us 63 do & 2 %
††
H A RVA R D
C O L L E G E
L I B R A R Y








THE WISDOM
OF
A B R A H A M
L I N C O L N
BEING EXTRACTS FROM
THE SPEECHES, STATE
PAPERS, AND LETTERS OF
THE GREAT PRESIDENT
“. . . his clear-grained human worth
And brave old wisdom of sincerity"
– Lowell
NEW YORK
A. WESSELS COMPANY
1908


*
S
us & 2 oo iſ 3, 2.
YHARVARD college LIBRARY
FROM THE ESTATE of
LAWRENCE J. HENDERSON
MAY 19, 1942
Copyrighted 1908
A. Wessels CoMPANY
New York
September, 1908



P R E F A C E
OST books of selections from the
writings and conversations of
Abraham Lincoln are designed primarily
to show the peculiarities of his unique
personality. Composed largely of his
humorous stories, his witty and satirical
comments upon his contemporaries, and
anecdotes revealing the eccentricities of
his genius, they uniformly produce a cari-
cature of the accidental rather than essen-
tial features of him who stands as the
ideal type of American manhood.
In this anthology this limited and thor-
oughly culled field has been avoided, and
the broader domain of Lincoln's genius
explored to find the fruits of his ripened
wisdom rather than the flowers of his
brilliant and pungent personality. The
mind and the soul of the man are shown,
possibly too purely and severely. Yet
V


while softening details are lacking in this
portrait, all the strong and well-beloved
lineaments of Lincoln are preserved, –
each line as he himself drew it. Every
passage is authentic and authoritative,
the source and date of its utterance being
given. The extracts are arranged in
chronological order. The index of the
book is by subjects.
The compiler acknowledges with thanks
permission given him by the Current Lit-
erature Publishing Company to use the
text of its Centenary Edition of the Life
and Works of Abraham Lincoln in making
the extracts.
MARION MILLS MILLER.


THE FIRST AMERICAN
Extract from Ode recited at the Harvard Commem-
oration, July 27, , 86.5
By JAMEs Russell Lowell
HITHER leads the path
To ampler fates that leads 2
Not down through flowery meads,
To reap an aftermath
Of youth's vainglorious weeds;
But up the steep, amid the wrath
And shock of deadly-hostile creeds,
Where the world's best hope and stay
By battle's flashes gropes a desperate way,
And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds.
Peace hath her not ignoble wreath,
Ere yet the sharp, decisive word
Light the black lips of cannon, and the sword
Dreams in its easeful sheath;
But some day the live coal behind the thought,
Whether from Baal's stone obscene,
Or from the shrine serene
Of God's pure altar brought,
Bursts up in flame; the war of tongue and pen
Learns with what deadly purpose it was
fraught,
vii


Forgive me, if from present things I turn
To speak what in my heart will beat and burn,
And hang my wreath on his world-honored
urn.
Nature, they say, doth dote,
And cannot make a man
Save on some worn-out plan,
Repeating us by rote:
For him her Old-World moulds aside she
threw,
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast
Of the unexhausted West,
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new,
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and
true.
How beautiful to see
Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed,
Who loved his charge, but never loved to
lead;
One whose meek flock the people joyed to be,
Not lured by any cheat of birth,
But by his clear-grained human worth,
And brave old wisdom of sincerity!
They knew that outward grace is dust;
They could not choose but trust
In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill,
And supple-tempered will
That bent like perfect steel to spring again
and thrust.
His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind,
Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars,
A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind;
1x


Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined,
Fruitful and friendly for all human-kind,
Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest
StarS.
Nothing of Europe here,
Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still,
Ere any names of Serf and Peer
Could Nature's equal scheme deface
And thwart her genial will;
Here was a type of the true elder race,
And one of Plutarch's men talked with us
face to face.
I praise him not; it were too late;
And some innative weakness there must be
In him who condescends to victory
Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait,
Safe in himself as in a fate.
So always firmly he
He knew to bide his time,
And can his fame abide,
Still patient in his simple faith sublime,
Till the wise years decide.
Great captains, with their guns and drums,
Disturb our judgment for the hour,
But at last silence comes;
These all are gone, and, standing like a
tower,
Our children shall behold his fame,
The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing
man,
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,
New birth of our new soil, the first American.
x


C O N T E N T S
Page
THE FIRST AMERICAN : Extract from Har-
vard Commemoration Ode, by James Russell
Lowell . . . . . . . . . . . .
ExTRACTS FROM LINCOLN'S WRITINGS
AND SPEECHES :
Announcement of Candidacy for Legislature
Speech in Legislature on the State Bank .
Address on the Perpetuation of our Political
Institutions . . . . . . . . . .
Speech against the Van Buren Administra-
tion . . . . . . . -
Address to Washingtonian (Temperance)
Society . . . . . .
Letter to George E. Pickett . . . . .
Notes on Protection . . . . . . . .
Letter to Williamson Durley . . . . .
Letter to William Johnston with Poem .
Letter to William Johnston with Poem .
Speech in Congress Arraigning President
Polk . . . . . . . . . . . .
Letter to J. M. Peck . . . . . . . .
Speech in Congress on Internal Improve-
ments . . . . . . . . . . . .
Note: “Were I President '' . . . . .
Letter to William H. Herndon . . . .
Speech in Congress on Military Heroes . .
vii
4
:
:
13
15
16
16
19
2O
X1


Extracts (Continued)
Notes for Lecture on Niagara Falls
Notes for Law Lecture
Eulogy of Henry Clay . .
Notes on Government
Speech on Repeal of Missouri Compromise
Letter to George Robertson
Letter to Joshua F. Speed . .
Speech at First Republican Convention .
Speech at Galena . . . . . .
Speech in Frémont Campaign . .
Speech at Republican Banquet in Chicago .
Reply to Douglas at Springfield
Speech Accepting Nomination for Senator .
Reply to Douglas at Chicago . .
Speech at Springfield on Douglas's Pr
tial Aspirations . . . . -
Speech at Lewiston . . . . .
Speech at Clinton .
Speech at Paris . . . . . .
Speech at Edwardsville . . . .
Debate with Douglas at Jonesboro
Debate with Douglas at Charleston
Debate with Douglas at Galesburg
Debate with Douglas at Quincy .
Debate with Douglas at Alton . . .
Letter to J. J. Crittenden . . .
Letter to Dr. A. G. Henry . . .
Letter to H. D. Sharpe . . . .
esiden-
e - e.
e -
- -
Letter to Jefferson Dinner Committee of
Boston . . . . . . . .
Letter to M. W. Delahay .
Letter to Dr. Theodore Canisius.
Letter to Samuel Galloway . .
Sreech at Columbus . . . . .
xii


Extracts (Continued) - PAGE
Speech at Cincinnati . . . . . . . . 83
Address at Wisconsin Agricultural Fair . 89
Speech at Leavenworth . . . . . . . 95
Lecture on Discoveries, Inventions, and
Improvements . . . . . . . . . 96
Speech at Cooper Union . . . . . . 104
Speech at Hartford . . . . . . . . 108
Speech at New Haven . . . . . . . I 11
Letter to C. H. Fisher . . . . . . . 115
Letter to William S. Speer . . . . . 115
Remarks at Indianapolis . . . . . . I 16
Remarks to the Indiana Legislature . . 1 16
Remarks to Germans at Cincinnati . . . 117
Remarks at Pittsburg . . . . . . . . 18
Remarks at New York . . . . . . . 120
Remarks to the Senate of New Jersey . . 121
Remarks in Independence Hall, Philadel-
phia . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
First Inaugural Address . . . . . . 122
Message to Congress in Special Session . 126
Letter to O. H. Browning . . . . . . 134
Note to Major Ramsey . . . . . . . 136
First Annual Message to Congress . . . 136
Letter to General Hunter . . . . . . 140
Appeal to Border State Representatives . 141
Address to Negro Deputation . . . . 142
Letter to Horace Greeley . . . . . . 144
Remarks to Chicago Church Delegation . 145
Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation . 149
Reply to Mrs. Gurney . . . . . . . 149
Meditation on the Divine Will . . . . 150
Second Annual Message to Congress . . 151
Letter to Miss Fanny McCullough . . . 153
On Admission of West Virginia into Union 153
x111


Extracts (Continued) PAGE
Message to Congress on United States
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Letter to Workingmen of Manchester,
England . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Letter to General Hooker . . . . . . 155
Letter to Alexander Reed . . . . . . 157
Letter to General Rosecrans . . . . . . 158
Letter to Governor Andrew Johnson . . 158
Proclamation of Fast Day . . . . . . 158
Letter to Erastus Corning and Others . . 160
Letter to Committee of Ohio Democrats . 16o
Letter to Governor Seymour . . . . . 163
Letter to James C. Conkling . . . . . 164
Dedication of Gettysburg Cemetery . . . 166
Remarks to Committee of New York Work-
ingmen . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Remarks at Baltimore Sanitary Fair . . 168
Letter to Committee of Baptists . . . . 169
Endorsement of Application for Employ-
ment . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Remarks to 164th Ohio Regiment . . . 170
Remarks on the Bible to Negro Delegation 171
Remarks on Presidential Election at Sere-
made . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Letter to Mrs. Bixby . . . . . . . 173
Letter to Governor Fletcher . . . . . 174
Second Inaugural Address . . . . . . 175
Letter to Thurlow Weed . . . . . . 176
Remarks to an Indiana Regiment . . . 177
Speech on Reconstruction . . . . . . 178
xiv


THE WISDOM OF
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ELLOW-CITIZENS: I presume you
all know who I am. I am humble
Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by
many friends to become a candidate for the
Legislature. My politics are short and sweet,
like the old woman's dance. I am in favor
of a national bank. I am in favor of the
internal improvement system, and a high
protective tariff. These are my sentiments
and political principles. If elected, I shall
be thankful; if not, it will be all the same.—
Announcement of Candidacy for Legislature;
March, 1832.
I [AM] opposed to making an examination
[of the State Bank] 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
I I


hitherto found security. — On Inquiry into
Management of the State Bank; January,
1837.
A" what point shall we expect the approach
of danger [to our republican institu-
tions]? By what means shall we fortify
against it? Shall we expect some transat-
lantic military giant to step the ocean and
crush us at a blow P Never! All the armies
of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with
all the treasure of the earth (our own ex-
cepted) in their military chest, with a Bona-
parte 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. . . .
Turn to that horror-striking scene at St.
Louis. A mulatto man by the name of McIn-
tosh 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 free-
man 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 fre-
2


ment, and particularly of those constituted
like ours — I mean the attachment of the
people — may effectually be broken down
and destroyed. . . . 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. —
The Perpetuation of our Political Institu-
tions. An address to the Young Men's Lyceum
of Springfield, Ill.; January 27, 1837.
R. LAMBORN insists that the differ-
ence between the Van Buren party and
the Whigs is that, although the former some-
times err in practice, they are always correct
in principle, whereas the latter are wrong in
principle; and, better to impress this propo-
sition, 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
4


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 crea-
tures 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 strik-
ingly 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.” – Against the Subtreasury and
other Policies of the Van Buren Administra-
tion. Speech at Springfield, Ill.; December,
1839.
WHEN the conduct of men is designed to
be influenced, persuasion, kind, un-
assuming 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. It 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
5


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 him-
self, 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 pene-
trate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye
straw. Such is man, and so must he be under-
stood by those who would lead him, even to
his own best interests.
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 ex-
amine this. Let me ask the man who could
maintain this position most stiffly, what com-
pensation 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
6


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.
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 glori-
ous 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,
7


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 dram-maker 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 free-
dom; 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 sub-
dued, all matter subjected — mind, all-con-
quering mind, shall live and move, the
monarch of the world. Glorious consumma-
tion Hail, fall of fury! Reign of reason, all
hail! – Address to the Washingtonian Society
of Springfield, Ill.; February 22, 1842.
I HAVE just told the folks here in Spring-
field 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.
/ 8 -


. . . 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. — Letter to George
E. Pickett; February 22, 1842.
IN the early days of our race the Almighty
said to the first of our race, “In the sweat
of thy face shalt thou eat bread”; and since
then, if we except the light and the air of
heaven, no good thing has been or can be
enjoyed by us without having first cost labor.
And inasmuch as most good things are pro-
duced by labor, it follows that all such things
of right belong to those whose labor has pro-
duced them. But it has so happened, in all
ages of the world, that some have labored,
and others have without labor enjoyed a
large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong,
and should not continue. To secure to each
laborer the whole product of his labor, or as
nearly as possible, is a worthy object of any
good government.
But then a question arises, How can a gov-
ernment best effect this? In our own country,
in its present condition, will the protective
principle advance or retard this object? Upon
this subject the habits of our whole species
fall into three great classes — useful labor,
useless labor, and idleness. Of these the first
only is meritorious, and to it all the products
of labor rightfully belong; but the two latter,
9


while they exist, are heavy pensioners upon
the first, robbing it of a large portion of its
just rights. The only remedy for this is to,
so far as possible, drive useless labor and
idleness out of existence. And, first, as to
useless labor. Before making war upon this,
we must learn to distinguish it from the use-
ful. It appears to me that all labor done
directly and indirectly in carrying articles to
the place of consumption, which could have
been produced in sufficient abundance, with
as little labor, at the place of consumption as
at the place they were carried from, is useless
labor. Let us take a few examples of the
application of this principle to our own
country. Iron, and everything made of iron,
can be produced in sufficient abundance, and
with as little labor, in the United States as
anywhere else in the world; therefore all
labor done in bringing iron and its fabrics
from a foreign country to the United States
is useless labor. . . .
We may easily see that the cost of this use-
less labor is very heavy. It includes not only
the cost of the actual carriage, but also the
insurances of every kind, and the profits of
the merchants through whose hands it passes.
All these create a heavy burden necessarily
falling upon the useful labor connected with
such articles, either depressing the price to
the producer or advancing it to the consumer,
or, what is more probable, doing both in part.
- -- ore] the abandonment of the pro-

IO


tective policy by the American government
must result in the increase of both useless
labor and idleness, and so, in proportion,
must produce want and ruin among our
people. — Notes on Protection jotted down
while Congressman-elect; December, 1847.
I HOLD it to be a paramount duty of us in
the free States, due to the Union of the
States, and perhaps to liberty itself (paradox
though it may seem), to let the slavery of the
other States alone; while, on the other hand,
I hold it to be equally clear that we should
never knowingly lend ourselves, directly or
indirectly, to prevent that slavery from dying
a natural death — to find new places for it to
live in, when it can no longer exist in the old.
— Letter to Williamson Durley; October 3,
1845.
Y childhood's home I see again,
And sadden with the view;
And still, as memory crowds my brain,
There's pleasure in it too.
O Memory ! thou midway world
"Twixt earth and paradise,
Where things decayed and loved ones lost
In dreamy shadows rise,
And, freed from all that’s earthly vile,
Seem hallowed, pure, and bright,
Like scenes in some enchanted isle
All bathed in liquid light.
II


As dusky mountains please the eye
When twilight chases day;
As bugle-notes that, passing by,
In distance die away;
As leaving some grand waterfall,
We, lingering, list its roar —
So memory will hallow all
We’ve known, but know no more.
Near twenty years have passed away
Since here I bid farewell
To woods and fields, and scenes of play,
And playmates loved so well.
Where many were, but few remain
Of old familiar things;
But seeing them, to mind again
The lost and absent brings.
The friends I left that parting day,
How changed, as time has sped'
Young childhood grown, strong manhood
gray,
And half of all are dead.
I hear the loved survivors tell
How naught from death could save
Till every sound appears a knell,
And every spot a grave.
I range the fields with pensive tread,
And pace the hollow rooms,
And feel (companion of the dead)
I’m living in the tombs.
Letter to William Johnston; April 18, 1846.
12


And begged and swore, and wept and prayed,
With maniac laughter joined;
How fearful were these signs displayed
By pangs that killed the mind!
And when at length the drear and long
Time soothed thy fiercer woes,
How plaintively thy mournful song
Upon the still night rose !
I’ve heard it oft as if I dreamed,
Far distant, sweet and lone,
The funeral dirge it ever seemed
Of reason dead and gone.
To drink its strains I’ve stole away,
All stealthily and still,
Ere yet the rising god of day
Had streaked the eastern hill.’
Air held her breath; trees with the spell
Seemed sorrowing angels round,
Whose swelling tears in dewdrops fell
Upon the listening ground.
But this is past, and naught remains
That raised thee o'er the brute;
Thy piercing shrieks and soothing strain
Are like, forever mute.
Now fare thee well ! More thou the cause
Than subject now of woe.
All mental pangs by time's kind laws
Hast lost the power to know.
I4


O death ! thou awe-inspiring prince
That keepst the world in fear,
Why dost thou tear more blest ones hence,
And leave him lingering here?
Letter to William Johnston; September 6, 1846.
IF he [President Polk] can show that the soil
was ours where the first blood of the war
was shed, then I am with him. . . . But if
he can not or will not do this, – if on any
pretense or no pretense he shall refuse or
omit it, — then I shall be fully convinced of
what I more than suspect already, - that he
is deeply conscious of being in the wrong;
that he feels the blood of this war, like the
blood of Abel, is crying to Heaven against
him; that originally having some strong mo-
tive — what, I will not stop now to give my
opinion concerning — to involve the two
countries in a war, and trusting to escape
scrutiny by fixing the public gaze upon the
exceeding brightness of military glory, -
that attractive rainbow that rises in showers
of blood — that serpent’s eye that charms to
destroy, - he plunged into it, and has swept
on and on till, disappointed in his calculation
of the ease with which Mexico might be sub-
dued, he now finds himself he knows not
where. How like the half-insane mumbling
of a fever dream is the whole war part of his
late message . . . His mind, taxed beyond
its power, is running hither and thither, like
I 5


some tortured creature on a burning surface,
finding no position on which it can settle down
to be at ease. . . . He is a bewildered, con-
founded, and miserably perplexed man. God
grant he may be able to show there is not
something about his conscience more painful
than all his mental perplexity. — Speech in
Congress; January 12, 1848.
OSSIBLY you consider those acts [of ag-
gression upon the Mexicans] too small
for notice. Would you venture to so consider
them had they been committed by any nation
on earth against the humblest of our people?
I know you would not. Then I ask, is the
precept “Whatsoever ye would that men
should do to you, do ye even so to them.”
obsolete? of no force? of no application? —
Letter to J. M. Peck; May 21, 1848.
B". suppose, after all, there should be
some degree of inequality [in the govern-
ment making internal improvements through-
out the various States]. Inequality is certainly
never to be embraced for its own sake; but is
every good thing to be discarded which may
be inseparably connected with some degree
of it? If so, we must discard all government.
This capitol is built at the public expense, for
the public benefit; but does any one doubt
that it is of some peculiar local advantage to

