Zitiert in Al Gore: Angriff auf die Vernunft (The Assault on Reason). Aus dem Englischen von Enrico Heinemann und Friedrich Pflüger. Goldmann, München 2007, S. 117, ISBN 978-3-442-15543-9
Original englisch: "We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end. …but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless." - In: Archer H. Shaw: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, the spoken and written words of A. Lincoln arranged for ready reference, Macmillan, New York 1950 (Reprint 1980), S. 40 http://books.google.de/books?ei=F3t4T5DjKJCx8QO7uJy-DQ&sqi=2&hl=de&id=nGMqAAAAYAAJ&dq=lincoln+encyclopedia+william+elkins&q=elkins#search_anchor, mit der Quellenangabe: To William F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864. Hertz II, 954 = Emanuel Hertz: Abraham Lincoln - A New Portrait (Vol. 2), Liveright, New York 1931. S. 954 http://archive.org/stream/abrahamlincolnne02hert#page/954, wo jedoch weder William F. Elkins, noch ein Datum genannt werden, noch sonst irgendetwas zur Herkunft des Zitats mitgeteilt wird.
Bereits als das Zitat 1896 von Anhängern des US-Präsidentschafts-Kandidaten der Demokratischen Partei und der populistischen People's Party William Jennings Bryan verwendet wurde, bezeichnete John Nicolay, einer von Lincolns Sekretären, es als dreiste Fäschung: "This alleged quotation from Mr. Lincoln is a bald, unblushing forgery. The great President never said it or wrote it, and never said or wrote anything that by the utmost license could be distorted to resemble it." (A Popocratic Forgery; Remarks Attributed to Lincoln Pronounced Spurious. New York Times, October 3, 1896 pdf http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9C0DEFDE133BEE33A25750C0A9669D94679ED7CF). Lincolns Sohn Robert Todd Lincoln nannte es in einem Brief an Henry Clifford Stuart vom 12. März 1917 eine schamlose Erfindung, "an impudent invention" (Thomas F. Schwartz: Lincoln Never Said That. Newletter Abraham Lincoln Association 1999 1-1.pdf http://abrahamlincolnassociation.org/Newsletters/1-1.pdf p. 4-6). Als "spurious" (gefälscht) bezeichnet es auch Appendix II der Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 8, p. 589. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=lincoln;cc=lincoln;type=simple;rgn=div1;q1=corporations%20enthroned;singlegenre=All;view=text;subview=detail;sort=occur;idno=lincoln8;node=lincoln8%3A875#hl1. Siehe auch Paul F. Boller Jr., John George: They Never Said It - A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions. Oxford University Press 1989, p. 85 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=yRCRvzT2hnMC&pg=PA85 und Merrill D. Peterson: Lincoln in American Memory. Oxford University Press 1994 p. 160 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=EADk9ZIMJXEC&pg=PA160 & p. 340.
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in einem Brief an Horace Greeley vom 22. August 1862. Zitiert von Berthold Seewald Wie Abraham Lincoln die Sklavenhalter provozierte http://www.welt.de/kultur/history/article10708318/Wie-Abraham-Lincoln-die-Sklavenhalter-provozierte.html?wtmc=RSS.Kultur.Geschichte. Welt Online, 5. November 2010.
Original englisch: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union." - Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 5 http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=lincoln;cc=lincoln;type=simple;rgn=div1;q1=greeley;singlegenre=All;view=text;subview=detail;sort=occur;idno=lincoln5;node=lincoln5%3A848
Schluss der Rede zum Amtsantritt am 4. März 1861. In: Das Leben Abraham Lincolns, von Frank Croby, nach dem Englischen bearbeitet von Carl Theodor Eben. Philadelphia 1865. S. 108
Original englisch: "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stre[t]ching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." - Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trt039.html
Schluss von Lincoln Ansprache zur Einweihung des Soldatenfriedhofs auf dem Schlachtfeld Gettysburg am 19. November 1863. Heinrich August Winkler: Geschichte des Westens, Band I (2009) S. 748 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=lM7ydTGVSigC&pg=PA748
Original englisch: "[…] 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, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.“ - Gettysburg Address.