The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, v1

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Ti­tle: The Writ­ings of Abra­ham Lin­coln, v1

Au­thor: Abra­ham Lin­coln

Re­lease Date: May, 2001 [Etext #2653] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of sched­ule] [Most re­cent­ly up­dat­ed: De­cem­ber 4, 2001]

Edi­tion: 11

Lan­guage: En­glish

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The Project Guten­berg Etext of The Writ­ings of Abra­ham Lin­coln, v1 *******This file should be named 1linc11.txt or 1linc11.zip*******

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THE WRIT­INGS OF ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN

CON­STI­TU­TION­AL EDI­TION

VOL­UME 1.

IN­TRO­DUC­TO­RY

Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter Lin­coln’s re-​elec­tion to the Pres­iden­cy, in an off-​hand speech, de­liv­ered in re­sponse to a ser­enade by some of his ad­mir­ers on the evening of Novem­ber 10, 1864, he spoke as fol­lows:

“It has long been a grave ques­tion whether any gov­ern­ment not too strong for the lib­er­ties of its peo­ple can be strong enough to main­tain its ex­is­tence in great emer­gen­cies. On this point, the present re­bel­lion brought our re­pub­lic to a se­vere test, and the Pres­iden­tial elec­tion, oc­cur­ring in reg­ular course dur­ing the re­bel­lion, added not a lit­tle to the strain…. The strife of the elec­tion is but hu­man na­ture prac­ti­cal­ly ap­plied to the facts in the case. What has oc­curred in this case must ev­er oc­cur in sim­ilar cas­es. Hu­man na­ture will not change. In any fu­ture great na­tion­al tri­al, com­pared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as sil­ly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us there­fore study the in­ci­dents in this as phi­los­ophy to learn wis­dom from and none of them as wrongs to be avenged…. Now that the elec­tion is over, may not all hav­ing a com­mon in­ter­est re­unite in a com­mon fort to save our com­mon coun­try? For my own part, I have striv­en and shall strive to avoid plac­ing any ob­sta­cle in the way. So long as I have been here, I have not will­ing­ly plant­ed a thorn in any man’s bo­som. While I am deeply sen­si­ble to the high com­pli­ment of a re-​elec­tion and du­ly grate­ful, as I trust, to Almighty God for hav­ing di­rect­ed my coun­try­men to a right con­clu­sion, as I think for their own good, it adds noth­ing to my sat­is­fac­tion that any oth­er man may be dis­ap­point­ed or pained by the re­sult.”

This speech has not at­tract­ed much gen­er­al at­ten­tion, yet it is in a pe­cu­liar de­gree both il­lus­tra­tive and typ­ical of the great states­man who made it, alike in its strong com­mon-​sense and in its lofty stan­dard of moral­ity. Lin­coln’s life, Lin­coln’s deeds and words, are not on­ly of con­sum­ing in­ter­est to the his­to­ri­an, but should be in­ti­mate­ly known to ev­ery man en­gaged in the hard prac­ti­cal work of Amer­ican po­lit­ical life. It is dif­fi­cult to over­state how much it means to a na­tion to have as the two fore­most fig­ures in its his­to­ry men like Wash­ing­ton and Lin­coln. It is good for ev­ery man in any way con­cerned in pub­lic life to feel that the high­est am­bi­tion any Amer­ican can pos­si­bly have will be grat­ified just in pro­por­tion as he rais­es him­self to­ward the stan­dards set by these two men.

It is a very poor thing, whether for na­tions or in­di­vid­uals, to ad­vance the his­to­ry of great deeds done in the past as an ex­cuse for do­ing poor­ly in the present; but it is an ex­cel­lent thing to study the his­to­ry of the great deeds of the past, and of the great men who did them, with an earnest de­sire to prof­it there­by so as to ren­der bet­ter ser­vice in the present. In their es­sen­tials, the men of the present day are much like the men of the past, and the live is­sues of the present can be faced to bet­ter ad­van­tage by men who have in good faith stud­ied how the lead­ers of the na­tion faced the dead is­sues of the past. Such a study of Lin­coln’s life will en­able us to avoid the twin gulfs of im­moral­ity and in­ef­fi­cien­cy–the gulfs which al­ways lie one on each side of the ca­reers alike of man and of na­tion. It helps noth­ing to have avoid­ed one if ship­wreck is en­coun­tered in the oth­er. The fa­nat­ic, the well-​mean­ing moral­ist of un­bal­anced mind, the par­lor crit­ic who con­demns oth­ers but has no pow­er him­self to do good and but lit­tle pow­er to do ill–all these were as alien to Lin­coln as the vi­cious and un­pa­tri­ot­ic them­selves. His life teach­es our peo­ple that they must act with wis­dom, be­cause oth­er­wise ad­her­ence to right will be mere sound and fury with­out sub­stance; and that they must al­so act high-​mind­ed­ly, or else what seems to be wis­dom will in the end turn out to be the most de­struc­tive kind of fol­ly.

Through­out his en­tire life, and es­pe­cial­ly af­ter he rose to lead­er­ship in his par­ty, Lin­coln was stirred to his depths by the sense of feal­ty to a lofty ide­al; but through­out his en­tire life, he al­so ac­cept­ed hu­man na­ture as it is, and worked with keen, prac­ti­cal good sense to achieve re­sults with the in­stru­ments at hand. It is im­pos­si­ble to con­ceive of a man far­ther re­moved from base­ness, far­ther re­moved from cor­rup­tion, from mere self- seek­ing; but it is al­so im­pos­si­ble to con­ceive of a man of more sane and healthy mind–a man less un­der the in­flu­ence of that fan­tas­tic and dis­eased moral­ity (so fan­tas­tic and dis­eased as to be in re­al­ity pro­found­ly im­moral) which makes a man in this work- a-​day world refuse to do what is pos­si­ble be­cause he can­not ac­com­plish the im­pos­si­ble.

In the fifth vol­ume of Lecky’s His­to­ry of Eng­land, the his­to­ri­an draws an in­ter­est­ing dis­tinc­tion be­tween the qual­ities need­ed for a suc­cess­ful po­lit­ical ca­reer in mod­ern so­ci­ety and those which lead to em­inence in the spheres of pure in­tel­lect or pure moral ef­fort. He says:

“….the moral qual­ities that are re­quired in the high­er spheres of states­man­ship [are not] those of a hero or a saint. Pas­sion­ate earnest­ness and self-​de­vo­tion, com­plete con­cen­tra­tion of ev­ery fac­ul­ty on an un­selfish aim, un­cal­cu­lat­ing dar­ing, a del­ica­cy of con­science and a lofti­ness of aim far ex­ceed­ing those of the av­er­age of men, are here like­ly to prove rather a hin­drance than an as­sis­tance. The politi­cian deals very large­ly with the su­per­fi­cial and the com­mon­place; his art is in a great mea­sure that of skil­ful com­pro­mise, and in the con­di­tions of mod­ern life, the states­man is like­ly to suc­ceed best who pos­sess­es sec­ondary qual­ities to an un­usu­al de­gree, who is in the clos­est in­tel­lec­tu­al and moral sym­pa­thy with the av­er­age of the in­tel­li­gent men of his time, and who pur­sues com­mon ide­als with. mow than com­mon abil­ity…. Tact, busi­ness tal­ent, knowl­edge of men, res­olu­tion, promp­ti­tude and sagac­ity in deal­ing with im­me­di­ate emer­gen­cies, a char­ac­ter which lends it­self eas­ily to con­cil­ia­tion, di­min­ish­es fric­tion and in­spires con­fi­dence, are es­pe­cial­ly need­ed, and they are more like­ly to be found among shrewd and en­light­ened men of the world than among men of great orig­inal ge­nius or of an hero­ic type of char­ac­ter.”

The Amer­ican peo­ple should feel pro­found­ly grate­ful that the great­est Amer­ican states­man since Wash­ing­ton, the states­man who in this ab­so­lute­ly demo­crat­ic re­pub­lic suc­ceed­ed best, was the very man who ac­tu­al­ly com­bined the two sets of qual­ities which the his­to­ri­an thus puts in an­tithe­sis. Abra­ham Lin­coln, the rail-​split­ter, the West­ern coun­try lawyer, was one of the shrewdest and most en­light­ened men of the world, and he had all the prac­ti­cal qual­ities which en­able such a man to guide his coun­try­men; and yet he was al­so a ge­nius of the hero­ic type, a lead­er who rose lev­el to the great­est cri­sis through which this na­tion or any oth­er na­tion had to pass in the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry.

THEODORE ROO­SEVELT

SAG­AMORE HILL, OYS­TER BAY, N. Y., Septem­ber 22, 1905.

IN­TRO­DUC­TO­RY NOTE

“I have en­dured,” wrote Lin­coln not long be­fore his death, “a great deal of ridicule with­out much mal­ice, and have re­ceived a great deal of kind­ness not quite free from ridicule.” On East­er Day, 1865, the world knew how lit­tle this ridicule, how much this kind­ness, had re­al­ly sig­ni­fied. There­after, Lin­coln the man be­came Lin­coln the hero, year by year more hero­ic, un­til to-​day, with the swift pass­ing of those who knew him, his fig­ure grows ev­er dim­mer, less re­al. This should not be. For Lin­coln the man, pa­tient, wise, set in a high re­solve, is worth far more than Lin­coln the hero, vague­ly glo­ri­ous. In­valu­able is the ex­am­ple of the man, in­tan­gi­ble that of the hero.

And, though it is not for us, as for those who in awed still­ness lis­tened at Get­tys­burg with in­spired per­cep­tion, to know Abra­ham Lin­coln, yet there is for us an­oth­er way where­by we may at­tain such knowl­edge–through his words–ut­tered in all sin­cer­ity to those who loved or hat­ed him. Cold, un­sat­is­fy­ing they may seem, these print­ed words, while we can yet speak with those who knew him, and look in­to eyes that once looked in­to his. But in truth it is here that we find his sim­ple great­ness, his great sim­plic­ity, and though no man tried less so to show his pow­er, no man has so shown it more clear­ly.

Thus these writ­ings of Abra­ham Lin­coln are as­so­ci­at­ed with those of Wash­ing­ton, Hamil­ton, Franklin, and of the oth­er “Founders of the Re­pub­lic,” not that Lin­coln should be­come still more of the past, but, rather, that he with them should be­come still more of the present. How­ev­er faint and myth­ical may grow the sto­ry of that Great Strug­gle, the lead­er, Lin­coln, at least should re­main a re­al, liv­ing Amer­ican. No mat­ter how clear­ly, how di­rect­ly, Lin­coln has shown him­self in his writ­ings, we yet should not for­get those men whose minds, from their var­ious view-​points, have il­lu­mined for us his char­ac­ter. As this na­tion owes a great debt to Lin­coln, so, al­so, Lin­coln’s mem­ory owes a great debt to a na­tion which, as no oth­er na­tion could have done, has been able to ap­pre­ci­ate his full worth. Among the many who have brought about this ap­pre­ci­ation, those on­ly whose es­ti­mates have been placed in these vol­umes may be men­tioned here. To Pres­ident Roo­sevelt, to Mr. Schurz and to Mr. Choate, the ed­itor, for him­self, for the pub­lish­ers, and on be­half of the read­ers, wish­es to of­fer his sin­cere ac­knowl­edg­ments.

Thanks are al­so due, for valu­able and sym­pa­thet­ic as­sis­tance ren­dered in the prepa­ra­tion of this work, to Mr. Gilbert A. Tra­cy, of Put­nam, Conn., Ma­jor William H. Lam­bert, of Philadel­phia, and Mr. C. F. Gun­ther, of Chica­go, to the Chica­go His­tor­ical As­so­ci­ation and per­son­al­ly to its ca­pa­ble Sec­re­tary, Miss McIl­vaine, to Ma­jor Hen­ry S. Bur­rage, of Port­land, Me., and to Gen­er­al Thomas J. Hen­der­son, of Illi­nois.

It is hard­ly nec­es­sary to add that ev­ery ef­fort has been made by the ed­itor to bring in­to these vol­umes what­ev­er ma­te­ri­al may there prop­er­ly be­long, ma­te­ri­al much of which is wide­ly scat­tered in pub­lic li­braries and in pri­vate col­lec­tions. He has been for­tu­nate in se­cur­ing cer­tain in­ter­est­ing cor­re­spon­dence and pa­pers which had not be­fore come in­to print in book form. In­for­ma­tion con­cern­ing some of these pa­pers had reached him too late to en­able the pa­pers to find place in their prop­er chrono­log­ical or­der in the set. Rather, how­ev­er, than not to present these pa­pers to the read­ers they have been in­clud­ed in the sev­enth vol­ume of the set, which con­cludes the “Writ­ings.”

[These lat­er pa­pers are, in this etext, re-​ar­ranged in­to chrono­log­ic or­der. D.W.]

Oc­to­ber, 1905,

A. B. L.

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN:

AN ES­SAY BY CARL SHURZ

No Amer­ican can study the char­ac­ter and ca­reer of Abra­ham Lin­coln with­out be­ing car­ried away by sen­ti­men­tal emo­tions. We are al­ways in­clined to ide­al­ize that which we love,–a state of mind very un­fa­vor­able to the ex­er­cise of sober crit­ical judg­ment. It is there­fore not sur­pris­ing that most of those who have writ­ten or spo­ken on that ex­traor­di­nary man, even while con­sci­en­tious­ly en­deav­or­ing to draw a life­like por­trai­ture of his be­ing, and to form a just es­ti­mate of his pub­lic con­duct, should have drift­ed in­to more or less in­dis­crim­inat­ing eu­lo­gy, paint­ing his great fea­tures in the most glow­ing col­ors, and cov­er­ing with ten­der shad­ings what­ev­er might look like a blem­ish.

But his stand­ing be­fore pos­ter­ity will not be ex­alt­ed by mere praise of his virtues and abil­ities, nor by any con­ceal­ment of his lim­ita­tions and faults. The stature of the great man, one of whose pe­cu­liar charms con­sist­ed in his be­ing so un­like all oth­er great men, will rather lose than gain by the ide­al­iza­tion which so eas­ily runs in­to the com­mon­place. For it was dis­tinct­ly the weird mix­ture of qual­ities and forces in him, of the lofty with the com­mon, the ide­al with the un­couth, of that which he had be­come with that which he had not ceased to be, that made him so fas­ci­nat­ing a char­ac­ter among his fel­low-​men, gave him his sin­gu­lar pow­er over their minds and hearts, and fit­ted him to be the great­est lead­er in the great­est cri­sis of our na­tion­al life.

His was in­deed a mar­vel­lous growth. The states­man or the mil­itary hero born and reared in a log cab­in is a fa­mil­iar fig­ure in Amer­ican his­to­ry; but we may search in vain among our celebri­ties for one whose ori­gin and ear­ly life equalled Abra­ham Lin­coln’s in wretched­ness. He first saw the light in a mis­er­able hov­el in Ken­tucky, on a farm con­sist­ing of a few bar­ren acres in a drea­ry neigh­bor­hood; his fa­ther a typ­ical “poor South­ern white,” shift­less and with­out am­bi­tion for him­self or his chil­dren, con­stant­ly look­ing for a new piece of land on which he might make a liv­ing with­out much work; his moth­er, in her youth hand­some and bright, grown pre­ma­ture­ly coarse in fea­ture and soured in mind by dai­ly toil and care; the whole house­hold squalid, cheer­less, and ut­ter­ly void of el­evat­ing in­spi­ra­tions… On­ly when the fam­ily had “moved” in­to the malar­ious back­woods of In­di­ana, the moth­er had died, and a step­moth­er, a wom­an of thrift and en­er­gy, had tak­en charge of the chil­dren, the shag­gy-​head­ed, ragged, bare­foot­ed, for­lorn boy, then sev­en years old, “be­gan to feel like a hu­man be­ing.” Hard work was his ear­ly lot. When a mere boy he had to help in sup­port­ing the fam­ily, ei­ther on his fa­ther’s clear­ing, or hired out to oth­er farm­ers to plough, or dig ditch­es, or chop wood, or drive ox teams; oc­ca­sion­al­ly al­so to “tend the ba­by,” when the farmer’s wife was oth­er­wise en­gaged. He could re­gard it as an ad­vance­ment to a high­er sphere of ac­tiv­ity when he ob­tained work in a “cross­roads store,” where he amused the cus­tomers by his talk over the counter; for he soon dis­tin­guished him­self among the back­woods folk as one who had some­thing to say worth lis­ten­ing to. To win that dis­tinc­tion, he had to draw main­ly up­on his wits; for, while his thirst for knowl­edge was great, his op­por­tu­ni­ties for sat­is­fy­ing that thirst were wo­ful­ly slen­der.

In the log school­house, which he could vis­it but lit­tle, he was taught on­ly read­ing, writ­ing, and el­emen­tary arith­metic. Among the peo­ple of the set­tle­ment, bush farm­ers and small trades­men, he found none of un­com­mon in­tel­li­gence or ed­uca­tion; but some of them had a few books, which he bor­rowed ea­ger­ly. Thus he read and reread, AE­sop’s Fa­bles, learn­ing to tell sto­ries with a point and to ar­gue by para­bles; he read Robin­son Cru­soe, The Pil­grim’s Progress, a short his­to­ry of the Unit­ed States, and Weems’s Life of Wash­ing­ton. To the town con­sta­ble’s he went to read the Re­vised Statutes of In­di­ana. Ev­ery print­ed page that fell in­to his hands he would greed­ily de­vour, and his fam­ily and friends watched him with won­der, as the un­couth boy, af­ter his dai­ly work, crouched in a cor­ner of the log cab­in or out­side un­der a tree, ab­sorbed in a book while munch­ing his sup­per of corn bread. In this man­ner he be­gan to gath­er some knowl­edge, and some­times he would as­ton­ish the girls with such startling re­marks as that the earth was mov­ing around the sun, and not the sun around the earth, and they mar­velled where “Abe” could have got such queer no­tions. Soon he al­so felt the im­pulse to write; not on­ly mak­ing ex­tracts from books he wished to re­mem­ber, but al­so com­pos­ing lit­tle es­says of his own. First he sketched these with char­coal on a wood­en shov­el scraped white with a draw­ing-​knife, or on bass­wood shin­gles. Then he trans­ferred them to pa­per, which was a scarce com­mod­ity in the Lin­coln house­hold; tak­ing care to cut his ex­pres­sions close, so that they might not cov­er too much space,–a style-​form­ing method great­ly to be com­mend­ed. See­ing boys put a burn­ing coal on the back of a wood tur­tle, he was moved to write on cru­el­ty to an­imals. See­ing men in­tox­icat­ed with whiskey, he wrote on tem­per­ance. In verse-​mak­ing, too, he tried him­self, and in satire on per­sons of­fen­sive to him or oth­ers,–satire the rus­tic wit of which was not al­ways fit for ears po­lite. Al­so po­lit­ical thoughts he put up­on pa­per, and some of his pieces were even deemed good enough for pub­li­ca­tion in the coun­ty week­ly.

Thus he won a neigh­bor­hood rep­uta­tion as a clever young man, which he in­creased by his per­for­mances as a speak­er, not sel­dom draw­ing up­on him­self the dis­sat­is­fac­tion of his em­ploy­ers by mount­ing a stump in the field, and keep­ing the farm hands from their work by lit­tle speech­es in a jo­cose and some­times al­so a se­ri­ous vein. At the rude so­cial frol­ics of the set­tle­ment he be­came an im­por­tant per­son, telling fun­ny, sto­ries, mim­ick­ing the itin­er­ant preach­ers who had hap­pened to pass by, and mak­ing his mark at wrestling match­es, too; for at the age of sev­en­teen he had at­tained his full height, six feet four inch­es in his stock­ings, if he had any, and a ter­ri­bly mus­cu­lar clod­hop­per he was. But he was known nev­er to use his ex­traor­di­nary strength to the in­jury or hu­mil­ia­tion of oth­ers; rather to do them a kind­ly turn, or to en­force jus­tice and fair deal­ing be­tween them. All this made him a fa­vorite in back­woods so­ci­ety, al­though in some things he ap­peared a lit­tle odd, to his friends. Far more than any of them, he was giv­en not on­ly to read­ing, but to fits of ab­strac­tion, to qui­et mus­ing with him­self, and al­so to strange spells of melan­choly, from which he of­ten would pass in a mo­ment to rol­lick­ing out­bursts of droll hu­mor. But on the whole he was one of the peo­ple among whom he lived; in ap­pear­ance per­haps even a lit­tle more un­couth than most of them,–a very tall, raw­boned youth, with large fea­tures, dark, shriv­elled skin, and re­bel­lious hair; his arms and legs long, out of pro­por­tion; clad in deer­skin trousers, which from fre­quent ex­po­sure to the rain had shrunk so as to sit tight­ly on his limbs, leav­ing sev­er­al inch­es of bluish shin ex­posed be­tween their low­er end and the heavy tan-​col­ored shoes; the nether gar­ment held usu­al­ly by on­ly one sus­pender, that was strung over a coarse home­made shirt; the head cov­ered in win­ter with a coon­skin cap, in sum­mer with a rough straw hat of un­cer­tain shape, with­out a band.

It is doubt­ful whether he felt him­self much su­pe­ri­or to his sur­round­ings, al­though he con­fessed to a yearn­ing for some knowl­edge of the world out­side of the cir­cle in which he lived. This wish was grat­ified; but how? At the age of nine­teen he went down the Mis­sis­sip­pi to New Or­leans as a flat­boat hand, tem­porar­ily join­ing a trade many mem­bers of which at that time still took pride in be­ing called “half horse and half al­li­ga­tor.” Af­ter his re­turn he worked and lived in the old way un­til the spring of 1830, when his fa­ther “moved again,” this time to Illi­nois; and on the jour­ney of fif­teen days “Abe” had to drive the ox wag­on which car­ried the house­hold goods. An­oth­er log cab­in was built, and then, fenc­ing a field, Abra­ham Lin­coln split those his­toric rails which were des­tined to play so pic­turesque a part in the Pres­iden­tial cam­paign twen­ty-​eight years lat­er.

Hav­ing come of age, Lin­coln left the fam­ily, and “struck out for him­self.” He had to “take jobs when­ev­er he could get them.” The first of these car­ried him again as a flat­boat hand to New Or­leans. There some­thing hap­pened that made a last­ing im­pres­sion up­on his soul: he wit­nessed a slave auc­tion. “His heart bled,” wrote one of his com­pan­ions; “said noth­ing much; was silent; looked bad. I can say, know­ing it, that it was on this trip that he formed his opin­ion on slav­ery. It run its iron in him then and there, May, 1831. I have heard him say so of­ten.” Then he lived sev­er­al years at New Salem, in Illi­nois, a small mush­room vil­lage, with a mill, some “stores” and whiskey shops, that rose quick­ly, and soon dis­ap­peared again. It was a des­olate, dis­joint­ed, half-​work­ing and half-​loi­ter­ing life, with­out any oth­er aim than to gain food and shel­ter from day to day. He served as pi­lot on a steam­boat trip, then as clerk in a store and a mill; busi­ness fail­ing, he was adrift for some time. Be­ing com­pelled to mea­sure his strength with the chief bul­ly of the neigh­bor­hood, and over­com­ing him, he be­came a not­ed per­son in that mus­cu­lar com­mu­ni­ty, and won the es­teem and friend­ship of the rul­ing gang of ruf­fi­ans to such a de­gree that, when the Black Hawk war broke out, they elect­ed him, a young man of twen­ty- three, cap­tain of a vol­un­teer com­pa­ny, com­posed main­ly of roughs of their kind. He took the field, and his most note­wor­thy deed of val­or con­sist­ed, not in killing an In­di­an, but in pro­tect­ing against his own men, at the per­il of his own life, the life of an old sav­age who had strayed in­to his camp.

The Black Hawk war over, he turned to pol­itics. The step from the cap­tain­cy of a vol­un­teer com­pa­ny to a can­di­da­cy for a seat in the Leg­is­la­ture seemed a nat­ural one. But his pop­ular­ity, al­though great in New Salem, had not spread far enough over the dis­trict, and he was de­feat­ed. Then the wretched hand-​to-​mouth strug­gle be­gan again. He “set up in store-​busi­ness” with a dis­so­lute part­ner, who drank whiskey while Lin­coln was read­ing books. The re­sult was a dis­as­trous fail­ure and a load of debt. There­upon he be­came a deputy sur­vey­or, and was ap­point­ed post­mas­ter of New Salem, the busi­ness of the post-​of­fice be­ing so small that he could car­ry the in­com­ing and out­go­ing mail in his hat. All this could not lift him from pover­ty, and his sur­vey­ing in­stru­ments and horse and sad­dle were sold by the sher­iff for debt.

But while all this mis­ery was up­on him his am­bi­tion rose to high­er aims. He walked many miles to bor­row from a school­mas­ter a gram­mar with which to im­prove his lan­guage. A lawyer lent him a copy of Black­stone, and he be­gan to study law.

Peo­ple would look won­der­ing­ly at the grotesque fig­ure ly­ing in the grass, “with his feet up a tree,” or sit­ting on a fence, as, ab­sorbed in a book, he learned to con­struct cor­rect sen­tences and made him­self a ju­rist. At once he gained a lit­tle prac­tice, pet­ti­fog­ging be­fore a jus­tice of the peace for friends, with­out ex­pect­ing a fee. Ju­di­cial func­tions, too, were thrust up­on him, but on­ly at horse-​races or wrestling match­es, where his ac­knowl­edged hon­esty and fair­ness gave his ver­dicts undis­put­ed au­thor­ity. His pop­ular­ity grew apace, and soon he could be a can­di­date for the Leg­is­la­ture again. Al­though he called him­self a Whig, an ar­dent ad­mir­er of Hen­ry Clay, his clever stump speech­es won him the elec­tion in the strong­ly Demo­crat­ic dis­trict. Then for the first time, per­haps, he thought se­ri­ous­ly of his out­ward ap­pear­ance. So far he had been con­tent with a garb of “Ken­tucky jeans,” not sel­dom ragged, usu­al­ly patched, and al­ways shab­by. Now, he bor­rowed some mon­ey from a friend to buy a new suit of clothes–“store clothes” fit for a Sang­amon Coun­ty states­man; and thus adorned he set out for the state cap­ital, Van­dalia, to take his seat among the law­mak­ers.

His leg­isla­tive ca­reer, which stretched over sev­er­al ses­sions– for he was thrice re-​elect­ed, in 1836, 1838, and 1840–was not re­mark­ably bril­liant. He did, in­deed, not lack am­bi­tion. He dreamed even of mak­ing him­self “the De Witt Clin­ton of Illi­nois,” and he ac­tu­al­ly dis­tin­guished him­self by zeal­ous and ef­fec­tive work in those “log-​rolling” op­er­ations by which the young State re­ceived “a gen­er­al sys­tem of in­ter­nal im­prove­ments” in the shape of rail­roads, canals, and banks,–a reck­less pol­icy, bur­den­ing the State with debt, and pro­duc­ing the usu­al crop of po­lit­ical de­mor­al­iza­tion, but a pol­icy char­ac­ter­is­tic of the time and the im­pa­tient­ly en­ter­pris­ing spir­it of the West­ern peo­ple. Lin­coln, no doubt with the best in­ten­tions, but with lit­tle knowl­edge of the sub­ject, sim­ply fol­lowed the pop­ular cur­rent. The achieve­ment in which, per­haps, he glo­ried most was the re­moval of the State gov­ern­ment from Van­dalia to Spring­field; one of those tri­umphs of po­lit­ical man­age­ment which are apt to be the pride of the small politi­cian’s states­man­ship. One thing, how­ev­er, he did in which his true na­ture as­sert­ed it­self, and which gave dis­tinct promise of the fu­ture pur­suit of high aims. Against an over­whelm­ing pre­pon­der­ance of sen­ti­ment in the Leg­is­la­ture, fol­lowed by on­ly one oth­er mem­ber, he record­ed his protest against a proslav­ery res­olu­tion,–that protest declar­ing “the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery to be found­ed on both in­jus­tice and bad pol­icy.” This was not on­ly the ir­re­press­ible voice of his con­science; it was true moral val­or, too; for at that time, in many parts of the West, an abo­li­tion­ist was re­gard­ed as lit­tle bet­ter than a horse-​thief, and even “Abe Lin­coln” would hard­ly have been for­giv­en his an­ti­slav­ery prin­ci­ples, had he not been known as such an “un­com­mon good fel­low.” But here, in obe­di­ence to the great con­vic­tion of his life, he man­ifest­ed his courage to stand alone, that courage which is the first req­ui­site of lead­er­ship in a great cause.

To­geth­er with his rep­uta­tion and in­flu­ence as a politi­cian grew his law prac­tice, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter he had re­moved from New Salem to Spring­field, and as­so­ci­at­ed him­self with a prac­ti­tion­er of good stand­ing. He had now at last won a fixed po­si­tion in so­ci­ety. He be­came a suc­cess­ful lawyer, less, in­deed, by his learn­ing as a ju­rist than by his ef­fec­tive­ness as an ad­vo­cate and by the strik­ing up­right­ness of his char­ac­ter; and it may tru­ly be said that his vivid sense of truth and jus­tice had much to do with his ef­fec­tive­ness as an ad­vo­cate. He would refuse to act as the at­tor­ney even of per­son­al friends when he saw the right on the oth­er side. He would aban­don cas­es, even dur­ing tri­al, when the tes­ti­mo­ny con­vinced him that his client was in the wrong. He would dis­suade those who sought his ser­vice from pur­su­ing an ob­tain­able ad­van­tage when their claims seemed to him un­fair. Pre­sent­ing his very first case in the Unit­ed States Cir­cuit Court, the on­ly ques­tion be­ing one of au­thor­ity, he de­clared that, up­on care­ful ex­am­ina­tion, he found all the au­thor­ities on the oth­er side, and none on his. Per­sons ac­cused of crime, when he thought them guilty, he would not de­fend at all, or, at­tempt­ing their de­fence, he was un­able to put forth his pow­ers. One no­table ex­cep­tion is on record, when his per­son­al sym­pa­thies had been strong­ly aroused. But when he felt him­self to be the pro­tec­tor of in­no­cence, the de­fend­er of jus­tice, or the pros­ecu­tor of wrong, he fre­quent­ly dis­closed such un­ex­pect­ed re­sources of rea­son­ing, such depth of feel­ing, and rose to such fer­vor of ap­peal as to as­ton­ish and over­whelm his hear­ers, and make him fair­ly ir­re­sistible. Even an or­di­nary law ar­gu­ment, com­ing from him, sel­dom failed to pro­duce the im­pres­sion that he was pro­found­ly con­vinced of the sound­ness of his po­si­tion. It is not sur­pris­ing that the mere ap­pear­ance of so con­sci­en­tious an at­tor­ney in any case should have car­ried, not on­ly to ju­ries, but even to judges, al­most a pre­sump­tion of right on his side, and that the peo­ple be­gan to call him, sin­cere­ly mean­ing it, “hon­est Abe Lin­coln.”

In the mean­time he had pri­vate sor­rows and tri­als of a painful­ly af­flict­ing na­ture. He had loved and been loved by a fair and es­timable girl, Ann Rut­ledge, who died in the flow­er of her youth and beau­ty, and he mourned her loss with such in­ten­si­ty of grief that his friends feared for his rea­son. Re­cov­er­ing from his mor­bid de­pres­sion, he be­stowed what he thought a new af­fec­tion up­on an­oth­er la­dy, who re­fused him. And fi­nal­ly, mod­er­ate­ly pros­per­ous in his world­ly af­fairs, and hav­ing prospects of po­lit­ical dis­tinc­tion be­fore him, he paid his ad­dress­es to Mary Todd, of Ken­tucky, and was ac­cept­ed. But then tor­ment­ing doubts of the gen­uine­ness of his own af­fec­tion for her, of the com­pat­ibil­ity of their char­ac­ters, and of their fu­ture hap­pi­ness came up­on him. His dis­tress was so great that he felt him­self in dan­ger of sui­cide, and feared to car­ry a pock­et-​knife with him; and he gave mor­tal of­fence to his bride by not ap­pear­ing on the ap­point­ed wed­ding day. Now the tor­tur­ing con­scious­ness of the wrong he had done her grew un­en­durable. He won back her af­fec­tion, end­ed the agony by mar­ry­ing her, and be­came a faith­ful and pa­tient hus­band and a good fa­ther. But it was no se­cret to those who knew the fam­ily well that his do­mes­tic life was full of tri­als. The er­rat­ic tem­per of his wife not sel­dom put the gen­tle­ness of his na­ture to the sever­est tests; and these trou­bles and strug­gles, which ac­com­pa­nied him through all the vi­cis­si­tudes of his life from the mod­est home in Spring­field to the White House at Wash­ing­ton, adding un­told pri­vate heart- burn­ings to his pub­lic cares, and some­times pre­cip­itat­ing up­on him in­cred­ible em­bar­rass­ments in the dis­charge of his pub­lic du­ties, form one of the most pa­thet­ic fea­tures of his ca­reer.

He con­tin­ued to “ride the cir­cuit,” read books while trav­el­ling in his bug­gy, told fun­ny sto­ries to his fel­low-​lawyers in the tav­ern, chat­ted fa­mil­iar­ly with his neigh­bors around the stove in the store and at the post-​of­fice, had his hours of melan­choly brood­ing as of old, and be­came more and more wide­ly known and trust­ed and beloved among the peo­ple of his State for his abil­ity as a lawyer and politi­cian, for the up­right­ness of his char­ac­ter and the over­flow­ing spring of sym­pa­thet­ic kind­ness in his heart. His main am­bi­tion was con­fess­ed­ly that of po­lit­ical dis­tinc­tion; but hard­ly any one would at that time have seen in him the man des­tined to lead the na­tion through the great­est cri­sis of the cen­tu­ry.

His time had not yet come when, in 1846, he was elect­ed to Congress. In a clever speech in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives he de­nounced Pres­ident Polk for hav­ing un­just­ly forced war up­on Mex­ico, and he amused the Com­mit­tee of the Whole by a wit­ty at­tack up­on Gen­er­al Cass. More im­por­tant was the ex­pres­sion he gave to his an­ti­slav­ery im­puls­es by of­fer­ing a bill look­ing to the eman­ci­pa­tion of the slaves in the Dis­trict of Columbia, and by his re­peat­ed votes for the fa­mous Wilmot Pro­vi­so, in­tend­ed to ex­clude slav­ery from the Ter­ri­to­ries ac­quired from Mex­ico. But when, at the ex­pi­ra­tion of his term, in March, 1849, he left his seat, he gloomi­ly de­spaired of ev­er see­ing the day when the cause near­est to his heart would be right­ly grasped by the peo­ple, and when he would be able to ren­der any ser­vice to his coun­try in solv­ing the great prob­lem. Nor had his ca­reer as a mem­ber of Congress in any sense been such as to grat­ify his am­bi­tion. In­deed, if he ev­er had any be­lief in a great des­tiny for him­self, it must have been weak at that pe­ri­od; for he ac­tu­al­ly sought to ob­tain from the new Whig Pres­ident, Gen­er­al Tay­lor, the place of Com­mis­sion­er of the Gen­er­al Land Of­fice; will­ing to bury him­self in one of the ad­min­is­tra­tive bu­reaus of the gov­ern­ment. For­tu­nate­ly for the coun­try, he failed; and no less for­tu­nate­ly, when, lat­er, the ter­ri­to­ri­al gov­er­nor­ship of Ore­gon was of­fered to him, Mrs. Lin­coln’s protest in­duced him to de­cline it. Re­turn­ing to Spring­field, he gave him­self with re­newed zest to his law prac­tice, ac­qui­esced in the Com­pro­mise of 1850 with re­luc­tance and a men­tal reser­va­tion, sup­port­ed in the Pres­iden­tial cam­paign of 1852 the Whig can­di­date in some spir­it­less speech­es, and took but a lan­guid in­ter­est in the pol­itics of the day. But just then his time was draw­ing near.

The peace promised, and ap­par­ent­ly in­au­gu­rat­ed, by the Com­pro­mise of 1850 was rude­ly bro­ken by the in­tro­duc­tion of the Kansas- Ne­bras­ka Bill in 1854. The re­peal of the Mis­souri Com­pro­mise, open­ing the Ter­ri­to­ries of the Unit­ed States, the her­itage of com­ing gen­er­ations, to the in­va­sion of slav­ery, sud­den­ly re­vealed the whole sig­nif­icance of the slav­ery ques­tion to the peo­ple of the free States, and thrust it­self in­to the pol­itics of the coun­try as the paramount is­sue. Some­thing like an elec­tric shock flashed through the North. Men who but a short time be­fore had been ab­sorbed by their busi­ness pur­suits, and dep­re­cat­ed all po­lit­ical ag­ita­tion, were star­tled out of their se­cu­ri­ty by a sud­den alarm, and ex­cit­ed­ly took sides. That rest­less trou­ble of con­science about slav­ery, which even in times of ap­par­ent re­pose had se­cret­ly dis­turbed the souls of North­ern peo­ple, broke forth in an ut­ter­ance loud­er than ev­er. The bonds of ac­cus­tomed par­ty al­le­giance gave way. An­ti­slav­ery Democrats and an­ti­slav­ery Whigs felt them­selves drawn to­geth­er by a com­mon over­pow­er­ing sen­ti­ment, and soon they be­gan to ral­ly in a new or­ga­ni­za­tion. The Re­pub­li­can par­ty sprang in­to be­ing to meet the over­rul­ing call of the hour. Then Abra­ham Lin­coln’s time was come. He rapid­ly ad­vanced to a po­si­tion of con­spic­uous cham­pi­onship in the strug­gle. This, how­ev­er, was not ow­ing to his virtues and abil­ities alone. In­deed, the slav­ery ques­tion stirred his soul in its pro­found­est depths; it was, as one of his in­ti­mate friends said, “the on­ly one on which he would be­come ex­cit­ed”; it called forth all his fac­ul­ties and en­er­gies. Yet there were many oth­ers who, hav­ing long and ar­du­ous­ly fought the an­ti­slav­ery bat­tle in the pop­ular as­sem­bly, or in the press, or in the halls of Congress, far sur­passed him in pres­tige, and com­pared with whom he was still an ob­scure and un­tried man. His rep­uta­tion, al­though high­ly hon­or­able and well earned, had so far been es­sen­tial­ly lo­cal. As a stump-​speak­er in Whig can­vass­es out­side of his State he had at­tract­ed com­par­ative­ly lit­tle at­ten­tion; but in Illi­nois he had been rec­og­nized as one of the fore­most men of the Whig par­ty. Among the op­po­nents of the Ne­bras­ka Bill he oc­cu­pied in his State so im­por­tant a po­si­tion, that in 1856 he was the choice of a large ma­jor­ity of the “An­ti-​Ne­bras­ka men” in the Leg­is­la­ture for a seat in the Sen­ate of the Unit­ed States which then be­came va­cant; and when he, an old Whig, could not ob­tain the votes of the An­ti-​Ne­bras­ka Democrats nec­es­sary to make a ma­jor­ity, he gen­er­ous­ly urged his friends to trans­fer their votes to Ly­man Trum­bull, who was then elect­ed. Two years lat­er, in the first na­tion­al con­ven­tion of the Re­pub­li­can par­ty, the del­ega­tion from Illi­nois brought him for­ward as a can­di­date for the vice-​pres­iden­cy, and he re­ceived re­spectable sup­port. Still, the name of Abra­ham Lin­coln was not wide­ly known be­yond the bound­aries of his own State. But now it was this lo­cal promi­nence in Illi­nois that put him in a po­si­tion of pe­cu­liar ad­van­tage on the bat­tle­field of na­tion­al pol­itics. In the as­sault on the Mis­souri Com­pro­mise which broke down all le­gal bar­ri­ers to the spread of slav­ery Stephen Arnold Dou­glas was the os­ten­si­ble lead­er and cen­tral fig­ure; and Dou­glas was a Sen­ator from Illi­nois, Lin­coln’s State. Dou­glas’s na­tion­al the­atre of ac­tion was the Sen­ate, but in his con­stituen­cy in Illi­nois were the roots of his of­fi­cial po­si­tion and pow­er. What he did in the Sen­ate he had to jus­ti­fy be­fore the peo­ple of Illi­nois, in or­der to main­tain him­self in place; and in Illi­nois all eyes turned to Lin­coln as Dou­glas’s nat­ural an­tag­onist.

As very young men they had come to Illi­nois, Lin­coln from In­di­ana, Dou­glas from Ver­mont, and had grown up to­geth­er in pub­lic life, Dou­glas as a Demo­crat, Lin­coln as a Whig. They had met first in Van­dalia, in 1834, when Lin­coln was in the Leg­is­la­ture and Dou­glas in the lob­by; and again in 1836, both as mem­bers of the Leg­is­la­ture. Dou­glas, a very able politi­cian, of the ag­ile, com­bat­ive, au­da­cious, “push­ing” sort, rose in po­lit­ical dis­tinc­tion with re­mark­able ra­pid­ity. In quick suc­ces­sion he be­came a mem­ber of the Leg­is­la­ture, a State’s at­tor­ney, sec­re­tary of state, a judge on the supreme bench of Illi­nois, three times a Rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Congress, and a Sen­ator of the Unit­ed States when on­ly thir­ty-​nine years old. In the Na­tion­al Demo­crat­ic con­ven­tion of 1852 he ap­peared even as an as­pi­rant to the nom­ina­tion for the Pres­iden­cy, as the fa­vorite of “young Amer­ica,” and re­ceived a re­spectable vote. He had far out­stripped Lin­coln in what is com­mon­ly called po­lit­ical suc­cess and in rep­uta­tion. But it had fre­quent­ly hap­pened that in po­lit­ical cam­paigns Lin­coln felt him­self im­pelled, or was se­lect­ed by his Whig friends, to an­swer Dou­glas’s speech­es; and thus the two were looked up­on, in a large part of the State at least, as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive com­bat­ants of their re­spec­tive par­ties in the de­bates be­fore pop­ular meet­ings. As soon, there­fore, as, af­ter the pas­sage of his Kansas-​Ne­bras­ka Bill, Dou­glas re­turned to Illi­nois to de­fend his cause be­fore his con­stituents, Lin­coln, obey­ing not on­ly his own im­pulse, but al­so gen­er­al ex­pec­ta­tion, stepped for­ward as his prin­ci­pal op­po­nent. Thus the strug­gle about the prin­ci­ples in­volved in the Kansas- Ne­bras­ka Bill, or, in a broad­er sense, the strug­gle be­tween free­dom and slav­ery, as­sumed in Illi­nois the out­ward form of a per­son­al con­test be­tween Lin­coln and Dou­glas; and, as it con­tin­ued and be­came more an­imat­ed, that per­son­al con­test in Illi­nois was watched with con­stant­ly in­creas­ing in­ter­est by the whole coun­try. When, in 1858, Dou­glas’s sen­ato­ri­al term be­ing about to ex­pire, Lin­coln was for­mal­ly des­ig­nat­ed by the Re­pub­li­can con­ven­tion of Illi­nois as their can­di­date for the Sen­ate, to take Dou­glas’s place, and the two con­tes­tants agreed to de­bate the ques­tions at is­sue face to face in a se­ries of pub­lic meet­ings, the eyes of the whole Amer­ican peo­ple were turned ea­ger­ly to that one point: and the spec­ta­cle re­mind­ed one of those lays of an­cient times telling of two armies, in bat­tle ar­ray, stand­ing still to see their two prin­ci­pal cham­pi­ons fight out the con­test­ed cause be­tween the lines in sin­gle com­bat.

Lin­coln had then reached the full ma­tu­ri­ty of his pow­ers. His equip­ment as a states­man did not em­brace a com­pre­hen­sive knowl­edge of pub­lic af­fairs. What he had stud­ied he had in­deed made his own, with the ea­ger crav­ing and that zeal­ous tenac­ity char­ac­ter­is­tic of su­pe­ri­or minds learn­ing un­der dif­fi­cul­ties. But his nar­row op­por­tu­ni­ties and the un­steady life he had led dur­ing his younger years had not per­mit­ted the ac­cu­mu­la­tion of large stores in his mind. It is true, in po­lit­ical cam­paigns he had oc­ca­sion­al­ly spo­ken on the os­ten­si­ble is­sues be­tween the Whigs and the Democrats, the tar­iff, in­ter­nal im­prove­ments, banks, and so on, but on­ly in a per­func­to­ry man­ner. Had he ev­er giv­en much se­ri­ous thought and study to these sub­jects, it is safe to as­sume that a mind so pro­lif­ic of orig­inal con­ceits as his would cer­tain­ly have pro­duced some ut­ter­ance up­on them worth re­mem­ber­ing. His soul had ev­ident­ly nev­er been deeply stirred by such top­ics. But when his moral na­ture was aroused, his brain de­vel­oped an un­tir­ing ac­tiv­ity un­til it had mas­tered all the knowl­edge with­in reach. As soon as the re­peal of the Mis­souri Com­pro­mise had thrust the slav­ery ques­tion in­to pol­itics as the paramount is­sue, Lin­coln plunged in­to an ar­du­ous study of all its le­gal, his­tor­ical, and moral as­pects, and then his mind be­came a com­plete ar­se­nal of ar­gu­ment. His rich nat­ural gifts, trained by long and var­ied prac­tice, had made him an or­ator of rare per­sua­sive­ness. In his im­ma­ture days, he had pleased him­self for a short pe­ri­od with that in­flat­ed, high-​flown style which, among the un­cul­ti­vat­ed, pass­es for “beau­ti­ful speak­ing.” His in­born truth­ful­ness and his artis­tic in­stinct soon over­came that aber­ra­tion and re­vealed to him the no­ble beau­ty and strength of sim­plic­ity. He pos­sessed an un­com­mon pow­er of clear and com­pact state­ment, which might have re­mind­ed those who knew the sto­ry of his ear­ly youth of the ef­forts of the poor boy, when he copied his com­po­si­tions from the scraped wood­en shov­el, care­ful­ly to trim his ex­pres­sions in or­der to save pa­per. His lan­guage had the en­er­gy of hon­est di­rect­ness and he was a mas­ter of log­ical lu­cid­ity. He loved to point and en­liv­en his rea­son­ing by hu­mor­ous il­lus­tra­tions, usu­al­ly anec­dotes of West­ern life, of which he had an in­ex­haustible store at his com­mand. These anec­dotes had not sel­dom a fla­vor of rus­tic ro­bust­ness about them, but he used them with great ef­fect, while amus­ing the au­di­ence, to give life to an ab­strac­tion, to ex­plode an ab­sur­di­ty, to clinch an ar­gu­ment, to drive home an ad­mo­ni­tion. The nat­ural kind­li­ness of his tone, soft­en­ing prej­udice and dis­arm­ing par­ti­san ran­cor, would of­ten open to his rea­son­ing a way in­to minds most un­will­ing to re­ceive it.

Yet his great­est pow­er con­sist­ed in the charm of his in­di­vid­ual­ity. That charm did not, in the or­di­nary way, ap­peal to the ear or to the eye. His voice was not melo­di­ous; rather shrill and pierc­ing, es­pe­cial­ly when it rose to its high tre­ble in mo­ments of great an­ima­tion. His fig­ure was un­hand­some, and the ac­tion of his un­wieldy limbs awk­ward. He com­mand­ed none of the out­ward graces of or­ato­ry as they are com­mon­ly un­der­stood. His charm was of a dif­fer­ent kind. It flowed from the rare depth and gen­uine­ness of his con­vic­tions and his sym­pa­thet­ic feel­ings. Sym­pa­thy was the strongest el­ement in his na­ture. One of his bi­og­ra­phers, who knew him be­fore he be­came Pres­ident, says: “Lin­coln’s com­pas­sion might be stirred deeply by an ob­ject present, but nev­er by an ob­ject ab­sent and un­seen. In the for­mer case he would most like­ly ex­tend re­lief, with lit­tle in­quiry in­to the mer­its of the case, be­cause, as he ex­pressed it him­self, it `took a pain out of his own heart.’” On­ly half of this is cor­rect. It is cer­tain­ly true that he could not wit­ness any in­di­vid­ual dis­tress or op­pres­sion, or any kind of suf­fer­ing, with­out feel­ing a pang of pain him­self, and that by re­liev­ing as much as he could the suf­fer­ing of oth­ers he put an end to his own. This com­pas­sion­ate im­pulse to help he felt not on­ly for hu­man be­ings, but for ev­ery liv­ing crea­ture. As in his boy­hood he an­gri­ly re­proved the boys who tor­ment­ed a wood tur­tle by putting a burn­ing coal on its back, so, we are told, he would, when a ma­ture man, on a jour­ney, dis­mount from his bug­gy and wade waist-​deep in mire to res­cue a pig strug­gling in a swamp. In­deed, ap­peals to his com­pas­sion were so ir­re­sistible to him, and he felt it so dif­fi­cult to refuse any­thing when his re­fusal could give pain, that he him­self some­times spoke of his in­abil­ity to say “no” as a pos­itive weak­ness. But that cer­tain­ly does not prove that his com­pas­sion­ate feel­ing was con­fined to in­di­vid­ual cas­es of suf­fer­ing wit­nessed with his own eyes. As the boy was moved by the as­pect of the tor­tured wood tur­tle to com­pose an es­say against cru­el­ty to an­imals in gen­er­al, so the as­pect of oth­er cas­es of suf­fer­ing and wrong wrought up his moral na­ture, and set his mind to work against cru­el­ty, in­jus­tice, and op­pres­sion in gen­er­al.

As his sym­pa­thy went forth to oth­ers, it at­tract­ed oth­ers to him. Es­pe­cial­ly those whom he called the “plain peo­ple” felt them­selves drawn to him by the in­stinc­tive feel­ing that he un­der­stood, es­teemed, and ap­pre­ci­at­ed them. He had grown up among the poor, the low­ly, the ig­no­rant. He nev­er ceased to re­mem­ber the good souls he had met among them, and the many kind­ness­es they had done him. Al­though in his men­tal de­vel­op­ment he had risen far above them, he nev­er looked down up­on them. How they felt and how they rea­soned he knew, for so he had once felt and rea­soned him­self. How they could be moved he knew, for so he had once been moved him­self and prac­tised mov­ing oth­ers. His mind was much larg­er than theirs, but it thor­ough­ly com­pre­hend­ed theirs; and while he thought much far­ther than they, their thoughts were ev­er present to him. Nor had the vis­ible dis­tance be­tween them grown as wide as his rise in the world would seem to have war­rant­ed. Much of his back­woods speech and man­ners still clung to him. Al­though he had be­come “Mr. Lin­coln” to his lat­er ac­quain­tances, he was still “Abe” to the “Nats” and “Billys” and “Dav­es” of his youth; and their fa­mil­iar­ity nei­ther ap­peared un­nat­ural to them, nor was it in the least awk­ward to him. He still told and en­joyed sto­ries sim­ilar to those he had told and en­joyed in the In­di­ana set­tle­ment and at New Salem. His wants re­mained as mod­est as they had ev­er been; his do­mes­tic habits had by no means com­plete­ly ac­com­mo­dat­ed them­selves to those of his more high­born wife; and though the “Ken­tucky jeans” ap­par­el had long been dropped, his clothes of bet­ter ma­te­ri­al and bet­ter make would sit ill sort­ed on his gi­gan­tic limbs. His cot­ton um­brel­la, with­out a han­dle, and tied to­geth­er with a coarse string to keep it from flap­ping, which he car­ried on his cir­cuit rides, is said to be re­mem­bered still by some of his sur­viv­ing neigh­bors. This rus­tic­ity of habit was ut­ter­ly free from that af­fect­ed con­tempt of re­fine­ment and com­fort which self-​made men some­times car­ry in­to their more af­flu­ent cir­cum­stances. To Abra­ham Lin­coln it was en­tire­ly nat­ural, and all those who came in­to con­tact with him knew it to be so. In his ways of think­ing and feel­ing he had be­come a gen­tle­man in the high­est sense, but the re­fin­ing pro­cess had pol­ished but lit­tle the out­ward form. The plain peo­ple, there­fore, still con­sid­ered “hon­est Abe Lin­coln” one of them­selves; and when they felt, which they no doubt fre­quent­ly did, that his thoughts and as­pi­ra­tions moved in a sphere above their own, they were all the more proud of him, with­out any diminu­tion of fel­low-​feel­ing. It was this re­la­tion of mu­tu­al sym­pa­thy and un­der­stand­ing be­tween Lin­coln and the plain peo­ple that gave him his pe­cu­liar pow­er as a pub­lic man, and sin­gu­lar­ly fit­ted him, as we shall see, for that lead­er­ship which was pre­em­inent­ly re­quired in the great cri­sis then com­ing on,–the lead­er­ship which in­deed thinks and moves ahead of the mass­es, but al­ways re­mains with­in sight and sym­pa­thet­ic touch of them.

He en­tered up­on the cam­paign of 1858 bet­ter equipped than he had ev­er been be­fore. He not on­ly in­stinc­tive­ly felt, but he had con­vinced him­self by ar­du­ous study, that in this strug­gle against the spread of slav­ery he had right, jus­tice, phi­los­ophy, the en­light­ened opin­ion of mankind, his­to­ry, the Con­sti­tu­tion, and good pol­icy on his side. It was ob­served that af­ter he be­gan to dis­cuss the slav­ery ques­tion his speech­es were pitched in a much lofti­er key than his for­mer or­ator­ical ef­forts. While he re­mained fond of telling fun­ny sto­ries in pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion, they dis­ap­peared more and more from his pub­lic dis­course. He would still now and then point his ar­gu­ment with ex­pres­sions of inim­itable quaint­ness, and flash out rays of kind­ly hu­mor and wit­ty irony; but his gen­er­al tone was se­ri­ous, and rose some­times to gen­uine solem­ni­ty. His mas­ter­ly skill in di­alec­ti­cal thrust and par­ry, his wealth of knowl­edge, his pow­er of rea­son­ing and el­eva­tion of sen­ti­ment, dis­closed in lan­guage of rare pre­ci­sion, strength, and beau­ty, not sel­dom as­ton­ished his old friends.

Nei­ther of the two cham­pi­ons could have found a more formidable an­tag­onist than each now met in the oth­er. Dou­glas was by far the most con­spic­uous mem­ber of his par­ty. His ad­mir­ers had dubbed him “the Lit­tle Gi­ant,” con­trast­ing in that nick­name the great­ness of his mind with the small­ness of his body. But though of low stature, his broad-​shoul­dered fig­ure ap­peared un­com­mon­ly stur­dy, and there was some­thing li­on-​like in the square­ness of his brow and jaw, and in the de­fi­ant shake of his long hair. His loud and per­sis­tent ad­vo­ca­cy of ter­ri­to­ri­al ex­pan­sion, in the name of pa­tri­otism and “man­ifest des­tiny,” had giv­en him an en­thu­si­as­tic fol­low­ing among the young and ar­dent. Great nat­ural parts, a high­ly com­bat­ive tem­per­ament, and long train­ing had made him a de­bater un­sur­passed in a Sen­ate filled with able men. He could be as force­ful in his ap­peals to pa­tri­ot­ic feel­ings as he was fierce in de­nun­ci­ation and thor­ough­ly skilled in all the baser tricks of par­lia­men­tary pugilism. While ge­nial and rol­lick­ing in his so­cial in­ter­course–the idol of the “boys” he felt him­self one of the most renowned states­men of his time, and would fre­quent­ly meet his op­po­nents with an over­bear­ing haugh­ti­ness, as per­sons more to be pitied than to be feared. In his speech open­ing the cam­paign of 1858, he spoke of Lin­coln, whom the Re­pub­li­cans had dared to ad­vance as their can­di­date for “his” place in the Sen­ate, with an air of pa­tron­iz­ing if not con­temp­tu­ous con­de­scen­sion, as “a kind, ami­able, and in­tel­li­gent gen­tle­man and a good cit­izen.” The Lit­tle Gi­ant would have been pleased to pass off his an­tag­onist as a tall dwarf. He knew Lin­coln too well, how­ev­er, to in­dulge him­self se­ri­ous­ly in such a delu­sion. But the po­lit­ical sit­ua­tion was at that mo­ment in a cu­ri­ous tan­gle, and Dou­glas could ex­pect to de­rive from the con­fu­sion great ad­van­tage over his op­po­nent.

By the re­peal of the Mis­souri Com­pro­mise, open­ing the Ter­ri­to­ries to the ingress of slav­ery, Dou­glas had pleased the South, but great­ly alarmed the North. He had sought to con­cil­iate North­ern sen­ti­ment by ap­pend­ing to his Kansas-​Ne­bras­ka Bill the dec­la­ra­tion that its in­tent was “not to leg­is­late slav­ery in­to any State or Ter­ri­to­ry, nor to ex­clude it there­from, but to leave the peo­ple there­of per­fect­ly free to form and reg­ulate their in­sti­tu­tions in their own way, sub­ject on­ly to the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Unit­ed States.” This he called “the great prin­ci­ple of pop­ular sovereign­ty.” When asked whether, un­der this act, the peo­ple of a Ter­ri­to­ry, be­fore its ad­mis­sion as a State, would have the right to ex­clude slav­ery, he an­swered, “That is a ques­tion for the courts to de­cide.” Then came the fa­mous “Dred Scott de­ci­sion,” in which the Supreme Court held sub­stan­tial­ly that the right to hold slaves as prop­er­ty ex­ist­ed in the Ter­ri­to­ries by virtue of the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion, and that this right could not be de­nied by any act of a ter­ri­to­ri­al gov­ern­ment. This, of course, de­nied the right of the peo­ple of any Ter­ri­to­ry to ex­clude slav­ery while they were in a ter­ri­to­ri­al con­di­tion, and it alarmed the North­ern peo­ple still more. Dou­glas rec­og­nized the bind­ing force of the de­ci­sion of the Supreme Court, at the same time main­tain­ing, most il­log­ical­ly, that his great prin­ci­ple of pop­ular sovereign­ty re­mained in force nev­er­the­less. Mean­while, the proslav­ery peo­ple of west­ern Mis­souri, the so-​called “bor­der ruf­fi­ans,” had in­vad­ed Kansas, set up a con­sti­tu­tion­al con­ven­tion, made a con­sti­tu­tion of an ex­treme pro-​slav­ery type, the “Lecomp­ton Con­sti­tu­tion,” re­fused to sub­mit it fair­ly to a vote of the peo­ple of Kansas, and then re­ferred it to Congress for ac­cep­tance,–seek­ing thus to ac­com­plish the ad­mis­sion of Kansas as a slave State. Had Dou­glas sup­port­ed such a scheme, he would have lost all foothold in the North. In the name of pop­ular sovereign­ty he loud­ly de­clared his op­po­si­tion to the ac­cep­tance of any con­sti­tu­tion not sanc­tioned by a for­mal pop­ular vote. He “did not care,” he said, “whether slav­ery be vot­ed up or down,” but there must be a fair vote of the peo­ple. Thus he drew up­on him­self the hos­til­ity of the Buchanan ad­min­is­tra­tion, which was con­trolled by the proslav­ery in­ter­est, but he saved his North­ern fol­low­ing. More than this, not on­ly did his Demo­crat­ic ad­mir­ers now call him “the true cham­pi­on of free­dom,” but even some Re­pub­li­cans of large in­flu­ence, promi­nent among them Ho­race Gree­ley, sym­pa­thiz­ing with Dou­glas in his fight against the Lecomp­ton Con­sti­tu­tion, and hop­ing to de­tach him per­ma­nent­ly from the proslav­ery in­ter­est and to force a last­ing breach in the Demo­crat­ic par­ty, se­ri­ous­ly ad­vised the Re­pub­li­cans of Illi­nois to give up their op­po­si­tion to Dou­glas, and to help re-​elect him to the Sen­ate. Lin­coln was not of that opin­ion. He be­lieved that great pop­ular move­ments can suc­ceed on­ly when guid­ed by their faith­ful friends, and that the an­ti­slav­ery cause could not safe­ly be en­trust­ed to the keep­ing of one who “did not care whether slav­ery be vot­ed up or down.” This opin­ion pre­vailed in Illi­nois; but the in­flu­ences with­in the Re­pub­li­can par­ty over which it pre­vailed yield­ed on­ly a re­luc­tant ac­qui­es­cence, if they ac­qui­esced at all, af­ter hav­ing ma­te­ri­al­ly strength­ened Dou­glas’s po­si­tion. Such was the sit­ua­tion of things when the cam­paign of 1858 be­tween Lin­coln and Dou­glas be­gan.