I6


Mr. Chairman, the President seems to
think that enough may be done, in the way of
improvements, by means of tonnage duties
under State authority, with the consent of the
General Government. Now I suppose this
matter of tonnage duties is well enough in its
own sphere. I suppose it may be efficient,
and perhaps sufficient, to make slight improve-
ments and repairs in harbors already in use
and not much out of repair. But if I have any
correct general idea of it, it must be wholly
inefficient for any general beneficent purposes
of improvement. I know very little, or rather
nothing at all, of the practical matter of levy-
ing and collecting tonnage duties; but I sup-
pose one of its principles must be to lay a
duty for the improvement of any particular
harbor upon the tonnage coming into that
harbor; to do otherwise — to collect money
in one harbor, to be expended on improve-
ments in another — would be an extremely
aggravated form of that inequality which the
President so much deprecates. If I be right
in this, how could we make any entirely new
improvement by means of tonnage duties?
How make a road, a canal, or clear a greatly
obstructed river? The idea that we could
involves the same absurdity as the Irish bull
about the new boots. “I shall niver git 'em
on,” says Patrick, “till I wear 'em a day or
two, and stretch 'em a little.” We shall never
make a canal by tonnage duties until it shall
I8


already have been made awhile, so the ton-
nage can get into it. – Speech in Congress;
June 20, 1848.
ERE I President, I should desire the
legislation of the country to rest with
Congress, uninfluenced by the executive in
its origin or progress, and undisturbed by the
veto unless in very special and clear cases. –
Vote; July, 1848.
I CANNOT but think there is some mis-
take in your impression of the motives of
the old men. I suppose I am now one of the
old men; and I declare, on my veracity,
which I think is good with you, that nothing
could afford me more satisfaction than to
learn that you and others of my young friends
at home are doing battle in the contest, and
endearing themselves to the people, and tak-
ing a stand far above any I have ever been
able to reach in their admiration. I cannot
conceive that other old men feel differently.
Of course I cannot demonstrate what I say;
but I was young once, and I am sure I was
never ungenerously thrust back. I hardly
know what to say. The way for a young man
to rise is to improve himself every way he can,
never suspecting that anybody wishes to
hinder him. Allow me to assure you that
suspicion and jealousy never did help any
I9


man in any situation. There may sometimes
be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man
down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows
his mind to be diverted from its true channel
to brood over the attempted injury. Cast
about, and see if this feeling has not injured
every person you have ever known to fall
into it.
Now, in what I have said, I am sure you
will suspect nothing but sincere friendship.
I would save you from a fatal error. You
have been a laborious, studious young man.
You are far better informed on almost all
subjects than I have ever been. You cannot
fail in any laudable object, unless you allow
your mind to be improperly directed. — Letter
to William H. Herndon; July 10, 1848.
FELLOW once advertised that he had
made a discovery by which he could
make a new man out of an old one, and have
enough of the stuff left to make a little yellow
dog. Just such a discovery has General Jack
son's popularity been to you [Democrats).
You not only twice made President of him
out of it, but you have had enough of the
stuff left to make Presidents of several com-
paratively small men since; and it is your
chief reliance now to make still another.
By the way, Mr. Speaker, did you know I
am a military hero? Yes, sir; in the days of
2O


!
the Black Hawk war I fought, bled, and came
away. Speaking of General Cass's career
reminds me of my own. I was not at Still-
man's defeat, but I was about as near it as
Cass was to Hull's surrender; and, like him,
I saw the place very soon afterward. It is
quite certain I did not break my sword, for
I had none to break; but I bent a musket
pretty badly on one occasion. If Cass broke
his sword, the idea is he broke it in despera-
tion; I bent the musket by accident. If Gen-
eral Cass went in advance of me in picking
huckleberries, I guess I surpassed him in
charges upon the wild onions. If he saw any
live, fighting Indians, it was more than I did;
but I had a good many bloody struggles with
the mosquitoes, and although I never fainted
from the loss of blood, I can truly say I was
often very hungry. Mr. Speaker, if I should
ever conclude to doff whatever our Democratic
friends may suppose there is of black-cockade
federalism about me, and therefore they shall
take me up as their candidate for the presi-
dency, I protest they shall not make fun of
me, as they have of General Cass, by attempt-
ing to write me into a military hero.
I have heard some things from New York;
and if they are true, one might well say of your
party there, as a drunken fellow once said
when he heard the reading of an indictment
for hog-stealing. The clerk read on till he got
to and through the words “did steal, take,
2I


and carry away ten boars, ten sows, ten shoats,
and ten pigs,” at which he exclaimed, “Well,
by golly, that is the most equally divided gang
of hogs I ever did hear of !” If there is any
other gang of hogs more equally divided than
the Democrats of New York are about this
time, I have not heard of it. — Speech in Con-
gress; July 27, 1848.
THE mere physical of Niagara Falls is a
very small part of that world's wonder.
Its power to excite reflection and emotion is
its great charm. . . . It calls up the indefinite
past. When Columbus first sought this con-
tinent — when Christ suffered on the cross —
when Moses led Israel through the Red Sea
— nay, even when Adam first came from the
hand of his Maker: then, as now, Niagara
was roaring here. The eyes of that species of
extinct giants whose bones fill the mounds of
America have gazed on Niagara, as ours do
now. Contemporary with the first race of
men, and older than the first man, Niagara
is strong and fresh to-day as ten thousand
years ago. The Mammoth and Mastodon,
so long dead that fragments of their monstrous
bones alone testify that they ever lived, have
gazed on Niagara — in that long, long time
never still for a single moment [never dried],
never froze, never slept, never rested. — Notes
for a Popular Lecture on Niagara Falls; July,
22


ing too much on speech-making. If any one,
upon his rare powers of speaking, shall claim
an exemption from the drudgery of the law,
his case is a failure in advance.
Discourage litigation. Persuade your
neighbors to compromise whenever you can.
Point out to them how the nominal winner is
often a real loser — in fees, expenses, and
waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer
has a superior opportunity of being a good
man. There will still be business enough.
Never stir up litigation. A worse man
can scarcely be found than one who does
this. Who can be more nearly a fiend than
he who habitually overhauls the register of
deeds in search of defects in titles, whereon
to stir up strife, and put money in his pocket?
A moral tone ought to be infused into the pro-
fession which should drive such men out of it.
The matter of fees is important, far beyond
the mere question of bread and butter in-
volved. Properly attended to, fuller justice
is done to both lawyer and client. An exor-
bitant fee should never be claimed. As a
general rule never take your whole fee in
advance, nor any more than a small retainer.
When fully paid beforehand, you are more
than a common mortal if you can feel the
same interest in the case, as if something was
still in prospect for you, as well as for your
client. And when you lack interest in the
case the job will very likely lack skill and dili-
gence in the performance. Settle the amount
24


of fee and take a note in advance. Then you
will feel that you are working for something,
and you are sure to do your work faithfully
and well. Never sell a fee note — at least not
before the consideration service is performed.
It leads to negligence and dishonesty — negli-
gence by losing interest in the case, and dis-
honesty in refusing to refund when you have
allowed the consideration to fail.
There is a vague popular belief that lawyers
are necessarily dishonest. I say vague, be-
cause when we consider to what extent con-
fidence and honors are reposed in and con-
ferred upon lawyers by the people, it appears
improbable that their impression of dishonesty
is very distinct and vivid. Yet the impression
is common, almost universal. Let no young
man choosing the law for a calling for a mo-
ment yield to the popular belief – resolve to
be honest at all events; and if in your own
judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer,
resolve to be honest without being a lawyer.
Choose some other occupation, rather than
one in the choosing of which you do, in ad-
vance, consent to be a knave. — Notes for
Law Lecture; July, 1850.
M*, CLAY ever was on principle and in
feeling opposed to slavery. The very
earliest, and one of the latest, public efforts
of his life, separated by a period of more than
fifty years, were both made in favor of gradual
25


emancipation. He did not perceive that on a
question of human right the negroes were to
be excepted from the human race. And yet
Mr. Clay was the owner of slaves. Cast into
life when slavery was already widely spread
and deeply seated, he did not perceive, as I
think no wise man has perceived, how it
could be at once eradicated without produc-
ing a greater evil even to the cause of human
liberty itself. His feeling and his judgment,
therefore, ever led him to oppose both ex-
tremes of opinion on the subject. Those who
would shiver into fragments the Union of
these States, tear to tatters its now venerated
Constitution, and even burn the last copy of
the Bible, rather than slavery should continue
a single hour, together with all their more
halting sympathizers, have received, and are
receiving, their just execration; and the name
and opinions and influence of Mr. Clay are
fully and, as I trust, effectually and endur-
ingly arrayed against them. But I would also,
if I could, array his name, opinions, and in-
fluence against the opposite extreme —
against a few but an increasing number of
men who, for the sake of perpetuating slavery,
are beginning to assail and to ridicule the
white man's charter of freedom, the declara-
tion that “all men are created free and
equal.” — Eulogy of Henry Clay; July 16,
1852.
26


THE legitimate object of government is to
do for a community of people whatever
they need to have done, but cannot do at all,
or cannot so well do, for themselves, in their
separate and individual capacities. In all
that the people can individually do as well for
themselves, government ought not to interfere.
Equality in society alike beats inequality,
whether the latter be of the British aristo-
cratic sort or of the domestic slavery sort.
We know Southern men declare that their
slaves are better off than hired laborers among
us. How little they know whereof they speak!
There is no permanent class of hired laborers
amongst us. Twenty-five years ago I was a
hired laborer. The hired laborer of yesterday
labors on his own account to-day, and will
hire others to labor for him to-morrow. Ad-
vancement — improvement in condition — is
the order of things in a society of equals. As
labor is the common burden of our race, so
the effort of some to shift their share of the
burden onto the shoulders of others is the
great durable curse of the race. Originally a
curse for transgression upon the whole race,
when, as by slavery, it is concentrated on a
part only, it becomes the double-refined curse
of God upon his creatures.
Free labor has the inspiration of hope;
pure slavery has no hope. The power of hope
upon human exertion and happiness is won-
derful. The slave-master himself has a con-
ception of it, and hence the system of tasks
27


among slaves. The slave whom you cannot
drive with the lash to break seventy-five
pounds of hemp in a day, if you will task him
to break a hundred, and promise him pay for
all he does over, he will break you a hundred
and fifty. You have substituted hope for the
rod. And yet perhaps it does not occur to you
that to the extent of your gain in the case, you
have given up the slave system and adopted
the free system of labor.
If A can prove, however conclusively, that
he may of right enslave B, why may not B
snatch the same argument and prove equally
that he may enslave AP You say A is white
and B is black. It is color, then; the lighter
having the right to enslave the darker? Take
care. By this rule you are to be slave to the
first man you meet with a fairer skin than
your own. You do not mean color exactly?
You mean the whites are intellectually the
superiors of the blacks, and therefore have
the right to enslave them? Take care again.
By this rule you are to be slave to the first man
you meet with an intellect superior to your
own. But, say you, it is a question of interest,
and if you make it your interest you have the
right to enslave another. Very well. And
if he can make it his interest he has the right
to enslave you.
The ant who has toiled and dragged a
crumb to his nest will furiously defend the
28


fruit of his labor against whatever robber
assails him. So plain that the most dumb and
stupid slave that ever toiled for a master does
constantly know that he is wronged. So plain
that no one, high or low, ever does mistake it,
except in a plainly selfish way; for although
volume upon volume is written to prove slav-
ery a very good thing, we never hear of the
man who wishes to take the good of it by
being a slave himself. -
Most governments have been based, practi-
cally, on the denial of the equal rights of men,
as I have, in part, stated them; ours began by
affirming those rights. They said, some men
are too ignorant and vicious to share in gov-
ernment. Possibly so, said we; and, by your
system, you would always keep them ignorant
and vicious. We proposed to give all a
chance; and we expected the weak to grow
stronger, the ignorant wiser, and all better
and happier together.
We made the experiment, and the fruit is
before us. Look at it, think of it. Look at it
in its aggregate grandeur, of extent of country,
and numbers of population — of ship, and
steamboat, and railroad. – Notes on Govern-
ment; July, 1854.
I THINK, and shall try to show, that the
repeal of the Missouri Compromise is
wrong — wrong in its direct effect, letting
slavery into Kansas and Nebraska, and wrong
29


in its prospective principle, allowing it to
spread to every other part of the wide world
where men can be found inclined to take it.
This declared indifference, but, as I must
think, covert real zeal, for the spread of
slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because
of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself.
I hate it because it deprives our republican
example of its just influence in the world;
enables the enemies of free institutions with
plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites; causes
the real friends of freedom to doubt our sin-
cerity; and especially because it forces so
many good men among ourselves into an
open war with the very fundamental prin-
ciples of civil liberty, criticising the Dec-
laration of Independence, and insisting
that there is no right principle of action
but self-interest.
When Southern people tell us they are no
more responsible for the origin of slavery than
we are, I acknowledge the fact. When it is
said that the institution exists, and that it is
very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory
way, I can understand and appreciate the
saying. I surely will not blame them for not
doing what I should not know how to do my-
self. If all earthly power were given me, I
should not know what to do as to the existing
institution. My first impulse would be to free
all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to
their native land. But a moment's re-

- *


flection would convince me that whatever of
high hope (as I think there is) there may be
in this in the long run, its sudden execution
is impossible. If they were all landed there
in a day, they would all perish in the next ten
days; and there are not surplus shipping and
surplus money enough to carry them there
in many times ten days. What then? Free
them all, and keep them among us as under-
lings? Is it quite certain that this betters
their condition? I think I would not hold
one in slavery at any rate, yet the point is not
clear enough for me to denounce people upon.
What next? Free them, and make them
politically and socially our equals. My own
feelings will not admit of this, and if mine
would, we well know that those of the great
mass of whites will not. Whether this feel-
ing accords with justice and sound judgment
is not the sole question, if indeed it is any part
of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill
founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We
cannot then make them equals. It does seem
to me that systems of gradual emancipation
might be adopted, but for their tardiness in
this I will not undertake to judge our brethren
of the South.
When they remind us of their constitu-
tional rights, I acknowledge them — not
grudgingly, but fully and fairly; and I would
give them any legislation for the reclaiming
of their fugitives which should not in its
stringency be more likely to carry a free man
31


people manifest, in many ways, their sense
of the wrong of slavery, and their conscious-
ness that, after all, there is humanity in the
negro. If they deny this, let me address them
a few plain questions. In 1820 you joined
the North, almost unanimously, in declaring
the African slave-trade piracy, and in annex-
ing to it the punishment of death. Why did
you do this? If you did not feel that it was
wrong, why did you join in providing that
men should be hung for it? The practice was
no more than bringing wild negroes from
Africa to such as would buy them. But you
never thought of hanging men for catching
and selling wild horses, wild buffaloes, or
wild bears.
Again, you have among you a sneaking
individual of the class of native tyrants known
as the “Slave-Dealer.” He watches your
necessities, and crawls up to buy your slave,
at a speculating price. If you cannot help it,
you sell to him; but if you can help it, you
drive him from your door. You despise him
utterly. You do not recognize him as a friend,
or even as an honest man. Your children
must not play with his; they may rollick
freely with the little negroes, but not with the
slave-dealer's children. If you are obliged to
deal with him, you try to get through the job
without so much as touching him. It is com-
mon with you to join hands with the men you
meet, but with the slave-dealer you avoid the
ceremony — instinctively shrinking from the
3 33


Well ! I doubt not that the people of Ne-
braska are and will continue to be as good as
the average of people elsewhere. I do not say
the contrary. What I do say is that no man
is good enough to govern another man without
that other's consent. I say this is the lead-
ing principle, the sheet-anchor of American
republicanism.
Still further: there are constitutional re-
lations between the slave and free States
which are degrading to the latter. We are
under legal obligations to catch and return
their runaway slaves to them: a sort of dirty,
disagreeable job, which, I believe, as a gen-
eral rule, the slaveholders will not perform
for one another. Then again, in the control
of the government — the management of the
partnership affairs — they have greatly the
advantage of us. By the Constitution each
State has two senators, each has a number of
representatives in proportion to the number of
its people, and each has a number of presi-
dential electors equal to the whole number
of its senators and representatives together.
But in ascertaining the number of the people
for this purpose, five slaves are counted as
being equal to three whites. The slaves do
not vote; they are only counted and so used
as to swell the influence of the white people's
votes. The practical effect of this is more aptly
shown by a comparison of the States of South
Carolina and Maine. South Carolina has six
35


question in which I am somewhat concerned,
and one which no other man can have a sacred
right of deciding for me. If I am wrong in
this — if it really be a sacred right of self-
government in the man who shall go to Ne-
braska to decide whether he will be the equal
of me or the double of me, then, after he shall
have exercised that right, and thereby shall
have reduced me to a still smaller fraction of
a man than I already am, I should like for
some gentleman, deeply skilled in the myste-
ries of sacred rights, to provide himself with a
microscope, and peep about, and find out,
if he can, what has become of my sacred
rights. They will surely be too small for
detection with the naked eye.
But Nebraska is urged as a great Union-
saving measure. Well, I too go for saving the
Union. Much as I hate slavery, I would con-
sent to the extension of it rather than see the
Union dissolved, just as I would consent to
any great evil to avoid a greater one. But
when I go to Union-saving, I must believe,
at least, that the means I employ have some
adaptation to the end. To my mind, Nebraska
has no such adaptation.
It hath no relish of salvation in it.
It is an aggravation, rather, of the only one
thing which ever endangers the Union. When
it came upon us, all was peace and quiet. The
nation was looking to the forming of new
37


bonds of union, and a long course of peace and
prosperity seemed to lie before us. In the
whole range of possibility, there scarcely ap-
pears to me to have been anything out of
which the slavery agitation could have been
revived, except the very project of repealing
the Missouri Compromise. Every inch of
territory we owned already had a definite
settlement of the slavery question, by which
all parties were pledged to abide. . . .
In this state of affairs the Genius of Dis-
cord himself could scarcely have invented a
way of again setting us by the ears but by
turning back and destroying the peace meas-
ures of the past. The counsels of that Genius
seem to have prevailed. The Missouri Com-
promise was repealed; and here we are in
the midst of a new slavery agitation, such, I
think, as we have never seen before. Who
is responsible for this? Is it those who resist
the measure, or those who causelessly brought
it forward and pressed it through, having
reason to know, and in fact knowing, it must
and would be so resisted P. It could not but
be expected by its author that it would be
looked upon as a measure for the extension
of slavery, aggravated by a gross breach of
faith.
Argue as you will and long as you will, this
is the naked front and aspect of the measure.
And in this aspect it could not but produce
agitation. Slavery is founded in the selfish-
ness of man's nature — opposition to it in
38


his love of justice. These principles are in
eternal antagonism, and when brought into
collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings
them, shocks and throes and convulsions must
ceaselessly follow. Repeal the Missouri Com-
promise, repeal all compromises, repeal the
Declaration of Independence, repeal all past
history, you still cannot repeal human nature.
It still will be the abundance of man’s heart
that slavery extension is wrong, and out of
the abundance of his heart his mouth will con-
tinue to speak.
Fellow-countrymen, Americans, South as
well as North, shall we make no effort to ar-
rest this? Already the liberal party through-
out the world express the apprehension “that
the one retrograde institution in America is
undermining the principles of progress, and
fatally violating the noblest political system
the world ever saw.” This is not the taunt
of enemies, but the warning of friends. Is it
quite safe to disregard it — to despise it? Is
there no danger to liberty itself in discarding
the earliest practice and first precept of our
ancient faith? In our greedy chase to make
profit of the negro, let us beware lest we “can-
cel and tear in pieces” even the white man's
charter of freedom.
Our republican robe is soiled and trailed
in the dust. Let us repurify it. Let us turn
and wash it white in the spirit, if not the blood,
of the Revolution. Let us turn slavery from
39


its claims of “moral right” back upon its ex-
isting legal rights and its arguments of “neces-
sity.” Let us return it to the position our
fathers gave it, and there let it rest in peace.
Let us readopt the Declaration of Independ-
ence, and with it the practices and policy
which harmonize with it. Let North and
South — let all Americans — let all lovers of
liberty everywhere join in the great and good
work. If we do this, we shall not only have
saved the Union, but we shall have so saved
it as to make and to keep it forever worthy of
the saving. We shall have so saved it that
the succeeding millions of free happy people,
the world over, shall rise up and call us blessed
to the latest generations. – On the Repeal of
the Missouri Compromise Speech at Peoria,
Ill.; October 16, 1854.
SINº. then [the Missouri Compromise of
1820] we have had thirty-six years of ex-
perience; and this experience has demon-
strated, I think, that there is no peaceful
extinction of slavery in prospect for us. The
signal failure of Henry Clay and other good
and great men, in 1849, to effect anything in
favor of gradual emancipation in Kentucky,
together with a thousand other signs, extin-
guished that hope utterly. On the question of
liberty as a principle, we are not what we have
been. When we were the political slaves of
King George, and wanted to be free, we called
4O


