“From Plato to Kant, the substance of what is known as the Golden Rule – one common to the world’s religious and moral traditions – has occupied philosophers across the ages. Lincoln’s own sensibility – both moral and political – was founded on this injunction. “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master,” he once wrote. “This expresses my idea of democracy.”

“From Plato to Kant, the substance of what is known as the Golden Rule – one common to the world’s religious and moral traditions – has occupied philosophers across the ages. Lincoln’s own sensibility – both moral and political – was founded on this injunction. “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master,” he once wrote. “This expresses my idea of democracy.”

— Jon Meacham