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THE WISDOM OF 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
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 "Qlft from 
 
 Robert L. OwQn 
 Nov. 4, 1! 
 
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 5^ 
 
 Icfiers of The ^-^e.qt T-resi^ 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 TV/TOST 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. 
 
 VI 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The First American : Extract from Har- 
 vard Commemoration Ode, by James Russell 
 
 Lowell xi 
 
 Extracts from Lincoln's Writings 
 AND Speeches : 
 Announcement of Candidacy for Legislature i 
 Speech in Legislature on the State Bank . i 
 Address on the Perpetuation of our Political 
 
 Institutions 2 
 
 Speech against the Van Buren Administra- 
 tion 4 
 
 Address to Washingtonian (Temperance) 
 
 Society 5 
 
 Letter to George E. Pickett 8 
 
 Notes on Protection 9 
 
 Letter to Williamson Durley ii 
 
 Letter to William Johnston with Poem . . ii 
 Letter to William Johnston with Poem . . 13 
 Speech in Congress Arraigning President 
 
 Polk 15 
 
 Letter to J. M. Peck 16 
 
 Speech in Congress on Internal Improve- 
 ments 16 
 
 Note: " Were I President " 19 
 
 Letter to William H. Herndon .... 19 
 Speech in Congress on Military Heroes . . 20 
 
 vii 
 
Extracts {Continued) page 
 
 Notes for Lecture on Niagara Falls ... 22 
 
 Notes for Law Lecture 23 
 
 Eulogy of Henry Clay 25 
 
 Notes on Government 27 
 
 Speech on Repeal of Missouri Compromise 29 
 
 Letter to George Robertson 40 
 
 Letter to Joshua F. Speed 42 
 
 Speech at First Republican Convention . . 43 
 
 Speech at Galena 44 
 
 Speech in Fremont Campaign 46 
 
 Speech at Republican Banquet in Chicago . 46 
 
 Reply to Douglas at Springfield .... 48 
 
 Speech Accepting Nomination for Senator . 52 
 
 Reply to Douglas at Chicago 54 
 
 Speech at Springfield on Douglas's Presiden- 
 tial Aspirations 59 
 
 Speech at Lewiston 60 
 
 Speech at Clinton 61 
 
 Speech at Paris 61 
 
 Speech at Edwardsville 61 
 
 Debate with Douglas at Jonesboro ... 62 
 
 Debate with Douglas at Charleston ... 65 
 
 Debate with Douglas at Galesburg ... 66 
 
 Debate with Douglas at Quincy .... 70 
 
 Debate with Douglas at Alton 72 
 
 Letter to J. J. Crittenden 76 
 
 Letter to Dr. A. G. Henry 76 
 
 Letter to H. D. Sharpe 76 
 
 Letter to Jefferson Dinner Committee of 
 
 Boston 76 
 
 Letter to M. W. Delahay 79 
 
 Letter to Dr. Theodore Canisius .... 80 
 
 Letter to Samuel Galloway 80 
 
 Speech at Columbus Zz 
 
 viii 
 
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 se^-mark now, now lost in vapors blind ; 
 
 xiii 
 
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, 
 xiv 
 
THE WISDOM OF 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 FELLOW-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. 
 
 T [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 
 X I 
 
hitherto found security. — On Inquiry into 
 Management of the State Bank; January, 
 
 1837. 
 
 At 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 ? Never ! All the armies 
 of Europe, Asia, arid 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 
 
quent in this land so lately famed for love of 
 law and order, and the stories of which have 
 even now grown too familiar to attract any- 
 thing more than an idle remark. 
 
 But you are perhaps ready to ask, "What 
 has this to do with the perpetuation of our 
 poHtical institutions?" I answer, "It has 
 much to do with it." ... By such examples, 
 by instances of the perpetrators of such acts 
 going unpunished, the lawless in spirit are 
 encouraged to become lawless in practice; 
 and having been used to no restraint but 
 dread of punishment, they thus become ab- 
 solutely unrestrained. Having ever regarded 
 government as their deadliest bane, they 
 make a jubilee of the suspension of its opera- 
 tions, and pray for nothing so much as its 
 total annihilation. While, on the other hand, 
 good men, men who love tranquillity, who 
 desire to abide by the laws and enjoy their 
 benefits, who would gladly spill their blood 
 in the defense of their country, seeing their 
 property destroyed, their families insulted, 
 and their lives endangered, their persons 
 injured, and seeing nothing in prospect that 
 forebodes a change for the better, become 
 tired of and disgusted with a government 
 that oilers them no protection, and are not 
 much averse to a change in which they im- 
 agine they have nothing to lose. Thus, then, 
 by the operation of this mobocratic spirit 
 which all must admit is now abroad in the 
 land, the strongest bulwark of any govern- 
 
 3 
 
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, III.; January 27, 1837. 
 
