Let there be no compromise on the question of extending slavery. If there be, all our labor is lost, and, ere long, must be done again.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free.

Many poor whites, however, were the derivative victims of slavery. As long as labor was cheapened by the involuntary servitude of the black man, the freedom of white labor, especially in the South, was little more than a myth.

The church is called to set free those that are captive, to set free those that are victims of the slavery of segregation and discrimination, those who are caught up in the slavery of fear and prejudice.

A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union ... If I could save the Union without freeing any slave... if I could save it by freeing all the slaves... I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.