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Did Lincoln actually say this?
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
If so, where?
4 Answers
- TimLv 66 years agoFavorite Answer
No, he did not. Always be skeptical of unsourced internet quotes. Particularly Einstein, Nietzsche, and Lincoln.
He did say something similar.
"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."
- Lyceum Address, January 27, 1838
- cymry3jonesLv 76 years ago
What Lincoln said was: "All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
"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."
This was in "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions: Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois" January 27, 1838)
McCarthy summarised using the words you have quoted.
- Anonymous6 years ago
No, he did not. Somebody made this up in the 1880s or 90s and falsely attributed it to Lincoln. It was never said by Lincoln.