the maxim that “all men are created equal”
a self-evident truth, but now when we have
grown fat, and have lost all dread of being
slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy
to be masters that we call the same maxim
“a self-evident lie.” The Fourth of July has
not quite dwindled away; it is still a great
day — for burning fire-crackers!!!
That spirit which desired the peaceful ex-
tinction of slavery has itself become extinct
with the occasion and the men of the Revolu-
tion. Under the impulse of that occasion,
nearly half the States adopted systems of
emancipation at once, and it is a significant
fact that not a single State has done the like
since. So far as peaceful voluntary emancipa-
tion is concerned, the condition of the negro
slave in America, scarcely less terrible to the
contemplation of a free mind, is now as fixed
and hopeless of change for the better, as that
of the lost souls of the finally impenitent.
The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign
his crown and proclaim his subjects free re-
publicans sooner than will our American
masters voluntarily give up their slaves.
Our political problem now is, “Can we as a
nation continue together permanently — for-
ever — half slave and half free?” The prob-
lem is too mighty for me — may God, in his
mercy, superintend the solution. — Letter to
George Robertson; August 15, 1855.
41


bonds of union, and a long course of peace and
prosperity seemed to lie before us. In the
whole range of possibility, there scarcely ap-
pears to me to have been anything out of
which the slavery agitation could have been
revived, except the very project of repealing
the Missouri Compromise. Every inch of
territory we owned already had a definite
settlement of the slavery question, by which
all parties were pledged to abide. . . .
In this state of affairs the Genius of Dis-
cord himself could scarcely have invented a
way of again setting us by the ears but by
turning back and destroying the peace meas-
ures of the past. The counsels of that Genius
seem to have prevailed. The Missouri Com-
promise was repealed; and here we are in
the midst of a new slavery agitation, such, I
think, as we have never seen before. Who
is responsible for this? Is it those who resist
the measure, or those who causelessly brought
it forward and pressed it through, having
reason to know, and in fact knowing, it must
and would be so resisted P. It could not but
be expected by its author that it would be
looked upon as a measure for the extension
of slavery, aggravated by a gross breach of
faith.
Argue as you will and long as you will, this
is the naked front and aspect of the measure.
And in this aspect it could not but produce
agitation. Slavery is founded in the selfish-
ness of man's nature — opposition to it in
* 38


his love of justice. These principles are in
eternal antagonism, and when brought into
collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings
them, shocks and throes and convulsions must
ceaselessly follow. Repeal the Missouri Com-
promise, repeal all compromises, repeal the
Declaration of Independence, repeal all past
history, you still cannot repeal human nature.
It still will be the abundance of man's heart
that slavery extension is wrong, and out of
the abundance of his heart his mouth will con-
tinue to speak.
- - - - - - - -
Fellow-countrymen, Americans, South as
well as North, shall we make no effort to ar-
rest this? Already the liberal party through-
out the world express the apprehension “that
the one retrograde institution in America is
undermining the principles of progress, and
fatally violating the noblest political system
the world ever saw.” This is not the taunt
of enemies, but the warning of friends. Is it
quite safe to disregard it — to despise it? Is
there no danger to liberty itself in discarding
the earliest practice and first precept of our
ancient faith? In our greedy chase to make
profit of the negro, let us beware lest we “can-
cel and tear in pieces” even the white man's
charter of freedom.
Our republican robe is soiled and trailed
in the dust. Let us repurify it. Let us turn
and wash it white in the spirit, if not the blood,
of the Revolution. Let us turn slavery from
39


ACKNOWLEDGE your rights and my
obligations under the Constitution in re-
gard to your slaves. I confess I hate to see
the poor creatures hunted down and caught
and carried back to their stripes and unre-
quited toil; but I bite my lips and keep quiet.
In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-
water trip on a steamboat from Louisville to
St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do,
that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio
there were on board ten or a dozen slaves
shackled together with irons. That sight
was a continued torment to me and I see
something like it every time I touch the Ohio
or any other slave border. It is not fair for
you to assume that I have no interest in a
thing which has, and continually exercises,
the power of making me miserable. You
ought rather to appreciate how much the
great body of the Northern people do crucify
their feelings, in order to maintain their loy-
alty to the Constitution and the Union. I do
oppose the extension of slavery because my
judgment and feeling so prompt me, and I
am under no obligations to the contrary. If
for this you and I must differ, differ we
must. . . .
You inquire where I now stand. That is a
disputed point. I think I am a Whig; but
others say there are no Whigs, and that I am
an Abolitionist. When I was at Washington,
I voted for the Wilmot proviso as good as
forty times; and I never heard of any one
42


attempting to unwhig me for that. I now do
no more than oppose the extension of slavery.
I am not a Know-nothing; that is certain.
How could I be? How can any one who
abhors the oppression of negroes be in favor
of degrading classes of white people? Our
progress in degeneracy appears to me to be
pretty rapid. As a nation we began by declar-
ing that “all men are created equal.” We
now practically read it “all men are created
equal, except negroes.” When the Know-
nothings get control, it will read “all men are
created equal, except negroes and foreigners
and Catholics.” When it comes to this, I
shall prefer emigrating to some country where
they make no pretense of loving liberty, - to
Russia, for instance, where despotism can
be taken pure, and without the base alloy
of hypocrisy. — Letter to Joshua F. Speed;
August 24, 1855.
HE conclusion of all is, that we must
restore the Missouri Compromise. We
must highly resolve that Kansas shall be free!
We must reinstate the birthday promise of
the Republic; we must reaffirm the Declara-
tion of Independence; we must make good
in essence as well as in form Madison's
avowal that “the word slave ought not to
appear in the Constitution”; and we must
even go further, and decree that only local
law, and not that time-honored instrument,
shall shelter a slave-holder. We must make
43


this a land of liberty in fact, as it is in name.
But in seeking to attain these results — so
indispensable if the liberty which is our pride
and boast shall endure — we will be loyal to
the Constitution and to the “flag of our
Union,” and no matter what our grievance —
even though Kansas shall come in as a slave
State — and no matter what theirs — even
if we shall restore the Compromise — we
wiLL SAY TO THE SOUTHERN DISUNIONists,
WE won't Go out of THE UNION, AND You
SHAN'T | | | – Speech before the First Re-
publican Convention, Bloomington, Illinois,
May 29, 1856, as reported by Henry C.
Whitney.
Yo. further charge us with being dis-
unionists. If you mean that it is our
aim to dissolve the Union, I for myself an-
swer that it is untrue; for those who act with
me I answer that it is untrue. Have you
heard us assert that as our aim P Do you
really believe that such is our aim P Do
you find it in our platform, our speeches, our
conventions, or anywhere? If not, withdraw
the charge.
But you may say that though it is not our
aim, it will be the result if we succeed, and
that we are therefore disunionists in fact. . . .
The only charge that could be made [against
us] is that the restoration of the restriction of
1820, making the United States territory free
territorv, would dissolve the Union. Gentle-
44


men, it will require a decided majority to pass
such an act. We, the majority, being able
constitutionally to do all that we purpose,
would have no desire to dissolve the Union.
Do you say that such restriction of slavery
would be unconstitutional, and that some of
the States would not submit to its enforce-
ment? I grant you that an unconstitutional
act is not a law; but I do not ask and will
not take your construction of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court of the United States is
the tribunal to decide such a question, and
we will submit to its decisions; and if you do
also, there will be an end of the matter. Will
you? If not, who are the disunionists — you
or we? We, the majority, would not strive
to dissolve the Union; and if any attempt is
made, it must be by you, who so loudly stig-
matize us as disunionists. But the Union, in
any event, will not be dissolved. We don't
want to dissolve it, and if you attempt it we
won’t let you. With the purse and sword, the
army and navy and treasury, in our hands
and at our command, you could not do it.
This government would be very weak indeed
if a majority with a disciplined army and navy
and a well-filled treasury could not preserve
itself when attacked by an unarmed, undis-
ciplined, unorganized minority. All this talk
about the dissolution of the Union is humbug,
nothing but folly. We do not want to dis-
solve the Union; you shall not. — Speech at
Galena, Illinois; August, 1856.
45


Rºº. to the question, “Shall
slavery be allowed to extend into United
States territory now legally free?” This is a
sectional question — that is to say, it is a
question in its nature calculated to divide the
American people geographically. Who is to
blame for that? Who can help it? Either
side can help it; but how? Simply by yield-
ing to the other side; there is no other way;
in the whole range of possibility there is no
other way. Then, which side shall yield? To
this, again, there can be but one answer, —
the side which is in the wrong. True, we
differ as to which side is wrong, and we boldly
say, let all who really think slavery ought to
be spread into free territory, openly go over
against us; there is where they rightfully
belong. But why should any go who really
think slavery ought not to spread? Do they
really think the right ought to yield to the
wrong? Are they afraid to stand by the right?
Do they fear that the Constitution is too weak
to sustain them in the right? Do they really
think that by right surrendering to wrong the
hopes of our Constitution, our Union, and our
liberties can possibly be bettered?— Speech
in Frémont Campaign; October, 1856.
O". government rests in public opinion.
Whoever can change public opinion can
change the government practically just so
much. Public opinion, on any subject, always
has a “central idea,” from which all its minor
46


thoughts radiate. That “central idea” in
our political public opinion at the beginning
was, and until recently has continued to be,
“the equality of men.” And although it has
always submitted patiently to whatever of
inequality there seemed to be as matter of
actual necessity, its constant working has
been a steady progress toward the practical
equality of all men. The late presidential
election was a struggle by one party to discard
that central idea and to substitute for it the
opposite idea that slavery is right in the ab-
stract, the workings of which as a central idea
may be the perpetuity of human slavery and
its extension to all countries and colors. Less
than a year ago the Richmond Enquirer, an
avowed advocate of slavery, regardless of
color, in order to favor his views, invented the
phrase “State equality,” and now the Presi-
dent, in his message, adopts the Enquirer's
catch-phrase, telling us the people “have
asserted the constitutional equality of each
and all of the States of the Union as States.”
The President flatters himself that the new
central idea is completely inaugurated; and
so indeed it is, so far as the mere fact of a
presidential election can inaugurate it. To
us it is left to know that the majority of the
people have not yet declared for it, and to
hope that they never will.
Let us reinaugurate the good old “central
idea” of the republic. We can do it. The
47


human heart is with us; God is with us. We
shall again be able not to declare that “all
States as States are equal,” nor yet that “all
citizens as citizens are equal,” but to renew
the broader, better declaration, including
both these and much more, that “all men are
created equal.” – Speech at Republican Ban-
quet in Chicago; December Io, 1856.
I PROTEST against the counterfeit logic
which concludes that, because I do not
want a black woman for a slave I must neces-
sarily want her for a wife. I need not have
her for either. I can just leave her alone. In
some respects she certainly is not my equal;
but in her natural right to eat the bread she
earns with her own hands without asking leave
of any one else, she is my equal, and the equal
of all others.
I think the authors of that notable instru-
ment [the Declaration of Independence] in-
tended to include all men, but they did not
intend to declare all men equal in all respects.
They did not mean to say all were equal in
color, size, intellect, moral developments, or
social capacity. They defined with tolerable
distinctness in what respects they did con-
sider all men created equal — equal with
“certain inalienable rights, among which are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
This they said, and this they meant. They
48


did not mean to assert the obvious untruth
that all were then actually enjoying that
equality, nor yet that they were about to con-
fer it immediately upon them. In fact, they
had no power to confer such a boon. They
meant simply to declare the right, so that en-
forcement of it might follow as fast as circum-
stances should permit.
They meant to set up a standard maxim for
free society, which should be familiar to all,
and revered by all; constantly looked to, con-
stantly labored for, and even though never
perfectly attained, constantly approximated,
and thereby constantly spreading and deepen-
ing its influence and augmenting the happi-
ness and value of life to all people of all colors
everywhere. The assertion that “all men are
created equal” was of no practical use in
effecting our separation from Great Britain;
and it was placed in the Declaration not for
that, but for future use. Its authors meant
it to be — as, thank God, it is now proving
itself — a stumbling-block to all those who
in after times might seek to turn a free people
back into the hateful paths of despotism.
They knew the proneness of prosperity to
breed tyrants, and they meant when such
should reappear in this fair land and com-
mence their vocation, they should find left for
them at least one hard nut to crack.
I had thought the Declaration promised
something better than the condition of British
4. 49


subjects; but no, it only meant [according to
Judge Douglas] that we should be equal to
them in their own oppressed and unequal
condition. According to that, it gave no prom-
ise that, having kicked off the king and lords
of Great Britain, we should not at once be
saddled with a king and lords of our own.
I had thought the Declaration contem-
plated the progressive improvement in the
condition of all men everywhere; but no, it
merely “was adopted for the purpose of justi-
fying the colonists in the eyes of the civilized
world in withdrawing their allegiance from
the British crown, and dissolving their con-
nection with the mother country.” Why,
that object having been effected some eighty
years ago, the Declaration is of no practical
use now — mere rubbish — old wadding left
to rot on the battle-field after the victory is
won.
I understand you are preparing to celebrate
the “Fourth,” to-morrow week. What for?
The doings of that day had no reference to
the present; and quite half of you are not
even descendants of those who were referred
to at that day. But I suppose you will cele-
brate, and will even go so far as to read the
Declaration. Suppose, after you read it once
in the old-fashioned way, you read it once
more with Judge Douglas's version. It will
then run thus: “We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all British subjects who were
on this continent eighty-one years ago, were
5o


and sell him for fifteen hundred dollars, and
the rise. — Speech in Reply to Senator Douglas
at Springfield, Ill.; June 26, 1857.
WF are now far into the fifth year since a
policy was initiated with the avowed
object and confident promise of putting an
end to slavery agitation. Under the operation
of that policy, that 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 be-
lieve this government cannot endure per-
manently 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 op-
ponents 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.
It will throw additional light . . . to go
back and run the mind over the string of his-
torical facts already stated. Several things
wil" appear less dark and mysterious than
hen they were transpiring. The
52


Roger, and James, for instance, — and we
see these timbers joined together, and see they
exactly make the frame of a house or a mill,
all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, and
all the lengths and proportions of the different
pieces exactly adapted to their respective
places, and not a piece too many or too few,
not omitting even scaffolding — or, if a single
piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame
exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such
piece in — in such a case we find it impossible
not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and
Roger and James all understood one another
from the beginning, and all worked upon a
common plan or draft drawn up before the
first blow was struck. — Speech Accepting the
Nomination for United States Senator, Spring-
field, Ill., June 16, 1858.
HAT was squatter sovereignty P I sup-
pose if it had any significance at all,
it was the right of the people to govern them-
selves, to be sovereign in their own affairs
while they were squatted down in a country
not their own, while they had squatted on a
Territory that did not belong to them, in the
sense that a State belongs to the people who
inhabit it — when it belonged to the nation
—such right to govern themselves was called
“squatter sovereignty.”
Now I wish you to mark what has become
of that squatter sovereignty. What has be-
54


come of it? Can you get anybody to tell you
now that the people of a Territory have any
authority to govern themselves, in regard to
this mooted question of slavery, before they
form a State constitution? No such thing at
all, although there is a general running fire,
and although there has been a hurrah made
in every speech on that side, assuming that
policy had given the people of a Territory the
right to govern themselves upon this question;
yet the point is dodged. To-day it has been
decided – no more than a year ago it was
decided by the Supreme Court of the United
States, and is insisted upon to-day — that the
people of a Territory have no right to exclude
slavery from a Territory; that if any one man
chooses to take slaves into a Territory, all the
rest of the people have no right to keep them
Out.
We were often . . . in the course of Judge
Douglas's speech last night reminded that this
government was made for white men. . . .
Well, that is putting it into a shape in which
no one wants to deny it; but the judge then
goes into his passion for drawing inferences
that are not warranted. I protest now and
forever, against that counterfeit logic which
presumes that because I do not want a negro
woman for a slave, I do necessarily want her
for a wife. My understanding is that I need
not have her for either; but, as God made us
separate, we can leave one another alone, and
55


do one another much good thereby. There
are white men enough to marry all the white
women, and enough black men to marry all
the black women, and in God's name let
them be so married. The judge regales us
with the terrible enormities that take place
by the mixture of races; that the inferior race
bears the superior down. Why, judge, if we
do not let them get together in the Territories,
they won’t mix there. [A voice: “Three
cheers for Lincoln/* The cheers were given
with a hearty good will.] I should say at least
that that is a self-evident truth.
We have . . . among us . . . men who
have come from Europe . . . and settled
here, finding themselves ouredual in all things.
If they look back through this history to trace
their connection with those days by blood,
they find they have none; they cannot carry
themselves back into that glorious epoch and
make themselves feel that they are part of us;
but when they look through that old Declara-
tion of Independence, they find that those old
men say that “We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal,”
and then they feel that that moral sentiment
taught in that day evidences their relation to
those men, that it is the father of all moral
principle in them, and that they have a right
to claim it as though they were blood of the
blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who
wrote that Declaration, and so they are. That
*-
56


race as a reason for enslaving the men of
another race, it is all the same old serpent,
and I hold if that course of argumentation
that is made for the purpose of convincing the
public mind that we should not care about
this should be granted, it does not stop with
the negro. I should like to know — taking
this old Declaration of Independence, which
declares that all men are equal upon principle,
and making exceptions to it — where will it
stop? If one man says it does not mean a
negro, why not another say it does not mean
some other man? If that Declaration is not
the truth, let us get the statute-book in which
we find it, and tear it out! Who is so bold as
to do it? If it is not true, let us tear it out.
[Cries of “No, no.”] Let us stick to it, then;
let us stand firmly by it, then.
It is said in one of the admonitions of our
Lord, “Be ye perfect, even as your Father
which is in heaven is perfect.” The Saviour,
I suppose, did not expect that any human
creature could be perfect as the Father in
heaven; but . . . he set that up as a stand-
ard, and he who did most toward reaching
that standard attained the highest degree of
moral perfection. So I say in relation to the
principle that all men are created equal, let
it be as nearly reached as we can. If we can-
not give freedom to every creature, let us do
nothing that will impose slavery upon any
other creature. Let us then turn this govern-
58


ment back into the channel in which the
framers of the Constitution originally placed
it. Let us stand firmly by each other. If we
do not do so, we are tending in the contrary
direction that our friend Judge Douglas pro-
poses — not intentionally — working in the
traces that tend to make this one universal
slave nation. He is one that runs in that
direction, and as such I resist him. — Speech
at Chicago; July 10, 1858.
Tº is still another disadvantage under
which we labor. . . . It arises out of
the relative positions of the two persons who
stand before the State as candidates for the
Senate. Senator Douglas is of world-wide
renown. All the anxious politicians of his
party, or who have been of his party for years
past, have been looking upon him as certainly,
at no distant day, to be the President of the
United States. They have seen in his round,
jolly, fruitful face, post-offices, land-offices,
marshalships, and cabinet appointments,
chargeships and foreign missions, bursting
and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance,
ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands.
And as they have been gazing upon this at-
tractive picture so long, they cannot, in the
little distraction that has taken place in the
party, bring themselves to give up the charm-
ing hope; but with greedier anxiety they rush
about him, sustain him, and give him marches,
59