 \/fR. 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 C?esar ever 
 had; but, somehow or other, whenever danger 
 approaches, my cowardly legs will run away 
 with it." — Against the Suhtreasury and 
 other Policies of the Van Buren Administra- 
 tion. Speech at Springfield, III.; 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, III.; February 22, 1842. 
 
 I HAVE just told the folks here in Spring- 
 field on this I nth 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, lioy, 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 efi^ect 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. 
 
 . . [Therefore] the abandonment of the pro- 
 
 10 
 
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. 
 
 MY 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 i8, 1846. 
 
 12 
 
FRIEND JOHNSTON— You remember 
 when I wrote you from Tremont last 
 spring, sending you a little canto of what I 
 called poetry, I promised to bore you with 
 another some time. I now fulfill the promise. 
 The subject of the present one is an insane 
 man; his name is Matthew Gentry. He is 
 three years older than I, and when we were 
 boys we went to school together. He was 
 rather a bright lad, and the son of the rich 
 man of a very poor neighborhood. At the 
 age of nineteen he unaccountably became 
 furiously mad, from which condition he grad- 
 ually settled down into harmless insanity. 
 When, as I told you in my other letter, I 
 visited my old home in the fall of 1844, I 
 found him still lingering in this wretched con- 
 dition. In my poetizing mood, I could not 
 forget the impression his case made upon me. 
 Here is the result: 
 
 But here's an object more of dread 
 Than aught the grave contains — 
 
 A human form with reason fled, 
 While wretched life remains. 
 
 When terror spread, and neighbors ran 
 Your dangerous strength to bind, 
 
 And soon, a howling, crazy man, 
 Your limbs were fast confined: 
 
 How then you strove and shrieked aloud, 
 Your bones and sinews bared; 
 
 And fiendish on the gazing crowd 
 With burning eyeballs glared; 
 
 13 
 
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. 
 
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 
 
 IS 
 
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. 
 
 POSSIBLY 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. 
 
 BUT 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 
 
 16 
 
the property-holders and business people of 
 Washington? Shall we remove it for this 
 reason ? And if so, where shall we set it down, 
 and be free from the difficulty ? To make sure 
 of our object, shall we locate it nowhere, and 
 have Congress hereafter to hold its sessions, 
 as the loafer lodged, "in spots about"? I 
 make no allusion to the present President 
 when I say there are few stronger cases in this 
 world of "burden to the many and benefit to 
 the few," of "inequality," than the presidency 
 itself is by some thought to be. An honest 
 laborer digs coal at about seventy cents a day, 
 while the President digs abstractions at about 
 seventy dollars a day. The coal is clearly 
 worth more than the abstractions, and yet 
 what a monstrous inequality in the prices! 
 Does the President, for this reason, propose 
 to abolish the presidency ? He does not, and 
 he ought not. The true rule in determining to 
 embrace or reject anything, is not whether it 
 have any evil in it, but whether it have more 
 of evil than of good. There are few things 
 wholly evil or wholly good. Almost every- 
 thing, especially of government policy, is an 
 inseparable compound of the two; so that 
 our best judgment of the preponderance be- 
 tween them is continually demanded. On 
 this principle the President, his friends, and 
 the world generally act on most subjects. 
 Why not apply it, then, upon this question? 
 Why, as to improvemicnts, magnify the evil, 
 and stoutly refuse to see any good in them ? 
 
 2 17 
 
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. 
 
 WERE 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 
 \eto unless in very special and clear cases. — 
 Note; July, 1848. 
 
 1 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 
 
 19 
 
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 lo, 1848. 
 
 A 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 
 
 20 
 
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, 
 
 21 
 
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, 
 1850. 
 