Lin­coln opened the cam­paign on his side at the con­ven­tion which nom­inat­ed him as the Re­pub­li­can can­di­date for the sen­ator­ship, with a mem­orable say­ing which sound­ed like a shout from the watch­tow­er of his­to­ry: “A house di­vid­ed against it­self can­not stand. I be­lieve this gov­ern­ment can­not en­dure per­ma­nent­ly half slave and half free. I do not ex­pect the Union to be dis­solved. I do not ex­pect the house to fall, but I ex­pect it will cease to be di­vid­ed. It will be­come all one thing or all the oth­er. Ei­ther the op­po­nents of slav­ery will ar­rest the fur­ther spread of it, and place it where the pub­lic mind shall rest in the be­lief that it is in the course of ul­ti­mate ex­tinc­tion, or its ad­vo­cates will push it for­ward, till it shall be­come alike law­ful in all the States,–old as well as new, North as well as South.” Then he pro­ceed­ed to point out that the Ne­bras­ka doc­trine com­bined with the Dred Scott de­ci­sion worked in the di­rec­tion of mak­ing the na­tion “all slave.” Here was the “ir­re­press­ible con­flict” spo­ken of by Se­ward a short time lat­er, in a speech made fa­mous main­ly by that phrase. If there was any new dis­cov­ery in it, the right of pri­or­ity was Lin­coln’s. This ut­ter­ance proved not on­ly his states­man­like con­cep­tion of the is­sue, but al­so, in his sit­ua­tion as a can­di­date, the firm­ness of his moral courage. The friends to whom he had read the draught of this speech be­fore he de­liv­ered it warned him anx­ious­ly that its de­liv­ery might be fa­tal to his suc­cess in the elec­tion. This was shrewd ad­vice, in the or­di­nary sense. While a slave­hold­er could threat­en dis­union with im­puni­ty, the mere sug­ges­tion that the ex­is­tence of slav­ery was in­com­pat­ible with free­dom in the Union would haz­ard the po­lit­ical chances of any pub­lic man in the North. But Lin­coln was in­flex­ible. “It is true,” said he, “and I will de­liv­er it as writ­ten…. I would rather be de­feat­ed with these ex­pres­sions in my speech held up and dis­cussed be­fore the peo­ple than be vic­to­ri­ous with­out them.” The states­man was right in his far- see­ing judg­ment and his con­sci­en­tious state­ment of the truth, but the prac­ti­cal politi­cians were al­so right in their pre­dic­tion of the im­me­di­ate ef­fect. Dou­glas in­stant­ly seized up­on the dec­la­ra­tion that a house di­vid­ed against it­self can­not stand as the main ob­jec­tive point of his at­tack, in­ter­pret­ing it as an in­cite­ment to a “re­lent­less sec­tion­al war,” and there is no doubt that the per­sis­tent re­it­er­ation of this charge served to fright­en not a few timid souls.

Lin­coln con­stant­ly en­deav­ored to bring the moral and philo­soph­ical side of the sub­ject to the fore­ground. “Slav­ery is wrong” was the keynote of all his speech­es. To Dou­glas’s glit­ter­ing sophism that the right of the peo­ple of a Ter­ri­to­ry to have slav­ery or not, as they might de­sire, was in ac­cor­dance with the prin­ci­ple of true pop­ular sovereign­ty, he made the point­ed an­swer: “Then true pop­ular sovereign­ty, ac­cord­ing to Sen­ator Dou­glas, means that, when one man makes an­oth­er man his slave, no third man shall be al­lowed to ob­ject.” To Dou­glas’s ar­gu­ment that the prin­ci­ple which de­mand­ed that the peo­ple of a Ter­ri­to­ry should be per­mit­ted to choose whether they would have slav­ery or not “orig­inat­ed when God made man, and placed good and evil be­fore him, al­low­ing him to choose up­on his own re­spon­si­bil­ity,” Lin­coln solemn­ly replied: “No; God–did not place good and evil be­fore man, telling him to make his choice. On the con­trary, God did tell him there was one tree of the fruit of which he should not eat, up­on pain of death.” He did not, how­ev­er, place him­self on the most ad­vanced ground tak­en by the rad­ical an­ti-​slav­ery men. He ad­mit­ted that, un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, “the South­ern peo­ple were en­ti­tled to a Con­gres­sion­al fugi­tive slave law,” al­though he did not ap­prove the fugi­tive slave law then ex­ist­ing. He de­clared al­so that, if slav­ery were kept out of the Ter­ri­to­ries dur­ing their ter­ri­to­ri­al ex­is­tence, as it should be, and if then the peo­ple of any Ter­ri­to­ry, hav­ing a fair chance and a clear field, should do such an ex­traor­di­nary thing as to adopt a slave con­sti­tu­tion, un­in­flu­enced by the ac­tu­al pres­ence of the in­sti­tu­tion among them, he saw no al­ter­na­tive but to ad­mit such a Ter­ri­to­ry in­to the Union. He de­clared fur­ther that, while he should be ex­ceed­ing­ly glad to see slav­ery abol­ished in the Dis­trict of Columbia, he would, as a mem­ber of Congress, with his present views, not en­deav­or to bring on that abo­li­tion ex­cept on con­di­tion that eman­ci­pa­tion be grad­ual, that it be ap­proved by the de­ci­sion of a ma­jor­ity of vot­ers in the Dis­trict, and that com­pen­sa­tion be made to un­will­ing own­ers. On ev­ery avail­able oc­ca­sion, he pro­nounced him­self in fa­vor of the de­por­ta­tion and col­oniza­tion of the blacks, of course with their con­sent. He re­peat­ed­ly dis­avowed any wish on his part to have so­cial and po­lit­ical equal­ity es­tab­lished be­tween whites and blacks. On this point he summed up his views in a re­ply to Dou­glas’s as­ser­tion that the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence, in speak­ing of all men as be­ing cre­at­ed equal, did not in­clude the ne­groes, say­ing: “I do not un­der­stand the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence to mean that all men were cre­at­ed equal in all re­spects. They are not equal in col­or. But I be­lieve that it does mean to de­clare that all men are equal in some re­spects; they are equal in their right to life, lib­er­ty, and the pur­suit of hap­pi­ness.”

With re­gard to some of these sub­jects Lin­coln mod­ified his po­si­tion at a lat­er pe­ri­od, and it has been sug­gest­ed that he would have pro­fessed more ad­vanced prin­ci­ples in his de­bates with Dou­glas, had he not feared there­by to lose votes. This view can hard­ly be sus­tained. Lin­coln had the courage of his opin­ions, but he was not a rad­ical. The man who risked his elec­tion by de­liv­er­ing, against the ur­gent protest of his friends, the speech about “the house di­vid­ed against it­self” would not have shrunk from the ex­pres­sion of more ex­treme views, had he re­al­ly en­ter­tained them. It is on­ly fair to as­sume that he said what at the time he re­al­ly thought, and that if, sub­se­quent­ly, his opin­ions changed, it was ow­ing to new con­cep­tions of good pol­icy and of du­ty brought forth by an en­tire­ly new set of cir­cum­stances and ex­igen­cies. It is char­ac­ter­is­tic that he con­tin­ued to ad­here to the im­prac­ti­ca­ble col­oniza­tion plan even af­ter the Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion had al­ready been is­sued.

But in this con­test Lin­coln proved him­self not on­ly a de­bater, but al­so a po­lit­ical strate­gist of the first or­der. The “kind, ami­able, and in­tel­li­gent gen­tle­man,” as Dou­glas had been pleased to call him, was by no means as harm­less as a dove. He pos­sessed an un­com­mon share of that world­ly shrewd­ness which not sel­dom goes with gen­uine sim­plic­ity of char­ac­ter; and the po­lit­ical ex­pe­ri­ence gath­ered in the Leg­is­la­ture and in Congress, and in many elec­tion cam­paigns, added to his keen in­tu­itions, had made him as far-​sight­ed a judge of the prob­able ef­fects of a pub­lic man’s say­ings or do­ings up­on the pop­ular mind, and as ac­cu­rate a cal­cu­la­tor in es­ti­mat­ing po­lit­ical chances and fore­cast­ing re­sults, as could be found among the par­ty man­agers in Illi­nois. And now he per­ceived keen­ly the ug­ly dilem­ma in which Dou­glas found him­self, be­tween the Dred Scott de­ci­sion, which de­clared the right to hold slaves to ex­ist in the Ter­ri­to­ries by virtue of the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion, and his “great prin­ci­ple of pop­ular sovereign­ty,” ac­cord­ing to which the peo­ple of a Ter­ri­to­ry, if they saw fit, were to have the right to ex­clude slav­ery there­from. Dou­glas was twist­ing and squirm­ing to the best of his abil­ity to avoid the ad­mis­sion that the two were in­com­pat­ible. The ques­tion then pre­sent­ed it­self if it would be good pol­icy for Lin­coln to force Dou­glas to a clear ex­pres­sion of his opin­ion as to whether, the Dred Scott de­ci­sion notwith­stand­ing, “the peo­ple of a Ter­ri­to­ry could in any law­ful way ex­clude slav­ery from its lim­its pri­or to the for­ma­tion of a State con­sti­tu­tion.” Lin­coln fore­saw and pre­dict­ed what Dou­glas would an­swer: that slav­ery could not ex­ist in a Ter­ri­to­ry un­less the peo­ple de­sired it and gave it pro­tec­tion by ter­ri­to­ri­al leg­is­la­tion. In an im­pro­vised cau­cus the pol­icy of press­ing the in­ter­roga­to­ry on Dou­glas was dis­cussed. Lin­coln’s friends unan­imous­ly ad­vised against it, be­cause the an­swer fore­seen would suf­fi­cient­ly com­mend Dou­glas to the peo­ple of Illi­nois to in­sure his re-​elec­tion to the Sen­ate. But Lin­coln per­sist­ed. “I am af­ter larg­er game,” said he. “If Dou­glas so an­swers, he can nev­er be Pres­ident, and the bat­tle of 1860 is worth a hun­dred of this.” The in­ter­roga­to­ry was pressed up­on Dou­glas, and Dou­glas did an­swer that, no mat­ter what the de­ci­sion of the Supreme Court might be on the ab­stract ques­tion, the peo­ple of a Ter­ri­to­ry had the law­ful means to in­tro­duce or ex­clude slav­ery by ter­ri­to­ri­al leg­is­la­tion friend­ly or un­friend­ly to the in­sti­tu­tion. Lin­coln found it easy to show the ab­sur­di­ty of the propo­si­tion that, if slav­ery were ad­mit­ted to ex­ist of right in the Ter­ri­to­ries by virtue of the supreme law, the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion, it could be kept out or ex­pelled by an in­fe­ri­or law, one made by a ter­ri­to­ri­al Leg­is­la­ture. Again the judg­ment of the politi­cians, hav­ing on­ly the near­est ob­ject in view, proved cor­rect: Dou­glas was re­elect­ed to the Sen­ate. But Lin­coln’s judg­ment proved cor­rect al­so: Dou­glas, by re­sort­ing to the ex­pe­di­ent of his “un­friend­ly leg­is­la­tion doc­trine,” for­feit­ed his last chance of be­com­ing Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States. He might have hoped to win, by suf­fi­cient atone­ment, his par­don from the South for his op­po­si­tion to the Lecomp­ton Con­sti­tu­tion; but that he taught the peo­ple of the Ter­ri­to­ries a trick by which they could de­feat what the proslav­ery men con­sid­ered a con­sti­tu­tion­al right, and that he called that trick law­ful, this the slave pow­er would nev­er for­give. The breach be­tween the South­ern and the North­ern Democ­ra­cy was thence­forth ir­re­me­di­able and fa­tal.

The Pres­iden­tial elec­tion of 1860 ap­proached. The strug­gle in Kansas, and the de­bates in Congress which ac­com­pa­nied it, and which not un­fre­quent­ly pro­voked vi­olent out­bursts, con­tin­ual­ly stirred the pop­ular ex­cite­ment. With­in the Demo­crat­ic par­ty raged the war of fac­tions. The na­tion­al Demo­crat­ic con­ven­tion met at Charleston on the 23d of April, 1860. Af­ter a strug­gle of ten days be­tween the ad­her­ents and the op­po­nents of Dou­glas, dur­ing which the del­egates from the cot­ton States had with­drawn, the con­ven­tion ad­journed with­out hav­ing nom­inat­ed any can­di­dates, to meet again in Bal­ti­more on the 18th of June. There was no prospect, how­ev­er, of rec­on­cil­ing the hos­tile el­ements. It ap­peared very prob­able that the Bal­ti­more con­ven­tion would nom­inate Dou­glas, while the se­ced­ing South­ern Democrats would set up a can­di­date of their own, rep­re­sent­ing ex­treme proslav­ery prin­ci­ples.

Mean­while, the na­tion­al Re­pub­li­can con­ven­tion as­sem­bled at Chica­go on the 16th of May, full of en­thu­si­asm and hope. The sit­ua­tion was eas­ily un­der­stood. The Democrats would have the South. In or­der to suc­ceed in the elec­tion, the Re­pub­li­cans had to win, in ad­di­tion to the States car­ried by Fre­mont in 1856, those that were classed as “doubt­ful,”–New Jer­sey, Penn­syl­va­nia, and In­di­ana, or Illi­nois in the place of ei­ther New Jer­sey or In­di­ana. The most em­inent Re­pub­li­can states­men and lead­ers of the time thought of for the Pres­iden­cy were Se­ward and Chase, both re­gard­ed as be­long­ing to the more ad­vanced or­der of an­ti­slav­ery men. Of the two, Se­ward had the largest fol­low­ing, main­ly from New York, New Eng­land, and the North­west. Cau­tious politi­cians doubt­ed se­ri­ous­ly whether Se­ward, to whom some phras­es in his speech­es had un­de­served­ly giv­en the rep­uta­tion of a reck­less rad­ical, would be able to com­mand the whole Re­pub­li­can vote in the doubt­ful States. Be­sides, dur­ing his long pub­lic ca­reer he had made en­emies. It was ev­ident that those who thought Se­ward’s nom­ina­tion too haz­ardous an ex­per­iment would con­sid­er Chase un­avail­able for the same rea­son. They would then look round for an “avail­able” man; and among the “avail­able” men Abra­ham Lin­coln was eas­ily dis­cov­ered to stand fore­most. His great de­bate with Dou­glas had giv­en him a na­tion­al rep­uta­tion. The peo­ple of the East be­ing ea­ger to see the hero of so dra­mat­ic a con­test, he had been in­duced to vis­it sev­er­al East­ern cities, and had as­ton­ished and de­light­ed large and dis­tin­guished au­di­ences with speech­es of sin­gu­lar pow­er and orig­inal­ity. An ad­dress de­liv­ered by him in the Coop­er In­sti­tute in New York, be­fore an au­di­ence con­tain­ing a large num­ber of im­por­tant per­sons, was then, and has ev­er since been, es­pe­cial­ly praised as one of the most log­ical and con­vinc­ing po­lit­ical speech­es ev­er made in this coun­try. The peo­ple of the West had grown proud of him as a dis­tinc­tive­ly West­ern great man, and his pop­ular­ity at home had some pe­cu­liar fea­tures which could be ex­pect­ed to ex­er­cise a po­tent charm. Nor was Lin­coln’s name as that of an avail­able can­di­date left to the chance of ac­ci­den­tal dis­cov­ery. It is in­deed not prob­able that he thought of him­self as a Pres­iden­tial pos­si­bil­ity, dur­ing his con­test with Dou­glas for the sen­ator­ship. As late as April, 1859, he had writ­ten to a friend who had ap­proached him on the sub­ject that he did not think him­self fit for the Pres­iden­cy. The Vice-​Pres­iden­cy was then the lim­it of his am­bi­tion. But some of his friends in Illi­nois took the mat­ter se­ri­ous­ly in hand, and Lin­coln, af­ter some hes­ita­tion, then for­mal­ly au­tho­rized “the use of his name.” The mat­ter was man­aged with such en­er­gy and ex­cel­lent judg­ment that, in the con­ven­tion, he had not on­ly the whole vote of Illi­nois to start with, but won votes on all sides with­out of­fend­ing any ri­val. A large ma­jor­ity of the op­po­nents of Se­ward went over to Abra­ham Lin­coln, and gave him the nom­ina­tion on the third bal­lot. As had been fore­seen, Dou­glas was nom­inat­ed by one wing of the Demo­crat­ic par­ty at Bal­ti­more, while the ex­treme proslav­ery wing put Breck­in­ridge in­to the field as its can­di­date. Af­ter a cam­paign con­duct­ed with the en­er­gy of gen­uine en­thu­si­asm on the an­ti­slav­ery side the unit­ed Re­pub­li­cans de­feat­ed the di­vid­ed Democrats, and Lin­coln was elect­ed Pres­ident by a ma­jor­ity of fifty-​sev­en votes in the elec­toral col­leges.

The re­sult of the elec­tion had hard­ly been de­clared when the dis­union move­ment in the South, long threat­ened and care­ful­ly planned and pre­pared, broke out in the shape of open re­volt, and near­ly a month be­fore Lin­coln could be in­au­gu­rat­ed as Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States sev­en South­ern States had adopt­ed or­di­nances of se­ces­sion, formed an in­de­pen­dent con­fed­er­acy, framed a con­sti­tu­tion for it, and elect­ed Jef­fer­son Davis its pres­ident, ex­pect­ing the oth­er slave­hold­ing States soon to join them. On the 11th of Febru­ary, 1861, Lin­coln left Spring­field for Wash­ing­ton; hav­ing, with char­ac­ter­is­tic sim­plic­ity, asked his law part­ner not to change the sign of the firm “Lin­coln and Hern­don” dur­ing the four years un­avoid­able ab­sence of the se­nior part­ner, and hav­ing tak­en an af­fec­tion­ate and touch­ing leave of his neigh­bors.

The sit­ua­tion which con­front­ed the new Pres­ident was ap­palling: the larg­er part of the South in open re­bel­lion, the rest of the slave­hold­ing States wa­ver­ing prepar­ing to fol­low; the re­volt guid­ed by de­ter­mined, dar­ing, and skill­ful lead­ers; the South­ern peo­ple, ap­par­ent­ly full of en­thu­si­asm and mil­itary spir­it, rush­ing to arms, some of the forts and ar­se­nals al­ready in their pos­ses­sion; the gov­ern­ment of the Union, be­fore the ac­ces­sion of the new Pres­ident, in the hands of men some of whom ac­tive­ly sym­pa­thized with the re­volt, while oth­ers were ham­pered by their tra­di­tion­al doc­trines in deal­ing with it, and re­al­ly gave it aid and com­fort by their ir­res­olute at­ti­tude; all the de­part­ments full of “South­ern sym­pa­thiz­ers” and hon­ey­combed with dis­loy­al­ty; the trea­sury emp­ty, and the pub­lic cred­it at the low­est ebb; the ar­se­nals ill sup­plied with arms, if not emp­tied by treach­er­ous prac­tices; the reg­ular army of in­signif­icant strength, dis­persed over an im­mense sur­face, and de­prived of some of its best of­fi­cers by de­fec­tion; the navy small and an­ti­quat­ed. But that was not all. The threat of dis­union had so of­ten been re­sort­ed to by the slave pow­er in years gone by that most North­ern peo­ple had ceased to be­lieve in its se­ri­ous­ness. But, when dis­union ac­tu­al­ly ap­peared as a stern re­al­ity, some­thing like a chill swept through the whole North­ern coun­try. A cry for union and peace at any price rose on all sides. Demo­crat­ic par­ti­san­ship re­it­er­at­ed this cry with vo­cif­er­ous ve­he­mence, and even many Re­pub­li­cans grew afraid of the vic­to­ry they had just achieved at the bal­lot-​box, and spoke of com­pro­mise. The coun­try fair­ly re­sound­ed with the noise of “an­ti­co­er­cion meet­ings.” Ex­pres­sions of firm res­olu­tion from de­ter­mined an­ti­slav­ery men were in­deed not want­ing, but they were for a while al­most drowned by a be­wil­der­ing con­fu­sion of dis­cor­dant voic­es. Even this was not all. Po­tent in­flu­ences in Eu­rope, with an ill-​con­cealed de­sire for the per­ma­nent dis­rup­tion of the Amer­ican Union, ea­ger­ly es­poused the cause of the South­ern se­ced­ers, and the two prin­ci­pal mar­itime pow­ers of the Old World seemed on­ly to be wait­ing for a fa­vor­able op­por­tu­ni­ty to lend them a help­ing hand.

This was the state of things to be mas­tered by “hon­est Abe Lin­coln” when he took his seat in the Pres­iden­tial chair,– “hon­est Abe Lin­coln,” who was so good-​na­tured that he could not say “no”; the great­est achieve­ment in whose life had been a de­bate on the slav­ery ques­tion; who had nev­er been in any po­si­tion of pow­er; who was with­out the slight­est ex­pe­ri­ence of high ex­ec­utive du­ties, and who had on­ly a speak­ing ac­quain­tance with the men up­on whose coun­sel and co­op­er­ation he was to de­pend. Nor was his ac­ces­sion to pow­er un­der such cir­cum­stances greet­ed with gen­er­al con­fi­dence even by the mem­bers of his par­ty. While he had in­deed won much pop­ular­ity, many Re­pub­li­cans, es­pe­cial­ly among those who had ad­vo­cat­ed Se­ward’s nom­ina­tion for the Pres­iden­cy, saw the sim­ple “Illi­nois lawyer” take the reins of gov­ern­ment with a feel­ing lit­tle short of dis­may. The or­ators and jour­nals of the op­po­si­tion were ridi­cul­ing and lam­poon­ing him with­out mea­sure. Many peo­ple ac­tu­al­ly won­dered how such a man could dare to un­der­take a task which, as he him­self had said to his neigh­bors in his part­ing speech, was “more dif­fi­cult than that of Wash­ing­ton him­self had been.”

But Lin­coln brought to that task, aside from oth­er un­com­mon qual­ities, the first req­ui­site,–an in­tu­itive com­pre­hen­sion of its na­ture. While he did not in­dulge in the delu­sion that the Union could be main­tained or re­stored with­out a con­flict of arms, he could in­deed not fore­see all the prob­lems he would have to solve. He in­stinc­tive­ly un­der­stood, how­ev­er, by what means that con­flict would have to be con­duct­ed by the gov­ern­ment of a democ­ra­cy. He knew that the im­pend­ing war, whether great or small, would not be like a for­eign war, ex­cit­ing a unit­ed na­tion­al en­thu­si­asm, but a civ­il war, like­ly to fan to un­com­mon heat the an­imosi­ties of par­ty even in the lo­cal­ities con­trolled by the gov­ern­ment; that this war would have to be car­ried on not by means of a ready-​made ma­chin­ery, ruled by an undis­put­ed, ab­so­lute will, but by means to be fur­nished by the vol­un­tary ac­tion of the peo­ple:–armies to be formed by vol­un­tary en­list­ments; large sums of mon­ey to be raised by the peo­ple, through rep­re­sen­ta­tives, vol­un­tar­ily tax­ing them­selves; trust of ex­traor­di­nary pow­er to be vol­un­tar­ily grant­ed; and war mea­sures, not sel­dom re­strict­ing the rights and lib­er­ties to which the cit­izen was ac­cus­tomed, to be vol­un­tar­ily ac­cept­ed and sub­mit­ted to by the peo­ple, or at least a large ma­jor­ity of them; and that this would have to be kept up not mere­ly dur­ing a short pe­ri­od of en­thu­si­as­tic ex­cite­ment; but pos­si­bly through weary years of al­ter­nat­ing suc­cess and dis­as­ter, hope and de­spon­den­cy. He knew that in or­der to steer this gov­ern­ment by pub­lic opin­ion suc­cess­ful­ly through all the con­fu­sion cre­at­ed by the prej­udices and doubts and dif­fer­ences of sen­ti­ment dis­tract­ing the pop­ular mind, and so to pro­pi­ti­ate, in­spire, mould, or­ga­nize, unite, and guide the pop­ular will that it might give forth all the means re­quired for the per­for­mance of his great task, he would have to take in­to ac­count all the in­flu­ences strong­ly af­fect­ing the cur­rent of pop­ular thought and feel­ing, and to di­rect while ap­pear­ing to obey.

This was the kind of lead­er­ship he in­tu­itive­ly con­ceived to be need­ed when a free peo­ple were to be led for­ward en masse to over­come a great com­mon dan­ger un­der cir­cum­stances of ap­palling dif­fi­cul­ty, the lead­er­ship which does not dash ahead with bril­liant dar­ing, no mat­ter who fol­lows, but which is in­tent up­on ral­ly­ing all the avail­able forces, gath­er­ing in the strag­glers, clos­ing up the col­umn, so that the front may ad­vance well sup­port­ed. For this lead­er­ship Abra­ham Lin­coln was ad­mirably fit­ted, bet­ter than any oth­er Amer­ican states­man of his day; for he un­der­stood the plain peo­ple, with all their loves and hates, their prej­udices and their no­ble im­puls­es, their weak­ness­es and their strength, as he un­der­stood him­self, and his sym­pa­thet­ic na­ture was apt to draw their sym­pa­thy to him.

His in­au­gu­ral ad­dress fore­shad­owed his of­fi­cial course in char­ac­ter­is­tic man­ner. Al­though yield­ing noth­ing in point of prin­ci­ple, it was by no means a flam­ing an­ti­slav­ery man­ifesto, such as would have pleased the more ar­dent Re­pub­li­cans. It was rather the en­treaty of a sor­row­ing fa­ther speak­ing to his way­ward chil­dren. In the kindli­est lan­guage he point­ed out to the se­ces­sion­ists how ill ad­vised their at­tempt at dis­union was, and why, for their own sakes, they should de­sist. Al­most plain­tive­ly, he told them that, while it was not their du­ty to de­stroy the Union, it was his sworn du­ty to pre­serve it; that the least he could do, un­der the obli­ga­tions of his oath, was to pos­sess and hold the prop­er­ty of the Unit­ed States; that he hoped to do this peace­ably; that he ab­horred war for any pur­pose, and that they would have none un­less they them­selves were the ag­gres­sors. It was a mas­ter­piece of per­sua­sive­ness, and while Lin­coln had ac­cept­ed many valu­able amend­ments sug­gest­ed by Se­ward, it was es­sen­tial­ly his own. Prob­ably Lin­coln him­self did not ex­pect his in­au­gu­ral ad­dress to have any ef­fect up­on the se­ces­sion­ists, for he must have known them to be re­solved up­on dis­union at any cost. But it was an ap­peal to the wa­ver­ing minds in the North, and up­on them it made a pro­found im­pres­sion. Ev­ery can­did man, how­ev­er timid and halt­ing, had to ad­mit that the Pres­ident was bound by his oath to do his du­ty; that un­der that oath he could do no less than he said he would do; that if the se­ces­sion­ists re­sist­ed such an ap­peal as the Pres­ident had made, they were bent up­on mis­chief, and that the gov­ern­ment must be sup­port­ed against them. The par­ti­san sym­pa­thy with the South­ern in­sur­rec­tion which still ex­ist­ed in the North did in­deed not dis­ap­pear, but it di­min­ished per­cep­ti­bly un­der the in­flu­ence of such rea­son­ing. Those who still re­sist­ed it did so at the risk of ap­pear­ing un­pa­tri­ot­ic.

It must not be sup­posed, how­ev­er, that Lin­coln at once suc­ceed­ed in pleas­ing ev­ery­body, even among his friends,–even among those near­est to him. In se­lect­ing his cab­inet, which he did sub­stan­tial­ly be­fore he left Spring­field for Wash­ing­ton, he thought it wise to call to his as­sis­tance the strong men of his par­ty, es­pe­cial­ly those who had giv­en ev­idence of the sup­port they com­mand­ed as his com­peti­tors in the Chica­go con­ven­tion. In them he found at the same time rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the dif­fer­ent shades of opin­ion with­in the par­ty, and of the dif­fer­ent el­ements–for­mer Whigs and for­mer Democrats–from which the par­ty had re­cruit­ed it­self. This was sound pol­icy un­der the cir­cum­stances. It might in­deed have been fore­seen that among the mem­bers of a cab­inet so com­posed, trou­ble­some dis­agree­ments and ri­val­ries would break out. But it was bet­ter for the Pres­ident to have these strong and am­bi­tious men near him as his co- op­er­ators than to have them as his crit­ics in Congress, where their dif­fer­ences might have been com­posed in a com­mon op­po­si­tion to him. As mem­bers of his cab­inet he could hope to con­trol them, and to keep them busi­ly em­ployed in the ser­vice of a com­mon pur­pose, if he had the strength to do so. Whether he did pos­sess this strength was soon test­ed by a sin­gu­lar­ly rude tri­al.

There can be no doubt that the fore­most mem­bers of his cab­inet, Se­ward and Chase, the most em­inent Re­pub­li­can states­men, had felt them­selves wronged by their par­ty when in its na­tion­al con­ven­tion it pre­ferred to them for the Pres­iden­cy a man whom, not un­nat­ural­ly, they thought great­ly their in­fe­ri­or in abil­ity and ex­pe­ri­ence as well as in ser­vice. The sore­ness of that dis­ap­point­ment was in­ten­si­fied when they saw this West­ern man in the White House, with so much of rus­tic man­ner and speech as still clung to him, meet­ing his fel­low-​cit­izens, high and low, on a foot­ing of equal­ity, with the sim­plic­ity of his good na­ture un­bur­dened by any con­ven­tion­al dig­ni­ty of de­port­ment, and deal­ing with the great busi­ness of state in an easy-​go­ing, un­me­thod­ical, and ap­par­ent­ly some­what ir­rev­er­ent way. They did not un­der­stand such a man. Es­pe­cial­ly Se­ward, who, as Sec­re­tary of State, con­sid­ered him­self next to the Chief Ex­ec­utive, and who quick­ly ac­cus­tomed him­self to giv­ing or­ders and mak­ing ar­range­ments up­on his own mo­tion, thought it nec­es­sary that he should res­cue the di­rec­tion of pub­lic af­fairs from hands so un­skilled, and take full charge of them him­self. At the end of the first month of the ad­min­is­tra­tion he sub­mit­ted a “mem­oran­dum” to Pres­ident Lin­coln, which has been first brought to light by Nico­lay and Hay, and is one of their most valu­able con­tri­bu­tions to the his­to­ry of those days. In that pa­per Se­ward ac­tu­al­ly told the Pres­ident that at the end of a month’s ad­min­is­tra­tion the gov­ern­ment was still with­out a pol­icy, ei­ther do­mes­tic or for­eign; that the slav­ery ques­tion should be elim­inat­ed from the strug­gle about the Union; that the mat­ter of the main­te­nance of the forts and oth­er pos­ses­sions in the South should be de­cid­ed with that view; that ex­pla­na­tions should be de­mand­ed cat­egor­ical­ly from the gov­ern­ments of Spain and France, which were then prepar­ing, one for the an­nex­ation of San Domin­go, and both for the in­va­sion of Mex­ico; that if no sat­is­fac­to­ry ex­pla­na­tions were re­ceived war should be de­clared against Spain and France by the Unit­ed States; that ex­pla­na­tions should al­so be sought from Rus­sia and Great Britain, and a vig­or­ous con­ti­nen­tal spir­it of in­de­pen­dence against Eu­ro­pean in­ter­ven­tion be aroused all over the Amer­ican con­ti­nent; that this pol­icy should be in­ces­sant­ly pur­sued and di­rect­ed by some­body; that ei­ther the Pres­ident should de­vote him­self en­tire­ly to it, or de­volve the di­rec­tion on some mem­ber of his cab­inet, where­upon all de­bate on this pol­icy must end.

This could be un­der­stood on­ly as a for­mal de­mand that the Pres­ident should ac­knowl­edge his own in­com­pe­ten­cy to per­form his du­ties, con­tent him­self with the amuse­ment of dis­tribut­ing post- of­fices, and re­sign his pow­er as to all im­por­tant af­fairs in­to the hands of his Sec­re­tary of State. It seems to-​day in­com­pre­hen­si­ble how a states­man of Se­ward’s cal­ibre could at that pe­ri­od con­ceive a plan of pol­icy in which the slav­ery ques­tion had no place; a pol­icy which rest­ed up­on the ut­ter­ly delu­sive as­sump­tion that the se­ces­sion­ists, who had al­ready formed their South­ern Con­fed­er­acy and were with stern res­olu­tion prepar­ing to fight for its in­de­pen­dence, could be hood­winked back in­to the Union by some sen­ti­men­tal demon­stra­tion against Eu­ro­pean in­ter­fer­ence; a pol­icy which, at that crit­ical mo­ment, would have in­volved the Union in a for­eign war, thus invit­ing for­eign in­ter­ven­tion in fa­vor of the South­ern Con­fed­er­acy, and in­creas­ing ten­fold its chances in the strug­gle for in­de­pen­dence. But it is equal­ly in­com­pre­hen­si­ble how Se­ward could fail to see that this de­mand of an un­con­di­tion­al sur­ren­der was a mor­tal in­sult to the head of the gov­ern­ment, and that by putting his propo­si­tion on pa­per he de­liv­ered him­self in­to the hands of the very man he had in­sult­ed; for, had Lin­coln, as most Pres­idents would have done, in­stant­ly dis­missed Se­ward, and pub­lished the true rea­son for that dis­missal, it would in­evitably have been the end of Se­ward’s ca­reer. But Lin­coln did what not many of the no­blest and great­est men in his­to­ry would have been no­ble and great enough to do. He con­sid­ered that Se­ward was still ca­pa­ble of ren­der­ing great ser­vice to his coun­try in the place in which he was, if right­ly con­trolled. He ig­nored the in­sult, but firm­ly es­tab­lished his su­pe­ri­or­ity. In his re­ply, which he forth­with despatched, he told Se­ward that the ad­min­is­tra­tion had a do­mes­tic pol­icy as laid down in the in­au­gu­ral ad­dress with Se­ward’s ap­proval; that it had a for­eign pol­icy as traced in Se­ward’s despatch­es with the Pres­ident’s ap­proval; that if any pol­icy was to be main­tained or changed, he, the Pres­ident, was to di­rect that on his re­spon­si­bil­ity; and that in per­form­ing that du­ty the Pres­ident had a right to the ad­vice of his sec­re­taries. Se­ward’s fan­tas­tic schemes of for­eign war and con­ti­nen­tal poli­cies Lin­coln brushed aside by pass­ing them over in si­lence. Noth­ing more was said. Se­ward must have felt that he was at the mer­cy of a su­pe­ri­or man; that his of­fen­sive propo­si­tion had been gen­er­ous­ly par­doned as a tem­po­rary aber­ra­tion of a great mind, and that he could atone for it on­ly by de­vot­ed per­son­al loy­al­ty. This he did. He was thor­ough­ly sub­dued, and thence­forth sub­mit­ted to Lin­coln his despatch­es for re­vi­sion and amend­ment with­out a mur­mur. The war with Eu­ro­pean na­tions was no longer thought of; the slav­ery ques­tion found in due time its prop­er place in the strug­gle for the Union; and when, at a lat­er pe­ri­od, the dis­missal of Se­ward was de­mand­ed by dis­sat­is­fied sen­ators, who at­tribut­ed to him the short­com­ings of the ad­min­is­tra­tion, Lin­coln stood stout­ly by his faith­ful Sec­re­tary of State.

Chase, the Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury, a man of su­perb pres­ence, of em­inent abil­ity and ar­dent pa­tri­otism, of great nat­ural dig­ni­ty and a cer­tain out­ward cold­ness of man­ner, which made him ap­pear more dif­fi­cult of ap­proach than he re­al­ly was, did not per­mit his dis­ap­point­ment to burst out in such ex­trav­agant demon­stra­tions. But Lin­coln’s ways were so es­sen­tial­ly dif­fer­ent from his that they nev­er be­came quite in­tel­li­gi­ble, and cer­tain­ly not con­ge­nial to him. It might, per­haps, have been bet­ter had there been, at the be­gin­ning of the ad­min­is­tra­tion, some de­cid­ed clash be­tween Lin­coln and Chase, as there was be­tween Lin­coln and Se­ward, to bring on a full mu­tu­al ex­pla­na­tion, and to make Chase ap­pre­ci­ate the re­al se­ri­ous­ness of Lin­coln’s na­ture. But, as it was, their re­la­tions al­ways re­mained some­what for­mal, and Chase nev­er felt quite at ease un­der a chief whom he could not un­der­stand, and whose char­ac­ter and pow­ers he nev­er learned to es­teem at their true val­ue. At the same time, he de­vot­ed him­self zeal­ous­ly to the du­ties of his de­part­ment, and did the coun­try ar­du­ous ser­vice un­der cir­cum­stances of ex­treme dif­fi­cul­ty. No­body rec­og­nized this more hearti­ly than Lin­coln him­self, and they man­aged to work to­geth­er un­til near the end of Lin­coln’s first Pres­iden­tial term, when Chase, af­ter some dis­agree­ments con­cern­ing ap­point­ments to of­fice, re­signed from the trea­sury; and, af­ter Taney’s death, the Pres­ident made him Chief Jus­tice.

The rest of the cab­inet con­sist­ed of men of less em­inence, who sub­or­di­nat­ed them­selves more eas­ily. In Jan­uary, 1862, Lin­coln found it nec­es­sary to bow Cameron out of the war of­fice, and to put in his place Ed­win M. Stan­ton, a man of in­tense­ly prac­ti­cal mind, ve­he­ment im­puls­es, fierce pos­itive­ness, ruth­less en­er­gy, im­mense work­ing pow­er, lofty pa­tri­otism, and sever­est de­vo­tion to du­ty. He ac­cept­ed the war of­fice not as a par­ti­san, for he had nev­er been a Re­pub­li­can, but on­ly to do all he could in “help­ing to save the coun­try.” The man­ner in which Lin­coln suc­ceed­ed in tam­ing this li­on to his will, by frankly rec­og­niz­ing his great qual­ities, by giv­ing him the most gen­er­ous con­fi­dence, by aid­ing him in his work to the full of his pow­er, by kind­ly con­ces­sion or af­fec­tion­ate per­sua­sive­ness in cas­es of dif­fer­ing opin­ions, or, when it was nec­es­sary, by firm as­ser­tions of su­pe­ri­or au­thor­ity, bears the high­est tes­ti­mo­ny to his skill in the man­age­ment of men. Stan­ton, who had en­tered the ser­vice with rather a mean opin­ion of Lin­coln’s char­ac­ter and ca­pac­ity, be­came one of his warmest, most de­vot­ed, and most ad­mir­ing friends, and with none of his sec­re­taries was Lin­coln’s in­ter­course more in­ti­mate. To take ad­vice with can­did readi­ness, and to weigh it with­out any pride of his own opin­ion, was one of Lin­coln’s pre­em­inent virtues; but he had not long presid­ed over his cab­inet coun­cil when his was felt by all its mem­bers to be the rul­ing mind.

The cau­tious pol­icy fore­shad­owed in his in­au­gu­ral ad­dress, and pur­sued dur­ing the first pe­ri­od of the civ­il war, was far from sat­is­fy­ing all his par­ty friends. The ar­dent spir­its among the Union men thought that the whole North should at once be called to arms, to crush the re­bel­lion by one pow­er­ful blow. The ar­dent spir­its among the an­ti­slav­ery men in­sist­ed that, slav­ery hav­ing brought forth the re­bel­lion, this pow­er­ful blow should at once be aimed at slav­ery. Both com­plained that the ad­min­is­tra­tion was spir­it­less, un­de­cid­ed, and lamentably slow in its pro­ceed­ings. Lin­coln rea­soned oth­er­wise. The ways of think­ing and feel­ing of the mass­es, of the plain peo­ple, were con­stant­ly present to his mind. The mass­es, the plain peo­ple, had to fur­nish the men for the fight­ing, if fight­ing was to be done. He be­lieved that the plain peo­ple would be ready to fight when it clear­ly ap­peared nec­es­sary, and that they would feel that ne­ces­si­ty when they felt them­selves at­tacked. He there­fore wait­ed un­til the en­emies of the Union struck the first blow. As soon as, on the 12th of April, 1861, the first gun was fired in Charleston har­bor on the Union flag up­on Fort Sumter, the call was sound­ed, and the North­ern peo­ple rushed to arms.

Lin­coln knew that the plain peo­ple were now in­deed ready to fight in de­fence of the Union, but not yet ready to fight for the de­struc­tion of slav­ery. He de­clared open­ly that he had a right to sum­mon the peo­ple to fight for the Union, but not to sum­mon them to fight for the abo­li­tion of slav­ery as a pri­ma­ry ob­ject; and this dec­la­ra­tion gave him num­ber­less sol­diers for the Union who at that pe­ri­od would have hes­itat­ed to do bat­tle against the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery. For a time he suc­ceed­ed in ren­der­ing harm­less the cry of the par­ti­san op­po­si­tion that the Re­pub­li­can ad­min­is­tra­tion were per­vert­ing the war for the Union in­to an “abo­li­tion war.” But when he went so far as to coun­ter­mand the acts of some gen­er­als in the field, look­ing to the eman­ci­pa­tion of the slaves in the dis­tricts cov­ered by their com­mands, loud com­plaints arose from earnest an­ti­slav­ery men, who ac­cused the Pres­ident of turn­ing his back up­on the an­ti­slav­ery cause. Many of these an­ti­slav­ery men will now, af­ter a calm ret­ro­spect, be will­ing to ad­mit that it would have been a haz­ardous pol­icy to en­dan­ger, by pre­cip­itat­ing a demon­stra­tive fight against slav­ery, the suc­cess of the strug­gle for the Union.

Lin­coln’s views and feel­ings con­cern­ing slav­ery had not changed. Those who con­versed with him in­ti­mate­ly up­on the sub­ject at that pe­ri­od know that he did not ex­pect slav­ery long to sur­vive the tri­umph of the Union, even if it were not im­me­di­ate­ly de­stroyed by the war. In this he was right. Had the Union armies achieved a de­ci­sive vic­to­ry in an ear­ly pe­ri­od of the con­flict, and had the se­ced­ed States been re­ceived back with slav­ery, the “slave pow­er” would then have been a de­feat­ed pow­er, de­feat­ed in an at­tempt to car­ry out its most ef­fec­tive threat. It would have lost its pres­tige. Its men­aces would have been hol­low sound, and ceased to make any one afraid. It could no longer have hoped to ex­pand, to main­tain an equi­lib­ri­um in any branch of Congress, and to con­trol the gov­ern­ment. The vic­to­ri­ous free States would have large­ly over­bal­anced it. It would no longer have been able to with­stand the on­set of a hos­tile age. It could no longer have ruled,–and slav­ery had to rule in or­der to live. It would have lin­gered for a while, but it would sure­ly have been “in the course of ul­ti­mate ex­tinc­tion.” A pro­longed war pre­cip­itat­ed the de­struc­tion of slav­ery; a short war might on­ly have pro­longed its death strug­gle. Lin­coln saw this clear­ly; but he saw al­so that, in a pro­tract­ed death strug­gle, it might still have kept dis­loy­al sen­ti­ments alive, bred dis­tract­ing com­mo­tions, and caused great mis­chief to the coun­try. He there­fore hoped that slav­ery would not sur­vive the war.

But the ques­tion how he could right­ful­ly em­ploy his pow­er to bring on its speedy de­struc­tion was to him not a ques­tion of mere sen­ti­ment. He him­self set forth his rea­son­ing up­on it, at a lat­er pe­ri­od, in one of his inim­itable let­ters. “I am nat­ural­ly an­ti­slav­ery,” said he. “If slav­ery is not wrong, noth­ing is wrong. I can­not re­mem­ber the time when I did not so think and feel. And yet I have nev­er un­der­stood that the Pres­iden­cy con­ferred up­on me an un­re­strict­ed right to act up­on that judg­ment and feel­ing. It was in the oath I took that I would, to the best of my abil­ity, pre­serve, pro­tect, and de­fend the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Unit­ed States. I could not take the of­fice with­out tak­ing the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get pow­er, and break the oath in us­ing that pow­er. I un­der­stood, too, that, in or­di­nary civ­il ad­min­is­tra­tion, this oath even for­bade me prac­ti­cal­ly to in­dulge my pri­vate ab­stract judg­ment on the moral ques­tion of slav­ery. I did un­der­stand, how­ev­er, al­so, that my oath im­posed up­on me the du­ty of pre­serv­ing, to the best of my abil­ity, by ev­ery in­dis­pens­able means, that gov­ern­ment, that na­tion, of which the Con­sti­tu­tion was the or­gan­ic law. I could not feel that, to the best of my abil­ity, I had even tied to pre­serve the Con­sti­tu­tion–if, to save slav­ery, or any mi­nor mat­ter, I should per­mit the wreck of gov­ern­ment, coun­try, and Con­sti­tu­tion all to­geth­er.” In oth­er words, if the sal­va­tion of the gov­ern­ment, the Con­sti­tu­tion, and the Union de­mand­ed the de­struc­tion of slav­ery, he felt it to be not on­ly his right, but his sworn du­ty to de­stroy it. Its de­struc­tion be­came a ne­ces­si­ty of the war for the Union.

As the war dragged on and dis­as­ter fol­lowed dis­as­ter, the sense of that ne­ces­si­ty steadi­ly grew up­on him. Ear­ly in 1862, as some of his friends well re­mem­ber, he saw, what Se­ward seemed not to see, that to give the war for the Union an an­ti­slav­ery char­ac­ter was the surest means to pre­vent the recog­ni­tion of the South­ern Con­fed­er­acy as an in­de­pen­dent na­tion by Eu­ro­pean pow­ers; that, slav­ery be­ing ab­horred by the moral sense of civ­ilized mankind, no Eu­ro­pean gov­ern­ment would dare to of­fer so gross an in­sult to the pub­lic opin­ion of its peo­ple as open­ly to fa­vor the cre­ation of a state found­ed up­on slav­ery to the prej­udice of an ex­ist­ing na­tion fight­ing against slav­ery. He saw al­so that slav­ery un­touched was to the re­bel­lion an el­ement of pow­er, and that in or­der to over­come that pow­er it was nec­es­sary to turn it in­to an el­ement of weak­ness. Still, he felt no as­sur­ance that the plain peo­ple were pre­pared for so rad­ical a mea­sure as the eman­ci­pa­tion of the slaves by act of the gov­ern­ment, and he anx­ious­ly con­sid­ered that, if they were not, this great step might, by ex­cit­ing dis­sen­sion at the North, in­jure the cause of the Union in one quar­ter more than it would help it in an­oth­er. He hearti­ly wel­comed an ef­fort made in New York to mould and stim­ulate pub­lic sen­ti­ment on the slav­ery ques­tion by pub­lic meet­ings bold­ly pro­nounc­ing for eman­ci­pa­tion. At the same time he him­self cau­tious­ly ad­vanced with a rec­om­men­da­tion, ex­pressed in a spe­cial mes­sage to Congress, that the Unit­ed States should co-​op­er­ate with any State which might adopt the grad­ual abol­ish­ment of slav­ery, giv­ing such State pe­cu­niary aid to com­pen­sate the for­mer own­ers of eman­ci­pat­ed slaves. The dis­cus­sion was start­ed, and spread rapid­ly. Congress adopt­ed the res­olu­tion rec­om­mend­ed, and soon went a step far­ther in pass­ing a bill to abol­ish slav­ery in the Dis­trict of Columbia. The plain peo­ple be­gan to look at eman­ci­pa­tion on a larg­er scale as a thing to be con­sid­ered se­ri­ous­ly by pa­tri­ot­ic cit­izens; and soon Lin­coln thought that the time was ripe, and that the edict of free­dom could be ven­tured up­on with­out dan­ger of se­ri­ous con­fu­sion in the Union ranks.

The fail­ure of Mc­Clel­lan’s move­ment up­on Rich­mond in­creased im­mense­ly the pres­tige of the en­emy. The need of some great act to stim­ulate the vi­tal­ity of the Union cause seemed to grow dai­ly more press­ing. On Ju­ly 21, 1862, Lin­coln sur­prised his cab­inet with the draught of a procla­ma­tion declar­ing free the slaves in all the States that should be still in re­bel­lion against the Unit­ed States on the 1st of Jan­uary,1863. As to the mat­ter it­self he an­nounced that he had ful­ly made up his mind; he in­vit­ed ad­vice on­ly con­cern­ing the form and the time of pub­li­ca­tion. Se­ward sug­gest­ed that the procla­ma­tion, if then brought out, amidst dis­as­ter and dis­tress, would sound like the last shriek of a per­ish­ing cause. Lin­coln ac­cept­ed the sug­ges­tion, and the procla­ma­tion was post­poned. An­oth­er de­feat fol­lowed, the sec­ond at Bull Run. But when, af­ter that bat­tle, the Con­fed­er­ate army, un­der Lee, crossed the Po­tomac and in­vad­ed Mary­land, Lin­coln vowed in his heart that, if the Union army were now blessed with suc­cess, the de­cree of free­dom should sure­ly be is­sued. The vic­to­ry of Anti­etam was won on Septem­ber 17, and the pre­lim­inary Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion came forth on the a 22d. It was Lin­coln’s own res­olu­tion and act; but prac­ti­cal­ly it bound the na­tion, and per­mit­ted no step back­ward. In spite of its lim­ita­tions, it was the ac­tu­al abo­li­tion of slav­ery. Thus he wrote his name up­on the books of his­to­ry with the ti­tle dear­est to his heart, the lib­er­ator of the slave.

It is true, the great procla­ma­tion, which stamped the war as one for “union and free­dom,” did not at once mark the turn­ing of the tide on the field of mil­itary op­er­ations. There were more dis­as­ters, Fred­er­icks­burg and Chan­cel­lorsville. But with Get­tys­burg and Vicks­burg the whole as­pect of the war changed. Step by step, now more slow­ly, then more rapid­ly, but with in­creas­ing steadi­ness, the flag of the Union ad­vanced from field to field to­ward the fi­nal con­sum­ma­tion. The de­cree of eman­ci­pa­tion was nat­ural­ly fol­lowed by the en­list­ment of eman­ci­pat­ed ne­groes in the Union armies. This mea­sure had a an­ther reach­ing ef­fect than mere­ly giv­ing the Union armies an in­creased sup­ply of men. The la­bor­ing force of the re­bel­lion was hope­less­ly dis­or­ga­nized. The war be­came like a prob­lem of arith­metic. As the Union armies pushed for­ward, the area from which the South­ern Con­fed­er­acy could draw re­cruits and sup­plies con­stant­ly grew small­er, while the area from which the Union re­cruit­ed its strength con­stant­ly grew larg­er; and ev­ery­where, even with­in the South­ern lines, the Union had its al­lies. The fate of the re­bel­lion was then vir­tu­al­ly de­cid­ed; but it still re­quired much bloody work to con­vince the brave war­riors who fought for it that they were re­al­ly beat­en.

Nei­ther did the Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion forth­with com­mand uni­ver­sal as­sent among the peo­ple who were loy­al to the Union. There were even signs of a re­ac­tion against the ad­min­is­tra­tion in the fall elec­tions of 1862, seem­ing­ly jus­ti­fy­ing the opin­ion, en­ter­tained by many, that the Pres­ident had re­al­ly an­tic­ipat­ed the de­vel­op­ment of pop­ular feel­ing. The cry that the war for the Union had been turned in­to an “abo­li­tion war” was raised again by the op­po­si­tion, and more loud­ly than ev­er. But the good sense and pa­tri­ot­ic in­stincts of the plain peo­ple grad­ual­ly mar­shalled them­selves on Lin­coln’s side, and he lost no op­por­tu­ni­ty to help on this pro­cess by per­son­al ar­gu­ment and ad­mo­ni­tion. There nev­er has been a Pres­ident in such con­stant and ac­tive con­tact with the pub­lic opin­ion of the coun­try, as there nev­er has been a Pres­ident who, while at the head of the gov­ern­ment, re­mained so near to the peo­ple. Be­yond the cir­cle of those who had long known him the feel­ing steadi­ly grew that the man in the White House was “hon­est Abe Lin­coln” still, and that ev­ery cit­izen might ap­proach him with com­plaint, ex­pos­tu­la­tion, or ad­vice, with­out dan­ger of meet­ing a re­buff from pow­er-​proud au­thor­ity, or hu­mil­iat­ing con­de­scen­sion; and this priv­ilege was used by so many and with such un­spar­ing free­dom that on­ly su­per­hu­man pa­tience could have en­dured it all. There are men now liv­ing who would to-​day read with amaze­ment, if not re­gret, what they ven­tured to say or write to him. But Lin­coln re­pelled no one whom he be­lieved to speak to him in good faith and with pa­tri­ot­ic pur­pose. No good ad­vice would go un­heed­ed. No can­did crit­icism would of­fend him. No hon­est op­po­si­tion, while it might pain him, would pro­duce a last­ing alien­ation of feel­ing be­tween him and the op­po­nent. It may tru­ly be said that few men in pow­er have ev­er been ex­posed to more dar­ing at­tempts to di­rect their course, to sev­er­er cen­sure of their acts, and to more cru­el mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of their mo­tives: And all this he met with that good-​na­tured hu­mor pe­cu­liar­ly his own, and with un­tir­ing ef­fort to see the right and to im­press it up­on those who dif­fered from him. The con­ver­sa­tions he had and the cor­re­spon­dence he car­ried on up­on mat­ters of pub­lic in­ter­est, not on­ly with men in of­fi­cial po­si­tion, but with pri­vate cit­izens, were al­most un­ceas­ing, and in a large num­ber of pub­lic let­ters, writ­ten os­ten­si­bly to meet­ings, or com­mit­tees, or per­sons of im­por­tance, he ad­dressed him­self di­rect­ly to the pop­ular mind. Most of these let­ters stand among the finest mon­uments of our po­lit­ical lit­er­ature. Thus he pre­sent­ed the sin­gu­lar spec­ta­cle of a Pres­ident who, in the midst of a great civ­il war, with un­prece­dent­ed du­ties weigh­ing up­on him, was con­stant­ly in per­son de­bat­ing the great fea­tures of his pol­icy with the peo­ple.

While in this man­ner he ex­er­cised an ev­er-​in­creas­ing in­flu­ence up­on the pop­ular un­der­stand­ing, his sym­pa­thet­ic na­ture en­deared him more and more to the pop­ular heart. In vain did jour­nals and speak­ers of the op­po­si­tion rep­re­sent him as a light­mind­ed tri­fler, who amused him­self with frivolous sto­ry-​telling and coarse jokes, while the blood of the peo­ple was flow­ing in streams. The peo­ple knew that the man at the head of af­fairs, on whose hag­gard face the twin­kle of hu­mor so fre­quent­ly changed in­to an ex­pres­sion of pro­found­est sad­ness, was more than any oth­er deeply dis­tressed by the suf­fer­ing he wit­nessed; that he felt the pain of ev­ery wound that was in­flict­ed on the bat­tle­field, and the an­guish of ev­ery wom­an or child who had lost hus­band or fa­ther; that when­ev­er he could he was ea­ger to al­le­vi­ate sor­row, and that his mer­cy was nev­er im­plored in vain. They looked to him as one who was with them and of them in all their hopes and fears, their joys and sor­rows, who laughed with them and wept with them; and as his heart was theirs; so their hearts turned to him. His pop­ular­ity was far dif­fer­ent from that of Wash­ing­ton, who was revered with awe, or that of Jack­son, the un­con­quer­able hero, for whom par­ty en­thu­si­asm nev­er grew weary of shout­ing. To Abra­ham Lin­coln the peo­ple be­came bound by a gen­uine sen­ti­men­tal at­tach­ment. It was not a mat­ter of re­spect, or con­fi­dence, or par­ty pride, for this feel­ing spread far be­yond the bound­ary lines of his par­ty; it was an af­fair of the heart, in­de­pen­dent of mere rea­son­ing. When the sol­diers in the field or their folks at home spoke of “Fa­ther Abra­ham,” there was no cant in it. They felt that their Pres­ident was re­al­ly car­ing for them as a fa­ther would, and that they could go to him, ev­ery one of them, as they would go to a fa­ther, and talk to him of what trou­bled them, sure to find a will­ing ear and ten­der sym­pa­thy. Thus, their Pres­ident, and his cause, and his en­deav­ors, and his suc­cess grad­ual­ly be­came to them al­most mat­ters of fam­ily con­cern. And this pop­ular­ity car­ried him tri­umphant­ly through the Pres­iden­tial elec­tion of 1864, in spite of an op­po­si­tion with­in his own par­ty which at first seemed very formidable.

Many of the rad­ical an­ti­slav­ery men were nev­er quite sat­is­fied with Lin­coln’s ways of meet­ing the prob­lems of the time. They were very earnest and most­ly very able men, who had pos­itive ideas as to “how this re­bel­lion should be put down.” They would not rec­og­nize the ne­ces­si­ty of mea­sur­ing the steps of the gov­ern­ment ac­cord­ing to the progress of opin­ion among the plain peo­ple. They crit­icised Lin­coln’s cau­tious man­age­ment as ir­res­olute, halt­ing, lack­ing in def­inite pur­pose and in en­er­gy; he should not have de­layed eman­ci­pa­tion so long; he should not have con­fid­ed im­por­tant com­mands to men of doubt­ful views as to slav­ery; he should have au­tho­rized mil­itary com­man­ders to set the slaves free as they went on; he dealt too le­nient­ly with un­suc­cess­ful gen­er­als; he should have put down all fac­tious op­po­si­tion with a strong hand in­stead of try­ing to paci­fy it; he should have giv­en the peo­ple ac­com­plished facts in­stead of ar­gu­ing with them, and so on. It is true, these crit­icisms were not al­ways en­tire­ly un­found­ed. Lin­coln’s pol­icy had, with the virtues of demo­crat­ic gov­ern­ment, some of its weak­ness­es, which in the pres­ence of press­ing ex­igen­cies were apt to de­prive gov­ern­men­tal ac­tion of the nec­es­sary vig­or; and his kind­ness of heart, his dis­po­si­tion al­ways to re­spect the feel­ings of oth­ers, fre­quent­ly made him re­coil from any­thing like sever­ity, even when sever­ity was ur­gent­ly called for. But many of his rad­ical crit­ics have since then re­vised their judg­ment suf­fi­cient­ly to ad­mit that Lin­coln’s pol­icy was, on the whole, the wis­est and safest; that a pol­icy of hero­ic meth­ods, while it has some­times ac­com­plished great re­sults, could in a democ­ra­cy like ours be main­tained on­ly by con­stant suc­cess; that it would have quick­ly bro­ken down un­der the weight of dis­as­ter; that it might have been suc­cess­ful from the start, had the Union, at the be­gin­ning of the con­flict, had its Grants and Sher­mans and Sheri­dans, its Far­raguts and Porters, ful­ly ma­tured at the head of its forces; but that, as the great com­man­ders had to be evolved slow­ly from the de­vel­op­ments of the war, con­stant suc­cess could not be count­ed up­on, and it was best to fol­low a pol­icy which was in friend­ly con­tact with the pop­ular force, and there­fore more fit to stand tri­al of mis­for­tune on the bat­tle­field. But at that pe­ri­od they thought dif­fer­ent­ly, and their dis­sat­is­fac­tion with Lin­coln’s do­ings was great­ly in­creased by the steps he took to­ward the re­con­struc­tion of rebel States then par­tial­ly in pos­ses­sion of the Union forces.

