02/12/2026
HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRESIDENT LINCOLN
Abraham Lincoln was born 217 years ago in a one-room log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm, located on Nolin Creek about 3 miles as the crow flies south of Hodgenville, Kentucky.
Some of his best quips and most noted sentences include:
"Stand with anybody that stands RIGHT. Stand with him while he is right and PART with him when he goes wrong." -- October 16, 1854 speech in Peoria, Illinois.
"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free.” -- June 16, 1858 in Springfield, Illinois.
"I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot.” -- February 14, 1861 in Pittsburgh. Pa.
"I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women. But I must say that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct during this war. I will close by saying, God bless the women of America!" -- March 18, 1864 in Washington, D.C. at a Patent Office Fair.
"I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father's child has." -- August 22, 1864 in an address to the 166th Ohio Regiment.
Seen, below, is a photograph of A. Lincoln created on June 3, 1860 by Alexander Hesler, a Chicago photographer, at the Illinois state capitol in Springfield. https://www.loc.gov/resource/lprbscsm.scsm0988/?st=gallery.
By Craig Heberton IV