...he wanted to put on the clothes of his ancestors without reenacting their war. In Lincoln's words, "Our republican robe is soiled, and trailed in the...the spirit, if not the blood, of the Revolution." 6 Sins are washed white in the blood, not the spirit of the lamb, however, as both Melville and the...

...glorious founding "moment." "Our republican robe is soiled, and trailed in the dust," he stated in 1858. "Let us repurify it. Let us turn and wash it white,...if not the blood, of the Revolution. . . . Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence."34 Lincoln did indeed regard the Declaration as a moral covenant...

...prepare such an understanding of civil war. Shifting from classical to Christian imagery, Lincoln warned, "Our republican robe is soiled, and trailed in the...the spirit, if not the blood, of the revolution." The Emancipation Proclamation — issued in "the year of our Lord one thousand and eight hundred and...

...enslave others is a "sacred right of self-government." These principles cannot stand together. . . . Our republican robe is soiled, and trailed in the dust. Let us repurify it. ... Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with...

...enslave others is a "sacred right of self-government. " These principles cannot stand together. . . . Our republican robe is soiled, and trailed in the dust. Let us repurify it. ... Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with...

...republican robe is soiled, and trailed in the dust," Lincoln said in his campaign for senator in 1858. "Let us repurify it. Let us turn and wash it white,...if not the blood, of the Revolution. . . . Let us readopt the Declaration of Independence. "4 Lincoln's election to the presidency in 1860 promised to...

...1838. He applied the argument to the slavery question in the 1854 Peoria speech, in the famous line, "Our republican robe is soiled, and trailed in the...the spirit, if not the blood, of the Revolution." Likewise, he wrote to Robertson in 1855, "That spirit which desired the peaceful extinction of slavery,...

...(John 3.3-7). Elsewhere Lincoln made the theological imagery of spiritual regeneration more explicit: Our republican robe is soiled, and trailed in the...in the spirit, if not the blood, of the Revolution. [SW 1.339-40] The Declaration of Independence has replaced the Gospel as an instrument of spiritual...

...well as north," Lincoln cried, let us prevent the spirit of Kansas-Nebraska from displacing the spirit of the Revolution. "Let us turn slavery from its claims...right,' back upon its existing legal rights . . . and there let it rest in peace. Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices,...

...reprinted in Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, v. 2, p. 242. Rutgers University Press (1953, 1990). Our Republican robe is soiled, and trailed in the...the spirit, if not the blood, of the Revolution Let north and south — let all Americans — let all lovers of liberty everywhere — join in the great...