In De­cem­ber, 1863, Lin­coln is­sued an amnesty procla­ma­tion, of­fer­ing par­don to all im­pli­cat­ed in the re­bel­lion, with cer­tain spec­ified ex­cep­tions, on con­di­tion of their tak­ing and main­tain­ing an oath to sup­port the Con­sti­tu­tion and obey the laws of the Unit­ed States and the procla­ma­tions of the Pres­ident with re­gard to slaves; and al­so promis­ing that when, in any of the rebel States, a num­ber of cit­izens equal to one tenth of the vot­ers in 1860 should re-​es­tab­lish a state gov­ern­ment in con­for­mi­ty with the oath above men­tioned, such should be rec­og­nized by the Ex­ec­utive as the true gov­ern­ment of the State. The procla­ma­tion seemed at first to be re­ceived with gen­er­al fa­vor. But soon an­oth­er scheme of re­con­struc­tion, much more strin­gent in its pro­vi­sions, was put for­ward in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives by Hen­ry Win­ter Davis. Ben­jamin Wade cham­pi­oned it in the Sen­ate. It passed in the clos­ing mo­ments of the ses­sion in Ju­ly, 1864, and Lin­coln, in­stead of mak­ing it a law by his sig­na­ture, em­bod­ied the text of it in a procla­ma­tion as a plan of re­con­struc­tion wor­thy of be­ing earnest­ly con­sid­ered. The dif­fer­ences of opin­ion con­cern­ing this sub­ject had on­ly in­ten­si­fied the feel­ing against Lin­coln which had long been nursed among the rad­icals, and some of them open­ly de­clared their pur­pose of re­sist­ing his re-​elec­tion to the Pres­iden­cy. Sim­ilar sen­ti­ments were man­ifest­ed by the ad­vanced an­ti­slav­ery men of Mis­souri, who, in their hot fac­tion-​fight with the “con­ser­va­tives” of that State, had not re­ceived from Lin­coln the ac­tive sup­port they de­mand­ed. Still an­oth­er class of Union men, main­ly in the East, grave­ly shook their heads when con­sid­er­ing the ques­tion whether Lin­coln should be re-​elect­ed. They were those who cher­ished in their minds an ide­al of states­man­ship and of per­son­al bear­ing in high of­fice with which, in their opin­ion, Lin­coln’s in­di­vid­ual­ity was much out of ac­cord. They were shocked when they heard him cap an ar­gu­ment up­on grave af­fairs of state with a sto­ry about “a man out in Sang­amon Coun­ty,”–a sto­ry, to be sure, strik­ing­ly clinch­ing his point, but sad­ly lack­ing in dig­ni­ty. They could not un­der­stand the man who was ca­pa­ble, in open­ing a cab­inet meet­ing, of read­ing to his sec­re­taries a fun­ny chap­ter from a re­cent book of Arte­mus Ward, with which in an un­oc­cu­pied mo­ment he had re­lieved his care- bur­dened mind, and who then solemn­ly in­formed the ex­ec­utive coun­cil that he had vowed in his heart to is­sue a procla­ma­tion eman­ci­pat­ing the slaves as soon as God blessed the Union arms with an­oth­er vic­to­ry. They were alarmed at the weak­ness of a Pres­ident who would in­deed re­sist the ur­gent re­mon­strances of states­men against his pol­icy, but could not re­sist the prayer of an old wom­an for the par­don of a sol­dier who was sen­tenced to be shot for de­ser­tion. Such men, most­ly sin­cere and ar­dent pa­tri­ots, not on­ly wished, but earnest­ly set to work, to pre­vent Lin­coln’s renom­ina­tion. Not a few of them ac­tu­al­ly be­lieved, in 1863, that, if the na­tion­al con­ven­tion of the Union par­ty were held then, Lin­coln would not be sup­port­ed by the del­ega­tion of a sin­gle State. But when the con­ven­tion met at Bal­ti­more, in June, 1864, the voice of the peo­ple was heard. On the first bal­lot Lin­coln re­ceived the votes of the del­ega­tions from all the States ex­cept Mis­souri; and even the Mis­souri­ans turned over their votes to him be­fore the re­sult of the bal­lot was de­clared.

But even af­ter his renom­ina­tion the op­po­si­tion to Lin­coln with­in the ranks of the Union par­ty did not sub­side. A con­ven­tion, called by the dis­sat­is­fied rad­icals in Mis­souri, and fa­vored by men of a sim­ilar way of think­ing in oth­er States, had been held al­ready in May, and had nom­inat­ed as its can­di­date for the Pres­iden­cy Gen­er­al Fre­mont. He, in­deed, did not at­tract a strong fol­low­ing, but op­po­si­tion move­ments from dif­fer­ent quar­ters ap­peared more formidable. Hen­ry Win­ter Davis and Ben­jamin Wade as­sailed Lin­coln in a flam­ing man­ifesto. Oth­er Union men, of un­doubt­ed pa­tri­otism and high stand­ing, per­suad­ed them­selves, and sought to per­suade the peo­ple, that Lin­coln’s renom­ina­tion was ill ad­vised and dan­ger­ous to the Union cause. As the Democrats had put off their con­ven­tion un­til the 29th of Au­gust, the Union par­ty had, dur­ing the larg­er part of the sum­mer, no op­pos­ing can­di­date and plat­form to at­tack, and the po­lit­ical cam­paign lan­guished. Nei­ther were the tid­ings from the the­atre of war of a cheer­ing char­ac­ter. The ter­ri­ble loss­es suf­fered by Grant’s army in the bat­tles of the Wilder­ness spread gen­er­al gloom. Sher­man seemed for a while to be in a pre­car­ious po­si­tion be­fore At­lanta. The op­po­si­tion to Lin­coln with­in the Union par­ty grew loud­er in its com­plaints and dis­cour­ag­ing pre­dic­tions. Earnest de­mands were heard that his can­di­da­cy should be with­drawn. Lin­coln him­self, not know­ing how strong­ly the mass­es were at­tached to him, was haunt­ed by dark fore­bod­ings of de­feat. Then the scene sud­den­ly changed as if by mag­ic.

The Democrats, in their na­tion­al con­ven­tion, de­clared the war a fail­ure, de­mand­ed, sub­stan­tial­ly, peace at any price, and nom­inat­ed on such a plat­form Gen­er­al Mc­Clel­lan as their can­di­date. Their con­ven­tion had hard­ly ad­journed when the cap­ture of At­lanta gave a new as­pect to the mil­itary sit­ua­tion. It was like a sun-​ray burst­ing through a dark cloud. The rank and file of the Union par­ty rose with rapid­ly grow­ing en­thu­si­asm. The song “We are com­ing, Fa­ther Abra­ham, three hun­dred thou­sand strong,” re­sound­ed all over the land. Long be­fore the de­ci­sive day ar­rived, the re­sult was be­yond doubt, and Lin­coln was re- elect­ed Pres­ident by over­whelm­ing ma­jori­ties. The elec­tion over even his sever­est crit­ics found them­selves forced to ad­mit that Lin­coln was the on­ly pos­si­ble can­di­date for the Union par­ty in 1864, and that nei­ther po­lit­ical com­bi­na­tions nor cam­paign speech­es, nor even vic­to­ries in the field, were need­ed to in­sure his suc­cess. The plain peo­ple had all the while been sat­is­fied with Abra­ham Lin­coln: they con­fid­ed in him; they loved him; they felt them­selves near to him; they saw per­son­ified in him the cause of Union and free­dom; and they went to the bal­lot-​box for him in their strength.

The hour of tri­umph called out the char­ac­ter­is­tic im­puls­es of his na­ture. The op­po­si­tion with­in the Union par­ty had stung him to the quick. Now he had his op­po­nents be­fore him, baf­fled and hu­mil­iat­ed. Not a mo­ment did he lose to stretch out the hand of friend­ship to all. “Now that the elec­tion is over,” he said, in re­sponse to a ser­enade, “may not all, hav­ing a com­mon in­ter­est, re­unite in a com­mon ef­fort to save our com­mon coun­try? For my own part, I have striv­en, and will strive, to place no ob­sta­cle in the way. So long as I have been here I have not will­ing­ly plant­ed a thorn in any man’s bo­som. While I am deeply sen­si­ble to the high com­pli­ment of a re-​elec­tion, it adds noth­ing to my sat­is­fac­tion that any oth­er man may be pained or dis­ap­point­ed by the re­sult. May I ask those who were with me to join with me in the same spir­it to­ward those who were against me?” This was Abra­ham Lin­coln’s char­ac­ter as test­ed in the fur­nace of pros­per­ity.

The war was vir­tu­al­ly de­cid­ed, but not yet end­ed. Sher­man was ir­re­sistibly car­ry­ing the Union flag through the South. Grant had his iron hand up­on the ram­parts of Rich­mond. The days of the Con­fed­er­acy were ev­ident­ly num­bered. On­ly the last blow re­mained to be struck. Then Lin­coln’s sec­ond in­au­gu­ra­tion came, and with it his sec­ond in­au­gu­ral ad­dress. Lin­coln’s fa­mous “Get­tys­burg speech “has been much and just­ly ad­mired. But far greater, as well as far more char­ac­ter­is­tic, was that in­au­gu­ral in which he poured out the whole de­vo­tion and ten­der­ness of his great soul. It had all the solem­ni­ty of a fa­ther’s last ad­mo­ni­tion and bless­ing to his chil­dren be­fore he lay down to die. These were its clos­ing words: “Fond­ly do we hope, fer­vent­ly do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speed­ily pass away. Yet if God wills that it con­tin­ue un­til all the wealth piled up by the bond­man’s two hun­dred and fifty years of un­re­quit­ed toil shall be sunk, and un­til ev­ery drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by an­oth­er drawn with the sword, as was said three thou­sand years ago, so still it must be said, `The judg­ments of the Lord are true and righ­teous al­to­geth­er.’ With mal­ice to­ward none, with char­ity for all, with firm­ness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to fin­ish the work we are in; to bind up the na­tion’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the bat­tle, and for his wid­ow and his or­phan; to do all which may achieve and cher­ish a just and last­ing peace among our­selves and with all na­tions.”

This was like a sa­cred po­em. No Amer­ican Pres­ident had ev­er spo­ken words like these to the Amer­ican peo­ple. Amer­ica nev­er had a Pres­ident who found such words in the depth of his heart.

Now fol­lowed the clos­ing scenes of the war. The South­ern armies fought brave­ly to the last, but all in vain. Rich­mond fell. Lin­coln him­self en­tered the city on foot, ac­com­pa­nied on­ly by a few of­fi­cers and a squad of sailors who had rowed him ashore from the flotil­la in the James Riv­er, a ne­gro picked up on the way serv­ing as a guide. Nev­er had the world seen a more mod­est con­queror and a more char­ac­ter­is­tic tri­umphal pro­ces­sion, no army with ban­ners and drums, on­ly a throng of those who had been slaves, hasti­ly run to­geth­er, es­cort­ing the vic­to­ri­ous chief in­to the cap­ital of the van­quished foe. We are told that they pressed around him, kissed his hands and his gar­ments, and shout­ed and danced for joy, while tears ran down the Pres­ident’s care- fur­rowed cheeks.

A few days more brought the sur­ren­der of Lee’s army, and peace was as­sured. The peo­ple of the North were wild with joy. Ev­ery­where fes­tive guns were boom­ing, bells peal­ing, the church­es ring­ing with thanks­giv­ings, and ju­bi­lant mul­ti­tudes throng­ing the thor­ough­fares, when sud­den­ly the news flashed over the land that Abra­ham Lin­coln had been mur­dered. The peo­ple were stunned by the blow. Then a wail of sor­row went up such as Amer­ica had nev­er heard be­fore. Thou­sands of North­ern house­holds grieved as if they had lost their dear­est mem­ber. Many a South­ern man cried out in his heart that his peo­ple had been robbed of their best friend in their hu­mil­ia­tion and dis­tress, when Abra­ham Lin­coln was struck down. It was as if the ten­der af­fec­tion which his coun­try­men bore him had in­spired all na­tions with a com­mon sen­ti­ment. All civ­ilized mankind stood mourn­ing around the cof­fin of the dead Pres­ident. Many of those, here and abroad, who not long be­fore had ridiculed and re­viled him were among the first to has­ten on with their flow­ers of eu­lo­gy, and in that uni­ver­sal cho­rus of lamen­ta­tion and praise there was not a voice that did not trem­ble with gen­uine emo­tion. Nev­er since Wash­ing­ton’s death had there been such una­nim­ity of judg­ment as to a man’s virtues and great­ness; and even Wash­ing­ton’s death, al­though his name was held in greater rev­er­ence, did not touch so sym­pa­thet­ic a chord in the peo­ple’s hearts.

Nor can it be said that this was ow­ing to the trag­ic char­ac­ter of Lin­coln’s end. It is true, the death of this gen­tlest and most mer­ci­ful of rulers by the hand of a mad fa­nat­ic was well apt to ex­alt him be­yond his mer­its in the es­ti­ma­tion of those who loved him, and to make his renown the ob­ject of pe­cu­liar­ly ten­der so­lic­itude. But it is al­so true that the ver­dict pro­nounced up­on him in those days has been af­fect­ed lit­tle by time, and that his­tor­ical in­quiry has served rather to in­crease than to lessen the ap­pre­ci­ation of his virtues, his abil­ities, his ser­vices. Giv­ing the fullest mea­sure of cred­it to his great min­is­ters,–to Se­ward for his con­duct of for­eign af­fairs, to Chase for the man­age­ment of the fi­nances un­der ter­ri­ble dif­fi­cul­ties, to Stan­ton for the per­for­mance of his tremen­dous task as war sec­re­tary,–and read­ily ac­knowl­edg­ing that with­out the skill and for­ti­tude of the great com­man­ders, and the hero­ism of the sol­diers and sailors un­der them, suc­cess could not have been achieved, the his­to­ri­an still finds that Lin­coln’s judg­ment and will were by no means gov­erned by those around him; that the most im­por­tant steps were ow­ing to his ini­tia­tive; that his was the de­cid­ing and di­rect­ing mind; and that it was pre-​em­inent­ly he whose sagac­ity and whose char­ac­ter en­list­ed for the ad­min­is­tra­tion in its strug­gles the coun­te­nance, the sym­pa­thy, and the sup­port of the peo­ple. It is found, even, that his judg­ment on mil­itary mat­ters was as­ton­ish­ing­ly acute, and that the ad­vice and in­struc­tions he gave to the gen­er­als com­mand­ing in the field would not sel­dom have done hon­or to the ablest of them. His­to­ry, there­fore, with­out over­look­ing, or pal­li­at­ing, or ex­cus­ing any of his short­com­ings or mis­takes, con­tin­ues to place him fore­most among the saviours of the Union and the lib­er­ators of the slave. More than that, it awards to him the mer­it of hav­ing ac­com­plished what but few po­lit­ical philoso­phers would have rec­og­nized as pos­si­ble,–of lead­ing the re­pub­lic through four years of fu­ri­ous civ­il con­flict with­out any se­ri­ous detri­ment to its free in­sti­tu­tions.

He was, in­deed, while Pres­ident, vi­olent­ly de­nounced by the op­po­si­tion as a tyrant and a usurp­er, for hav­ing gone be­yond his con­sti­tu­tion­al pow­ers in au­tho­riz­ing or per­mit­ting the tem­po­rary sup­pres­sion of news­pa­pers, and in wan­ton­ly sus­pend­ing the writ of habeas cor­pus and re­sort­ing to ar­bi­trary ar­rests. No­body should be blamed who, when such things are done, in good faith and from pa­tri­ot­ic mo­tives protests against them. In a re­pub­lic, ar­bi­trary stretch­es of pow­er, even when de­mand­ed by ne­ces­si­ty, should nev­er be per­mit­ted to pass with­out a protest on the one hand, and with­out an apol­ogy on the oth­er. It is well they did not so pass dur­ing our civ­il war. That ar­bi­trary mea­sures were re­sort­ed to is true. That they were re­sort­ed to most spar­ing­ly, and on­ly when the gov­ern­ment thought them ab­so­lute­ly re­quired by the safe­ty of the re­pub­lic, will now hard­ly be de­nied. But cer­tain it is that the his­to­ry of the world does not fur­nish a sin­gle ex­am­ple of a gov­ern­ment pass­ing through so tremen­dous a cri­sis as our civ­il war was with so small a record of ar­bi­trary acts, and so lit­tle in­ter­fer­ence with the or­di­nary course of law out­side the field of mil­itary op­er­ations. No Amer­ican Pres­ident ev­er wield­ed such pow­er as that which was thrust in­to Lin­coln’s hands. It is to be hoped that no Amer­ican Pres­ident ev­er will have to be en­trust­ed with such pow­er again. But no man was ev­er en­trust­ed with it to whom its se­duc­tions were less dan­ger­ous than they proved to be to Abra­ham Lin­coln. With scrupu­lous care he en­deav­ored, even un­der the most try­ing cir­cum­stances, to re­main strict­ly with­in the con­sti­tu­tion­al lim­ita­tions of his au­thor­ity; and when­ev­er the bound­ary be­came in­dis­tinct, or when the dan­gers of the sit­ua­tion forced him to cross it, he was equal­ly care­ful to mark his acts as ex­cep­tion­al mea­sures, jus­ti­fi­able on­ly by the im­per­ative ne­ces­si­ties of the civ­il war, so that they might not pass in­to his­to­ry as prece­dents for sim­ilar acts in time of peace. It is an un­ques­tion­able fact that dur­ing the re­con­struc­tion pe­ri­od which fol­lowed the war, more things were done ca­pa­ble of serv­ing as dan­ger­ous prece­dents than dur­ing the war it­self. Thus it may tru­ly be said of him not on­ly that un­der his guid­ance the re­pub­lic was saved from dis­rup­tion and the coun­try was pu­ri­fied of the blot of slav­ery, but that, dur­ing the stormi­est and most per­ilous cri­sis in our his­to­ry, he so con­duct­ed the gov­ern­ment and so wield­ed his al­most dic­ta­to­ri­al pow­er as to leave es­sen­tial­ly in­tact our free in­sti­tu­tions in all things that con­cern the rights and lib­er­ties of the cit­izens. He un­der­stood well the na­ture of the prob­lem. In his first mes­sage to Congress he de­fined it in ad­mirably point­ed lan­guage: “Must a gov­ern­ment be of ne­ces­si­ty too strong for the lib­er­ties of its own peo­ple, or too weak to main­tain its own ex­is­tence? Is there in all re­publics this in­her­ent weak­ness?” This ques­tion he an­swered in the name of the great Amer­ican re­pub­lic, as no man could have an­swered it bet­ter, with a tri­umphant “No….”

It has been said that Abra­ham Lin­coln died at the right mo­ment for his fame. How­ev­er that may be, he had, at the time of his death, cer­tain­ly not ex­haust­ed his use­ful­ness to his coun­try. He was prob­ably the on­ly man who could have guid­ed the na­tion through the per­plex­ities of the re­con­struc­tion pe­ri­od in such a man­ner as to pre­vent in the work of peace the re­vival of the pas­sions of the war. He would in­deed not have es­caped se­ri­ous con­tro­ver­sy as to de­tails of pol­icy; but he could have weath­ered it far bet­ter than any oth­er states­man of his time, for his pres­tige with the ac­tive politi­cians had been im­mense­ly strength­ened by his tri­umphant re-​elec­tion; and, what is more im­por­tant, he would have been sup­port­ed by the con­fi­dence of the vic­to­ri­ous North­ern peo­ple that he would do all to se­cure the safe­ty of the Union and the rights of the eman­ci­pat­ed ne­gro, and at the same time by the con­fi­dence of the de­feat­ed South­ern peo­ple that noth­ing would be done by him from mo­tives of vin­dic­tive­ness, or of un­rea­son­ing fa­nati­cism, or of a self­ish par­ty spir­it. “With mal­ice to­ward none, with char­ity for all,” the fore­most of the vic­tors would have per­son­ified in him­self the ge­nius of rec­on­cil­ia­tion.

He might have ren­dered the coun­try a great ser­vice in an­oth­er di­rec­tion. A few days af­ter the fall of Rich­mond, he point­ed out to a friend the crowd of of­fice-​seek­ers be­sieg­ing his door. “Look at that,” said he. “Now we have con­quered the re­bel­lion, but here you see some­thing that may be­come more dan­ger­ous to this re­pub­lic than the re­bel­lion it­self.” It is true, Lin­coln as Pres­ident did not pro­fess what we now call civ­il ser­vice re­form prin­ci­ples. He used the pa­tron­age of the gov­ern­ment in many cas­es avowed­ly to re­ward par­ty work, in many oth­ers to form com­bi­na­tions and to pro­duce po­lit­ical ef­fects ad­van­ta­geous to the Union cause, and in still oth­ers sim­ply to put the right man in­to the right place. But in his en­deav­ors to strength­en the Union cause, and in his search for able and use­ful men for pub­lic du­ties, he fre­quent­ly went be­yond the lim­its of his par­ty, and grad­ual­ly ac­cus­tomed him­self to the thought that, while par­ty ser­vice had its val­ue, con­sid­er­ations of the pub­lic in­ter­est were, as to ap­point­ments to of­fice, of far greater con­se­quence. More­over, there had been such a min­gling of dif­fer­ent po­lit­ical el­ements in sup­port of the Union dur­ing the civ­il war that Lin­coln, stand­ing at the head of that tem­porar­ily unit­ed mot­ley mass, hard­ly felt him­self, in the nar­row sense of the term, a par­ty man. And as he be­came strong­ly im­pressed with the dan­gers brought up­on the re­pub­lic by the use of pub­lic of­fices as par­ty spoils, it is by no means im­prob­able that, had he sur­vived the all-​ab­sorb­ing cri­sis and found time to turn to oth­er ob­jects, one of the most im­por­tant re­forms of lat­er days would have been pi­oneered by his pow­er­ful au­thor­ity. This was not to be. But the mea­sure of his achieve­ments was full enough for im­mor­tal­ity.

To the younger gen­er­ation Abra­ham Lin­coln has al­ready be­come a half-​myth­ical fig­ure, which, in the haze of his­toric dis­tance, grows to more and more hero­ic pro­por­tions, but al­so los­es in dis­tinct­ness of out­line and fea­ture. This is in­deed the com­mon lot of pop­ular heroes; but the Lin­coln leg­end will be more than or­di­nar­ily apt to be­come fan­ci­ful, as his in­di­vid­ual­ity, as­sem­bling seem­ing­ly in­con­gru­ous qual­ities and forces in a char­ac­ter at the same time grand and most lov­able, was so unique, and his ca­reer so abound­ing in startling con­trasts. As the state of so­ci­ety in which Abra­ham Lin­coln grew up pass­es away, the world will read with in­creas­ing won­der of the man who, not on­ly of the hum­blest ori­gin, but re­main­ing the sim­plest and most un­pre­tend­ing of cit­izens, was raised to a po­si­tion of pow­er un­prece­dent­ed in our his­to­ry; who was the gen­tlest and most peace-​lov­ing of mor­tals, un­able to see any crea­ture suf­fer with­out a pang in his own breast, and sud­den­ly found him­self called to con­duct the great­est and blood­iest of our wars; who wield­ed the pow­er of gov­ern­ment when stern res­olu­tion and re­lent­less force were the or­der of the day and then won and ruled the pop­ular mind and heart by the ten­der sym­pa­thies of his na­ture; who was a cau­tious con­ser­va­tive by tem­per­ament and men­tal habit, and led the most sud­den and sweep­ing so­cial rev­olu­tion of our time; who, pre­serv­ing his home­ly speech and rus­tic man­ner even in the most con­spic­uous po­si­tion of that pe­ri­od, drew up­on him­self the scoffs of po­lite so­ci­ety, and then thrilled the soul of mankind with ut­ter­ances of won­der­ful beau­ty and grandeur; who, in his heart the best friend of the de­feat­ed South, was mur­dered be­cause a crazy fa­nat­ic took him for its most cru­el en­emy; who, while in pow­er, was be­yond mea­sure lam­pooned and ma­ligned by sec­tion­al pas­sion and an ex­cit­ed par­ty spir­it, and around whose bier friend and foe gath­ered to praise him which they have since nev­er ceased to do–as one of the great­est of Amer­icans and the best of men.

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN

BY JOSEPH H. CHOATE

[This Ad­dress was de­liv­ered be­fore the Ed­in­burgh Philo­soph­ical In­sti­tu­tion, Novem­ber 13, 1900. It is in­clud­ed in this set with the cour­te­ous per­mis­sion of the au­thor and of Messrs. Thomas Y. Crow­ell & Com­pa­ny.]

ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN.

When you asked me to de­liv­er the In­au­gu­ral Ad­dress on this oc­ca­sion, I rec­og­nized that I owed this com­pli­ment to the fact that I was the of­fi­cial rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Amer­ica, and in se­lect­ing a sub­ject I ven­tured to think that I might in­ter­est you for an hour in a brief study in pop­ular gov­ern­ment, as il­lus­trat­ed by the life of the most Amer­ican of all Amer­icans. I there­fore of­fer no apol­ogy for ask­ing your at­ten­tion to Abra­ham Lin­coln–to his unique char­ac­ter and the part he bore in two im­por­tant achieve­ments of mod­ern his­to­ry: the preser­va­tion of the in­tegri­ty of the Amer­ican Union and the eman­ci­pa­tion of the col­ored race.

Dur­ing his brief term of pow­er he was prob­ably the ob­ject of more abuse, vil­ifi­ca­tion, and ridicule than any oth­er man in the world; but when he fell by the hand of an as­sas­sin, at the very mo­ment of his stu­pen­dous vic­to­ry, all the na­tions of the earth vied with one an­oth­er in pay­ing homage to his char­ac­ter, and the thir­ty-​five years that have since elapsed have es­tab­lished his place in his­to­ry as one of the great bene­fac­tors not of his own coun­try alone, but of the hu­man race.

One of many no­ble ut­ter­ances up­on the oc­ca­sion of his death was that in which ‘Punch’ made its mag­nan­imous re­can­ta­tion of the spir­it with which it had pur­sued him:

“Be­side this corpse that bears for wind­ing sheet The stars and stripes he lived to rear anew, Be­tween the mourn­ers at his head and feet, Say, scur­rile jester, is there room for you?

……………….

“Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer, To lame my pen­cil, and con­fute my pen To make me own this hind–of princes peer, This rail-​split­ter–a true born king of men.”

Fic­tion can fur­nish no match for the ro­mance of his life, and bi­og­ra­phy will be searched in vain for such startling vi­cis­si­tudes of for­tune, so great pow­er and glo­ry won out of such hum­ble be­gin­nings and ad­verse cir­cum­stances.

Doubt­less you are all fa­mil­iar with the salient points of his ex­traor­di­nary ca­reer. In the zenith of his fame he was the wise, pa­tient, coura­geous, suc­cess­ful ruler of men; ex­er­cis­ing more pow­er than any monarch of his time, not for him­self, but for the good of the peo­ple who had placed it in his hands; com­man­der-​in- chief of a vast mil­itary pow­er, which waged with ul­ti­mate suc­cess the great­est war of the cen­tu­ry; the tri­umphant cham­pi­on of pop­ular gov­ern­ment, the de­liv­er­er of four mil­lions of his fel­low- men from bondage; hon­ored by mankind as States­man, Pres­ident, and Lib­er­ator.

Let us glance now at the first half of the brief life of which this was the glo­ri­ous and hap­py con­sum­ma­tion. Noth­ing could be more squalid and mis­er­able than the home in which Abra­ham Lin­coln was born–a one-​roomed cab­in with­out floor or win­dow in what was then the wilder­ness of Ken­tucky, in the heart of that fron­tier life which swift­ly moved west­ward from the Al­legha­nies to the Mis­sis­sip­pi, al­ways in ad­vance of schools and church­es, of books and mon­ey, of rail­roads and news­pa­pers, of all things which are gen­er­al­ly re­gard­ed as the com­forts and even nec­es­saries of life. His fa­ther, ig­no­rant, needy, and thrift­less, con­tent if he could keep soul and body to­geth­er for him­self and his fam­ily, was ev­er seek­ing, with­out suc­cess, to bet­ter his un­hap­py con­di­tion by mov­ing on from one such scene of drea­ry des­ola­tion to an­oth­er. The rude so­ci­ety which sur­round­ed them was not much bet­ter. The strug­gle for ex­is­tence was hard, and ab­sorbed all their en­er­gies. They were fight­ing the for­est, the wild beast, and the re­treat­ing sav­age. From the time when he could bare­ly han­dle tools un­til he at­tained his ma­jor­ity, Lin­coln’s life was that of a sim­ple farm la­bor­er, poor­ly clad, housed, and fed, at work ei­ther on his fa­ther’s wretched farm or hired out to neigh­bor­ing farm­ers. But in spite, or per­haps by means, of this rude en­vi­ron­ment, he grew to be a stal­wart gi­ant, reach­ing six feet four at nine­teen, and fab­ulous sto­ries are told of his feats of strength. With the growth of this mighty frame be­gan that strange ed­uca­tion which in his ripen­ing years was to qual­ify him for the great des­tiny that await­ed him, and the de­vel­op­ment of those men­tal fac­ul­ties and moral en­dow­ments which, by the time he reached mid­dle life, were to make him the saga­cious, pa­tient, and tri­umphant lead­er of a great na­tion in the cri­sis of its fate. His whole school­ing, ob­tained dur­ing such odd times as could be spared from grind­ing la­bor, did not amount in all to as much as one year, and the qual­ity of the teach­ing was of the low­est pos­si­ble grade, in­clud­ing on­ly the el­ements of read­ing, writ­ing, and ci­pher­ing. But out of these sim­ple el­ements, when right­ly used by the right man, ed­uca­tion is achieved, and Lin­coln knew how to use them. As so of­ten hap­pens, he seemed to take warn­ing from his fa­ther’s un­for­tu­nate ex­am­ple. Un­tir­ing in­dus­try, an in­sa­tiable thirst for knowl­edge, and an ev­er-​grow­ing de­sire to rise above his sur­round­ings, were ear­ly man­ifes­ta­tions of his char­ac­ter.

Books were al­most un­known in that com­mu­ni­ty, but the Bible was in ev­ery house, and some­how or oth­er Pil­grim’s Progress, AE­sop’s Fa­bles, a His­to­ry of the Unit­ed States, and a Life of Wash­ing­ton fell in­to his hands. He trudged on foot many miles through the wilder­ness to bor­row an En­glish Gram­mar, and is said to have de­voured greed­ily the con­tents of the Statutes of In­di­ana that fell in his way. These few vol­umes he read and reread–and his pow­er of as­sim­ila­tion was great. To be shut in with a few books and to mas­ter them thor­ough­ly some­times does more for the de­vel­op­ment of char­ac­ter than free­dom to range at large, in a cur­so­ry and in­dis­crim­inate way, through wide do­mains of lit­er­ature. This youth’s mind, at any rate, was thor­ough­ly sat­urat­ed with Bib­li­cal knowl­edge and Bib­li­cal lan­guage, which, in af­ter life, he used with great readi­ness and ef­fect. But it was the con­stant use of the lit­tle knowl­edge which he had that de­vel­oped and ex­er­cised his men­tal pow­ers. Af­ter the hard day’s work was done, while oth­ers slept, he toiled on, al­ways read­ing or writ­ing. From an ear­ly age he did his own think­ing and made up his own mind–in­valu­able traits in the fu­ture Pres­ident. Pa­per was such a scarce com­mod­ity that, by the evening fire­light, he would write and ci­pher on the back of a wood­en shov­el, and then shave it off to make room for more. By and by, as he ap­proached man­hood, he be­gan speak­ing in the rude gath­er­ings of the neigh­bor­hood, and so laid the foun­da­tion of that art of per­suad­ing his fel­low-​men which was one rich re­sult of his ed­uca­tion, and one great se­cret of his sub­se­quent suc­cess.

Ac­cus­tomed as we are in these days of steam and tele­graphs to have ev­ery in­tel­li­gent boy sur­vey the whole world each morn­ing be­fore break­fast, and in­form him­self as to what is go­ing on in ev­ery na­tion, it is hard­ly pos­si­ble to con­ceive how be­night­ed and iso­lat­ed was the con­di­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty at Pi­geon Creek in In­di­ana, of which the fam­ily of Lin­coln’s fa­ther formed a part, or how ea­ger­ly an am­bi­tious and high-​spir­it­ed boy, such as he, must have yearned to es­cape. The first glimpse that he ev­er got of any world be­yond the nar­row con­fines of his home was in 1828, at the age of nine­teen, when a neigh­bor em­ployed him to ac­com­pa­ny his son down the riv­er to New Or­leans to dis­pose of a flat­boat of pro­duce–a com­mis­sion which he dis­charged with great suc­cess.

Short­ly af­ter his re­turn from this his first ex­cur­sion in­to the out­er world, his fa­ther, tired of fail­ure in In­di­ana, packed his fam­ily and all his world­ly goods in­to a sin­gle wag­on drawn by two yoke of ox­en, and af­ter a four­teen days’ tramp through the wilder­ness, pitched his camp once more, in Illi­nois. Here Abra­ham, hav­ing come of age and be­ing now his own mas­ter, ren­dered the last ser­vice of his mi­nor­ity by plough­ing the fif­teen-​acre lot and split­ting from the tall wal­nut trees of the primeval for­est enough rails to sur­round the lit­tle clear­ing with a fence. Such was the mea­gre out­fit of this com­ing lead­er of men, at the age when the fu­ture British Prime Min­is­ter or states­man emerges from the uni­ver­si­ty as a dou­ble first or se­nior wran­gler, with ev­ery ad­van­tage that high train­ing and broad cul­ture and as­so­ci­ation with the wis­est and the best of men and wom­en can give, and en­ters up­on some form of pub­lic ser­vice on the road to use­ful­ness and hon­or, the Uni­ver­si­ty course be­ing on­ly the first stage of the pub­lic train­ing. So Lin­coln, at twen­ty-​one, had just be­gun his prepa­ra­tion for the pub­lic life to which he soon be­gan to as­pire. For some years yet he must con­tin­ue to earn his dai­ly bread by the sweat of his brow, hav­ing ab­so­lute­ly no means, no home, no friend to con­sult. More farm work as a hired hand, a clerk­ship in a vil­lage store, the run­ning of a mill, an­oth­er trip to New Or­leans on a flat­boat of his own con­triv­ing, a pi­lot’s berth on the riv­er–these were the means by which he sub­sist­ed un­til, in the sum­mer of 1832, when he was twen­ty-​three years of age, an event oc­curred which gave him pub­lic recog­ni­tion.

The Black Hawk war broke out, and, the Gov­er­nor of Illi­nois call­ing for vol­un­teers to re­pel the band of sav­ages whose lead­er bore that name, Lin­coln en­list­ed and was elect­ed cap­tain by his com­rades, among whom he had al­ready es­tab­lished his suprema­cy by sig­nal feats of strength and more than one suc­cess­ful sin­gle com­bat. Dur­ing the brief hos­til­ities he was en­gaged in no bat­tle and won no mil­itary glo­ry, but his lo­cal lead­er­ship was es­tab­lished. The same year he of­fered him­self as a can­di­date for the Leg­is­la­ture of Illi­nois, but failed at the polls. Yet his vast pop­ular­ity with those who knew him was man­ifest. The dis­trict con­sist­ed of sev­er­al coun­ties, but the unan­imous vote of the peo­ple of his own coun­ty was for Lin­coln. An­oth­er un­suc­cess­ful at­tempt at store-​keep­ing was fol­lowed by bet­ter luck at sur­vey­ing, un­til his horse and in­stru­ments were levied up­on un­der ex­ecu­tion for the debts of his busi­ness ad­ven­ture.

I have been thus de­tailed in sketch­ing his ear­ly years be­cause up­on these strange foun­da­tions the struc­ture of his great fame and ser­vice was built. In the place of a school and uni­ver­si­ty train­ing for­tune sub­sti­tut­ed these tri­als, hard­ships, and strug­gles as a prepa­ra­tion for the great work which he had to do. It turned out to be ex­act­ly what the emer­gen­cy re­quired. Ten years in­stead at the pub­lic school and the uni­ver­si­ty cer­tain­ly nev­er could have fit­ted this man for the unique work which was to be thrown up­on him. Some oth­er Moses would have had to lead us to our Jor­dan, to the sight of our promised land of lib­er­ty.

At the age of twen­ty-​five he be­came a mem­ber of the Leg­is­la­ture of Illi­nois, and so con­tin­ued for eight years, and, in the mean­time, qual­ified him­self by read­ing such law books as he could bor­row at ran­dom–for he was too poor to buy any to be called to the Bar. For his sec­ond quar­ter of a cen­tu­ry–dur­ing which a sin­gle term in Congress in­tro­duced him in­to the are­na of na­tion­al ques­tions–he gave him­self up to law and pol­itics. In spite of his soar­ing am­bi­tion, his two years in Congress gave him no pre­mo­ni­tion of the great des­tiny that await­ed him,–and at its close, in 1849, we find him an un­suc­cess­ful ap­pli­cant to the Pres­ident for ap­point­ment as Com­mis­sion­er of the Gen­er­al Land Of­fice–a pure­ly ad­min­is­tra­tive bu­reau; a for­tu­nate es­cape for him­self and for his coun­try. Year by year his knowl­edge and pow­er, his ex­pe­ri­ence and rep­uta­tion ex­tend­ed, and his men­tal fac­ul­ties seemed to grow by what they fed on. His pow­er of per­sua­sion, which had al­ways been marked, was de­vel­oped to an ex­traor­di­nary de­gree, now that he be­came en­gaged in con­ge­nial ques­tions and sub­jects. Lit­tle by lit­tle he rose to promi­nence at the Bar, and be­came the most ef­fec­tive pub­lic speak­er in the West. Not that he pos­sessed any of the graces of the or­ator; but his log­ic was in­vin­ci­ble, and his clear­ness and force of state­ment im­pressed up­on his hear­ers the con­vic­tions of his hon­est mind, while his broad sym­pa­thies and sparkling and ge­nial hu­mor made him a uni­ver­sal fa­vorite as far and as fast as his ac­quain­tance ex­tend­ed.

These twen­ty years that elapsed from the time of his es­tab­lish­ment as a lawyer and leg­is­la­tor in Spring­field, the new cap­ital of Illi­nois, fur­nished a fit­ting the­atre for the de­vel­op­ment and dis­play of his great fac­ul­ties, and, with his new and en­larged op­por­tu­ni­ties, he ob­vi­ous­ly grew in men­tal stature in this sec­ond pe­ri­od of his ca­reer, as if to com­pen­sate for the ab­so­lute lack of ad­van­tages un­der which he had suf­fered in youth. As his pow­ers en­larged, his rep­uta­tion ex­tend­ed, for he was al­ways be­fore the peo­ple, felt a warm sym­pa­thy with all that con­cerned them, took a zeal­ous part in the dis­cus­sion of ev­ery pub­lic ques­tion, and made his per­son­al in­flu­ence ev­er more wide­ly and deeply felt.

My, brethren of the le­gal pro­fes­sion will nat­ural­ly ask me, how could this rough back­woods­man, whose youth had been spent in the for­est or on the farm and the flat­boat, with­out cul­ture or train­ing, ed­uca­tion or study, by the ran­dom read­ing, on the wing, of a few mis­cel­la­neous law books, be­come a learned and ac­com­plished lawyer? Well, he nev­er did. He nev­er would have earned his salt as a ‘Writ­er’ for the ‘Signet’, nor have won a place as ad­vo­cate in the Court of Ses­sion, where the tech­nique of the pro­fes­sion has reached its high­est per­fec­tion, and cen­turies of learn­ing and prece­dent are in­volved in the equip­ment of a lawyer. Dr. Holmes, when asked by an anx­ious young moth­er, “When should the ed­uca­tion of a child be­gin?” replied, “Madam, at least two cen­turies be­fore it is born!” and so I am sure it is with the Scots lawyer.

But not so in Illi­nois in 1840. Be­tween 1830 and 1880 its pop­ula­tion in­creased twen­ty-​fold, and when Lin­coln be­gan prac­tis­ing law in Spring­field in 1837, life in Illi­nois was very crude and sim­ple, and so were the courts and the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice. Books and li­braries were scarce. But the peo­ple loved jus­tice, up­held the law, and fol­lowed the courts, and soon found their fa­vorites among the ad­vo­cates. The fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of the com­mon law, as set forth by Black­stone and Chit­ty, were not so dif­fi­cult to ac­quire; and brains, com­mon sense, force of char­ac­ter, tenac­ity of pur­pose, ready wit and pow­er of speech did the rest, and sup­plied all the de­fi­cien­cies of learn­ing.

The law­suits of those days were ex­treme­ly sim­ple, and the prin­ci­ples of nat­ural jus­tice were main­ly re­lied on to dis­pose of them at the Bar and on the Bench, with­out re­sort to tech­ni­cal learn­ing. Rail­roads, cor­po­ra­tions ab­sorb­ing the chief busi­ness of the com­mu­ni­ty, com­bined and in­her­it­ed wealth, with all the sub­tle and in­tri­cate ques­tions they breed, had not yet come in– and so the pro­fes­sion­al agents and the equip­ment which they re­quire were not need­ed. But there were many high­ly ed­ucat­ed and pow­er­ful men at the Bar of Illi­nois, even in those ear­ly days, whom the spir­it of en­ter­prise had car­ried there in search of fame and for­tune. It was by con­stant con­tact and con­flict with these that Lin­coln ac­quired pro­fes­sion­al strength and skill. Ev­ery com­mu­ni­ty and ev­ery age cre­ates its own Bar, en­tire­ly ad­equate for its present us­es and ne­ces­si­ties. So in Illi­nois, as the pop­ula­tion and wealth of the State kept on dou­bling and qua­dru­pling, its Bar pre­sent­ed a grow­ing abun­dance of learn­ing and sci­ence and tech­ni­cal skill. The ear­ly prac­ti­tion­ers grew with its growth and mas­tered the req­ui­site knowl­edge. Chica­go soon grew to be one of the largest and rich­est and cer­tain­ly the most in­tense­ly ac­tive city on the con­ti­nent, and if any of my pro­fes­sion­al friends here had gone there in Lin­coln’s lat­er years, to try or ar­gue a cause, or trans­act oth­er busi­ness, with any idea that Ed­in­burgh or Lon­don had a monopoly of le­gal learn­ing, sci­ence, or sub­tle­ty, they would cer­tain­ly have found their mis­take.

In those ear­ly days in the West, ev­ery lawyer, es­pe­cial­ly ev­ery court lawyer, was nec­es­sar­ily a politi­cian, con­stant­ly en­gaged in the pub­lic dis­cus­sion of the many ques­tions evolved from the rapid de­vel­op­ment of town, coun­ty, State, and Fed­er­al af­fairs. Then and there, in this re­gard, pub­lic dis­cus­sion sup­plied the place which the uni­ver­sal ac­tiv­ity of the press has since mo­nop­olized, and the pub­lic speak­er who, by clear­ness, force, earnest­ness, and wit; could make him­self felt on the ques­tions of the day would rapid­ly come to the front. In the ab­sence of that im­mense va­ri­ety of pop­ular en­ter­tain­ments which now feed the pub­lic taste and ap­petite, the peo­ple found their chief amuse­ment in fre­quent­ing the courts and pub­lic and po­lit­ical as­sem­blies. In ei­ther place, he who im­pressed, en­ter­tained, and amused them most was the hero of the hour. They did not dis­crim­inate very care­ful­ly be­tween the elo­quence of the fo­rum and the elo­quence of the hus­tings. Hu­man na­ture ruled in both alike, and he who was the most ef­fec­tive speak­er in a po­lit­ical ha­rangue was of­ten re­tained as most like­ly to win in a cause to be tried or ar­gued. And I have no doubt in this way many re­tain­ers came to Lin­coln. Fees, mon­ey in any form, had no charms for him–in his ea­ger pur­suit of fame he could not af­ford to make mon­ey. He was am­bi­tious to dis­tin­guish him­self by some great ser­vice to mankind, and this am­bi­tion for fame and re­al pub­lic ser­vice left no room for avarice in his com­po­si­tion. How­ev­er much he earned, he seems to have end­ed ev­ery year hard­ly rich­er than he be­gan it, and yet, as the years passed, fees came to him freely. One of L 1,000 is record­ed–a very large pro­fes­sion­al fee at that time, even in any part of Amer­ica, the par­adise of lawyers. I lay great stress on Lin­coln’s ca­reer as a lawyer–much more than his bi­og­ra­phers do be­cause in Amer­ica a state of things ex­ists whol­ly dif­fer­ent from that which pre­vails in Great Britain. The pro­fes­sion of the law al­ways has been and is to this day the prin­ci­pal av­enue to pub­lic life; and I am sure that his train­ing and ex­pe­ri­ence in the courts had much to do with the de­vel­op­ment of those forces of in­tel­lect and char­ac­ter which he soon dis­played on a broad­er are­na.

It was in po­lit­ical con­tro­ver­sy, of course, that he ac­quired his wide rep­uta­tion, and made his deep and last­ing im­pres­sion up­on the peo­ple of what had now be­come the pow­er­ful State of Illi­nois, and up­on the peo­ple of the Great West, to whom the po­lit­ical pow­er and con­trol of the Unit­ed States were al­ready sure­ly and swift­ly pass­ing from the old­er East­ern States. It was this rep­uta­tion and this im­pres­sion, and the fa­mil­iar knowl­edge of his char­ac­ter which had come to them from his lo­cal lead­er­ship, that hap­pi­ly in­spired the peo­ple of the West to present him as their can­di­date, and to press him up­on the Re­pub­li­can con­ven­tion of 1860 as the fit and nec­es­sary lead­er in the strug­gle for life which was be­fore the na­tion.

That strug­gle, as you all know, arose out of the ter­ri­ble ques­tion of slav­ery–and I must trust to your gen­er­al knowl­edge of the his­to­ry of that ques­tion to make in­tel­li­gi­ble the at­ti­tude and lead­er­ship of Lin­coln as the cham­pi­on of the hosts of free­dom in the fi­nal con­test. Ne­gro slav­ery had been firm­ly es­tab­lished in the South­ern States from an ear­ly pe­ri­od of their his­to­ry. In 1619, the year be­fore the Mayflow­er land­ed our Pil­grim Fa­thers up­on Ply­mouth Rock, a Dutch ship had dis­charged a car­go of African slaves at Jamestown in Vir­ginia: All through the colo­nial pe­ri­od their im­por­ta­tion had con­tin­ued. A few had found their way in­to the North­ern States, but none of them in suf­fi­cient num­bers to con­sti­tute dan­ger or to af­ford a ba­sis for po­lit­ical pow­er. At the time of the adop­tion of the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion, there is no doubt that the prin­ci­pal mem­bers of the con­ven­tion not on­ly con­demned slav­ery as a moral, so­cial, and po­lit­ical evil, but be­lieved that by the sup­pres­sion of the slave trade it was in the course of grad­ual ex­tinc­tion in the South, as it cer­tain­ly was in the North. Wash­ing­ton, in his will, pro­vid­ed for the eman­ci­pa­tion of his own slaves, and said to Jef­fer­son that it “was among his first wish­es to see some plan adopt­ed by which slav­ery in his coun­try might be abol­ished.” Jef­fer­son said, re­fer­ring to the in­sti­tu­tion: “I trem­ble for my coun­try when I think that God is just; that His jus­tice can­not sleep for­ev­er,”–and Franklin, Adams, Hamil­ton, and Patrick Hen­ry were all ut­ter­ly op­posed to it. But it was made the sub­ject of a fa­tal com­pro­mise in the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion, where­by its ex­is­tence was rec­og­nized in the States as a ba­sis of rep­re­sen­ta­tion, the pro­hi­bi­tion of the im­por­ta­tion of slaves was post­poned for twen­ty years, and the re­turn of fugi­tive slaves pro­vid­ed for. But no im­mi­nent dan­ger was ap­pre­hend­ed from it till, by the in­ven­tion of the cot­ton gin in 1792, cot­ton cul­ture by ne­gro la­bor be­came at once and for­ev­er the lead­ing in­dus­try of the South, and gave a new im­pe­tus to the im­por­ta­tion of slaves, so that in 1808, when the con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­hi­bi­tion took ef­fect, their num­bers had vast­ly in­creased. From that time for­ward slav­ery be­came the ba­sis of a great po­lit­ical pow­er, and the South­ern States, un­der all cir­cum­stances and at ev­ery op­por­tu­ni­ty, car­ried on a brave and un­re­lent­ing strug­gle for its main­te­nance and ex­ten­sion.

The con­science of the North was slow to rise against it, though bit­ter con­tro­ver­sies from time to time took place. The South­ern lead­ers threat­ened dis­union if their de­mands were not com­plied with. To save the Union, com­pro­mise af­ter com­pro­mise was made, but each one in the end was bro­ken. The Mis­souri Com­pro­mise, made in 1820 up­on the oc­ca­sion of the ad­mis­sion of Mis­souri in­to the Union as a slave State, where­by, in con­sid­er­ation of such ad­mis­sion, slav­ery was for­ev­er ex­clud­ed from the North­west Ter­ri­to­ry, was ruth­less­ly re­pealed in 1854, by a Congress elect­ed in the in­ter­ests of the slave pow­er, the in­tent be­ing to force slav­ery in­to that vast ter­ri­to­ry which had so long been ded­icat­ed to free­dom. This chal­lenge at last aroused the slum­ber­ing con­science and pas­sion of the North, and led to the for­ma­tion of the Re­pub­li­can par­ty for the avowed pur­pose of pre­vent­ing, by con­sti­tu­tion­al meth­ods, the fur­ther ex­ten­sion of slav­ery.

In its first cam­paign, in 1856, though it failed to elect its can­di­dates; it re­ceived a sur­pris­ing vote and car­ried many of the States. No one could any longer doubt that the North had made up its mind that no threats of dis­union should de­ter it from press­ing its cher­ished pur­pose and per­form­ing its long ne­glect­ed du­ty. From the out­set, Lin­coln was one of the most ac­tive and ef­fec­tive lead­ers and speak­ers of the new par­ty, and the great de­bates be­tween Lin­coln and Dou­glas in 1858, as the re­spec­tive cham­pi­ons of the re­stric­tion and ex­ten­sion of slav­ery, at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of the whole coun­try. Lin­coln’s pow­er­ful ar­gu­ments car­ried con­vic­tion ev­ery­where. His moral na­ture was thor­ough­ly aroused his con­science was stirred to the quick. Un­less slav­ery was wrong, noth­ing was wrong. Was each man, of what­ev­er col­or, en­ti­tled to the fruits of his own la­bor, or could one man live in idle lux­ury by the sweat of an­oth­er’s brow, whose skin was dark­er? He was an im­plic­it be­liev­er in that prin­ci­ple of the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence that all men are vest­ed with cer­tain in­alien­able rights the equal rights to life, lib­er­ty, and the pur­suit of hap­pi­ness. On this doc­trine he staked his case and car­ried it. We have time on­ly for one or two sen­tences in which he struck the keynote of the con­test

“The re­al is­sue in this coun­try is the eter­nal strug­gle be­tween these two prin­ci­ples–right and wrong–through­out the world. They are the two prin­ci­ples that have stood face to face from the be­gin­ning of time, and will ev­er con­tin­ue to strug­gle. The one is the com­mon right of hu­man­ity, and the oth­er the di­vine right of kings. It is the same prin­ci­ple in what­ev­er shape it de­vel­ops it­self. It is the same spir­it that says, ‘You work and toil and earn bread and I’ll eat it.’”

He fore­saw with unerring vi­sion that the con­flict was in­evitable and ir­re­press­ible–that one or the oth­er, the right or the wrong, free­dom or slav­ery, must ul­ti­mate­ly pre­vail and whol­ly pre­vail, through­out the coun­try; and this was the prin­ci­ple that car­ried the war, once be­gun, to a fin­ish.

One sen­tence of his is im­mor­tal:

“Un­der the op­er­ation of the pol­icy of com­pro­mise, the slav­ery ag­ita­tion has not on­ly not ceased, but has con­stant­ly aug­ment­ed. In my opin­ion it will not cease un­til a cri­sis shall have been reached and passed. ‘A house di­vid­ed against it­self can­not stand.’ I be­lieve this gov­ern­ment can­not en­dure per­ma­nent­ly half slave and half free. I do not ex­pect the Union to be dis­solved. I do not ex­pect the house to fall, but I do ex­pect it will cease to be di­vid­ed. It will be­come all one thing or all the oth­er; ei­ther the op­po­nents of slav­ery will ar­rest the fur­ther spread of it, and place it where the pub­lic mind shall rest in the be­lief that it is in the course of ul­ti­mate ex­tinc­tion, or its ad­vo­cates will push it for­ward till it shall be­come alike law­ful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South.”

Dur­ing the en­tire decade from 1850 to 1860 the ag­ita­tion of the slav­ery ques­tion was at the boil­ing point, and events which have be­come his­tor­ical con­tin­ual­ly in­di­cat­ed the near ap­proach of the over­whelm­ing storm. No soon­er had the Com­pro­mise Acts of 1850 re­sult­ed in a tem­po­rary peace, which ev­ery­body said must be fi­nal and per­pet­ual, than new out­breaks came. The forcible car­ry­ing away of fugi­tive slaves by Fed­er­al troops from Boston ag­itat­ed that an­cient stronghold of free­dom to its foun­da­tions. The pub­li­ca­tion of Un­cle Tom’s Cab­in, which tru­ly ex­posed the fright­ful pos­si­bil­ities of the slave sys­tem; the reck­less at­tempts by force and fraud to es­tab­lish it in Kansas against the will of the vast ma­jor­ity of the set­tlers; the beat­ing of Sum­mer in the Sen­ate Cham­ber for words spo­ken in de­bate; the Dred Scott de­ci­sion in the Supreme Court, which made the na­tion re­al­ize that the slave pow­er had at last reached the foun­tain of Fed­er­al jus­tice; and fi­nal­ly the ex­ecu­tion of John Brown, for his wild raid in­to Vir­ginia, to in­vite the slaves to ral­ly to the stan­dard of free­dom which he un­furled:–all these events tend to il­lus­trate and con­firm Lin­coln’s con­tention that the na­tion could not per­ma­nent­ly con­tin­ue half slave and half free, but must be­come all one thing or all the oth­er. When John Brown lay un­der sen­tence of death he de­clared that now he was sure that slav­ery must be wiped out in blood; but nei­ther he nor his ex­ecu­tion­ers dreamt that with­in four years a mil­lion sol­diers would be march­ing across the coun­try for its fi­nal ex­tir­pa­tion, to the mu­sic of the war-​song of the great con­flict:

“John Brown’s body lies a-​moul­der­ing in the grave, But his soul is march­ing on.”

And now, at the age of fifty-​one, this child of the wilder­ness, this farm la­bor­er, rail-​sput­ter, flat­boat­man, this sur­vey­or, lawyer, or­ator, states­man, and pa­tri­ot, found him­self elect­ed by the great par­ty which was pledged to pre­vent at all haz­ards the fur­ther ex­ten­sion of slav­ery, as the chief mag­is­trate of the Re­pub­lic, bound to car­ry out that pur­pose, to be the lead­er and ruler of the na­tion in its most try­ing hour.

Those who be­lieve that there is a liv­ing Prov­idence that over­rules and con­ducts the af­fairs of na­tions, find in the el­eva­tion of this plain man to this ex­traor­di­nary for­tune and to this great du­ty, which he so fit­ly dis­charged, a sig­nal vin­di­ca­tion of their faith. Per­haps to this philo­soph­ical in­sti­tu­tion the judg­ment of our philoso­pher Emer­son will com­mend it­self as a just es­ti­mate of Lin­coln’s his­tor­ical place

“His oc­cu­py­ing the chair of state was a tri­umph of the good sense of mankind and of the pub­lic con­science. He grew ac­cord­ing to the need; his mind mas­tered the prob­lem of the day: and as the prob­lem grew, so did his com­pre­hen­sion of it. In the war there was no place for hol­iday mag­is­trate, nor fair-​weath­er sailor. The new pi­lot was hur­ried to the helm in a tor­na­do. In four years–four years of bat­tle days–his en­durance, his fer­til­ity of re­source, his mag­na­nim­ity, were sore­ly tried, and nev­er found want­ing. There, by his courage, his jus­tice, his even tem­per, his fer­tile coun­sel, his hu­man­ity, he stood a hero­ic fig­ure in the cen­tre of a hero­ic epoch. He is the true his­to­ry of the Amer­ican peo­ple in his time, the true rep­re­sen­ta­tive of this con­ti­nent–fa­ther of his coun­try, the pulse of twen­ty mil­lions throb­bing in his heart, the thought of their mind–ar­tic­ulat­ed in his tongue.”

He was born great, as dis­tin­guished from those who achieve great­ness or have it thrust up­on them, and his in­her­ent ca­pac­ity, men­tal, moral, and phys­ical, hav­ing been rec­og­nized by the ed­ucat­ed in­tel­li­gence of a free peo­ple, they hap­pi­ly chose him for their ruler in a day of dead­ly per­il.

It is now forty years since I first saw and heard Abra­ham Lin­coln, but the im­pres­sion which he left on my mind is in­ef­face­able. Af­ter his great suc­cess­es in the West he came to New York to make a po­lit­ical ad­dress. He ap­peared in ev­ery sense of the word like one of the plain peo­ple among whom he loved to be count­ed. At first sight there was noth­ing im­pres­sive or im­pos­ing about him–ex­cept that his great stature sin­gled him out from the crowd: his clothes hung awk­ward­ly on his gi­ant frame; his face was of a dark pal­lor, with­out the slight­est tinge of col­or; his seamed and rugged fea­tures bore the fur­rows of hard­ship and strug­gle; his deep-​set eyes looked sad and anx­ious; his coun­te­nance in re­pose gave lit­tle ev­idence of that brain pow­er which had raised him from the low­est to the high­est sta­tion among his coun­try­men; as he talked to me be­fore the meet­ing, he seemed ill at ease, with that sort of ap­pre­hen­sion which a young man might feel be­fore pre­sent­ing him­self to a new and strange au­di­ence, whose crit­ical dis­po­si­tion he dread­ed. It was a great au­di­ence, in­clud­ing all the not­ed men–all the learned and cul­tured of his par­ty in New York ed­itors, cler­gy­men, states­men, lawyers, mer­chants, crit­ics. They were all very cu­ri­ous to hear him. His fame as a pow­er­ful speak­er had pre­ced­ed him, and ex­ag­ger­at­ed ru­mor of his wit–the worst fore­run­ner of an or­ator– had reached the East. When Mr. Bryant pre­sent­ed him, on the high plat­form of the Coop­er In­sti­tute, a vast sea of ea­ger up­turned faces greet­ed him, full of in­tense cu­rios­ity to see what this rude child of the peo­ple was like. He was equal to the oc­ca­sion. When he spoke he was trans­formed; his eye kin­dled, his voice rang, his face shone and seemed to light up the whole as­sem­bly. For an hour and a half he held his au­di­ence in the hol­low of his hand. His style of speech and man­ner of de­liv­ery were severe­ly sim­ple. What Low­ell called “the grand sim­plic­ities of the Bible,” with which he was so fa­mil­iar, were re­flect­ed in his dis­course. With no at­tempt at or­na­ment or rhetoric, with­out pa­rade or pre­tence, he spoke straight to the point. If any came ex­pect­ing the turgid elo­quence or the rib­aldry of the fron­tier, they must have been star­tled at the earnest and sin­cere pu­ri­ty of his ut­ter­ances. It was mar­vel­lous to see how this un­tu­tored man, by mere self-​dis­ci­pline and the chas­ten­ing of his own spir­it, had out­grown all mere­tri­cious arts, and found his own way to the grandeur and strength of ab­so­lute sim­plic­ity.