 22 
 
I AM not an accomplished lawyer. I find 
 quite as much material for a lecture in 
 those points wherein I have failed, as in those 
 wherein I have been moderately successful. 
 The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man 
 of every other calling, is diligence. Leave 
 nothing for to-morrow which can be done to- 
 day. Never let your correspondence fall be- 
 hind. Whatever piece of business you have 
 in hand, before stopping, do all the labor per- 
 taining to it which can then be done. When 
 you bring a common-law suit, if you have the 
 facts for doing so, write the declaration at 
 once. If a law point be involved, examine the 
 books, and note the authority you rely on 
 upon the declaration itself, where you are sure 
 to find it when wanted. The same of defenses 
 and pleas. In business not likely to be liti- 
 gated, — ordinary collection cases, foreclos- 
 ures, partitions, and the like, — make all ex- 
 aminations of titles, and note them, and even 
 draft orders and decrees in advance. This 
 course has a triple advantage; it avoids omis- 
 sions and neglect, saves your labor when once 
 done, performs the labor out of court when 
 you have leisure, rather than in court when 
 you have not. Extemporaneous speaking 
 should be practiced and cultivated. It is the 
 lawyer's avenue to the public. However able 
 and faithful he may be in other respects, 
 people are slow to bring him business if he 
 cannot make a speech. And yet there is not 
 a more fatal error to young lawyers than rely- 
 
 2' 
 
 'J 
 
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 w^hich 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. 
 
 MR. 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. 
 
 3$ 
 
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 
 
am^nj sUv33. Thi slave whom you cannot 
 driv3 witi th^ las'i to break seventy-five 
 pounh of h2 TiD i 1 a day, if you will task him 
 t3 break a huiJ-^J, and promise him pay for 
 all he d.)23 ov3-, he will break you a hundred 
 an J Sfiy. You hxve substituted hope for the 
 ro J. An J yet perhaps it does not occur to you 
 that to the erjtent 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 A ? 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 own native land. But a moment's re- 
 
 30 
 
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 
 
into slavery than our ordinary criminal laws 
 are to hang an innocent one. 
 
 But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no 
 more excuse for permitting slavery to go into 
 our own free territory than it would for reviv- 
 ing the African slave-trade by law. The law 
 which forbids the bringing of slaves from 
 Africa, and that which has so long forbidden 
 the taking of them into Nebraska, can hardly 
 be distinguished on any moral principle, and 
 the repeal of the former could find quite as 
 plausible excuses as that of the latter. 
 
 Equal justice to the South, it is said, re- 
 quires us to consent to the extension of slavery 
 to new countries. That is to say, inasmuch 
 as you do not object to my taking my hog to 
 Nebraska, therefore I must not object to you 
 taking your slave. Now, I admit that this is 
 perfectly logical, if there is no difference be- 
 tween hogs and negroes. But while you thus 
 require me to deny the humanity of the negro, 
 I wish to ask whether you of the South, your- 
 selves, have ever been willing to do as much ? 
 It is kindly provided that of all those who 
 come into the world only a small percentage 
 are natural tyrants. That percentage is no 
 larger in the slave States than in the free. 
 The great majority South, as well as North, 
 have human sympathies, of which they can 
 no more divest themselves than they can of 
 their sensibility to physical pain. These 
 sympathies in the bosoms of the Southern 
 
 32 
 
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, alm^ost 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 speculatmg 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 
 
snaky contact. If he grows rich and retires 
 from business, you still remember him, and 
 still keep up the ban of non-intercourse upon 
 him and his family. Now why is this ? You 
 do not so treat the man who deals in corn, 
 cotton, or tobacco. 
 
 The doctrine of self-government is right, — 
 — absolutely and eternally right, — but it 
 has no just application as here attempted. 
 Or perhaps I should rather say that whether 
 it has such application depends upon whether 
 a negro is not or is a man. If he is not a man, 
 in that case he who is a man may as a matter 
 of self-government do just what he pleases 
 with him. But if the negro is a man, is it. not 
 to that extent a total destruction of self- 
 government to say that he too shall not gov- 
 ern himself? When the white man governs 
 himself, that is self-government; but when 
 he governs himself and also governs another 
 man, that is more than self-government — 
 that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why 
 then my ancient faith teaches me that "all 
 men are created equal," and that there can 
 be no moral right in connection with one 
 man's making a slave of another. 
 
 Judge Douglas frequently, with bitter irony 
 and sarcasm, paraphrases our argument by 
 saying: "The white people of Nebraska are 
 good enough to govern themselves, but they 
 are not good enough to govern a few miserable 
 negroes!" 
 
