Abraham Lincoln Quotes
To correct the evils, great and small, which spring from want of sympathy and from positive enmity among strangers, as nations or as individuals, is one of the highest functions of civilization.
Lincoln, Abraham. "Address to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society." 30 Sept. 1859. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler, vol. 3, Rutgers University Press, 1953, p. 471.
At the time, Fascist Germany and Japan were aggressively attacking other nations who were trying to mobilize to stop their Fascist ideas of world domination. In America, unlike after WWII, many of the Republican Party Leaders were then isolationists and were adamant that we should not expand our military capability. They wanted to spend no more money on defense. ER and her husband wanted to increase defense spending to increase our military readiness and provide arms to England, China and others who were trying to defend against the Axis. They were castigated as ‘War Mongers’ by the isolationists. ER went to the people to explain that without spending on military strength, there would be no peace. Ironically, the conservative forces who criticized Mrs. Roosevelt as a war monger for building up our military, after WWII when the Cold War began, they criticized her for not being enough of a hawk and not sufficiently supporting the military and aggressive foreign policies.
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.