He spoke up­on the theme which he had mas­tered so thor­ough­ly. He demon­strat­ed by co­pi­ous his­tor­ical proofs and mas­ter­ly log­ic that the fa­thers who cre­at­ed the Con­sti­tu­tion in or­der to form a more per­fect union, to es­tab­lish jus­tice, and to se­cure the bless­ings of lib­er­ty to them­selves and their pos­ter­ity, in­tend­ed to em­pow­er the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment to ex­clude slav­ery from the Ter­ri­to­ries. In the kindli­est spir­it he protest­ed against the avowed threat of the South­ern States to de­stroy the Union if, in or­der to se­cure free­dom in those vast re­gions out of which fu­ture States were to be carved, a Re­pub­li­can Pres­ident were elect­ed. He closed with an ap­peal to his au­di­ence, spo­ken with all the fire of his aroused and kin­dling con­science, with a full out­pour­ing of his love of jus­tice and lib­er­ty, to main­tain their po­lit­ical pur­pose on that lofty and unas­sail­able is­sue of right and wrong which alone could jus­ti­fy it, and not to be in­tim­idat­ed from their high re­solve and sa­cred du­ty by any threats of de­struc­tion to the gov­ern­ment or of ru­in to them­selves. He con­clud­ed with this telling sen­tence, which drove the whole ar­gu­ment home to all our hearts: “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our du­ty as we un­der­stand it.” That night the great hall, and the next day the whole city, rang with de­light­ed ap­plause and con­grat­ula­tions, and he who had come as a stranger de­part­ed with the lau­rels of great tri­umph.

Alas! in five years from that ex­ult­ing night I saw him again, for the last time, in the same city, borne in his cof­fin through its draped streets. With tears and lamen­ta­tions a heart-​bro­ken peo­ple ac­com­pa­nied him from Wash­ing­ton, the scene of his mar­tyr­dom, to his last rest­ing-​place in the young city of the West where he had worked his way to fame.

Nev­er was a new ruler in a more des­per­ate plight than Lin­coln when he en­tered of­fice on the fourth of March, 1861, four months af­ter his elec­tion, and took his oath to sup­port the Con­sti­tu­tion and the Union. The in­ter­ven­ing time had been busi­ly em­ployed by the South­ern States in car­ry­ing out their threat of dis­union in the event of his elec­tion. As soon as the fact was as­cer­tained, sev­en of them had se­ced­ed and had seized up­on the forts, ar­se­nals, navy yards, and oth­er pub­lic prop­er­ty of the Unit­ed States with­in their bound­aries, and were mak­ing ev­ery prepa­ra­tion for war. In the mean­time the re­tir­ing Pres­ident, who had been elect­ed by the slave pow­er, and who thought the se­ced­ing States could not law­ful­ly be co­erced, had done ab­so­lute­ly noth­ing. Lin­coln found him­self, by the Con­sti­tu­tion, Com­man­der-​in-​Chief of the Army and Navy of the Unit­ed States, but with on­ly a rem­nant of ei­ther at hand. Each was to be cre­at­ed on a great scale out of the un­known re­sources of a na­tion un­tried in war.

In his mild and con­cil­ia­to­ry in­au­gu­ral ad­dress, while ap­peal­ing to the se­ced­ing States to re­turn to their al­le­giance, he avowed his pur­pose to keep the solemn oath he had tak­en that day, to see that the laws of the Union were faith­ful­ly ex­ecut­ed, and to use the troops to re­cov­er the forts, navy yards, and oth­er prop­er­ty be­long­ing to the gov­ern­ment. It is prob­able, how­ev­er, that nei­ther side ac­tu­al­ly re­al­ized that war was in­evitable, and that the oth­er was de­ter­mined to fight, un­til the as­sault on Fort Sumter pre­sent­ed the South as the first ag­gres­sor and roused the North to use ev­ery pos­si­ble re­source to main­tain the gov­ern­ment and the im­per­illed Union, and to vin­di­cate the suprema­cy of the flag over ev­ery inch of the ter­ri­to­ry of the Unit­ed States. The fact that Lin­coln’s first procla­ma­tion called for on­ly 75,000 troops, to serve for three months, shows how in­ad­equate was even his idea of what the fu­ture had in store. But from that mo­ment Lin­coln and his loy­al sup­port­ers nev­er fal­tered in their pur­pose. They knew they could win, that it was their du­ty to win, and that for Amer­ica the whole hope of the fu­ture de­pend­ed up­on their win­ning; for now by the acts of the se­ced­ing States the is­sue of the elec­tion to se­cure or pre­vent the ex­ten­sion of slav­ery–stood trans­formed in­to a strug­gle to pre­serve or to de­stroy the Union.

We can­not fol­low this con­test. You know its gi­gan­tic pro­por­tions; that it last­ed four years in­stead of three months; that in its progress, in­stead of 75,000 men, more than 2,000,000 were en­rolled on the side of the gov­ern­ment alone; that the ag­gre­gate cost and loss to the na­tion ap­prox­imat­ed to 1,000,000,000 pounds ster­ling, and that not less than 300,000 brave and pre­cious lives were sac­ri­ficed on each side. His­to­ry has record­ed how Lin­coln bore him­self dur­ing these four fright­ful years; that he was the re­al Pres­ident, the re­spon­si­ble and ac­tu­al head of the gov­ern­ment, through it all; that he lis­tened to all ad­vice, heard all par­ties, and then, al­ways re­al­iz­ing his re­spon­si­bil­ity to God and the na­tion, de­cid­ed ev­ery great ex­ec­utive ques­tion for him­self. His ab­so­lute hon­esty had be­come prover­bial long be­fore he was Pres­ident. “Hon­est Abe Lin­coln” was the name by which he had been known for years. His ev­ery act at­test­ed it.

In all the grandeur of the vast pow­er that he wield­ed, he nev­er ceased to be one of the plain peo­ple, as he al­ways called them, nev­er lost or im­paired his per­fect sym­pa­thy with them, was al­ways in per­fect touch with them and open to their ap­peals; and here lay the very se­cret of his per­son­al­ity and of his pow­er, for the peo­ple in turn gave him their ab­so­lute con­fi­dence. His courage, his for­ti­tude, his pa­tience, his hope­ful­ness, were sore­ly tried but nev­er ex­haust­ed.

He was true as steel to his gen­er­als, but had fre­quent oc­ca­sion to change them, as he found them in­ad­equate. This se­ri­ous and painful du­ty rest­ed whol­ly up­on him, and was per­haps his most im­por­tant func­tion as Com­man­der-​in-​Chief; but when, at last, he rec­og­nized in Gen­er­al Grant the mas­ter of the sit­ua­tion, the man who could and would bring the war to a tri­umphant end, he gave it all over to him and up­held him with all his might. Amid all the pres­sure and dis­tress that the bur­dens of of­fice brought up­on him, his un­fail­ing sense of hu­mor saved him; prob­ably it made it pos­si­ble for him to live un­der the bur­den. He had al­ways been the great sto­ry-​teller of the West, and he used and cul­ti­vat­ed this fac­ul­ty to re­lieve the weight of the load he bore.

It en­abled him to keep the won­der­ful record of nev­er hav­ing lost his tem­per, no mat­ter what agony he had to bear. A whole night might be spent in re­count­ing the sto­ries of his wit, hu­mor, and harm­less sar­casm. But I will re­call on­ly two of his say­ings, both about Gen­er­al Grant, who al­ways found plen­ty of en­emies and crit­ics to urge the Pres­ident to oust him from his com­mand. One, I am sure, will in­ter­est all Scotch­men. They re­peat­ed with ma­li­cious in­tent the gos­sip that Grant drank. “What does he drink?” asked Lin­coln. “Whiskey,” was, of course, the an­swer; doubt­less you can guess the brand. “Well,” said the Pres­ident, “just find out what par­tic­ular kind he us­es and I’ll send a bar­rel to each of my oth­er gen­er­als.” The oth­er must be as pleas­ing to the British as to the Amer­ican ear. When pressed again on oth­er grounds to get rid of Grant, he de­clared, “I can’t spare that man, he fights!”

He was ten­der-​heart­ed to a fault, and nev­er could re­sist the ap­peals of wives and moth­ers of sol­diers who had got in­to trou­ble and were un­der sen­tence of death for their of­fences. His Sec­re­tary of War and oth­er of­fi­cials com­plained that they nev­er could get de­sert­ers shot. As sure­ly as the wom­en of the cul­prit’s fam­ily could get at him he al­ways gave way. Cer­tain­ly you will all ap­pre­ci­ate his exquisite sym­pa­thy with the suf­fer­ing rel­atives of those who had fall­en in bat­tle. His heart bled with theirs. Nev­er was there a more gen­tle and ten­der ut­ter­ance than his let­ter to a moth­er who had giv­en all her sons to her coun­try, writ­ten at a time when the an­gel of death had vis­it­ed al­most ev­ery house­hold in the land, and was al­ready hov­er­ing over him.

“I have been shown,” he says, “in the files of the War De­part­ment a state­ment that you are the moth­er of five sons who have died glo­ri­ous­ly on the field of bat­tle. I feel how weak and fruit­less must be any words of mine which should at­tempt to be­guile you from your grief for a loss so over­whelm­ing but I can­not re­frain from ten­der­ing to you the con­so­la­tion which may be found in the thanks of the Re­pub­lic they died to save. I pray that our Heav­en­ly Fa­ther may as­suage the an­guish of your be­reave­ment and leave you on­ly the cher­ished mem­ory of the loved and the lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so cost­ly a sac­ri­fice up­on the al­tar of free­dom.”

Hard­ly could your il­lus­tri­ous sovereign, from the depths of her queen­ly and wom­an­ly heart, have spo­ken words more touch­ing and ten­der to soothe the strick­en moth­ers of her own sol­diers.

The Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion, with which Mr. Lin­coln de­light­ed the coun­try and the world on the first of Jan­uary, 1863, will doubt­less se­cure for him a fore­most place in his­to­ry among the phi­lan­thropists and bene­fac­tors of the race, as it res­cued, from hope­less and de­grad­ing slav­ery, so many mil­lions of his fel­low- be­ings de­scribed in the law and ex­ist­ing in fact as “chat­tels- per­son­al, in the hands of their own­ers and pos­ses­sors, to all in­tents, con­struc­tions, and pur­pos­es what­so­ev­er.” Rarely does the hap­py for­tune come to one man to ren­der such a ser­vice to his kind–to pro­claim lib­er­ty through­out the land un­to all the in­hab­itants there­of.

Ideas rule the world, and nev­er was there a more sig­nal in­stance of this tri­umph of an idea than here. William Lloyd Gar­ri­son, who thir­ty years be­fore had be­gun his cru­sade for the abo­li­tion of slav­ery, and had lived to see this glo­ri­ous and un­ex­pect­ed con­sum­ma­tion of the hope­less cause to which he had de­vot­ed his life, well de­scribed the procla­ma­tion as a “great his­toric event, sub­lime in its mag­ni­tude, mo­men­tous and benef­icent in its far- reach­ing con­se­quences, and em­inent­ly just and right alike to the op­pres­sor and the op­pressed.”

Lin­coln had al­ways been heart and soul op­posed to slav­ery. Tra­di­tion says that on the trip on the flat­boat to New Or­leans he formed his first and last opin­ion of slav­ery at the sight of ne­groes chained and scourged, and that then and there the iron en­tered in­to his soul. No boy could grow to man­hood in those days as a poor white in Ken­tucky and In­di­ana, in close con­tact with slav­ery or in its neigh­bor­hood, with­out a grow­ing con­scious­ness of its blight­ing ef­fects on free la­bor, as well as of its fright­ful in­jus­tice and cru­el­ty. In the Leg­is­la­ture of Illi­nois, where the pub­lic sen­ti­ment was all for up­hold­ing the in­sti­tu­tion and vi­olent­ly against ev­ery move­ment for its abo­li­tion or re­stric­tion, up­on the pas­sage of res­olu­tions to that ef­fect he had the courage with one com­pan­ion to put on record his protest, “be­liev­ing that the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery is found­ed both in in­jus­tice and bad pol­icy.” No great demon­stra­tion of courage, you will say; but that was at a time when Gar­ri­son, for his abo­li­tion ut­ter­ances, had been dragged by an an­gry mob through the streets of Boston with a rope around his body, and in the very year that Love­joy in the same State of Illi­nois was slain by ri­ot­ers while de­fend­ing his press, from which he had print­ed an­ti­slav­ery ap­peals.

In Congress he brought in a bill for grad­ual abo­li­tion in the Dis­trict of Columbia, with com­pen­sa­tion to the own­ers, for un­til they raised trea­son­able hands against the life of the na­tion he al­ways main­tained that the prop­er­ty of the slave­hold­ers, in­to which they had come by two cen­turies of de­scent, with­out fault on their part, ought not to be tak­en away from them with­out just com­pen­sa­tion. He used to say that, one way or an­oth­er, he had vot­ed forty-​two times for the Wilmot Pro­vi­so, which Mr. Wilmot of Penn­syl­va­nia moved as an ad­di­tion to ev­ery bill which af­fect­ed Unit­ed States ter­ri­to­ry, “that nei­ther slav­ery nor in­vol­un­tary servi­tude shall ev­er ex­ist in any part of the said ter­ri­to­ry,” and it is ev­ident that his con­dem­na­tion of the sys­tem, on moral grounds as a crime against the hu­man race, and on po­lit­ical grounds as a can­cer that was sap­ping the vi­tals of the na­tion, and must mas­ter its whole be­ing or be it­self ex­tir­pat­ed, grew steadi­ly up­on him un­til it cul­mi­nat­ed in his great speech­es in the Illi­nois de­bate.

By the mere elec­tion of Lin­coln to the Pres­iden­cy, the fur­ther ex­ten­sion of slav­ery in­to the Ter­ri­to­ries was ren­dered for­ev­er im­pos­si­ble–Vox pop­uli, vox Dei. Rev­olu­tions nev­er go back­ward, and when found­ed on a great moral sen­ti­ment stir­ring the heart of an in­dig­nant peo­ple their edicts are ir­re­sistible and fi­nal. Had the slave pow­er ac­qui­esced in that elec­tion, had the South­ern States re­mained un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion and with­in the Union, and re­lied up­on their con­sti­tu­tion­al and le­gal rights, their fa­vorite in­sti­tu­tion, im­moral as it was, blight­ing and fa­tal as it was, might have en­dured for an­oth­er cen­tu­ry. The great par­ty that had elect­ed him, un­al­ter­ably de­ter­mined against its ex­ten­sion, was nev­er­the­less pledged not to in­ter­fere with its con­tin­uance in the States where it al­ready ex­ist­ed. Of course, when new re­gions were for­ev­er closed against it, from its very na­ture it must have be­gun to shrink and to dwin­dle; and prob­ably grad­ual and com­pen­sat­ed eman­ci­pa­tion, which ap­pealed very strong­ly to the new Pres­ident’s sense of jus­tice and ex­pe­di­en­cy, would, in the progress of time, by a re­ver­sion to the ideas of the founders of the Re­pub­lic, have found a safe out­let for both mas­ters and slaves. But whom the gods wish to de­stroy they first make mad, and when sev­en States, af­ter­wards in­creased to eleven, open­ly se­ced­ed from the Union, when they de­clared and be­gan the war up­on the na­tion, and chal­lenged its mighty pow­er to the des­per­ate and pro­tract­ed strug­gle for its life, and for the main­te­nance of its au­thor­ity as a na­tion over its ter­ri­to­ry, they gave to Lin­coln and to free­dom the sub­lime op­por­tu­ni­ty of his­to­ry.

In his first in­au­gu­ral ad­dress, when as yet not a drop of pre­cious blood had been shed, while he held out to them the olive branch in one hand, in the oth­er he pre­sent­ed the guar­an­tees of the Con­sti­tu­tion, and af­ter recit­ing the em­phat­ic res­olu­tion of the con­ven­tion that nom­inat­ed him, that the main­te­nance in­vi­olate of the “rights of the States, and es­pe­cial­ly the right of each State to or­der and con­trol its own do­mes­tic in­sti­tu­tions ac­cord­ing to its own judg­ment ex­clu­sive­ly, is es­sen­tial to that bal­ance of pow­er on which the per­fec­tion and en­durance of our po­lit­ical fab­ric de­pend,” he re­it­er­at­ed this sen­ti­ment, and de­clared, with no men­tal reser­va­tion, “that all the pro­tec­tion which, con­sis­tent­ly with the Con­sti­tu­tion and the laws, can be giv­en, will be cheer­ful­ly giv­en to all the States when law­ful­ly de­mand­ed for what­ev­er cause as cheer­ful­ly to one sec­tion as to an­oth­er.”

When, how­ev­er, these mag­nan­imous over­tures for peace and re­union were re­ject­ed; when the se­ced­ing States de­fied the Con­sti­tu­tion and ev­ery clause and prin­ci­ple of it; when they per­sist­ed in stay­ing out of the Union from which they had se­ced­ed, and pro­ceed­ed to carve out of its ter­ri­to­ry a new and hos­tile em­pire based on slav­ery; when they flew at the throat of the na­tion and plunged it in­to the blood­iest war of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry the ta­bles were turned, and the be­lief grad­ual­ly came to the mind of the Pres­ident that if the Re­bel­lion was not soon sub­dued by force of arms, if the war must be fought out to the bit­ter end, then to reach that end the sal­va­tion of the na­tion it­self might re­quire the de­struc­tion of slav­ery wher­ev­er it ex­ist­ed; that if the war was to con­tin­ue on one side for Dis­union, for no oth­er pur­pose than to pre­serve slav­ery, it must con­tin­ue on the oth­er side for the Union, to de­stroy slav­ery.

As he said, “Events con­trol me; I can­not con­trol events,” and as the dread­ful war pro­gressed and be­came more dead­ly and dan­ger­ous, the un­al­ter­able con­vic­tion was forced up­on him that, in or­der that the fright­ful sac­ri­fice of life and trea­sure on both sides might not be all in vain, it had be­come his du­ty as Com­man­der-​in- Chief of the Army, as a nec­es­sary war mea­sure, to strike a blow at the Re­bel­lion which, all oth­ers fail­ing, would in­evitably lead to its an­ni­hi­la­tion, by an­ni­hi­lat­ing the very thing for which it was con­tend­ing. His own words are the best:

“I un­der­stood that my oath to pre­serve the Con­sti­tu­tion to the best of my abil­ity im­posed up­on me the du­ty of pre­serv­ing by ev­ery in­dis­pens­able means that gov­ern­ment–that na­tion–of which that Con­sti­tu­tion was the or­gan­ic law. Was it pos­si­ble to lose the na­tion and yet pre­serve the Con­sti­tu­tion? By gen­er­al law, life and limb must be pro­tect­ed, yet of­ten a limb must be am­pu­tat­ed to save a life; but a life is nev­er wise­ly giv­en to save a limb. I felt that mea­sures oth­er­wise un­con­sti­tu­tion­al might be­come law­ful by be­com­ing in­dis­pens­able to the preser­va­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion through the preser­va­tion of the na­tion. Right or wrong, I as­sumed this ground and now avow it. I could not feel that to the best of my abil­ity I had ev­er tried to pre­serve the Con­sti­tu­tion if to save slav­ery or any mi­nor mat­ter I should per­mit the wreck of gov­ern­ment, coun­try, and Con­sti­tu­tion all to­geth­er.”

And so, at last, when in his judg­ment the in­dis­pens­able ne­ces­si­ty had come, he struck the fa­tal blow, and signed the procla­ma­tion which has made his name im­mor­tal. By it, the Pres­ident, as Com­man­der-​in-​Chief in time of ac­tu­al armed re­bel­lion, and as a fit and nec­es­sary war mea­sure for sup­press­ing the re­bel­lion, pro­claimed all per­sons held as slaves in the States and parts of States then in re­bel­lion to be thence­for­ward free, and de­clared that the ex­ec­utive, with the army and navy, would rec­og­nize and main­tain their free­dom.

In the oth­er great steps of the gov­ern­ment, which led to the tri­umphant pros­ecu­tion of the war, he nec­es­sar­ily shared the re­spon­si­bil­ity and the cred­it with the great states­men who stayed up his hands in his cab­inet, with Se­ward, Chase and Stan­ton, and the rest,–and with his gen­er­als and ad­mi­rals, his sol­diers and sailors, but this great act was ab­so­lute­ly his own. The con­cep­tion and ex­ecu­tion were ex­clu­sive­ly his. He laid it be­fore his cab­inet as a mea­sure on which his mind was made up and could not be changed, ask­ing them on­ly for sug­ges­tions as to de­tails. He chose the time and the cir­cum­stances un­der which the Eman­ci­pa­tion should be pro­claimed and when it should take ef­fect.

It came not an hour too soon; but pub­lic opin­ion in the North would not have sus­tained it ear­li­er. In the first eigh­teen months of the war its rav­ages had ex­tend­ed from the At­lantic to be­yond the Mis­sis­sip­pi. Many vic­to­ries in the West had been bal­anced and par­alyzed by in­ac­tion and dis­as­ters in Vir­ginia, on­ly par­tial­ly re­deemed by the bloody and in­de­ci­sive bat­tle of Anti­etam; a re­ac­tion had set in from the gen­er­al en­thu­si­asm which had swept the North­ern States af­ter the as­sault up­on Sumter. It could not tru­ly be said that they had lost heart, but fac­tion was rais­ing its head. Heard through the land like the blast of a bu­gle, the procla­ma­tion ral­lied the pa­tri­otism of the coun­try to fresh sac­ri­fices and re­newed ar­dor. It was a step that could not be re­voked. It re­lieved the con­science of the na­tion from an in­cubus that had op­pressed it from its birth. The Unit­ed States were res­cued from the false predica­ment in which they had been from the be­gin­ning, and the great pop­ular heart leaped with new en­thu­si­asm for “Lib­er­ty and Union, hence­forth and for­ev­er, one and in­sep­ara­ble.” It brought not on­ly moral but ma­te­ri­al sup­port to the cause of the gov­ern­ment, for with­in two years 120,000 col­ored troops were en­list­ed in the mil­itary ser­vice and fol­low­ing the na­tion­al flag, sup­port­ed by all the loy­al­ty of the North, and led by its choic­est spir­its. One moth­er said, when her son was of­fered the com­mand of the first col­ored reg­iment, “If he ac­cepts it I shall be as proud as if I had heard that he was shot.” He was shot head­ing a gal­lant charge of his reg­iment…. The Con­fed­er­ates replied to a re­quest of his friends for his body that they had “buried him un­der a lay­er of his nig­gers….;” but that moth­er has lived to en­joy thir­ty-​six years of his glo­ry, and Boston has erect­ed its no­blest mon­ument to his mem­ory.

The ef­fect of the procla­ma­tion up­on the ac­tu­al progress of the war was not im­me­di­ate, but wher­ev­er the Fed­er­al armies ad­vanced they car­ried free­dom with them, and when the sum­mer came round the new spir­it and force which had an­imat­ed the heart of the gov­ern­ment and peo­ple were man­ifest. In the first week of Ju­ly the de­ci­sive bat­tle of Get­tys­burg turned the tide of war, and the fall of Vicks­burg made the great riv­er free from its source to the Gulf.

On for­eign na­tions the in­flu­ence of the procla­ma­tion and of these new vic­to­ries was of great im­por­tance. In those days, when there was no ca­ble, it was not easy for for­eign ob­servers to ap­pre­ci­ate what was re­al­ly go­ing on; they could not see clear­ly the true state of af­fairs, as in the last year of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry we have been able, by our new elec­tric vi­sion, to watch ev­ery event at the an­tipodes and ob­serve its ef­fect. The Rebel emis­saries, sent over to so­lic­it in­ter­ven­tion, spared no pains to im­press up­on the minds of pub­lic and pri­vate men and up­on the press their own views of the char­ac­ter of the con­test. The prospects of the Con­fed­er­acy were al­ways bet­ter abroad than at home. The stock mar­kets of the world gam­bled up­on its chances, and its bonds at one time were high in fa­vor.

Such ideas as these were se­ri­ous­ly held: that the North was fight­ing for em­pire and the South for in­de­pen­dence; that the South­ern States, in­stead of be­ing the gross­est oli­garchies, es­sen­tial­ly despo­tisms, found­ed on the right of one man to ap­pro­pri­ate the fruit of oth­er men’s toil and to ex­clude them from equal rights, were re­al re­publics, fee­bler to be sure than their North­ern ri­vals, but rep­re­sent­ing the same idea of free­dom, and that the mighty strength of the na­tion was be­ing put forth to crush them; that Jef­fer­son Davis and the South­ern lead­ers had cre­at­ed a na­tion; that the re­pub­li­can ex­per­iment had failed and the Union had ceased to ex­ist. But the crown­ing ar­gu­ment to for­eign minds was that it was an ut­ter im­pos­si­bil­ity for the gov­ern­ment to win in the con­test; that the suc­cess of the South­ern States, so far as sep­ara­tion was con­cerned, was as cer­tain as any event yet fu­ture and con­tin­gent could be; that the sub­ju­ga­tion of the South by the North, even if it could be ac­com­plished, would prove a calami­ty to the Unit­ed States and the world, and es­pe­cial­ly calami­tous to the ne­gro race; and that such a vic­to­ry would nec­es­sar­ily leave the peo­ple of the South for many gen­er­ations cher­ish­ing dead­ly hos­til­ity against the gov­ern­ment and the North, and plot­ting al­ways to re­cov­er their in­de­pen­dence.

When Lin­coln is­sued his procla­ma­tion he knew that all these ideas were found­ed in er­ror; that the na­tion­al re­sources were in­ex­haustible; that the gov­ern­ment could and would win, and that if slav­ery were once fi­nal­ly dis­posed of, the on­ly cause of dif­fer­ence be­ing out of the way, the North and South would come to­geth­er again, and by and by be as good friends as ev­er. In many quar­ters abroad the procla­ma­tion was wel­comed with en­thu­si­asm by the friends of Amer­ica; but I think the demon­stra­tions in its fa­vor that brought more glad­ness to Lin­coln’s heart than any oth­er were the meet­ings held in the man­ufac­tur­ing cen­tres, by the very op­er­atives up­on whom the war bore the hard­est, ex­press­ing the most en­thu­si­as­tic sym­pa­thy with the procla­ma­tion, while they bore with hero­ic for­ti­tude the grievous pri­va­tions which the war en­tailed up­on them. Mr. Lin­coln’s ex­pec­ta­tion when he an­nounced to the world that all slaves in all States then in re­bel­lion were set free must have been that the avowed po­si­tion of his gov­ern­ment, that the con­tin­uance of the war now meant the an­ni­hi­la­tion of slav­ery, would make in­ter­ven­tion im­pos­si­ble for any for­eign na­tion whose peo­ple were lovers of lib­er­ty–and so the re­sult proved.

The growth and de­vel­op­ment of Lin­coln’s men­tal pow­er and moral force, of his in­tense and mag­net­ic per­son­al­ity, af­ter the vast re­spon­si­bil­ities of gov­ern­ment were thrown up­on him at the age of fifty-​two, fur­nish a rare and strik­ing il­lus­tra­tion of the mar­vel­lous ca­pac­ity and adapt­abil­ity of the hu­man in­tel­lect–of the sound mind in the sound body. He came to the dis­charge of the great du­ties of the Pres­iden­cy with ab­so­lute­ly no ex­pe­ri­ence in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of gov­ern­ment, or of the vast­ly var­ied and com­pli­cat­ed ques­tions of for­eign and do­mes­tic pol­icy which im­me­di­ate­ly arose, and con­tin­ued to press up­on him dur­ing the rest of his life; but he mas­tered each as it came, ap­par­ent­ly with the fa­cil­ity of a trained and ex­pe­ri­enced ruler. As Claren­don said of Cromwell, “His parts seemed to be raised by the de­mands of great sta­tion.” His life through it all was one of in­tense la­bor, anx­iety, and dis­tress, with­out one hour of peace­ful re­pose from first to last. But he rose to ev­ery oc­ca­sion. He led pub­lic opin­ion, but did not march so far in ad­vance of it as to fail of its ef­fec­tive sup­port in ev­ery great emer­gen­cy. He knew the heart and thought of the peo­ple, as no man not in con­stant and ab­so­lute sym­pa­thy with them could have known it, and so hold­ing their con­fi­dence, he tri­umphed through and with them. Not on­ly was there this steady growth of in­tel­lect, but the in­fi­nite del­ica­cy of his na­ture and its ca­pac­ity for re­fine­ment de­vel­oped al­so, as ex­hib­it­ed in the pu­ri­ty and per­fec­tion of his lan­guage and style of speech. The rough back­woods­man, who had nev­er seen the in­side of a uni­ver­si­ty, be­came in the end, by self-​train­ing and the ex­er­cise of his own pow­ers of mind, heart, and soul, a mas­ter of style, and some of his ut­ter­ances will rank with the best, the most per­fect­ly adapt­ed to the oc­ca­sion which pro­duced them.

Have you time to lis­ten to his two-​min­utes speech at Get­tys­burg, at the ded­ica­tion of the Sol­diers’ Ceme­tery? His whole soul was in it:

“Four score and sev­en years ago our fa­thers brought forth on this con­ti­nent a new na­tion, con­ceived in lib­er­ty and ded­icat­ed to the propo­si­tion that all men are cre­at­ed equal. Now we are en­gaged in a great civ­il war, test­ing whether that na­tion, or any na­tion so con­ceived and so ded­icat­ed, can long en­dure. We are met on a great bat­tle­field of that war. We have come to ded­icate a por­tion of that field as a fi­nal rest­ing-​place for those who here gave their lives that that na­tion might live. It is al­to­geth­er fit­ting and prop­er that we should do this. But in a larg­er sense we can­not ded­icate–we can­not con­se­crate–we can­not hal­low this ground. The brave men, liv­ing and dead, who strug­gled here have con­se­crat­ed it far above our poor pow­er to add or de­tract. The world will lit­tle note, nor long re­mem­ber, what we say here but it can nev­er for­get what they did here. It is for us, the liv­ing, rather, to be ded­icat­ed here to the un­fin­ished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly ad­vanced. It is rather for us to be here ded­icat­ed to the great task re­main­ing be­fore us that from these hon­ored dead we take in­creased de­vo­tion to that cause for which they gave the last full mea­sure of de­vo­tion–that we here high­ly re­solve that these dead shall not have died in vain–that this na­tion un­der God shall have a new birth of free­dom–and that gov­ern­ment of the peo­ple, by the peo­ple, and for the peo­ple shall not per­ish from the earth.”

He lived to see his work in­dorsed by an over­whelm­ing ma­jor­ity of his coun­try­men. In his sec­ond in­au­gu­ral ad­dress, pro­nounced just forty days be­fore his death, there is a sin­gle pas­sage which well dis­plays his in­domitable will and at the same time his deep re­li­gious feel­ing, his sub­lime char­ity to the en­emies of his coun­try, and his broad and catholic hu­man­ity:

“If we shall sup­pose that Amer­ican slav­ery is one of those of­fences which in the Prov­idence of God must needs come, but which, hav­ing con­tin­ued through the ap­point­ed time, He now wills to re­move, and that He gives to both North and South this ter­ri­ble war, as the woe due to those by whom the of­fence came, shall we dis­cern there­in any de­par­ture from those di­vine at­tributes which the be­liev­ers in a liv­ing God al­ways as­cribe to Him? Fond­ly do we hope, fer­vent­ly do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speed­ily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it con­tin­ue un­til all the wealth piled by the bonds­men’s two hun­dred and fifty years of un­re­quit­ed toil shall be sunk, and un­til ev­ery drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid with an­oth­er drawn by the sword, as was said three thou­sand years ago, so still it must be said, ‘the judg­ments of the Lord are true and righ­teous al­to­geth­er.’

“With mal­ice to­ward none, with char­ity for all, with firm­ness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to fin­ish the work we are in to bind up the na­tion’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the bat­tle and for his wid­ow and his or­phan to do all which may achieve, and cher­ish a just and last­ing peace among our­selves, and with all na­tions.”

His prayer was an­swered. The forty days of life that re­mained to him were crowned with great his­toric events. He lived to see his Procla­ma­tion of Eman­ci­pa­tion em­bod­ied in an amend­ment of the Con­sti­tu­tion, adopt­ed by Congress, and sub­mit­ted to the States for rat­ifi­ca­tion. The mighty scourge of war did speed­ily pass away, for it was giv­en him to wit­ness the sur­ren­der of the Rebel army and the fall of their cap­ital, and the star­ry flag that he loved wav­ing in tri­umph over the na­tion­al soil. When he died by the mad­man’s hand in the supreme hour of vic­to­ry, the van­quished lost their best friend, and the hu­man race one of its no­blest ex­am­ples; and all the friends of free­dom and jus­tice, in whose cause he lived and died, joined hands as mourn­ers at his grave.

THE WRIT­INGS OF ABRA­HAM LIN­COLN

1832-1843

1832

AD­DRESS TO THE PEO­PLE OF SANG­AMON COUN­TY.

March 9, 1832.

FEL­LOW CIT­IZENS:–Hav­ing be­come a can­di­date for the hon­or­able of­fice of one of your Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the next Gen­er­al As­sem­bly of this State, in ac­cord­ing with an es­tab­lished cus­tom and the prin­ci­ples of true Re­pub­li­can­ism it be­comes my du­ty to make known to you, the peo­ple whom I pro­pose to rep­re­sent, my sen­ti­ments with re­gard to lo­cal af­fairs.

Time and ex­pe­ri­ence have ver­ified to a demon­stra­tion the pub­lic util­ity of in­ter­nal im­prove­ments. That the poor­est and most thin­ly pop­ulat­ed coun­tries would be great­ly ben­efit­ed by the open­ing of good roads, and in the clear­ing of nav­iga­ble streams with­in their lim­its, is what no per­son will de­ny. Yet it is fol­ly to un­der­take works of this or any oth­er with­out first know­ing that we are able to fin­ish them–as half-​fin­ished work gen­er­al­ly proves to be la­bor lost. There can­not just­ly be any ob­jec­tion to hav­ing rail­roads and canals, any more than to oth­er good things, pro­vid­ed they cost noth­ing. The on­ly ob­jec­tion is to pay­ing for them; and the ob­jec­tion aris­es from the want of abil­ity to pay.

With re­spect to the Coun­ty of Sang­amon, some….

Yet, how­ev­er de­sir­able an ob­ject the con­struc­tion of a rail­road through our coun­try may be, how­ev­er high our imag­ina­tions may be heat­ed at thoughts of it,–there is al­ways a heart-​ap­palling shock ac­com­pa­ny­ing the amount of its cost, which forces us to shrink from our pleas­ing an­tic­ipa­tions. The prob­able cost of this con­tem­plat­ed rail­road is es­ti­mat­ed at $290,000; the bare state­ment of which, in my opin­ion, is suf­fi­cient to jus­ti­fy the be­lief that the im­prove­ment of the Sang­amon Riv­er is an ob­ject much bet­ter suit­ed to our in­fant re­sources…….

What the cost of this work would be, I am un­able to say. It is prob­able, how­ev­er, that it would not be greater than is com­mon to streams of the same length. Fi­nal­ly, I be­lieve the im­prove­ment of the Sang­amon Riv­er to be vast­ly im­por­tant and high­ly de­sir­able to the peo­ple of the coun­ty; and, if elect­ed, any mea­sure in the Leg­is­la­ture hav­ing this for its ob­ject, which may ap­pear ju­di­cious, will meet my ap­pro­ba­tion and re­ceive my sup­port.

It ap­pears that the prac­tice of loan­ing mon­ey at ex­or­bi­tant rates of in­ter­est has al­ready been opened as a field for dis­cus­sion; so I sup­pose I may en­ter up­on it with­out claim­ing the hon­or or risk­ing the dan­ger which may await its first ex­plor­er. It seems as though we are nev­er to have an end to this bane­ful and cor­rod­ing sys­tem, act­ing al­most as prej­udi­cial­ly to the gen­er­al in­ter­ests of the com­mu­ni­ty as a di­rect tax of sev­er­al thou­sand dol­lars an­nu­al­ly laid on each coun­ty for the ben­efit of a few in­di­vid­uals on­ly, un­less there be a law made fix­ing the lim­its of usury. A law for this pur­pose, I am of opin­ion, may be made with­out ma­te­ri­al­ly in­jur­ing any class of peo­ple. In cas­es of ex­treme ne­ces­si­ty, there could al­ways be means found to cheat the law; while in all oth­er cas­es it would have its in­tend­ed ef­fect. I would fa­vor the pas­sage of a law on this sub­ject which might not be very eas­ily evad­ed. Let it be such that the la­bor and dif­fi­cul­ty of evad­ing it could on­ly be jus­ti­fied in cas­es of great­est ne­ces­si­ty.

Up­on the sub­ject of ed­uca­tion, not pre­sum­ing to dic­tate any plan or sys­tem re­spect­ing it, I can on­ly say that I view it as the most im­por­tant sub­ject which we as a peo­ple can be en­gaged in. That ev­ery man may re­ceive at least a mod­er­ate ed­uca­tion, and there­by be en­abled to read the his­to­ries of his own and oth­er coun­tries, by which he may du­ly ap­pre­ci­ate the val­ue of our free in­sti­tu­tions, ap­pears to be an ob­ject of vi­tal im­por­tance, even on this ac­count alone, to say noth­ing of the ad­van­tages and sat­is­fac­tion to be de­rived from all be­ing able to read the Scrip­tures, and oth­er works both of a re­li­gious and moral na­ture, for them­selves.

For my part, I de­sire to see the time when ed­uca­tion–and by its means, moral­ity, so­bri­ety, en­ter­prise, and in­dus­try–shall be­come much more gen­er­al than at present, and should be grat­ified to have it in my pow­er to con­tribute some­thing to the ad­vance­ment of any mea­sure which might have a ten­den­cy to ac­cel­er­ate that hap­py pe­ri­od.

With re­gard to ex­ist­ing laws, some al­ter­ations are thought to be nec­es­sary. Many re­spectable men have sug­gest­ed that our estray laws, the law re­spect­ing the is­su­ing of ex­ecu­tions, the road law, and some oth­ers, are de­fi­cient in their present form, and re­quire al­ter­ations. But, con­sid­er­ing the great prob­abil­ity that the framers of those laws were wis­er than my­self, I should pre­fer not med­dling with them, un­less they were first at­tacked by oth­ers; in which case I should feel it both a priv­ilege and a du­ty to take that stand which, in my view, might tend most to the ad­vance­ment of jus­tice.

But, fel­low-​cit­izens, I shall con­clude. Con­sid­er­ing the great de­gree of mod­esty which should al­ways at­tend youth, it is prob­able I have al­ready been more pre­sum­ing than be­comes me. How­ev­er, up­on the sub­jects of which I have treat­ed, I have spo­ken as I have thought. I may be wrong in re­gard to any or all of them; but, hold­ing it a sound max­im that it is bet­ter on­ly some­times to be right than at all times to be wrong, so soon as I dis­cov­er my opin­ions to be er­ro­neous, I shall be ready to re­nounce them.

Ev­ery man is said to have his pe­cu­liar am­bi­tion. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I have no oth­er so great as that of be­ing tru­ly es­teemed of my fel­low-​men, by ren­der­ing my­self wor­thy of their es­teem. How far I shall suc­ceed in grat­ify­ing this am­bi­tion is yet to be de­vel­oped. I am young, and un­known to many of you. I was born, and have ev­er re­mained, in the most hum­ble walks of life. I have no wealthy or pop­ular re­la­tions or friends to rec­om­mend me. My case is thrown ex­clu­sive­ly up­on the in­de­pen­dent vot­ers of the coun­ty; and, if elect­ed, they will have con­ferred a fa­vor up­on me for which I shall be un­remit­ting in my labors to com­pen­sate. But, if the good peo­ple in their wis­dom shall see fit to keep me in the back­ground, I have been too fa­mil­iar with dis­ap­point­ments to be very much cha­grined.

Your friend and fel­low-​cit­izen, A. LIN­COLN.

New Salem, March 9, 1832.

1833

TO E. C. BLANKEN­SHIP.

NEW SALEM, Aug. 10, 1833

E. C. BLANKEN­SHIP.

Dear Sir:–In re­gard to the time David Rankin served the en­closed dis­charge shows cor­rect­ly–as well as I can rec­ol­lect–hav­ing no writ­ing to re­fer. The trans­fer of Rankin from my com­pa­ny oc­curred as fol­lows: Rankin hav­ing lost his horse at Dixon’s fer­ry and hav­ing ac­quain­tance in one of the foot com­pa­nies who were go­ing down the riv­er was de­sirous to go with them, and one Gal­ishen be­ing an ac­quain­tance of mine and be­long­ing to the com­pa­ny in which Rankin wished to go wished to leave it and join mine, this be­ing the case it was agreed that they should ex­change places and an­swer to each oth­er’s names–as it was ex­pect­ed we all would be dis­charged in very few days. As to a blan­ket–I have no knowl­edge of Rankin ev­er get­ting any. The above em­braces all the facts now in my rec­ol­lec­tion which are per­ti­nent to the case.

I shall take plea­sure in giv­ing any fur­ther in­for­ma­tion in my pow­er should you call on me.

Your friend, A. LIN­COLN.

RE­SPONSE TO RE­QUEST FOR POSTAGE RE­CEIPT

TO Mr. SPEARS.

Mr. SPEARS:

At your re­quest I send you a re­ceipt for the postage on your pa­per. I am some­what sur­prised at your re­quest. I will, how­ev­er, com­ply with it. The law re­quires news­pa­per postage to be paid in ad­vance, and now that I have wait­ed a full year you choose to wound my feel­ings by in­sin­uat­ing that un­less you get a re­ceipt I will prob­ably make you pay it again.

Re­spect­ful­ly, A. LIN­COLN.

1836

AN­NOUNCE­MENT OF PO­LIT­ICAL VIEWS.

New Salem, June 13, 1836.

TO THE ED­ITOR OF THE “JOUR­NAL”–In your pa­per of last Sat­ur­day I see a com­mu­ni­ca­tion, over the sig­na­ture of “Many Vot­ers,” in which the can­di­dates who are an­nounced in the Jour­nal are called up­on to “show their hands.” Agreed. Here’s mine.

I go for all shar­ing the priv­ileges of the gov­ern­ment who as­sist in bear­ing its bur­dens. Con­se­quent­ly, I go for ad­mit­ting all whites to the right of suf­frage who pay tax­es or bear arms (by no means ex­clud­ing fe­males).

If elect­ed, I shall con­sid­er the whole peo­ple of Sang­amon my con­stituents, as well those that op­pose as those that sup­port me.

While act­ing as their rep­re­sen­ta­tive, I shall be gov­erned by their will on all sub­jects up­on which I have the means of know­ing what their will is; and up­on all oth­ers I shall do what my own judg­ment teach­es me will best ad­vance their in­ter­ests. Whether elect­ed or not, I go for dis­tribut­ing the pro­ceeds of the sales of the pub­lic lands to the sev­er­al States, to en­able our State, in com­mon with oth­ers, to dig canals and con­struct rail­roads with­out bor­row­ing mon­ey and pay­ing the in­ter­est on it. If alive on the first Mon­day in Novem­ber, I shall vote for Hugh L. White for Pres­ident.

Very re­spect­ful­ly, A. LIN­COLN.

RE­SPONSE TO PO­LIT­ICAL SMEAR

TO ROBERT ALLEN

New Salem, June 21, 1836

DEAR COLONEL:–I am told that dur­ing my ab­sence last week you passed through this place, and stat­ed pub­licly that you were in pos­ses­sion of a fact or facts which, if known to the pub­lic, would en­tire­ly de­stroy the prospects of N. W. Ed­wards and my­self at the en­su­ing elec­tion; but that, through fa­vor to us, you should for­bear to di­vulge them. No one has need­ed fa­vors more than I, and, gen­er­al­ly, few have been less un­will­ing to ac­cept them; but in this case fa­vor to me would be in­jus­tice to the pub­lic, and there­fore I must beg your par­don for de­clin­ing it. That I once had the con­fi­dence of the peo­ple of Sang­amon, is suf­fi­cient­ly ev­ident; and if I have since done any­thing, ei­ther by de­sign or mis­ad­ven­ture, which if known would sub­ject me to a for­fei­ture of that con­fi­dence, he that knows of that thing, and con­ceals it, is a traitor to his coun­try’s in­ter­est.

I find my­self whol­ly un­able to form any con­jec­ture of what fact or facts, re­al or sup­posed, you spoke; but my opin­ion of your ve­rac­ity will not per­mit me for a mo­ment to doubt that you at least be­lieved what you said. I am flat­tered with the per­son­al re­gard you man­ifest­ed for me; but I do hope that, on more ma­ture re­flec­tion, you will view the pub­lic in­ter­est as a paramount con­sid­er­ation, and there­fore de­ter­mine to let the worst come. I here as­sure you that the can­did state­ment of facts on your part, how­ev­er low it may sink me, shall nev­er break the tie of per­son­al friend­ship be­tween us. I wish an an­swer to this, and you are at lib­er­ty to pub­lish both, if you choose.

Very re­spect­ful­ly, A. LIN­COLN.

TO MISS MARY OWENS.

VAN­DALIA, De­cem­ber 13, 1836.

MARY:–I have been sick ev­er since my ar­rival, or I should have writ­ten soon­er. It is but lit­tle dif­fer­ence, how­ev­er, as I have very lit­tle even yet to write. And more, the longer I can avoid the mor­ti­fi­ca­tion of look­ing in the post-​of­fice for your let­ter and not find­ing it, the bet­ter. You see I am mad about that old let­ter yet. I don’t like very well to risk you again. I’ll try you once more, any­how.

The new State House is not yet fin­ished, and con­se­quent­ly the Leg­is­la­ture is do­ing lit­tle or noth­ing. The gov­er­nor de­liv­ered an in­flam­ma­to­ry po­lit­ical mes­sage, and it is ex­pect­ed there will be some spar­ring be­tween the par­ties about it as soon as the two Hous­es get to busi­ness. Tay­lor de­liv­ered up his pe­ti­tion for the new coun­ty to one of our mem­bers this morn­ing. I am told he de­spairs of its suc­cess, on ac­count of all the mem­bers from Mor­gan Coun­ty op­pos­ing it. There are names enough on the pe­ti­tion, I think, to jus­ti­fy the mem­bers from our coun­ty in go­ing for it; but if the mem­bers from Mor­gan op­pose it, which they say they will, the chance will be bad.

Our chance to take the seat of gov­ern­ment to Spring­field is bet­ter than I ex­pect­ed. An in­ter­nal-​im­prove­ment con­ven­tion was held there since we met, which rec­om­mend­ed a loan of sev­er­al mil­lions of dol­lars, on the faith of the State, to con­struct rail­roads. Some of the Leg­is­la­ture are for it, and some against it; which has the ma­jor­ity I can­not tell. There is great strife and strug­gling for the of­fice of the Unit­ed States Sen­ator here at this time. It is prob­able we shall ease their pains in a few days. The op­po­si­tion men have no can­di­date of their own, and con­se­quent­ly they will smile as com­pla­cent­ly at the an­gry snarl of the con­tend­ing Van Bu­ren can­di­dates and their re­spec­tive friends as the Chris­tian does at Sa­tan’s rage. You rec­ol­lect that I men­tioned at the out­set of this let­ter that I had been un­well. That is the fact, though I be­lieve I am about well now; but that, with oth­er things I can­not ac­count for, have con­spired, and have got­ten my spir­its so low that I feel that I would rather be any place in the world than here. I re­al­ly can­not en­dure the thought of stay­ing here ten weeks. Write back as soon as you get this, and, if pos­si­ble, say some­thing that will please me, for re­al­ly I have not been pleased since I left you. This let­ter is so dry and stupid that I am ashamed to send it, but with my present feel­ings I can­not do any bet­ter.

Give my best re­spects to Mr. and Mrs. Able and fam­ily.

Your friend, LIN­COLN

1837

SPEECH IN ILLI­NOIS LEG­IS­LA­TURE.

Jan­uary [?], 1837

Mr. CHAIR­MAN:–Lest I should fall in­to the too com­mon er­ror of be­ing mis­tak­en in re­gard to which side I de­sign to be up­on, I shall make it my first care to re­move all doubt on that point, by declar­ing that I am op­posed to the res­olu­tion un­der con­sid­er­ation, in to­to. Be­fore I pro­ceed to the body of the sub­ject, I will fur­ther re­mark, that it is not with­out a con­sid­er­able de­gree of ap­pre­hen­sion that I ven­ture to cross the track of the gen­tle­man from Coles [Mr. Lin­der]. In­deed, I do not be­lieve I could muster a suf­fi­cien­cy of courage to come in con­tact with that gen­tle­man, were it not for the fact that he, some days since, most gra­cious­ly con­de­scend­ed to as­sure us that he would nev­er be found wast­ing am­mu­ni­tion on small game. On the same for­tu­nate oc­ca­sion, he fur­ther gave us to un­der­stand, that he re­gard­ed him­self as be­ing de­cid­ed­ly the su­pe­ri­or of our com­mon friend from Ran­dolph [Mr. Shields]; and feel­ing, as I re­al­ly do, that I, to say the most of my­self, am noth­ing more than the peer of our friend from Ran­dolph, I shall re­gard the gen­tle­man from Coles as de­cid­ed­ly my su­pe­ri­or al­so, and con­se­quent­ly, in the course of what I shall have to say, when­ev­er I shall have oc­ca­sion to al­lude to that gen­tle­man, I shall en­deav­or to adopt that kind of court lan­guage which I un­der­stand to be due to de­cid­ed su­pe­ri­or­ity. In one fac­ul­ty, at least, there can be no dis­pute of the gen­tle­man’s su­pe­ri­or­ity over me and most oth­er men, and that is, the fac­ul­ty of en­tan­gling a sub­ject, so that nei­ther him­self, or any oth­er man, can find head or tail to it. Here he has in­tro­duced a res­olu­tion em­brac­ing nine­ty-​nine print­ed lines across com­mon writ­ing pa­per, and yet more than one half of his open­ing speech has been made up­on sub­jects about which there is not one word said in his res­olu­tion.

Though his res­olu­tion em­braces noth­ing in re­gard to the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of the Bank, much of what he has said has been with a view to make the im­pres­sion that it was un­con­sti­tu­tion­al in its in­cep­tion. Now, al­though I am sat­is­fied that an am­ple field may be found with­in the pale of the res­olu­tion, at least for small game, yet, as the gen­tle­man has trav­eled out of it, I feel that I may, with all due hu­mil­ity, ven­ture to fol­low him. The gen­tle­man has dis­cov­ered that some gen­tle­man at Wash­ing­ton city has been up­on the very eve of de­cid­ing our Bank un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, and that he would prob­ably have com­plet­ed his very au­then­tic de­ci­sion, had not some one of the Bank of­fi­cers placed his hand up­on his mouth, and begged him to with­hold it. The fact that the in­di­vid­uals com­pos­ing our Supreme Court have, in an of­fi­cial ca­pac­ity, de­cid­ed in fa­vor of the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of the Bank, would, in my mind, seem a suf­fi­cient an­swer to this. It is a fact known to all, that the mem­bers of the Supreme Court, to­geth­er with the Gov­er­nor, form a Coun­cil of Re­vi­sion, and that this Coun­cil ap­proved this Bank char­ter. I ask, then, if the ex­tra-​ju­di­cial de­ci­sion not quite but al­most made by the gen­tle­man at Wash­ing­ton, be­fore whom, by the way, the ques­tion of the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of our Bank nev­er has, nor nev­er can come–is to be tak­en as paramount to a de­ci­sion of­fi­cial­ly made by that tri­bunal, by which, and which alone, the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of the Bank can ev­er be set­tled? But, aside from this view of the sub­ject, I would ask, if the com­mit­tee which this res­olu­tion pro­pos­es to ap­point are to ex­am­ine in­to the Con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of the Bank? Are they to be clothed with pow­er to send for per­sons and pa­pers, for this ob­ject? And af­ter they have found the bank to be un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, and de­cid­ed it so, how are they to en­force their de­ci­sion? What will their de­ci­sion amount to? They can­not com­pel the Bank to cease op­er­ations, or to change the course of its op­er­ations. What good, then, can their labors re­sult in? Cer­tain­ly none.

The gen­tle­man asks, if we, with­out an ex­am­ina­tion, shall, by giv­ing the State de­posits to the Bank, and by tak­ing the stock re­served for the State, le­gal­ize its for­mer mis­con­duct. Now I do not pre­tend to pos­sess suf­fi­cient le­gal knowl­edge to de­cide whether a leg­isla­tive en­act­ment propos­ing to, and ac­cept­ing from, the Bank, cer­tain terms, would have the ef­fect to le­gal­ize or wipe out its for­mer er­rors, or not; but I can as­sure the gen­tle­man, if such should be the ef­fect, he has al­ready got be­hind the set­tle­ment of ac­counts; for it is well known to all, that the Leg­is­la­ture, at its last ses­sion, passed a sup­ple­men­tal Bank char­ter, which the Bank has since ac­cept­ed, and which, ac­cord­ing to his doc­trine, has le­gal­ized all the al­leged vi­ola­tions of its orig­inal char­ter in the dis­tri­bu­tion of its stock.

I now pro­ceed to the res­olu­tion. By ex­am­ina­tion it will be found that the first thir­ty-​three lines, be­ing pre­cise­ly one third of the whole, re­late ex­clu­sive­ly to the dis­tri­bu­tion of the stock by the com­mis­sion­ers ap­point­ed by the State. Now, Sir, it is clear that no ques­tion can arise on this por­tion of the res­olu­tion, ex­cept a ques­tion be­tween cap­ital­ists in re­gard to the own­er­ship of stock. Some gen­tle­men have their stock in their hands, while oth­ers, who have more mon­ey than they know what to do with, want it; and this, and this alone, is the ques­tion, to set­tle which we are called on to squan­der thou­sands of the peo­ple’s mon­ey. What in­ter­est, let me ask, have the peo­ple in the set­tle­ment of this ques­tion? What dif­fer­ence is it to them whether the stock is owned by Judge Smith or Sam Wig­gins? If any gen­tle­man be en­ti­tled to stock in the Bank, which he is kept out of pos­ses­sion of by oth­ers, let him as­sert his right in the Supreme Court, and let him or his an­tag­onist, whichev­er may be found in the wrong, pay the costs of suit. It is an old max­im, and a very sound one, that he that dances should al­ways pay the fid­dler. Now, Sir, in the present case, if any gen­tle­men, whose mon­ey is a bur­den to them, choose to lead off a dance, I am de­cid­ed­ly op­posed to the peo­ple’s mon­ey be­ing used to pay the fid­dler. No one can doubt that the ex­am­ina­tion pro­posed by this res­olu­tion must cost the State some ten or twelve thou­sand dol­lars; and all this to set­tle a ques­tion in which the peo­ple have no in­ter­est, and about which they care noth­ing. These cap­ital­ists gen­er­al­ly act har­mo­nious­ly and in con­cert, to fleece the peo­ple, and now that they have got in­to a quar­rel with them­selves we are called up­on to ap­pro­pri­ate the peo­ple’s mon­ey to set­tle the quar­rel.

I leave this part of the res­olu­tion and pro­ceed to the re­main­der. It will be found that no charge in the re­main­ing part of the res­olu­tion, if true, amounts to the vi­ola­tion of the Bank char­ter, ex­cept one, which I will no­tice in due time. It might seem quite suf­fi­cient to say no more up­on any of these charges or in­sin­ua­tions than enough to show they are not vi­ola­tions of the char­ter; yet, as they are in­ge­nious­ly framed and han­dled, with a view to de­ceive and mis­lead, I will no­tice in their or­der all the most promi­nent of them. The first of these is in re­la­tion to a con­nec­tion be­tween our Bank and sev­er­al bank­ing in­sti­tu­tions in oth­er States. Ad­mit­ting this con­nec­tion to ex­ist, I should like to see the gen­tle­man from Coles, or any oth­er gen­tle­man, un­der­take to show that there is any harm in it. What can there be in such a con­nec­tion, that the peo­ple of Illi­nois are will­ing to pay their mon­ey to get a peep in­to? By a ref­er­ence to the tenth sec­tion of the Bank char­ter, any gen­tle­man can see that the framers of the act con­tem­plat­ed the hold­ing of stock in the in­sti­tu­tions of oth­er cor­po­ra­tions. Why, then, is it, when nei­ther law nor jus­tice for­bids it, that we are asked to spend our time and mon­ey in in­quir­ing in­to its truth?

The next charge, in the or­der of time, is, that some of­fi­cer, di­rec­tor, clerk or ser­vant of the Bank, has been re­quired to take an oath of se­cre­cy in re­la­tion to the af­fairs of said Bank. Now, I do not know whether this be true or false–nei­ther do I be­lieve any hon­est man cares. I know that the sev­enth sec­tion of the char­ter ex­press­ly guar­an­tees to the Bank the right of mak­ing, un­der cer­tain re­stric­tions, such by-​laws as it may think fit; and I fur­ther know that the re­quir­ing an oath of se­cre­cy would not tran­scend those re­stric­tions. What, then, if the Bank has cho­sen to ex­er­cise this right? Whom can it in­jure? Does not ev­ery mer­chant have his se­cret mark? and who is ev­er sil­ly enough to com­plain of it? I pre­sume if the Bank does re­quire any such oath of se­cre­cy, it is done through a mo­tive of del­ica­cy to those in­di­vid­uals who deal with it. Why, Sir, not many days since, one gen­tle­man up­on this floor, who, by the way, I have no doubt is now ready to join this hue and cry against the Bank, in­dulged in a philip­pic against one of the Bank of­fi­cials, be­cause, as he said, he had di­vulged a se­cret.

Im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing this last charge, there are sev­er­al in­sin­ua­tions in the res­olu­tion, which are too sil­ly to re­quire any sort of no­tice, were it not for the fact that they con­clude by say­ing, “to the great in­jury of the peo­ple at large.” In an­swer to this I would say that it is strange enough, that the peo­ple are suf­fer­ing these “great in­juries,” and yet are not sen­si­ble of it! Sin­gu­lar in­deed that the peo­ple should be writhing un­der op­pres­sion and in­jury, and yet not one among them to be found to raise the voice of com­plaint. If the Bank be in­flict­ing in­jury up­on the peo­ple, why is it that not a sin­gle pe­ti­tion is pre­sent­ed to this body on the sub­ject? If the Bank re­al­ly be a grievance, why is it that no one of the re­al peo­ple is found to ask re­dress of it? The truth is, no such op­pres­sion ex­ists. If it did, our peo­ple would groan with memo­ri­als and pe­ti­tions, and we would not be per­mit­ted to rest day or night, till we had put it down. The peo­ple know their rights, and they are nev­er slow to as­sert and main­tain them, when they are in­vad­ed. Let them call for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, and I shall ev­er stand ready to re­spond to the call. But they have made no such call. I make the as­ser­tion bold­ly, and with­out fear of con­tra­dic­tion, that no man, who does not hold an of­fice, or does not as­pire to one, has ev­er found any fault of the Bank. It has dou­bled the prices of the prod­ucts of their farms, and filled their pock­ets with a sound cir­cu­lat­ing medi­um, and they are all well pleased with its op­er­ations. No, Sir, it is the politi­cian who is the first to sound the alarm (which, by the way, is a false one.) It is he, who, by these un­holy means, is en­deav­or­ing to blow up a storm that he may ride up­on and di­rect. It is he, and he alone, that here pro­pos­es to spend thou­sands of the peo­ple’s pub­lic trea­sure, for no oth­er ad­van­tage to them than to make val­ue­less in their pock­ets the re­ward of their in­dus­try. Mr. Chair­man, this work is ex­clu­sive­ly the work of politi­cians; a set of men who have in­ter­ests aside from the in­ter­ests of the peo­ple, and who, to say the most of them, are, tak­en as a mass, at least one long step re­moved from hon­est men. I say this with the greater free­dom, be­cause, be­ing a politi­cian my­self, none can re­gard it as per­son­al.

