...spoken of, brutes alone are contemplated." This is a falsehood. It is also the top of a slippery slope. "Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty...foreigners, and catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty — to Russia,...

...His 1855 letter to Joshua Speed reveals his disgust for slavery and other forms of discrimination: "As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men...equal except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.'" If this occurred, he preferred to emigrate to "some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty."268...

...Fitzhugh, one might justly say, "Rest in peace." But consider these lines from an 1855 letter of Lincoln's: "As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men...read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.'" Lincoln did not say the new reading was that of one section only — nonslaveholders throughout the...

..."Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid," he wrote to a close friend in 1855. "As a nation, we began by declaring that ''all men...read it, 'all men are created equal, except negroes'" Soon enough "it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners and Catholics'...

...of white-immigrant and black equality in the process of denouncing the nativist Know-Nothing Party: Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal except...

...can anyone who abhors the oppression of negroes be in favor of degrading classes of white people? ... As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' Now we practically read it as 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get...

...immigrants to vote and hold office. Abraham Lincoln sized up the Know-Nothings accurately in 1855: "As a nation we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now read it, 'all men are created equal except Negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read,...

...degenerate. Our "progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid," he told Joshua Speed in i855. "We began by declaring that 'all men are created equal. "We now practically read it as 'all men are created equal, except for negroes.'"** For Lincoln human equality was a moral principle;...

...Charles Seward and Abraham Lincoln abandoned their sinking ship for the newly formed Republican Party. "As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal,'" said Lincoln. "Now we practically read it as 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the...

..."As a nation we began by declaring 'all men are created equal.'" Defenders of slavery insisted that "we now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.'" And if the anti-Irish and anti-Catholic bigots had their way, it would "read 'all men are created equal,...