Abraham Lincoln Quotes
It’s really hard, with any confidence to affirm a negative.
Logicians and others often state: “It is impossible to prove a negative.” For example, there were those who suggested that the HIV virus could not be transmitted by mosquitoes. They pointed to the lack of any research proving that misquotes could not transmit the virus as evidence that there was a likely risk. However, the scientist had shown that there was not a single case yet where mosquitoes could be implicated—even in areas of high mosquito infestation. But there is no way of doing an experiment to show that in no possible case or circumstance could a mosquito transmit the virus or a butterfly or hurricanes. Generally negatives cannot be established with logical rigor.
Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865, 16th President of the United States (Republican, IL), Lincoln Douglas Debate in Quincy, Illinois, 1858
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Bacon argued that only personal experience or experiment would remove doubt.
This principle is used politically to try to control the agenda of a legislative body or in modern times the “agenda” of what is covered by the media. In Calhoun’s case, he argued for not even allowing the issue of slavery to be debated in Congress.
Abraham Lincoln was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War—its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. In doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.