Again, it is charged, or rather in­sin­uat­ed, that of­fi­cers of the Bank have loaned mon­ey at usu­ri­ous rates of in­ter­est. Sup­pose this to be true, are we to send a com­mit­tee of this House to in­quire in­to it? Sup­pose the com­mit­tee should find it true, can they re­dress the in­jured in­di­vid­uals? As­sured­ly not. If any in­di­vid­ual had been in­jured in this way, is there not an am­ple rem­edy to be found in the laws of the land? Does the gen­tle­man from Coles know that there is a statute stand­ing in full force mak­ing it high­ly pe­nal for an in­di­vid­ual to loan mon­ey at a high­er rate of in­ter­est than twelve per cent? If he does not he is too ig­no­rant to be placed at the head of the com­mit­tee which his res­olu­tion pur­pos­es and if he does, his ne­glect to men­tion it shows him to be too un­can­did to mer­it the re­spect or con­fi­dence of any one.

But be­sides all this, if the Bank were struck from ex­is­tence, could not the own­ers of the cap­ital still loan it usu­ri­ous­ly, as well as now? what­ev­er the Bank, or its of­fi­cers, may have done, I know that usu­ri­ous trans­ac­tions were much more fre­quent and enor­mous be­fore the com­mence­ment of its op­er­ations than they have ev­er been since.

The next in­sin­ua­tion is, that the Bank has re­fused specie pay­ments. This, if true is a vi­ola­tion of the char­ter. But there is not the least prob­abil­ity of its truth; be­cause, if such had been the fact, the in­di­vid­ual to whom pay­ment was re­fused would have had an in­ter­est in mak­ing it pub­lic, by su­ing for the dam­ages to which the char­ter en­ti­tles him. Yet no such thing has been done; and the strong pre­sump­tion is, that the in­sin­ua­tion is false and ground­less.

From this to the end of the res­olu­tion, there is noth­ing that mer­its at­ten­tion–I there­fore drop the par­tic­ular ex­am­ina­tion of it.

By a gen­er­al view of the res­olu­tion, it will be seen that a prin­ci­pal ob­ject of the com­mit­tee is to ex­am­ine in­to, and fer­ret out, a mass of cor­rup­tion sup­posed to have been com­mit­ted by the com­mis­sion­ers who ap­por­tioned the stock of the Bank. I be­lieve it is uni­ver­sal­ly un­der­stood and ac­knowl­edged that all men will ev­er act cor­rect­ly un­less they have a mo­tive to do oth­er­wise. If this be true, we can on­ly sup­pose that the com­mis­sion­ers act­ed cor­rupt­ly by al­so sup­pos­ing that they were bribed to do so. Tak­ing this view of the sub­ject, I would ask if the Bank is like­ly to find it more dif­fi­cult to bribe the com­mit­tee of sev­en, which, we are about to ap­point, than it may have found it to bribe the com­mis­sion­ers?

(Here Mr. Lin­der called to or­der. The Chair de­cid­ed that Mr. Lin­coln was not out of or­der. Mr. Lin­der ap­pealed to the House, but, be­fore the ques­tion was put, with­drew his ap­peal, say­ing he pre­ferred to let the gen­tle­man go on; he thought he would break his own neck. Mr. Lin­coln pro­ceed­ed:)

An­oth­er gra­cious con­de­scen­sion! I ac­knowl­edge it with grat­itude. I know I was not out of or­der; and I know ev­ery sen­si­ble man in the House knows it. I was not say­ing that the gen­tle­man from Coles could be bribed, nor, on the oth­er hand, will I say he could not. In that par­tic­ular I leave him where I found him. I was on­ly en­deav­or­ing to show that there was at least as great a prob­abil­ity of any sev­en mem­bers that could be se­lect­ed from this House be­ing bribed to act cor­rupt­ly, as there was that the twen­ty-​four com­mis­sion­ers had been so bribed. By a ref­er­ence to the ninth sec­tion of the Bank char­ter, it will be seen that those com­mis­sion­ers were John Tilson, Robert K. McLaugh­lin, Daniel Warm, A.G. S. Wight, John C. Ri­ley, W. H. David­son, Ed­ward M. Wil­son, Ed­ward L. Pier­son, Robert R. Green, Ezra Bak­er, Aquil­la Wren, John Tay­lor, Samuel C. Christy, Ed­mund Roberts, Ben­jamin God­frey, Thomas Math­er, A. M. Jenk­ins, W. Linn, W. S. Gilman, Charles Pren­tice, Richard I. Hamil­ton, A.H. Buck­ner, W. F. Thorn­ton, and Ed­mund D. Tay­lor.

These are twen­ty-​four of the most re­spectable men in the State. Prob­ably no twen­ty-​four men could be se­lect­ed in the State with whom the peo­ple are bet­ter ac­quaint­ed, or in whose hon­or and in­tegri­ty they would more read­ily place con­fi­dence. And I now re­peat, that there is less prob­abil­ity that those men have been bribed and cor­rupt­ed, than that any sev­en men, or rather any six men, that could be se­lect­ed from the mem­bers of this House, might be so bribed and cor­rupt­ed, even though they were head­ed and led on by “de­cid­ed su­pe­ri­or­ity” him­self.

In all se­ri­ous­ness, I ask ev­ery rea­son­able man, if an is­sue be joined by these twen­ty-​four com­mis­sion­ers, on the one part, and any oth­er sev­en men, on the oth­er part, and the whole de­pend up­on the hon­or and in­tegri­ty of the con­tend­ing par­ties, to which par­ty would the great­est de­gree of cred­it be due? Again: An­oth­er con­sid­er­ation is, that we have no right to make the ex­am­ina­tion. What I shall say up­on this head I de­sign ex­clu­sive­ly for the law- lov­ing and law-​abid­ing part of the House. To those who claim om­nipo­tence for the Leg­is­la­ture, and who in the plen­itude of their as­sumed pow­ers are dis­posed to dis­re­gard the Con­sti­tu­tion, law, good faith, moral right, and ev­ery­thing else, I have not a word to say. But to the law-​abid­ing part I say, ex­am­ine the Bank char­ter, go ex­am­ine the Con­sti­tu­tion, go ex­am­ine the acts that the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly of this State has passed, and you will find just as much au­thor­ity giv­en in each and ev­ery of them to com­pel the Bank to bring its cof­fers to this hall and to pour their con­tents up­on this floor, as to com­pel it to sub­mit to this ex­am­ina­tion which this res­olu­tion pro­pos­es. Why, Sir, the gen­tle­man from Coles, the mover of this res­olu­tion, very late­ly de­nied on this floor that the Leg­is­la­ture had any right to re­peal or oth­er­wise med­dle with its own acts, when those acts were made in the na­ture of con­tracts, and had been ac­cept­ed and act­ed on by oth­er par­ties. Now I ask if this res­olu­tion does not pro­pose, for this House alone, to do what he, but the oth­er day, de­nied the right of the whole Leg­is­la­ture to do? He must ei­ther aban­don the po­si­tion he then took, or he must now vote against his own res­olu­tion. It is no dif­fer­ence to me, and I pre­sume but lit­tle to any one else, which he does.

I am by no means the spe­cial ad­vo­cate of the Bank. I have long thought that it would be well for it to re­port its con­di­tion to the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, and that cas­es might oc­cur, when it might be prop­er to make an ex­am­ina­tion of its af­fairs by a com­mit­tee. Ac­cord­ing­ly, dur­ing the last ses­sion, while a bill sup­ple­men­tal to the Bank char­ter was pend­ing be­fore the House, I of­fered an amend­ment to the same, in these words: “The said cor­po­ra­tion shall, at the next ses­sion of the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, and at each sub­se­quent Gen­er­al Ses­sion, dur­ing the ex­is­tence of its char­ter, re­port to the same the amount of debts due from said cor­po­ra­tion; the amount of debts due to the same; the amount of specie in its vaults, and an ac­count of all lands then owned by the same, and the amount for which such lands have been tak­en; and more­over, if said cor­po­ra­tion shall at any time ne­glect or refuse to sub­mit its books, pa­pers, and all and ev­ery­thing nec­es­sary for a full and fair ex­am­ina­tion of its af­fairs, to any per­son or per­sons ap­point­ed by the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, for the pur­pose of mak­ing such ex­am­ina­tion, the said cor­po­ra­tion shall for­feit its char­ter.”

This amend­ment was neg­atived by a vote of 34 to 15. Eleven of the 34 who vot­ed against it are now mem­bers of this House; and though it would be out of or­der to call their names, I hope they will all rec­ol­lect them­selves, and not vote for this ex­am­ina­tion to be made with­out au­thor­ity, inas­much as they re­fused to re­ceive the au­thor­ity when it was in their pow­er to do so.

I have said that cas­es might oc­cur, when an ex­am­ina­tion might be prop­er; but I do not be­lieve any such case has now oc­curred; and if it has, I should still be op­posed to mak­ing an ex­am­ina­tion with­out le­gal au­thor­ity. I am op­posed to en­cour­ag­ing that law­less and mobo­crat­ic spir­it, whether in re­la­tion to the Bank or any­thing else, which is al­ready abroad in the land and is spread­ing with rapid and fear­ful im­petu­os­ity, to the ul­ti­mate over­throw of ev­ery in­sti­tu­tion, of ev­ery moral prin­ci­ple, in which per­sons and prop­er­ty have hith­er­to found se­cu­ri­ty.

But sup­pos­ing we had the au­thor­ity, I would ask what good can re­sult from the ex­am­ina­tion? Can we de­clare the Bank un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, and com­pel it to de­sist from the abus­es of its pow­er, pro­vid­ed we find such abus­es to ex­ist? Can we re­pair the in­juries which it may have done to in­di­vid­uals? Most cer­tain­ly we can do none of these things. Why then shall we spend the pub­lic mon­ey in such em­ploy­ment? Oh, say the ex­am­in­ers, we can in­jure the cred­it of the Bank, if noth­ing else, Please tell me, gen­tle­men, who will suf­fer most by that? You can­not in­jure, to any ex­tent, the stock­hold­ers. They are men of wealth–of large cap­ital; and con­se­quent­ly, be­yond the pow­er of mal­ice. But by in­jur­ing the cred­it of the Bank, you will de­pre­ci­ate the val­ue of its pa­per in the hands of the hon­est and un­sus­pect­ing farmer and me­chan­ic, and that is all you can do. But sup­pose you could ef­fect your whole pur­pose; sup­pose you could wipe the Bank from ex­is­tence, which is the grand ul­ti­ma­tum of the project, what would be the con­se­quence? why, Sir, we should spend sev­er­al thou­sand dol­lars of the pub­lic trea­sure in the op­er­ation, an­ni­hi­late the cur­ren­cy of the State, ren­der val­ue­less in the hands of our peo­ple that re­ward of their for­mer labors, and fi­nal­ly be once more un­der the com­fort­able obli­ga­tion of pay­ing the Wig­gins loan, prin­ci­pal and in­ter­est.

OP­PO­SI­TION TO MOB-​RULE

AD­DRESS BE­FORE THE YOUNG MEN’ S LYCEUM OF SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS.

Jan­uary 27, 1837.

As a sub­ject for the re­marks of the evening, “The Per­pet­ua­tion of our Po­lit­ical In­sti­tu­tions “is se­lect­ed.

In the great jour­nal of things hap­pen­ing un­der the sun, we, the Amer­ican peo­ple, find our ac­count run­ning un­der date of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry of the Chris­tian era. We find our­selves in the peace­ful pos­ses­sion of the fairest por­tion of the earth as re­gards ex­tent of ter­ri­to­ry, fer­til­ity of soil, and salubri­ty of cli­mate. We find our­selves un­der the gov­ern­ment of a sys­tem of po­lit­ical in­sti­tu­tions con­duc­ing more es­sen­tial­ly to the ends of civ­il and re­li­gious lib­er­ty than any of which the his­to­ry of for­mer times tells us. We, when mount­ing the stage of ex­is­tence, found our­selves the le­gal in­her­itors of these fun­da­men­tal bless­ings. We toiled not in the ac­quire­ment or es­tab­lish­ment of them; they are a lega­cy be­queathed us by a once hardy, brave, and pa­tri­ot­ic, but now lament­ed and de­part­ed, race of an­ces­tors. Theirs was the task (and nobly they per­formed it) to pos­sess them­selves, and through them­selves us, of this good­ly land, and to up­rear up­on its hills and its val­leys a po­lit­ical ed­ifice of lib­er­ty and equal rights; it is ours on­ly to trans­mit these–the for­mer un­pro­faned by the foot of an in­vad­er, the lat­ter un­de­cayed by the lapse of time and un­torn by usurpa­tion–to the lat­est gen­er­ation that fate shall per­mit the world to know. This task grat­itude to our fa­thers, jus­tice to our­selves, du­ty to pos­ter­ity, and love for our species in gen­er­al, all im­per­ative­ly re­quire us faith­ful­ly to per­form.

How then shall we per­form it? At what point shall we ex­pect the ap­proach of dan­ger? By what means shall we for­ti­fy against it? 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.

I hope I am over-​wary; but if I am not, there is even now some­thing of ill omen amongst us. I mean the in­creas­ing dis­re­gard for law which per­vades the coun­try–the grow­ing dis­po­si­tion to sub­sti­tute the wild and fu­ri­ous pas­sions in lieu of the sober judg­ment of courts, and the worse than sav­age mobs for the ex­ec­utive min­is­ters of jus­tice. This dis­po­si­tion is aw­ful­ly fear­ful in any com­mu­ni­ty; and that it now ex­ists in ours, though grat­ing to our feel­ings to ad­mit, it would be a vi­ola­tion of truth and an in­sult to our in­tel­li­gence to de­ny. Ac­counts of out­rages com­mit­ted by mobs form the ev­ery­day news of the times. They have per­vad­ed the coun­try from New Eng­land to Louisiana; they are nei­ther pe­cu­liar to the eter­nal snows of the for­mer nor the burn­ing suns of the lat­ter; they are not the crea­ture of cli­mate, nei­ther are they con­fined to the slave hold­ing or the non-​slave hold­ing States. Alike they spring up among the plea­sure-​hunt­ing mas­ters of South­ern slaves, and the or­der-​lov­ing cit­izens of the land of steady habits. What­ev­er then their cause may be, it is com­mon to the whole coun­try.

It would be te­dious as well as use­less to re­count the hor­rors of all of them. Those hap­pen­ing in the State of Mis­sis­sip­pi and at St. Louis are per­haps the most dan­ger­ous in ex­am­ple and re­volt­ing to hu­man­ity. In the Mis­sis­sip­pi case they first com­menced by hang­ing the reg­ular gam­blers–a set of men cer­tain­ly not fol­low­ing for a liveli­hood a very use­ful or very hon­est oc­cu­pa­tion, but one which, so far from be­ing for­bid­den by the laws, was ac­tu­al­ly li­censed by an act of the Leg­is­la­ture passed but a sin­gle year be­fore. Next, ne­groes sus­pect­ed of con­spir­ing to raise an in­sur­rec­tion were caught up and hanged in all parts of the State; then, white men sup­posed to be leagued with the ne­groes; and fi­nal­ly, strangers from neigh­bor­ing States, go­ing thith­er on busi­ness, were in many in­stances sub­ject­ed to the same fate. Thus went on this pro­cess of hang­ing, from gam­blers to ne­groes, from ne­groes to white cit­izens, and from these to strangers, till dead men were seen lit­er­al­ly dan­gling from the boughs of trees up­on ev­ery road­side, and in num­bers al­most suf­fi­cient to ri­val the na­tive Span­ish moss of the coun­try as a drap­ery of the for­est.

Turn then to that hor­ror-​strik­ing scene at St. Louis. A sin­gle vic­tim on­ly was sac­ri­ficed there. This sto­ry is very short, and is per­haps the most high­ly trag­ic of any­thing of its length that has ev­er been wit­nessed in re­al life. A mu­lat­to man by the name of McIn­tosh was seized in the street, dragged to the sub­urbs of the city, chained to a tree, and ac­tu­al­ly burned to death; and all with­in a sin­gle hour from the time he had been a free­man at­tend­ing to his own busi­ness and at peace with the world.

Such are the ef­fects of mob law, and such are the scenes be­com­ing more and more fre­quent in this land so late­ly famed for love of law and or­der, and the sto­ries of which have even now grown too fa­mil­iar to at­tract any­thing more than an idle re­mark.

But you are per­haps ready to ask, “What has this to do with the per­pet­ua­tion of our po­lit­ical in­sti­tu­tions?” I an­swer, It has much to do with it. Its di­rect con­se­quences are, com­par­ative­ly speak­ing, but a small evil, and much of its dan­ger con­sists in the prone­ness of our minds to re­gard its di­rect as its on­ly con­se­quences. Ab­stract­ly con­sid­ered, the hang­ing of the gam­blers at Vicks­burg was of but lit­tle con­se­quence. They con­sti­tute a por­tion of pop­ula­tion that is worse than use­less in any com­mu­ni­ty; and their death, if no per­ni­cious ex­am­ple be set by it, is nev­er mat­ter of rea­son­able re­gret with any one. If they were an­nu­al­ly swept from the stage of ex­is­tence by the plague or small­pox, hon­est men would per­haps be much prof­it­ed by the op­er­ation. Sim­ilar too is the cor­rect rea­son­ing in re­gard to the burn­ing of the ne­gro at St. Louis. He had for­feit­ed his life by the per­pe­tra­tion of an out­ra­geous mur­der up­on one of the most wor­thy and re­spectable cit­izens of the city, and had he not died as he did, he must have died by the sen­tence of the law in a very short time af­ter­wards. As to him alone, it was as well the way it was as it could oth­er­wise have been. But the ex­am­ple in ei­ther case was fear­ful. When men take it in their heads to-​day to hang gam­blers or burn mur­der­ers, they should rec­ol­lect that in the con­fu­sion usu­al­ly at­tend­ing such trans­ac­tions they will be as like­ly to hang or burn some one who is nei­ther a gam­bler nor a mur­der­er as one who is, and that, act­ing up­on the ex­am­ple they set, the mob of to-​mor­row may, and prob­ably will, hang or burn some of them by the very same mis­take. And not on­ly so: the in­no­cent, those who have ev­er set their faces against vi­ola­tions of law in ev­ery shape, alike with the guilty fall vic­tims to the rav­ages of mob law; and thus it goes on, step by step, till all the walls erect­ed for the de­fense of the per­sons and prop­er­ty of in­di­vid­uals are trod­den down and dis­re­gard­ed. But all this, even, is not the full ex­tent of the evil. By such ex­am­ples, by in­stances of the per­pe­tra­tors of such acts go­ing un­pun­ished, the law­less in spir­it are en­cour­aged to be­come law­less in prac­tice; and hav­ing been used to no re­straint but dread of pun­ish­ment, they thus be­come ab­so­lute­ly un­re­strained. Hav­ing ev­er re­gard­ed gov­ern­ment as their dead­li­est bane, they make a ju­bilee of the sus­pen­sion of its op­er­ations, and pray for noth­ing so much as its to­tal an­ni­hi­la­tion. While, on the oth­er hand, good men, men who love tran­quil­li­ty, who de­sire to abide by the laws and en­joy their ben­efits, who would glad­ly spill their blood in the de­fense of their coun­try, see­ing their prop­er­ty de­stroyed, their fam­ilies in­sult­ed, and their lives en­dan­gered, their per­sons in­jured, and see­ing noth­ing in prospect that fore­bodes a change for the bet­ter, be­come tired of and dis­gust­ed with a gov­ern­ment that of­fers them no pro­tec­tion, and are not much averse to a change in which they imag­ine they have noth­ing to lose. Thus, then, by the op­er­ation of this mobo­crat­ic spir­it which all must ad­mit is now abroad in the land, the strongest bul­wark of any gov­ern­ment, and par­tic­ular­ly of those con­sti­tut­ed like ours, may ef­fec­tu­al­ly be bro­ken down and de­stroyed–I mean the at­tach­ment of the peo­ple. When­ev­er this ef­fect shall be pro­duced among us; when­ev­er the vi­cious por­tion of pop­ula­tion shall be per­mit­ted to gath­er in bands of hun­dreds and thou­sands, and burn church­es, rav­age and rob pro­vi­sion-​stores, throw print­ing press­es in­to rivers, shoot ed­itors, and hang and burn ob­nox­ious per­sons at plea­sure and with im­puni­ty, de­pend on it, this gov­ern­ment can­not last. By such things the feel­ings of the best cit­izens will be­come more or less alien­at­ed from it, and thus it will be left with­out friends, or with too few, and those few too weak to make their friend­ship ef­fec­tu­al. At such a time, and un­der such cir­cum­stances, men of suf­fi­cient tal­ent and am­bi­tion will not be want­ing to seize the op­por­tu­ni­ty, strike the blow, and over­turn that fair fab­ric which for the last half cen­tu­ry has been the fond­est hope of the lovers of free­dom through­out the world.

I know the Amer­ican peo­ple are much at­tached to their gov­ern­ment; I know they would suf­fer much for its sake; I know they would en­dure evils long and pa­tient­ly be­fore they would ev­er think of ex­chang­ing it for an­oth­er,–yet, notwith­stand­ing all this, if the laws be con­tin­ual­ly de­spised and dis­re­gard­ed, if their rights to be se­cure in their per­sons and prop­er­ty are held by no bet­ter tenure than the caprice of a mob, the alien­ation of their af­fec­tions from the gov­ern­ment is the nat­ural con­se­quence; and to that, soon­er or lat­er, it must come.

Here, then, is one point at which dan­ger may be ex­pect­ed.

The ques­tion re­curs, How shall we for­ti­fy against it? The an­swer is sim­ple. Let ev­ery Amer­ican, ev­ery lover of lib­er­ty, ev­ery well-​wish­er to his pos­ter­ity swear by the blood of the Rev­olu­tion nev­er to vi­olate in the least par­tic­ular the laws of the coun­try, and nev­er to tol­er­ate their vi­ola­tion by oth­ers. As the pa­tri­ots of sev­en­ty-​six did to the sup­port of the Dec­la­ra­tion of In­de­pen­dence, so to the sup­port of the Con­sti­tu­tion and laws let ev­ery Amer­ican pledge his life, his prop­er­ty, and his sa­cred hon­or. Let ev­ery man re­mem­ber that to vi­olate the law is to tram­ple on the blood of his fa­ther, and to tear the char­ter of his own and his chil­dren’s lib­er­ty. Let rev­er­ence for the laws be breathed by ev­ery Amer­ican moth­er to the lisp­ing babe that prat­tles on her lap; let it be taught in schools, in sem­inar­ies, and in col­leges; let it be writ­ten in primers, spelling books, and in al­manacs; let it be preached from the pul­pit, pro­claimed in leg­isla­tive halls, and en­forced in courts of jus­tice. And, in short, let it be­come the po­lit­ical re­li­gion of the na­tion; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay of all sex­es and tongues and col­ors and con­di­tions, sac­ri­fice un­ceas­ing­ly up­on its al­tars.

While ev­er a state of feel­ing such as this shall uni­ver­sal­ly or even very gen­er­al­ly pre­vail through­out the na­tion, vain will be ev­ery ef­fort, and fruit­less ev­ery at­tempt, to sub­vert our na­tion­al free­dom.

When, I so press­ing­ly urge a strict ob­ser­vance of all the laws, let me not be un­der­stood as say­ing there are no bad laws, or that grievances may not arise for the re­dress of which no le­gal pro­vi­sions have been made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say that al­though bad laws, if they ex­ist, should be re­pealed as soon as pos­si­ble, still, while they con­tin­ue in force, for the sake of ex­am­ple they should be re­li­gious­ly ob­served. So al­so in un­pro­vid­ed cas­es. If such arise, let prop­er le­gal pro­vi­sions be made for them with the least pos­si­ble de­lay, but till then let them, if not too in­tol­er­able, be borne with.

There is no grievance that is a fit ob­ject of re­dress by mob law. In any case that may arise, as, for in­stance, the pro­mul­ga­tion of abo­li­tion­ism, one of two po­si­tions is nec­es­sar­ily true–that is, the thing is right with­in it­self, and there­fore de­serves the pro­tec­tion of all law and all good cit­izens, or it is wrong, and there­fore prop­er to be pro­hib­it­ed by le­gal en­act­ments; and in nei­ther case is the in­ter­po­si­tion of mob law ei­ther nec­es­sary, jus­ti­fi­able, or ex­cus­able.

But it may be asked, Why sup­pose dan­ger to our po­lit­ical in­sti­tu­tions? Have we not pre­served them for more than fifty years? And why may we not for fifty times as long?

We hope there is no suf­fi­cient rea­son. We hope all dan­ger may be over­come; but to con­clude that no dan­ger may ev­er arise would it­self be ex­treme­ly dan­ger­ous. There are now, and will here­after be, many caus­es, dan­ger­ous in their ten­den­cy, which have not ex­ist­ed hereto­fore, and which are not too in­signif­icant to mer­it at­ten­tion. That our gov­ern­ment should have been main­tained in its orig­inal form, from its es­tab­lish­ment un­til now, is not much to be won­dered at. It had many props to sup­port it through that pe­ri­od, which now are de­cayed and crum­bled away. Through that pe­ri­od it was felt by all to be an un­de­cid­ed ex­per­iment; now it is un­der­stood to be a suc­cess­ful one. Then, all that sought celebri­ty and fame and dis­tinc­tion ex­pect­ed to find them in the suc­cess of that ex­per­iment. Their all was staked up­on it; their des­tiny was in­sep­ara­bly linked with it. Their am­bi­tion as­pired to dis­play be­fore an ad­mir­ing world a prac­ti­cal demon­stra­tion of the truth of a propo­si­tion which had hith­er­to been con­sid­ered at best no bet­ter than prob­lem­at­ical–name­ly, the ca­pa­bil­ity of a peo­ple to gov­ern them­selves. If they suc­ceed­ed they were to be im­mor­tal­ized; their names were to be trans­ferred to coun­ties, and cities, and rivers, and moun­tains; and to be revered and sung, toast­ed through all time. If they failed, they were to be called knaves and fools, and fa­nat­ics for a fleet­ing hour; then to sink and be for­got­ten. They suc­ceed­ed. The ex­per­iment is suc­cess­ful, and thou­sands have won their death­less names in mak­ing it so. But the game is caught; and I be­lieve it is true that with the catch­ing end the plea­sures of the chase. This field of glo­ry is har­vest­ed, and the crop is al­ready ap­pro­pri­at­ed. But new reapers will arise, and they too will seek a field. It is to de­ny what the his­to­ry of the world tells us is true, to sup­pose that men of am­bi­tion and tal­ents will not con­tin­ue to spring up amongst us. And when they do, they will as nat­ural­ly seek the grat­ifi­ca­tion of their rul­ing pas­sion as oth­ers have done be­fore them. The ques­tion then is, Can that grat­ifi­ca­tion be found in sup­port­ing and in main­tain­ing an ed­ifice that has been erect­ed by oth­ers? Most cer­tain­ly it can­not. Many great and good men, suf­fi­cient­ly qual­ified for any task they should un­der­take, may ev­er be found whose am­bi­tion would as­pire to noth­ing be­yond a seat in Congress, a Gu­ber­na­to­ri­al or a Pres­iden­tial chair; but such be­long not to the fam­ily of the li­on, or the tribe of the ea­gle. What! think you these places would sat­is­fy an Alexan­der, a Cae­sar, or a Napoleon? Nev­er! Tow­er­ing ge­nius dis­dains a beat­en path. It seeks re­gions hith­er­to un­ex­plored. It sees no dis­tinc­tion in adding sto­ry to sto­ry up­on the mon­uments of fame erect­ed to the mem­ory of oth­ers. It de­nies that it is glo­ry enough to serve un­der any chief. It scorns to tread in the foot­steps of any pre­de­ces­sor, how­ev­er il­lus­tri­ous. It thirsts and burns for dis­tinc­tion; and if pos­si­ble, it will have it, whether at the ex­pense of eman­ci­pat­ing slaves or en­slav­ing freemen. Is it un­rea­son­able, then, to ex­pect that some man pos­sessed of the lofti­est ge­nius, cou­pled with am­bi­tion suf­fi­cient to push it to its ut­most stretch, will at some time spring up among us? And when such an one does it will re­quire the peo­ple to be unit­ed with each oth­er, at­tached to the gov­ern­ment and laws, and gen­er­al­ly in­tel­li­gent, to suc­cess­ful­ly frus­trate his de­signs.

Dis­tinc­tion will be his paramount ob­ject, and al­though he would as will­ing­ly, per­haps more so, ac­quire it by do­ing good as harm, yet, that op­por­tu­ni­ty be­ing past, and noth­ing left to be done in the way of build­ing up, he would set bold­ly to the task of pulling down.

Here then is a prob­able case, high­ly dan­ger­ous, and such an one as could not have well ex­ist­ed hereto­fore.

An­oth­er rea­son which once was, but which, to the same ex­tent, is now no more, has done much in main­tain­ing our in­sti­tu­tions thus far. I mean the pow­er­ful in­flu­ence which the in­ter­est­ing scenes of the Rev­olu­tion had up­on the pas­sions of the peo­ple as dis­tin­guished from their judg­ment. By this in­flu­ence, the jeal­ousy, en­vy, and avarice in­ci­dent to our na­ture, and so com­mon to a state of peace, pros­per­ity, and con­scious strength, were for the time in a great mea­sure smoth­ered and ren­dered in­ac­tive, while the deep-​root­ed prin­ci­ples of hate, and the pow­er­ful mo­tive of re­venge, in­stead of be­ing turned against each oth­er, were di­rect­ed ex­clu­sive­ly against the British na­tion. And thus, from the force of cir­cum­stances, the basest prin­ci­ples of our na­ture were ei­ther made to lie dor­mant, or to be­come the ac­tive agents in the ad­vance­ment of the no­blest of caus­es–that of es­tab­lish­ing and main­tain­ing civ­il and re­li­gious lib­er­ty.

But this state of feel­ing must fade, is fad­ing, has fad­ed, with the cir­cum­stances that pro­duced it.

I do not mean to say that the scenes of the Rev­olu­tion are now or ev­er will be en­tire­ly for­got­ten, but that, like ev­ery­thing else, they must fade up­on the mem­ory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time. In his­to­ry, we hope, they will be read of, and re­count­ed, so long as the Bible shall be read; but even grant­ing that they will, their in­flu­ence can­not be what it hereto­fore has been. Even then they can­not be so uni­ver­sal­ly known nor so vivid­ly felt as they were by the gen­er­ation just gone to rest. At the close of that strug­gle, near­ly ev­ery adult male had been a par­tic­ipa­tor in some of its scenes. The con­se­quence was that of those scenes, in the form of a hus­band, a fa­ther, a son, or a broth­er, a liv­ing his­to­ry was to be found in ev­ery fam­ily–a his­to­ry bear­ing the in­du­bitable tes­ti­monies of its own au­then­tic­ity, in the limbs man­gled, in the scars of wounds re­ceived, in the midst of the very scenes re­lat­ed–a his­to­ry, too, that could be read and un­der­stood alike by all, the wise and the ig­no­rant, the learned and the un­learned. But those his­to­ries are gone. They can be read no more for­ev­er. They were a fortress of strength; but what in­vad­ing foe­man could nev­er do the silent ar­tillery of time has done–the lev­el­ing of its walls. They are gone. They were a for­est of gi­ant oaks; but the all- rest­less hur­ri­cane has swept over them, and left on­ly here and there a lone­ly trunk, de­spoiled of its ver­dure, shorn of its fo­liage, un­shad­ing and un­shad­ed, to mur­mur in a few more gen­tle breezes, and to com­bat with its mu­ti­lat­ed limbs a few more rud­er storms, then to sink and be no more.

They were pil­lars of the tem­ple of lib­er­ty; and now that they have crum­bled away that tem­ple must fall un­less we, their de­scen­dants, sup­ply their places with oth­er pil­lars, hewn from the sol­id quar­ry of sober rea­son. Pas­sion has helped us, but can do so no more. It will in fu­ture be our en­emy. Rea­son cold, cal­cu­lat­ing, unim­pas­sioned rea­son–must fur­nish all the ma­te­ri­als for our fu­ture sup­port and de­fense. Let those ma­te­ri­als be mould­ed in­to gen­er­al in­tel­li­gence, sound moral­ity, and in par­tic­ular, a rev­er­ence for the Con­sti­tu­tion and laws; and that we im­proved to the last, that we re­mained free to the last, that we revered his name to the last, that dur­ing his long sleep we per­mit­ted no hos­tile foot to pass over or des­ecrate his rest­ing place, shall be that which to learn the last trump shall awak­en our Wash­ing­ton.

Up­on these let the proud fab­ric of free­dom rest, as the rock of its ba­sis; and as tru­ly as has been said of the on­ly greater in­sti­tu­tion, “the gates of hell shall not pre­vail against it.”

PROTEST IN THE ILLI­NOIS LEG­IS­LA­TURE ON THE SUB­JECT OF SLAV­ERY.

March 3, 1837.

The fol­low­ing protest was pre­sent­ed to the House, which was read and or­dered to be spread in the jour­nals, to wit:

“Res­olu­tions up­on the sub­ject of do­mes­tic slav­ery hav­ing passed both branch­es of the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly at its present ses­sion, the un­der­signed here­by protest against the pas­sage of the same.

“They be­lieve that the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery is found­ed on both in­jus­tice and bad pol­icy, but that the pro­mul­ga­tion of abo­li­tion doc­trines tends rather to in­crease than abate its evils.

“They be­lieve that the Congress of the Unit­ed States has no pow­er un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion to in­ter­fere with the in­sti­tu­tion of slav­ery in the dif­fer­ent States.

“They be­lieve that the Congress of the Unit­ed States has the pow­er, un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, to abol­ish slav­ery in the Dis­trict of Columbia, but that the pow­er ought not to be ex­er­cised, un­less at the re­quest of the peo­ple of the Dis­trict.

“The dif­fer­ence be­tween these opin­ions and those con­tained in the said res­olu­tions is their rea­son for en­ter­ing this protest.

“DAN STONE, “A. LIN­COLN, “Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Coun­ty of Sang­amon.”

TO MISS MARY OWENS.

SPRING­FIELD, May 7, 1837.

MISS MARY S. OWENS.

FRIEND MARY:–I have com­menced two let­ters to send you be­fore this, both of which dis­pleased me be­fore I got half done, and so I tore them up. The first I thought was not se­ri­ous enough, and the sec­ond was on the oth­er ex­treme. I shall send this, turn out as it may.

This thing of liv­ing in Spring­field is rather a dull busi­ness, af­ter all; at least it is so to me. I am quite as lone­some here as I ev­er was any­where in my life. I have been spo­ken to by but one wom­an since I have been here, and should not have been by her if she could have avoid­ed it. I ‘ve nev­er been to church yet, and prob­ably shall not be soon. I stay away be­cause I am con­scious I should not know how to be­have my­self.

I am of­ten think­ing of what we said about your com­ing to live at Spring­field. I am afraid you would not be sat­is­fied. There is a great deal of flour­ish­ing about in car­riages here, which it would be your doom to see with­out shar­ing it. You would have to be poor, with­out the means of hid­ing your pover­ty. Do you be­lieve you could bear that pa­tient­ly? What­ev­er wom­an may cast her lot with mine, should any ev­er do so, it is my in­ten­tion to do all in my pow­er to make her hap­py and con­tent­ed; and there is noth­ing I can imag­ine that would make me more un­hap­py than to fail in the ef­fort. I know I should be much hap­pi­er with you than the way I am, pro­vid­ed I saw no signs of dis­con­tent in you. What you have said to me may have been in the way of jest, or I may have mis­un­der­stood you. If so, then let it be for­got­ten; if oth­er­wise, I much wish you would think se­ri­ous­ly be­fore you de­cide. What I have said I will most pos­itive­ly abide by, pro­vid­ed you wish it. My opin­ion is that you had bet­ter not do it. You have not been ac­cus­tomed to hard­ship, and it may be more se­vere than you now imag­ine. I know you are ca­pa­ble of think­ing cor­rect­ly on any sub­ject, and if you de­lib­er­ate ma­ture­ly up­on this sub­ject be­fore you de­cide, then I am will­ing to abide your de­ci­sion.

You must write me a good long let­ter af­ter you get this. You have noth­ing else to do, and though it might not seem in­ter­est­ing to you af­ter you had writ­ten it, it would be a good deal of com­pa­ny to me in this “busy wilder­ness.” Tell your sis­ter I don’t want to hear any more about sell­ing out and mov­ing. That gives me the “hy­po” when­ev­er I think of it. Yours, etc.,

LIN­COLN

TO JOHN BEN­NETT.

SPRING­FIELD, ILL., Aug. 5, 1837.

JOHN BEN­NETT, ESQ.

DEAR SIR:-Mr. Ed­wards tells me you wish to know whether the act to which your own in­cor­po­ra­tion pro­vi­sion was at­tached passed in­to a law. It did. You can or­ga­nize un­der the gen­er­al in­cor­po­ra­tion law as soon as you choose.

I al­so tacked a pro­vi­sion on­to a fel­low’s bill to au­tho­rize the re­lo­ca­tion of the road from Salem down to your town, but I am not cer­tain whether or not the bill passed, nei­ther do I sup­pose I can as­cer­tain be­fore the law will be pub­lished, if it is a law. Bowl­ing Greene, Ben­nette Abe? and your­self are ap­point­ed to make the change. No news. No ex­cite­ment ex­cept a lit­tle about the elec­tion of Mon­day next.

I sup­pose, of course, our friend Dr. Heney stands no chance in your dig­gings.

Your friend and hum­ble ser­vant,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO MARY OWENS.

SPRING­FIELD, Aug. 16, 1837

FRIEND MARY: You will no doubt think it rather strange that I should write you a let­ter on the same day on which we part­ed, and I can on­ly ac­count for it by sup­pos­ing that see­ing you late­ly makes me think of you more than usu­al; while at our late meet­ing we had but few ex­pres­sions of thoughts. You must know that I can­not see you, or think of you, with en­tire in­dif­fer­ence; and yet it may be that you are mis­tak­en in re­gard to what my re­al feel­ings to­ward you are.

If I knew you were not, I should not have trou­bled you with this let­ter. Per­haps any oth­er man would know enough with­out in­for­ma­tion; but I con­sid­er it my pe­cu­liar right to plead ig­no­rance, and your bound­en du­ty to al­low the plea.

I want in all cas­es to do right; and most par­tic­ular­ly so in all cas­es with wom­en.

I want, at this par­tic­ular time, more than any thing else to do right with you; and if I knew it would be do­ing right, as I rather sus­pect it would, to let you alone I would do it. And, for the pur­pose of mak­ing the mat­ter as plain as pos­si­ble, I now say that you can drop the sub­ject, dis­miss your thoughts (if you ev­er had any) from me for ev­er and leave this let­ter unan­swered with­out call­ing forth one ac­cus­ing mur­mur from me. And I will even go fur­ther and say that, if it will add any­thing to your com­fort or peace of mind to do so, it is my sin­cere wish that you should. Do not un­der­stand by this that I wish to cut your ac­quain­tance. I mean no such thing. What I do wish is that our fur­ther ac­quain­tance shall de­pend up­on your­self. If such fur­ther ac­quain­tance would con­tribute noth­ing to your hap­pi­ness, I am sure it would not to mine. If you feel your­self in any de­gree bound to me, I am now will­ing to re­lease you, pro­vid­ed you wish it; while on the oth­er hand I am will­ing and even anx­ious to bind you faster if I can be con­vinced that it will, in any con­sid­er­able de­gree, add to your hap­pi­ness. This, in­deed, is the whole ques­tion with me. Noth­ing would make me more mis­er­able than to be­lieve you mis­er­able, noth­ing more hap­py than to know you were so.

In what I have now said, I think I can­not be mis­un­der­stood; and to make my­self un­der­stood is the on­ly ob­ject of this let­ter.

If it suits you best not to an­swer this, farewell. A long life and a mer­ry one at­tend you. But, if you con­clude to write back, speak as plain­ly as I do. There can nei­ther be harm nor dan­ger in say­ing to me any­thing you think, just in the man­ner you think it. My re­spects to your sis­ter.

Your friend,

LIN­COLN

LE­GAL SUIT OF WID­OW v.s. Gen. ADAMS

TO THE PEO­PLE.

“SANG­AMON JOUR­NAL,” SPRING­FIELD, ILL., Aug. 19, 1837.

In ac­cor­dance with our de­ter­mi­na­tion, as ex­pressed last week, we present to the read­er the ar­ti­cles which were pub­lished in hand- bill form, in ref­er­ence to the case of the heirs of Joseph An­der­son vs. James Adams. These ar­ti­cles can now be read un­in­flu­enced by per­son­al or par­ty feel­ing, and with the sole mo­tive of learn­ing the truth. When that is done, the read­er can pass his own judg­ment on the mat­ters at is­sue.

We on­ly re­gret in this case, that the pub­li­ca­tions were not made some weeks be­fore the elec­tion. Such a course might have pre­vent­ed the ex­pres­sions of re­gret, which have of­ten been heard since, from dif­fer­ent in­di­vid­uals, on ac­count of the dis­po­si­tion they made of their votes.

To the Pub­lic:

It is well known to most of you, that there is ex­ist­ing at this time con­sid­er­able ex­cite­ment in re­gard to Gen. Adams’s ti­tles to cer­tain tracts of land, and the man­ner in which he ac­quired them. As I un­der­stand, the Gen. charges that the whole has been got­ten up by a knot of lawyers to in­jure his elec­tion; and as I am one of the knot to which he refers, and as I hap­pen to be in pos­ses­sion of facts con­nect­ed with the mat­ter, I will, in as brief a man­ner as pos­si­ble, make a state­ment of them, to­geth­er with the means by which I ar­rived at the knowl­edge of them.

Some­time in May or June last, a wid­ow wom­an, by the name of An­der­son, and her son, who re­sides in Ful­ton coun­ty, came to Spring­field, for the pur­pose as they said of sell­ing a ten acre lot of ground ly­ing near town, which they claimed as the prop­er­ty of the de­ceased hus­band and fa­ther.

When they reached town they found the land was claimed by Gen. Adams. John T. Stu­art and my­self were em­ployed to look in­to the mat­ter, and if it was thought we could do so with any prospect of suc­cess, to com­mence a suit for the land. I went im­me­di­ate­ly to the recorder’s of­fice to ex­am­ine Adams’s ti­tle, and found that the land had been en­tered by one Dixon, deed­ed by Dixon to Thomas, by Thomas to one Miller, and by Miller to Gen. Adams. The old­est of these three deeds was about ten or eleven years old, and the lat­est more than five, all record­ed at the same time, and that with­in less than one year. This I thought a sus­pi­cious cir­cum­stance, and I was there­by in­duced to ex­am­ine the deeds very close­ly, with a view to the dis­cov­ery of some de­fect by which to over­turn the ti­tle, be­ing al­most con­vinced then it was found­ed in fraud. I dis­cov­ered that in the deed from Thomas to Miller, al­though Miller’s name stood in a sort of marginal note on the record book, it was nowhere in the deed it­self. I told the fact to Tal­bott, the recorder, and pro­posed to him that he should go to Gen. Adams’s and get the orig­inal deed, and com­pare it with the record, and there­by as­cer­tain whether the de­fect was in the orig­inal or there was mere­ly an er­ror in the record­ing. As Tal­bott af­ter­wards told me, he went to the Gen­er­al’s, but not find­ing him at home, got the deed from his son, which, when com­pared with the record, proved what we had dis­cov­ered was mere­ly an er­ror of the recorder. Af­ter Mr. Tal­bott cor­rect­ed the record, be brought the orig­inal to our of­fice, as I then thought and think yet, to show us that it was right. When he came in­to the room he hand­ed the deed to me, re­mark­ing that the fault was all his own. On open­ing it, an­oth­er pa­per fell out of it, which on ex­am­ina­tion proved to be an as­sign­ment of a judg­ment in the Cir­cuit Court of Sang­amon Coun­ty from Joseph An­der­son, the late hus­band of the wid­ow above named, to James Adams, the judg­ment be­ing in fa­vor of said An­der­son against one Joseph Miller. Know­ing that this judg­ment had some con­nec­tion with the land af­fair, I im­me­di­ate­ly took a copy of it, which is word for word, let­ter for let­ter and cross for cross as fol­lows:

Joseph An­der­son, vs. Joseph Miller.

Judg­ment in Sang­amon Cir­cuit Court against Joseph Miller ob­tained on a note orig­inal­ly 25 dolls and in­ter­est there­on ac­crued. I as­sign all my right, ti­tle and in­ter­est to James Adams which is in con­sid­er­ation of a debt I owe said Adams.

his JOSEPH x AN­DER­SON. mark.

As the copy shows, it bore date May 10, 1827; al­though the judg­ment as­signed by it was not ob­tained un­til the Oc­to­ber af­ter­wards, as may be seen by any one on the records of the Cir­cuit Court. Two oth­er strange cir­cum­stances at­tend­ed it which can­not be rep­re­sent­ed by a copy. One of them was, that the date “1827″ had first been made “1837″ and, with­out the fig­ure “3,” be­ing ful­ly oblit­er­at­ed, the fig­ure “2″ had af­ter­wards been made on top of it; the oth­er was that, al­though the date was ten years old, the writ­ing on it, from the fresh­ness of its ap­pear­ance, was thought by many, and I be­lieve by all who saw it, not to be more than a week old. The pa­per on which it was writ­ten had a very old ap­pear­ance; and there were some old fig­ures on the back of it which made the fresh­ness of the writ­ing on the face of it much more strik­ing than I sup­pose it oth­er­wise might have been. The read­er’s cu­rios­ity is no doubt ex­cit­ed to know what con­nec­tion this as­sign­ment had with the land in ques­tion. The sto­ry is this: Dixon sold and deed­ed the land to Thomas; Thomas sold it to An­der­son; but be­fore he gave a deed, An­der­son sold it to Miller, and took Miller’s note for the pur­chase mon­ey. When this note be­came due, An­der­son sued Miller on it, and Miller pro­cured an in­junc­tion from the Court of Chancery to stay the col­lec­tion of the mon­ey un­til he should get a deed for the land. Gen. Adams was em­ployed as an at­tor­ney by An­der­son in this chancery suit, and at the Oc­to­ber term, 1827, the in­junc­tion was dis­solved, and a judg­ment giv­en in fa­vor of An­der­son against Miller; and it was pro­vid­ed that Thomas was to ex­ecute a deed for the land in fa­vor of Miller and de­liv­er it to Gen. Adams, to be held up by him till Miller paid the judg­ment, and then to de­liv­er it to him. Miller left the coun­ty with­out pay­ing the judg­ment. An­der­son moved to Ful­ton coun­ty, where he has since died When the wid­ow came to Spring­field last May or June, as be­fore men­tioned, and found the land deed­ed to Gen. Adams by Miller, she was nat­ural­ly led to in­quire why the mon­ey due up­on the judg­ment had not been sent to them, inas­much as he, Gen. Adams, had no au­thor­ity to de­liv­er Thomas’s deed to Miller un­til the mon­ey was paid. Then it was the Gen­er­al told her, or per­haps her son, who came with her, that An­der­son, in his life­time, had as­signed the judg­ment to him, Gen. Adams. I am now told that the Gen­er­al is ex­hibit­ing an as­sign­ment of the same judg­ment bear­ing date “1828″ and in oth­er re­spects dif­fer­ing from the one de­scribed; and that he is as­sert­ing that no such as­sign­ment as the one copied by me ev­er ex­ist­ed; or if there did, it was forged be­tween Tal­bott and the lawyers, and slipped in­to his pa­pers for the pur­pose of in­jur­ing him. Now, I can on­ly say that I know pre­cise­ly such a one did ex­ist, and that Ben. Tal­bott, Wm. But­ler, C.R. Ma­th­eny, John T. Stu­art, Judge Lo­gan, Robert Ir­win, P. C. Canedy and S. M. Tins­ley, all saw and ex­am­ined it, and that at least one half of them will swear that IT WAS IN GEN­ER­AL ADAMS’S HAND­WRIT­ING !! And fur­ther, I know that Tal­bott will swear that he got it out of the Gen­er­al’s pos­ses­sion, and re­turned it in­to his pos­ses­sion again. The as­sign­ment which the Gen­er­al is now ex­hibit­ing pur­ports to have been by An­der­son in writ­ing. The one I copied was signed with a cross.

I am told that Gen. Neale says that he will swear that he heard Gen. Adams tell young An­der­son that the as­sign­ment made by his fa­ther was signed with a cross.

The above are ‘facts,’ as stat­ed. I leave them with­out com­ment. I have giv­en the names of per­sons who have knowl­edge of these facts, in or­der that any one who choos­es may call on them and as­cer­tain how far they will cor­rob­orate my state­ments. I have on­ly made these state­ments be­cause I am known by many to be one of the in­di­vid­uals against whom the charge of forg­ing the as­sign­ment and slip­ping it in­to the Gen­er­al’s pa­pers has been made, and be­cause our si­lence might be con­strued in­to a con­fes­sion of its truth. I shall not sub­scribe my name; but I here­by au­tho­rize the ed­itor of the Jour­nal to give it up to any one that may call for it.

LIN­COLN AND TAL­BOTT IN RE­PLY TO GEN. ADAMS.

“SANG­AMON JOUR­NAL,” SPRING­FIELD, ILL., Oct. 28, 1837.

In the Re­pub­li­can of this morn­ing a pub­li­ca­tion of Gen. Adams’s ap­pears, in which my name is used quite un­re­served­ly. For this I thank the Gen­er­al. I thank him be­cause it gives me an op­por­tu­ni­ty, with­out ap­pear­ing ob­tru­sive, of ex­plain­ing a part of a for­mer pub­li­ca­tion of mine, which ap­pears to me to have been mis­un­der­stood by many.

In the for­mer pub­li­ca­tion al­lud­ed to, I stat­ed, in sub­stance, that Mr. Tal­bott got a deed from a son of Gen. Adams’s for the pur­pose of cor­rect­ing a mis­take that had oc­curred on the record of the said deed in the recorder’s of­fice; that he cor­rect­ed the record, and brought the deed and hand­ed it to me, and that on open­ing the deed, an­oth­er pa­per, be­ing the as­sign­ment of a judg­ment, fell out of it. This state­ment Gen. Adams and the ed­itor of the Re­pub­li­can have seized up­on as a most pal­pa­ble ev­idence of fab­ri­ca­tion and false­hood. They set them­selves grave­ly about prov­ing that the as­sign­ment could not have been in the deed when Tal­bott got it from young Adams, as he, Tal­bott, would have seen it when he opened the deed to cor­rect the record. Now, the truth is, Tal­bott did see the as­sign­ment when he opened the deed, or at least he told me he did on the same day; and I on­ly omit­ted to say so, in my for­mer pub­li­ca­tion, be­cause it was a mat­ter of such pal­pa­ble and nec­es­sary in­fer­ence. I had stat­ed that Tal­bott had cor­rect­ed the record by the deed; and of course he must have opened it; and, just as the Gen­er­al and his friends ar­gue, must have seen the as­sign­ment. I omit­ted to state the fact of Tal­bott’s see­ing the as­sign­ment, be­cause its ex­is­tence was so nec­es­sar­ily con­nect­ed with oth­er facts which I did state, that I thought the great­est dunce could not but un­der­stand it. Did I say Tal­bott had not seen it? Did I say any­thing that was in­con­sis­tent with his hav­ing seen it be­fore? Most cer­tain­ly I did nei­ther; and if I did not, what be­comes of the ar­gu­ment? These log­ical gen­tle­men can sus­tain their ar­gu­ment on­ly by as­sum­ing that I did say neg­ative­ly ev­ery­thing that I did not say af­fir­ma­tive­ly; and up­on the same as­sump­tion, we may ex­pect to find the Gen­er­al, if a lit­tle hard­er pressed for ar­gu­ment, say­ing that I said Tal­bott came to our of­fice with his head down­ward, not that I ac­tu­al­ly said so, but be­cause I omit­ted to say he came feet down­ward.

In his pub­li­ca­tion to-​day, the Gen­er­al pro­duces the af­fi­davit of Reuben Rad­ford, in which it is said that Tal­bott told Rad­ford that he did not find the as­sign­ment in the deed, in the record­ing of which the er­ror was com­mit­ted, but that he found it wrapped in an­oth­er pa­per in the recorder’s of­fice, up­on which state­ment the Genl. com­ments as fol­lows, to wit: “If it be true as stat­ed by Tal­bott to Rad­ford, that he found the as­sign­ment wrapped up in an­oth­er pa­per at his of­fice, that con­tra­dicts the state­ment of Lin­coln that it fell out of the deed.”

Is com­mon sense to be abused with such sophistry? Did I say what Tal­bott found it in? If Tal­bott did find it in an­oth­er pa­per at his of­fice, is that any rea­son why he could not have fold­ed it in a deed and brought it to my of­fice? Can any one be so far duped as to be made be­lieve that what may have hap­pened at Tal­bot’s of­fice at one time is in­con­sis­tent with what hap­pened at my of­fice at an­oth­er time?

Now Tal­bott’s state­ment of the case as he makes it to me is this, that he got a bunch of deeds from young Adams, and that he knows he found the as­sign­ment in the bunch, but he is not cer­tain which par­tic­ular deed it was in, nor is he cer­tain whether it was fold­ed in the same deed out of which it was tak­en, or an­oth­er one, when it was brought to my of­fice. Is this a mys­te­ri­ous sto­ry? Is there any­thing sus­pi­cious about it?

“But it is use­less to dwell longer on this point. Any man who is not wil­ful­ly blind can see at a flash, that there is no dis­crep­an­cy, and Lin­coln has shown that they are not on­ly in­con­sis­tent with truth, but each oth­er”–I can on­ly say, that I have shown that he has done no such thing; and if the read­er is dis­posed to re­quire any oth­er ev­idence than the Gen­er­al’s as­ser­tion, he will be of my opin­ion.

Ex­cept­ing the Gen­er­al’s most flim­sy at­tempt at mys­ti­fi­ca­tion, in re­gard to a dis­crep­ance be­tween Tal­bott and my­self, he has not de­nied a sin­gle state­ment that I made in my hand-​bill. Ev­ery ma­te­ri­al state­ment that I made has been sworn to by men who, in for­mer times, were thought as re­spectable as Gen­er­al Adams. I stat­ed that an as­sign­ment of a judg­ment, a copy of which I gave, had ex­ist­ed–Benj. Tal­bott, C. R. Ma­th­eny, Wm. But­ler, and Judge Lo­gan swore to its ex­is­tence. I stat­ed that it was said to be in Gen. Adams’s hand­writ­ing–the same men swore it was in his hand­writ­ing. I stat­ed that Tal­bott would swear that he got it out of Gen. Adams’s pos­ses­sion–Tal­bott came for­ward and did swear it.

Bid­ding adieu to the for­mer pub­li­ca­tion, I now pro­pose to ex­am­ine the Gen­er­al’s last gi­gan­tic pro­duc­tion. I now pro­pose to point out some dis­crep­an­cies in the Gen­er­al’s ad­dress; and such, too, as he shall not be able to es­cape from. Speak­ing of the fa­mous as­sign­ment, the Gen­er­al says: “This last charge, which was their last re­sort, their dy­ing ef­fort to ren­der my char­ac­ter in­fa­mous among my fel­low cit­izens, was man­ufac­tured at a cer­tain lawyer’s of­fice in the town, print­ed at the of­fice of the Sang­amon Jour­nal, and found its way in­to the world some time be­tween two days just be­fore the last elec­tion.” Now turn to Mr. Keys’ af­fi­davit, in which you will find the fol­low­ing, viz.: “I cer­ti­fy that some time in May or the ear­ly part of June, 1837, I saw at Williams’s cor­ner a pa­per pur­port­ing to be an as­sign­ment from Joseph An­der­son to James Adams, which as­sign­ment was signed by a mark to An­der­son’s name,” etc. Now mark, if Keys saw the as­sign­ment on the last of May or first of June, Gen. Adams tells a false­hood when he says it was man­ufac­tured just be­fore the elec­tion, which was on the 7th of Au­gust; and if it was man­ufac­tured just be­fore the elec­tion, Keys tells a false­hood when he says he saw it on the last of May or first of June. Ei­ther Keys or the Gen­er­al is ir­re­triev­ably in for it; and in the Gen­er­al’s very con­de­scend­ing lan­guage, I say “Let them set­tle it be­tween them.”

Now again, let the read­er, bear­ing in mind that Gen­er­al Adams has un­equiv­ocal­ly said, in one part of his ad­dress, that the charge in re­la­tion to the as­sign­ment was man­ufac­tured just be­fore the elec­tion, turn to the af­fi­davit of Pe­ter S. We­ber, where the fol­low­ing will be found viz.: “I, Pe­ter S. We­ber, do cer­ti­fy that from the best of my rec­ol­lec­tion, on the day or day af­ter Gen. Adams start­ed for the Illi­nois Rapids, in May last, that I was at the house of Gen. Adams, sit­ting in the kitchen, sit­uat­ed on the back part of the house, it be­ing in the af­ter­noon, and that Ben­jamin Tal­bott came around the house, back in­to the kitchen, and ap­peared wild and con­fused, and that he laid a pack­age of pa­pers on the kitchen ta­ble and re­quest­ed that they should be hand­ed to Lu­cian. He made no apol­ogy for com­ing to the kitchen, nor for not hand­ing them to Lu­cian him­self, but showed the to­ken of be­ing fright­ened and con­fused both in de­meanor and speech and for what cause I could not ap­pre­hend.”

Com­ment­ing on We­ber’s af­fi­davit, Gen. Adams asks, “Why this fright and con­fu­sion?” I re­ply that this is a ques­tion for the Gen­er­al him­self. We­ber says that it was in May, and if so, it is most clear that Tal­bott was not fright­ened on ac­count of the as­sign­ment, un­less the Gen­er­al lies when he says the as­sign­ment charge was man­ufac­tured just be­fore the elec­tion. Is it not a strong ev­idence, that the Gen­er­al is not trav­el­ing with the pole- star of truth in his front, to see him in one part of his ad­dress round­ly as­sert­ing that the as­sign­ment was man­ufac­tured just be­fore the elec­tion, and then, for­get­ting that po­si­tion, procur­ing We­ber’s most fool­ish af­fi­davit, to prove that Tal­bott had been en­gaged in man­ufac­tur­ing it two months be­fore?

In an­oth­er part of his ad­dress, Gen. Adams says: “That I hold an as­sign­ment of said judg­ment, dat­ed the 20th of May, 1828, and signed by said An­der­son, I have nev­er pre­tend­ed to de­ny or con­ceal, but stat­ed that fact in one of my cir­cu­lars pre­vi­ous to the elec­tion, and al­so in an­swer to a bill in chancery.” Now I pro­nounce this state­ment un­qual­ified­ly false, and shall not re­ly on the word or oath of any man to sus­tain me in what I say; but will let the whole be de­cid­ed by ref­er­ence to the cir­cu­lar and an­swer in chancery of which the Gen­er­al speaks. In his cir­cu­lar he did speak of an as­sign­ment; but he did not say it bore date 20th of May, 1828; nor did he say it bore any date. In his an­swer in chancery, he did say that he had an as­sign­ment; but he did not say that it bore date the 20th May, 1828; but so far from it, he said on oath (for he swore to the an­swer) that as well as rec­ol­lect­ed, he ob­tained it in 1827. If any one doubts, let him ex­am­ine the cir­cu­lar and an­swer for him­self. They are both ac­ces­si­ble.

