Who said America will be destroyed from within?

Answer 1

Abraham Lincoln has recently been alleged to have said:

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

In fact, this is NOT what Lincoln said. Here's what he DID say on which the misquote is apparently based:

"All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

(from "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions: Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois" January 27, 1838)

"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within. " -- Ariel Durant

Answer 2

Nikita Khrushchev

Answer 3

Lenin

Answer 4

Lincoln

Answer 5

Khrushchev