"When armed rebels come among them their houses and other property are spared while Union men's houses are burned and their property pillaged. Still, we may not be able to specifically prove that the sympathizers protected and supplied the raiders in turn, or designated their Union neighbors for plunder and devastation. Yet we know all this exists, even better than we could know an isolated fact upon the sworn testimony of one or two witnesses; just as we better know there is fire whence we see much smoke rising than we could know it by one or two witnesses swearing to it. The witnesses may commit perjury, but the smoke cannot."
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Lawyers from the United StatesAbolitionistsPoliticians from IllinoisAbraham LincolnPeople of the American Civil War
Original Language: English
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Sources
Unfinished draft of a letter to J.R. Underwood and Henry Grinder (October 26, 1864), in Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln - Volume 10 (1894), p. 254.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln
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Abraham Lincoln
1809 – 1865
Präsident der USA (1861-1865)
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