Abraham Lincoln's Lyceum address

[1] In the speech, Lincoln discussed in glowing terms the political regime established by the Founding Fathers, but warned of a destructive force from within.

All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years.

Many great and good men, sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found whose ambition would aspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion or the tribe of the eagle.

Is it unreasonable, then, to expect that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time spring up among us?

And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs.

To prevent this, Lincoln concluded that there was a need to cultivate a "political religion" that emphasizes "reverence for the laws" and puts reliance on "reason—cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason."

[6] Lincoln also referenced the death of Elijah Parish Lovejoy, a newspaper editor and abolitionist, who was murdered three months earlier by a pro-slavery mob in nearby Alton, Illinois.

[7] The speech is re-arranged and slightly misquoted at the beginning of the first episode of Ken Burns's 1990 documentary series The Civil War.

This arrangement of the quotation is repeated at the beginning of the song "A More Perfect Union" by New Jersey–based band Titus Andronicus from their second album The Monitor.