triumphal entries, and receptions beyond
what even in the days of his highest prosperity
they could have brought about in his favor.
On the contrary, nobody has ever expected
me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank
face nobody has ever seen that any cabbages
were sprouting out. — Speech at Springfield,
Ill., July 17, 1858.
Nº. my countrymen, if you have been
taught doctrines conflicting with the
great landmarks of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence; if you have listened to suggestions
which would take away from its grandeur and
mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions;
if you have been inclined to believe that all
men are not created equal in those inalien-
able rights enumerated by our chart of liberty,
let me entreat you to come back. Return to
the fountain whose waters spring close by
the blood of the revolution. Think nothing
of me — take no thought for the political fate
of any man whomsoever — but come back
to the truths that are in the Declaration of
Independence. You may do anything with
me you choose, if you will but heed these
sacred principles. You may not only defeat
me for the Senate, but you may take me and
put me to death. While pretending no indif-
ference to earthly honors, I do claim to be
actuated in this contest by something higher
than an anxiety for office. I charge you to
6o


drop every paltry and insignificant thought
for any man's success. It is nothing; I am
nothing; Judge Douglas is nothing. But do
not destroy that immortal emblem of Human-
ity — the Declaration of American Independ-
ence. — Speech at Lewiston, Ill.; August 17,
1858.
OU can fool all the people some of the
time, and some of the people all of the
time, but you cannot fool all the people all
the time. — Speech at Clinton, Ill., Sep-
tember 8, 1858.
UDGE Douglas's discovery: . . . the
-- right to breed and flog negroes in Ne-
braska was popular sovereignty. — Speech at
Paris, Ill., September 8, 1858.
ND when, by all these means, you have
succeeded in dehumanizing the negro;
when you have put him down and made it
impossible for him to be but as the beasts of
the field; when you have extinguished his
soul in this world and placed him where the
ray of hope is blown out as in the darkness
of the damned, are you quite sure that the
demon you have roused will not turn and
rend you? What constitutes the bulwark of
our own liberty and independence? It is not
61


our frowning battlements, our bristling sea-
coasts, our army and our navy. These are
not our reliance against tyranny. All of those
may be turned against us without making us
weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the
love of liberty which God has planted in us.
Our defence is in the spirit which prized
liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands
everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have
planted the seeds of despotism at your own
doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains
of bondage and you prepare your own limbs
to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the
rights of others, you have lost the genius of
your own independence and become the fit
subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises
among you. And let me tell you, that all
these things are prepared for you by the teach-
ings of history, if the elections shall promise
that the next Dred Scott decision and all
future decisions will be quietly acquiesced in
by the people. — Speech at Edwardsville, Ill.;
September 13, 1858.
I HOLD that the proposition [advanced by
Judge Douglas] that slavery cannot enter
a new country without police regulations is
historically false. It is not true at all. I hold
that the history of this country shows that the
institution of slavery was originally planted
upon this continent without these “police
regulations” which the judge now thinks
62


necessary for the actual establishment of it.
Not only so, but is there not another fact —
how came this Dred Scott decision to be made 2
It was made upon the case of a negro being
taken and actually held in slavery in Min-
nesota Territory, claiming his freedom be-
cause the act of Congress prohibited his being
so held there. Will the judge pretend that
Dred Scott was not held there without police
regulations? There is at least one matter of
record as to his having been held in slavery
in the Territory, not only without police reg-
ulations, but in the teeth of congressional
legislation supposed to be valid at the time.
This shows that there is vigor enough in
slavery to plant itself in a new country even
against unfriendly legislation. It takes not
only law but the enforcement of law to keep
it out. That is the history of this country
upon the subject.
I wish to ask one other question. It being
understood that the Constitution of the United
States guarantees property in slaves in the
Territories, if there is any infringement of the
right of that property, would not the United
States courts, organized for the government
of the Territory, apply such remedy as might
be necessary in that case? It is a maxim held
by the courts, that there is no wrong without
its remedy; and the courts have a remedy
for whatever is acknowledged and treated as
a wrong.
Again: I will ask you, my friends, if you
63


were elected members of the legislature, what
would be the first thing you would have to do
before entering upon your duties? Swear to
support the Constitution of the United States.
Suppose you believe, as Judge Douglas does,
that the Constitution of the United States
guarantees to your neighbor the right to hold
slaves in that Territory, - that they are his
property, — how can you clear your oaths
unless you give him such legislation as is nec-
essary to enable him to enjoy that property?
. . . And what I say here will hold with still
more force against the judge's doctrine of
“unfriendly legislation.” How could you,
having sworn to support the Constitution, and
believing that it guaranteed the right to hold
slaves in the Territories, assist in legislation
intended to defeat that right? That would
be violating your own view of the Constitu-
tion. Not only so, but if you were to do so,
how long would it take the courts to hold your
votes unconstitutional and void? Not a
moment.
Lastly I would ask — Is not Congress itself
under obligation to give legislative support
to any right that is established under the
United States Constitution ? . . . A member
of Congress swears to support the Constitu-
tion of the United States, and if he sees a right
established by that Constitution which needs
specific legislative protection, can he clear his
oath without giving that protection? Let me
ask many of us who are opposed to
64


slavery upon principle give our acquiescence
to a fugitive-slave law? Why do we hold our-
selves under obligations to pass such a law,
and abide by it when it is passed? Because
the Constitution makes provision that the
owners of slaves shall have the right to re-
claim them. It gives the right to reclaim
slaves, and that right is, as Judge Douglas
says, a barren right, unless there is legislation
that will enforce it. — Debate with Douglas at
Jonesboro, Ill., September 15, 1858.
I HAVE never had the least apprehension
that I or my friends would marry negroes
if there was no law to keep them from it; but
as Judge Douglas and his friends seem to be
in great apprehension that they might, if there
were no law to keep them from it, I give him
the most solemn pledge that I will to the very
last stand by the law of this State, which for-
bids the marrying of white people with ne-
groes. I will add one further word, which is
this: that I do not understand that there is
any place where an alteration of the social and
political relations of the negro and the white
man can be made except in the State legisla-
ture — not in the Congress of the United
States; and as I do not really apprehend the
approach of any such thing myself, and as
Judge Douglas seems to be in constant horror
that some such danger is rapidly approach-
ing, I propose, as the best means to prevent
5 65


it, that the judge be kept at home and placed
in the State legislature to fight the measure.
— Debate with Douglas at Charleston, Ill.;
September 18, 1858.
HE judge has alluded to the Declaration
of Independence, and insisted that ne-
groes are not included in that Declaration;
and that it is a slander upon the framers of
that instrument to suppose that negroes were
meant therein; and he asks you: Is it pos-
sible to believe that Mr. Jefferson, who penned
the immortal paper, could have supposed
himself applying the language of that instru-
ment to the negro race, and yet held a portion
of that race in slavery P. Would he not at once
have freed them? I only have to remark upon
this part of the judge's speech that I believe
the entire records of the world, from the date
of the Declaration of Independence up to
within three years ago, may be searched in
vain for one single affirmation, from one
single man, that the negro was not included
in the Declaration of Independence; I think
I may defy Judge Douglas to show that he
ever said so, that Washington ever said so,
that any President ever said so, that any
member of Congress ever said so, or that any
living man upon the whole earth ever said
so, until the necessities of the present policy
of the Democratic party in regard to slavery
had to invent that affirmation. And I will
66


remind Judge Douglas and this audience that
while Mr. Jefferson was the owner of slaves,
as undoubtedly he was, in speaking upon this
very subject, he used the strong language that
“he trembled for his country when he remem-
bered that God was just”; and I will offer
the highest premium in my power to Judge
Douglas if he will show that he, in all his life,
ever uttered a sentiment at all akin to that
of Jefferson.
I have never manifested any impatience
with the necessities that spring from the
actual presence of black people amongst us,
and the actual existence of slavery amongst
us where it does already exist; but I have
insisted that, in legislating for new countries
where it does not exist, there is no just rule
other than that of moral and abstract right.
With reference to those new countries, those
maxims as to the right of a people to “life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” were
the just rules to be constantly referred to.
There is no misunderstanding this, except by
men interested to misunderstand it. . . .
The real difference between Douglas and his
friends and the Republicans is that the judge
is not in favor of making any difference be-
tween slavery and liberty — that he is in
favor of eradicating, of pressing out of view,
the questions of preference in this country for
free or slave institutions; and consequently
every sentiment he utters discards the idea
67


that there is any wrong in slavery. Every-
thing that emanates from him or his coad-
jutors in their course of policy carefully ex-
cludes the thought that there is anything
wrong in slavery. If you will take the judge's
speeches, and select the short and pointed
sentences expressed by him, - as his declara-
tion that he “don’t care whether slavery is
voted up or down,” — you will see at once
that this is perfectly logical, if you do not
admit that slavery is wrong. If you do admit
that it is wrong, Judge Douglas cannot logi-
cally say he don't care whether a wrong is
voted up or voted down. Judge Douglas
declares that if any community wants slavery
they have a right to have it. He can say that
logically, if he says that there is no wrong in
slavery; but if you admit that there is a wrong
in it, he cannot logically say that anybody has
a right to do wrong. He insists that upon the
score of equality the owners of slaves and
owners of property — of horses and every
other sort of property — should be alike, and
hold them alike in a new Territory. That is
perfectly logical, if the two species of prop-
erty are alike, and are equally founded in
right. But if you admit that one of them is
wrong, you cannot institute any equality be-
tween right and wrong. And from this differ-
ence of sentiment — the belief on the part of
one that the institution is wrong, and a policy
springing from that belief which looks to the
arrest of the enlargement of that wrong; and
M
68


this other sentiment, that it is no wrong, and
a policy sprung from that sentiment which
will tolerate no idea of preventing that wrong
from growing larger, and looks to there never
being an end of it through all the existence of
things — arises the real difference between
Judge Douglas and his friends on the one
hand, and the Republicans on the other.
Now, I confess myself as belonging to that
class in the country who contemplate slavery
as a moral, social, and political evil, having
due regard for its actual existence amongst
us, and the difficulties of getting rid of it in
any satisfactory way, and to all the constitu-
tional obligations which have been thrown
about it; but who, nevertheless, desire a
policy that looks to the prevention of it as a
wrong, and looks hopefully to the time when
as a wrong it may come to an end.
Judge Douglas — and whoever, like him,
teaches that the negro has no share, humble
though it may be, in the Declaration of Inde-
pendence — is going back to the era of our
liberty and independence, and, so far as in
him lies, muzzling the cannon that thunders
its annual joyous return; . . . he is blowing
out the moral lights around us, when he con-
tends that whoever wants slaves has a right
to hold them; . . . he is penetrating, so far as
lies in his power, the human soul, and eradi-
cating the light of reason and the love of
liberty, when he is in every possible way pre-
69


paring the public mind, by his vast influence,
for making the institution of slavery perpetual
and national. — Debate with Douglas at
Galesburg, Ill., October 7, 1858.
UDGE DOUGLAS asks you, “Why
J cannot the institution of slavery, or
rather, why cannot the nation, part slave
and part free, continue as our fathers made
it forever?” In the first place, I insist that
our fathers did not make this nation half
slave and half free, or part slave and part
free. I insist that they found the institution
of slavery existing here. They did not make
it so, but they left it so because they knew
of no way to get rid of it at that time.
. . . More than that: when the fathers
of the government cut off the source of
slavery by the abolition of the slave-trade,
and adopted a system of restricting it from
the new Territories where it had not existed,
I maintain that they placed it where they
understood, and all sensible men understood,
it was in the course of ultimate extinction;
and when Judge Douglas asks me why it can-
not continue as our fathers made it, I ask him
why he and his friends could not let it re-
main as our fathers made it?
It is precisely all I ask of him in relation to
the institution of slavery, that it shall be
placed upon the basis that our fathers placed
it upon. Mr. Brooks, of South Carolina,
7o


about squatter sovereignty. He has at last
invented this sort of do-nothing sovereignty
— that the people may exclude slavery by a
sort of “sovereignty” that is exercised by
doing nothing at all. Is not that running his
popular sovereignty down awfully? Has it
not got down as thin as the homeopathic soup
that was made by boiling the shadow of a
pigeon that had starved to death? But at
last, when it is brought to the test of close
reasoning, there is not even that thin decoc-
tion of it left. It is a presumption impossible
in the domain of thought. It is precisely no
other than the putting of that most unphilo-
sophical proposition, that two bodies can oc-
cupy the same space at the same time. The
Dred Scott decision covers the whole ground,
and while it occupies it, there is no room even
for the shadow of a starved pigeon to occupy
the same ground. — Debate with Douglas at
Quincy, Ill., October 13, 1858.
B". is it true that all the difficulty and
agitation we have in regard to this insti-
tution of slavery springs from office-seeking
— from the mere ambition of politicians? Is
that the truth? How many times have we
had danger from this question? Go back to
the day of the Missouri Compromise. Go
back to the nullification question, at the bot-
tom of which lay this same slavery question.
Go back to the time of the annexation of
72


not to talk about it? If you will get every-
body else to stop talking about it, I assure you
I will quit before they have half done so. But
where is the philosophy or statesmanship
which assumes that you can quiet that dis-
turbing element in our society which has dis-
turbed us for more than half a century, which
has been the only serious danger that has
threatened our institutions — I say, where
is the philosophy or the statesmanship based
on the assumption that we are to quit talking
about it, and that the public mind is all at
once to cease being agitated by it? Yet this
is the policy here in the North that Douglas
is advocating — that we are to care nothing
about it! I ask you if it is not a false philos-
ophy? Is it not a false statesmanship that
undertakes to build up a system of policy
upon the basis of caring nothing about the
very thing that everybody does care the most
about — a thing which all experience has
shown we care a very great deal about?
That is the real issue. That is the issue
that will continue in this country when these
poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself
shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle be-
tween 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
74


kings. It is the same principle in whatever
shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit
that says, “You toil and work and earn bread,
and I’ll eat it.” No matter in what shape it
comes, whether from the mouth of a king who
seeks to bestride the people of his own nation
and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one
race of men as an apology for enslaving an-
other race, it is the same tyrannical principle.
Why, this is a monstrous sort of talk about
the Constitution of the United States | There
has never been as outlandish or lawless a
doctrine from the mouth of any respectable
man on earth. I do not believe it is a consti-
tutional right to hold slaves in a Territory of
the United States. I believe the decision was
improperly made, and I go for reversing it.
Judge Douglas is furious against those who
go for reversing a decision. But he is for
legislating it out of all force while the law
itself stands. I repeat that there has never
been so monstrous a doctrine uttered from the
mouth of a respectable man. . . .
I defy any man to make an argument that
will justify unfriendly legislation to deprive a
slaveholder of his right to hold his slave in
a Territory, that will not equally, in all its
length, breadth, and thickness, furnish an
argument for nullifying the fugitive-slave law.
Why, there is not such an Abolitionist in the
nation as Douglas, after all. — Debate with
Douglas at Alton, Ill.; October 15, 1858.
75


HE emotions of defeat at the close of a
struggle in which I felt more than a
merely selfish interest, and to which defeat
the use of your name contributed largely, are
fresh upon me; but even in this mood I can-
not for a moment suspect you of anything
dishonorable. — Letter to J. J. Crittenden;
November 4, 1858.
I AM glad I made the late race. It gave me
a hearing on the great and durable ques-
tion of the age, which I could have had in no
other way; and though I now sink out of
view, and shall be forgotten, I believe I have
made some marks which will tell for the cause
of civil liberty long after I am gone. — Letter
to Dr. A. G. Henry; November 19, 1858.
HILE I desired the result of the late
canvass to have been different, I still
regard it as an exceeding small matter. I
think we have fairly entered upon a durable
struggle as to whether this nation is to ulti-
mately become all slave or all free, and though
I fall early in the contest, it is nothing if I
shall have contributed, in the least degree, to
the final rightful result. — Letter to H. D.
Sharpe; December 8, 1858.
Gº: Your kind note inviting
me to attend a festival in Boston, on the
28th instant, in honor of the birthday of
76


Thomas Jefferson, was duly received. My
engagements are such that I cannot attend.
Bearing in mind that about seventy years
ago two great political parties were first
formed in this country, that Thomas Jeffer-
son was the head of one of them and Boston
the headquarters of the other, it is both curi-
ous and interesting that those supposed to
descend politically from the party opposed
to Jefferson should now be celebrating his
birthday in their own original seat of empire,
while those claiming political descent from
him have nearly ceased to breathe his name
everywhere.
Remembering, too, that the Jefferson party
was formed upon its supposed superior devo-
tion to the personal rights of men, holding the
rights of property to be secondary only, and
greatly inferior, and assuming that the so-
called Democracy of to-day are the Jefferson,
and their opponents the anti-Jefferson party,
it will be equally interesting to note how com-
pletely the two have changed hands as to the
principle upon which they were originally sup-
posed to be divided. The Democracy of to-
day hold the liberty of one man to be abso-
lutely nothing, when in conflict with another
man's right of property; Republicans, on the
contrary, are for both the man and the dollar,
but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.
I remember being once much amused at
seeing two partially intoxicated men engaged
in a fight with their great-coats on, which
77


fight, after a long and rather harmless contest,
ended in each having fought himself out of
his own coat and into that of the other. If
the two leading parties of this day are really
identical with the two in the days of Jefferson
and Adams, they have performed the same
feat as the two drunken men.
But, soberly, it is now no child's play to
save the principles of Jefferson from total
overthrow in this nation. One would state
with great confidence that he could convince
any sane child that the simpler propositions
of Euclid are true; but nevertheless he would
fail, utterly, with one who should deny the
definitions and axioms. The principles of
Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of
free society. And yet they are denied and
evaded, with no small show of success. One
dashingly calls them “glittering generalities.”
Another bluntly calls them “self-evident lies.”
And others insidiously argue that they apply
to “superior races.” These expressions, dif-
fering in form, are identical in object and
effect — the supplanting the principles of free
government, and restoring those of classifica-
tion, caste, and legitimacy. They would de-
light a convocation of crowned heads plotting
against the people. They are the vanguard,
the miners and sappers of returning despot-
ism. We must repulse them, or they will sub-
jugate us. This is a world of compensation;
and he who would be no slave must consent
to have no slave. Those who deny freedom
78


to others deserve it not for themselves, and,
under a just God, cannot long retain it. All
honor to Jefferson — to the man who, in the
concrete pressure of a struggle for national
independence by a single people, had the cool-
ness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into
a merely revolutionary document an abstract
truth, applicable to all men and all times, and
so to embalm it there that to-day and in all
coming days it shall be a rebuke and a stum-
bling-block to the very harbingers of reap-
pearing tyranny and oppression. — Letter to
Jefferson Dinner Committee of Boston; April
6, 1859.
You will probably adopt resolutions in the
nature of a platform. I think the only
temptation will be to lower the Republican
standard in order to gather recruits. In my
judgment such a step would be a serious mis-
take, and open a gap through which more
would pass out than pass in. And this would
be the same whether the letting down should
be in deference to Douglasism or to the South-
ern opposition element; either would surren-
der the object of the Republican organization
— the preventing of the spread and nationali-
zation of slavery. This object surrendered,
the organization would go to pieces. I do
not mean by this that no Southern man must
be placed upon our national ticket in 1860.
There are many men in the slave States for
any one of whom I could cheerfully vote to
79


be either President or Vice-President, pro-
vided he would enable me to do so with safety
to the Republican cause, without lowering
the Republican standard. This is the indis-
pensable condition of a union with us; it is
idle to talk of any other. Any other would be
as fruitless to the South as distasteful to the
North, the whole ending in common defeat.
Let a union be attempted on the basis of
ignoring the slavery question, and magnifying
other questions which the people are just now
not caring about, and it will result in gaining
no single electoral vote in the South, and los-
ing every one in the North. — Letter to M. W.
Delahay; May 14, 1859.
UNº. the spirit of our in-
stitutions to aim at the elevation of men,
I am opposed to whatever tends to degrade
them. I have some little notoriety for com-
miserating the oppressed negro; and I should
be strangely inconsistent if I could favor any
project for curtailing the existing rights of
white men, even though born in different
lands, and speaking different languages from
myself. — Letter to Dr. Theodore Canisius;
May 17, 1859.
Twº things done by the Ohio Republi-
can convention — the repudiation of
Judge Swan, and the “plank” for a repeal
of the fugitive-slave law — I very much re-
gretted. These two things are of a piece;
8o


and they are viewed by many good men,
sincerely opposed to slavery, as a struggle
against, and in disregard of, the Constitution
itself. And it is the very thing that will
greatly endanger our cause, if it be not kept
out of our national convention. There is
another thing our friends are doing which
gives me some uneasiness. It is their leaning
toward “popular sovereignty.” There are
three substantial objections to this. First, no
party can command respect which sustains
this year what it opposed last. Secondly,
Douglas (who is the most dangerous enemy
of liberty, because the most insidious one)
would have little support in the North, and
by consequence, no capital to trade on in the
South, if it were not for his friends thus mag-
nifying him and his humbug. But lastly, and
chiefly, Douglas's popular sovereignty, ac-
cepted by the public mind as a just principle,
nationalizes slavery, and revives the African
slave-trade inevitably. Taking slaves into
new Territories, and buying slaves in Africa,
are identical things, identical rights or identi-
cal wrongs, and the argument which estab-
lishes one will establish the other. Try a
thousand years for a sound reason why Con-
gress shall not hinder the people of Kansas
from having slaves, and when you have found
it, it will be an equally good one why Con-
gress should not hinder the people of Georgia
from importing slaves from Africa. — Letter
to Samuel Galloway; July 28, 1859.
6 8I


