Abraham Lincoln: A Life
by Michael Burlingame

https://www.knox.edu/academics/research-and-creative-work/lincoln-studies-center/burlingame-abraham-lincoln-a-life

Abraham Lincoln -
“I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.”

Paul M. Angle
"At forty-five he had been inactive in politics for several years.

But in the year in which he attained that age—1854—the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed. The effect of the bill was to open federal territories, not yet organized as states, to slavery.

Lincoln, aroused as never before, re-entered politics and did all that was within his power to repeal the new legislation.

Out of the opposition of thousands like him the Republican Party came into existence. Within two years he was its acknowledged leader in Illinois."

https://libsysdigi.library.illinois.edu/OCA/Books2012-06/abrahamlincolnsspee00linc/abrahamlincolnsspee00linc.pdf

"Lincoln And The Economics of The American Dream"
- G.S. Boritt

"American System"
"Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort."

Abraham Lincoln, the day after Christmas,1839.
Subject: Private Central Banking

“Broken by it, I, too, may be; bow to it, I never will. The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me.” - Abraham Lincoln 1839

The "American System" is a system of honest monetary economics, ruled by supreme law; a government of "the people" by "the people" for "the people" with an American National Bank for "the people" to live as self-governed Individuals.

Learn the law: usconstitution.legal

Abraham Lincoln excerpt from Lyceum Address 1838

“Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.

As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor;--let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his children's liberty.

Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap--let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs;--let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice.

And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.”

Lyceum Address https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/lyceum.htm

~ American Dream ~

Abraham Lincoln on the "American System" of Economics

“Truth. Made so plain by our good Father in Heaven, that all feel and understand it, even down to brutes and creeping insects. The ant, who has toiled and dragged a crumb to his nest, will furiously defend the fruit of his labor, against whatever robber assails him.

So plain, that the most dumb and stupid slave that ever toiled for a master, does constantly know that he is wronged. So plain that no one, high or low, ever does mistake it, except in a plainly selfish way; for although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself.

Most governments have been based, practically, on the denial of the equal rights of men, as I have, in part, stated them; ours began, by affirming those rights.

They said, some men are too ignorant, and vicious, to share in government. Possibly so, said we; and, by your system, you would always keep them ignorant and vicious.

We proposed to give all a chance; and we expected the weak to grow stronger, the ignorant, wiser; and all better, and happier together.

We made the experiment; and the fruit is before us. Look at it. Think of it. Look at it, in its aggregate grandeur, of extent of country, and numbers of population, of ship, and steamboat, and rail …”