“What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our crowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, our army and our navy. These are not our reliance against tyranny.
All of these may be turned against us without making us weaker for the struggle.
Our reliance is in the spirit which prized liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere.
Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors.
Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage as you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustom to trample on the rights of others and you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.” -Abraham Lincoln
