This quote is attributed to Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States:
"The ballot is stronger than the bullet."
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), U.S. president. Speech, May 29, 1856,
Bloomington, Illinois. The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Arthur
Brooks Lapsley (1905). This speech to the first Republican State
Convention of Illinois was reconstructed 40 years after; more reliable
sources exist for a variant - but later - form of this famous line:
"To give victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful
ballots only, are necessary." (speech, May 18, 1858, published in
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 2, ed. Roy P. Basler, 1953).
PoemHunter: Abraham Lincoln
http://www.poemhunter.com/abraham-lincoln/quotations/poet-7085/page-8/
QUOTATION: To give the victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but
peaceful ballots only, are necessary.
ATTRIBUTION: ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech c. May 18, 1858.?Collected Works
of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 2, p. 454 (1953).
Other uses of his contrast of ballots and bullets can be found in his
message to Congress of July 4, 1861, ?That ballots are the rightful,
and peaceful, successors of bullets; and that when ballots have
fairly, and constitutionally, decided, there can be no successful
appeal, back to bullets? (vol. 4, p. 439); and in a letter to James C.
Conkling, August 26, 1863, ?There can be no successful appeal from the
ballot to the bullet? (vol. 6, p. 410).
In The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Arthur Brooks Lapsley (1905),
there is a reconstruction, forty years later, of a speech to the first
Republican state convention of Illinois, Bloomington, Illinois, May
29, 1856, in which this sentence appears: ?Do not mistake that the
ballot is stronger than the bullet? (vol. 2, p. 269). This lengthy
reconstruction was not ?worthy of serious consideration,? in the
opinion of Basler (Collected Works, vol. 2, p. 341).
Bartleby: Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations
http://www.bartleby.com/73/1903.html
Google Web Search: "ballot" + "bullet" + "abraham lincoln"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=ballot+bullet+%22abraham+lincoln
I hope this information is helpful. If anything is unclear or
incomplete, please request clarification; I'll gladly offer further
assistance before you rate my answer.
Best regards,
pinkfreud |
