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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  Abraham Lincoln (1809–65)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 1639
AUTHOR: Abraham Lincoln (1809–65)
QUOTATION: Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
ATTRIBUTION: ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech in reply to Senator Stephen Douglas, Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854.—The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 2, p. 273 (1953).

“This speech, together with one delivered twelve days before at Springfield, made Lincoln a power in national politics. He had had little to do with politics since the expiration of his term in Congress, but the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused him to instant action…. When closely studied the Peoria speech reveals germs of many of the powerful arguments elaborated by Lincoln later in his career.”—The Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, new and enl. ed., ed. John G. Nicolay and John Hay, vol. 2, p. 190, footnote (1905).
SUBJECTS: Right and wrong