HIS is an idea, I suppose, which has
arisen in Judge Douglas's mind from
his peculiar structure. I suppose the institu-
tion of slavery really looks small to him. He
is so put up by nature that a lash upon his
back would hurt him, but a lash upon any-
body else's back does not hurt him. That is
the build of the man, and consequently he
looks upon the matter of slavery in this un-
important light.
Judge Douglas ought to remember, when
he is endeavoring to force this policy upon the
American people, that while he is put up in
that way, a good many are not. He ought to
remember that there was once in this country
a man by the name of Thomas Jefferson, sup-
posed to be a Democrat — a man whose
principles and policy are not very prevalent
amongst Democrats to-day, it is true; but
that man did not take exactly this view of the
insignificance of the element of slavery which
our friend Judge Douglas does. In contem-
plation of this thing, we all know he was led
to exclaim, “I tremble for my country when
I remember that God is just 1” We know
how he looked upon it when he thus expressed
himself. There was danger to this country,
danger of the avenging justice of God, in that
little unimportant popular-sovereignty ques-
tion of Judge Douglas. He supposed there was
a question of God's eternal justice wrapped
up in the enslaving of any race of men, or
any ma" and that those who did so braved

82


the arm of Jehovah — that when a nation thus
dared the Almighty, every friend of that na-
tion had cause to dread his wrath. Choose
ye between Jefferson and Douglas as to what
is the true view of this element among us.
Then I say if this principle is established,
that there is no wrong in slavery, and whoever
wants it has a right to have it; that it is a
matter of dollars and cents; a sort of question
as to how they shall deal with brutes; that
between us and the negro here there is no
sort of question, but that at the South the
question is between the negro and the croco-
dile; that it is a mere matter of policy; that
there is a perfect right, according to interest,
to do just as you please — when this is done,
where this doctrine prevails, the miners and
sappers will have formed public opinion for
the slave-trade. They will be ready for Jeff
Davis and Stephens, and other leaders of
that company, to sound the bugle for the re-
vival of the slave-trade, for the second Dred
Scott decision, for the flood of slavery to be
poured over the free States, while we shall be
here tied down and helpless, and run over like
sheep. — Speech at Columbus, Ohio; Sep-
tember 16, 1859.
A* . . . Memphis, he [Judge Douglas]
declared that in all contests between the
negro and the white man, he was for the white
83


man, but that in all questions between the
negro and the crocodile he was for the
The first inference seems to be that if you
do not enslave the negro you are wronging the
white man in some way or other; and that
whoever is opposed to the negro being en-
slaved is, in some way or other, against the
white man. Is not that a falsehood? If there
was a necessary conflict between the white
man and the negro, I should be for the white
man as much as Judge Douglas; but I say
there is no such necessary conflict. I say that
there is room enough for us all to be free, and
that it not only does not wrong the white man
that the negro should be free, but it positively
wrongs the mass of the white men that the
negro should be enslaved; that the mass of
white men are really injured by the effects of
slave-labor in the vicinity of the fields of their
own labor. . . .
The other branch of it is, that in a struggle
between the negro and the crocodile, he is for
the negro. Well, I don't know that there is
any struggle between the negro and the croco-
dile, either. I suppose that if a crocodile (or,
as we old Ohio River boatmen used to call
them, alligators) should come across a white
man, he would kill him if he could, and so he
would a negro. But what, at last, is this prop-
osition? I believe that it is a sort of propo-
si- proportion, which may be stated
e negro is to the white man, so
84


is the crocodile to the negro; and as the negro
may rightfully treat the crocodile as a beast or
reptile, so the white man may rightfully treat
the negro as a beast or reptile.” That is
really the point of all that argument of his.
Now, my brother Kentuckians, who believe
in this, you ought to thank Judge Douglas for
having put that in a much more taking way
than any of yourselves have done.
I think that there is a real popular sover-
eignty in the world. I think a definition of
popular sovereignty, in the abstract, would
be about this — that each man shall do pre-
cisely as he pleases with himself, and with all
those things which exclusively concern him.
Applied in government, this principle would
be, that a general government shall do all
those things which pertain to it, and all the
local governments shall do precisely as they
please in respect to those matters which ex-
clusively concern them.
Labor is the great source from which nearly
all, if not all, human comforts and necessities
are drawn. There is a difference in opinion
about the elements of labor in society. Some
men assume that there is a necessary connec-
tion between capital and labor, and that con-
nection draws within it the whole of the labor
of the community. They assume that nobody
works unless capital excites him to work.
They begin next to consider what is the best
85


way. They say there are but two ways — one
is to hire men and to allure them to labor by
their consent; the other is to buy the men and
drive them to it, and that is slavery. Having
assumed that, they proceed to discuss the
question of whether the laborers themselves
are better off in the condition of slaves or of
hired laborers, and they usually decide that
they are better off in the condition of slaves.
In the first place, I say that the whole thing
is a mistake. That there is a certain relation
between capital and labor, I admit. That it
does exist, and rightfully exists, I think is true.
That men who are industrious and sober and
honest in the pursuit of their own interests
should after a while accumulate capital, and
after that should be allowed to enjoy it in
peace, and also if they should choose, when
they have accumulated it, to use it to save
themselves from actual labor, and hire other
people to labor for them, is right. In doing
so, they do not wrong the man they employ,
for they find men, who have not their own
land to work upon, or shops to work in, and
who are benefited by working for others —
hired laborers, receiving their capital for it.
Thus a few men that own capital hire a few
others, and these establish the relation of
capital and labor rightfully — a relation of
which I make no complaint. But I insist that
that relation, after all, does not embrace more
than one eighth of the labor of the country.
a so


fugitive-slave law, because the Constitution
requires us, as I understand it, not to withhold
such a law. But we must prevent the out-
spreading of the institution, because neither
the Constitution nor general welfare requires
us to extend it. We must prevent the revival
of the African slave-trade, and the enacting
by Congress of a territorial slave-code. We
must prevent each of these things being done
by either congresses or courts. The people
of these United States are the rightful masters
of both congresses and courts, not to over-
throw the Constitution, but to overthrow the
men who pervert the Constitution.
To do these things we must employ instru-
mentalities. We must hold conventions; we
must adopt platforms, if we conform to ordi-
nary custom; we must nominate candidates;
and we must carry elections. . . . I should
be glad to have some of the many good and
able and noble men of the South to place
themselves where we can confer upon them
the high honor of an election upon one or the
other end of our ticket. It would do my soul
good to do that thing. It would enable us to
teach them that, inasmuch as we select one of
their own number to carry out our principles,
we are free from the charge that we mean
more than we say. — Speech at Cincinnati;
September 17, 1859.
- 88


Fº the first appearance of man upon
the earth down to very recent times,
the words “stranger” and “enemy” were
quite or almost synonymous. Long after
civilized nations had defined robbery and
murder as high crimes, and had affixed severe
punishments to them, when practiced among
and upon their own people respectively, it
was deemed no offense, but even meritorious,
to rob and murder and enslave strangers,
whether as nations or as individuals. Even
yet, this has not totally disappeared. The
man of the highest moral cultivation, in spite
of all which abstract principle can do, likes
him whom he does know much better than
him whom he does not know. To correct the
evils, great and small, which spring from
want of sympathy and from positive enmity
among strangers, as nations or as individuals,
is one of the highest functions of civilization.
To this end our agricultural fairs contribute
in no small degree. They render more pleas-
ant, and more strong, and more durable the
bond of social and political union among us.
The effect of thorough cultivation upon the
farmer's own mind, and in reaction through
his mind back upon his business, is perhaps
quite equal to any other of its effects. Every
man is proud of what he does well, and no
man is proud of that he does not well. With
the former his heart is in his work, and he will
do twice as much of it with less fatigue; the
89


such relation between capital and labor as
assumed; that there is no such thing as a free
man being fatally fixed for life in the condition
of a hired laborer; that both these assump-
tions are false, and all inferences from them
groundless. They hold that labor is prior to,
and independent of, capital; that, in fact,
capital is the fruit of labor, and could never
have existed if labor had not first existed;
that labor can exist without capital, but that
capital could never have existed without
labor. Hence they hold that labor is the
superior — greatly the superior — of capital.
They do not deny that there is, and prob-
ably always will be, a relation between labor
and capital. The error, as they hold, is in
assuming that the whole labor of the world
exists within that relation. A few men own
capital; and that few avoid labor themselves,
and with their capital hire or buy another few
to labor for them. A large majority belong
to neither class — neither work for others,
nor have others working for them. Even in
all our slave States except South Carolina, a
majority of the whole people of all colors are
neither slaves nor masters. In these free
States, a large majority are neither hirers nor
hired. Men, with their families — wives,
sons, and daughters — work for themselves,
on their farms, in their houses, and in their
shops, taking the whole product to themselves,
and asking no favors of capital on the one
hand, nor of hirelings or slaves on the other.
9I


It is not forgotten that a considerable number
of persons mingle their own labor with capi-
tal — that is, labor with their own hands, and
also buy slaves or hire free men to labor for
them; but this is only a mixed, and not a
distinct, class. No principle stated is dis-
turbed by the existence of this mixed class.
Again, as has already been said, the oppo-
nents of the “mud-sill” theory insist that
there is not, of necessity, any such thing as
the free hired laborer being fixed to that con-
dition for life. There is demonstration for
saying this. Many independent men in this
assembly doubtless a few years ago were
hired laborers. And their case is almost, if
not quite, the general rule.
The prudent, penniless beginner in the
world labors for wages awhile, saves a sur-
plus with which to buy tools or land for him-
self, then labors on his own account another
while, and at length hires another new begin-
ner to help him. This, say its advocates, is
free labor — the just, and generous, and
prosperous system, which opens the way for
all, gives hope to all, and energy, and prog-
ress, and improvement of condition to all.
If any continue through life in the condition
of the hired laborer, it is not the fault of the
system, but because of either a dependent
nature which prefers it, or improvidence,
folly, or singular misfortune. I have said this
much about the elements of labor generally,
as introductory to the consideration of a new
l
92


phase which that element is in process of
assuming. The old general rule was that
educated people did not perform manual
labor. They managed to eat their bread, leav-
ing the toil of producing it to the uneducated.
This was not an insupportable evil to the
working bees, so long as the class of drones
remained very small. But now, especially in
these free States, nearly all are educated —
quite too nearly all to leave the labor of the
uneducated in any wise adequate to the sup-
port of the whole. It follows from this that
henceforth educated people must labor.
Otherwise, education itself would become a
positive and intolerable evil. No country can
sustain in idleness more than a small per-
centage of its numbers. The great majority
must labor at something productive. From
these premises the problem springs, “How
can labor and education be the most satis-
factorily combined?”
By the “mud-sill” theory it is assumed that
labor and education are incompatible, and
any practical combination of them impossible.
According to that theory, a blind horse upon
a tread-mill is a perfect illustration of what a
laborer should be — all the better for being
blind, that he could not kick understandingly.
According to that theory, the education of
laborers is not only useless but pernicious and
dangerous. In fact, it is, in some sort, deemed
a misfortune that laborers should have heads
at all. Those same heads are regarded as
93


explosive materials, only to be safely kept in
damp places, as far as possible from that
peculiar sort of fire which ignites them. A
Yankee who could invent a strong-handed
man without a head would receive the ever-
lasting gratitude of the “mud-sill” advocates.
But free labor says, “No.” Free labor
argues that as the Author of man makes every
individual with one head and one pair of
hands, it was probably intended that heads
and hands should co-operate as friends, and
that that particular head should direct and
control that pair of hands. As each man has
one mouth to be fed, and one pair of hands to
furnish food, it was probably intended that
that particular pair of hands should feed that
particular mouth — that each head is the
natural guardian, director, and protector of
the hands and mouth inseparably connected
with it; and that being so, every head should
be cultivated and improved by whatever will
add to its capacity for performing its charge.
In one word, free labor insists on universal
education.
Erelong the most valuable of all arts will
be the art of deriving a comfortable subsist-
ence from the smallest area of soil. No com-
munity whose every member possesses this
art, can ever be the victim of oppression in
any of its forms. Such community will be
alike independent of crowned kings, money
kings, and land kings.
94


It is said an Eastern monarch once charged
his wise men to invent him a sentence to be
ever in view, and which should be true and
appropriate in all times and situations. They
presented him the words, “And this, too,
shall pass away.” How much it expresses!
How chastening in the hour of pride! How
consoling in the depths of affliction “And
this, too, shall pass away.” And yet, let us
hope, it is not quite true. Let us hope, rather,
that by the best cultivation of the physical
world beneath and around us, and the intel-
lectual and moral world within us, we shall
secure an individual, social, and political pros-
perity and happiness, whose course shall be
onward and upward, and which, while the
earth endures, shall not pass away. — Ad-
dress at Wisconsin State Agricultural Fair;
September 30, 1859.
B". you Democrats are for the Union; and
you greatly fear the success of the Repub-
licans would destroy the Union. Why? Do
the Republicans declare against the Union?
nothing like it. Your own statement of it
is that if the Black Republicans elect a Presi-
dent, you “won’t stand it.” You will break
up the Union. If we shall constitutionally
elect a President, it will be our duty to see
that you submit. Old John Brown has been
executed for treason against a State. We
95


cannot object, even though he agreed with
us in thinking slavery wrong. That cannot
excuse violence, bloodshed, and treason. It
could avail him nothing that he might think
himself right. So, if we constitutionally elect
a President, and therefore you undertake to
destroy the Union, it will be our duty to deal
with you as old John Brown has been dealt
with. We shall try to do our duty. We hope
and believe that in no section will a majority
so act as to render such extreme measures
necessary. — Speech at Leavenworth, Kan.,
December 5, 1859.
S Plato had for the immortality of the
soul, so Young America has “a pleasing
hope, a fond desire — a longing after” ter-
ritory. He has a great passion — a perfect
rage—for the new ; particularly new men
for office, and the new earth mentioned in the
Revelations, in which, being no more sea,
there must be about three times as much land
as in the present. He is a great friend of
humanity; and his desire for land is not self-
ish, but merely an impulse to extend the area
of freedom. He is very anxious to fight for
the liberation of enslaved nations and colo-
nies, provided, always, they have land, and
have not any liking for his interference. As
to those who have no land, and would be glad
of help from any quarter, he considers they
an o wait a few hundred years longer.
96


In knowledge he is particularly rich. He
knows all that can possibly be known; in-
clines to believe in spiritual rappings, and is
the unquestioned inventor of “Manifest Des-
tiny.” His horror is for all that is old, particu-
larly “Old Fogy”; and if there be anything
old which he can endure, it is only old whisky
and old tobacco.
If the said Young America really is, as he
claims to be, the owner of all present, it must
be admitted that he has considerable advan-
tage of Old Fogy. Take, for instance, the
first of all fogies, Father Adam. There he
stood, a very perfect physical man, as poets
and painters inform us; but he must have
been very ignorant, and simple in his habits.
He had had no sufficient time to learn much
by observation, and he had no near neighbors
to teach him anything. No part of his break-
fast had been brought from the other side of
the world; and it is quite probable he had no
conception of the world having any other side.
In all these things, it is very plain, he was no
equal of Young America; the most that can
be said is, that according to his chance he
may have been quite as much of a man as his
very self-complacent descendant. Little as
was what he knew, let the youngster discard
all he has learned from others, and then show,
if he can, any advantage on his side. In the
way of land and live-stock, Adam was quite
in the ascendant. He had dominion over all
the earth, and all the living things upon and
7 97


round about it. The land has been sadly
divided out since; but never fret, Young
America will re-annex it.
The great difference between Young Amer-
ica and Old Fogy is the result of discoveries,
inventions, and improvements. These, in
turn, are the result of observation, reflection,
and experiment. . . . All nature — the whole
world, material, moral, and intellectual — is
a mine; and in Adam's day it was a wholly
unexplored mine. Now, it was the destined
work of Adam's race to develop, by discov-
eries, inventions, and improvements, the hid-
den treasures of this mine. But Adam had
nothing to turn his attention to the work.
If he should do anything in the way of in-
ventions, he had first to invent the art of
invention, the instance, at least, if not the
habit, of observation and reflection. As
might be expected, he seems not to have
been a very observing man at first; for it
appears he went about naked a considerable
length of time before he ever noticed that
obvious fact. But when he did observe it,
the observation was not lost upon him; for
it immediately led to the first of all inventions
of which we have any direct account — the
fig-leaf apron.
The inclination to exchange thoughts with
one another is probably an original impulse
of our nature. If I be in pain, I wish to let
you know it, and to ask your sympathy and
assistance; and my pleasurable emotions also
98


as the mother of all “sewing-societies,” and
the first and most perfect “World's Fair,”
all inventions and all inventors then in the
world being on the spot. . . .
But speech alone, valuable as it ever has
been and is, has not advanced the condition
of the world much. This is abundantly evi-
dent when we look at the degraded condition
of all those tribes of human creatures who
have no considerable additional means of
communicating thoughts. Writing, the art of
communicating thoughts to the mind through
the eye, is the great invention of the world.
Great is the astonishing range of analysis and
combination which necessarily underlies the
most crude and general conception of it —
great, very great, in enabling us to converse
with the dead, the absent, and the unborn,
at all distances of time and space; and great,
not only in its direct benefits, but greatest help
to all other inventions. . . . The precise
period at which writing was invented is not
known, but it certainly was as early as the
time of Moses; from which we may safely
infer that its inventors were very old
fogies. . . .
When we remember that words are sounds
merely, we shall conclude that the idea of
representing those sounds by marks, so that
whoever should at any time after see the
marks would understand what sounds they
meant, was a bold and ingenious conception,
not likely to occur to one man in a million in
IOo


the run of a thousand years. And when it
did occur, a distinct mark for each word, giv-
ing twenty thousand different marks first to
be learned, and afterward to be remembered,
would follow as the second thought, and
would present such a difficulty as would lead
to the conclusion that the whole thing was
impracticable. But the necessity still would
exist; and we may readily suppose that the
idea was conceived, and lost, and reproduced,
and dropped, and taken up again and again,
until at last the thought of dividing sounds
into parts, and making a mark, not to repre-
sent a whole sound, but only a part of one,
and then of combining those marks, not very
many in number, upon principles of permu-
tation, so as to represent any and all of the
whole twenty thousand words, and even any
additional number, was somehow conceived
and pushed into practice. This was the in-
vention of phonetic writing, as distinguished
from the clumsy picture-writing of some of
the nations. That it was difficult of concep-
tion and execution is apparent, as well by the
foregoing reflection, as the fact that so many
tribes of men have come down from Adam’s
time to our own without ever having possessed
it. Its utility may be conceived by the reflec-
tion that to it we owe everything which dis-
tinguishes us from savages. Take it from us,
and the Bible, all history, all science, all gov-
ernment, all commerce, and nearly all social
intercourse go with it. . . .
IOI


