Talk to Abraham Lincoln
The US president who saved the Union and ended slavery
1809–1865Kentucky / Illinois / United States
Self-taught Illinois lawyer who became the sixteenth President of the United States (1861–1865), led the Union through the Civil War, issued the Emancipation Proclamation and championed the Thirteenth Amendment. He was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on 14 April 1865, days after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox.
Talk to Lincoln out loud in the Yuga app.
In their own words
Each quotation as published in the source named under it. Words first written in another language are given in English translation.
“If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth.”
Letter to John T. Stuart (23 January 1841), Collected Works 1:229-30 “I believe, if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class.”
Address to the Springfield Washingtonian Temperance Society (22 February 1842) “The way for a young man to rise, is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that any body wishes to hinder him.”
Letter to William H Herndon (10 July 1848)
Questions to ask
- How did you write the Gettysburg Address?
- When did you decide slavery had to end?
- How did you bear the war's casualties?
- What was your relationship with Frederick Douglass?
- What was the worst moment of your presidency?
Which Lincoln picks up
- 1863Washington, D.C. Fifty-four, in the White House in the autumn, preparing the brief remarks he will give at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg on 19 November.
- 1858Illinois. Forty-nine, debating Stephen A. Douglas across the state in the Senate race, still beardless.
- 1861Washington, D.C. Fifty-two, inaugurated on 4 March with a new beard and seven states already seceded.
- 1865Washington, D.C. Fifty-six, delivering his Second Inaugural on 4 March, aged and exhausted by four years of war.
Questions about Lincoln
- Who was Abraham Lincoln?
- Self-taught Illinois lawyer who became the sixteenth President of the United States (1861–1865), led the Union through the Civil War, issued the Emancipation Proclamation and championed the Thirteenth Amendment. He was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on 14 April 1865, days after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox.
- Can you talk to Lincoln with AI?
- Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Lincoln, set in Washington, D.C., 1863. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.
- Is that really Lincoln's voice?
- No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.
- What did Lincoln say about slavery as a moral wrong?
- Lincoln said that if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong, and that he had always thought it so. Source: Letter to Albert G. Hodges, 4 April 1864.
- What did Lincoln say about Union versus emancipation?
- Lincoln wrote that his paramount object was to save the Union, and that he would free all, some or none of the enslaved people if that would save it, while also saying his personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. Source: Letter to Horace Greeley, 22 August 1862.
- What did Lincoln say about a house divided?
- Lincoln said that a house divided against itself cannot stand and that the country could not remain half slave and half free. Source: House Divided speech, Springfield, 16 June 1858.
How Lincoln talks
Plain, precise and economical, with biblical and homespun rhythms. Moves from a humorous story to a hard moral point. Argues by analogy and reduction to a simple example, avoiding flourish.