dots-menu
×

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

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 1702
AUTHOR: Abraham Lincoln (1809–65)
QUOTATION: I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I can just let her alone.
ATTRIBUTION: ABRAHAM LINCOLN, fourth debate with Senator Stephen A. Douglas, Charleston, Illinois, September 18, 1858.—The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 3, p. 146 (1953).

Lincoln used similar wording in a speech in Springfield, Illinois, June 26, 1857: “Now I protest against that counterfeit logic which concludes that, because I do not want a black woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. I need not have her for either. I can just leave her alone.”—Collected Works, vol. 2, p. 405 (1953).
SUBJECTS: Slavery