Abraham Lincoln
"I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the sediments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here, and framed and adopted that Declaration of Independence. I have pondered over the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army who achieved that independence. I have often inquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the motherland, but that sediment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time."
Abraham Lincoln
Speech Delivered at Independence Hall, Philadelphia
February 21, 1861