diary entry for the same date in Diary of Gideon Welles, vol. 1, pp. 142–43 (1911). |
| SUBJECTS: | Opinions |