Printing came in 1436, or nearly three
thousand years after writing. . . . It is but
the other half, and in reality the better half,
of writing; and . . . both together are but
the assistants of speech in the communication
of thoughts between man and man. When
man was possessed of speech alone, the chances
of invention, discovery, and improvement
were very limited; but by the introduction of
each of these they were greatly multiplied.
When writing was invented, any important
observation likely to lead to a discovery had
at least a chance of being written down, and
consequently a little chance of never being
forgotten, and of being seen and reflected
upon by a much greater number of persons;
and thereby the chances of a valuable hint
being caught proportionately augmented. By
this means the observation of a single indi-
vidual might lead to an important invention
years, and even centuries, after he was dead.
In one word, by means of writing, the seeds
of invention were more permanently pre-
served and more widely sown. And yet for
three thousand years during which printing
remained undiscovered after writing was in
use, it was only a small portion of the people
who could write, or read writing; and con-
sequently the field of invention, though much
extended, still continued very limited. At
length printing came. It gave ten thousand
copies of any written matter quite as cheaply
as ten were given before; and consequently
IO2


~
l
is, in this connection, a curious fact that a
new country is most favorable – almost
necessary — to the emancipation of thought,
and the consequent advancement of civiliza-
tion and the arts. . . . In anciently inhabited
countries, the dust of ages — a real, down-
right old-fogyism — seems to settle upon and
smother the intellect and energies of man. It
is in this view that I have mentioned the dis-
covery of America as an event greatly favor-
ing and facilitating useful discoveries and
inventions. Next came the patent laws.
These began in England in 1624, and in this
country with the adoption of our Constitution.
Before then any man [might] instantly use
what another man had invented, so that the
inventor had no special advantage from his
invention. The patent system changed this,
secured to the inventor for a limited time ex-
clusive use of his inventions, and thereby
added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius
in the discovery and production of new and
useful things. – Lecture on “Discoveries, In-
ventions, and Improvements,” before the Spring-
field (Ill.) Library Association; February 22,
1860.
ND now, if they would listen, – as I sup-
pose they will not, — I would address a
few words to the Southern people. . . .
You say we are sectional. We deny it.
T an issue; and the burden of
IoA


proof is upon you. You produce your proof;
and what is it? Why, that our party has no
existence in your section — gets no votes in
your section. The fact is substantially true;
but does it prove the issue? If it does, then
in case we should, without change of principle,
begin to get votes in your section, we should
thereby cease to be sectional. You cannot
escape this conclusion; and yet, are you will-
ing to abide by it? . . .
The fact that we get no votes in your sec-
tion is a fact of your making, and not of ours.
And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is
primarily yours, and remains so until you
show that we repel you by some wrong prin-
ciple or practice. If we do repel you by any
wrong principle or practice, the fault is ours;
but this brings you to where you ought to have
started — to a discussion of the right or wrong
of our principle. If our principle, put in
practice, would wrong your section for the
benefit of ours, or for any other object, then
our principle, and we with it, are sectional,
and are justly opposed and denounced as such.
Meet us, then, on the question of whether
our principle, put in practice, would wrong
your section; and so meet us as if it were pos-
sible that something may be said on our side.
Do you accept the challenge? No! Then
you really believe that the principle which
“our fathers who framed the government
under which we live” thought so clearly right
as to adopt it, and indorse it again and again,
IoS


upon their official oaths, is in fact so clearly
wrong as to demand your condemnation with-
out a moment's consideration. . . .
Again, you say we have made the slavery
question more prominent than it formerly was.
We deny it. We admit that it is more promi-
nent, but we deny that we made it so. It was
not we, but you, who discarded the old policy
of the fathers. We resisted, and still resist,
your innovation; and thence comes the
greater prominence of the question. Would
you have that question reduced to its former
proportions? Go back to that old policy.
What has been will be again, under the same
conditions. If you would have the peace of
the old times, readopt the precepts and policy
of the old times. . . .
But you will break up the Union rather
than submit to a denial of your constitutional
rights.
That has a somewhat reckless sound; but
it would be palliated, if not fully justified,
were we proposing, by the mere force of num-
bers, to deprive you of some right plainly
written down in the Constitution. But we
are proposing no such thing.
When you make these declarations you
have a specific and well-understood allusion
to an assumed constitutional right of yours
to take slaves into the Federal Territories,
and to hold them there as property. But no
such right is specifically written in the Con-
stitution. That instrument is literally silent
Ioë


about any such right. We, on the contrary,
deny that such a right has any existence in
the Constitution, even by implication.
Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that
you will destroy the government, unless you
be allowed to construe and force the Consti-
tution as you please, on all points in dispute
between you and us. You will rule or ruin
in all events. . . .
But you will not abide the election of a
Republican president In that supposed
event, you say, you will destroy the Union;
and then, you say, the great crime of having
destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool.
A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and
mutters through his teeth, “Stand and de-
liver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be
a murderer!”
Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet
afford to let it alone where it is, because that
much is due to the necessity arising from its
actual presence in the nation; but can we,
while our votes will prevent it, allow it to
spread into the national Territories and to
overrun us here in these free States?
If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us
stand by our duty fearlessly and effectively.
Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical
contrivances where with we are so industri-
ously plied and belabored — contrivances
such as groping for some middle ground be-
tween the right and the wrong; vain as the
Io'ſ


a property basis. What lessens the value of
property is opposed; what enhances its value
is favored. Public opinion at the South re-
gards slaves as property, and insists upon
treating them like other property.
On the other hand, the free States carry on
their government on the principle of the equal-
ity of men. We think slavery is morally
wrong, and a direct violation of that principle.
We all think it wrong. It is clearly proved, I
think, by natural theology, apart from revela-
tion. Every man, black, white, or yellow, has
a mouth to be fed, and two hands with which
to feed it — and bread should be allowed to
go to that mouth without controversy.
Slavery is wrong in its effect upon white
people and free labor. It is the only thing
that threatens the Union. It makes what
Senator Seward has been much abused for
calling an “irrepressible conflict.” When
they get ready to settle it, we hope they will
let us know. Public opinion settles every
question here; any policy to be permanent
must have public opinion at the bottom —
something in accordance with the philosophy
of the human mind as it is. The property
basis will have its weight. The love of prop-
erty and a consciousness of right or wrong
have conflicting places in our organization,
which often make a man’s course seem
crooked, his conduct a riddle.
Some men would make it a question of in-
difference, neither right nor wrong, merely
Io9


plain as can be found to express their mean-
ing. In all matters but this of slavery the
framers of the Constitution used the very
clearest, shortest, and most direct language.
But the Constitution alludes to slavery three
times without mentioning it once 1 The
language used becomes ambiguous, round-
about, and mystical. They speak of the “im-
migration of persons,” and mean the importa-
tion of slaves, but do not say so. In estab-
lishing a basis of representation they say “all
other persons,” when they mean to say slaves.
Why did they not use the shortest phrase?
In providing for the return of fugitives they
say “persons held to service or labor.” If
they had said “slaves,” it would have been
plainer and less liable to misconstruction.
Why did n’t they do it? We cannot doubt
that it was done on purpose. Only one reason
is possible, and that is supplied us by one of
the framers of the Constitution — and it is
not possible for man to conceive of any other.
They expected and desired that the system
would come to an end, and meant that when
it did the Constitution should not show that
there ever had been a slave in this good free
country of ours.
I am glad to see that a system of labor pre-
vails in New England under which laborers
can strike when they want to, where they are
not obliged to work under all circumstances,
and are not tied down and obliged to labor
8 II3


desire that if you get too thick here, and find
it hard to better your condition on this soil,
you may have a chance to strike out and go
somewhere else, where you may not be de-
graded, nor have your family corrupted by
forced rivalry with negro slaves. I want you
to have a clean bed and no snakes in it ! Then
you can better your condition, and so it may
go on and on in one ceaseless round so long
as man exists on the face of the earth. —
Speech at New Haven; March 6, 1860.
I HAVE received the speech and book
which you sent me. . . . Both seem to be
well written, and contain many things with
which I could agree, and some with which I
could not. A specimen of the latter is the dec-
laration, in the closing remarks upon the
“speech,” that the institution is a “neces-
sity” imposed on us by the negro race. That
the going many thousand miles, seizing a
set of savages, bringing them here, and mak-
ing slaves of them is a necessity imposed on
us by them involves a species of logic to which
my mind will scarcely assent. — Letter to
C. H. Fisher; August 27, 1860.
I APPRECIATE your motive when you
suggest the propriety of my writing for
the public something disclaiming all intention
to interfere with slaves or slavery in the States;
but in my judgment it would do no good. I
II5


on “passional attraction.” By the way, in
what consists the special sacredness of a
State? I speak not of the position assigned
to a State in the Union by the Constitution;
for that, by the bond, we all recognize. That
position, however, a State cannot carry out
of the Union with it. I speak of that assumed
primary right of a State to rule all which is
less than itself, and ruin all which is larger
than itself. If a State and a county, in a given
case, should be equal in extent of territory,
and equal in number of inhabitants, in what,
as a matter of principle, is the State better
than the county? Would an exchange of
names be an exchange of rights upon princi-
ple? On what rightful principle may a State,
being not more than one-fiftieth part of the
nation in soil and population, break up the
nation and then coerce a proportionally larger
subdivision of itself in the most arbitrary way?
What mysterious right to play tyrant is con-
ferred on a district of country with its people,
by merely calling it a State? Fellow-citizens,
I am not asserting anything; I am merely
asking questions for you to consider. – Re-
marks to the Indiana Legislature; February
12, 1861.
I AGREE with you, Mr. Chairman, that the
working-men are the basis of all govern-
ments, for the plain reason that they are the
more numerous. . . .
Mr. Chairman, I hold that while man exists
II7


it is his duty to improve not only his own con-
dition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind;
and therefore, without entering upon the
details of the question, I will simply say that
I am for those means which will give the
greatest good to the greatest number.
In regard to the homestead law, I have to
say that in so far as the government lands can
be disposed of, I am in favor of cutting up the
wild lands into parcels, so that every poor
man may have a home.
In regard to the Germans and foreigners, I
esteem them no better than other people, nor
any worse. It is not my nature, when I see
a people borne down by the weight of their
shackles — the oppression of tyranny — to
make their life more bitter by heaping upon
them greater burdens; but rather would I
do all in my power to raise the yoke than to
add anything that would tend to crush them.
Inasmuch as our country is extensive and
new, and the countries of Europe are densely
populated, if there are any abroad who desire
to make this the land of their adoption, it is
not in my heart to throw aught in their way
to prevent them from coming to the United
States. – Remarks to Germans at Cincinnati;
February 12, 1861.
HERE is no crisis but an artificial one.
What is there now to warrant the con-
dition of affairs presented by our friends over
II8


whole country, has acquired its greatness),
unless it would be that thing for which the
Union itself was made. I understand that
the ship is made for the carrying and preser-
vation of the cargo; and so long as the ship
is safe with the cargo, it shall not be aban-
doned. This Union shall never be abandoned,
unless the possibility of its existence shall
cease to exist without the necessity of throw-
ing passengers and cargo overboard. – Re-
marks at New York; February 20, 1861.
AW. back in my childhood, the earliest
days of my being able to read, I got
hold of a small book, . . . Weems’ “Life of
Washington.” I remember all the accounts
there given of the battle-fields and struggles
[of our forefathers] for the liberties of the
country. . . . I recollect thinking then, boy
even though I was, that there must have been
something more than common that these men
struggled for. I am exceedingly anxious that
that thing — that something even more than
national independence; that something that
held out a great promise to all the people of
the world to all time to come — I am exceed-
ingly anxious that this Union, the Constitu-
tion, and the liberties of the people shall be
perpetuated in accordance with the original
idea for which that struggle was made, and I
shall be most happy indeed if I shall be a
humble instrument in the hands of the Al-
I2I


mighty, and of this, his almost chosen people,
for perpetuating the object of that great strug-
gle. — Remarks to the Senate of New Jersey;
February 21, 1861.
IT was not the mere matter of separation
of the colonies from the motherland, but
that sentiment in the Declaration of Inde-
pendence which gave liberty not alone to the
people of this country, but hope to all the
world, for all future time. It was that which
gave promise that in due time the weights
would be lifted from the shoulders of all men,
and that all should have an equal chance.
This is the sentiment embodied in the Decla-
ration of Independence. Now, my friends,
can this country be saved on that basis? If
it can, I will consider myself one of the hap-
piest men in the world if I can help to save it.
If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it
will be truly awful. But if this country can-
not be saved without giving up that principle,
I was about to say I would rather be assas-
sinated on this spot than surrender it. – Re-
marks in Independence Hall, Philadelphia;
February 22, 1861.
I HOLD that, in contemplation of universal
law and of the Constitution, the Union of
these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is im-
plied, if not expressed, in the fundamental
I22


law of all national governments. It is safe to
assert that no government proper ever had a
provision in its organic law for its own termi-
nation. Continue to execute all the express
provisions of our National Constitution, and
the Union will endure forever — it being im-
possible to destroy it except by some action
not provided for in the instrument itself.
Again, if the United States be not a govern-
ment proper, but an association of States in
the nature of contract merely, can it, as a con-
tract, be peaceably unmade by less than all
the parties who made it? One party to a
contract may violate it — break it, so to
speak; but does it not require all to lawfully
rescind it? . . .
It follows from these views that no State
upon its own mere motion can lawfully get
out of the Union; that resolves and ordi-
nances to that effect are legally void; and
that acts of violence, within any State or
States, against the authority of the United
States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary,
according to circumstances.
I therefore consider that, in view of the
Constitution and the laws, the Union is un-
broken; and to the extent of my ability I
shall take care, as the Constitution itself ex-
pressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the
Union be faithfully executed in all the States.
Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty
on my part; and I shall perform it so far as
practicable, unless my rightful masters, the
I23


American people, shall withhold the requisite
means, or in some authoritative manner
direct the contrary. I trust this will not be
regarded as a menace, but only as the declared
purpose of the Union that it will constitution-
ally defend and maintain itself.
In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed
or violence; and there shall be none, unless
it be forced upon the national authority. The
power confided to me will be used to hold,
occupy, and possess the property and places
belonging to the government, and to collect
the duties and imposts; but beyond what
may be necessary for these objects, there will
be no invasion, no using of force against or
among the people anywhere. . . .
The mails, unless repelled, will continue to
be furnished in all parts of the Union. So far
as possible, the people everywhere shall have
that sense of perfect security which is most
favorable to calm thought and reflection.
Plainly, the central idea of secession is the
essence of anarchy. A majority held in re-
straint by constitutional checks and limita-
tions, and always changing easily with delib-
erate changes of popular opinions and senti-
ments, is the only true sovereign of a free
people. Whoever rejects it does, of necessity,
fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is
impossible; the rule of a minority, as a per-
manent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible;
so that, rejecting the majority principle, an-
I24


archy or despotism in some form is all that
is left.
Physically speaking, we cannot separate.
We cannot remove our respective sections
from each other, nor build an impassable wall
between them. A husband and wife may be
divorced, and go out of the presence and be-
yond the reach of each other; but the differ-
ent parts of our country cannot do this. They
cannot but remain face to face, and inter-
course, either amicable or hostile, must con-
tinue between them. Is it possible, then, to
make that intercourse more advantageous or
more satisfactory after separation than be-
fore ? Can aliens make treaties easier than
friends can make laws? Can treaties be more
faithfully enforced between aliens than laws
can among friends? Suppose you go to war,
you cannot fight always; and when, after
much loss on both sides, and no gain on either,
you cease fighting, the identical old questions
as to terms of intercourse are again upon you.
This country, with its institutions, belongs
to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they
shall grow weary of the existing government,
they can exercise their constitutional right of
amending it, or their revolutionary right to
dismember or overthrow it. . . .
Why should there not be a patient confi-
dence in the ultimate justice of the people?
Is there any better or equal hope in the world?
In our present differences is either party with-
I 25


is “sovereignty” in the political sense of the
term P Would it be far wrong to define it “a
political community without a political su-
perior”? Tested by this, no one of our States
except Texas ever was a sovereignty. And
even Texas gave up the character on coming
into the Union; by which act she acknowl-
edged the Constitution of the United States,
and the laws and treaties of the United States
made in pursuance of the Constitution, to be
for her the supreme law of the land. The
States have their status in the Union, and
they have no other legal status. If they break
from this, they can only do so against law
and by revolution. The Union, and not
themselves separately, procured their inde-
pendence and their liberty. By conquest or
purchase the Union gave each of them what-
ever of independence or liberty it has. The
Union is older than any of the States, and,
in fact, it created them as States. Originally
some dependent colonies made the Union,
and, in turn, the Union threw off their old
dependence for them, and made them States,
such as they are. Not one of them ever
had a State constitution independent of the
Union. . . .
This relative matter of national power and
State rights, as a principle, is no other than
the principle of generality and locality.
Whatever concerns the whole should be con-
fided to the whole — to the General Govern-
ment; while whatever concerns only the State
127


should be left exclusively to the State. This
is all there is of the original principle about
it. Whether the National Constitution in
defining boundaries between the two has ap-
plied the principle with exact accuracy, is not
to be questioned. We are all bound by that
defining, without question.
It might seem, at first thought, to be of
little difference whether the present move-
ment at the South be called “secession ” or
“rebellion.” The movers, however, will
understand the difference. At the beginning
they knew they could never raise their treason
to any respectable magnitude by any name
which implies violation of law. They knew
their people possessed as much of moral sense,
as much of devotion to law and order, and
as much pride in and reverence for the history
and government of their common country as
any other civilized and patriotic people.
They knew they could make no advancement
directly in the teeth of these strong and noble
sentiments. Accordingly, they commenced
by an insidious debauching of the public
mind. They invented an ingenious sophism
which, if conceded, was followed by perfectly
logical steps, through all the incidents, to the
complete destruction of the Union. The
sophism itself is that any State of the Union
may consistently with the National Constitu-
tion, and therefore lawfully and peacefully,
withdraw from the Union without the con-
sent of the Union or of any other State. The
I 28


little disguise that the supposed right is to be
exercised only for just cause, themselves to
be the sole judges of its justice, is too thin to
merit any notice.
With rebellion thus sugar-coated they have
been drugging the public mind of their section
for more than thirty years, and until at length
they have brought many good men to a will-
ingness to take up arms against the govern-
ment the day after some assemblage of men
have enacted the farcical pretense of taking
their State out of the Union, who could have
been brought to no such thing the day before.
This sophism derives much, perhaps the
whole, of its currency from the assumption
that there is some omnipotent and sacred su-
premacy pertaining to a State — to each State
of our Federal Union. Our States have
neither more nor less power than that reserved
to them in the Union by the Constitution —
no one of them ever having been a State out
of the Union. The original ones passed into
the Union even before they cast off their
British colonial dependence; and the new
ones each came into the Union directly from
a condition of dependence, excepting Texas.
. . . Nothing should ever be implied as law
which leads to unjust or absurd consequences.
The nation purchased with money the coun-
tries out of which several of these States were
formed. Is it just that they shall go off with-
out leave and without refunding? . . . The
nation is now in debt for money applied to the
9 I29


