“Inasmuch as our country is extensive and new, and the countries of Europe are densely populated, if there are any abroad who desire to make this the land of their adoption, it is not in my heart to throw aught in their way, to prevent them from coming to the United States.”

—  Abraham Lincoln

1860s, Speech to Germans at Cincinnati, Ohio (1861), Commercial version

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 1, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Inasmuch as our country is extensive and new, and the countries of Europe are densely populated, if there are any abroa…" by Abraham Lincoln?
Abraham Lincoln photo
Abraham Lincoln 618
16th President of the United States 1809–1865

Related quotes

Bobby Fischer photo

“Look at the history of the (United States). The history of the country is basically what? Get something for nothing, right? Take, kill. They invaded the country, they robbed the land of the American Indians, they killed almost all of them off… That's the history of the United States. A despicable country.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

Radio Interview, September 11 2001 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_19_1.MP3
2000s

Abraham Lincoln photo

“In regard to Germans and foreigners, I esteem foreigners no better than other people, nor any worse. They are all of the great family of men, and if there is one shackle upon any of them, it would be far better to lift the load from them than to pile additional loads upon them. And inasmuch as the continent of America is comparatively a new country, and the other countries of the world are old countries, there is more room here, comparatively speaking, than there is there; and if they can better their condition by leaving their old homes, there is nothing in my heart to forbid them coming; and I bid them all God speed.”

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

1860s, Speech to Germans at Cincinnati, Ohio (1861), Gazette version

Cecil Rhodes photo

“In order to save the forty million inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, our colonial statesmen must acquire new lands for settling the surplus population of this country, to provide new markets… The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and butter question.”

Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902) British businessman, mining magnate and politician in South Africa

Quoted in Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch06.htm#bkV22P257F01.
[William Simpson, Martin Desmond Jones, Europe, 1783-1914. p. 237, http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AGxlZbfJdy8C&pg=PA237&lpg=PA237&dq=million, 2000, Europe, 1783-1914, Routledge, 2009-06-13]

John F. Kennedy photo

“It is not a pleasure for any President of the United States, as I am sure it was not a pleasure for my predecessors, to come before the Congress and ask for new appropriations which place burdens on our people. I came to this conclusion with some reluctance. But in my judgment, this is a most serious time in the life of our country and in the life of freedom around the globe, and it is the obligation, I believe, of the President of the United States to at least make his recommendations to the Members of the Congress, so that they can reach their own conclusions with that judgment before them. You must decide yourselves, as I have decided, and I am confident that whether you finally decide in the way that I have decided or not, that your judgment--as my judgment--is reached on what is in the best interests of our country.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

May 1961 in address to joint session of congress https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/historic-speeches/address-to-joint-session-of-congress-may-25-196125
1961

Thomas Jefferson photo

“My new trade of nail-making is to me in this country what an additional title of nobility or the ensigns of a new order are in Europe”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

As quoted in The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-dark-side-of-thomas-jefferson-35976004/, by Henry Wiencek, Smithsonian Magazine, (October 2012)
Attributed

“Adequate health care, housing, education, and clean water and air are increasingly out of reach for large sections of the population, even in wealthy countries in North America and Europe, while transportation is becoming more difficult in the United States and many other countries due to irrationally high levels of dependency on the automobile and disinvestment in public transportation. Urban structures are more and more characterized by gentrification and segregation, with cities becoming the playthings of the well-to-do while marginalized populations are shunted aside. About half a million people, most of them children, are homeless on any given night in the United States.”

John Bellamy Foster (1953) Sociology professor and Marxist writer

Capitalism Has Failed—What Next?, 2019

John Gray photo

“A far smaller proportion of the population is in jail in Japan than in any Western country - around a twentieth of that in the United States. Evidently the Japanese have yet to embrace Western values.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

Non-Progress: 'Western Values' (p.180)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

Nguyễn Tấn Dũng photo

“I always find it interesting to talk to students, no matter when and where. The young generation is the master of the future. Whether coming from the United States or any other country, you all represent the future of your country.”

Nguyễn Tấn Dũng (1949) Prime Minister of Vietnam
Harper Lee photo

“But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal — there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States or the humblest J. P. court in the land, or this honourable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults, as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levellers, and in our courts all men are created equal.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 2, ch. 20
Atticus Finch
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Joseph E. Stiglitz photo

“TRIPs imposed on the entire world the dominant intellectual property regime in the United States and Europe, as it is today. I believe that the way that intellectual property regime has evolved is not good for the United States and the EU; but even more, I believe it is not in the interest of the developing countries.”

Joseph E. Stiglitz book Making Globalization Work

§4.2 TRIPs, p. 117
Making globalization work (2006)

Related topics