Politics & Power Quote by Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln’s line is a compliment with teeth: the “people” are capable of rescuing the republic, but the machinery of power has a habit of getting in the way. It’s the kind of sentence that sounds like reassurance until you notice the conditional clause. The real target isn’t public apathy; it’s governmental self-protection - the reflex to clamp down, hoard authority, and treat popular participation as a threat rather than the source of legitimacy.

The intent is both democratic and disciplinary. Lincoln elevates the citizenry as the ultimate backstop against collapse, then turns the moral burden onto officials: don’t sabotage the very force you claim to serve. In wartime America, with secession testing whether a “government of the people” could survive, that subtext mattered. The Union’s crisis wasn’t only military; it was constitutional and psychological: could institutions endure panic without sliding into the authoritarian shortcuts that claim to preserve order while hollowing it out?

The rhetoric works because it’s structurally simple and politically daring. “Save their government” frames the state as something owned, not imposed. Then “if… will allow” flips the usual hierarchy - citizens aren’t begging for rights; government is being judged for whether it permits democracy to function. Lincoln is effectively warning that legitimacy is not merely won on battlefields or in courtrooms but maintained through restraint: a government confident enough to let the people correct it, criticize it, even embarrass it, is the government most likely to be saved.