What does this quote mean?

“Let us have faith that right makes might.”

Lincoln reverses the idea that power establishes right, arguing that moral judgment should guide sustained political action rather than treating strength or intimidation as proof of justice.

Source note: Cooper Union Address, February 27, 1860, closing passage. Lincoln is defending Republican opposition to the extension of slavery into federal territories; the line retains that antislavery political context.

“A constitution is a thing antecedent to a government, and a government is only the creature of a constitution.”

Paine distinguishes the people’s constituting authority from the government created under it, rejecting the idea that government can simply define its own limits.

Source note: Rights of Man; Paine’s constitutional argument is preserved as historical political theory rather than converted into generic motivation.

“Law is reason without desire.”

Good law is idealized as judgment governed by reason rather than by the changing appetites or personal passions of an individual ruler.

Source note: Politics, Book III, William Ellis translation; the line appears in a discussion of law and political rule.

“Society in equality is its normal state.”

Mill contrasts relations organized around command and obedience with equal association, presenting equality as the normal direction of an improving society.

Source note: The Subjection of Women, discussion of marriage and moral cultivation; the sentence follows Mill’s contrast between older command-and-obedience relations and society among equals.

“Let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively.”

Once a moral and political conclusion has been reached, Lincoln argues that intimidation and evasive compromise should not displace the duty that follows from that judgment.

Source note: Cooper Union Address, February 27, 1860. The sentence appears in Lincoln’s closing argument about opposing slavery’s spread and should not be detached into a context-free command about every disputed duty.

“The object of government is the welfare of the people.”

Roosevelt evaluates public power by whether it serves the welfare of people rather than becoming an instrument for entrenched private advantage or special interests.

Source note: The New Nationalism, Osawatomie, Kansas, August 31, 1910. This is Progressive Era political argument about public welfare, economic power and government responsibility, not current policy guidance.