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Who really said it

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it

Written by Abraham Lincoln 1809–1865 · 16th President of the United States
Verified Free to reuse

Lincoln really wrote this. It closes his letter of 6 April 1859 to Henry L. Pierce and others, declining an invitation to a Boston festival honoring Thomas Jefferson’s birthday. His manuscript reads with slightly heavier punctuation — “Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it” — and the widely circulated form merely modernizes the commas and spelling.

Last verified 10 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it” Abraham Lincoln, letter to Henry L. Pierce and others, April 6, 1859

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In context

Evoking the world of Abraham Lincoln — 16th U.S. President; lawyer & Republican statesman. Theme: "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it". 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

The source

Work
Letter to Henry L. Pierce and others
Date
6 April 1859
Published in
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 3
Occasion
Declining a Jefferson birthday festival, Boston

This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.

Lincoln’s manuscript wording; the popular version normalizes the punctuation and writes “cannot.”

Painting quoting the line
Fred Conway, Great Ideas of Western Man (1953), Smithsonian American Art Museum
Read Lincoln's 1859 letter to Henry L. Pierce

How we traced it

Public domain

Lincoln’s letter was written and first published in 1859 and has been in the public domain in the United States for well over a century. (Fred Conway’s 1953 painting that quotes it is a separate, later work with its own rights; the words themselves are free to reproduce.)

Fact-check

A genuine one — with a caveat

Unusually for a quote pinned to a famous name, this really is Lincoln. The only distortion is cosmetic: the version everyone shares has been lightly repunctuated and modernized from what Lincoln actually wrote.

Abraham Lincoln (genuine) lightly modernized

Lincoln’s manuscript reads “Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it” — two extra commas, a semicolon, and the older “can not.” The popular form smooths these into “cannot,” per the original letter.

Not a speech or the Emancipation era

It is sometimes floated as if from a great oration; in fact it closes a short 1859 letter declining a Jefferson-birthday dinner in Boston, written two years before Lincoln became president, as documented by Teaching American History.

The thought and the words are Lincoln’s own, from his 6 April 1859 letter to Henry L. Pierce and others — only the punctuation has drifted.

Context

Why it mattered

Lincoln wrote to a committee of Boston Republicans who had invited him to a festival marking Thomas Jefferson’s birthday. Unable to attend, he used the letter to reclaim Jefferson — and the Declaration’s “all men are created equal” — from those who, he argued, had reduced liberty to a matter of party and property.

The line distills his core argument: freedom is reciprocal. A nation that denies liberty to some forfeits its own claim to it, “under a just God.” The same reasoning would resurface in the House Divided speech and, ultimately, the wartime case against slavery.

He who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave.

Explore

Filed under

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

Freedom Justice

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.

Full letter to Henry L. Pierce (1859)abrahamlincolnonline.org

Complete text of the letter, ending with this sentence.
Letter to Henry Pierce and othersteachingamericanhistory.org

Annotated transcription with historical context.
Great Ideas of Western Man (Conway, 1953)americanart.si.edu

Smithsonian painting bearing the quotation and its 1859 attribution.
Those Who Deny Freedom to Otherspostalmuseum.si.edu

National Postal Museum exhibit citing the same 1859 letter.
Abraham Lincolnen.wikiquote.org

Community quote index listing the line among Lincoln’s words.

The real author

About Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

1809–1865 · 16th U.S. President; lawyer & Republican statesman

Abraham Lincoln led the United States through the Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation. A largely self-taught lawyer from Illinois, he built his political identity around the antislavery reading of the Declaration of Independence. This line comes from an 1859 letter defending Jefferson’s principle that liberty is a universal, reciprocal claim — a theme that runs through his speeches from Peoria to Gettysburg.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Abraham Lincoln to Henry L. Pierce and others, 6 April 1859, in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), vol. 3, pp. 374–376.

MLA (9th ed.)

Lincoln, Abraham. “Letter to Henry L. Pierce and Others.” 6 Apr. 1859. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler, vol. 3, Rutgers University Press, 1953, pp. 374–76.

APA (7th ed.)

Lincoln, A. (1953). Letter to Henry L. Pierce and others (6 April 1859). In R. P. Basler (Ed.), The collected works of Abraham Lincoln (Vol. 3, pp. 374–376). Rutgers University Press.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it’?” Last verified 10 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/those-who-deny-freedom-to-others-deserve-it-not-for

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