The Moral Liberal

Daily Dabble in the Classics, Abraham Lincoln

Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.

Let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his children’s liberty.

Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap; let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls and enforced in courts of justice.

And in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay of all sexes and tongues and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.

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Source: Abraham Lincoln, January 27, 1838; Collected Works 1:112