Speeches & Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 1832-1865 (ed. Merwin Roe, 1907)

The book opens with

We are not bound to follow everything the founders did; that would reject all progress and current experience

Their wordsI do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do so, would be to discard all the lights of current experience-to reject all progress, all improvement.

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Our reading
We are not bound to follow everything the founders did; that would reject all progress and current experience

Their wordsI do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do so, would be to discard all the lights of current experience-to reject all progress, all improvement.
Our reading
Slavery should be treated as an evil not to be extended, tolerated only where its presence makes that necessary

Their wordsAs those fathers marked it, so let it again be marked, as an evil not to be extended, but to be tolerated and protected only because of and so far as its actual presence among us makes that toleration and protection a necessity.
Our reading
Right makes might, and in that faith we should dare to do our duty as we understand it

Their wordsLet us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.
Our reading
The living must dedicate themselves to the unfinished work, so that government of the people, by the people, for the people does not perish

Their wordsIt is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Our reading
One side would make war rather than let the nation survive; the other would accept war rather than let it perish

Their wordsBoth parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.
Our reading
Everyone knew that the interest in slavery was somehow the cause of the Civil War

Their wordsThese slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war.
Our reading
The nation should finish the war with malice toward none and charity for all, and seek a just and lasting peace

Their wordsWith malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right,-let us strive on to finish the work we are in: to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.

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