It will read­ily be ob­served that the prin­ci­pal part of Adams’s de­fense rests up­on the ar­gu­ment that if he had been base enough to forge an as­sign­ment he would not have been fool enough to forge one that would not cov­er the case. This ar­gu­ment he used in his cir­cu­lar be­fore the elec­tion. The Re­pub­li­can has used it at least once, since then; and Adams us­es it again in his pub­li­ca­tion of to-​day. Now I pledge my­self to show that he is just such a fool that he and his friends have con­tend­ed it was im­pos­si­ble for him to be. Rec­ol­lect–he says he has a gen­uine as­sign­ment; and that he got Joseph Klein’s af­fi­davit, stat­ing that he had seen it, and that he be­lieved the sig­na­ture to have been ex­ecut­ed by the same hand that signed An­der­son’s name to the an­swer in chancery. Luck­ily Klein took a copy of this gen­uine as­sign­ment, which I have been per­mit­ted to see; and hence I know it does not cov­er the case. In the first place it is head­ed “Joseph An­der­son vs. Joseph Miller,” and heads off “Judg­ment in Sang­amon Cir­cuit Court.” Now, mark, there nev­er was a case in Sang­amon Cir­cuit Court en­ti­tled Joseph An­der­son vs. Joseph Miller. The case men­tioned in my for­mer pub­li­ca­tion, and the on­ly one be­tween these par­ties that ev­er ex­ist­ed in the Cir­cuit Court, was en­ti­tled Joseph Miller vs. Joseph An­der­son, Miller be­ing the plain­tiff. What then be­comes of all their sophistry about Adams not be­ing fool enough to forge an as­sign­ment that would not cov­er the case? It is cer­tain that the present one does not cov­er the case; and if he got it hon­est­ly, it is still clear that he was fool enough to pay for an as­sign­ment that does not cov­er the case.

The Gen­er­al asks for the proof of dis­in­ter­est­ed wit­ness­es. Whom does he con­sid­er dis­in­ter­est­ed? None can be more so than those who have al­ready tes­ti­fied against him. No one of them had the least in­ter­est on earth, so far as I can learn, to in­jure him. True, he says they had con­spired against him; but if the tes­ti­mo­ny of an an­gel from Heav­en were in­tro­duced against him, he would make the same charge of con­spir­acy. And now I put the ques­tion to ev­ery re­flect­ing man, Do you be­lieve that Ben­jamin Tal­bott, Chas. R. Ma­th­eny, William But­ler and Stephen T. Lo­gan, all sus­tain­ing high and spot­less char­ac­ters, and just­ly proud of them, would de­lib­er­ate­ly per­jure them­selves, with­out any mo­tive what­ev­er, ex­cept to in­jure a man’s elec­tion; and that, too, a man who had been a can­di­date, time out of mind, and yet who had nev­er been elect­ed to any of­fice?

Adams’s as­sur­ance, in de­mand­ing dis­in­ter­est­ed tes­ti­mo­ny, is sur­pass­ing. He brings in the af­fi­davit of his own son, and even of Pe­ter S. We­ber, with whom I am not ac­quaint­ed, but who, I sup­pose, is some black or mu­lat­to boy, from his be­ing kept in the kitchen, to prove his points; but when such a man as Tal­bott, a man who, but two years ago, ran against Gen. Adams for the of­fice of Recorder and beat him more than four votes to one, is in­tro­duced against him, he asks the com­mu­ni­ty, with all the con­se­quence of a lord, to re­ject his tes­ti­mo­ny.

I might eas­ily write a vol­ume, point­ing out in­con­sis­ten­cies be­tween the state­ments in Adams’s last ad­dress with one an­oth­er, and with oth­er known facts; but I am aware the read­er must al­ready be tired with the length of this ar­ti­cle. His open­ing state­ments, that he was first ac­cused of be­ing a To­ry, and that he re­fut­ed that; that then the Samp­son’s ghost sto­ry was got up, and he re­fut­ed that; that as a last re­sort, a dy­ing ef­fort, the as­sign­ment charge was got up is all as false as hell, as all this com­mu­ni­ty must know. Samp­son’s ghost first made its ap­pear­ance in print, and that, too, af­ter Keys swears he saw the as­sign­ment, as any one may see by ref­er­ence to the files of pa­pers; and Gen. Adams him­self, in re­ply to the Samp­son’s ghost sto­ry, was the first man that raised the cry of to­ry­ism, and it was on­ly by way of set-​off, and nev­er in se­ri­ous­ness, that it was bandied back at him. His ef­fort is to make the im­pres­sion that his en­emies first made the charge of to­ry­ism and he drove them from that, then Samp­son’s ghost, he drove them from that, then fi­nal­ly the as­sign­ment charge was man­ufac­tured just be­fore elec­tion. Now, the on­ly gen­er­al re­ply he ev­er made to the Samp­son’s ghost and to­ry charges he made at one and the same time, and not in suc­ces­sion as he states; and the date of that re­ply will show, that it was made at least a month af­ter the date on which Keys swears he saw the An­der­son as­sign­ment. But enough. In con­clu­sion I will on­ly say that I have a char­ac­ter to de­fend as well as Gen. Adams, but I dis­dain to whine about it as he does. It is true I have no chil­dren nor kitchen boys; and if I had, I should scorn to lug them in to make af­fi­davits for me.

A. LIN­COLN, Septem­ber 6, 1837.

Gen. ADAMS CON­TRO­VER­SY–CON­TIN­UED

TO THE PUB­LIC.

“SANG­AMON JOUR­NAL,” Spring­field, Ill, Oct.28, 1837.

Such is the turn which things have tak­en late­ly, that when Gen. Adams writes a book, I am ex­pect­ed to write a com­men­tary on it. In the Re­pub­li­can of this morn­ing he has pre­sent­ed the world with a new work of six columns in length; in con­se­quence of which I must beg the room of one col­umn in the Jour­nal. It is ob­vi­ous that a minute re­ply can­not be made in one col­umn to ev­ery­thing that can be said in six; and, con­se­quent­ly, I hope that ex­pec­ta­tion will be an­swered if I re­ply to such parts of the Gen­er­al’s pub­li­ca­tion as are worth re­ply­ing to.

It may not be im­prop­er to re­mind the read­er that in his pub­li­ca­tion of Sept. 6th Gen­er­al Adams said that the as­sign­ment charge was man­ufac­tured just be­fore the elec­tion; and that in re­ply I proved that state­ment to be false by Keys, his own wit­ness. Now, with­out at­tempt­ing to ex­plain, he fur­nish­es me with an­oth­er wit­ness (Tins­ley) by which the same thing is proved, to wit, that the as­sign­ment was not man­ufac­tured just be­fore the elec­tion; but that it was some weeks be­fore. Let it be borne in mind that Adams made this state­ment–has him­self fur­nished two wit­ness­es to prove its false­hood, and does not at­tempt to de­ny or ex­plain it. Be­fore go­ing far­ther, let a pin be stuck here, la­beled “One lie proved and con­fessed.” On the 6th of Septem­ber he said he had be­fore stat­ed in the hand-​bill that he held an as­sign­ment dat­ed May 20th, 1828, which in re­ply I pro­nounced to be false, and re­ferred to the hand-​bill for the truth of what I said. This week he for­gets to make any ex­pla­na­tion of this. Let an­oth­er pin be stuck here, la­belled as be­fore. I men­tion these things be­cause, if, when I con­vict him in one false­hood, he is per­mit­ted to shift his ground and pass it by in si­lence, there can be no end to this con­tro­ver­sy.

The first thing that at­tracts my at­ten­tion in the Gen­er­al’s present pro­duc­tion is the in­for­ma­tion he is pleased to give to “those who are made to suf­fer at his (my) hands.”

Un­der present cir­cum­stances, this can­not ap­ply to me, for I am not a wid­ow nor an or­phan: nor have I a wife or chil­dren who might by pos­si­bil­ity be­come such. Such, how­ev­er, I have no doubt, have been, and will again be made to suf­fer at his hands! Hands! Yes, they are the mis­chievous agents. The next thing I shall no­tice is his fa­vorite ex­pres­sion, “not of lawyers, doc­tors and oth­ers,” which he is so fond of ap­ply­ing to all who dare ex­pose his ras­cal­ity. Now, let it be re­mem­bered that when he first came to this coun­try he at­tempt­ed to im­pose him­self up­on the com­mu­ni­ty as a lawyer, and ac­tu­al­ly car­ried the at­tempt so far as to in­duce a man who was un­der a charge of mur­der to en­trust the de­fence of his life in his hands, and fi­nal­ly took his mon­ey and got him hanged. Is this the man that is to raise a breeze in his fa­vor by abus­ing lawyers? If he is not him­self a lawyer, it is for the lack of sense, and not of in­cli­na­tion. If he is not a lawyer, he is a liar, for he pro­claimed him­self a lawyer, and got a man hanged by de­pend­ing on him.

Pass­ing over such parts of the ar­ti­cle as have nei­ther fact nor ar­gu­ment in them, I come to the ques­tion asked by Adams whether any per­son ev­er saw the as­sign­ment in his pos­ses­sion. This is an in­sult to com­mon sense. Tal­bott has sworn once and re­peat­ed time and again, that he got it out of Adams’s pos­ses­sion and re­turned it in­to the same pos­ses­sion. Still, as though he was ad­dress­ing fools, he has as­sur­ance to ask if any per­son ev­er saw it in his pos­ses­sion.

Next I quote a sen­tence, “Now my son Lu­cian swears that when Tal­bott called for the deed, that he, Tal­bott, opened it and point­ed out the er­ror.” True. His son Lu­cian did swear as he says; and in do­ing so, he swore what I will prove by his own af­fi­davit to be a false­hood. Turn to Lu­cian’s af­fi­davit, and you will there see that Tal­bott called for the deed by which to cor­rect an er­ror on the record. Thus it ap­pears that the er­ror in ques­tion was on the record, and not in the deed. How then could Tal­bott open the deed and point out the er­ror? Where a thing is not, it can­not be point­ed out. The er­ror was not in the deed, and of course could not be point­ed out there. This does not mere­ly prove that the er­ror could not be point­ed out, as Lu­cian swore it was; but it proves, too, that the deed was not opened in his pres­ence with a spe­cial view to the er­ror, for if it had been, he could not have failed to see that there was no er­ror in it. It is easy enough to see why Lu­cian swore this. His ob­ject was to prove that the as­sign­ment was not in the deed when Tal­bott got it: but it was dis­cov­ered he could not swear this safe­ly, with­out first swear­ing the deed was opened–and if he swore it was opened, he must show a mo­tive for open­ing it, and the con­clu­sion with him and his fa­ther was that the point­ing out the er­ror would ap­pear the most plau­si­ble.

For the pur­pose of show­ing that the as­sign­ment was not in the bun­dle when Tal­bott got it, is the sto­ry in­tro­duced in­to Lu­cian’s af­fi­davit that the deeds were count­ed. It is a re­mark­able fact, and one that should stand as a warn­ing to all liars and fab­ri­ca­tors, that in this short af­fi­davit of Lu­cian’s he on­ly at­tempt­ed to de­part from the truth, so far as I have the means of know­ing, in two points, to wit, in the open­ing the deed and point­ing out the er­ror and the count­ing of the deeds,–and in both of these he caught him­self. About the count­ing, he caught him­self thus–af­ter say­ing the bun­dle con­tained five deeds and a lease, he pro­ceeds, “and I saw no oth­er pa­pers than the said deed and lease.” First he has six pa­pers, and then he saw none but two; for “my son Lu­cian’s” ben­efit, let a pin be stuck here.

Adams again ad­duces the ar­gu­ment, that he could not have forged the as­sign­ment, for the rea­son that he could have had no mo­tive for it. With those that know the facts there is no ab­sence of mo­tive. Ad­mit­ting the pa­per which he has filed in the suit to be gen­uine, it is clear that it can­not an­swer the pur­pose for which he de­signs it. Hence his mo­tive for mak­ing one that he sup­posed would an­swer is ob­vi­ous. His mak­ing the date too old is al­so eas­ily enough ac­count­ed for. The records were not in his hands, and then, there be­ing some con­sid­er­able talk up­on this par­tic­ular sub­ject, he knew he could not ex­am­ine the records to as­cer­tain the pre­cise dates with­out sub­ject­ing him­self to sus­pi­cion; and hence he con­clud­ed to try it by guess, and, as it turned out, missed it a lit­tle. About Miller’s de­po­si­tion I have a word to say. In the first place, Miller’s an­swer to the first ques­tion shows up­on its face that he had been tam­pered with, and the an­swer dic­tat­ed to him. He was asked if he knew Joel Wright and James Adams; and above three-​fourths of his an­swer con­sists of what he knew about Joseph An­der­son, a man about whom noth­ing had been asked, nor a word said in the ques­tion–a fact that can on­ly be ac­count­ed for up­on the sup­po­si­tion that Adams had se­cret­ly told him what he wished him to swear to.

An­oth­er of Miller’s an­swers I will prove both by com­mon sense and the Court of Record is un­true. To one ques­tion he an­swers, “An­der­son brought a suit against me be­fore James Adams, then an act­ing jus­tice of the peace in Sang­amon Coun­ty, be­fore whom he ob­tained a judg­ment.

“Q.–Did you re­move the same by in­junc­tion to the Sang­amon Cir­cuit Court? Ans.–I did re­move it.”

Now mark–it is said he re­moved it by in­junc­tion. The word “in­junc­tion” in com­mon lan­guage im­ports a com­mand that some per­son or thing shall not move or be re­moved; in law it has the same mean­ing. An in­junc­tion is­su­ing out of chancery to a jus­tice of the peace is a com­mand to him to stop all pro­ceed­ings in a named case un­til fur­ther or­ders. It is not an or­der to re­move but to stop or stay some­thing that is al­ready mov­ing. Be­sides this, the records of the Sang­amon Cir­cuit Court show that the judg­ment of which Miller swore was nev­er re­moved in­to said Court by in­junc­tion or oth­er­wise.

I have now to take no­tice of a part of Adams’s ad­dress which in the or­der of time should have been no­ticed be­fore. It is in these words: “I have now shown, in the opin­ion of two com­pe­tent judges, that the hand­writ­ing of the forged as­sign­ment dif­fered from mine, and by one of them that it could not be mis­tak­en for mine.” That is false. Tins­ley no doubt is the judge re­ferred to; and by ref­er­ence to his cer­tifi­cate it will be seen that he did not say the hand­writ­ing of the as­sign­ment could not be mis­tak­en for Adams’s–nor did he use any oth­er ex­pres­sion sub­stan­tial­ly, or any­thing near sub­stan­tial­ly, the same. But if Tins­ley had said the hand­writ­ing could not be mis­tak­en for Adams’s, it would have been equal­ly un­for­tu­nate for Adams: for it then would have con­tra­dict­ed Keys, who says, “I looked at the writ­ing and judged it the said Adams’s or a good im­ita­tion.”

Adams speaks with much ap­par­ent con­fi­dence of his suc­cess on at­tend­ing law­suits, and the ul­ti­mate main­te­nance of his ti­tle to the land in ques­tion. With­out wish­ing to dis­turb the plea­sure of his dream, I would say to him that it is not im­pos­si­ble that he may yet be taught to sing a dif­fer­ent song in re­la­tion to the mat­ter.

At the end of Miller’s de­po­si­tion, Adams asks, “Will Mr. Lin­coln now say that he is al­most con­vinced my ti­tle to this ten acre tract of land is found­ed in fraud?” I an­swer, I will not. I will now change the phrase­ol­ogy so as to make it run–I am quite con­vinced, &c. I can­not pass in si­lence Adams’s as­ser­tion that he has proved that the forged as­sign­ment was not in the deed when it came from his house by Tal­bott, the recorder. In this, al­though Tal­bott has sworn that the as­sign­ment was in the bun­dle of deeds when it came from his house, Adams has the un­ac­count­able as­sur­ance to say that he has proved the con­trary by Tal­bott. Let him or his friends at­tempt to show where­in he proved any such thing by Tal­bott.

In his pub­li­ca­tion of the 6th of Septem­ber he hint­ed to Tal­bott, that he might be mis­tak­en. In his present, speak­ing of Tal­bott and me he says “They may have been im­posed up­on.” Can any man of the least pen­etra­tion fail to see the ob­ject of this? Af­ter be has stormed and raged till he hopes and imag­ines he has got us a lit­tle scared he wish­es to soft­ly whis­per in our ears, “If you’ll quit I will.” If he could get us to say that some un­known, un­de­fined be­ing had slipped the as­sign­ment in­to our hands with­out our knowl­edge, not a doubt re­mains but that be would im­me­di­ate­ly dis­cov­er that we were the purest men on earth. This is the ground he ev­ident­ly wish­es us to un­der­stand he is will­ing to com­pro­mise up­on. But we ask no such char­ity at his hands. We are nei­ther mis­tak­en nor im­posed up­on. We have made the state­ments we have be­cause we know them to be true and we choose to live or die by them.

Esq. Carter, who is Adams’s friend, per­son­al and po­lit­ical, will rec­ol­lect, that, on the 5th of this month, he (Adams), with a great af­fec­ta­tion of mod­esty, de­clared that he would nev­er in­tro­duce his own child as a wit­ness. Notwith­stand­ing this af­fec­ta­tion of mod­esty, he has in his present pub­li­ca­tion in­tro­duced his child as wit­ness; and as if to show with how much con­tempt he could treat his own dec­la­ra­tion, he has had this same Esq. Carter to ad­min­is­ter the oath to him. And so im­por­tant a wit­ness does he con­sid­er him, and so en­tire­ly does the whole of his en­tire present pro­duc­tion de­pend up­on the tes­ti­mo­ny of his child, that in it he has men­tioned “my son,” “my son Lu­cian,” “Lu­cian, my son,” and the like ex­pres­sions no less than fif­teen dif­fer­ent times. Let it be re­mem­bered here, that I have shown the af­fi­davit of “my dar­ling son Lu­cian” to be false by the ev­idence ap­par­ent on its own face; and I now ask if that af­fi­davit be tak­en away what foun­da­tion will the fab­ric have left to stand up­on?

Gen­er­al Adams’s pub­li­ca­tions and out-​door ma­neu­ver­ing, tak­en in con­nec­tion with the ed­ito­ri­al ar­ti­cles of the Re­pub­li­can, are not more fool­ish and con­tra­dic­to­ry than they are lu­di­crous and amus­ing. One week the Re­pub­li­can no­ti­fies the pub­lic that Gen. Adams is prepar­ing an in­stru­ment that will tear, rend, split, rive, blow up, con­found, over­whelm, an­ni­hi­late, ex­tin­guish, ex­ter­mi­nate, burst asun­der, and grind to pow­der all its slan­der­ers, and par­tic­ular­ly Tal­bott and Lin­coln–all of which is to be done in due time.

Then for two or three weeks all is calm–not a word said. Again the Re­pub­li­can comes forth with a mere pass­ing re­mark that “pub­lic” opin­ion has de­cid­ed in fa­vor of Gen. Adams, and in­ti­mates that he will give him­self no more trou­ble about the mat­ter. In the mean­time Adams him­self is prowl­ing about and, as Burns says of the dev­il, “For prey, and holes and cor­ners tryin’,” and in one in­stance goes so far as to take an old ac­quain­tance of mine sev­er­al steps from a crowd and, ap­par­ent­ly weighed down with the im­por­tance of his busi­ness, grave­ly and solemn­ly asks him if “he ev­er heard Lin­coln say he was a deist.”

Anon the Re­pub­li­can comes again. “We in­vite the at­ten­tion of the pub­lic to Gen­er­al Adams’s com­mu­ni­ca­tion,” &c. “The vic­to­ry is a great one, the tri­umph is over­whelm­ing.” I re­al­ly be­lieve the ed­itor of the Illi­nois Re­pub­li­can is fool enough to think Gen­er­al Adams leads off–“Au­thors most egre­gious­ly mis­tak­en &c. Most woe­ful­ly shall their pre­sump­tion be pun­ished,” &c. (Lord have mer­cy on us.) “The hour is yet to come, yea, nigh at hand–(how long first do you reck­on ?)–when the Jour­nal and its jun­to shall say, I have ap­peared too ear­ly.” “Their in­famy shall be laid bare to the pub­lic gaze.” Sud­den­ly the Gen­er­al ap­pears to re­lent at the sever­ity with which he is treat­ing us and he ex­claims: “The con­dem­na­tion of my en­emies is the in­evitable re­sult of my own de­fense.” For your health’s sake, dear Gen., do not per­mit your ten­der­ness of heart to af­flict you so much on our ac­count. For some rea­son (per­haps be­cause we are killed so quick­ly) we shall nev­er be sen­si­ble of our suf­fer­ing.

Farewell, Gen­er­al. I will see you again at court if not be­fore– when and where we will set­tle the ques­tion whether you or the wid­ow shall have the land.

A. LIN­COLN. Oc­to­ber 18, 1837.

1838

TO Mrs. O. H. BROWN­ING–A FARCE

SPRING­FIELD, April 1, 1838.

DEAR MADAM:–With­out apol­ogiz­ing for be­ing ego­tis­ti­cal, I shall make the his­to­ry of so much of my life as has elapsed since I saw you the sub­ject of this let­ter. And, by the way, I now dis­cov­er that, in or­der to give a full and in­tel­li­gi­ble ac­count of the things I have done and suf­fered since I saw you, I shall nec­es­sar­ily have to re­late some that hap­pened be­fore.

It was, then, in the au­tumn of 1836 that a mar­ried la­dy of my ac­quain­tance, and who was a great friend of mine, be­ing about to pay a vis­it to her fa­ther and oth­er rel­atives re­sid­ing in Ken­tucky, pro­posed to me that on her re­turn she would bring a sis­ter of hers with her on con­di­tion that I would en­gage to be­come her broth­er-​in-​law with all con­ve­nient despatch. I, of course, ac­cept­ed the pro­pos­al, for you know I could not have done oth­er­wise had I re­al­ly been averse to it; but pri­vate­ly, be­tween you and me, I was most con­found­ed­ly well pleased with the project. I had seen the said sis­ter some three years be­fore, thought her in­tel­li­gent and agree­able, and saw no good ob­jec­tion to plod­ding life through hand in hand with her. Time passed on; the la­dy took her jour­ney and in due time re­turned, sis­ter in com­pa­ny, sure enough. This as­ton­ished me a lit­tle, for it ap­peared to me that her com­ing so read­ily showed that she was a tri­fle too will­ing, but on re­flec­tion it oc­curred to me that she might have been pre­vailed on by her mar­ried sis­ter to come with­out any­thing con­cern­ing me ev­er hav­ing been men­tioned to her, and so I con­clud­ed that if no oth­er ob­jec­tion pre­sent­ed it­self, I would con­sent to waive this. All this oc­curred to me on hear­ing of her ar­rival in the neigh­bor­hood–for, be it re­mem­bered, I had not yet seen her, ex­cept about three years pre­vi­ous, as above men­tioned. In a few days we had an in­ter­view, and, al­though I had seen her be­fore, she did not look as my imag­ina­tion had pic­tured her. I knew she was over-​size, but she now ap­peared a fair match for Fal­staff. I knew she was called an “old maid,” and I felt no doubt of the truth of at least half of the ap­pel­la­tion, but now, when I be­held her, I could not for my life avoid think­ing of my moth­er; and this, not from with­ered fea­tures,–for her skin was too full of fat to per­mit of its con­tract­ing in­to wrin­kles,–but from her want of teeth, weath­er- beat­en ap­pear­ance in gen­er­al, and from a kind of no­tion that ran in my head that noth­ing could have com­menced at the size of in­fan­cy and reached her present bulk in less than thir­ty-​five or forty years; and in short, I was not at all pleased with her. But what could I do? I had told her sis­ter that I would take her for bet­ter or for worse, and I made a point of hon­or and con­science in all things to stick to my word es­pe­cial­ly if oth­ers had been in­duced to act on it which in this case I had no doubt they had, for I was now fair­ly con­vinced that no oth­er man on earth would have her, and hence the con­clu­sion that they were bent on hold­ing me to my bar­gain.

“Well,” thought I, “I have said it, and, be the con­se­quences what they may, it shall not be my fault if I fail to do it.” At once I de­ter­mined to con­sid­er her my wife; and, this done, all my pow­ers of dis­cov­ery were put to work in search of per­fec­tions in her which might be fair­ly set off against her de­fects. I tried to imag­ine her hand­some, which, but for her un­for­tu­nate cor­pu­len­cy, was ac­tu­al­ly true. Ex­clu­sive of this no wom­an that I have ev­er seen has a fin­er face. I al­so tried to con­vince my­self that the mind was much more to be val­ued than the per­son; and in this she was not in­fe­ri­or, as I could dis­cov­er, to any with whom I had been ac­quaint­ed.

Short­ly af­ter this, with­out com­ing to any pos­itive un­der­stand­ing with her, I set out for Van­dalia, when and where you first saw me. Dur­ing my stay there I had let­ters from her which did not change my opin­ion of ei­ther her in­tel­lect or in­ten­tion, but on the con­trary con­firmed it in both.

All this while, al­though I was fixed, “firm as the surge- re­pelling rock,” in my res­olu­tion, I found I was con­tin­ual­ly re­pent­ing the rash­ness which had led me to make it. Through life, I have been in no bondage, ei­ther re­al or imag­inary, from the thral­dom of which I so much de­sired to be free. Af­ter my re­turn home, I saw noth­ing to change my opin­ions of her in any par­tic­ular. She was the same, and so was I. I now spent my time in plan­ning how I might get along through life af­ter my con­tem­plat­ed change of cir­cum­stances should have tak­en place, and how I might pro­cras­ti­nate the evil day for a time, which I re­al­ly dread­ed as much, per­haps more, than an Irish­man does the hal­ter.

Af­ter all my suf­fer­ing up­on this deeply in­ter­est­ing sub­ject, here I am, whol­ly, un­ex­pect­ed­ly, com­plete­ly, out of the “scrape”; and now I want to know if you can guess how I got out of it—-out, clear, in ev­ery sense of the term; no vi­ola­tion of word, hon­or, or con­science. I don’t be­lieve you can guess, and so I might as well tell you at once. As the lawyer says, it was done in the man­ner fol­low­ing, to wit: Af­ter I had de­layed the mat­ter as long as I thought I could in hon­or do (which, by the way, had brought me round in­to the last fall), I con­clud­ed I might as well bring it to a con­sum­ma­tion with­out fur­ther de­lay; and so I mus­tered my res­olu­tion, and made the pro­pos­al to her di­rect; but, shock­ing to re­late, she an­swered, No. At first I sup­posed she did it through an af­fec­ta­tion of mod­esty, which I thought but ill be­came her un­der the pe­cu­liar cir­cum­stances of her case; but on my re­new­al of the charge, I found she re­pelled it with greater firm­ness than be­fore. I tried it again and again but with the same suc­cess, or rather with the same want of suc­cess.

I fi­nal­ly was forced to give it up; at which I very un­ex­pect­ed­ly found my­self mor­ti­fied al­most be­yond en­durance. I was mor­ti­fied, it seemed to me, in a hun­dred dif­fer­ent ways. My van­ity was deeply wound­ed by the re­flec­tion that I had been too stupid to dis­cov­er her in­ten­tions, and at the same time nev­er doubt­ing that I un­der­stood them per­fect­ly, and al­so that she, whom I had taught my­self to be­lieve no­body else would have, had ac­tu­al­ly re­ject­ed me with all my fan­cied great­ness. And, to cap the whole, I then for the first time be­gan to sus­pect that I was re­al­ly a lit­tle in love with her. But let it all go. I’ll try and out­live it. Oth­ers have been made fools of by the girls, but this can nev­er with truth be said of me. I most em­phat­ical­ly in this in­stance, made a fool of my­self. I have now come to the con­clu­sion nev­er again to think of mar­ry­ing, and for this rea­son: I can nev­er be sat­is­fied with any one who would be block­head enough to have me.

When you re­ceive this, write me a long yarn about some­thing to amuse me. Give my re­spects to Mr. Brown­ing.

Your sin­cere friend, A. LIN­COLN.

1839

RE­MARKS ON SALE OF PUB­LIC LANDS

IN THE HOUSE OF REP­RE­SEN­TA­TIVES, Jan­uary 17, 1839.

Mr. Lin­coln, from Com­mit­tee on Fi­nance, to which the sub­ject was re­ferred, made a re­port on the sub­ject of pur­chas­ing of the Unit­ed States all the un­sold lands ly­ing with­in the lim­its of the State of Illi­nois, ac­com­pa­nied by res­olu­tions that this State pro­pose to pur­chase all un­sold lands at twen­ty-​five cents per acre, and pledg­ing the faith of the State to car­ry the pro­pos­al in­to ef­fect if the gov­ern­ment ac­cept the same with­in two years.

Mr. Lin­coln thought the res­olu­tions ought to be se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­ered. In re­ply to the gen­tle­man from Adams, he said that it was not to en­rich the State. The price of the lands may be raised, it was thought by some; by oth­ers, that it would be re­duced. The con­clu­sion in his mind was that the rep­re­sen­ta­tives in this Leg­is­la­ture from the coun­try in which the lands lie would be op­posed to rais­ing the price, be­cause it would op­er­ate against the set­tle­ment of the lands. He re­ferred to the lands in the mil­itary tract. They had fall­en in­to the hands of large spec­ula­tors in con­se­quence of the low price. He was op­posed to a low price of land. He thought it was ad­verse to the in­ter­ests of the poor set­tler, be­cause spec­ula­tors buy them up. He was op­posed to a re­duc­tion of the price of pub­lic lands.

Mr. Lin­coln re­ferred to some of­fi­cial doc­uments em­anat­ing from In­di­ana, and com­pared the pro­gres­sive pop­ula­tion of the two States. Illi­nois had gained up­on that State un­der the pub­lic land sys­tem as it is. His con­clu­sion was that ten years from this time Illi­nois would have no more pub­lic land un­sold than In­di­ana now has. He re­ferred al­so to Ohio. That State had sold near­ly all her pub­lic lands. She was but twen­ty years ahead of us, and as our lands were equal­ly sal­able–more so, as he main­tained–we should have no more twen­ty years from now than she has at present.

Mr. Lin­coln re­ferred to the canal lands, and sup­posed that the pol­icy of the State would be dif­fer­ent in re­gard to them, if the rep­re­sen­ta­tives from that sec­tion of coun­try could them­selves choose the pol­icy; but the rep­re­sen­ta­tives from oth­er parts of the State had a ve­to up­on it, and reg­ulat­ed the pol­icy. He thought that if the State had all the lands, the pol­icy of the Leg­is­la­ture would be more lib­er­al to all sec­tions.

He re­ferred to the pol­icy of the Gen­er­al Gov­ern­ment. He thought that if the na­tion­al debt had not been paid, the ex­pens­es of the gov­ern­ment would not have dou­bled, as they had done since that debt was paid.

TO _________ ROW.

SPRING­FIELD, June 11, 1839

DEAR ROW:

Mr. Red­man in­forms me that you wish me to write you the par­tic­ulars of a con­ver­sa­tion be­tween Dr. Fe­lix and my­self rel­ative to you. The Dr. over­took me be­tween Rushville and Beard­stown.

He, af­ter learn­ing that I had lived at Spring­field, asked if I was ac­quaint­ed with you. I told him I was. He said you had late­ly been elect­ed con­sta­ble in Adams, but that you nev­er would be again. I asked him why. He said the peo­ple there had found out that you had been sher­iff or deputy sher­iff in Sang­amon Coun­ty, and that you came off and left your se­cu­ri­ties to suf­fer. He then asked me if I did not know such to be the fact. I told him I did not think you had ev­er been sher­iff or deputy sher­iff in Sang­amon, but that I thought you had been con­sta­ble. I fur­ther told him that if you had left your se­cu­ri­ties to suf­fer in that or any oth­er case, I had nev­er heard of it, and that if it had been so, I thought I would have heard of it.

If the Dr. is telling that I told him any­thing against you what­ev­er, I au­tho­rize you to con­tra­dict it flat­ly. We have no news here.

Your friend, as ev­er,

A. LIN­COLN.

SPEECH ON NA­TION­AL BANK

IN THE HALL OF THE HOUSE OF REP­RE­SEN­TA­TIVES

SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, De­cem­ber 20, 1839.

FEL­LOW-​CIT­IZENS:–It is pe­cu­liar­ly em­bar­rass­ing to me to at­tempt a con­tin­uance of the dis­cus­sion, on this evening, which has been con­duct­ed in this hall on sev­er­al pre­ced­ing ones. It is so be­cause on each of those evenings there was a much fuller at­ten­dance than now, with­out any rea­son for its be­ing so, ex­cept the greater in­ter­est the com­mu­ni­ty feel in the speak­ers who ad­dressed them then than they do in him who is to do so now. I am, in­deed, ap­pre­hen­sive that the few who have at­tend­ed have done so more to spare me mor­ti­fi­ca­tion than in the hope of be­ing in­ter­est­ed in any­thing I may be able to say. This cir­cum­stance casts a damp up­on my spir­its, which I am sure I shall be un­able to over­come dur­ing the evening. But enough of pref­ace.

The sub­ject hereto­fore and now to be dis­cussed is the sub­trea­sury scheme of the present ad­min­is­tra­tion, as a means of col­lect­ing, safe-​keep­ing, trans­fer­ring, and dis­burs­ing, the rev­enues of the na­tion, as con­trast­ed with a na­tion­al bank for the same pur­pos­es. Mr. Dou­glas has said that we (the Whigs) have not dared to meet them (the Lo­cos) in ar­gu­ment on this ques­tion. I protest against this as­ser­tion. I as­sert that we have again and again, dur­ing this dis­cus­sion, urged facts and ar­gu­ments against the sub­trea­sury which they have nei­ther dared to de­ny nor at­tempt­ed to an­swer. But lest some may be led to be­lieve that we re­al­ly wish to avoid the ques­tion, I now pro­pose, in my hum­ble way, to urge those ar­gu­ments again; at the same time beg­ging the au­di­ence to mark well the po­si­tions I shall take and the proof I shall of­fer to sus­tain them, and that they will not again per­mit Mr. Dou­glas or his friends to es­cape the force of them by a round and ground­less as­ser­tion that we “dare not meet them in ar­gu­ment.”

Of the sub­trea­sury, then, as con­trast­ed with a na­tion­al bank for the be­fore-​enu­mer­at­ed pur­pos­es, I lay down the fol­low­ing propo­si­tions, to wit: (1) It will in­ju­ri­ous­ly af­fect the com­mu­ni­ty by its op­er­ation on the cir­cu­lat­ing medi­um. (2) It will be a more ex­pen­sive fis­cal agent. (3) It will be a less se­cure de­pos­ito­ry of the pub­lic mon­ey. To show the truth of the first propo­si­tion, let us take a short re­view of our con­di­tion un­der the op­er­ation of a na­tion­al bank. It was the de­pos­ito­ry of the pub­lic rev­enues. Be­tween the col­lec­tion of those rev­enues and the dis­burse­ment of them by the gov­ern­ment, the bank was per­mit­ted to and did ac­tu­al­ly loan them out to in­di­vid­uals, and hence the large amount of mon­ey ac­tu­al­ly col­lect­ed for rev­enue pur­pos­es, which by any oth­er plan would have been idle a great por­tion of the time, was kept al­most con­stant­ly in cir­cu­la­tion. Any per­son who will re­flect that mon­ey is on­ly valu­able while in cir­cu­la­tion will read­ily per­ceive that any de­vice which will keep the gov­ern­ment rev­enues in con­stant cir­cu­la­tion, in­stead of be­ing locked up in idle­ness, is no in­con­sid­er­able ad­van­tage. By the sub­trea­sury the rev­enue is to be col­lect­ed and kept in iron box­es un­til the gov­ern­ment wants it for dis­burse­ment; thus rob­bing the peo­ple of the use of it, while the gov­ern­ment does not it­self need it, and while the mon­ey is per­form­ing no no­bler of­fice than that of rust­ing in iron box­es. The nat­ural ef­fect of this change of pol­icy, ev­ery one will see, is to re­duce the quan­ti­ty of mon­ey in cir­cu­la­tion. But, again, by the sub­trea­sury scheme the rev­enue is to be col­lect­ed in specie. I an­tic­ipate that this will be dis­put­ed. I ex­pect to hear it said that it is not the pol­icy of the ad­min­is­tra­tion to col­lect the rev­enue in specie. If it shall, I re­ply that Mr. Van Bu­ren, in his mes­sage rec­om­mend­ing the sub­trea­sury, ex­pend­ed near­ly a col­umn of that doc­ument in an at­tempt to per­suade Congress to pro­vide for the col­lec­tion of the rev­enue in specie ex­clu­sive­ly; and he con­cludes with these words:

“It may be safe­ly as­sumed that no mo­tive of con­ve­nience to the cit­izens re­quires the re­cep­tion of bank pa­per.” In ad­di­tion to this, Mr. Silas Wright, Sen­ator from New York, and the po­lit­ical, per­son­al and con­fi­den­tial friend of Mr. Van Bu­ren, draft­ed and in­tro­duced in­to the Sen­ate the first sub­trea­sury bill, and that bill pro­vid­ed for ul­ti­mate­ly col­lect­ing the rev­enue in specie. It is true, I know, that that clause was strick­en from the bill, but it was done by the votes of the Whigs, aid­ed by a por­tion on­ly of the Van Bu­ren sen­ators. No sub­trea­sury bill has yet be­come a law, though two or three have been con­sid­ered by Congress, some with and some with­out the specie clause; so that I ad­mit there is room for quib­bling up­on the ques­tion of whether the ad­min­is­tra­tion fa­vor the ex­clu­sive specie doc­trine or not; but I take it that the fact that the Pres­ident at first urged the specie doc­trine, and that un­der his rec­om­men­da­tion the first bill in­tro­duced em­braced it, war­rants us in charg­ing it as the pol­icy of the par­ty un­til their head as pub­licly re­cants it as he at first es­poused it. I re­peat, then, that by the sub­trea­sury the rev­enue is to be col­lect­ed in specie. Now mark what the ef­fect of this must be. By all es­ti­mates ev­er made there are but be­tween six­ty and eighty mil­lions of specie in the Unit­ed States. The ex­pen­di­tures of the Gov­ern­ment for the year 1838–the last for which we have had the re­port–were forty mil­lions. Thus it is seen that if the whole rev­enue be col­lect­ed in specie, it will take more than half of all the specie in the na­tion to do it. By this means more than half of all the specie be­long­ing to the fif­teen mil­lions of souls who com­pose the whole pop­ula­tion of the coun­try is thrown in­to the hands of the pub­lic of­fice-​hold­ers, and oth­er pub­lic cred­itors com­pris­ing in num­ber per­haps not more than one quar­ter of a mil­lion, leav­ing the oth­er four­teen mil­lions and three quar­ters to get along as they best can, with less than one half of the specie of the coun­try, and what­ev­er rags and shin­plas­ters they may be able to put, and keep, in cir­cu­la­tion. By this means, ev­ery of­fice-​hold­er and oth­er pub­lic cred­itor may, and most like­ly will, set up shaver; and a most glo­ri­ous har­vest will the specie-​men have of it,–each specie- man, up­on a fair di­vi­sion, hav­ing to his share the fleec­ing of about fifty-​nine rag-​men. In all can­dor let me ask, was such a sys­tem for ben­efit­ing the few at the ex­pense of the many ev­er be­fore de­vised? And was the sa­cred name of Democ­ra­cy ev­er be­fore made to in­dorse such an enor­mi­ty against the rights of the peo­ple?

I have al­ready said that the sub­trea­sury will re­duce the quan­ti­ty of mon­ey in cir­cu­la­tion. This po­si­tion is strength­ened by the rec­ol­lec­tion that the rev­enue is to be col­lect­ed in Specie, so that the mere amount of rev­enue is not all that is with­drawn, but the amount of pa­per cir­cu­la­tion that the forty mil­lions would serve as a ba­sis to is with­drawn, which would be in a sound state at least one hun­dred mil­lions. When one hun­dred mil­lions, or more, of the cir­cu­la­tion we now have shall be with­drawn, who can con­tem­plate with­out ter­ror the dis­tress, ru­in, bankrupt­cy, and beg­gary that must fol­low? The man who has pur­chased any ar­ti­cle– say a horse–on cred­it, at one hun­dred dol­lars, when there are two hun­dred mil­lions cir­cu­lat­ing in the coun­try, if the quan­ti­ty be re­duced to one hun­dred mil­lions by the ar­rival of pay-​day, will find the horse but suf­fi­cient to pay half the debt; and the oth­er half must ei­ther be paid out of his oth­er means, and there­by be­come a clear loss to him, or go un­paid, and there­by be­come a clear loss to his cred­itor. What I have here said of a sin­gle case of the pur­chase of a horse will hold good in ev­ery case of a debt ex­ist­ing at the time a re­duc­tion in the quan­ti­ty of mon­ey oc­curs, by whom­so­ev­er, and for what­so­ev­er, it may have been con­tract­ed. It may be said that what the debtor los­es the cred­itor gains by this op­er­ation; but on ex­am­ina­tion this will be found true on­ly to a very lim­it­ed ex­tent. It is more gen­er­al­ly true that all lose by it–the cred­itor by los­ing more of his debts than he gains by the in­creased val­ue of those he col­lects; the debtor by ei­ther part­ing with more of his prop­er­ty to pay his debts than he re­ceived in con­tract­ing them, or by en­tire­ly break­ing up his busi­ness, and there­by be­ing thrown up­on the world in idle­ness.

The gen­er­al dis­tress thus cre­at­ed will, to be sure, be tem­po­rary, be­cause, what­ev­er change may oc­cur in the quan­ti­ty of mon­ey in any com­mu­ni­ty, time will ad­just the de­range­ment pro­duced; but while that ad­just­ment is pro­gress­ing, all suf­fer more or less, and very many lose ev­ery­thing that ren­ders life de­sir­able. Why, then, shall we suf­fer a se­vere dif­fi­cul­ty, even though it be but tem­po­rary, un­less we re­ceive some equiv­alent for it?

What I have been say­ing as to the ef­fect pro­duced by a re­duc­tion of the quan­ti­ty of mon­ey re­lates to the whole coun­try. I now pro­pose to show that it would pro­duce a pe­cu­liar and per­ma­nent hard­ship up­on the cit­izens of those States and Ter­ri­to­ries in which the pub­lic lands lie. The land-​of­fices in those States and Ter­ri­to­ries, as all know, form the great gulf by which all, or near­ly all, the mon­ey in them is swal­lowed up. When the quan­ti­ty of mon­ey shall be re­duced, and con­se­quent­ly ev­ery­thing un­der in­di­vid­ual con­trol brought down in pro­por­tion, the price of those lands, be­ing fixed by law, will re­main as now. Of ne­ces­si­ty it will fol­low that the pro­duce or la­bor that now rais­es mon­ey suf­fi­cient to pur­chase eighty acres will then raise but suf­fi­cient to pur­chase forty, or per­haps not that much; and this dif­fi­cul­ty and hard­ship will last as long, in some de­gree, as any por­tion of these lands shall re­main undis­posed of. Know­ing, as I well do, the dif­fi­cul­ty that poor peo­ple now en­counter in procur­ing homes, I hes­itate not to say that when the price of the pub­lic lands shall be dou­bled or tre­bled, or, which is the same thing, pro­duce and la­bor cut down to one half or one third of their present prices, it will be lit­tle less than im­pos­si­ble for them to pro­cure those homes at all….

Well, then, what did be­come of him? (Post­mas­ter Gen­er­al Bar­ry) Why, the Pres­ident im­me­di­ate­ly ex­pressed his high dis­ap­pro­ba­tion of his al­most un­equaled in­ca­pac­ity and cor­rup­tion by ap­point­ing him to a for­eign mis­sion, with a salary and out­fit of $18,000 a year! The par­ty now at­tempt to throw Bar­ry off, and to avoid the re­spon­si­bil­ity of his sins. Did not the Pres­ident in­dorse those sins when, on the very heel of their com­mis­sion, he ap­point­ed their au­thor to the very high­est and most hon­or­able of­fice in his gift, and which is but a sin­gle step be­hind the very goal of Amer­ican po­lit­ical am­bi­tion?

I re­turn to an­oth­er of Mr. Dou­glas’s ex­cus­es for the ex­pen­di­tures of 1838, at the same time an­nounc­ing the pleas­ing in­tel­li­gence that this is the last one. He says that ten mil­lions of that year’s ex­pen­di­ture was a con­tin­gent ap­pro­pri­ation, to pros­ecute an an­tic­ipat­ed war with Great Britain on the Maine bound­ary ques­tion. Few words will set­tle this. First, that the ten mil­lions ap­pro­pri­at­ed was not made till 1839, and con­se­quent­ly could not have been ex­pend­ed in 1838; sec­ond, al­though it was ap­pro­pri­at­ed, it has nev­er been ex­pend­ed at all. Those who heard Mr. Dou­glas rec­ol­lect that he in­dulged him­self in a con­temp­tu­ous ex­pres­sion of pity for me. “Now he’s got me,” thought I. But when he went on to say that five mil­lions of the ex­pen­di­ture of 1838 were pay­ments of the French in­dem­ni­ties, which I knew to be un­true; that five mil­lions had been for the post-​of­fice, which I knew to be un­true; that ten mil­lions had been for the Maine bound­ary war, which I not on­ly knew to be un­true, but supreme­ly ridicu­lous al­so; and when I saw that he was stupid enough to hope that I would per­mit such ground­less and au­da­cious as­ser­tions to go un­ex­posed,–I read­ily con­sent­ed that, on the score both of ve­rac­ity and sagac­ity, the au­di­ence should judge whether he or I were the more de­serv­ing of the world’s con­tempt.

Mr. Lam­born in­sists that the dif­fer­ence be­tween the Van Bu­ren par­ty and the Whigs is that, al­though the for­mer some­times err in prac­tice, they are al­ways cor­rect in prin­ci­ple, where­as the lat­ter are wrong in prin­ci­ple; and, bet­ter to im­press this propo­si­tion, he us­es a fig­ura­tive ex­pres­sion in these words: “The Democrats are vul­ner­able in the heel, but they are sound in the head and the heart.” The first branch of the fig­ure–that is, that the Democrats are vul­ner­able in the heel–I ad­mit is not mere­ly fig­ura­tive­ly, but lit­er­al­ly true. Who that looks but for a mo­ment at their Swart­wouts, their Prices, their Har­ring­tons, and their hun­dreds of oth­ers, scam­per­ing away with the pub­lic mon­ey to Texas, to Eu­rope, and to ev­ery spot of the earth where a vil­lain may hope to find refuge from jus­tice, can at all doubt that they are most dis­tress­ing­ly af­fect­ed in their heels with a species of “run­ning itch”? It seems that this mal­ady of their heels op­er­ates on these sound-​head­ed and hon­est-​heart­ed crea­tures very much like the cork leg in the com­ic song did on its own­er: which, when he had once got start­ed on it, the more he tried to stop it, the more it would run away. At the haz­ard of wear­ing this point thread­bare, I will re­late an anec­dote which seems too strik­ing­ly in point to be omit­ted. A wit­ty Irish sol­dier, who was al­ways boast­ing of his brav­ery when no dan­ger was near, but who in­vari­ably re­treat­ed with­out or­ders at the first charge of an en­gage­ment, be­ing asked by his cap­tain why he did so, replied: “Cap­tain, I have as brave a heart as Julius Cae­sar ev­er had; but, some­how or oth­er, when­ev­er dan­ger ap­proach­es, my cow­ard­ly legs will run away with it.” So with Mr. Lam­born’s par­ty. They take the pub­lic mon­ey in­to their hand for the most laud­able pur­pose that wise heads and hon­est hearts can dic­tate; but be­fore they can pos­si­bly get it out again, their ras­cal­ly “vul­ner­able heels” will run away with them.

Se­ri­ous­ly this propo­si­tion of Mr. Lam­born is noth­ing more or less than a re­quest that his par­ty may be tried by their pro­fes­sions in­stead of their prac­tices. Per­haps no po­si­tion that the par­ty as­sumes is more li­able to or more de­serv­ing of ex­po­sure than this very mod­est re­quest; and noth­ing but the un­war­rantable length to which I have al­ready ex­tend­ed these re­marks for­bids me now at­tempt­ing to ex­pose it. For the rea­son giv­en, I pass it by.

I shall ad­vert to but one more point. Mr. Lam­born refers to the late elec­tions in the States, and from their re­sults con­fi­dent­ly pre­dicts that ev­ery State in the Union will vote for Mr. Van Bu­ren at the next Pres­iden­tial elec­tion. Ad­dress that ar­gu­ment to cow­ards and to knaves; with the free and the brave it will ef­fect noth­ing. It may be true; if it must, let it. Many free coun­tries have lost their lib­er­ty, and ours may lose hers; but if she shall, be it my proud­est plume, not that I was the last to desert, but that I nev­er de­sert­ed her. I know that the great vol­cano at Wash­ing­ton, aroused and di­rect­ed by the evil spir­it that reigns there, is belch­ing forth the la­va of po­lit­ical cor­rup­tion in a cur­rent broad and deep, which is sweep­ing with fright­ful ve­loc­ity over the whole length and breadth of the land, bid­ding fair to leave un­scathed no green spot or liv­ing thing; while on its bo­som are rid­ing, like demons on the waves of hell, the imps of that evil spir­it, and fiendish­ly taunt­ing all those who dare re­sist its de­stroy­ing course with the hope­less­ness of their ef­fort; and, know­ing this, I can­not de­ny that all may be swept away. Bro­ken by it I, too, may be; bow to it I nev­er will. The prob­abil­ity that we may fall in the strug­gle ought not to de­ter us from the sup­port of a cause we be­lieve to be just; it shall not de­ter me. If ev­er I feel the soul with­in me el­evate and ex­pand to those di­men­sions not whol­ly un­wor­thy of its almighty Ar­chi­tect, it is when I con­tem­plate the cause of my coun­try de­sert­ed by all the world be­side, and I stand­ing up bold­ly and alone, and hurl­ing de­fi­ance at her vic­to­ri­ous op­pres­sors. Here, with­out con­tem­plat­ing con­se­quences, be­fore high heav­en and in the face of the world, I swear eter­nal fi­deli­ty to the just cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life, my lib­er­ty, and my love. And who that thinks with me will not fear­less­ly adopt the oath that I take? Let none fal­ter who thinks he is right, and we may suc­ceed. But if, af­ter all, we shall fail, be it so. We still shall have the proud con­so­la­tion of say­ing to our con­sciences, and to the de­part­ed shade of our coun­try’s free­dom, that the cause ap­proved of our judg­ment, and adored of our hearts, in dis­as­ter, in chains, in tor­ture, in death, we nev­er fal­tered in de­fend­ing.

TO JOHN T. STU­ART.

SPRING­FIELD, De­cem­ber 23, 1839.

DEAR STU­ART:

Dr. Hen­ry will write you all the po­lit­ical news. I write this about some lit­tle mat­ters of busi­ness. You rec­ol­lect you told me you had drawn the Chica­go Masark mon­ey, and sent it to the claimants. A hawk-​billed Yan­kee is here be­set­ting me at ev­ery turn I take, say­ing that Robert Kinzie nev­er re­ceived the eighty dol­lars to which he was en­ti­tled. Can you tell me any­thing about the mat­ter? Again, old Mr. Wright, who lives up South Fork some­where, is teas­ing me con­tin­ual­ly about some deeds which he says he left with you, but which I can find noth­ing of. Can you tell me where they are? The Leg­is­la­ture is in ses­sion and has suf­fered the bank to for­feit its char­ter with­out ben­efit of cler­gy. There seems to be lit­tle dis­po­si­tion to re­sus­ci­tate it.

When­ev­er a let­ter comes from you to Mrs._____________ I car­ry it to her, and then I see Bet­ty; she is a tol­er­able nice “fel­low” now. Maybe I will write again when I get more time.

Your friend as ev­er, A. LIN­COLN

P. S.–The Demo­crat­ic gi­ant is here, but he is not much worth talk­ing about. A.L.

1840

CIR­CU­LAR FROM WHIG COM­MIT­TEE.

Con­fi­den­tial.

Jan­uary [1?], 1840.

To MESSRS _______

GEN­TLE­MEN:–In obe­di­ence to a res­olu­tion of the Whig State con­ven­tion, we have ap­point­ed you the Cen­tral Whig Com­mit­tee of your coun­ty. The trust con­fid­ed to you will be one of watch­ful­ness and la­bor; but we hope the glo­ry of hav­ing con­tribut­ed to the over­throw of the cor­rupt pow­ers that now con­trol our beloved coun­try will be a suf­fi­cient re­ward for the time and la­bor you will de­vote to it. Our Whig brethren through­out the Union have met in con­ven­tion, and af­ter due de­lib­er­ation and mu­tu­al con­ces­sions have elect­ed can­di­dates for the Pres­iden­cy and Vice-​Pres­iden­cy not on­ly wor­thy of our cause, but wor­thy of the sup­port of ev­ery true pa­tri­ot who would have our coun­try re­deemed, and her in­sti­tu­tions hon­est­ly and faith­ful­ly ad­min­is­tered. To over­throw the trained bands that are op­posed to us whose salaried of­fi­cers are ev­er on the watch, and whose mis­guid­ed fol­low­ers are ev­er ready to obey their small­est com­mands, ev­ery Whig must not on­ly know his du­ty, but must firm­ly re­solve, what­ev­er of time and la­bor it may cost, bold­ly and faith­ful­ly to do it. Our in­ten­tion is to or­ga­nize the whole State, so that ev­ery Whig can be brought to the polls in the com­ing Pres­iden­tial con­test. We can­not do this, how­ev­er, with­out your co-​op­er­ation; and as we do our du­ty, so we shall ex­pect you to do yours. Af­ter due de­lib­er­ation, the fol­low­ing is the plan of or­ga­ni­za­tion, and the du­ties re­quired of each coun­ty com­mit­tee:

(1) To di­vide their coun­ty in­to small dis­tricts, and to ap­point in each a sub­com­mit­tee, whose du­ty it shall be to make a per­fect list of all the vot­ers in their re­spec­tive dis­tricts, and to as­cer­tain with cer­tain­ty for whom they will vote. If they meet with men who are doubt­ful as to the man they will sup­port, such vot­ers should be des­ig­nat­ed in sep­arate lines, with the name of the man they will prob­ably sup­port.

(2) It will be the du­ty of said sub­com­mit­tee to keep a con­stant watch on the doubt­ful vot­ers, and from time to time have them talked to by those in whom they have the most con­fi­dence, and al­so to place in their hands such doc­uments as will en­light­en and in­flu­ence them.

(3) It will al­so be their du­ty to re­port to you, at least once a month, the progress they are mak­ing, and on elec­tion days see that ev­ery Whig is brought to the polls.

(4) The sub­com­mit­tees should be ap­point­ed im­me­di­ate­ly; and by the last of April, at least, they should make their first re­port.

(5) On the first of each month here­after we shall ex­pect to hear from you. Af­ter the first re­port of your sub­com­mit­tees, un­less there should be found a great many doubt­ful vot­ers, you can tell pret­ty ac­cu­rate­ly the man­ner in which your coun­ty will vote. In each of your let­ters to us, you will state the num­ber of cer­tain votes both for and against us, as well as the num­ber of doubt­ful votes, with your opin­ion of the man­ner in which they will be cast.

(6) When we have heard from all the coun­ties, we shall be able to tell with sim­ilar ac­cu­ra­cy the po­lit­ical com­plex­ion of the State. This in­for­ma­tion will be for­ward­ed to you as soon as re­ceived.

(7) In­closed is a prospec­tus for a news­pa­per to be con­tin­ued un­til af­ter the Pres­iden­tial elec­tion. It will be su­per­in­tend­ed by our­selves, and ev­ery Whig in the State must take it. It will be pub­lished so low that ev­ery one can af­ford it. You must raise a fund and for­ward us for ex­tra copies,–ev­ery coun­ty ought to send–fifty or one hun­dred dol­lars,–and the copies will be for­ward­ed to you for dis­tri­bu­tion among our po­lit­ical op­po­nents. The pa­per will be de­vot­ed ex­clu­sive­ly to the great cause in which we are en­gaged. Pro­cure sub­scrip­tions, and for­ward them to us im­me­di­ate­ly.

(8) Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter any elec­tion in your coun­ty, you must in­form us of its re­sults; and as ear­ly as pos­si­ble af­ter any gen­er­al elec­tion we will give you the like in­for­ma­tion.

(9) A sen­ator in Congress is to be elect­ed by our next Leg­is­la­ture. Let no lo­cal in­ter­ests di­vide you, but se­lect can­di­dates that can suc­ceed.

(10) Our plan of op­er­ations will of course be con­cealed from ev­ery one ex­cept our good friends who of right ought to know them.

Trust­ing much in our good cause, the strength of our can­di­dates, and the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the Whigs ev­ery­where to do their du­ty, we go to the work of or­ga­ni­za­tion in this State con­fi­dent of suc­cess. We have the num­bers, and if prop­er­ly or­ga­nized and ex­ert­ed, with the gal­lant Har­ri­son at our head, we shall meet our foes and con­quer them in all parts of the Union.

Ad­dress your let­ters to Dr. A. G. Hen­ry, R. F, Bar­rett; A. Lin­coln, E. D. Bak­er, J. F. Speed.

TO JOHN T. STU­ART.

SPRING­FIELD, March 1, 1840

DEAR STU­ART:

I have nev­er seen the prospects of our par­ty so bright in these parts as they are now. We shall car­ry this coun­ty by a larg­er ma­jor­ity than we did in 1836, when you ran against May. I do not think my prospects, in­di­vid­ual­ly, are very flat­ter­ing, for I think it prob­able I shall not be per­mit­ted to be a can­di­date; but the par­ty tick­et will suc­ceed tri­umphant­ly. Sub­scrip­tions to the “Old Sol­dier” pour in with­out abate­ment. This morn­ing I took from the post of­fice a let­ter from Dubois en­clos­ing the names of six­ty sub­scribers, and on car­ry­ing it to Fran­cis I found he had re­ceived one hun­dred and forty more from oth­er quar­ters by the same day’s mail. That is but an av­er­age spec­imen of ev­ery day’s re­ceipts. Yes­ter­day Dou­glas, hav­ing cho­sen to con­sid­er him­self in­sult­ed by some­thing in the Jour­nal, un­der­took to cane Fran­cis in the street. Fran­cis caught him by the hair and jammed him back against a mar­ket cart where the mat­ter end­ed by Fran­cis be­ing pulled away from him. The whole af­fair was so lu­di­crous that Fran­cis and ev­ery­body else (Dou­glass ex­cept­ed) have been laugh­ing about it ev­er since.

I send you the names of some of the V.B. men who have come out for Har­ri­son about town, and sug­gest that you send them some doc­uments.

Moses Coff­man (he let us ap­point him a del­egate yes­ter­day), Aaron Coff­man, George Gre­go­ry, H. M. Brig­gs, John­son (at Bir­chall’s Book­store), Michael Glyn, Arm­strong (not Hosea nor Hugh, but a car­pen­ter), Thomas Hunter, Moses Pile­her (he was al­ways a Whig and de­serves at­ten­tion), Matthew Crow­der Jr., Green­ber­ry Smith; John Fa­gan, George Fa­gan, William Fa­gan (these three fell out with us about Ear­ly, and are doubt­ful now), John M. Cart­mel, Noah Rickard, John Rickard, Wal­ter Marsh.

The fore­go­ing should be ad­dressed at Spring­field.

Al­so send some to Solomon Miller and John Auth at Sal­is­bury. Al­so to Charles Harp­er, Samuel Harp­er, and B. C. Harp­er, and T. J. Scrog­gins, John Scrog­gins at Pu­las­ki, Lo­gan Coun­ty.

