cincobrand:

I feel like this is a bad paraphrasing of Lincoln’s Lyceum Address of 1838.  The actual quote is so much better.

“Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and
crush us at a blow? Never! 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 Bonaparte 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.”