A quick google uncovered one of my all time favorite fake quotes.... http://www.ratical.org/corporations/Lincoln.html
What the web page says is.... "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." -- U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 (letter to Col. William F. Elkins) Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY) The quote doesn't even sound like Lincoln. There isn't a shred of documentary evidence that Lincoln made or wrote such a statement; it's in none of the collections and everything extant by Lincoln has been collected and printed. And--oh, yes--and there was no Colonel William F. Elkins...indeed, not even a Private William F. Elkins...not with that middle initial. The quote was actually traced to a newspaperman in Indiana named Ellis in the early 1870s, who apparently got it from a third party organizer in Illinois named Jesse Harper. Indeed, 19th century American newspapermen were always muddled when it came to direct quotations (also punctuation and spelling). All that said, I've always believed that there was something behind it. The predictive features aside, it is not that different than views Lincoln expressed regularly in other connections. The wartime profiteering during the Civil War infuriated many of the original Republican leaders, including Lincoln, who regularly grumbled about contractors and businesses taking advantage of the situation. His law partner and biographer, William Herndon broke with the Republicans in 1874-75 to encourage a third party movement of farmers in Illinois (Jesse Harper's organization). It is quite easy to see Lincoln saying something like this statement in earshot of Herndon, Harper, Ellis or someone who passed on a shorthand version of it to someone else. Solidarity! Mark L.
