“I have made efforts to find something that Lincoln wrote or said about the love of the country or the Union, I haven't found anything at this time. That is not to say such a statement doesn't exist. I can agree more that he was a patriot that I can he was fighting to free the slaves. He did call troops to save the Union, so that part of your statement could be very well true”
George,
I don't have anything that is exactly like your request, but I do have part of his (Lincoln's) first inaugral speech that kind of touches on part of what we seem to be discussing. I have to preface his quote with a comment. I recall reading in Mary Chestnut's book, Dixie Diary where she tells of returning to Charleston on the train from somewhere shortly after the 1860 election and that a rucus arose and she inquired what it was about and she was told that a man on the train in another car had recieved a telegram from a friend in New York and the telegram reported that Lincoln had won the election and the rucus was about the fact that if there was a Republican in the White House there was only one thing for the south to do and that was to seceed. They just knew that Black Repubilcan was going to out law slavery. Now we come to his speech and what he said on the subject. Either he was lying or was telling the truth, the people had to decide. It is my guess that the peoples of the south did not belive him or he clearly says that he does not intend to interfer with slavery any where it is legal at that point in time.

“Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that—
1. I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.
3 Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them; and more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:
Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.”

That seems to be what he said. FC