Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right — a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.


Speech in the United States House of Representatives (12 January 1848)

Wikisource Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln/Volume 3/Arraignment of President Polk for War Against Mexico

Abraham Lincoln Quotes

Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that...

Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that...

Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that...

Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that...