Preservation of the Union Quotes

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery.

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.

Abraham Lincoln, in order to maintain the unity of the United States...resorted to the use of force....so, I think Abraham Lincoln, president, is a model, is an example.

If people see the Capitol going on, it is a sign we intend the Union shall go on.

The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated.

I am yet unprepared to give up the Union for a peace which, so achieved, could not be of much duration.--

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and it I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.

Mr. President, I wish to speak today, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American. I speak for the preservation of the Union. Hear me for my cause.

Abraham Lincoln truly inspired me. It wasn’t just the freeing of the slaves, he kept the Union together. Some people even forget that today. What I think inspired me was the fact that in spite of being the president of the United States he retained a certain down-to-earth quality. He never got to be a big shot, and he cared about people.

The chief and real purpose of the Republican party is conservative. It proposes nothing save and except to restore this government to its original tone in regard to this element of slavery.

All that the South has ever desired was that the Union, as established by our forefathers, should be preserved, and that the government as originally organized should be administered in purity and truth.

Our country was thereby saved from the consequences of its distracting individualistic conception of democracy, and its merely legal conception of nationality. It was because the followers of Jackson and Douglas did fight for it, that the Union was preserved.

The Union as it was. The Union as it is, and the Union as it shall be.

Every man who loves peace, every man who loves his country, every man who loves liberty ought to have it ever before his eyes that he may cherish in his heart a due attachment to the Union of America and be able to set a due value on the means of preserving it.

My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy Slavery. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because it helps to save the Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

He declared frequently that he would do anything to save the Union, and among the many things he did was the partial concealment of his individual religious opinions.

...I am exceedingly anxious that this Union, the Constitution, and the liberties of the people shall be perpetuated in accordance with the original idea for which that struggle was made, and I shall be most happy indeed if I shall be an humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, and of this, his almost chosen people, for perpetuating the object of that great struggle.

These are solemn times. It is not a struggle for national salvation; for the nation, as such, seems doomed beyond recovery. The reason why the South rules, and the North falls prostrate in servile terror, is simply this: With the South, the preservation of Slavery is paramount to all other considerations--above party success, denominational unity, pecuniary interest, legal integrity, and constitutional obligation. With the North, the preservation of the Union is placed above all other things--above honor, justice, freedom, integrity of soul, the Decalogue and the Golden Rule--the Infinite God himself. All these she is ready to discard for the Union.

What shall be said, then, of those who insist upon ignoring the question of slavery as not involved in this deadly feud, and maintain that the only issue is, the support of the government and the preservation of the Union? Surely, they are "fools and blind"; for it is slaveholders alone who have conspired to seize the one, and overturn the other. As long as the enslavement of a single human being is sanctioned in the land, the curse of God will rest upon it.

I feel in the depths of my soul that it is the highest, most sacred, and most irreversible part of my obligation to preserve the union of these states, although it may cost me my life.

Voting by mail has a long, venerable tradition in this country, most notably the election of 1864, when 150,000 Union soldiers sent in ballots that helped ensure President Abraham Lincoln's reelection, the preservation of the union and the abolition of slavery. Mailed votes leave a paper trail that renders them less, not more, susceptible to fraud.

I admire Lincoln enormously and I think what's interesting about Lincoln is how he changes, it's not that he held the same view throughout his life.

I have been happy . . . in believing that . . . whatever follies we may be led into as to foreign nations, we shall never give up our Union, the last anchor of our hope, and that alone which is to prevent this heavenly country from becoming an arena of gladiators.

It is your business to rise up and preserve the Union and liberty, for yourselves, and not for me. I desire they shall be constitutionally preserved.

We are the Conservative and Unionist party. No Conservative would do anything to harm the union, and that crucially includes Northern Ireland.