 34 
 
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 
 
representatives, and so has Maine; South 
 Carolina has eight presidential electors, and 
 so has Maine. This is precise equality so far; 
 and of course they are equal in senators, each 
 having tw^o. Thus in the control of the gov- 
 ernment the two States are equals precisely. 
 But how are they in the number of their white 
 people? Maine has 581,813, while South 
 Carolina has 274,567; Maine has twice as 
 many as South Carolina, and 32,679 over. 
 Thus, each white man in South Carolina is 
 more than the double of any man in Maine. 
 This is all because South Carolina, besides 
 her free people, has 384,984 slaves. . . . 
 This principle, in the aggregate, gives the 
 slave States in the present Congress twenty 
 additional representatives, being seven more 
 than the whole majority by which they passed 
 the Nebraska bill. 
 
 Now all this is manifestly unfair; yet I do 
 not mention it to complain of it, in so far as 
 it is already settled. It is in the Constitution, 
 and I do not for that cause or any other cause, 
 propose to destroy, or alter, or disregard the 
 Constitution. I stand to it, fairly, fully, and 
 firmly. 
 
 But when I am told I must leave it alto- 
 gether to other people to say whether new 
 partners are to be bred up and brought into 
 the firm, on the same degrading terms against 
 me, I respectfully demur. I insist that 
 whether I shall be a whole man, or only the 
 half of one, in comparison with others, is a 
 
 36 
 
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 mo, 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 ver}' 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? 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 
 historv, 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-coimtrymen, Americans, South as 
 well as North, shall we make no enort 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 prinqiples of progress, and 
 fatally violating the noblest political system 
 the world ever saw." This is not the taxmt 
 of enemies, but the warning of friends. Is it 
 quite safe to disregard it — to despise it r Is 
 there no danger to liberty itself in discarding 
 the earUest practice and first precept of otir 
 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 repubUcan robe is soiled and trailed 
 in the dust. Let us repurify it. Let tis turn 
 and wash it white in the spirit, if not the blood, 
 of the Re\x)lution. Let us mm 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 Comprojnise Speech at Peoria, 
 III.; October i6, 1854. 
 
 SINCE 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 
 
 40 
 
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 
 
I 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 1 84 1 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. 
 
 THE conclusion of all is, that we must 
 restore the Missouri Compromise. We 
 must highly resolve that Kansas shall he 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. 
 
 YOU 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? Do you 
 really believe that such is our aim? 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 
 territory, 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 
 
RECURRING 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 Fremont Campaign; October, 1856. 
 
 OUR 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 
 
 ^mrm 
 
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 ahhough 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 lo, 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 
 
 50 
 
created equal to all British subjects born and 
 then residing in Great Britain." 
 
 And now I appeal to all — to Democrats as 
 well as others — are you really willing that 
 the Declaration shall thus be frittered away ? 
 — thus left no more, at most, than an inter- 
 esting memorial of the dead past ? — thus 
 shorn of its vitality and practical value, and 
 left without the germ or even the suggestion 
 of the individual rights of man in it ? 
 
 ■ ■•••••• 
 
 How differently the respective courses of 
 the Democratic and Republican parties inci- 
 dentally bear on the question of forming a 
 will — a public sentiment — for colonization, 
 is easy to see. The Repubhcans inculcate, 
 with whatever of ability they can, that the 
 negro is a man, that his bondage is cruelly 
 wrong, and that the field of his oppression 
 ought not to be enlarged. The Democrats 
 deny his manhood; deny, or dwarf to insig- 
 nificance, the wrong of his bondage; so far 
 as possible, crush all sympathy for him, and 
 cultivate and excite hatred and disgust against 
 him; compliment themselves as Union-savers 
 for doing so; and call the indefinite outspread- 
 ing of his bondage "a sacred right of self- 
 government." 
 
 The plainest print cannot be read through 
 a gold eagle ; and it will be ever hard to find 
 many men who wnll send a slave to Liberia, 
 and pay his passage, while they can send him 
 to a new country — Kansas, for instance — 
 
 51 
 
and sell him for fifteen hundred dollars, and 
 the rise. — Speech in Reply to Senator Douglas 
 at Springfield, III.; June 26, 1857. 
 
