Quotes were incorrectly attributed to Abe Lincoln

[snopes]

On this page recently, Mary B. Nelson, perhaps innocently but for certain falsely attributed a number of maxims to Abe Lincoln, our 16th president. They included, “You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich” and six others.

They were not written by Lincoln, but by another person more than 50 years after Lincoln died.

You can read on www.snopes.com about the true originator, William John Henry Boetcker, a Presbyterian minister, notable speaker and most importantly, director of the pro-employer Citizen’s Industrial Alliance. It was in 1916, while he was director of the pro-employer group, that he put these maxims he wrote into booklet form.

http://www.delmarvanow.com/article/2...ed-Abe-Lincoln