Yes, And
Lincoln also said "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
Now he did not mean "the working man should be richer than the business owner". He meant "the working man ought to get fair wages because if he doesn't work nobody gets anything - he is and should be in control of his own destiny."
His "other accomplishment" as President was getting the trans-continental railroad - and he saw it as an "economic seed" - a chance for some (but not all) of the common guys to work, save and then hire others.
He learned it the hard way.
His father was anti-slavery, and in large part left Kentucky because he did not want to (and could not) compete with slave owners in the farm markets, who had "free labor" and drove prices down.
But - like many debtors of the time - he forced Lincoln to work for neighbors to pay off debts. Lincoln split rails because he was forced to, not for fun. He helped his father clear the land for 3 farms in his lifetime - one each in Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. As soon as he could, Lincoln separated from his father, and after his emancipation, they did not interact much and did not get along. Lincoln's father did not value education - even as his son used it to get ahead - and Abe woud rather read and hang at the stores, post office, chuch socials than work for free. In New Salem, Lincoln lived as a virtual vagrant rather than continue to work for his father.
(Your article is a good read. The Great Society has failed, and when we can move past it, we'll be better off.
LBJ was right when he said "freedom is not enough" and "equal opportunity is not enough." But his third step - and the third step of the modern left - was "paternalistic nanny state" over what Lincoln called "the prosperous system" - which involved USING that freedom and opportunity.
Lincoln once wrote an interesting to letter to a step brother:
"January 2, 1851
Dear Johnston:
Your request for eighty dollars I do not think it best to comply with now. At the various times when I have helped you a little you have said to me, "We can get along very well now"; but in a very short time I find you in the same difficulty again. Now, this can only happen by some defect in your conduct. What that defect is, I think I know. You are not lazy, and still you are an idler. I doubt whether, since I saw you, you have done a good whole day's work in any one day. You do not very much dislike to work, and still you do not work much merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for it. This habit of uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty; it is vastly important to you, and still more so to your children, that you should break the habit. It is more important to them, because they have longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it, easier than they can get out after they are in.
You are now in need of some money; and what I propose is, that you shall go to work, "tooth and nail," for somebody who will give you money for it. Let father and your boys take charge of your things at home, prepare for a crop, and make the crop, and you go to work for the best money wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get; and, to secure you a fair reward for your labor, I now promise you, that for every dollar you will, between this and the first of May, get for your own labor, either in money or as your own indebtedness, I will then give you one other dollar. By this, if you hire yourself at ten dollars a month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty dollars a month for your work. In this I do not mean you shall go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines, or the gold mines in California, but I mean for you to go at it for the best wages you can get close to home in Coles County. Now, if you will do this, you will be soon out of debt, and, what is better, you will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt again. But, if I should now clear you out of debt, next year you would be just as deep in as ever. You say you would almost give your place in heaven for seventy or eighty dollars. Then you value your place in heaven very cheap, for I am sure you can, with the offer I make, get the seventy or eighty dollars for four or five months' work. You say if I will furnish you the money you will deed me the land, and, if you don't pay the money back, you will deliver possession. Nonsense! If you can't now live with the land, how will you then live without it? You have always been kind to me, and I do not mean to be unkind to you. On the contrary, if you will but follow my advice, you will find it worth more than eighty times eighty dollars to you.
Affectionately your brother,
A. Lincoln"
This post was edited on 4/14 9:19 AM by MyTeamIsOnTheFloor
