In Lincoln's Words



Lincoln's approval of the largest mass execution in American history. Image from The Dakota Conflict Trials of 1862.
 Text of Order to General Sibley, St. Paul Minnesota:

"Ordered that of the Indians and Half-breeds sentenced to be hanged by the military commission, composed of Colonel Crooks, Lt. Colonel Marshall, Captain Grant, Captain Bailey, and Lieutenant Olin, and lately sitting in Minnesota, you cause to be executed on Friday the nineteenth day of December, instant, the following names, to wit ...
The other condemned prisoners you will hold subject to further orders, taking care that they neither escape, nor are subjected to any unlawful violence. 
Abraham Lincoln, 
President of the United States" 
 
 

 

With one last-minute pardon, 38 Indians were executed at Mankato, Minnesota on December 26, 1862.
Image from The Dakota Conflict Trials of 1862.

 
“why did Yankees almost instantly discover gold in California, which had been trodden upon and overlooked by Indians and Mexican greasers for centuries?”
"Lecture on Discoveries, Inventions, and Improvements, Springfield, Illinois, February 22, 1860"

 

Sioux prisoners after the Dakota Conflict, Little Crow's son is second from right.  Image from Homstad, "Lincoln's Agonizing Decision."
 “Is it true that the noble hearted man and Christian gentleman who as the agent of a democratic administration, removed the Cherokee Indians from their homes to the west of the Mississippi in such a manner as to gain the applause of the great and good of the land, is a fool?”
Lincoln defends Andrew Jackson in "Speech at Peoria, September 17, 1852"

 
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Declaration of Independence
“I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say that all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity,”
Abraham Lincoln, "Seventh and Last Joint Debate at Alton, Illinois, October 15, 1858"

 
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Site created April 2002
for History 300: Theory and Methods
by Amanda MacKinnon
Last Updated April 23, 2002