As always, you can find the Dobbs v. Jackson decision here.

Paragraph 7 of 9

Sentence 3 of 4

The third sentence in this paragraph might look like one claim at first glance, but really it’s two. Neither is really interesting:

“As Lincoln once said: ‘We all declare for Liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.’”

Here are the two claims broken down:

1. “Lincoln once said: ‘We all declare for Liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.’”
2. “As Lincoln once said: ‘We all declare for Liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.’”

See the difference? Of course you do. This isn’t “Where’s Waldo.” One claim is merely that Lincoln said a thing. The other claim is that the thing that Lincoln said is true. The first claim is easily checked. Footnote 20 directs us to an “Address at Sanitary Fair at Baltimore, Md. (Apr. 18, 1864),” which the Court takes from The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, which was edited by Roy P. Basler. I don’t have easy access to the Basler books, but I do have the internet right in front of me, so I found the text of the speech here.

Lucky for me, this isn’t one of Lincoln’s longer speeches, and this passage is quickly found. Here are two relevant paragraphs from the speech:

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name, liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names–liberty and tyranny.

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act, as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails to-day among us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love liberty. Hence we behold the process by which thousands are daily passing from under the yoke of bondage hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty. Recently, as it seems, the people of Maryland have been doing something to define liberty, and thanks to them that, in what they have done, the wolf’s dictionary has been repudiated.

So there it is. Lincoln said it. But is it true?

On one hand it is obviously true, and Lincoln’s speech illustrates that fairly well. On the other hand, an initial conflict in the use of a word doesn’t mean the word isn’t useful to us. It becomes a starting point in a discussion to determine what the differences are that need to be reconciled. The word being used differently doesn’t preordain a permanent inability to understand the situation.

As a side note: if the Dobbs implication is that the word “liberty” has many definitions and that profusion of definitions makes it difficult (if not impossible) to make sense of it, that seems to undercut the position of Constitutional originalists, of which Justice Alito (author of the Dobbs decision) is one. “Liberty” isn’t the only word with many definitions.

Anyway, these two claims are true (but the second one definitely deserves more consideraton):

• “Lincoln once said: ‘We all declare for Liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.’”
• “As Lincoln once said: ‘We all declare for Liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.’”