Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
522
AUTHOR:
Abraham Lincoln (1809–65)
QUOTATION:
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
ATTRIBUTION:
President ABRAHAM LINCOLN, address before the Young Men’s Lyceum, Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838.—The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 1, p. 109 (1953).