 WE 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 
 will now appear less dark and mysterious than 
 they did when they were transpiring. The 
 
 /»2 
 
people were to be left "perfectly free,'' "sub- 
 ject only to the Constitution." What the Con- 
 stitution had to do with it outsiders could not 
 then see. Plainly enough now, it was an 
 exactly fitted niche for the Dred Scott decision 
 to afterward come in, and declare the perfect 
 freedom of the people to be just no freedom 
 at all. Why was the amendment expressly 
 declaring the right of the people voted down ? 
 Plainly enough now, the adoption of it would 
 have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott 
 decision. Why was the court decision held 
 up ? Why even a senator's individual opinion 
 withheld till after the presidential election? 
 Plainly enough now, the speaking out then 
 would have damaged the "perfectly free" 
 argument upon which the election was to be 
 carried. Why the outgoing President's felici- 
 tation on the indorsement? Why the delay 
 of a reargument? Why the incoming Presi- 
 dent's advance exhortation in favor of the 
 decision ? These things look like the cautious 
 patting and petting of a spirited horse pre- 
 paratory to mounting him, when it is dreaded 
 that he may give the rider a fall. And why 
 the hasty after-indorsement of the decision 
 by the President and others? 
 
 We cannot absolutely know that all these 
 exact adaptations are the result of preconcert. 
 But when we see a lot of framed timbers, dif- 
 ferent portions of which we know have been 
 gotten out at different times and places and 
 by different workmen, — Stephen, Franklin, 
 
 53 
 
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, III.; June i6, 1858. 
 
 WHAT was squatter sovereignty ? 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 voke: '^ 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 ourequal in all things. 
 If they look back through this histor)- 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 
 
is the electric cord in that Declaration that 
 links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving 
 men together, that will link those patriotic 
 hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in 
 the minds of men throughout the world. . . . 
 According to his [Judge Douglas's] con- 
 struction [of the Declaration], you Germans 
 are not connected with it. Now I ask you, in 
 all soberness, if all these things, if indulged 
 in, if ratified, if confirmed and indorsed, if 
 taught to our children, and repeated to them, 
 do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty 
 in the countr}', and to transform this govern- 
 ment into a government of some other form ? 
 Those arguments that are made, that the 
 inferior race are to be treated with as much 
 allowance as they are capable of enjoying; 
 that as much is to be done for them as their 
 condition will allow — what are these argu- 
 ments? They are the arguments that kings 
 have made for enslaving the people in all ages 
 of the world. You will find that all the argu- 
 ments in favor of kingcraft were of this class; 
 they always bestrode the necks of the people 
 — not that they wanted to do it, but because 
 the people were better off for being ridden. 
 That is their argument, and this argument 
 of the judge is the same old serpent that says. 
 You work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy 
 the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you 
 will — whether it come from the mouth of a 
 king, an excuse for enslaving the people of 
 his country, or from the mouth of men of one 
 
 57 
 
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 lo, 1858. 
 
 THERE 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-of&ces, land-ofl&ces, 
 marshalships, and cabinet appointments, 
 chargdships 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 aljout 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, 
 III; July 17, 1858. 
 
 NOW, 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 symmetr}' 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 
 
 60 
 
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, III.; August 17, 
 1858. 
 
 YOU can fool all the people some of the 1 
 time, and some of the people all of the 
 time, but you cannot fool all the people all 
 the time. — Speech at Clinton, <Xll-) Sep- 
 tember 8, 1858. K^l . >-A ... ^ ' 
 
 JUDGE Douglas's discovery: . , . the 
 right to breed and flog negroes in Ne- 
 braska was popular sovereignty. — Speech at 
 Paris, III.; September 8, 1858. 
 
 AND 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, III. ; 
 Septe^nher 13, 1858. 
 
 T 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? 
 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 you why 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, III.; 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, an 1 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 
 
 S 65 
 
it, that the judge be kept at home and placed 
 in the State legislature to fight the measure. 
 — Debate with Douglas at Charleston, III.; 
 September i8, 1858. 
 
 THE 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 ? 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 wiU 
 
 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 poHcy 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 
 
 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, III.; October 7, 1858. 
 
 JUDGE DOUGLAS asks you, "Why 
 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, 
 
 70 
 
once said, and truly said, that when this gov- 
 ernment was established, no one expected the 
 institution of slavery to last until this day; 
 and that the men who formed this government 
 were wiser and better than the men of these 
 days; but the men of these days had experi- 
 ence which the fathers had not, and that ex- 
 perience had taught them the invention of 
 the cotton-gin, and this had made the per- 
 petuation of the institution of slavery a neces- 
 sity in this country. Judge Douglas could 
 not let it stand upon the basis where our 
 fathers placed it, but removed it, and put it 
 upon the cotton-gin basis. It is a question, 
 therefore, for him and his friends to answer 
 — why they could not let it remain where 
 the fathers of the government originally 
 placed it. 
 