Speed says he wrote you what Jo Smith said about you as he passed here. We will pro­cure the names of some of his peo­ple here, and send them to you be­fore long. Speed al­so says you must not fail to send us the New York Jour­nal he wrote for some time since.

Evan But­ler is jeal­ous that you nev­er send your com­pli­ments to him. You must not ne­glect him next time.

Your friend, as ev­er, A. LIN­COLN

RES­OLU­TION IN THE ILLI­NOIS LEG­IS­LA­TURE.

Novem­ber 28, 1840.

In the Illi­nois House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Novem­ber 28, 1840, Mr. Lin­coln of­fered the fol­low­ing:

Re­solved, That so much of the gov­er­nor’s mes­sage as re­lates to fraud­ulent vot­ing, and oth­er fraud­ulent prac­tices at elec­tions, be re­ferred to the Com­mit­tee on Elec­tions, with in­struc­tions to said com­mit­tee to pre­pare and re­port to the House a bill for such an act as may in their judg­ment af­ford the great­est pos­si­ble pro­tec­tion of the elec­tive fran­chise against all frauds of all sorts what­ev­er.

RES­OLU­TION IN THE ILLI­NOIS LEG­IS­LA­TURE.

De­cem­ber 2, 1840.

Re­solved, That the Com­mit­tee on Ed­uca­tion be in­struct­ed to in­quire in­to the ex­pe­di­en­cy of pro­vid­ing by law for the ex­am­ina­tion as to the qual­ifi­ca­tion of per­sons of­fer­ing them­selves as school teach­ers, that no teach­er shall re­ceive any part of the pub­lic school fund who shall not have suc­cess­ful­ly passed such ex­am­ina­tion, and that they re­port by bill or oth­er­wise.

RE­MARKS IN THE ILLI­NOIS LEG­IS­LA­TURE.

De­cem­ber 4, 1840

In the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Illi­nois, De­cem­ber 4, 1840, on pre­sen­ta­tion of a re­port re­spect­ing pe­ti­tion of H. N. Pur­ple, claim­ing the seat of Mr. Phelps from Peo­ria, Mr. Lin­coln moved that the House re­solve it­self in­to Com­mit­tee of the Whole on the ques­tion, and take it up im­me­di­ate­ly. Mr. Lin­coln con­sid­ered the ques­tion of the high­est im­por­tance whether an in­di­vid­ual had a right to sit in this House or not. The course he should pro­pose would be to take up the ev­idence and de­cide up­on the facts se­ri­atim.

Mr. Drum­mond want­ed time; they could not de­cide in the heat of de­bate, etc.

Mr. Lin­coln thought that the ques­tion had bet­ter be gone in­to now. In courts of law ju­rors were re­quired to de­cide on ev­idence, with­out pre­vi­ous study or ex­am­ina­tion. They were re­quired to know noth­ing of the sub­ject un­til the ev­idence was laid be­fore them for their im­me­di­ate de­ci­sion. He thought that the heat of par­ty would be aug­ment­ed by de­lay.

The Speak­er called Mr. Lin­coln to or­der as be­ing ir­rel­evant; no men­tion had been made of par­ty heat.

Mr. Drum­mond said he had on­ly spo­ken of de­bate. Mr. Lin­coln asked what caused the heat, if it was not par­ty? Mr. Lin­coln con­clud­ed by urg­ing that the ques­tion would be de­cid­ed now bet­ter than here­after, and he thought with less heat and ex­cite­ment.

(Fur­ther de­bate, in which Lin­coln par­tic­ipat­ed.)

RE­MARKS IN THE ILLI­NOIS LEG­IS­LA­TURE.

De­cem­ber 4, 1840.

In the Illi­nois House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, De­cem­ber 4, 1840, House in Com­mit­tee of the Whole on the bill pro­vid­ing for pay­ment of in­ter­est on the State debt,–Mr. Lin­coln moved to strike out the body and amend­ments of the bill, and in­sert in lieu there­of an amend­ment which in sub­stance was that the gov­er­nor be au­tho­rized to is­sue bonds for the pay­ment of the in­ter­est; that these be called “in­ter­est bonds”; that the tax­es ac­cru­ing on Congress lands as they be­come tax­able be ir­re­vo­ca­bly set aside and de­vot­ed as a fund to the pay­ment of the in­ter­est bonds. Mr. Lin­coln went in­to the rea­sons which ap­peared to him to ren­der this plan prefer­able to that of hy­poth­ecat­ing the State bonds. By this course we could get along till the next meet­ing of the Leg­is­la­ture, which was of great im­por­tance. To the ob­jec­tion which might be urged that these in­ter­est bonds could not be cashed, he replied that if our oth­er bonds could, much more could these, which of­fered a per­fect se­cu­ri­ty, a fund be­ing ir­re­vo­ca­bly set aside to pro­vide for their re­demp­tion. To an­oth­er ob­jec­tion, that we should be pay­ing com­pound in­ter­est, he would re­ply that the rapid growth and in­crease of our re­sources was in so great a ra­tio as to out­strip the dif­fi­cul­ty; that his ob­ject was to do the best that could be done in the present emer­gen­cy. All agreed that the faith of the State must be pre­served; this plan ap­peared to him prefer­able to a hy­poth­eca­tion of bonds, which would have to be re­deemed and the in­ter­est paid. How this was to be done, he could not see; there­fore he had, af­ter turn­ing the mat­ter over in ev­ery way, de­vised this mea­sure, which would car­ry us on till the next Leg­is­la­ture.

(Mr. Lin­coln spoke at some length, ad­vo­cat­ing his mea­sure.)

Lin­coln ad­vo­cat­ed his mea­sure, De­cem­ber 11, 1840.

De­cem­ber 12, 1840, he had thought some per­ma­nent pro­vi­sion ought to be made for the bonds to be hy­poth­ecat­ed, but was sat­is­fied tax­ation and rev­enue could not be con­nect­ed with it now.

1841

TO JOHN T. STU­ART–ON DE­PRES­SION

SPRING­FIELD, Jan 23, 1841

DEAR STU­ART: I am now the most mis­er­able man liv­ing. If what I feel were equal­ly dis­tribut­ed to the whole hu­man fam­ily, there would not be one cheer­ful face on earth. Whether I shall ev­er be bet­ter, I can­not tell; I aw­ful­ly for­bode I shall not. To re­main as I am is im­pos­si­ble. I must die or be bet­ter, as it ap­pears to me…. I fear I shall be un­able to at­tend any busi­ness here, and a change of scene might help me. If I could be my­self, I would rather re­main at home with Judge Lo­gan. I can write no more.

RE­MARKS IN THE ILLI­NOIS LEG­IS­LA­TURE.

Jan­uary 23, 1841

In the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jan­uary 23, 1841, while dis­cussing the con­tin­ua­tion of the Illi­nois and Michi­gan Canal, Mr. Moore was afraid the hold­ers of the “scrip” would lose.

Mr. Napi­er thought there was no dan­ger of that; and Mr. Lin­coln said he had not ex­am­ined to see what amount of scrip would prob­ably be need­ed. The prin­ci­pal point in his mind was this, that no­body was obliged to take these cer­tifi­cates. It is al­to­geth­er vol­un­tary on their part, and if they ap­pre­hend it will fall in their hands they will not take it. Fur­ther the loss, if any there be, will fall on the cit­izens of that sec­tion of the coun­try.

This scrip is not go­ing to cir­cu­late over an ex­ten­sive range of coun­try, but will be con­fined chiefly to the vicin­ity of the canal. Now, we find the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of that sec­tion of the coun­try are all in fa­vor of the bill.

When we pro­pose to pro­tect their in­ter­ests, they say to us: Leave us to take care of our­selves; we are will­ing to run the risk. And this is rea­son­able; we must sup­pose they are com­pe­tent to pro­tect their own in­ter­ests, and it is on­ly fair to let them do it.

CIR­CU­LAR FROM WHIG COM­MIT­TEE.

Febru­ary 9, 1841.

Ap­peal to the Peo­ple of the State of Illi­nois.

FEL­LOW-​CIT­IZENS:–When the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, now about ad­journ­ing, as­sem­bled in Novem­ber last, from the bankrupt state of the pub­lic trea­sury, the pe­cu­niary em­bar­rass­ments pre­vail­ing in ev­ery de­part­ment of so­ci­ety, the di­lap­idat­ed state of the pub­lic works, and the im­pend­ing dan­ger of the degra­da­tion of the State, you had a right to ex­pect that your rep­re­sen­ta­tives would lose no time in de­vis­ing and adopt­ing mea­sures to avert threat­ened calami­ties, al­le­vi­ate the dis­tress­es of the peo­ple, and al­lay the fear­ful ap­pre­hen­sions in re­gard to the fu­ture pros­per­ity of the State. It was not ex­pect­ed by you that the spir­it of par­ty would take the lead in the coun­cils of the State, and make ev­ery in­ter­est bend to its de­mands. Nor was it ex­pect­ed that any par­ty would as­sume to it­self the en­tire con­trol of leg­is­la­tion, and con­vert the means and of­fices of the State, and the sub­stance of the peo­ple, in­to al­iment for par­ty sub­sis­tence. Nei­ther could it have been ex­pect­ed by you that par­ty spir­it, how­ev­er strong its de­sires and un­rea­son­able its de­mands, would have passed the sanc­tu­ary of the Con­sti­tu­tion, and en­tered with its un­hal­lowed and hideous form in­to the for­ma­tion of the ju­di­cia­ry sys­tem.

At the ear­ly pe­ri­od of the ses­sion, mea­sures were adopt­ed by the dom­inant par­ty to take pos­ses­sion of the State, to fill all pub­lic of­fices with par­ty men, and make ev­ery mea­sure af­fect­ing the in­ter­ests of the peo­ple and the cred­it of the State op­er­ate in fur­ther­ance of their par­ty views. The mer­its of men and mea­sures there­fore be­came the sub­ject of dis­cus­sion in cau­cus, in­stead of the halls of leg­is­la­tion, and de­ci­sions there made by a mi­nor­ity of the Leg­is­la­ture have been ex­ecut­ed and car­ried in­to ef­fect by the force of par­ty dis­ci­pline, with­out any re­gard what­ev­er to the rights of the peo­ple or the in­ter­ests of the State. The Supreme Court of the State was or­ga­nized, and judges ap­point­ed, ac­cord­ing to the pro­vi­sions of the Con­sti­tu­tion, in 1824. The peo­ple have nev­er com­plained of the or­ga­ni­za­tion of that court; no at­tempt has ev­er be­fore been made to change that de­part­ment. Re­spect for pub­lic opin­ion, and re­gard for the rights and lib­er­ties of the peo­ple, have hith­er­to re­strained the spir­it of par­ty from at­tacks up­on the in­de­pen­dence and in­tegri­ty of the ju­di­cia­ry. The same judges have con­tin­ued in of­fice since 1824; their de­ci­sions have not been the sub­ject of com­plaint among the peo­ple; the in­tegri­ty and hon­esty of the court have not been ques­tioned, and it has nev­er been sup­posed that the court has ev­er per­mit­ted par­ty prej­udice or par­ty con­sid­er­ations to op­er­ate up­on their de­ci­sions. The court was made to con­sist of four judges, and by the Con­sti­tu­tion two form a quo­rum for the trans­ac­tion of busi­ness. With this tri­bunal, thus con­sti­tut­ed, the peo­ple have been sat­is­fied for near six­teen years. The same law which or­ga­nized the Supreme Court in 1824 al­so es­tab­lished and or­ga­nized cir­cuit courts to be held in each coun­ty in the State, and five cir­cuit judges were ap­point­ed to hold those courts. In 1826 the Leg­is­la­ture abol­ished these cir­cuit courts, re­pealed the judges out of of­fice, and re­quired the judges of the Supreme Court to hold the cir­cuit courts. The rea­sons as­signed for this change were, first, that the busi­ness of the coun­try could be bet­ter at­tend­ed to by the four judges of the Supreme Court than by the two sets of judges; and, sec­ond, the state of the pub­lic trea­sury for­bade the em­ploy­ment of un­nec­es­sary of­fi­cers. In 1828 a cir­cuit was es­tab­lished north of the Illi­nois Riv­er, in or­der to meet the wants of the peo­ple, and a cir­cuit judge was ap­point­ed to hold the courts in that cir­cuit.

In 1834 the cir­cuit-​court sys­tem was again es­tab­lished through­out the State, cir­cuit judges ap­point­ed to hold the courts, and the judges of the Supreme Court were re­lieved from the per­for­mance of cir­cuit court du­ties. The change was rec­om­mend­ed by the then act­ing gov­er­nor of the State, Gen­er­al W. L. D. Ew­ing, in the fol­low­ing terms:

“The aug­ment­ed pop­ula­tion of the State, the mul­ti­plied num­ber of or­ga­nized coun­ties, as well as the in­crease of busi­ness in all, has long since con­vinced ev­ery one con­ver­sant with this de­part­ment of our gov­ern­ment of the in­dis­pens­able ne­ces­si­ty of an al­ter­ation in our ju­di­cia­ry sys­tem, and the sub­ject is there­fore rec­om­mend­ed to the earnest pa­tri­ot­ic con­sid­er­ation of the Leg­is­la­ture. The present sys­tem has nev­er been ex­empt from se­ri­ous and weighty ob­jec­tions. The idea of ap­peal­ing from the cir­cuit court to the same judges in the Supreme Court is rec­om­mend­ed by lit­tle hopes of re­dress to the in­jured par­ty be­low. The du­ties of the cir­cuit, too, it may be added, con­sume one half of the year, leav­ing a small and in­ad­equate por­tion of time (when that re­quired for do­mes­tic pur­pos­es is de­duct­ed) to erect, in the de­ci­sions of the Supreme Court, a ju­di­cial mon­ument of le­gal learn­ing and re­search, which the tal­ent and abil­ity of the court might oth­er­wise be en­tire­ly com­pe­tent to.”

With this or­ga­ni­za­tion of cir­cuit courts the peo­ple have nev­er com­plained. The on­ly com­plaints which we have heard have come from cir­cuits which were so large that the judges could not dis­pose of the busi­ness, and the cir­cuits in which Judges Pear­son and Ral­ston late­ly presid­ed.

Whilst the hon­or and cred­it of the State de­mand­ed leg­is­la­tion up­on the sub­ject of the pub­lic debt, the canal, the un­fin­ished pub­lic works, and the em­bar­rass­ments of the peo­ple, the ju­di­cia­ry stood up­on a ba­sis which re­quired no change–no leg­isla­tive ac­tion. Yet the par­ty in pow­er, ne­glect­ing ev­ery in­ter­est re­quir­ing leg­isla­tive ac­tion, and whol­ly dis­re­gard­ing the rights, wish­es, and in­ter­ests of the peo­ple, has, for the un­holy pur­pose of pro­vid­ing places for its par­ti­sans and sup­ply­ing them with large salaries, dis­or­ga­nized that de­part­ment of the gov­ern­ment. Pro­vi­sion is made for the elec­tion of five par­ty judges of the Supreme Court, the pro­scrip­tion of four cir­cuit judges, and the ap­point­ment of par­ty clerks in more than half the coun­ties of the State. Men pro­fess­ing re­spect for pub­lic opin­ion, and ac­knowl­edged to be lead­ers of the par­ty, have avowed in the halls of leg­is­la­tion that the change in the ju­di­cia­ry was in­tend­ed to pro­duce po­lit­ical re­sults fa­vor­able to their par­ty and par­ty friends. The im­mutable prin­ci­ples of jus­tice are to make way for par­ty in­ter­ests, and the bonds of so­cial or­der are to be rent in twain, in or­der that a des­per­ate fac­tion may be sus­tained at the ex­pense of the peo­ple. The change pro­posed in the ju­di­cia­ry was sup­port­ed up­on grounds so de­struc­tive to the in­sti­tu­tions of the coun­try, and so en­tire­ly at war with the rights and lib­er­ties of the peo­ple, that the par­ty could not se­cure en­tire una­nim­ity in its sup­port, three Democrats of the Sen­ate and five of the House vot­ing against the mea­sure. They were un­will­ing to see the tem­ples of jus­tice and the seats of in­de­pen­dent judges oc­cu­pied by the tools of fac­tion. The dec­la­ra­tions of the par­ty lead­ers, the se­lec­tion of par­ty men for judges, and the to­tal dis­re­gard for the pub­lic will in the adop­tion of the mea­sure, prove con­clu­sive­ly that the ob­ject has been not re­form, but de­struc­tion; not the ad­vance­ment of the high­est in­ter­ests of the State, but the pre­dom­inance of par­ty.

We can­not in this man­ner un­der­take to point out all the ob­jec­tions to this par­ty mea­sure; we present you with those stat­ed by the Coun­cil of Re­vi­sion up­on re­turn­ing the bill, and we ask for them a can­did con­sid­er­ation.

Be­liev­ing that the in­de­pen­dence of the ju­di­cia­ry has been de­stroyed, that here­after our courts will be in­de­pen­dent of the peo­ple, and en­tire­ly de­pen­dent up­on the Leg­is­la­ture; that our rights of prop­er­ty and lib­er­ty of con­science can no longer be re­gard­ed as safe from the en­croach­ments of un­con­sti­tu­tion­al leg­is­la­tion; and know­ing of no oth­er rem­edy which can be adopt­ed con­sis­tent­ly with the peace and good or­der of so­ci­ety, we call up­on you to avail your­selves of the op­por­tu­ni­ty af­ford­ed, and, at the next gen­er­al elec­tion, vote for a con­ven­tion of the peo­ple.

S. H. LIT­TLE, E. D. BAK­ER, J. J. HARDIN, E. B. WEBS, A. LIN­COLN, J. GILLE­SPIE,

Com­mit­tee on be­half of the Whig mem­bers of the Leg­is­la­ture.

EX­TRACT FROM A PROTEST IN THE ILLI­NOIS LEG­IS­LA­TURE AGAINST THE RE­OR­GA­NI­ZA­TION OF THE JU­DI­CIA­RY.

Febru­ary 26, 1841

For the rea­sons thus pre­sent­ed, and for oth­ers no less ap­par­ent, the un­der­signed can­not as­sent to the pas­sage of the bill, or per­mit it to be­come a law, with­out this ev­idence of their dis­ap­pro­ba­tion; and they now protest against the re­or­ga­ni­za­tion of the ju­di­cia­ry, be­cause–(1) It vi­olates the great prin­ci­ples of free gov­ern­ment by sub­ject­ing the ju­di­cia­ry to the Leg­is­la­ture. (2) It is a fa­tal blow at the in­de­pen­dence of the judges and the con­sti­tu­tion­al term of their of­fice. (3) It is a mea­sure not asked for, or wished for, by the peo­ple. (4) It will great­ly in­crease the ex­pense of our courts, or else great­ly di­min­ish their util­ity. (5) It will give our courts a po­lit­ical and par­ti­san char­ac­ter, there­by im­pair­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence in their de­ci­sions. (6) It will im­pair our stand­ing with oth­er States and the world. (7)It is a par­ty mea­sure for par­ty pur­pos­es, from which no prac­ti­cal good to the peo­ple can pos­si­bly arise, but which may be the source of im­mea­sur­able evils.

The un­der­signed are well aware that this protest will be al­to­geth­er un­avail­ing with the ma­jor­ity of this body. The blow has al­ready fall­en, and we are com­pelled to stand by, the mourn­ful spec­ta­tors of the ru­in it will cause.

[Signed by 35 mem­bers, among whom was Abra­ham Lin­coln.]

TO JOSHUA F. SPEED–MUR­DER CASE

SPRING­FIELD June 19, 1841.

DEAR SPEED:–We have had the high­est state of ex­cite­ment here for a week past that our com­mu­ni­ty has ev­er wit­nessed; and, al­though the pub­lic feel­ing is some­what al­layed, the cu­ri­ous af­fair which aroused it is very far from be­ing even yet cleared of mys­tery. It would take a quire of pa­per to give you any­thing like a full ac­count of it, and I there­fore on­ly pro­pose a brief out­line. The chief per­son­ages in the dra­ma are Archibald Fish­er, sup­posed to be mur­dered, and Archibald Trailor, Hen­ry Trailor, and William Trailor, sup­posed to have mur­dered him. The three Trailors are broth­ers: the first, Arch., as you know, lives in town; the sec­ond, Hen­ry, in Clary’s Grove; and the third, William, in War­ren Coun­ty; and Fish­er, the sup­posed mur­dered, be­ing with­out a fam­ily, had made his home with William. On Sat­ur­day evening, be­ing the 29th of May, Fish­er and William came to Hen­ry’s in a one-​horse dear­born, and there stayed over Sun­day; and on Mon­day all three came to Spring­field (Hen­ry on horse­back) and joined Archibald at My­ers’s, the Dutch car­pen­ter. That evening at sup­per Fish­er was miss­ing, and so next morn­ing some in­ef­fec­tu­al search was made for him; and on Tues­day, at one o’clock P.M., William and Hen­ry start­ed home with­out him. In a day or two Hen­ry and one or two of his Clary-​Grove neigh­bors came back for him again, and ad­ver­tised his dis­ap­pear­ance in the pa­pers. The knowl­edge of the mat­ter thus far had not been gen­er­al, and here it dropped en­tire­ly, till about the 10th in­stant, when Keys re­ceived a let­ter from the post­mas­ter in War­ren Coun­ty, that William had ar­rived at home, and was telling a very mys­te­ri­ous and im­prob­able sto­ry about the dis­ap­pear­ance of Fish­er, which in­duced the com­mu­ni­ty there to sup­pose he had been dis­posed of un­fair­ly. Keys made this let­ter pub­lic, which im­me­di­ate­ly set the whole town and ad­join­ing coun­ty agog. And so it has con­tin­ued un­til yes­ter­day. The mass of the peo­ple com­menced a sys­tem­at­ic search for the dead body, while Wick­er­sham was despatched to ar­rest Hen­ry Trailor at the Grove, and Jim Max­cy to War­ren to ar­rest William. On Mon­day last, Hen­ry was brought in, and showed an ev­ident in­cli­na­tion to in­sin­uate that he knew Fish­er to be dead, and that Arch. and William had killed him. He said he guessed the body could be found in Spring Creek, be­tween the Beard­stown road and Hick­ox’s mill. Away the peo­ple swept like a herd of buf­fa­lo, and cut down Hick­ox’s mill-​dam nolens volens, to draw the wa­ter out of the pond, and then went up and down and down and up the creek, fish­ing and rak­ing, and rak­ing and duck­ing and div­ing for two days, and, af­ter all, no dead body found.

In the mean­time a sort of scuf­fling-​ground had been found in the brush in the an­gle, or point, where the road lead­ing in­to the woods past the brew­ery and the one lead­ing in past the brick-​yard meet. From the scuf­fle-​ground was the sign of some­thing about the size of a man hav­ing been dragged to the edge of the thick­et, where it joined the track of some small-​wheeled car­riage drawn by one horse, as shown by the road-​tracks. The car­riage-​track led off to­ward Spring Creek. Near this drag-​trail Dr. Mer­ry­man found two hairs, which, af­ter a long sci­en­tif­ic ex­am­ina­tion, he pro­nounced to be tri­an­gu­lar hu­man hairs, which term, he says, in­cludes with­in it the whiskers, the hair grow­ing un­der the arms and on oth­er parts of the body; and he judged that these two were of the whiskers, be­cause the ends were cut, show­ing that they had flour­ished in the neigh­bor­hood of the ra­zor’s op­er­ations. On Thurs­day last Jim Max­cy brought in William Trailor from War­ren. On the same day Arch. was ar­rest­ed and put in jail. Yes­ter­day (Fri­day) William was put up­on his ex­am­in­ing tri­al be­fore May and Love­ly. Archibald and Hen­ry were both present. Lam­born pros­ecut­ed, and Lo­gan, Bak­er, and your hum­ble ser­vant de­fend­ed. A great many wit­ness­es were in­tro­duced and ex­am­ined, but I shall on­ly men­tion those whose tes­ti­mo­ny seemed most im­por­tant. The first of these was Cap­tain Rans­dell. He swore that when William and Hen­ry left Spring­field for home on Tues­day be­fore men­tioned they did not take the di­rect route,–which, you know, leads by the butch­er shop,–but that they fol­lowed the street north un­til they got op­po­site, or near­ly op­po­site, May’s new house, af­ter which he could not see them from where he stood; and it was af­ter­wards proved that in about an hour af­ter they start­ed, they came in­to the street by the butch­er shop from to­ward the brick- yard. Dr. Mer­ry­man and oth­ers swore to what is stat­ed about the scuf­fle-​ground, drag-​trail, whiskers, and car­riage tracks. Hen­ry was then in­tro­duced by the pros­ecu­tion. He swore that when they start­ed for home they went out north, as Rans­dell stat­ed, and turned down west by the brick-​yard in­to the woods, and there met Archibald; that they pro­ceed­ed a small dis­tance far­ther, when he was placed as a sen­tinel to watch for and an­nounce the ap­proach of any one that might hap­pen that way; that William and Arch. took the dear­born out of the road a small dis­tance to the edge of the thick­et, where they stopped, and he saw them lift the body of a man in­to it; that they then moved off with the car­riage in the di­rec­tion of Hick­ox’s mill, and he loi­tered about for some­thing like an hour, when William re­turned with the car­riage, but with­out Arch., and said they had put him in a safe place; that they went some­how he did not know ex­act­ly how–in­to the road close to the brew­ery, and pro­ceed­ed on to Clary’s Grove. He al­so stat­ed that some time dur­ing the day William told him that he and Arch. had killed Fish­er the evening be­fore; that the way they did it was by him William knock­ing him down with a club, and Arch. then chok­ing him to death.

An old man from War­ren, called Dr. Gilmore, was then in­tro­duced on the part of the de­fense. He swore that he had known Fish­er for sev­er­al years; that Fish­er had resid­ed at his house a long time at each of two dif­fer­ent spells–once while he built a barn for him, and once while he was doc­tored for some chron­ic dis­ease; that two or three years ago Fish­er had a se­ri­ous hurt in his head by the burst­ing of a gun, since which he had been sub­ject to con­tin­ued bad health and oc­ca­sion­al aber­ra­tion of mind. He al­so stat­ed that on last Tues­day, be­ing the same day that Max­cy ar­rest­ed William Trailor, he (the doc­tor) was from home in the ear­ly part of the day, and on his re­turn, about eleven o’clock, found Fish­er at his house in bed, and ap­par­ent­ly very un­well; that he asked him how he came from Spring­field; that Fish­er said he had come by Peo­ria, and al­so told of sev­er­al oth­er places he had been at more in the di­rec­tion of Peo­ria, which showed that he at the time of speak­ing did not know where he had been wan­der­ing about in a state of de­range­ment. He fur­ther stat­ed that in about two hours he re­ceived a note from one of Trailor’s friends, ad­vis­ing him of his ar­rest, and re­quest­ing him to go on to Spring­field as a wit­ness, to tes­ti­fy as to the state of Fish­er’s health in for­mer times; that he im­me­di­ate­ly set off, call­ing up two of his neigh­bors as com­pa­ny, and, rid­ing all evening and all night, over­took Max­cy and William at Lewis­ton in Ful­ton Coun­ty; that Max­cy re­fus­ing to dis­charge Trailor up­on his state­ment, his two neigh­bors re­turned and he came on to Spring­field. Some ques­tion be­ing made as to whether the doc­tor’s sto­ry was not a fab­ri­ca­tion, sev­er­al ac­quain­tances of his (among whom was the same post­mas­ter who wrote Keys, as be­fore men­tioned) were in­tro­duced as sort of com­pur­ga­tors, who swore that they knew the doc­tor to be of good char­ac­ter for truth and ve­rac­ity, and gen­er­al­ly of good char­ac­ter in ev­ery way.

Here the tes­ti­mo­ny end­ed, and the Trailors were dis­charged, Arch. and William ex­press­ing both in word and man­ner their en­tire con­fi­dence that Fish­er would be found alive at the doc­tor’s by Gal­loway, Mal­lo­ry, and My­ers, who a day be­fore had been despatched for that pur­pose; which Hen­ry still protest­ed that no pow­er on earth could ev­er show Fish­er alive. Thus stands this cu­ri­ous af­fair. When the doc­tor’s sto­ry was first made pub­lic, it was amus­ing to scan and con­tem­plate the coun­te­nances and hear the re­marks of those who had been ac­tive­ly in search for the dead body: some looked quizzi­cal, some melan­choly, and some fu­ri­ous­ly an­gry. Porter, who had been very ac­tive, swore he al­ways knew the man was not dead, and that he had not stirred an inch to hunt for him; Lang­ford, who had tak­en the lead in cut­ting down Hick­ox’s mill-​dam, and want­ed to hang Hick­ox for ob­ject­ing, looked most aw­ful­ly woe­be­gone: he seemed the “vic­tim of un­re­quit­ed af­fec­tion,” as rep­re­sent­ed in the com­ic al­manacs we used to laugh over; and Hart, the lit­tle dray­man that hauled Mol­ly home once, said it was too damned bad to have so much trou­ble, and no hang­ing af­ter all.

I com­menced this let­ter on yes­ter­day, since which I re­ceived yours of the 13th. I stick to my promise to come to Louisville. Noth­ing new here ex­cept what I have writ­ten. I have not seen _____ since my last trip, and I am go­ing out there as soon as I mail this let­ter.

Yours for­ev­er, LIN­COLN.

STATE­MENT ABOUT HAR­RY WILTON.

June 25, 1841

It hav­ing been charged in some of the pub­lic prints that Har­ry Wilton, late Unit­ed States mar­shal for the dis­trict of Illi­nois, had used his of­fice for po­lit­ical ef­fect, in the ap­point­ment of deputies for the tak­ing of the cen­sus for the year 1840, we, the un­der­signed, were called up­on by Mr. Wilton to ex­am­ine the pa­pers in his pos­ses­sion rel­ative to these ap­point­ments, and to as­cer­tain there­from the cor­rect­ness or in­cor­rect­ness of such charge. We ac­com­pa­nied Mr. Wilton to a room, and ex­am­ined the mat­ter as ful­ly as we could with the means af­ford­ed us. The on­ly sources of in­for­ma­tion bear­ing on the sub­ject which were sub­mit­ted to us were the let­ters, etc., rec­om­mend­ing and op­pos­ing the var­ious ap­point­ments made, and Mr. Wilton’s ver­bal state­ments con­cern­ing the same. From these let­ters, etc., it ap­pears that in some in­stances ap­point­ments were made in ac­cor­dance with the rec­om­men­da­tions of lead­ing Whigs, and in op­po­si­tion to those of lead­ing Democrats; among which in­stances the ap­point­ments at Scott, Wayne, Madi­son, and Lawrence are the strongest. Ac­cord­ing to Mr. Wilton’s state­ment of the sev­en­ty-​six ap­point­ments we ex­am­ined, fifty-​four were of Democrats, eleven of Whigs, and eleven of un­known pol­itics.

The chief ground of com­plaint against Mr. Wilton, as we had un­der­stood it, was be­cause of his ap­point­ment of so many Demo­crat­ic can­di­dates for the Leg­is­la­ture, thus giv­ing them a de­cid­ed ad­van­tage over their Whig op­po­nents; and con­se­quent­ly our at­ten­tion was di­rect­ed rather par­tic­ular­ly to that point. We found that there were many such ap­point­ments, among which were those in Tazewell, McLean, Iro­quois, Coles, Menard, Wayne, Wash­ing­ton, Fayette, etc.; and we did not learn that there was one in­stance in which a Whig can­di­date for the Leg­is­la­ture had been ap­point­ed. There was no writ­ten ev­idence be­fore us show­ing us at what time those ap­point­ments were made; but Mr. Wilton stat­ed that they all with one ex­cep­tion were made be­fore those ap­point­ed be­came can­di­dates for the Leg­is­la­ture, and the let­ters, etc., rec­om­mend­ing them all bear date be­fore, and most of them long be­fore, those ap­point­ed were pub­licly an­nounced can­di­dates.

We give the fore­go­ing naked facts and draw no con­clu­sions from them.

BEND. S. ED­WARDS, A. LIN­COLN.

TO MISS MARY SPEED–PRAC­TI­CAL SLAV­ERY

BLOOM­ING­TON, ILL., Septem­ber 27, 1841.

Miss Mary Speed, Louisville, Ky.

MY FRIEND: By the way, a fine ex­am­ple was pre­sent­ed on board the boat for con­tem­plat­ing the ef­fect of con­di­tion up­on hu­man hap­pi­ness. A gen­tle­man had pur­chased twelve ne­groes in dif­fer­ent parts of Ken­tucky, and was tak­ing them to a farm in the South. They were chained six and six to­geth­er. A small iron cle­vis was around the left wrist of each, and this fas­tened to the main chain by a short­er one, at a con­ve­nient dis­tance from the oth­ers, so that the ne­groes were strung to­geth­er pre­cise­ly like so many fish up­on a trot­line. In this con­di­tion they were be­ing sep­arat­ed for­ev­er from the scenes of their child­hood, their friends, their fa­thers and moth­ers, and broth­ers and sis­ters, and many of them from their wives and chil­dren, and go­ing in­to per­pet­ual slav­ery where the lash of the mas­ter is prover­bial­ly more ruth­less and un­re­lent­ing than any oth­er where; and yet amid all these dis­tress­ing cir­cum­stances, as we would think them, they were the most cheer­ful and ap­par­ent­ly hap­py crea­tures on board. One, whose of­fence for which he had been sold was an over­fond­ness for his wife, played the fid­dle al­most con­tin­ual­ly, and the oth­ers danced, sang, cracked jokes, and played var­ious games with cards from day to day. How true it is that ‘God tem­pers the wind to the shorn lamb,’ or in oth­er words, that he ren­ders the worst of hu­man con­di­tions tol­er­able, while he per­mits the best to be noth­ing bet­ter than tol­er­able. To re­turn to the nar­ra­tive: When we reached Spring­field I stayed but one day, when I start­ed on this te­dious cir­cuit where I now am. Do you re­mem­ber my go­ing to the city, while I was in Ken­tucky, to have a tooth ex­tract­ed, and mak­ing a fail­ure of it? Well, that same old tooth got to pain­ing me so much that about a week since I had it torn out, bring­ing with it a bit of the jaw­bone, the con­se­quence of which is that my mouth is now so sore that I can nei­ther talk nor eat.

Your sin­cere friend, A. LIN­COLN.

1842

TO JOSHUA F. SPEED–ON MAR­RIAGE

Jan­uary 3?, 1842.

MY DEAR SPEED:–Feel­ing, as you know I do, the deep­est so­lic­itude for the suc­cess of the en­ter­prise you are en­gaged in, I adopt this as the last method I can adopt to aid you, in case (which God for­bid!) you shall need any aid. I do not place what I am go­ing to say on pa­per be­cause I can say it bet­ter that way than I could by word of mouth, but, were I to say it oral­ly be­fore we part, most like­ly you would for­get it at the very time when it might do you some good. As I think it rea­son­able that you will feel very bad­ly some time be­tween this and the fi­nal con­sum­ma­tion of your pur­pose, it is in­tend­ed that you shall read this just at such a time. Why I say it is rea­son­able that you will feel very bad­ly yet, is be­cause of three spe­cial caus­es added to the gen­er­al one which I shall men­tion.

The gen­er­al cause is, that you are nat­ural­ly of a ner­vous tem­per­ament; and this I say from what I have seen of you per­son­al­ly, and what you have told me con­cern­ing your moth­er at var­ious times, and con­cern­ing your broth­er William at the time his wife died. The first spe­cial cause is your ex­po­sure to bad weath­er on your jour­ney, which my ex­pe­ri­ence clear­ly proves to be very se­vere on de­fec­tive nerves. The sec­ond is the ab­sence of all busi­ness and con­ver­sa­tion of friends, which might di­vert your mind, give it oc­ca­sion­al rest from the in­ten­si­ty of thought which will some­times wear the sweet­est idea thread­bare and turn it to the bit­ter­ness of death. The third is the rapid and near ap­proach of that cri­sis on which all your thoughts and feel­ings con­cen­trate.

If from all these caus­es you shall es­cape and go through tri­umphant­ly, with­out an­oth­er “twinge of the soul,” I shall be most hap­pi­ly but most egre­gious­ly de­ceived. If, on the con­trary, you shall, as I ex­pect you will at some­time, be ag­onized and dis­tressed, let me, who have some rea­son to speak with judg­ment on such a sub­ject, be­seech you to as­cribe it to the caus­es I have men­tioned, and not to some false and ru­inous sug­ges­tion of the Dev­il.

“But,” you will say, “do not your caus­es ap­ply to ev­ery one en­gaged in a like un­der­tak­ing?” By no means. The par­tic­ular caus­es, to a greater or less ex­tent, per­haps do ap­ply in all cas­es; but the gen­er­al one,–ner­vous de­bil­ity, which is the key and con­duc­tor of all the par­tic­ular ones, and with­out which they would be ut­ter­ly harm­less,–though it does per­tain to you, does not per­tain to one in a thou­sand. It is out of this that the painful dif­fer­ence be­tween you and the mass of the world springs.

I know what the painful point with you is at all times when you are un­hap­py; it is an ap­pre­hen­sion that you do not love her as you should. What non­sense! How came you to court her? Was it be­cause you thought she de­served it, and that you had giv­en her rea­son to ex­pect it? If it was for that why did not the same rea­son make you court Ann Todd, and at least twen­ty oth­ers of whom you can think, and to whom it would ap­ply with greater force than to her? Did you court her for her wealth? Why, you know she had none. But you say you rea­soned your­self in­to it. What do you mean by that? Was it not that you found your­self un­able to rea­son your­self out of it? Did you not think, and part­ly form the pur­pose, of court­ing her the first time you ev­er saw her or heard of her? What had rea­son to do with it at that ear­ly stage? There was noth­ing at that time for rea­son to work up­on. Whether she was moral, ami­able, sen­si­ble, or even of good char­ac­ter, you did not, nor could then know, ex­cept, per­haps, you might in­fer the last from the com­pa­ny you found her in.

All you then did or could know of her was her per­son­al ap­pear­ance and de­port­ment; and these, if they im­press at all, im­press the heart, and not the head.

Say can­did­ly, were not those heav­en­ly black eyes the whole ba­sis of all your ear­ly rea­son­ing on the sub­ject? Af­ter you and I had once been at the res­idence, did you not go and take me all the way to Lex­ing­ton and back, for no oth­er pur­pose but to get to see her again, on our re­turn on that evening to take a trip for that ex­press ob­ject? What earth­ly con­sid­er­ation would you take to find her scout­ing and de­spis­ing you, and giv­ing her­self up to an­oth­er? But of this you have no ap­pre­hen­sion; and there­fore you can­not bring it home to your feel­ings.

I shall be so anx­ious about you that I shall want you to write by ev­ery mail. Your friend,

LIN­COLN.

TO JOSHUA F. SPEED.

SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, Febru­ary 3, 1842.

DEAR SPEED:–Your let­ter of the 25th Jan­uary came to hand to-​day. You well know that I do not feel my own sor­rows much more keen­ly than I do yours, when I know of them; and yet I as­sure you I was not much hurt by what you wrote me of your ex­ces­sive­ly bad feel­ing at the time you wrote. Not that I am less ca­pa­ble of sym­pa­thiz­ing with you now than ev­er, not that I am less your friend than ev­er, but be­cause I hope and be­lieve that your present anx­iety and dis­tress about her health and her life must and will for­ev­er ban­ish those hor­rid doubts which I know you some­times felt as to the truth of your af­fec­tion for her. If they can once and for­ev­er be re­moved (and I al­most feel a pre­sen­ti­ment that the Almighty has sent your present af­flic­tion ex­press­ly for that ob­ject), sure­ly noth­ing can come in their stead to fill their im­mea­sur­able mea­sure of mis­ery. The death- scenes of those we love are sure­ly painful enough; but these we are pre­pared for and ex­pect to see: they hap­pen to all, and all know they must hap­pen. Painful as they are, they are not an un­looked for sor­row. Should she, as you fear, be des­tined to an ear­ly grave, it is in­deed a great con­so­la­tion to know that she is so well pre­pared to meet it. Her re­li­gion, which you once dis­liked so much, I will ven­ture you now prize most high­ly. But I hope your melan­choly bod­ings as to her ear­ly death are not well found­ed. I even hope that ere this reach­es you she will have re­turned with im­proved and still im­prov­ing health, and that you will have met her, and for­got­ten the sor­rows of the past in the en­joy­ments of the present. I would say more if I could, but it seems that I have said enough. It re­al­ly ap­pears to me that you your­self ought to re­joice, and not sor­row, at this in­du­bitable ev­idence of your undy­ing af­fec­tion for her. Why, Speed, if you did not love her al­though you might not wish her death, you would most cer­tain­ly be re­signed to it. Per­haps this point is no longer a ques­tion with you, and my per­ti­na­cious dwelling up­on it is a rude in­tru­sion up­on your feel­ings. If so, you must par­don me. You know the hell I have suf­fered on that point, and how ten­der I am up­on it. You know I do not mean wrong. I have been quite clear of “hy­po” since you left, even bet­ter than I was along in the fall. I have seen ______ but once. She seemed very cheer­ful, and so I said noth­ing to her about what we spoke of.

Old Un­cle Bil­ly Hern­don is dead, and it is said this evening that Un­cle Ben Fer­gu­son will not live. This, I be­lieve, is all the news, and enough at that un­less it were bet­ter. Write me im­me­di­ate­ly on the re­ceipt of this. Your friend, as ev­er,

LIN­COLN.

TO JOSHUA F. SPEED–ON DE­PRES­SION

SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, Febru­ary 13, 1842.

DEAR SPEED:–Yours of the 1st in­stant came to hand three or four days ago. When this shall reach you, you will have been Fan­ny’s hus­band sev­er­al days. You know my de­sire to be­friend you is ev­er­last­ing; that I will nev­er cease while I know how to do any­thing. But you will al­ways here­after be on ground that I have nev­er oc­cu­pied, and con­se­quent­ly, if ad­vice were need­ed, I might ad­vise wrong. I do fond­ly hope, how­ev­er, that you will nev­er again need any com­fort from abroad. But should I be mis­tak­en in this, should ex­ces­sive plea­sure still be ac­com­pa­nied with a painful coun­ter­part at times, still let me urge you, as I have ev­er done, to re­mem­ber, in the depth and even agony of de­spon­den­cy, that very short­ly you are to feel well again. I am now ful­ly con­vinced that you love her as ar­dent­ly as you are ca­pa­ble of lov­ing. Your ev­er be­ing hap­py in her pres­ence, and your in­tense anx­iety about her health, if there were noth­ing else, would place this be­yond all dis­pute in my mind. I in­cline to think it prob­able that your nerves will fail you oc­ca­sion­al­ly for a while; but once you get them firm­ly guard­ed now that trou­ble is over for­ev­er. I think, if I were you, in case my mind were not ex­act­ly right, I would avoid be­ing idle. I would im­me­di­ate­ly en­gage in some busi­ness, or go to mak­ing prepa­ra­tions for it, which would be the same thing. If you went through the cer­emo­ny calm­ly, or even with suf­fi­cient com­po­sure not to ex­cite alarm in any present, you are safe be­yond ques­tion, and in two or three months, to say the most, will be the hap­pi­est of men.

I would de­sire you to give my par­tic­ular re­spects to Fan­ny; but per­haps you will not wish her to know you have re­ceived this, lest she should de­sire to see it. Make her write me an an­swer to my last let­ter to her; at any rate I would set great val­ue up­on a note or let­ter from her. Write me when­ev­er you have leisure. Yours for­ev­er, A. LIN­COLN. P. S.–I have been quite a man since you left.

TO G. B. SHELEDY.

SPRING­FIELD, ILL., Feb. 16, 1842.

G. B. SHELEDY, ESQ.:

Yours of the 10th is du­ly re­ceived. Judge Lo­gan and my­self are do­ing busi­ness to­geth­er now, and we are will­ing to at­tend to your cas­es as you pro­pose. As to the terms, we are will­ing to at­tend each case you pre­pare and send us for $10 (when there shall be no op­po­si­tion) to be sent in ad­vance, or you to know that it is safe. It takes $5.75 of cost to start up­on, that is, $1.75 to clerk, and $2 to each of two pub­lish­ers of pa­pers. Judge Lo­gan thinks it will take the bal­ance of $20 to car­ry a case through. This must be ad­vanced from time to time as the ser­vices are per­formed, as the of­fi­cers will not act with­out. I do not know whether you can be ad­mit­ted an at­tor­ney of the Fed­er­al court in your ab­sence or not; nor is it ma­te­ri­al, as the busi­ness can be done in our names.

Think­ing it may aid you a lit­tle, I send you one of our blank forms of Pe­ti­tions. It, you will see, is framed to be sworn to be­fore the Fed­er­al court clerk, and, in your cas­es, will have [to] be so far changed as to be sworn to be­fore the clerk of your cir­cuit court; and his cer­tifi­cate must be ac­com­pa­nied with his of­fi­cial seal. The sched­ules, too, must be at­tend­ed to. Be sure that they con­tain the cred­itors’ names, their res­idences, the amounts due each, the debtors’ names, their res­idences, and the amounts they owe, al­so all prop­er­ty and where lo­cat­ed.

Al­so be sure that the sched­ules are all signed by the ap­pli­cants as well as the Pe­ti­tion. Pub­li­ca­tion will have to be made here in one pa­per, and in one near­est the res­idence of the ap­pli­cant. Write us in each case where the last ad­ver­tise­ment is to be sent, whether to you or to what pa­per.

I be­lieve I have now said ev­ery­thing that can be of any ad­van­tage. Your friend as ev­er, A. LIN­COLN.

TO GEORGE E. PICK­ETT–AD­VICE TO YOUTH

Febru­ary 22, 1842.

I nev­er en­cour­age de­ceit, and false­hood, es­pe­cial­ly if you have got a bad mem­ory, is the worst en­emy a fel­low can have. The fact is truth is your truest friend, no mat­ter what the cir­cum­stances are. Notwith­stand­ing this copy-​book pream­ble, my boy, I am in­clined to sug­gest a lit­tle pru­dence on your part. You see I have a con­gen­ital aver­sion to fail­ure, and the sud­den an­nounce­ment to your Un­cle An­drew of the suc­cess of your “lamp rub­bing” might pos­si­bly pre­vent your pass­ing the se­vere phys­ical ex­am­ina­tion to which you will be sub­ject­ed in or­der to en­ter the Mil­itary Acade­my. You see I should like to have a per­fect sol­dier cred­it­ed to dear old Illi­nois–no bro­ken bones, scalp wounds, etc. So I think it might be wise to hand this let­ter from me in to your good un­cle through his room-​win­dow af­ter he has had a com­fort­able din­ner, and watch its ef­fect from the top of the pi­geon-​house.

I have just told the folks here in Spring­field on this 111th an­niver­sary of the birth of him whose name, might­iest in the cause of civ­il lib­er­ty, still might­iest in the cause of moral ref­or­ma­tion, we men­tion in solemn awe, in naked, death­less splen­dor, that the one vic­to­ry we can ev­er call com­plete will be that one which pro­claims that there is not one slave or one drunk­ard on the face of God’s green earth. Re­cruit for this vic­to­ry.

Now, boy, on your march, don’t you go and for­get the old max­im that “one drop of hon­ey catch­es more flies than a half-​gal­lon of gall.” Load your mus­ket with this max­im, and smoke it in your pipe.

AD­DRESS BE­FORE THE SPRING­FIELD WASH­ING­TO­NI­AN TEM­PER­ANCE SO­CI­ETY, FEBRU­ARY 22, 1842.

Al­though the tem­per­ance cause has been in progress for near twen­ty years, it is ap­par­ent to all that it is just now be­ing crowned with a de­gree of suc­cess hith­er­to un­par­al­leled.

The list of its friends is dai­ly swelled by the ad­di­tions of fifties, of hun­dreds, and of thou­sands. The cause it­self seems sud­den­ly trans­formed from a cold ab­stract the­ory to a liv­ing, breath­ing, ac­tive, and pow­er­ful chief­tain, go­ing forth “con­quer­ing and to con­quer.” The citadels of his great ad­ver­sary are dai­ly be­ing stormed and dis­man­tled; his tem­ple and his al­tars, where the rites of his idol­atrous wor­ship have long been per­formed, and where hu­man sac­ri­fices have long been wont to be made, are dai­ly des­ecrat­ed and de­sert­ed. The tri­umph of the con­queror’s fame is sound­ing from hill to hill, from sea to sea, and from land to land, and call­ing mil­lions to his stan­dard at a blast.

For this new and splen­did suc­cess we hearti­ly re­joice. That that suc­cess is so much greater now than hereto­fore is doubt­less ow­ing to ra­tio­nal caus­es; and if we would have it con­tin­ue, we shall do well to in­quire what those caus­es are.

The war­fare hereto­fore waged against the de­mon in­tem­per­ance has some­how or oth­er been er­ro­neous. Ei­ther the cham­pi­ons en­gaged or the tac­tics they adopt­ed have not been the most prop­er. These cham­pi­ons for the most part have been preach­ers, lawyers, and hired agents. Be­tween these and the mass of mankind there is a want of ap­proach­abil­ity, if the term be ad­mis­si­ble, par­tial­ly, at least, fa­tal to their suc­cess. They are sup­posed to have no sym­pa­thy of feel­ing or in­ter­est with those very per­sons whom it is their ob­ject to con­vince and per­suade.

And again, it is so com­mon and so easy to as­cribe mo­tives to men of these class­es oth­er than those they pro­fess to act up­on. The preach­er, it is said, ad­vo­cates tem­per­ance be­cause he is a fa­nat­ic, and de­sires a union of the Church and State; the lawyer from his pride and van­ity of hear­ing him­self speak; and the hired agent for his salary. But when one who has long been known as a vic­tim of in­tem­per­ance bursts the fet­ters that have bound him, and ap­pears be­fore his neigh­bors “clothed and in his right mind,” a re­deemed spec­imen of long-​lost hu­man­ity, and stands up, with tears of joy trem­bling in his eyes, to tell of the mis­eries once en­dured, now to be en­dured no more for­ev­er; of his once naked and starv­ing chil­dren, now clad and fed com­fort­ably; of a wife long weighed down with woe, weep­ing, and a bro­ken heart, now re­stored to health, hap­pi­ness, and a re­newed af­fec­tion; and how eas­ily it is all done, once it is re­solved to be done; how sim­ple his lan­guage! there is a log­ic and an elo­quence in it that few with hu­man feel­ings can re­sist. They can­not say that he de­sires a union of Church and State, for he is not a church mem­ber; they can­not say he is vain of hear­ing him­self speak, for his whole de­meanor shows he would glad­ly avoid speak­ing at all; they can­not say he speaks for pay, for he re­ceives none, and asks for none. Nor can his sin­cer­ity in any way be doubt­ed, or his sym­pa­thy for those he would per­suade to im­itate his ex­am­ple be de­nied.

In my judg­ment, it is to the bat­tles of this new class of cham­pi­ons that our late suc­cess is great­ly, per­haps chiefly, ow­ing. But, had the old-​school cham­pi­ons them­selves been of the most wise se­lect­ing, was their sys­tem of tac­tics the most ju­di­cious? It seems to me it was not. Too much de­nun­ci­ation against dram-​sell­ers and dram-​drinkers was in­dulged in. This I think was both im­politic and un­just. It was im­politic, be­cause it is not much in the na­ture of man to be driv­en to any­thing; still less to be driv­en about that which is ex­clu­sive­ly his own busi­ness; and least of all where such driv­ing is to be sub­mit­ted to at the ex­pense of pe­cu­niary in­ter­est or burn­ing ap­petite. When the dram-​sell­er and drinker were in­ces­sant­ly told not in ac­cents of en­treaty and per­sua­sion, dif­fi­dent­ly ad­dressed by erring man to an erring broth­er, but in the thun­der­ing tones of anath­ema and de­nun­ci­ation with which the lord­ly judge of­ten groups to­geth­er all the crimes of the felon’s life, and thrusts them in his face just ere he pass­es sen­tence of death up­on him that they were the au­thors of all the vice and mis­ery and crime in the land; that they were the man­ufac­tur­ers and ma­te­ri­al of all the thieves and rob­bers and mur­der­ers that in­fest the earth; that their hous­es were the work­shops of the dev­il; and that their per­sons should be shunned by all the good and vir­tu­ous, as moral pesti­lences–I say, when they were told all this, and in this way, it is not won­der­ful that they were slow to ac­knowl­edge the truth of such de­nun­ci­ations, and to join the ranks of their de­nounc­ers in a hue and cry against them­selves.

To have ex­pect­ed them to do oth­er­wise than they did to have ex­pect­ed them not to meet de­nun­ci­ation with de­nun­ci­ation, crim­ina­tion with crim­ina­tion, and anath­ema with anath­ema–was to ex­pect a re­ver­sal of hu­man na­ture, which is God’s de­cree and can nev­er be re­versed.

When the con­duct of men is de­signed to be in­flu­enced, per­sua­sion, kind, unas­sum­ing per­sua­sion, should ev­er be adopt­ed. It is an old and a true max­im that “a drop of hon­ey catch­es more flies than a gal­lon of gall.” So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first con­vince him that you are his sin­cere friend. There­in is a drop of hon­ey that catch­es his heart, which, say what he will, is the great high­road to his rea­son; and which, when once gained, you will find but lit­tle trou­ble in con­vinc­ing his judg­ment of the jus­tice of your cause, if in­deed that cause re­al­ly be a just one. On the con­trary, as­sume to dic­tate to his judg­ment, or to com­mand his ac­tion, or to mark him as one to be shunned and de­spised, and he will re­treat with­in him­self, close all the av­enues to his head and his heart; and though your cause be naked truth it­self, trans­formed to the heav­iest lance, hard­er than steel, and sharp­er than steel can be made, and though you throw it with more than her­culean force and pre­ci­sion, you shall be no more able to pierce him than to pen­etrate the hard shell of a tor­toise with a rye straw. Such is man, and so must he be un­der­stood by those who would lead him, even to his own best in­ter­ests.

On this point the Wash­ing­to­ni­ans great­ly ex­cel the tem­per­ance ad­vo­cates of for­mer times. Those whom they de­sire to con­vince and per­suade are their old friends and com­pan­ions. They know they are not demons, nor even the worst of men; they know that gen­er­al­ly they are kind, gen­er­ous, and char­ita­ble even be­yond the ex­am­ple of their more staid and sober neigh­bors. They are prac­ti­cal phi­lan­thropists; and they glow with a gen­er­ous and broth­er­ly zeal that mere the­oriz­ers are in­ca­pable of feel­ing. Benev­olence and char­ity pos­sess their hearts en­tire­ly; and out of the abun­dance of their hearts their tongues give ut­ter­ance; “love through all their ac­tions runs, and all their words are mild.” In this spir­it they speak and act, and in the same they are heard and re­gard­ed. And when such is the tem­per of the ad­vo­cate, and such of the au­di­ence, no good cause can be un­suc­cess­ful. But I have said that de­nun­ci­ations against dram­sellers and dram- drinkers are un­just, as well as im­politic. Let us see. I have not in­quired at what pe­ri­od of time the use of in­tox­icat­ing liquors com­menced; nor is it im­por­tant to know. It is suf­fi­cient that, to all of us who now in­hab­it the world, the prac­tice of drink­ing them is just as old as the world it­self that is, we have seen the one just as long as we have seen the oth­er. When all such of us as have now reached the years of ma­tu­ri­ty first opened our eyes up­on the stage of ex­is­tence, we found in­tox­icat­ing liquor rec­og­nized by ev­ery­body, used by ev­ery­body, re­pu­di­at­ed by no­body. It com­mon­ly en­tered in­to the first draught of the in­fant and the last draught of the dy­ing man. From the side­board of the par­son down to the ragged pock­et of the house­less loafer, it was con­stant­ly found. Physi­cians pro­scribed it in this, that, and the oth­er dis­ease; gov­ern­ment pro­vid­ed it for sol­diers and sailors; and to have a rolling or rais­ing, a husk­ing or “hoe­down,” any­where about with­out it was pos­itive­ly in­suf­fer­able. So, too, it was ev­ery­where a re­spectable ar­ti­cle of man­ufac­ture and mer­chan­dise. The mak­ing of it was re­gard­ed as an hon­or­able liveli­hood, and he who could make most was the most en­ter­pris­ing and re­spectable. Large and small man­ufac­to­ries of it were ev­ery­where erect­ed, in which all the earth­ly goods of their own­ers were in­vest­ed. Wag­ons drew it from town to town; boats bore it from clime to clime, and the winds waft­ed it from na­tion to na­tion; and mer­chants bought and sold it, by whole­sale and re­tail, with pre­cise­ly the same feel­ings on the part of the sell­er, buy­er, and by­stander as are felt at the sell­ing and buy­ing of ploughs, beef, ba­con, or any oth­er of the re­al nec­es­saries of life. Uni­ver­sal pub­lic opin­ion not on­ly tol­er­at­ed but rec­og­nized and adopt­ed its use.

It is true that even then it was known and ac­knowl­edged that many were great­ly in­jured by it; but none seemed to think the in­jury arose from the use of a bad thing, but from the abuse of a very good thing. The vic­tims of it were to be pitied and com­pas­sion­at­ed, just as are the heirs of con­sump­tion and oth­er hered­itary dis­eases. Their fail­ing was treat­ed as a mis­for­tune, and not as a crime, or even as a dis­grace. If, then, what I have been say­ing is true, is it won­der­ful that some should think and act now as all thought and act­ed twen­ty years ago? and is it just to as­sail, con­demn, or de­spise them for do­ing so? The uni­ver­sal sense of mankind on any sub­ject is an ar­gu­ment, or at least an in­flu­ence, not eas­ily over­come. The suc­cess of the ar­gu­ment in fa­vor of the ex­is­tence of an over­rul­ing Prov­idence main­ly de­pends up­on that sense; and men ought not in jus­tice to be de­nounced for yield­ing to it in any case, or giv­ing it up slow­ly, es­pe­cial­ly when they are backed by in­ter­est, fixed habits, or burn­ing ap­petites.

An­oth­er er­ror, as it seems to me, in­to which the old re­form­ers fell, was the po­si­tion that all ha­bit­ual drunk­ards were ut­ter­ly in­cor­ri­gi­ble, and there­fore must be turned adrift and damned with­out rem­edy in or­der that the grace of tem­per­ance might abound, to the tem­per­ate then, and to all mankind some hun­dreds of years there­after. There is in this some thing so re­pug­nant to hu­man­ity, so un­char­ita­ble, so cold-​blood­ed and feel­in­gless, that it, nev­er did nor ev­er can en­list the en­thu­si­asm of a pop­ular cause. We could not love the man who taught it we could not hear him with pa­tience. The heart could not throw open its por­tals to it, the gen­er­ous man could not adopt it–it could not mix with his blood. It looked so fiendish­ly self­ish, so like throw­ing fa­thers and broth­ers over­board to light­en the boat for our se­cu­ri­ty, that the no­ble-​mind­ed shrank from the man­ifest mean­ness of the thing. And be­sides this, the ben­efits of a ref­or­ma­tion to be ef­fect­ed by such a sys­tem were too re­mote in point of time to warm­ly en­gage many in its be­half. Few can be in­duced to la­bor ex­clu­sive­ly for pos­ter­ity, and none will do it en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly. –Pos­ter­ity has done noth­ing for us; and, the­orize on it as we may, prac­ti­cal­ly we shall do very lit­tle for it, un­less we are made to think we are at the same time do­ing some­thing for our­selves.

