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11/30/2003 Archived Entry: "Historians expose quotes wrongly attributed to Lincoln"

IT'S MORE PREVALENT THAN YOU THINK: Historians have released a list of sayings attributed to Abraham Lincoln that all share one thing: Honest Abe never said them.

Remarks attributed to the quotable 16th president have popped up in everything from television commercials to speeches by famous generals, presidents and even recent anti-war protesters. Too often, they are phrases that Lincoln never uttered, experts at the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency say.

"It's simply Lincoln's own status as a cultural exemplar that make these spurious quotations seem credible," said Rodney Davis, co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College in Galesburg.

"He seems to provide validation for just about anything anybody wants to have validated, and if you can't find a Lincoln quote, you make one up."

I actually came across this problem myself a couple of weeks ago while researching famous pro- and anti-gun control statements for a new version of ESR's famous anti-gun control line of gear. Many of the famous statements that those opposed to gun control cite are, in fact, fakes. Names commonly attached to these statements? The Founding Fathers. While they did make many supportive statements of gun ownership, some of the most famous lines attached to their names are fake.