Lincoln on equality

From True West:

"How can anyone who abhors the oppression of Negroes be in favor of degrading classes of white people? As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal'. We now read it as 'all men are created equal except Negroes'. When the Know-Nothing's get control, it will read 'all men are created equal except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics'. When it comes to this I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty; to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, without the base alloy of hypocrisy".

Abraham Lincoln, 1862