 Does the judge mean to say that the ter- 
 ritorial legislature in legislating may, by with- 
 holding necessary laws or by passing un- 
 friendly laws, nullify . . . constitutional right ? 
 Does he mean to say that ? Does he mean to 
 ignore the proposition, so long and well es- 
 tablished in law, that what you cannot do 
 directly, you cannot do indirectly? Does he 
 mean that? The truth about the matter is 
 this: Judge Douglas has sung paeans to his 
 "popular sovereignty" doctrine until his 
 Supreme Court, co-operating with him, has 
 squatted his squatter sovereignty out. But 
 he will keep up this species of humbuggery 
 
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, III.; October 13, 1858. 
 
 BUT 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 
 
Texas. ' Go back to the troubles that led to 
 the compromise of 1850. You will find that 
 every time, with the single exception of the 
 nullification question, they sprang from an 
 endeavor to spread this institution. There 
 neverwas a party in the historyof this country, 
 and there probably never will be, of sufficient 
 strength to disturb the general peace of the 
 country. Parties themselves may be divided 
 and quarrel on minor questions, yet it extends 
 not beyond the parties themselves. But does 
 not this question make a disturbance outside 
 of political circles ? Does it not enter into the 
 churches and rend them asunder? What 
 divided the great Methodist Church into two 
 parts. North and South? What has raised 
 this constant disturbance in every Presby- 
 terian general assembly that meets? What 
 disturbed the Unitarian Church in this very 
 city two years ago? What has jarred and 
 shaken the great American Tract Society 
 recently — not yet splitting it, but sure to 
 divide it in the end? Is it not this same 
 mighty, deep-seated power that somehow 
 operates on the minds of men, exciting and 
 stirring them up in every avenue of society — 
 in politics, in religion, in literature, in morals, 
 in all the manifold relations of life? Is this 
 the work of politicians? Is that irresistible 
 power, which for fifty years has shaken the 
 government and agitated the people, to be 
 stilled and subdued by pretending that it is 
 an exceedingly simple thing, and we ought 
 
 73 
 
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 j 
 very thing that everybody does care the most 
 about — a thing which all experience has , 
 shown we care a very great deal about? 1 
 
 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 i 
 
 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, III.; October 15, 1858. 
 
 75 
 
THE 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. 
 
 WHILE 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, 
 
 GENTLEMEN: 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 tv^^o 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 
 
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 i860. 
 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. 
 
 T TNDERSTANDING 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 anv 
 project for curtailing the existing rights of 
 white men, even though born in different 
 lands, and speaking ditTerent 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; 
 
 80 
 
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. 
 G 81 
 
THIS 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 Jefiferson, 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!" 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 man, 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 
 cjuestion 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 i6, 1859. 
 
 AT . . . 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 
 negro. . . . 
 
 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- 
 sition in proportion, which may be stated 
 thus: "As the 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 drav/n. 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 ofT 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. 
 
 86 
 
We must have a national policy in regard 
 to the institution of slavery that acknowledges 
 and deals with that institution as being wrong. 
 Whoever desires the prevention of the spread 
 of slavery and the nationalization of that 
 institution, yields all when he yields to any 
 policy that either recognizes slavery as being 
 right, or as being an indifferent thing. Noth- 
 ing will make you successful but setting up a 
 policy which shall treat the thing as being 
 wrong. When I say this, I do not mean to 
 say that this General Government is charged 
 with the duty of redressing or preventing all 
 the wrongs in the world; but I do think that 
 it is charged with preventing and redressing 
 all wrongs which are wrongs to itself. This 
 government is expressly charged with the 
 duty of providing for the general welfare. We 
 believe that the spreading out and perpetuity 
 of the institution of slavery impairs the gen- 
 eral welfare. We believe — nay, we know — 
 that that is the only thing that has ever threat- 
 ened the perpetuity of the Union itself. The 
 only thing which has ever menaced the de- 
 struction of the government under which we 
 live, is this very thing. To repress this 
 thing, we think, is providing for the general 
 welfare. . . . 
 
