"'Mr. Lincoln,' he said, 'what d'ye think of these Know-Nothing fellers?' I explained their ideas and asked him if he had been born in America." "'Faith, to be sure,' Pat replied, 'I wanted to be, very much, but me mother wouldn't let me. It's no fault of mine.'" Lincoln and Pat thus together believed that every baby, born anywhere on earth, is a good American until its mind is moulded into some man-made shape. Referring to the thirteen original colonies and what they stood for, he said, "These communities by their representatives in old Independence Hall said to the world of men: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' This was their lofty and wise and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to his creatures. In their enlightened belief nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on and degraded and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the race of men then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They created a beacon to guide their children and their children's children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages." Among the many familiar quotations from these great speeches that made him known to the nation may be mentioned a few that should never be forgotten. * * * * * "Let none falter who believes he is right." "Let us have faith that right makes might." "Freedom is the last, best hope of earth." "Disenthrall ourselves, then we shall save ourselves." "Come what will, I'll keep my faith with friend and foe." "For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like." "I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday." "No man is good enough to govern another without the other's consent." "Would you undertake to disprove a proposition in Euclid by calling Euclid a liar!" "Familiarize yourself with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them." * * * * * In pioneer days it was very common for individuals to conclude any personal controversy by resort to the settlement of "fist and skull," and, on the far frontier of the Wild West, the convincing evidence that brought peace was often the quickest and most skillful use of the gun. We are now in that pioneer day and wild-west age of nations whose "fist and skull" arguments and wild-west "gun-play" must end. This is what Lincoln thought of it in the midst of the Civil War. It was written to the Springfield convention.