“It is satisfying, for ministers of a free people, to be able to announce to them that the fatherland is going be saved.”

I Didn't Come Here to Argue (1969), "It's a Funny Thing About Me, but Not Very," page 51.

von Galen, to the philosopher Josef Pieper when he went to say farewell to the bishop, having been drafted into the German army in 1943. Pieper remarked; I was somewhat baffled; it was a long time since I had heard such words, but on his lips they were by no means a mere pathetic cliché; he meant them in all seriousness;they were to be taken literally. See Beth A. Griech Polelle, Bishop Von Galen, p. 20.

Guest of Honor Speech at the 29th World Science Fiction Convention, Seattle, Washington (1961)
The Quotable Heinlein http://www.quotableheinlein.com/html/home.html
Context: I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don't think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say : Let the damned thing go down the drain!

Remarks regarding the illegal immigrant family separation crisis, quoted in The Washington Post (25 June 2018) " ‘Be careful what you wish for Max!’: Trump takes aim at Waters after she calls for public harassment of his Cabinet https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/06/25/democratic-congresswoman-maxine-waters-calls-for-harassment-of-trump-officials/"

1860s, Last public address (1865)

Daily Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11205400/Lord-Barnett-obituary.html obituary, 3 Nov 2014

Testament (1969)
1960's

This quote is incorrectly quoted from Lincoln's Address to Congress on July 4, 1861 http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/3508, in which Lincoln outlined the events that had led to the American Civil War and his views on the nature of the rebellion by the southern slave states. To suppress the rebellion Lincoln said that Congress must "give the legal means for making this contest a short and a decisive one; that you place at the control of the Government for the work at least 400,000 men and $400,000,000." And Lincoln remarked further: "A right result at this time will be worth more to the world than ten times the men and ten times the money. The evidence reaching us from the country leaves no doubt that the material for the work is abundant, and that it needs only the hand of legislation to give it legal sanction and the hand of the Executive to give it practical shape and efficiency. One of the greatest perplexities of the Government is to avoid receiving troops faster than it can provide for them. In a word, the people will save their Government if the Government itself will do its part only indifferently well".
Disputed

Source: Stations of the Tide (1991), Chapter 12, “Across the Ancient Causeway” (p. 223)