“Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.” — Abraham Lincoln
As Americans celebrate 250 years of their freedom, LiveMint’s quote of the day by Abraham Lincoln, the 16th US President who navigated the country through the , serves as a devastating critique of hypocrisy.
Lincoln argued that freedom is a universal human right, not a conditional privilege that one group can hoard for itself while denying it to another.
What does the quote mean?
When said, “Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves,” he was applying a political version of the Golden Rule. He is pointing out the fundamental absurdity of a slave-owning society demanding its own liberties.
If you do not believe that freedom is an inherent human right belonging to everyone, then you have no logical or moral foundation to claim that it belongs to you. You cannot logically demand rights that you refuse to grant.
The second half, “…and, under a just God, can not long retain it,” operates as a stark warning. Lincoln is asserting that a society built on a foundation of profound injustice is inherently unstable. He believed that the universe operates on a moral arc, and that a nation cannot survive half-slave and half-free. Eventually, the weight of that hypocrisy will cause the society to collapse, either through divine justice, internal rebellion, or war.
Two years later, the outbreak of the Civil War would prove this warning accurate.
Lincoln was specifically targeting a twisted political argument of his era. Southern politicians frequently used the language of “liberty” and “states’ rights” to defend slavery. They argued that the federal government was infringing on their “freedom” to own human beings. Lincoln used this quote to cut through that rhetoric, exposing that their version of “freedom” was just tyranny in disguise.
How is it relevant today?
Lincoln’s warning that freedom cannot be selectively applied remains one of the most relevant political and moral principles today. When a society treats rights as a zero-sum game—where one group can only secure its freedoms by stripping them from another—the entire system becomes unstable.
- Erosion of democratic norms: In many modern democracies, there is a trend toward majoritarianism—in which a ruling majority attempts to consolidate power by restricting the voting rights, civil liberties, or legal protections of minority groups. Lincoln’s quote serves as a direct warning here: a majority that dismantles the democratic rights of its opponents undermines the very legal frameworks that protect its own rights. Once the precedent is set that rights can be revoked, no one’s freedom is permanently secure.
- Global human rights and authoritarianism: On the geopolitical stage, the quote highlights the hypocrisy of nations that demand economic freedom and sovereignty on the global stage while ruthlessly suppressing dissidents, journalists, or ethnic minorities within their own borders. It also challenges democratic nations to be consistent in their foreign policy—reminding them that ignoring human rights abuses abroad compromises their moral authority to advocate for freedom anywhere.
- Digital freedom and censorship: In the digital age, “freedom” extends to freedom of expression and access to information. When tech monopolies or governments construct systems to censor marginalised voices or restrict internet access for specific populations, they create the infrastructure for universal surveillance and censorship. The tools built to deny digital freedom to a few will inevitably be used to control the many.
- Economic disenfranchisement: While Lincoln was speaking about the literal ownership of human beings, modern scholars often apply his logic to systemic economic inequality. When a society denies basic economic mobility, fair labour protections, or a living wage to its most vulnerable workers, it creates a fragile economy. A system built on the severe exploitation of one class cannot sustain long-term prosperity for the rest of the nation.
- Danger of “conditional” rights: The most enduring modern lesson of the quote is that human rights must be unconditional. Whether discussing LGBTQ+ rights, religious freedom, or immigrant protections, the premise remains the same: if a society decides that basic human dignity is a privilege that must be “earned” or only applies to the “right” kind of citizen, it fundamentally ceases to be a free society.
When did he say this?
Abraham Lincoln wrote this on 6 April 1859 in a letter to a Massachusetts politician named Henry L. Pierce.
Pierce and a committee of Boston had invited Lincoln to attend a festival celebrating Thomas Jefferson’s birthday. Lincoln had to decline the invitation because of his busy schedule, but he used the letter to make a powerful political statement about the state of the country.
Check out the paragraph where the quote appeared to understand the full weight of his words. Lincoln noted that if a man does not want to be a slave, he must refuse to be a master:
“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. All honour to Jefferson—to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times…”