benefit of these so-called seceding States in
common with the rest. Is it just either that
creditors shall go unpaid or the remaining
States pay the whole 2 . . .
Again, if one State may secede, so may an-
other; and when all shall have seceded, none
is left to pay the debts. Is this quite just to
creditors? Did we notify them of this sage
view of ours when we borrowed their money?
If we now recognize this doctrine by allowing
the seceders to go in peace, it is difficult to see
what we can do if others choose to go or to
extort terms upon which they will promise to
remain.
The seceders insist that our Constitution
admits of secession. They have assumed to
make a national constitution of their own, in
which of necessity they have either discarded
or retained the right of secession as they insist
it exists in ours. If they have discarded it,
they thereby admit that on principle it ought
not to be in ours. If they have retained it by
their own construction of ours, they show that
to be consistent they must secede from one
another whenever they shall find it the easiest
way of settling their debts, or effecting any
other selfish or unjust object. The principle
itself is one of disintegration, and upon which
no government can possibly endure.
If all the States save one should assert the
power to drive that one out of the Union, it is
presumed the whole class of seceder politicians
would at once deny the power and denounce
I3o


the act as the greatest outrage upon State
right. But suppose that precisely the same
act, instead of being called “driving the one
out,” should be called “the seceding of the
others from that one,” it would be exactly
what the seceders claim to do, unless, indeed,
they make the point that the one, because it
is a minority, may rightfully do what the
others, because they are a majority, may not
rightfully do. These politicians are subtle
and profound on the rights of minorities.
They are not partial to that power which
made the Constitution, and speaks from the
preamble calling itself “We, the People.”
It may be affirmed without extravagance
that the free institutions we enjoy have devel-
oped the powers and improved the condition
of our whole people beyond any example in
the world. Of this we now have a striking
and impressive illustration. So large an
army as the government has now on foot was
never before known, without a soldier in it
but who has taken his place there of his own
free choice. But more than this, there are
many single regiments whose members, one
and another, possess full practical knowledge
of all the arts, sciences, professions, and what-
ever else, whether useful or elegant, is known
in the world; and there is scarcely one from
which there could not be selected a President,
a cabinet, a congress, and perhaps a court,
abundantly competent to administer the gov-
I31


ernment itself. Nor do I say this is not true
also in the army of our late friends, now ad-
versaries in this contest; but if it is, so much
better the reason why the government which
has conferred such benefits on both them and
us should not be broken up. Whoever in any
section proposes to abandon such a govern-
ment would do well to consider in deference
to what principle it is that he does it — what
better he is likely to get in its stead — whether
the substitute will give, or be intended to give,
so much of good to the people? There are
some foreshadowings on this subject. Our
adversaries have adopted some declarations
of independence in which, unlike the good
old one, penned by Jefferson, they omit the
words “all men are created equal.” Why?
They have adopted a temporary national con-
stitution, in the preamble of which, unlike
our good old one, signed by Washington, they
omit “We, the People,” and substitute, “We,
the deputies of the sovereign and independent
States.” Why? Why this deliberate press-
ing out of view the rights of men and the
authority of the people?
This is essentially a people's contest. On
the side of the Union it is a struggle for main-
taining in the world that form and substance
of government whose leading object is to
elevate the condition of men — to lift artifi-
cial weights from all shoulders; to clear the
paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all
an unfettered start and a fair chance in the
I32


race of life. Yielding to partial and temporary
departures, from necessity, this is the lead-
ing object of the government for whose ex-
istence we contend.
Our popular government has often been
called an experiment. Two points in it our
people have already settled — the successful
establishing and the successful administering
of it. One still remains — its successful
maintenance against a formidable internal
attempt to overthrow it. It is now for them
to demonstrate to the world that those who
can fairly carry an election can also suppress
a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and
peaceful successors of bullets; and that when
ballots have fairly and constitutionally de-
cided, there can be no successful appeal back
to bullets; that there can be no successful
appeal, except to ballots themselves, at suc-
ceeding elections. Such will be a great lesson
of peace: teaching men that what they cannot
take by an election, neither can they take it
by a war; teaching all the folly of being the
beginners of a war.
It was with the deepest regret that the exec-
utive found the duty of employing the war
power in defense of the government forced
upon him. He could but perform this duty
or surrender the existence of the government.
No compromise by public servants could, in
this case, be a cure; not that compromises are
I33


not often proper, but that no popular govern-
ment can long survive a marked precedent
that those who carry an election can only
save the government from immediate destruc-
tion by giving up the main point upon which
the people gave the election. The people
themselves, and not their servants, can safely
reverse their own deliberate decisions.
As a private citizen the executive could not
have consented that these institutions shall
perish; much less could he, in betrayal of so
vast and so sacred a trust as the free people
have confided to him. He felt that he had no
moral right to shrink, nor even to count the
chances of his own life in what might follow.
In full view of his great responsibility he has,
so far, done what he has deemed his duty.
You will now, according to your own judg-
ment, perform yours. He sincerely hopes
that your views and your actions may so ac-
cord with his, as to assure all faithful citizens
who have been disturbed in their rights of a
certain and speedy restoration to them, under
the Constitution and the laws.
And having thus chosen our course, with-
out guile and with pure purpose, let us renew
our trust in God, and go forward without fear
and with manly hearts. – Message to Congress
in Special Session; July 4, 1861.
MY DEAR SIR: Yours of the 17th is just
received; and coming from you, I con-
tonishes me. That you should object
I34


to my adhering to a law which you had as-
sisted in making and presenting to me less
than a month before is odd enough. But this
is a very small part. General Frémont's proc-
lamation as to confiscation of property and
the liberation of slaves is purely political and
not within the range of military law or neces-
sity. If a commanding general finds a neces-
sity to seize the farm of a private owner for a
pasture, an encampment, or a fortification, he
has the right to do so, and to so hold it as
long as the necessity lasts; and this is within
military law, because within military neces-
sity. But to say the farm shall no longer
belong to the owner, or his heirs forever, and
this as well when the farm is not needed for
military purposes as when it is, is purely
political, without the savor of military law
about it. And the same is true of slaves. If
the general needs them, he can seize them and
use them; but when the need is past, it is not
for him to fix their permanent future condi-
tion. That must be settled according to laws
made by law-makers, and not by military
proclamations. The proclamation in the
point in question is simply “dictatorship.”
It assumes that the general may do anything
he pleases — confiscate the lands and free the
slaves of loyal people, as well as of disloyal
ones. And going the whole figure, I have no
doubt, would be more popular with some
thoughtless people than that which has been
done ! But I cannot assume this reckless
I35


in the condition of a hired laborer. Both
these assumptions are false, and all inferences
from them are groundless.
Labor is prior to, and independent of, cap-
ital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and
could never have existed if labor had not first
existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and
deserves much the higher consideration. Cap-
ital has its rights, which are as worthy of pro-
tection as any other rights. Nor is it denied
that there is, and probably always will be, a
relation between labor and capital producing
mutual benefits. The error is in assuming
that the whole labor of the community exists
within that relation. A few men own capital,
and that few avoid labor themselves, and
with their capital hire or buy another few to
labor for them. A large majority belong to
neither class — neither work for others nor
have others working for them. In most of
the Southern States a majority of the whole
people, of all colors, are neither slaves nor
masters; while in the Northern a large ma-
jority are neither hirers nor hired. Men with
their families — wives, sons, and daughters
— work for themselves, on their farms, in
their houses, and in their shops, taking the
whole product to themselves, and asking no
favors of capital on the one hand, nor of hired
laborers or slaves on the other. It is not for-
gotten that a considerable number of persons
mingle their own labor with capital — that
is, they labor with their own hands and also
138


buy or hire others to labor for them; but this
is only a mixed and not a distinct class. No
principle stated is disturbed by the existence
of this mixed class.
Again, as has already been said, there is not,
of necessity, any such thing as the free hired
laborer being fixed to that condition for life.
Many independent men everywhere in these
States, a few years back in their lives, were
hired laborers. The prudent, penniless be-
ginner in the world labors for wages awhile,
saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land
for himself, then labors on his own account
another while, and at length hires another
new beginner to help him. This is the just
and generous and prosperous system which
opens the way to all — gives hope to all, and
consequent energy and progress and improve-
ment of condition to all. No men living are
more worthy to be trusted than those who toil
up from poverty — none less inclined to take
or touch aught which they have not honestly
earned. Let them beware of surrendering a
political power which they already possess,
and which, if surrendered, will surely be used
to close the door of advancement against such
as they, and to fix new disabilities and bur-
dens upon them, till all of liberty shall be lost.
From the first taking of our national census
to the last are seventy years; and we find our
population at the end of the period eight times
as great as it was at the beginning. The in-
crease of those other things which men deem
I39


desirable has been even greater. We thus
have, at one view, what the popular principle,
applied to government, through the machinery
of the States and the Union, has produced in
a given time; and also what, if firmly main-
tained, it promises for the future. There are
already among us those who, if the Union be
preserved, will live to see it contain 250,000,ooo.
The struggle of to-day is not altogether for
to-day — it is for a vast future also. With
a reliance on Providence all the more firm
and earnest, let us proceed in the great task
which events have devolved upon us. – An-
nual Message to Congress; December 3, 1861.
HAVE been, and am sincerely your friend;
and if, as such, I dare to make a sugges-
tion, I would say you are adopting the best
possible way to ruin yourself. “Act well
your part, there all the honor lies.” He who
does something at the head of one Regiment,
will eclipse him who does nothing at the head
of a hundred.
Your friend, as ever,
A. LINCOLN.
— Letter to Major-General David Hunter;
December 31, 1861.”
* On the outside of the envelope in which this letter
was found, General Hunter had written :
“The President's reply to my ugly letter." This lay
on his table a month after it was written, and when
finally sent was by a special conveyance, with the direc-
tion that it was only to be given to me when I was in a
good humor.”
I4o


obtain their freedom on this condition. I
suppose one of the principal difficulties in the
way of colonization is that the free colored
man cannot see that his comfort would be
advanced by it. . . . This is (I speak in no
unkind sense) an extremely selfish view of
the case. You ought to do something to help
those who are not so fortunate as yourselves.
There is an unwillingness on the part of our
people, harsh as it may be, for you free col-
ored people to remain with us. Now, if you
could give a start to the white people, you
would open a wide door for many to be made
free. If we deal with those who are not free
at the beginning, and whose intellects are
clouded by slavery, we have very poor ma-
terial to start with. If intelligent colored
men, such as are before me, would move in
this matter, much might be accomplished.
It is exceedingly important that we have men
at the beginning capable of thinking as
white men, and not those who have been
systematically oppressed. There is much to
encourage you. For the sake of your race
you should sacrifice something of your
present comfort for the purpose of being
as grand in that respect as the white people.
It is a cheering thought throughout life, that
something can be done to ameliorate the
condition of those who have been subject to
the hard usages of the world. It is difficult
to make a man miserable while he feels he
is worthy of himself and claims kindred to
I43


the great God who made him. — Address
to a Deputation of Colored Men; August 14,
1862.
Dº. SIR: I have just read yours of the
19th, addressed to myself through the
New York Tribune. If there be in it any
statements or assumptions of fact which I
may know to be erroneous, I do not, now
and here, controvert them. If there be in it
any inferences which I may believe to be
falsely drawn, I do not, now and here, argue
against them. If there be perceptible in it
an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it
in deference to an old friend whose heart I
have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I “seem to be pursuing,”
as you say, I have not meant to leave any one
in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it
the shortest way under the Constitution. The
sooner the national authority can be restored,
he nearer the Union will be “the Union as
it was.” If there be those who would not
save the Union unless they could at the same
time save slavery, I do not agree with them.
If there be those who would not save the
Union unless they could at the same time
destroy slavery, I do not agree with them.
My paramount object in this struggle is to
save the Union, and is not either to save or
to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union
I44


without freeing any slave, I would do it; and
if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I
would do it; and if I could save it by freeing
some and leaving others alone, I would also
do that. What I do about slavery and the
colored race, I do because I believe it helps
to save the Union; and what I forbear, I for-
bear because I do not believe it would help
to save the Union. I shall do less whenever
I shall believe what I am doing hurts the
cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall
believe doing more will help the cause. I
shall try to correct errors when shown to be
errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as
they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according
to my view of official duty; and I intend no
modification of my oft-expressed personal
wish that all men everywhere could be free. —
Letter to Horace Greeley; August 22, 1862. '
HE subject presented in the memorial
is one upon which I have thought much
for weeks past, and I may even say for months.
I am approached with the most opposite
opinions and advice, and that by religious
men who are equally certain that they repre-
sent the divine will. I am sure that either the
one or the other class is mistaken in that be-
lief, and perhaps in some respects both. I
hope it will not be irreverent for me to say
that if it is probable that God would reveal
IO I45


his will to others on a point so connected with
my duty, it might be supposed he would re-
veal it directly to me; for, unless I am more
deceived in myself than I often am, it is my
earnest desire to know the will of Providence
in this matter. And if I can learn what it is,
I will do it. These are not, however, the days
of miracles, and I suppose it will be granted
that I am not to expect a direct revelation.
I must study the plain physical facts of the
case, ascertain what is possible, and learn
what appears to be wise and right.
The subject is difficult, and good men do
not agree. . . . You know that the last ses-
sion of Congress had a decided majority of
antislavery men, yet they could not unite on
this policy. And the same is true of the re-
ligious people. Why, the rebel soldiers are
praying with a great deal more earnestness,
I fear, than our own troops, and expecting
God to favor their side. . . .
What good would a proclamation of eman-
cipation from me do, especially as we are now
situated? I do not want to issue a document
that the whole world will see must necessarily
be inoperative, like the Pope's bull against
the comet. Would my word free the slaves,
when I cannot even enforce the Constitution
in the rebel States? Is there a single court,
or magistrate, or individual that would be
influenced by it there? And what reason is
there to think it would have any greater effect
upon the slaves than the late law of Congress,
146


at the North, though not so much, I fear, as
you and those you represent imagine. Still,
some additional strength would be added in
that way to the war, and then, unquestionably,
it would weaken the rebels by drawing off
their laborers, which is of great importance;
but I am not so sure we could do much with
the blacks. If we were to arm them, I fear
that in a few weeks the arms would be in the
hands of the rebels; and, indeed, thus far
we have not had arms enough to equip our
white troops. I will mention another thing,
though it meet only your scorn and contempt.
There are fifty thousand bayonets in the
Union armies from the border slave States.
It would be a serious matter if, in conse-
quence of a proclamation such as you desire,
they should go over to the rebels. I do not
think they all would — not so many, indeed,
as a year ago, or as six months ago – not so
many to-day as yesterday. Every day in-
creases their Union feeling. They are also
getting their pride enlisted, and want to beat
the rebels. Let me say one thing more: I
think you should admit that we already have
an important principle to rally and unite the
people, in the fact that constitutional gov-
ernment is at stake. This is a fundamental
idea going down about as deep as anything.
Do not misunderstand me because I have
mentioned these objections. They indicate
the difficulties that have thus far prevented
my action in some such way as you desire. I
I48


have not decided against a proclamation of
liberty to the slaves, but hold the matter
under advisement; and I can assure you that
the subject is on my mind, by day and night,
more than any other. Whatever shall ap-
pear to be God's will, I will do. — Remarks
to Representatives of Chicago Churches; Sep-
tember 13, 1862.
O’. the first day of January, in the year of
our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within
any State or designated part of a State the
people whereof shall then be in rebellion
against the United States, shall be then,
thenceforward, and forever free; and the Ex-
ecutive Government of the United States,
including the military and naval authority
thereof, will recognize and maintain the free-
dom of such persons, and will do no act or
acts to repress such persons, or any of them,
in any efforts they may make for their actual
freedom. — Preliminary Emancipation Proc-
lamation; September 22, 1862.
N the very responsible position in which I
happen to be placed, being a humble in-
strument in the hands of our Heavenly Father,
as I am, and as we all are, to work out his
great purposes, I have desired that all my
works and acts may be according to his will,
I49


and that it might be so, I have sought his
aid; but if, after endeavoring to do my best
in the light which he affords me, I find my
efforts fail, I must believe that for some pur-
pose unknown to me, he wills it otherwise.
If I had had my way, this war would never
have been commenced. If I had been al-
lowed my way, this war would have been
ended before this; but we find it still con-
tinues, and we must believe that he permits
it for some wise purpose of his own, mysteri-
ous and unknown to us; and though with
our limited understandings we may not be
able to comprehend it, yet we cannot but
believe that he who made the world still
governs it. – Reply to an Address by Mrs.
Gurney; September 28, 1862.
THE will of God prevails. In great con-
tests each party claims to act in accord-
ance with the will of God. Both may be, and
one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and
against the same thing at the same time. In
the present civil war it is quite possible that
God’s purpose is something different from
the purpose of either party; and yet the
human instrumentalities, working just as they
do, are of the best adaptation to effect his
purpose. I am almost ready to say that this
is probably true; that God wills this contest,
and wills that it shall not end yet. By his
mere great power on the minds of the now
I5o


contestants, he could have either saved or
destroyed the Union without a human con-
test. Yet the contest began. And, having
begun, he could give the final victory to either
side any day. Yet the contest proceeds. –
Meditation on the Divine Will; September 30,
1862.
NATION may be said to consist of its
territory, its people, and its laws. The
territory is the only part which is of certain
durability. “One generation passeth away,
and another generation cometh, but the earth
abideth forever.” It is of the first impor-
tance to duly consider and estimate this ever-
enduring part. That portion of the earth's
surface which is owned and inhabited by the
people of the United States is well adapted
to be the home of one national family, and
it is not well adapted for two or more. Its
vast extent and its variety of climate and pro-
ductions are of advantage in this age for one
people, whatever they might have been in
former ages. Steam, telegraphs, and intelli-
gence have brought these to be an advanta-
geous combination for one united people. . . .
Our national strife springs not from our
permanent part, not from the land we in-
habit, not from our national homestead.
There is no possible severing of this but
would multiply, and not mitigate, evils among
us. In all its adaptations and aptitudes it
I51


demands union and abhors separation. In
fact, it would erelong force reunion, however
much of blood and treasure the separation
might have cost.
Our strife pertains to ourselves — to the
passing generations of men; and it can with-
out convulsion be hushed forever with the
passing of one generation.
In this view I recommend the adoption of
the following resolution and articles amenda-
tory to the Constitution of the United States
[and providing for compensated emanci-
pation].
Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history.
We of this Congress and this administration
will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No
personal significance or insignificance can
spare one or another of us. The fiery trial
through which we pass will light us down, in
honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.
We say we are for the Union. The world will
not forget that we say this. We know how
to save the Union. The world knows we do
know how to save it. We – even we here —
hold the power and bear the responsibility.
In giving freedom to the slave, we assure free-
dom to the free — honorable alike in what
we give and what we preserve. We shall
nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope
of earth. Other means may succeed; this
could not fail The way is plain, peaceful,
generous ºy which, if followed,


peace. It is said that the admission of West
Virginia is secession, and tolerated only be-
cause it is our secession. Well, if we call it
by that name, there is still difference enough
between secession against the Constitution
and secession in favor of the Constitution. I
believe the admission of West Virginia into
the Union is expedient. — Opinion on Ad-
mission of West Virginia into the Union;
December 31, 1862.
-
THA. Congress has power to regulate the
currency of the country can hardly
admit of a doubt, and that a judicious meas-
ure to prevent the deterioration of this cur-
rency by a reasonable taxation of bank circu-
lation or otherwise is needed, seems equally
clear. Independently of this general consider-
ation, it would be unjust to the people at
large to exempt banks enjoying the special
privilege of circulation from their just pro-
portion of the public burdens. – Message to
Congress on Issue of United States Notes;
January 17, 1863.
I KNOW and deeply deplore the sufferings
which the working-men at Manchester,
and in all Europe, are called to endure in
this crisis. It has been often and studiously
represented that the attempt to overthrow
this government, which was built upon the
foundation of human rights, and to substitute
I54


