"If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any man would say I
might seize the nearest stick and kill it. But if I found that snake in
bed with my children, that would be another question. I might hurt the
children more than the snake, and it might bite them. Much more if I
found it abed with my neighbor's children, and I had bound myself by a
solemn contract not to meddle with his children under any
circumstances, it would become me to let that particular mode of
getting rid of the gentleman alone. But--if there was a bed newly made
up, to which the children were to be taken, and it was proposed to take
a batch of young snakes and put them there with them, I take it no man
would say there was any question how I ought to decide." --(Speech by
Abraham Lincoln at New York Cooper Institute, and repeated through
Connecticut, 1860.)
* * * * *