What an ig­no­rance of hu­man na­ture does it ex­hib­it to ask or to ex­pect a whole com­mu­ni­ty to rise up and la­bor for the tem­po­ral hap­pi­ness of oth­ers, af­ter them­selves shall be con­signed to the dust, a ma­jor­ity of which com­mu­ni­ty take no pains what­ev­er to se­cure their own eter­nal wel­fare at no more dis­tant day! Great dis­tance in ei­ther time or space has won­der­ful pow­er to lull and ren­der qui­es­cent the hu­man mind. Plea­sures to be en­joyed, or pains to be en­dured, af­ter we shall be dead and gone are but lit­tle re­gard­ed even in our own cas­es, and much less in the cas­es of oth­ers. Still, in ad­di­tion to this there is some­thing so lu­di­crous in promis­es of good or threats of evil a great way off as to ren­der the whole sub­ject with which they are con­nect­ed eas­ily turned in­to ridicule. “Bet­ter lay down that spade you are steal­ing, Pad­dy; if you don’t you’ll pay for it at the day of judg­ment.” “Be the pow­ers, if ye ‘ll cred­it me so long I’ll take an­oth­er jist.”

By the Wash­ing­to­ni­ans this sys­tem of con­sign­ing the ha­bit­ual drunk­ard to hope­less ru­in is re­pu­di­at­ed. They adopt a more en­larged phi­lan­thropy; they go for present as well as fu­ture good. They la­bor for all now liv­ing, as well as here­after to live. They teach hope to all-​de­spair to none. As ap­ply­ing to their cause, they de­ny the doc­trine of un­par­don­able sin; as in Chris­tian­ity it is taught, so in this they teach–“While–While the lamp holds out to burn, The vilest sin­ner may re­turn.” And, what is a mat­ter of more pro­found con­grat­ula­tion, they, by ex­per­iment up­on ex­per­iment and ex­am­ple up­on ex­am­ple, prove the max­im to be no less true in the one case than in the oth­er. On ev­ery hand we be­hold those who but yes­ter­day were the chief of sin­ners, now the chief apos­tles of the cause. Drunk­en dev­ils are cast out by ones, by sev­ens, by le­gions; and their un­for­tu­nate vic­tims, like the poor pos­sessed who were re­deemed from their long and lone­ly wan­der­ings in the tombs, are pub­lish­ing to the ends of the earth how great things have been done for them.

To these new cham­pi­ons and this new sys­tem of tac­tics our late suc­cess is main­ly ow­ing, and to them we must main­ly look for the fi­nal con­sum­ma­tion. The ball is now rolling glo­ri­ous­ly on, and none are so able as they to in­crease its speed and its bulk, to add to its mo­men­tum and its mag­ni­tude–even though un­learned in let­ters, for this task none are so well ed­ucat­ed. To fit them for this work they have been taught in the true school. They have been in that gulf from which they would teach oth­ers the means of es­cape. They have passed that prison wall which oth­ers have long de­clared im­pass­able; and who that has not shall dare to weigh opin­ions with them as to the mode of pass­ing?

But if it be true, as I have in­sist­ed, that those who have suf­fered by in­tem­per­ance per­son­al­ly, and have re­formed, are the most pow­er­ful and ef­fi­cient in­stru­ments to push the ref­or­ma­tion to ul­ti­mate suc­cess, it does not fol­low that those who have not suf­fered have no part left them to per­form. Whether or not the world would be vast­ly ben­efit­ed by a to­tal and fi­nal ban­ish­ment from it of all in­tox­icat­ing drinks seems to me not now an open ques­tion. Three fourths of mankind con­fess the af­fir­ma­tive with their tongues, and, I be­lieve, all the rest ac­knowl­edge it in their hearts.

Ought any, then, to refuse their aid in do­ing what good the good of the whole de­mands? Shall he who can­not do much be for that rea­son ex­cused if he do noth­ing? “But,” says one, “what good can I do by sign­ing the pledge? I nev­er drank, even with­out sign­ing.” This ques­tion has al­ready been asked and an­swered more than a mil­lion of times. Let it be an­swered once more. For the man sud­den­ly or in any oth­er way to break off from the use of drams, who has in­dulged in them for a long course of years and un­til his ap­petite for them has grown ten or a hun­dred­fold stronger and more crav­ing than any nat­ural ap­petite can be, re­quires a most pow­er­ful moral ef­fort. In such an un­der­tak­ing he needs ev­ery moral sup­port and in­flu­ence that can pos­si­bly be brought to his aid and thrown around him. And not on­ly so, but ev­ery moral prop should be tak­en from what­ev­er ar­gu­ment might rise in his mind to lure him to his back­slid­ing. When he casts his eyes around him, he should be able to see all that he re­spects, all that he ad­mires, all that he loves, kind­ly and anx­ious­ly point­ing him on­ward, and none beck­on­ing him back to his for­mer mis­er­able “wal­low­ing in the mire.”

But it is said by some that men will think and act for them­selves; that none will dis­use spir­its or any­thing else be­cause his neigh­bors do; and that moral in­flu­ence is not that pow­er­ful en­gine con­tend­ed for. Let us ex­am­ine this. Let me ask the man who could main­tain this po­si­tion most stiffly, what com­pen­sa­tion he will ac­cept to go to church some Sun­day and sit dur­ing the ser­mon with his wife’s bon­net up­on his head? Not a tri­fle, I’ll ven­ture. And why not? There would be noth­ing ir­re­li­gious in it, noth­ing im­moral, noth­ing un­com­fort­able–then why not? Is it not be­cause there would be some­thing egre­gious­ly un­fash­ion­able in it? Then it is the in­flu­ence of fash­ion; and what is the in­flu­ence of fash­ion but the in­flu­ence that oth­er peo­ple’s ac­tions have on our ac­tions–the strong in­cli­na­tion each of us feels to do as we see all our neigh­bors do? Nor is the in­flu­ence of fash­ion con­fined to any par­tic­ular thing or class of things; it is just as strong on one sub­ject as an­oth­er. Let us make it as un­fash­ion­able to with­hold our names from the tem­per­ance cause as for hus­bands to wear their wives’ bon­nets to church, and in­stances will be just as rare in the one case as the oth­er.

“But,” say some, “we are no drunk­ards, and we shall not ac­knowl­edge our­selves such by join­ing a re­formed drunk­ard’s so­ci­ety, what­ev­er our in­flu­ence might be.” Sure­ly no Chris­tian will ad­here to this ob­jec­tion. If they be­lieve as they pro­fess, that Om­nipo­tence con­de­scend­ed to take on him­self the form of sin­ful man, and as such to die an ig­no­min­ious death for their sakes, sure­ly they will not refuse sub­mis­sion to the in­finite­ly less­er con­de­scen­sion, for the tem­po­ral, and per­haps eter­nal, sal­va­tion of a large, erring, and un­for­tu­nate class of their fel­low-​crea­tures. Nor is the con­de­scen­sion very great. In my judg­ment such of us as have nev­er fall­en vic­tims have been spared more by the ab­sence of ap­petite than from any men­tal or moral su­pe­ri­or­ity over those who have. In­deed, I be­lieve if we take ha­bit­ual drunk­ards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an ad­van­ta­geous com­par­ison with those of any oth­er class. There seems ev­er to have been a prone­ness in the bril­liant and warm-​blood­ed to fall in­to this vice–the de­mon of in­tem­per­ance ev­er seems to have de­light­ed in suck­ing the blood of ge­nius and of gen­eros­ity. What one of us but can call to mind some rel­ative, more promis­ing in youth than all his fel­lows, who has fall­en a sac­ri­fice to his ra­pac­ity? He ev­er seems to have gone forth like the Egyp­tian an­gel of death, com­mis­sioned to slay, if not the first, the fairest born of ev­ery fam­ily. Shall he now be ar­rest­ed in his des­olat­ing ca­reer? In that ar­rest all can give aid that will; and who shall be ex­cused that can and will not? Far around as hu­man breath has ev­er blown he keeps our fa­thers, our broth­ers, our sons, and our friends pros­trate in the chains of moral death. To all the liv­ing ev­ery­where we cry, “Come sound the moral trump, that these may rise and stand up an ex­ceed­ing great army.” “Come from the four winds, O breath! and breathe up­on these slain that they may live.” If the rel­ative grandeur of rev­olu­tions shall be es­ti­mat­ed by the great amount of hu­man mis­ery they al­le­vi­ate, and the small amount they in­flict, then in­deed will this be the grand­est the world shall ev­er have seen.

Of our po­lit­ical rev­olu­tion of ‘76 we are all just­ly proud. It has giv­en us a de­gree of po­lit­ical free­dom far ex­ceed­ing that of any oth­er na­tion of the earth. In it the world has found a so­lu­tion of the long-​moot­ed prob­lem as to the ca­pa­bil­ity of man to gov­ern him­self. In it was the germ which has veg­etat­ed, and still is to grow and ex­pand in­to the uni­ver­sal lib­er­ty of mankind. But, with all these glo­ri­ous re­sults, past, present, and to come, it had its evils too. It breathed forth famine, swam in blood, and rode in fire; and long, long af­ter, the or­phan’s cry and the wid­ow’s wail con­tin­ued to break the sad si­lence that en­sued. These were the price, the in­evitable price, paid for the bless­ings it bought.

Turn now to the tem­per­ance rev­olu­tion. In it we shall find a stronger bondage bro­ken, a vil­er slav­ery man­umit­ted, a greater tyrant de­posed; in it, more of want sup­plied, more dis­ease healed, more sor­row as­suaged. By it no Or­phans starv­ing, no wid­ows weep­ing. By it none wound­ed in feel­ing, none in­jured in in­ter­est; even the dram­mak­er and dram-​sell­er will have glid­ed in­to oth­er oc­cu­pa­tions so grad­ual­ly as nev­er to have felt the change, and will stand ready to join all oth­ers in the uni­ver­sal song of glad­ness. And what a no­ble al­ly this to the cause of po­lit­ical free­dom, with such an aid its march can­not fail to be on and on, till ev­ery son of earth shall drink in rich fruition the sor­row-​quench­ing draughts of per­fect lib­er­ty. Hap­py day when-​all ap­petites con­trolled, all poi­sons sub­dued, all mat­ter sub­ject­ed-​mind, all-​con­quer­ing mind, shall live and move, the monarch of the world. Glo­ri­ous con­sum­ma­tion! Hail, fall of fury! Reign of rea­son, all hail!

And when the vic­to­ry shall be com­plete, when there shall be nei­ther a slave nor a drunk­ard on the earth, how proud the ti­tle of that land which may tru­ly claim to be the birth­place and the cra­dle of both those rev­olu­tions that shall have end­ed in that vic­to­ry. How nobly dis­tin­guished that peo­ple who shall have plant­ed and nur­tured to ma­tu­ri­ty both the po­lit­ical and moral free­dom of their species.

This is the one hun­dred and tenth an­niver­sary of the birth­day of Wash­ing­ton; we are met to cel­ebrate this day. Wash­ing­ton is the might­iest name of earth long since might­iest in the cause of civ­il lib­er­ty, still might­iest in moral ref­or­ma­tion. On that name no eu­lo­gy is ex­pect­ed. It can­not be. To add bright­ness to the sun or glo­ry to the name of Wash­ing­ton is alike im­pos­si­ble. Let none at­tempt it. In solemn awe pro­nounce the name, and in its naked death­less splen­dor leave it shin­ing on.

TO JOSHUA F. SPEED.

SPRING­FIELD, Febru­ary 25, 1842.

DEAR SPEED:–Yours of the 16th in­stant, an­nounc­ing that Miss Fan­ny and you are “no more twain, but one flesh,” reached me this morn­ing. I have no way of telling you how much hap­pi­ness I wish you both, though I be­lieve you both can con­ceive it. I feel some­what jeal­ous of both of you now: you will be so ex­clu­sive­ly con­cerned for one an­oth­er, that I shall be for­got­ten en­tire­ly. My ac­quain­tance with Miss Fan­ny (I call her this, lest you should think I am speak­ing of your moth­er) was too short for me to rea­son­ably hope to long be re­mem­bered by her; and still I am sure I shall not for­get her soon. Try if you can­not re­mind her of that debt she owes me–and be sure you do not in­ter­fere to pre­vent her pay­ing it.

I re­gret to learn that you have re­solved to not re­turn to Illi­nois. I shall be very lone­some with­out you. How mis­er­ably things seem to be ar­ranged in this world! If we have no friends, we have no plea­sure; and if we have them, we are sure to lose them, and be dou­bly pained by the loss. I did hope she and you would make your home here; but I own I have no right to in­sist. You owe obli­ga­tions to her ten thou­sand times more sa­cred than you can owe to oth­ers, and in that light let them be re­spect­ed and ob­served. It is nat­ural that she should de­sire to re­main with her rel­atives and friends. As to friends, how­ev­er, she could not need them any­where: she would have them in abun­dance here.

Give my kind re­mem­brance to Mr. Williamson and his fam­ily, par­tic­ular­ly Miss Eliz­abeth; al­so to your moth­er, broth­er, and sis­ters. Ask lit­tle Eliza Davis if she will ride to town with me if I come there again. And fi­nal­ly, give Fan­ny a dou­ble re­cip­ro­ca­tion of all the love she sent me. Write me of­ten, and be­lieve me

Yours for­ev­er,

LIN­COLN.

P. S. Poor East­house is gone at last. He died awhile be­fore day this morn­ing. They say he was very loath to die….

L.

TO JOSHUA F. SPEED–ON MAR­RIAGE CON­CERNS

SPRING­FIELD, Febru­ary 25,1842.

DEAR SPEED:–I re­ceived yours of the 12th writ­ten the day you went down to William’s place, some days since, but de­layed an­swer­ing it till I should re­ceive the promised one of the 16th, which came last night. I opened the let­ter with in­tense anx­iety and trep­ida­tion; so much so, that, al­though it turned out bet­ter than I ex­pect­ed, I have hard­ly yet, at a dis­tance of ten hours, be­come calm.

I tell you, Speed, our fore­bod­ings (for which you and I are pe­cu­liar) are all the worst sort of non­sense. I fan­cied, from the time I re­ceived your let­ter of Sat­ur­day, that the one of Wednes­day was nev­er to come, and yet it did come, and what is more, it is per­fect­ly clear, both from its tone and hand­writ­ing, that you were much hap­pi­er, or, if you think the term prefer­able, less mis­er­able, when you wrote it than when you wrote the last one be­fore. You had so ob­vi­ous­ly im­proved at the very time I so much fan­cied you would have grown worse. You say that some­thing in­de­scrib­ably hor­ri­ble and alarm­ing still haunts you. You will not say that three months from now, I will ven­ture. When your nerves once get steady now, the whole trou­ble will be over for­ev­er. Nor should you be­come im­pa­tient at their be­ing even very slow in be­com­ing steady. Again you say, you much fear that that Ely­si­um of which you have dreamed so much is nev­er to be re­al­ized. Well, if it shall not, I dare swear it will not be the fault of her who is now your wife. I now have no doubt that it is the pe­cu­liar mis­for­tune of both you and me to dream dreams of Ely­si­um far ex­ceed­ing all that any­thing earth­ly can re­al­ize. Far short of your dreams as you may be, no wom­an could do more to re­al­ize them than that same black-​eyed Fan­ny. If you could but con­tem­plate her through my imag­ina­tion, it would ap­pear ridicu­lous to you that any one should for a mo­ment think of be­ing un­hap­py with her. My old fa­ther used to have a say­ing that “If you make a bad bar­gain, hug it all the tighter”; and it oc­curs to me that if the bar­gain you have just closed can pos­si­bly be called a bad one, it is cer­tain­ly the most pleas­ant one for ap­ply­ing that max­im to which my fan­cy can by any ef­fort pic­ture.

I write an­oth­er let­ter, en­clos­ing this, which you can show her, if she de­sires it. I do this be­cause she would think strange­ly, per­haps, should you tell her that you re­ceived no let­ters from me, or, telling her you do, refuse to let her see them. I close this, en­ter­tain­ing the con­fi­dent hope that ev­ery suc­ces­sive let­ter I shall have from you (which I here pray may not be few, nor far be­tween) may show you pos­sess­ing a more steady hand and cheer­ful heart than the last pre­ced­ing it. As ev­er, your friend,

LIN­COLN.

TO JOSHUA F. SPEED.

SPRING­FIELD, March 27, 1842

DEAR SPEED:–Yours of the 10th in­stant was re­ceived three or four days since. You know I am sin­cere when I tell you the plea­sure its con­tents gave me was, and is, in­ex­press­ible. As to your farm mat­ter, I have no sym­pa­thy with you. I have no farm, nor ev­er ex­pect to have, and con­se­quent­ly have not stud­ied the sub­ject enough to be much in­ter­est­ed with it. I can on­ly say that I am glad you are sat­is­fied and pleased with it. But on that oth­er sub­ject, to me of the most in­tense in­ter­est whether in joy or sor­row, I nev­er had the pow­er to with­hold my sym­pa­thy from you. It can­not be told how it now thrills me with joy to hear you say you are “far hap­pi­er than you ev­er ex­pect­ed to be.” That much I know is enough. I know you too well to sup­pose your ex­pec­ta­tions were not, at least, some­times ex­trav­agant, and if the re­al­ity ex­ceeds them all, I say, Enough, dear Lord. I am not go­ing be­yond the truth when I tell you that the short space it took me to read your last let­ter gave me more plea­sure than the to­tal sum of all I have en­joyed since the fa­tal 1st of Jan­uary, 1841. Since then it seems to me I should have been en­tire­ly hap­py, but for the nev­er-​ab­sent idea that there is one still un­hap­py whom I have con­tribut­ed to make so. That still kills my soul. I can­not but re­proach my­self for even wish­ing to be hap­py while she is oth­er­wise. She ac­com­pa­nied a large par­ty on the rail­road cars to Jack­sonville last Mon­day, and on her re­turn spoke, so that I heard of it, of hav­ing en­joyed the trip ex­ceed­ing­ly. God be praised for that.

You know with what sleep­less vig­ilance I have watched you ev­er since the com­mence­ment of your af­fair; and al­though I am al­most con­fi­dent it is use­less, I can­not for­bear once more to say that I think it is even yet pos­si­ble for your spir­its to flag down and leave you mis­er­able. If they should, don’t fail to re­mem­ber that they can­not long re­main so. One thing I can tell you which I know you will be glad to hear, and that is that I have seen–and scru­ti­nized her feel­ings as well as I could, and am ful­ly con­vinced she is far hap­pi­er now than she has been for the last fif­teen months past.

You will see by the last Sang­amon Jour­nal, that I made a tem­per­ance speech on the 22d of Febru­ary, which I claim that Fan­ny and you shall read as an act of char­ity to me; for I can­not learn that any­body else has read it, or is like­ly to. For­tu­nate­ly it is not very long, and I shall deem it a suf­fi­cient com­pli­ance with my re­quest if one of you lis­tens while the oth­er reads it.

As to your Lock­ridge mat­ter, it is on­ly nec­es­sary to say that there has been no court since you left, and that the next com­mences to-​mor­row morn­ing, dur­ing which I sup­pose we can­not fail to get a judg­ment.

I wish you would learn of Ev­erett what he would take, over and above a dis­charge for all the trou­ble we have been at, to take his busi­ness out of our hands and give it to some­body else. It is im­pos­si­ble to col­lect mon­ey on that or any oth­er claim here now; and al­though you know I am not a very petu­lant man, I de­clare I am al­most out of pa­tience with Mr. Ev­erett’s im­por­tu­ni­ty. It seems like he not on­ly writes all the let­ters he can him­self, but gets ev­ery­body else in Louisville and vicin­ity to be con­stant­ly writ­ing to us about his claim. I have al­ways said that Mr. Ev­erett is a very clever fel­low, and I am very sor­ry he can­not be obliged; but it does seem to me he ought to know we are in­ter­est­ed to col­lect his claim, and there­fore would do it if we could.

I am nei­ther jok­ing nor in a pet when I say we would thank him to trans­fer his busi­ness to some oth­er, with­out any com­pen­sa­tion for what we have done, pro­vid­ed he will see the court cost paid, for which we are se­cu­ri­ty.

The sweet vi­olet you in­closed came safe­ly to hand, but it was so dry, and mashed so flat, that it crum­bled to dust at the first at­tempt to han­dle it. The juice that mashed out of it stained a place in the let­ter, which I mean to pre­serve and cher­ish for the sake of her who pro­cured it to be sent. My re­newed good wish­es to her in par­tic­ular, and gen­er­al­ly to all such of your re­la­tions who know me.

As ev­er,

LIN­COLN.

TO JOSHUA F. SPEED.

SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, Ju­ly 4, 1842.

DEAR SPEED:–Yours of the 16th June was re­ceived on­ly a day or two since. It was not mailed at Louisville till the 25th. You speak of the great time that has elapsed since I wrote you. Let me ex­plain that. Your let­ter reached here a day or two af­ter I start­ed on the cir­cuit. I was gone five or six weeks, so that I got the let­ters on­ly a few weeks be­fore But­ler start­ed to your coun­try. I thought it scarce­ly worth while to write you the news which he could and would tell you more in de­tail. On his re­turn he told me you would write me soon, and so I wait­ed for your let­ter. As to my hav­ing been dis­pleased with your ad­vice, sure­ly you know bet­ter than that. I know you do, and there­fore will not la­bor to con­vince you. True, that sub­ject is painful to me; but it is not your si­lence, or the si­lence of all the world, that can make me for­get it. I ac­knowl­edge the cor­rect­ness of your ad­vice too; but be­fore I re­solve to do the one thing or the oth­er, I must gain my con­fi­dence in my own abil­ity to keep my re­solves when they are made. In that abil­ity you know I once prid­ed my­self as the on­ly or chief gem of my char­ac­ter; that gem I lost- -how and where you know too well. I have not yet re­gained it; and un­til I do, I can­not trust my­self in any mat­ter of much im­por­tance. I be­lieve now that had you un­der­stood my case at the time as well as I un­der­stand yours af­ter­ward, by the aid you would have giv­en me I should have sailed through clear, but that does not now af­ford me suf­fi­cient con­fi­dence to be­gin that or the like of that again.

You make a kind ac­knowl­edg­ment of your obli­ga­tions to me for your present hap­pi­ness. I am pleased with that ac­knowl­edg­ment. But a thou­sand times more am I pleased to know that you en­joy a de­gree of hap­pi­ness wor­thy of an ac­knowl­edg­ment. The truth is, I am not sure that there was any mer­it with me in the part I took in your dif­fi­cul­ty; I was drawn to it by a fate. If I would I could not have done less than I did. I al­ways was su­per­sti­tious; I be­lieve God made me one of the in­stru­ments of bring­ing your Fan­ny and you to­geth­er, which union I have no doubt He had fore-​or­dained. What­ev­er He de­signs He will do for me yet. “Stand still, and see the sal­va­tion of the Lord” is my text just now. If, as you say, you have told Fan­ny all, I should have no ob­jec­tion to her see­ing this let­ter, but for its ref­er­ence to our friend here: let her see­ing it de­pend up­on whether she has ev­er known any­thing of my af­fairs; and if she has not, do not let her.

I do not think I can come to Ken­tucky this sea­son. I am so poor and make so lit­tle head­way in the world, that I drop back in a month of idle­ness as much as I gain in a year’s sow­ing. I should like to vis­it you again. I should like to see that “sis” of yours that was ab­sent when I was there, though I sup­pose she would run away again if she were to hear I was com­ing.

My re­spects and es­teem to all your friends there, and, by your per­mis­sion, my love to your Fan­ny.

Ev­er yours,

LIN­COLN.

A LET­TER FROM THE LOST TOWN­SHIPS

Ar­ti­cle writ­ten by Lin­coln for the Sang­amon Jour­nal in ridicule of James Shields, who, as State Au­di­tor, had de­clined to re­ceive State Bank notes in pay­ment of tax­es. The above let­ter pur­port­ed to come from a poor wid­ow who, though sup­plied with State Bank pa­per, could not ob­tain a re­ceipt for her tax bill. This, and an­oth­er sub­se­quent let­ter by Mary Todd, brought about the “Lin­coln-​Shields Du­el.”

LOST TOWN­SHIPS

Au­gust 27, 1842.

DEAR Mr. PRINT­ER:

I see you print­ed that long let­ter I sent you a spell ago. I ‘m quite en­cour­aged by it, and can’t keep from writ­ing again. I think the print­ing of my let­ters will be a good thing all round– it will give me the ben­efit of be­ing known by the world, and give the world the ad­van­tage of know­ing what’s go­ing on in the Lost Town­ships, and give your pa­per re­spectabil­ity be­sides. So here comes an­oth­er. Yes­ter­day af­ter­noon I hur­ried through clean­ing up the din­ner dish­es and stepped over to neigh­bor S_______ to see if his wife Peg­gy was as well as mout be ex­pect­ed, and hear what they called the ba­by. Well, when I got there and just turned round the cor­ner of his log cab­in, there he was, set­ting on the doorstep read­ing a news­pa­per. “How are you, Jeff?” says I. He sorter start­ed when he heard me, for he hadn’t seen me be­fore. “Why,” says he, “I ‘m mad as the dev­il, Aunt ‘Bec­ca!” “What about?” says I; “ain’t its hair the right col­or? None of that non­sense, Jeff; there ain’t an hon­ester wom­an in the Lost Town­ships than…” –“Than who?” says he; “what the mis­chief are you about?” I be­gan to see I was run­ning the wrong trail, and so says I, “Oh! noth­ing: I guess I was mis­tak­en a lit­tle, that’s all. But what is it you ‘re mad about?”

“Why,” says he, “I’ve been tug­ging ev­er since har­vest, get­ting out wheat and haul­ing it to the riv­er to raise State Bank pa­per enough to pay my tax this year and a lit­tle school debt I owe; and now, just as I ‘ve got it, here I open this in­fer­nal Ex­tra Reg­is­ter, ex­pect­ing to find it full of ‘Glo­ri­ous Demo­crat­ic Vic­to­ries’ and ‘High Comb’d Cocks,’ when, lo and be­hold! I find a set of fel­lows, call­ing them­selves of­fi­cers of the State, have for­bid­den the tax col­lec­tors, and school com­mis­sion­ers to re­ceive State pa­per at all; and so here it is dead on my hands. I don’t now be­lieve all the plun­der I’ve got will fetch ready cash enough to pay my tax­es and that school debt.”

I was a good deal thun­der­struck my­self; for that was the first I had heard of the procla­ma­tion, and my old man was pret­ty much in the same fix with Jeff. We both stood a mo­ment star­ing at one an­oth­er with­out know­ing what to say. At last says I, “Mr. S______ let me look at that pa­per.” He hand­ed it to me, when I read the procla­ma­tion over.

“There now,” says he, “did you ev­er see such a piece of im­pu­dence and im­po­si­tion as that?” I saw Jeff was in a good tune for say­ing some ill-​na­tured things, and so I tho’t I would just ar­gue a lit­tle on the con­trary side, and make him rant a spell if I could. “Why,” says I, look­ing as dig­ni­fied and thought­ful as I could, “it seems pret­ty tough, to be sure, to have to raise sil­ver where there’s none to be raised; but then, you see, ‘there will be dan­ger of loss’ if it ain’t done.”

“Loss! damna­tion!” says he. “I de­fy Daniel Web­ster, I de­fy King Solomon, I de­fy the world–I de­fy–I de­fy–yes, I de­fy even you, Aunt ‘Bec­ca, to show how the peo­ple can lose any­thing by pay­ing their tax­es in State pa­per.”

“Well,” says I, “you see what the of­fi­cers of State say about it, and they are a de­sarnin’ set of men. But,” says I, “I guess you ‘re mis­tak­en about what the procla­ma­tion says. It don’t say the peo­ple will lose any­thing by the pa­per mon­ey be­ing tak­en for tax­es. It on­ly says ‘there will be dan­ger of loss’; and though it is tol­er­able plain that the peo­ple can’t lose by pay­ing their tax­es in some­thing they can get eas­ier than sil­ver, in­stead of hav­ing to pay sil­ver; and though it’s just as plain that the State can’t lose by tak­ing State Bank pa­per, how­ev­er low it may be, while she owes the bank more than the whole rev­enue, and can pay that pa­per over on her debt, dol­lar for dol­lar;–still there is dan­ger of loss to the ‘of­fi­cers of State’; and you know, Jeff, we can’t get along with­out of­fi­cers of State.”

“Damn of­fi­cers of State!” says he; “that’s what Whigs are al­ways hur­rahing for.”

“Now, don’t swear so, Jeff,” says I, “you know I be­long to the meetin’, and swearin’ hurts my feel­ings.”

“Beg par­don, Aunt ‘Bec­ca,” says he; “but I do say it’s enough to make Dr. God­dard swear, to have tax to pay in sil­ver, for noth­ing on­ly that Ford may get his two thou­sand a year, and Shields his twen­ty-​four hun­dred a year, and Car­pen­ter his six­teen hun­dred a year, and all with­out ‘dan­ger of loss’ by tak­ing it in State pa­per. Yes, yes: it’s plain enough now what these of­fi­cers of State mean by ‘dan­ger of loss.’ Wash, I s’pose, ac­tu­al­ly lost fif­teen hun­dred dol­lars out of the three thou­sand that two of these ‘of­fi­cers of State’ let him steal from the trea­sury, by be­ing com­pelled to take it in State pa­per. Won­der if we don’t have a procla­ma­tion be­fore long, com­mand­ing us to make up this loss to Wash in sil­ver.”

And so he went on till his breath run out, and he had to stop. I couldn’t think of any­thing to say just then, and so I be­gun to look over the pa­per again. “Ay! here’s an­oth­er procla­ma­tion, or some­thing like it.”

“An­oth­er?” says Jeff; “and whose egg is it, pray?”

I looked to the bot­tom of it, and read aloud, “Your obe­di­ent ser­vant, James Shields, Au­di­tor.”

“Aha!” says Jeff, “one of them same three fel­lows again. Well read it, and let’s hear what of it.”

I read on till I came to where it says, “The ob­ject of this mea­sure is to sus­pend the col­lec­tion of the rev­enue for the cur­rent year.”

“Now stop, now stop!” says he; “that’s a lie a’ready, and I don’t want to hear of it.”

“Oh, maybe not,” says I.

“I say it-​is-​a-​lie. Sus­pend the col­lec­tion, in­deed! Will the col­lec­tors, that have tak­en their oaths to make the col­lec­tion, dare to end it? Is there any­thing in law re­quir­ing them to per­jure them­selves at the bid­ding of James Shields?

“Will the greedy gul­let of the pen­iten­tiary be sat­is­fied with swal­low­ing him in­stead of all of them, if they should ven­ture to obey him? And would he not dis­cov­er some ‘dan­ger of loss,’ and be off about the time it came to tak­ing their places?

“And sup­pose the peo­ple at­tempt to sus­pend, by re­fus­ing to pay; what then? The col­lec­tors would just jerk up their hors­es and cows, and the like, and sell them to the high­est bid­der for sil­ver in hand, with­out val­ua­tion or re­demp­tion. Why, Shields didn’t be­lieve that sto­ry him­self; it was nev­er meant for the truth. If it was true, why was it not writ till five days af­ter the procla­ma­tion? Why did n’t Car­lin and Car­pen­ter sign it as well as Shields? An­swer me that, Aunt ‘Bec­ca. I say it’s a lie, and not a well told one at that. It grins out like a cop­per dol­lar. Shields is a fool as well as a liar. With him truth is out of the ques­tion; and as for get­ting a good, bright, pass­able lie out of him, you might as well try to strike fire from a cake of tal­low. I stick to it, it’s all an in­fer­nal Whig lie!”

“A Whig lie! High­ty tighty!”

“Yes, a Whig lie; and it’s just like ev­ery­thing the cursed British Whigs do. First they’ll do some divil­ment, and then they’ll tell a lie to hide it. And they don’t care how plain a lie it is; they think they can cram any sort of a one down the throats of the ig­no­rant Lo­co­fo­cos, as they call the Democrats.”

“Why, Jeff, you ‘re crazy: you don’t mean to say Shields is a Whig!”

“Yes, I do.”

“Why, look here! the procla­ma­tion is in your own Demo­crat­ic pa­per, as you call it.”

“I know it; and what of that? They on­ly print­ed it to let us Democrats see the dev­il­try the Whigs are at.”

“Well, but Shields is the au­di­tor of this Lo­co–I mean this Demo­crat­ic State.”

“So he is, and Tyler ap­point­ed him to of­fice.”

“Tyler ap­point­ed him?”

“Yes (if you must chaw it over), Tyler ap­point­ed him; or, if it was n’t him, it was old Granny Har­ri­son, and that’s all one. I tell you, Aunt ‘Bec­ca, there’s no mis­take about his be­ing a Whig. Why, his very looks shows it; ev­ery­thing about him shows it: if I was deaf and blind, I could tell him by the smell. I seed him when I was down in Spring­field last win­ter. They had a sort of a gath­erin’ there one night among the grandees, they called a fair. All the gals about town was there, and all the hand­some wid­ows and mar­ried wom­en, finickin’ about try­ing to look like gals, tied as tight in the mid­dle, and puffed out at both ends, like bun­dles of fod­der that had n’t been stacked yet, but want­ed stackin’ pret­ty bad. And then they had ta­bles all around the house kivered over with [——] caps and pin­cush­ions and ten thou­sand such lit­tle knick-​knacks, tryin’ to sell ‘em to the fel­lows that were bowin’, and scrapin’ and kungeerin’ about ‘em. They would n’t let no Democrats in, for fear they’d dis­gust the ladies, or scare the lit­tle gals, or dirty the floor. I looked in at the win­dow, and there was this same fel­low Shields float­in’ about on the air, with­out heft or earth­ly sub­stances, just like a lock of cat fur where cats had been fight­ing.

“He was pay­ing his mon­ey to this one, and that one, and t’ oth­er one, and suf­ferin’ great loss be­cause it was n’t sil­ver in­stead of State pa­per; and the sweet dis­tress he seemed to be in,–his very fea­tures, in the ec­stat­ic agony of his soul, spoke au­di­bly and dis­tinct­ly, ‘Dear girls, it is dis­tress­ing, but I can­not mar­ry you all. Too well I know how much you suf­fer; but do, do re­mem­ber, it is not my fault that I am so hand­some and so in­ter­est­ing.’

“As this last was ex­pressed by a most exquisite con­tor­tion of his face, he seized hold of one of their hands, and squeezed, and held on to it about a quar­ter of an hour. ‘Oh, my good fel­low!’ says I to my­self, ‘if that was one of our Demo­crat­ic gals in the Lost Town­ships, the way you ‘d get a brass pin let in­to you would be about up to the head.’ He a Demo­crat! Fid­dle­sticks! I tell you, Aunt ‘Bec­ca, he’s a Whig, and no mis­take; no­body but a Whig could make such a con­ce­ity dunce of him­self.”

“Well,” says I, “maybe he is; but, if he is, I ‘m mis­tak­en the worst sort. Maybe so, maybe so; but, if I am, I’ll suf­fer by it; I’ll be a Demo­crat if it turns out that Shields is a Whig, con­sid­erin’ you shall be a Whig if he turns out a Demo­crat.”

“A bar­gain, by jin­goes!” says he; “but how will we find out?”

“Why,” says I, “we’ll just write and ax the print­er.”

“Agreed again!” says he; “and by thun­der! if it does turn out that Shields is a Demo­crat, I nev­er will __________”

“Jef­fer­son! Jef­fer­son!”

“What do you want, Peg­gy?”

“Do get through your ev­er­last­ing clat­ter some time, and bring me a gourd of wa­ter; the child’s been cry­ing for a drink this live­long hour.”

“Let it die, then; it may as well die for wa­ter as to be taxed to death to fat­ten of­fi­cers of State.”

Jeff run off to get the wa­ter, though, just like he hadn’t been say­ing any­thing spite­ful, for he’s a raal good-​heart­ed fel­low, af­ter all, once you get at the foun­da­tion of him.

I walked in­to the house, and, “Why, Peg­gy,” says I, “I de­clare we like to for­got you al­to­geth­er.”

“Oh, yes,” says she, “when a body can’t help them­selves, ev­ery­body soon for­gets ‘em; but, thank God! by day af­ter to- mor­row I shall be well enough to milk the cows, and pen the calves, and wring the con­trary ones’ tails for ‘em, and no thanks to no­body.”

“Good evening, Peg­gy,” says I, and so I sloped, for I seed she was mad at me for mak­ing Jeff ne­glect her so long.

And now, Mr. Print­er, will you be sure to let us know in your next pa­per whether this Shields is a Whig or a Demo­crat? I don’t care about it for my­self, for I know well enough how it is al­ready; but I want to con­vince Jeff. It may do some good to let him, and oth­ers like him, know who and what these of­fi­cers of State are. It may help to send the present hyp­ocrit­ical set to where they be­long, and to fill the places they now dis­grace with men who will do more work for less pay, and take few­er airs while they are do­ing it. It ain’t sen­si­ble to think that the same men who get us in trou­ble will change their course; and yet it’s pret­ty plain if some change for the bet­ter is not made, it’s not long that ei­ther Peg­gy or I or any of us will have a cow left to milk, or a calf’s tail to wring.

Yours tru­ly,

RE­BEC­CA ____________

IN­VI­TA­TION TO HEN­RY CLAY.

SPRING­FIELD, ILL., Aug 29, 1842.

HON. HEN­RY CLAY, Lex­ing­ton, Ky.

DEAR SIR:–We hear you are to vis­it In­di­anapo­lis, In­di­ana, on the 5th Of Oc­to­ber next. If our in­for­ma­tion in this is cor­rect we hope you will not de­ny us the plea­sure of see­ing you in our State. We are aware of the toil nec­es­sar­ily in­ci­dent to a jour­ney by one cir­cum­stanced as you are; but once you have em­barked, as you have al­ready de­ter­mined to do, the toil would not be great­ly aug­ment­ed by ex­tend­ing the jour­ney to our cap­ital. The sea­son of the year will be most fa­vor­able for good roads, and pleas­ant weath­er; and al­though we can­not but be­lieve you would be high­ly grat­ified with such a vis­it to the prairie-​land, the plea­sure it would give us and thou­sands such as we is be­yond all ques­tion. You have nev­er vis­it­ed Illi­nois, or at least this por­tion of it; and should you now yield to our re­quest, we promise you such a re­cep­tion as shall he wor­thy of the man on whom are now turned the fond­est hopes of a great and suf­fer­ing na­tion.

Please in­form us at the ear­li­est con­ve­nience whether we may ex­pect you.

Very re­spect­ful­ly your obe­di­ent ser­vants, A. G. HEN­RY, A. T. BLED­SOE, C. BIR­CHALL, A. LIN­COLN, G. M. CA­BAN­NISS, ROB’T IR­WIN, P. A. SAUN­DERS, J. M. ALLEN, F. N. FRAN­CIS. Ex­ec­utive Com­mit­tee “Clay Club.”

(Clay’s an­swer, Septem­ber 6, 1842, de­clines with thanks.)

COR­RE­SPON­DENCE ABOUT THE LIN­COLN-​SHIELDS DU­EL.

TREMONT, Septem­ber 17, 1842.

ABRA. LIN­COLN, ESQ.:–I re­gret that my ab­sence on pub­lic busi­ness com­pelled me to post­pone a mat­ter of pri­vate con­sid­er­ation a lit­tle longer than I could have de­sired. It will on­ly be nec­es­sary, how­ev­er, to ac­count for it by in­form­ing you that I have been to Quin­cy on busi­ness that would not ad­mit of de­lay. I will now state briefly the rea­sons of my trou­bling you with this com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the dis­agree­able na­ture of which I re­gret, as I had hoped to avoid any dif­fi­cul­ty with any one in Spring­field while re­sid­ing there, by en­deav­or­ing to con­duct my­self in such a way amongst both my po­lit­ical friends and op­po­nents as to es­cape the ne­ces­si­ty of any. Whilst thus ab­stain­ing from giv­ing provo­ca­tion, I have be­come the ob­ject of slan­der, vi­tu­per­ation, and per­son­al abuse, which were I ca­pa­ble of sub­mit­ting to, I would prove my­self wor­thy of the whole of it.

In two or three of the last num­bers of the Sang­amon Jour­nal, ar­ti­cles of the most per­son­al na­ture and cal­cu­lat­ed to de­grade me have made their ap­pear­ance. On in­quir­ing, I was in­formed by the ed­itor of that pa­per, through the medi­um of my friend Gen­er­al White­sides, that you are the au­thor of those ar­ti­cles. This in­for­ma­tion sat­is­fies me that I have be­come by some means or oth­er the ob­ject of your se­cret hos­til­ity. I will not take the trou­ble of in­quir­ing in­to the rea­son of all this; but I will take the lib­er­ty of re­quir­ing a full, pos­itive, and ab­so­lute re­trac­tion of all of­fen­sive al­lu­sions used by you in these com­mu­ni­ca­tions, in re­la­tion to my pri­vate char­ac­ter and stand­ing as a man, as an apol­ogy for the in­sults con­veyed in them.

This may pre­vent con­se­quences which no one will re­gret more than my­self.

Your obe­di­ent ser­vant, JAS. SHIELDS.

TO J. SHIELDS.

TREMONT, Septem­ber 17, 1842

JAS. SHIELDS, ESQ.:–Your note of to-​day was hand­ed me by Gen­er­al White­sides. In that note you say you have been in­formed, through the medi­um of the ed­itor of the Jour­nal, that I am the au­thor of cer­tain ar­ti­cles in that pa­per which you deem per­son­al­ly abu­sive of you; and with­out stop­ping to in­quire whether I re­al­ly am the au­thor, or to point out what is of­fen­sive in them, you de­mand an un­qual­ified re­trac­tion of all that is of­fen­sive, and then pro­ceed to hint at con­se­quences.

Now, sir, there is in this so much as­sump­tion of facts and so much of men­ace as to con­se­quences, that I can­not sub­mit to an­swer that note any fur­ther than I have, and to add that the con­se­quences to which I sup­pose you al­lude would be mat­ter of as great re­gret to me as it pos­si­bly could to you.

Re­spect­ful­ly,

A. LIN­COLN.

TO A. LIN­COLN FROM JAS. SHIELDS

TREMONT, Septem­ber 17, 1842.

ABRA. LIN­COLN, ESQ.:–In re­ply to my note of this date, you in­ti­mate that I as­sume facts and men­ace con­se­quences, and that you can­not sub­mit to an­swer it fur­ther. As now, sir, you de­sire it, I will be a lit­tle more par­tic­ular. The ed­itor of the Sang­amon Jour­nal gave me to un­der­stand that you are the au­thor of an ar­ti­cle which ap­peared, I think, in that pa­per of the 2d Septem­ber in­stant, head­ed “The Lost Town­ships,” and signed Re­bec­ca or ‘Bec­ca. I would there­fore take the lib­er­ty of ask­ing whether you are the au­thor of said ar­ti­cle, or any oth­er over the same sig­na­ture which has ap­peared in any of the late num­bers of that pa­per. If so, I re­peat my re­quest of an ab­so­lute re­trac­tion of all of­fen­sive al­lu­sions con­tained there­in in re­la­tion to my pri­vate char­ac­ter and stand­ing. If you are not the au­thor of any of these ar­ti­cles, your de­nial will he suf­fi­cient. I will say fur­ther, it is not my in­ten­tion to men­ace, but to do my­self jus­tice.

Your obe­di­ent ser­vant, JAS. SHIELDS.

MEM­ORAN­DUM OF IN­STRUC­TIONS TO E. H. MER­RY­MAN,

Lin­coln’s Sec­ond,

Septem­ber 19, 1842.

In case White­sides shall sig­ni­fy a wish to ad­just this af­fair with­out fur­ther dif­fi­cul­ty, let him know that if the present pa­pers be with­drawn, and a note from Mr. Shields ask­ing to know if I am the au­thor of the ar­ti­cles of which he com­plains, and ask­ing that I shall make him gen­tle­man­ly sat­is­fac­tion if I am the au­thor, and this with­out men­ace, or dic­ta­tion as to what that sat­is­fac­tion shall be, a pledge is made that the fol­low­ing an­swer shall be giv­en:

“I did write the ‘Lost Town­ships’ let­ter which ap­peared in the Jour­nal of the 2d in­stant, but had no par­tic­ipa­tion in any form in any oth­er ar­ti­cle al­lud­ing to you. I wrote that whol­ly for po­lit­ical ef­fect–I had no in­ten­tion of in­jur­ing your per­son­al or pri­vate char­ac­ter or stand­ing as a man or a gen­tle­man; and I did not then think, and do not now think, that that ar­ti­cle could pro­duce or has pro­duced that ef­fect against you; and had I an­tic­ipat­ed such an ef­fect I would have for­borne to write it. And I will add that your con­duct to­ward me, so far as I know, had al­ways been gen­tle­man­ly; and that I had no per­son­al pique against you, and no cause for any.”

If this should be done, I leave it with you to ar­range what shall and what shall not be pub­lished. If noth­ing like this is done, the pre­lim­inar­ies of the fight are to be–

First. Weapons: Cav­al­ry broadswords of the largest size, pre­cise­ly equal in all re­spects, and such as now used by the cav­al­ry com­pa­ny at Jack­sonville.

Sec­ond. Po­si­tion: A plank ten feet long, and from nine to twelve inch­es broad, to be firm­ly fixed on edge, on the ground, as the line be­tween us, which nei­ther is to pass his foot over up­on for­feit of his life. Next a line drawn on the ground on ei­ther side of said plank and par­al­lel with it, each at the dis­tance of the whole length of the sword and three feet ad­di­tion­al from the plank; and the pass­ing of his own such line by ei­ther par­ty dur­ing the fight shall be deemed a sur­ren­der of the con­test.

Third. Time: On Thurs­day evening at five o’clock, if you can get it so; but in no case to be at a greater dis­tance of time than Fri­day evening at five o’clock.

Fourth. Place: With­in three miles of Al­ton, on the op­po­site side of the riv­er, the par­tic­ular spot to be agreed on by you.

Any pre­lim­inary de­tails com­ing with­in the above rules you are at lib­er­ty to make at your dis­cre­tion; but you are in no case to swerve from these rules, or to pass be­yond their lim­its.

TO JOSHUA F. SPEED.

SPRING­FIELD, Oc­to­ber 4, 1842.

DEAR SPEED:–You have heard of my du­el with Shields, and I have now to in­form you that the du­el­ing busi­ness still rages in this city. Day be­fore yes­ter­day Shields chal­lenged But­ler, who ac­cept­ed, and pro­posed fight­ing next morn­ing at sun­rise in Bob Allen’s mead­ow, one hun­dred yards’ dis­tance, with ri­fles. To this White­sides, Shields’s sec­ond, said “No,” be­cause of the law. Thus end­ed du­el No. 2. Yes­ter­day White­sides chose to con­sid­er him­self in­sult­ed by Dr. Mer­ry­man, so sent him a kind of quasi- chal­lenge, invit­ing him to meet him at the Planter’s House in St. Louis on the next Fri­day, to set­tle their dif­fi­cul­ty. Mer­ry­man made me his friend, and sent White­sides a note, in­quir­ing to know if he meant his note as a chal­lenge, and if so, that he would, ac­cord­ing to the law in such case made and pro­vid­ed, pre­scribe the terms of the meet­ing. White­sides re­turned for an­swer that if Mer­ry­man would meet him at the Planter’s House as de­sired, he would chal­lenge him. Mer­ry­man replied in a note that he de­nied White­sides’s right to dic­tate time and place, but that he (Mer­ry­man) would waive the ques­tion of time, and meet him at Louisiana, Mis­souri. Up­on my pre­sent­ing this note to White­sides and stat­ing ver­bal­ly its con­tents, he de­clined re­ceiv­ing it, say­ing he had busi­ness in St. Louis, and it was as near as Louisiana. Mer­ry­man then di­rect­ed me to no­ti­fy White­sides that he should pub­lish the cor­re­spon­dence be­tween them, with such com­ments as he thought fit. This I did. Thus it stood at bed­time last night. This morn­ing White­sides, by his friend Shields, is pray­ing for a new tri­al, on the ground that he was mis­tak­en in Mer­ry­man’s propo­si­tion to meet him at Louisiana, Mis­souri, think­ing it was the State of Louisiana. This Mer­ry­man hoots at, and is prepar­ing his pub­li­ca­tion; while the town is in a fer­ment, and a street fight some­what an­tic­ipat­ed.

But I be­gan this let­ter not for what I have been writ­ing, but to say some­thing on that sub­ject which you know to be of such in­fi­nite so­lic­itude to me. The im­mense suf­fer­ings you en­dured from the first days of Septem­ber till the mid­dle of Febru­ary you nev­er tried to con­ceal from me, and I well un­der­stood. You have now been the hus­band of a love­ly wom­an near­ly eight months. That you are hap­pi­er now than the day you mar­ried her I well know, for with­out you could not be liv­ing. But I have your word for it, too, and the re­turn­ing elas­tic­ity of spir­its which is man­ifest­ed in your let­ters. But I want to ask a close ques­tion, “Are you now in feel­ing as well as judg­ment glad that you are mar­ried as you are?” From any­body but me this would be an im­pu­dent ques­tion, not to be tol­er­at­ed; but I know you will par­don it in me. Please an­swer it quick­ly, as I am im­pa­tient to know. I have sent my love to your Fan­ny so of­ten, I fear she is get­ting tired of it. How­ev­er, I ven­ture to ten­der it again.

Yours for­ev­er,

LIN­COLN.

TO JAMES S. IR­WIN.

SPRING­FIELD, Novem­ber 2, 1842.

JAS. S. IR­WIN ESQ.:

Ow­ing to my ab­sence, yours of the 22nd ult. was not re­ceived till this mo­ment. Judge Lo­gan and my­self are will­ing to at­tend to any busi­ness in the Supreme Court you may send us. As to fees, it is im­pos­si­ble to es­tab­lish a rule that will ap­ply in all, or even a great many cas­es. We be­lieve we are nev­er ac­cused of be­ing very un­rea­son­able in this par­tic­ular; and we would al­ways be eas­ily sat­is­fied, pro­vid­ed we could see the mon­ey–but what­ev­er fees we earn at a dis­tance, if not paid be­fore, we have no­ticed, we nev­er hear of af­ter the work is done. We, there­fore, are grow­ing a lit­tle sen­si­tive on that point.

Yours etc.,

A. LIN­COLN.

1843

RES­OLU­TIONS AT A WHIG MEET­ING AT SPRING­FIELD, ILLI­NOIS, MARCH 1, 1843.

The ob­ject of the meet­ing was stat­ed by Mr. Lin­coln of Spring­field, who of­fered the fol­low­ing res­olu­tions, which were unan­imous­ly adopt­ed:

Re­solved, That a tar­iff of du­ties on im­port­ed goods, pro­duc­ing suf­fi­cient rev­enue for the pay­ment of the nec­es­sary ex­pen­di­tures of the Na­tion­al Gov­ern­ment, and so ad­just­ed as to pro­tect Amer­ican in­dus­try, is in­dis­pens­ably nec­es­sary to the pros­per­ity of the Amer­ican peo­ple.

Re­solved, That we are op­posed to di­rect tax­ation for the sup­port of the Na­tion­al Gov­ern­ment.

Re­solved, That a na­tion­al bank, prop­er­ly re­strict­ed, is high­ly nec­es­sary and prop­er to the es­tab­lish­ment and main­te­nance of a sound cur­ren­cy, and for the cheap and safe col­lec­tion, keep­ing, and dis­burs­ing of the pub­lic rev­enue.

Re­solved, That the dis­tri­bu­tion of the pro­ceeds of the sales of the pub­lic lands, up­on the prin­ci­ples of Mr. Clay’s bill, ac­cords with the best in­ter­ests of the na­tion, and par­tic­ular­ly with those of the State of Illi­nois.

Re­solved, That we rec­om­mend to the Whigs of each Con­gres­sion­al dis­trict of the State to nom­inate and sup­port at the ap­proach­ing elec­tion a can­di­date of their own prin­ci­ples, re­gard­less of the chances of suc­cess.

Re­solved, That we rec­om­mend to the Whigs of all por­tions of the State to adopt and rigid­ly ad­here to the con­ven­tion sys­tem of nom­inat­ing can­di­dates.

Re­solved, That we rec­om­mend to the Whigs of each Con­gres­sion­al dis­trict to hold a dis­trict con­ven­tion on or be­fore the first Mon­day of May next, to be com­posed of a num­ber of del­egates from each coun­ty equal to dou­ble the n tu­ber of its rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, pro­vid­ed, each coun­ty shall have at least one del­egate. Said del­egates to be cho­sen by pri­ma­ry meet­ings of the Whigs, at such times and places as they in their re­spec­tive coun­ties may see fit. Said dis­trict con­ven­tions each to nom­inate one can­di­date for Congress, and one del­egate to a na­tion­al con­ven­tion for the pur­pose of nom­inat­ing can­di­dates for Pres­ident and Vice-​Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States. The sev­en del­egates so nom­inat­ed to a na­tion­al con­ven­tion to have pow­er to add two del­egates to their own num­ber, and to fill all va­can­cies.

Re­solved, That A. T. Bled­soe, S. T. Lo­gan, and A. Lin­coln be ap­point­ed a com­mit­tee to pre­pare an ad­dress to the peo­ple of the State.

Re­solved, That N. W. Ed­wards, A. G. Hen­ry, James H. Ma­th­eny, John C. Dore­mus, and James C. Con­kling be ap­point­ed a Whig Cen­tral State Com­mit­tee, with au­thor­ity to fill any va­can­cy that may oc­cur in the com­mit­tee.

CIR­CU­LAR FROM WHIG COM­MIT­TEE.

Ad­dress to the Peo­ple of Illi­nois.

FEL­LOW-​CIT­IZENS:-By a res­olu­tion of a meet­ing of such of the Whigs of the State as are now at Spring­field, we, the un­der­signed, were ap­point­ed to pre­pare an ad­dress to you. The per­for­mance of that task we now un­der­take.

Sev­er­al res­olu­tions were adopt­ed by the meet­ing; and the chief ob­ject of this ad­dress is to show briefly the rea­sons for their adop­tion.

The first of those res­olu­tions de­clares a tar­iff of du­ties up­on for­eign im­por­ta­tions, pro­duc­ing suf­fi­cient rev­enue for the sup­port of the Gen­er­al Gov­ern­ment, and so ad­just­ed as to pro­tect Amer­ican in­dus­try, to be in­dis­pens­ably nec­es­sary to the pros­per­ity of the Amer­ican peo­ple; and the sec­ond de­clares di­rect tax­ation for a na­tion­al rev­enue to be im­prop­er. Those two res­olu­tions are kin­dred in their na­ture, and there­fore prop­er and con­ve­nient to be con­sid­ered to­geth­er. The ques­tion of pro­tec­tion is a sub­ject en­tire­ly too broad to be crowd­ed in­to a few pages on­ly, to­geth­er with sev­er­al oth­er sub­jects. On that point we there­fore con­tent our­selves with giv­ing the fol­low­ing ex­tracts from the writ­ings of Mr. Jef­fer­son, Gen­er­al Jack­son, and the speech of Mr. Cal­houn:

“To be in­de­pen­dent for the com­forts of life, we must fab­ri­cate them our­selves. We must now place the man­ufac­tur­er by the side of the agri­cul­tur­al­ist. The grand in­quiry now is, Shall we make our own com­forts, or go with­out them at the will of a for­eign na­tion? He, there­fore, who is now against do­mes­tic man­ufac­tures must be for re­duc­ing us ei­ther to de­pen­dence on that for­eign na­tion, or to be clothed in skins and to live like wild beasts in dens and cav­erns. I am not one of those; ex­pe­ri­ence has taught me that man­ufac­tures are now as nec­es­sary to our in­de­pen­dence as to our com­fort.” Let­ter of Mr. Jef­fer­son to Ben­jamin Austin.

“I ask, What is the re­al sit­ua­tion of the agri­cul­tur­al­ist? Where has the Amer­ican farmer a mar­ket for his sur­plus pro­duce? Ex­cept for cot­ton, he has nei­ther a for­eign nor a home mar­ket. Does not this clear­ly prove, when there is no mar­ket at home or abroad, that there [is] too much la­bor em­ployed in agri­cul­ture? Com­mon sense at once points out the rem­edy. Take from agri­cul­ture six hun­dred thou­sand men, wom­en, and chil­dren, and you will at once give a mar­ket for more bread­stuffs than all Eu­rope now fur­nish­es. In short, we have been too long sub­ject to the pol­icy of British mer­chants. It is time we should be­come a lit­tle more Amer­ican­ized, and in­stead of feed­ing the pau­pers and la­bor­ers of Eng­land, feed our own; or else in a short time, by con­tin­uing our present pol­icy, we shall all be ren­dered pau­pers our­selves.” — Gen­er­al Jack­son’s Let­ter to Dr. Cole­man.

“When our man­ufac­tures are grown to a cer­tain per­fec­tion, as they soon will be, un­der the fos­ter­ing care of gov­ern­ment, the farmer will find a ready mar­ket for his sur­plus pro­duce, and–what is of equal con­se­quence–a cer­tain and cheap sup­ply of all he wants; his pros­per­ity will dif­fuse it­self to ev­ery class of the com­mu­ni­ty.” Speech of Hon. J. C. Cal­houn on the Tar­iff.

The ques­tion of rev­enue we will now briefly con­sid­er. For sev­er­al years past the rev­enues of the gov­ern­ment have been un­equal to its ex­pen­di­tures, and con­se­quent­ly loan af­ter loan, some­times di­rect and some­times in­di­rect in form, has been re­sort­ed to. By this means a new na­tion­al debt has been cre­at­ed, and is still grow­ing on us with a ra­pid­ity fear­ful to con­tem­plate–a ra­pid­ity on­ly rea­son­ably to be ex­pect­ed in time of war. This state of things has been pro­duced by a pre­vail­ing un­will­ing­ness ei­ther to in­crease the tar­iff or re­sort to di­rect tax­ation. But the one or the oth­er must come. Com­ing ex­pen­di­tures must be met, and the present debt must be paid; and mon­ey can­not al­ways be bor­rowed for these ob­jects. The sys­tem of loans is but tem­po­rary in its na­ture, and must soon ex­plode. It is a sys­tem not on­ly ru­inous while it lasts, but one that must soon fail and leave us des­ti­tute. As an in­di­vid­ual who un­der­takes to live by bor­row­ing soon finds his orig­inal means de­voured by in­ter­est, and, next, no one left to bor­row from, so must it be with a gov­ern­ment.

We re­peat, then, that a tar­iff suf­fi­cient for rev­enue, or a di­rect tax, must soon be re­sort­ed to; and, in­deed, we be­lieve this al­ter­na­tive is now de­nied by no one. But which sys­tem shall be adopt­ed? Some of our op­po­nents, in the­ory, ad­mit the pro­pri­ety of a tar­iff suf­fi­cient for a rev­enue, but even they will not in prac­tice vote for such a tar­iff; while oth­ers bold­ly ad­vo­cate di­rect tax­ation. Inas­much, there­fore, as some of them bold­ly ad­vo­cate di­rect tax­ation, and all the rest–or so near­ly all as to make ex­cep­tions need­less–refuse to adopt the tar­iff, we think it is do­ing them no in­jus­tice to class them all as ad­vo­cates of di­rect tax­ation. In­deed, we be­lieve they are on­ly de­lay­ing an open avow­al of the sys­tem till they can as­sure them­selves that the peo­ple will tol­er­ate it. Let us, then, briefly com­pare the two sys­tems. The tar­iff is the cheap­er sys­tem, be­cause the du­ties, be­ing col­lect­ed in large parcels at a few com­mer­cial points, will re­quire com­par­ative­ly few of­fi­cers in their col­lec­tion; while by the di­rect-​tax sys­tem the land must be lit­er­al­ly cov­ered with as­ses­sors and col­lec­tors, go­ing forth like swarms of Egyp­tian lo­custs, de­vour­ing ev­ery blade of