for it one which should rest exclusively on the
basis of human slavery, was likely to obtain
the favor of Europe. Through the action of
our disloyal citizens, the working-men of
Europe have been subjected to severe trials,
for the purpose of forcing their sanction to
that attempt. Under the circumstances, I
cannot but regard your decisive utterances
upon the question as an instance of sublime
Christian heroism which has not been sur-
passed in any age or in any country. It is
indeed an energetic and reinspiring assurance
of the inherent power of truth, and of the
ultimate and universal triumph of justice,
humanity, and freedom. I do not doubt that
the sentiments you have expressed will be
sustained by your great nation; and, on the
other hand, I have no hesitation in assuring
you that they will excite admiration, esteem,
and the most reciprocal feelings of friend-
ship among the American people. I hail this
interchange of sentiment, therefore, as an
augury that whatever else may happen, what-
ever misfortune may befall your country or
my own, the peace and friendship which now
exist between the two nations will be, as it
shall be my desire to make them, perpetual.
— Letter to the Workingmen of Manchester,
England; January 19, 1863.
ENERAL: I have placed you at the head
of the Army of the Potomac. Of course
I have done this upon what appear to me to
I55


again, could get any good out of an army
while such a spirit prevails in it; and now
beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but
with energy and sleepless vigilance go for-
ward and give us victories. – Letter to Major-
General Joseph Hooker; January 26, 1863.
Y DEAR SIR: Your note, by which
you, as general superintendent of the
United States Christian Commission, invite
me to preside at a meeting to be held this day
at the hall of the House of Representatives
in this city, is received.
While, for reasons which I deem sufficient,
I must decline to preside, I cannot withhold
my approval of the meeting and its worthy
objects. Whatever shall be sincerely, and in
God's name, devised for the good of the
soldier and seaman in their hard spheres of
duty, can scarcely fail to be blest. And what-
ever shall tend to turn our thoughts from the
unreasoning and uncharitable passions, preju-
dices, and jealousies incident to a great na-
tional trouble such as ours, and to fix them
upon the vast and long-enduring conse-
quences, for weal or for woe, which are to
result from the struggle, and especially to
strengthen our reliance on the Supreme Be-
ing for the final triumph of the right, cannot
but be well for us all.
The birthday of Washington and the
Christian Sabbath coinciding this year, and
suggesting together the highest interests of
I57


this life and of that to come, is most propi-
tious for the meeting proposed. – Letter to
Alexander Reed; February 22, 1863.
RUTH to speak, I do not appreciate this
matter of rank on paper as you officers
do. The world will not forget that you fought
the battle of Stone River, and it will never care
a fig whether you rank General Grant on
paper, or he so ranks you. — Letter to Major-
General Rosecrans; March 17, 1863.
I AM told you have at least thought of rais-
ing a negro military force. In my opinion
the country now needs no specific thing so
much as some man of your ability and posi-
tion to go to this work. When I speak of
your position, I mean that of an eminent
citizen of a slave State and himself a slave-
holder. The colored population is the great
available and yet unavailed of force for re-
storing the Union. The bare sight of fifty
thousand armed and drilled black soldiers
upon the banks of the Mississippi would end
the rebellion at once; and who doubts that
we can present that sight if we but take hold
in earnest? — Letter to Governor Andrew
Johnson, of Tennessee; March 26, 1863.
WHºs. it is the duty of nations as
well as of men to own their depen-
dence upon the overruling power of God; to
confess their sins and transgressions in humble
158


sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine
repentance will lead to mercy and pardon;
and to recognize the sublime truth, announced
in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all
history, that those nations only are blessed
whose God is the Lord:
And insomuch as we know that by his
divine law nations, like individuals, are sub-
jected to punishments and chastisements in
this world, may we not justly fear that the
awful calamity of civil war which now deso-
lates the land may be but a punishment in-
flicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to
the needful end of our national reformation
as a whole people? We have been the recipi-
ents of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We
have been preserved, these many years, in
peace and prosperity. We have grown in
numbers, wealth, and power as no other na-
tion has ever grown; but we have forgotten
God. We have forgotten the gracious hand
which preserved us in peace, and multiplied
and enriched and strengthened us; and we
have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of
our hearts, that all these blessings were pro-
duced by some superior wisdom and virtue
of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken suc-
cess, we have become too self-sufficient to feel
the necessity of redeeming and preserving
grace, too proud to pray to the God that made
us:
It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves
before the offended Power, to confess our
I59


national sins, and to pray for clemency and
forgiveness – Proclamation of April 30,
1865, as a National Fast Day; March 30,
1865-
I UNDERSTAND the meeting whose reso-
lutions I am considering to be in favor of
suppressing the rebellion by military force —
by armies. Long experience has shown that
armies cannot be maintained unless desertion
shall be punished by the severe penalty of
death. The case requires, and the law and
the Constitution sanction, this punishment.
Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy
who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of
a wily agitator who induces him to desert?
This is none the less injurious when effected
by getting a father, or brother, or friend into
a public meeting, and there working upon his
feelings till he is persuaded to write the sol-
dier boy that he is fighting in a bad cause,
for a wicked administration of a contemptible
government, too weak to arrest and punish
him if he shall desert. I think that, in such
a case, to silence the agitator and save the boy
is not only constitutional, but withal a great
mercy. — Letter to Erastus Corning and
Others; June 12, 1863.
Yoº claim that men may, if they choose,
embarrass those whose duty it is to com-
bat a giant rebellion, and then be dealt with
in turn, on" as if there were no rebellion.
1607


degree than to any other cause; and it is due
to him personally in a greater degree than to
any other one man. . . .
With all this before their eyes, the conven-
tion you represent have nominated Mr. Val-
landigham for governor of Ohio, and both
they and you have declared the purpose to
sustain the National Union by all constitu-
tional means. But of course they and you in
common reserve to yourselves to decide what
are constitutional means; and, unlike the
Albany meeting, you omit to state or intimate
that in your opinion an army is a constitu-
tional means of saving the Union against a
rebellion, or even to intimate that you are
conscious of an existing rebellion being in
progress with the avowed object of destroy-
ing that very Union. At the same time your
nominee for governor, in whose behalf you
appeal, is known to you and to the world to
declare against the use of an army to suppress
the rebellion. Your own attitude, therefore,
encourages desertion, resistance to the draft,
and the like, because it teaches those who
incline to desert and to escape the draft to
believe it is your purpose to protect them, and
to hope that you will become strong enough
to do so. . . .
I send you duplicates of this letter in order
that you, or a majority of you, may, if you
choose, indorse your names upon one of them
and return it thus indorsed to me with the
understanding that those signing are thereby
I62


slaughter-pen. No time is wasted, no argu-
ment is used. This produces an army which
will soon turn upon our now victorious sol-
diers, already in the field, if they shall not be
sustained by recruits as they should be. It
produces an army with a rapidity not to be
matched by our side, if we first waste time to
reexperiment with the volunteer system al-
ready deemed by Congress, and palpably, in
fact, so far exhausted as to be, inadequate,
and then more time to obtain a court decision
as to whether a law is constitutional which
requires a part of those now not in the service
to go to the aid of those who are already in
it, and still more time to determine with abso-
lute certainty that we get those who are to
go in the precisely legal proportion to those
who are not to go. My purpose is to be in
my action just and constitutional, and yet
practical, in performing the important duty
with which I am charged, of maintaining the
unity and the free principles of our common
country. — Letter to Governor Horatio Sey-
mour, of New York; August 7, 1863.
[ Sº of] you say you will not fight to free
negroes. Some of them seem willing to
fight for you; but no matter. Fight you, then,
exclusively to save the Union. I issued the
Proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving
the Union. Whenever you shall have con:
quered all resistance to the Union, if I shall
164


cated 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 battle-field 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, for the people, shall not perish from
the earth. – Dedication of the National Ceme-
tery at Gettysburg, Pa.; November 19, 1863.
167


THE strongest bond of human sympathy,
outside of the family relation, should
be one uniting all working people, of all na-
tions, and tongues, and kindreds. Nor should
this lead to a war upon property, or the own-
ers of property. Property is the fruit of labor;
property is desirable; is a positive good in
the world. That some should be rich shows
that others may become rich, and hence is
just encouragement to industry and enter-
prise. Let not him who is houseless pull
down the house of another, but let him work
diligently and build one for himself, thus by
example assuring that his own shall be safe
from violence when built. — Remarks to a
Committee of New York Workingmen; March
24, 1864.
HE world has never had a good defini-
tion of the word liberty, and the Ameri-
can people, just now, are much in want of one.
We all declare for liberty; but in using the
same word we do not all mean the same thing.
With some the word liberty may mean for
each man to do as he pleases with himself,
and the product of his labor; while with
others the same word may mean for some
men to do as they please with other men, and
the product of other men's labor. Here are
two, not only different, but incompatible
thing ºv the same name, liberty. And
it f ch of the things is, by the
168


respective parties, called by two different and
incompatible names — liberty and tyranny.
The shepherd drives the wolf from the
sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks
the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf
denounces him for the same act, as the de-
stroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was
a black one. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf
are not agreed upon a definition of the word
liberty; and precisely the same difference
prevails to-day among us human creatures,
even in the North, and all professing to love
liberty. Hence we behold the process by
which thousands are daily passing from under
the yoke of bondage hailed by some as the
advance of liberty, and bewailed by others
as the destruction of all liberty. — Remarks
at a Sanitary Fair in Baltimore; April 18,
1864.
IN response to the preamble and resolu-
tions of the American Baptist Home Mis-
sion Society, which you did me the honor to
present, I can only thank you for thus adding
to the effective and almost unanimous support
which the Christian communities are so zeal-
ously giving to the country and to liberty.
Indeed, it is difficult to conceive how it could
be otherwise with any one professing Christi-
anity, or even having ordinary perceptions of
right and wrong. To read in the Bible, as
the word of God himself, that “In the sweat
169


of thy face shalt thou eat bread,” and to
preach therefrom that, “In the sweat of other
men's faces shalt thou eat bread,” to my mind
can scarcely be reconciled with honest sincer-
ity. When brought to my final reckoning,
may I have to answer for robbing no man of
his goods; yet more tolerable even this, than
for robbing one of himself and all that was
his. When, a year or two ago, those pro-
fessedly holy men of the South met in the
semblance of prayer and devotion, and, in
the name of him who said, “As ye would all
men should do unto you, do ye even so unto
them,” appealed to the Christian world to aid
them in doing to a whole race of men as they
would have no man do unto themselves, to my
thinking they contemned and insulted God
and his church far more than did Satan when
he tempted the Saviour with the kingdoms of
the earth. The devil's attempt was no more
false, and far less hypocritical. But let me
forbear, remembering it is also written,
“Judge not lest ye be judged.” — Letter to
Committee of Baptists; May 30, 1864.
I AM always for the man who wishes to
work. – Endorsement of Application for
Employment; August 15, 1864.
THER: may be some inequalities in the
practical application of our system. It
is fair that each man shall pay taxes in exact
Proportion to the value of his property; but
17o


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
reelection, and duly grateful, as I trust, to
almighty God for having directed my country-
men 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.
May I ask those who have not differed with
me to join with me in this same spirit toward
those who have?— Remarks in Response to a
Serenade; November Io, 1864.
EAR MADAM, - I have been shown in
the files of the War Department a state-
ment of the Adjutant-General of Massachu-
setts 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 the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But
I cannot refrain from tendering to you the
consolation that 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 lost, and
the solemn pride that must be yours to have
laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of free-
dom. — Letter to Mrs. Bixby; November 21,
1864.
I73


IT seems that there is now no organized
military force of the enemy in Missouri,
and yet that destruction of property and life
is rampant everywhere. Is not the cure for
this within easy reach of the people them-
selves? It cannot but be that every man not
naturally a robber or cut-throat would gladly
put an end to this state of things. A large
majority in every locality must feel alike upon
this subject; and if so, they only need to reach
an understanding, one with another. Each
leaving all others alone solves the problem;
and surely each would do this but for his ap-
prehension that others will not leave him
alone. Cannot this mischievous distrust be
removed? Let neighborhood meetings be
everywhere called and held, of all entertain-
ing a sincere purpose for mutual security in
the future, whatever they may heretofore have
thought, said or done about the war, or about
anything else. Let all such meet, and, waiv-
ing all else, pledge each to cease harassing
others, and to make common cause against
whoever persists in making, aiding, or en-
couraging further disturbance. The practical
means they will best know how to adopt and
apply. At such meetings old friendships will
cross the memory, and honor and Christian
charity will come in to help. — Letter to Gov-
ernor Thomas C. Fletcher; February 20,
1865.
I74


EITHER party expected for the war the
magnitude or the duration which it
has already attained. Neither anticipated
that the cause of the conflict might cease with,
or even before, the conflict itself should cease.
Each looked for an easier triumph, and a re-
sult less fundamental and astounding. Both
read the same Bible, and pray to the same
God; and each invokes his aid against the
other. It may seem strange that any men
should dare to ask a just God's assistance in
wringing their bread from the sweat of other
men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be
not judged. The prayers of both could not
be answered — that of neither has been
answered fully.
The Almighty has his own purposes. “Woe
unto the world because of offenses 1 for it
must needs be that offenses come; but woe
to that man by whom the offense cometh.”
If we shall suppose that American slavery
is one of those offenses which, in the provi-
dence of God, must needs come, but which,
having continued through his 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 offense
came, shall we discern therein any departure
from those divine attributes which the be-
lievers 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
I75


until all the wealth piled by the bond-
man's two hundred and fifty years of unre-
quited 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 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 our-
selves, and with all nations. – Second In-
augural Address; March 4, 1865.
EVº one likes a compliment. Thank
you for yours on my little notification
speech and on the recent inaugural address.
I expect the latter to wear as well as — per-
haps better than — anything I have pro-
duced; but I believe it is not immediately
popular. Men are not flattered by being
shown that there has been a difference of
purpose between the Almighty and them.
To deny it, however, in this case, is to deny
that there is a God governing the world. It
is a truth which I thought needed to be told,
and as whatever of humiliation there is in it
176


B” these recent successes the reinaugura-
tion of the national authority — recon-
struction — which has had a large share of
thought from the first, is pressed much more
closely upon our attention. It is fraught with
great difficulty. Unlike a case of war between
independent nations, there is no authorized
organ for us to treat with — no one man has
authority to give up the rebellion for any
other man. We simply must begin with and
mold from disorganized and discordant ele-
ments. Nor is it a small additional embar-
rassment that we, the loyal people, differ
among ourselves as to the mode, manner, and
measure of reconstruction. As a general rule,
I abstain from reading the reports of attacks
upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by
that to which I cannot properly offer an an-
swer. In spite of this precaution, however,
it comes to my knowledge that I am much
censured for some supposed agency in setting
up and seeking to sustain the new State gov-
ernment of Louisiana. . . .
We all agree that the seceded States, so
called, are out of their proper practical rela-
tion with the Union, and that the sole object
of the government, civil and military, in re-
gard to those States is to again get them into
that proper practical relation. I believe that
it is not only possible, but in fact easier, to
do this without deciding or even considering
whether these States have ever been out of
the Union, than with it. Finding themselves
178


Clay, Henry, eulogy of, 25; in favor of gradual eman-
cipation, 25, 40.
Clinton, Ill., speech at, 61.
Columbus, O., speech at, 82.
Condolence, letter of, to Miss Fannie McCullough,
153; letter of, to Mrs. Bixby, 173.
Congress, speech in, on President Polk, 15: speech in,
on internal improvements, 16 ; speech in, on military
heroes, zo.
Conkling, James C., letter to, 164.
Constitution, The. See Slavery.
Cooper Union, New York, speech at, 1o 4.
Corning, Erastus, and others, letter to, 160.
Crittenden, J. J., letter to, 76.
Declaration of Independence (see also Slavcry),
enemies of, 78; valid for all time, 79; L. would be
assassinated rather than give up its principles, 122;
hope of the country and the world, 122.
Delahay, M. W., letter to, 79
Democratic Party (see also Douglas, Stephen A.),
Whigs contrasted with Lemocrats. 4; in New York
an “equally divided gang of wogs,” 21 ; has ex-
changed coats with Republican party, 77; puts dollar
before the man, 77 , bushwhacking tactics of, I 11.
Discoveries, Invetitions, and Improvements, lecture
on, 96.
Divine Will, meditation on the, 15o. -
Douglas, Senator Stephen A., L. attacks his popular
sovereignty theory, 34; L. replies to him at Spring-
field, June 26, 1857, 48; his version of the Declara-
tion of Independence, 5o ; conspirator in re Dred
Scott decision, 53 ; L. replies to him at Chicago,
§: Io, º 54; L. contrasts himself with, 59; de-
ate with L. at Jonesboro, 62 ; debate with L. at
Charleston, 65; debate with L. at Quincy, 7o; debate
with L. at Alton, 72; dangerous enemy of liberty,
81 ; contrasted with Jefferson, 82 ;. L. denounces
his paralell between negro and crocodile, 83, 84, 11o.
Dred Scott Decision. See Slavery.
Durley, Williamson, letter to, 11.
Education, basis of enduring prosperity, 93, 95.
Edwardsville, Ill., speech at, 61.
Emancipation. ... See Slavery.
Emancipation Proclamation, Preliminary, 149.
Fashion, influence of 6.
Fast amation of, March 30, 1863, 158.
182


view of, 70, 105, 11 1 ; the cotton-gin and, 71; Dred
Scott decision annihilates popular sovereignty, 72 ;
Douglas an abolitionist, 75; Southern man on Repub-
lican ticket, 79, 88 ; no compromise on extension of
in Republican platform, 79 ; L. objects to radical
Ohio Republican platform, 8o; L. denounces Doug-
las's parallel between negro and crocodile, 83, 84,
1 to ; free labor versus slave, 86, 11.5; Hammond's
“mud-sill” theory, 9o ; sophistical pleas of its advo-
cates, 107; vested interests in, IoS: L. endorses
Seward's phrase, “irrepressible conflict,” 109; the
snake in the Union bed, 11o, 115; no struggle be-
tween white man and negro, 11o ; not a necessity,
115; futility of repeating assurances not to interfere
with, in States, 115; freedom the people's fight, 1 16;
L. opposes Frémont's order of military emancipation,
135; L. offers compensated emancipation with colon-
ization to border States, 141; L. urges colonization
as duty upon intelligent negroes, 142 ; Divine
guidance in question of, 145; advantages and
disadvantages of emancipation, 146; Preliminary
Emancipation Proclamation, 149; L. recommends
compensated emancipation to Congress, 152 ; right-
ousness of emancipation, 152, 169; on arming ne-
groes, 158, 165, 166, 177; hypocrisy of its advocates,
169; war, God’s judgment on, 175; the ballot, a
reward to negro for effort, 18o.
Speech, invention of, 1oo.
Speed, Joshua F., letter to, 42.
Speer, William S., letter to, 115.
Springfield, Ill., speech against the Van Buren adminis-
tration at, 4; address to Washingtonian Society at, 5;
reply to Douglas, June 26, 1857, at, 48; speech at,
accepting nomination for Senator, June 16, 1858, 52:
speech at, July 17, 1858, 59; lecture on Discoveries,
Inventions, and improvements, before Library Ass’n
of, 96; letter to James C. Conkling read at Union
meeting in, 164.
Taney, Roger B., conspirator in re Dred Scott decision,
53.
Tariff, L. in candidacy for Illinois legislature announces
himself in favor of a high protective tariff, 1 ; notes on
rotection, jotted down while Congressman-elect,
ec. 1847, 9; protection abolishes useless labor of
transportation, 9, 119.
Temperance, º: to Washingtonian Society of
Springfield, Ill., Feb. 22, 1842, 5; letter to George E.
Pickett on, 8; conjoined with abolition of slavery, 8.
187