"[T]here will be no blood shed unless it be forced' upon the Government. The Government will not use force unless force is used against it... This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it... The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it"."
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Original Language: English
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Abraham Lincoln, speech in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (22 February 1861); quoted in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 4 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953), p. 204.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Federal_government_of_the_United_States
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Federal government of the United States
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