“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
Abraham Lincoln · Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863
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Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
About this quote
Meaning
Lincoln is making a point about the internal logic of freedom itself: a person cannot genuinely value liberty while actively working to strip it from others. The statement is both a moral argument and a kind of political common sense. If freedom is a universal good, then those who suppress it in others have, by their own actions, disqualified themselves from claiming it as a right. The sentence is compact but carries significant philosophical weight about the consistency required of anyone who calls themselves a defender of liberty.
Context
Lincoln wrote these words in a letter to Henry L. Pierce and other gentlemen in April 1859, composed in honor of the anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's birth. The letter reflects Lincoln's engagement with Jefferson's legacy at a time when the debate over slavery's expansion into new territories was intensifying. Lincoln often returned to the founding documents to argue that the principle of equality they enshrined was incompatible with the institution of slavery. This letter is a clear example of that line of thinking.
About the author
Abraham Lincoln served as the sixteenth President of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. He guided the country through the Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared enslaved people in Confederate states to be free. Lincoln came from humble origins in Kentucky and Indiana and was largely self-educated. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American presidents, remembered for his moral seriousness, his gift for plain and powerful language, and his leadership during the nation's gravest crisis.
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