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'Let me tell you, that all these things are prepared for you by the teachings of history.'
In a speech in the 1858 senatorial campaign at Edwardsville, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln goes on the offensive against Stephen Douglas and the Dred Scott decision of the preceding year.
"What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, our army and our navy. These are not our reliance against tyranny All of those may be turned against us without making us weaker for the struggle.
Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors.
Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.
And let me tell you, that all these things are prepared for you by the teachings of history."
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