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Who really said it

I am a slow walker, but I never walk back

Attributed to Abraham Lincoln 1809–1865 · 16th U.S. president; the line first appears in print in January 1864
Attributed Free to reuse

Widely credited to Lincoln, and credited early: the words surface in the press in January 1864 ↗ as his reply when asked whether the Emancipation Proclamation was a finality, and they square with his incremental-but-unwavering temperament — but the line survives only as a second-hand newspaper anecdote, with no version in Lincoln’s own letters or speeches to pin it.

Last verified 7 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Unconfirmed quote & credit

“I am a slow walker, but I never walk back” Abraham Lincoln (attributed; earliest documented in an 1864 newspaper reporting his reply on the Emancipation Proclamation). Via Quotle.info

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In context

Evoking the world of Abraham Lincoln — 16th U.S. president. Theme: "I am a slow walker, but I never walk back". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Provenance

An 1864 wartime newspaper item

Earliest citation
14 January 1864
Printed in
“Gleanings from the Mails,” Daily Commercial Register (Sandusky, Ohio)
Reported context
Lincoln’s reply when asked if the Emancipation Proclamation was a finality
Status
Contemporaneous press attribution — not found in Lincoln’s own writings

Mr. Lincoln, when asked recently if the emancipation proclamation was a finality, replied—‘I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.’ ↑ the popular quote strips away the emancipation context

As the anecdote appeared in the Daily Commercial Register ↗ (14 Jan 1864) and, verbatim, the Fremont (Ohio) Journal (22 Jan 1864). The circulated version usually drops this framing and often swaps the final word to ‘backwards.’

Barry Popik — earliest 1864 citations and Earl Warren’s variant

How we trace it

Public domain

The words themselves — an 1864 newspaper report of a public figure — are long in the U.S. public domain. Note the wording circulates in variants (‘walk back,’ ‘walk backwards,’ ‘walk backward’); the earliest documented form is ‘never walk back.’

Fact-check

Wording and authorship, sorted out

The quote is genuinely and early attributed to Lincoln, so the confusion here is less about who than about the exact words — the version most people know is a later reshaping.

Earl Warren variant

Chief Justice Earl Warren repeatedly quoted it as ‘I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards’ — his self-described favorite Lincoln quotation, used from a 1952 Lincoln Day address ↗ onward — and that changed final word is now often presented as Lincoln’s exact wording.

‘I walk slowly, but I never walk backward’

A smoothed paraphrase that circulates widely (e.g. in America magazine ↗) but has no source earlier than the 1864 ‘slow walker…never walk back’ report.

The earliest documented wording is ‘I am a slow walker, but I never walk back,’ from a January 1864 newspaper ↗ — not the ‘backwards’ version Earl Warren made famous.

Context

Why it fits Lincoln

The reported occasion matters. In early 1864, with the Emancipation Proclamation barely a year old and its permanence still contested, Lincoln was pressed on whether the measure was truly final. The newspaper answer — ‘I am a slow walker, but I never walk back’ — reads as a promise that emancipation would not be reversed, even if progress came haltingly.

That is a very Lincoln idea: cautious in pace, immovable in direction. Whether or not he phrased it exactly this way, the sentiment matches the man who inched toward emancipation and then refused to retreat from it.

Cautious in pace, immovable in direction.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Resilience Purpose

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Barry Popik: tracing the phrasebarrypopik.com

Etymology sleuth’s dossier with the earliest 1864 citations and the Earl Warren ‘backwards’ variant.
America: The humanity of Lincolnamericamagazine.org

Essay that quotes ‘I walk slowly, but I never walk backward’ as Lincoln’s — with no source given.
Foundation for a Better Lifepassiton.com

Typical modern circulation of the ‘never walk backwards’ variant, attributed to Lincoln.
Goodreads quote pagegoodreads.com

Shows the ‘never walk back’ form circulating as a bare Lincoln quote, no citation.

The reputed author

About Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

1809–1865 · 16th U.S. president

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) was the sixteenth U.S. president, who led the Union through the Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Known for a deliberate, cautious style paired with unbending resolve, he was a natural magnet for aphorisms about patient persistence — some his own, many merely spoken in his voice. This line, tying ‘slow walking’ to never retreating on emancipation, fits him closely, though it reaches us only through the wartime press rather than his own pen.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Earliest documented in “Gleanings from the Mails,” Daily Commercial Register (Sandusky, Ohio), 14 January 1864, p. 2; repeated verbatim in the Fremont (Ohio) Journal, 22 January 1864.

MLA (9th ed.)

“Gleanings from the Mails.” Daily Commercial Register, 14 Jan. 1864, p. 2.

APA (7th ed.)

Gleanings from the mails. (1864, January 14). Daily Commercial Register, 2.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I am a slow walker, but I never walk back’?” Last verified 7 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-am-a-slow-walker-but-i-never-walk-back

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