“If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”

— Abraham Lincoln

1850s, Speech at Peoria, Illinois (1854)
Context: The foregoing history may not be precisely accurate in every particular; but I am sure it is sufficiently so, for all the uses I shall attempt to make of it, and in it, we have before us, the chief material enabling us to correctly judge whether the repeal of the Missouri Compromise is right or wrong.
I think, and shall try to show, that it is wrong; wrong in its direct effect, letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska — and wrong in its prospective principle, allowing it to spread to every other part of the wide world, where men can be found inclined to take it.
This declared indifference, but as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I can not but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world — enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites — causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty — criticising the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.

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Abraham Lincoln 618

16th President of the United States 1809–1865

Thomas G. West (1945) American academic

Source: 2000s, Vindicating the Founders (2001), p. 14

“You say that you think slavery is wrong, but you denounce all attempts to restrain it. Is there anything else that you think wrong, that you are not willing to deal with as a wrong? Why are you so careful, so tender of this one wrong and no other?”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)
Context: But those who say they hate slavery, and are opposed to it, but yet act with the Democratic party — where are they? Let us apply a few tests. You say that you think slavery is wrong, but you denounce all attempts to restrain it. Is there anything else that you think wrong, that you are not willing to deal with as a wrong? Why are you so careful, so tender of this one wrong and no other? You will not let us do a single thing as if it was wrong; there is no place where you will allow it to be even called wrong! We must not call it wrong in the Free States, because it is not there, and we must not call it wrong in the Slave States because it is there; we must not call it wrong in politics because that is bringing morality into politics, and we must not call it wrong in the pulpit because that is bringing politics into religion; we must not bring it into the Tract Society or the other societies, because those are such unsuitable places, and there is no single place, according to you, where this wrong thing can properly be called wrong!

“The Republican principle, the unalterable principle, never to be lost sight of, is that slavery is wrong.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Speech https://diplomatdc.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/the-libertarian-attack-on-abraham-lincoln-by-gregory-hilton/ (1859)
1850s

“There's nothing wrong with you. There's a lot wrong with the world you live in.”

Chris Colfer (1990) actor, singer, book author

Personal Quotes 2009–2012
Source: http://www.gleeksource.com/Cast-Members/Kurt/Kurt-s-Blog/October-2011/10-Best-Quotes-from-Chris-Colfer-of-Glee.aspx, GleekSource.com's Top Ten Chris Colfer Quotes.

“There's nothing wrong with the world. What's wrong is our way of looking at it.”

Henry Miller book Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch

Source: Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (1957), p. 351

“Inside of a ring or out, ain't nothing wrong with going down. It's staying down that's wrong.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

“There's nothing wrong with not understanding yourself.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“Nothing ever goes wrong.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

“There's nothing wrong with being an anarchist.”

Jerry Brown (1938) American politician/lawyer and current governor of California

Speaking to the International Transpersonal Association Conference in Santa Clara, California, 10 June 1995.
Political Consciousness and Transformative Action, LeapNonprofit.org, League for Earth & Animal Protection (LEAP), 2007-06-12 http://www.leapnonprofit.org/phil%20article4.htm,
1995

“Lincoln thought slavery was wrong and he did not think a vote of the people could make it right.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, Interview with Peter Robinson (2009)

“If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”

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Abraham Lincoln 618

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