Correction of a person, by that person, for the people

I'm doing this post to apologize for shoving my foot in my mouth, and essentially calling out Tala, when I said the '...government of the people, by the people, for the people ...' quote from the Gettysburg Address, was from the US Decleration of Independence, which I checked and found it isn't.  So sorry, to Tala.

Lincoln wasn't the first to express this sentiment, though he was the first to do it using those words.  In 1830, during an address to the US Senate, Daniel Webster said, 'It is, Sir, the people's government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.  The people of the United States have decleared that this Constitution shall be the supreme law.'

The phrase was commonly used in the 1850's by abolitionist (of slavery) preacher Theodore Parker, though worded, 'Democracy is direct self-government over all the people, for all the people, by all the people.'  Lincoln apparently marked these words in a copy he had of a sermon by Parker before writing the Gettysburg Address.  Parker also at a different time defiend democracy as, 'a governemnt of all the people, by all the people, for all the people.'

Ironically, a version of the phrase was used by Stephen A. Douglas on July 9, 1958, in a debate AGAINST Lincoln.  He said, 'In my opinion this government of ours is founded on the white basis.  It was made by the white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be administered by white men, in such a manner as they should determine.'  I don't think it's really nessacary to elaborate much on the clear fact that Douglas was was a pro-slavery candidate running against the anti-slavery Lincoln.  Lincoln's opinions on people of African descent however, is a different topic for a different day.

The mistaken idea that the statement is part of American law seems to be held by a somewhat large amount of the American public.  In 1996, then President Bill Clinton said, 'The last time I checked, the Constitution said "of the people, by the people, and for the people." That's what the Decleration of Independence says.' On the bright side, I said this in English class, not on national TV during a Presidential debate like Clinton did.
Source
So that's that.  Que laugh track, and I'll try to keep my mouth shut so I won't make mistakes as often.  Or, is the issue that I wasn't talking as much that class, which is why I did make a mistake?