I Am A Slow Walker But

The attribution of this quote to Lincoln is disputed. The earliest known newspaper source dates to January 1864, with a report that Lincoln said it when asked whether the Emancipation Proclamation was a final decision — meaning he moved slowly but never reversed course. However, it does not appear in the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, which scholars consider the authoritative source for verified Lincoln statements. The phrase was later widely associated with Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, who often repeated it in a slightly different form: "I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards."