Theodore Parker (August 24, 1810-May 10, 1860) was an American abolitionist, clergyman, and graduate of Harvard. Strongly opposing slavery, he declared:
<The Bible goes equally to the cottage of the peasant, and the palace of the king. It is woven into literature, and colors the talk of the street. The bark of the merchant cannot sail without it; and no ship of war goes to the conflict but it is there. It enters men's closets; directs their conduct, and mingles in all the grief and cheerfulness of life.> 1810TP001
On May 29, 1850, Theodore Parker wrote The American Idea, in which he stated:
<A democracy-that is a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; of course, a government of the principles of eternal justice, the unchanging law of God; for shortness' sake I will call it the idea of Freedom.> 1810TP002
Parker used the same phrase at Boston’s Music Hall, July 4, 1858.
The Washington Post, March 31, 2017, in the article “Who coined ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’?” explained:
<Lincoln’s law partner William H. Herndon visited Boston and returned to Springfield, Ill., with some of Parker’s sermons and addresses.
Herndon wrote that Lincoln marked with pencil the portion of the Music Hall address “Democracy is direct self-government, over all the people, by all the people, for all the people.”
At Gettysburg, Lincoln enshrined the people’s rule in the fervent pledge that, “under God,” this democracy “shall not perish from the earth”> 1810TP003
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1810TP001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Theodore Parker. Tryon Edwards, D.D., The New Dictionary of Thoughts-A Cyclopedia of Quotations (Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1852; revised and enlarged by C.H. Catrevas, Ralph Emerson Browns and Jonathan Edwards [descendent, along with Tryon, of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), president of Princeton], 1891; The Standard Book Company, 1955, 1963), p. 46.
1810TP002. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Theodore Parker, May 29, 1850, in The American Idea. John Bartlett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1855, 1980), p. 537.
1810TP003. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Theodore Parker, July 4, 1858, Boston’s Music Hall, The Washington Post, March 31, 2017, “Who coined ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’?” https://morningwalkgroup.com/2019/11/01/of-the-people-not-found-in-the-general-prologue-to-the-wycliffite-bible/