 I say that we must not interfere with the 
 institution of slavery in the States where it 
 exists, because the Constitution forbids it, and 
 the general welfare does not require us to 
 do so. We must not withhold an efficient 
 
 87 
 
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 
 
FROM 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 afiixed 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 
 
latter he performs a little iniperfectly, looks 
 at it in disgust, turns from it, and imagines 
 himself exceedingly tired — the little he has 
 done comes to nothing for want of finishing. 
 
 • ••••••• 
 
 The world is agreed that labor is the source 
 from which human wants are mainly supplied. 
 There is no dispute upon this point. From 
 this point, however, men immediately diverge. 
 Much disputation is maintained as to the best 
 way of applying and controlling the labor 
 element. By some it is assumed that labor 
 is available only in connection with capital — 
 that nobody labors, unless somebody else 
 owning capital, somehow, by the use of it, 
 induces him to do it. Having assumed this, 
 they proceed to consider whether it is best 
 that capital shall hire laborers, and thus in- 
 duce them to work by their own consent, or 
 buy them, and drive them to it, without their 
 consent. Having proceeded so far, they nat- 
 urally conclude that all laborers are naturally 
 either hired laborers or slaves. They further 
 assume that whoever is once a hired laborer, 
 is fatally fixed in that condition for life; and 
 thence again, that his condition is as bad as, 
 or worse than, that of a slave. This is the 
 "mud-sill" theory.^ But another class of 
 reasoners hold the opinion that there is no 
 
 * Enunciated by James H. Hammond, Senator from 
 South Carolina, 1857 to 1861. In a speech in the Senate 
 he said thai cultivated society necessarily rested on an 
 inferior class, that of labor, just as a house stood on mud- 
 sills : that is, siils lying directly on the ground. 
 
 90 
 
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. 
 
 91 
 
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. IMany independent men in this 
 assembly doubtless a few years ago were 
 hired laborers. And their case is almost, if 
 not cjuite, 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 
 
 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 thai 
 peculiar sort of fire which ignites them. A 
 Yankee who could invent a strong-handed 
 man without a head would receive the ever-i 
 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. 
 
 BUT 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. 
 
 AS 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 
 can afford to 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 
 
I wish to communicate to and share with you. 
 But to carry on such communications, some 
 instrumentality is indispensable. Accord- 
 ingly, speech — articulate sounds rattled off 
 from the tongue — was used by our first 
 parents, and even by Adam before the crea- 
 tion of Eve. He gave names to the animals 
 while she was still a bone in his side; and he 
 broke out quite volubly when she first stood 
 before him, the best present of his Maker. 
 From this it would appear that speech was not 
 an invention of man, but rather the direct gift 
 of his Creator. But whether divine gift or in- 
 vention, it is still plain that if a mode of com- 
 munication had been left to invention, speech 
 must have been the first, from the superior 
 adaptation to the end of the organs of speech 
 over every other means within the whole range 
 of nature. . . . 
 
 Speech, then, by enabling different individ- 
 uals to interchange thoughts, and thereby to 
 combine their powers of observation and re- 
 flection, greatly facilitates useful discoveries 
 and inventions. . . . And this reminds me 
 of what I passed unnoticed before, that the 
 very first invention was a joint operation. Eve 
 having shared with Adam the getting up of 
 the apron. And, indeed, judging from the 
 fact that sewing has come down to our times 
 as "woman's work," it is very probable she 
 took the leading part, — he, perhaps, doing 
 no more than to stand by and thread the 
 needle. That proceeding may be reckoned 
 
 99 
 
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 w^hich 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 
 
 I CO 
 
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 ditliculty 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. . . . 
 
 lOI 
 
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 
 
 102 
 
a thousand minds were brought into the field 
 where there was but one before. This was 
 a great gain — and history shows a great 
 change corresponding to it — in point of 
 time. 
 
 I will venture to consider it the true termi- 
 nation of that period called "the dark ages." 
 Discoveries, inventions, and improvements 
 followed rapidly, and have been increasing 
 their rapidity ever since. The effects could 
 not come all at once. It required time to 
 bring them out; and they are still coming. 
 The capacity to read could not be multiplied 
 as fast as the means of reading. Spelling- 
 books just began to go into the hands of the 
 children, but ihe teachers were not very nu- 
 merous or very competent, so that it is safe to 
 infer they did not advance so speedily as they 
 do nowadays. It is very probable — almost 
 certain — that the great mass of men at that 
 time were utterly unconscious that their con- 
 dition or their minds were capable of improve- 
 ment. They not only looked upon the 
 educated few as superior beings, but they 
 supposed themselves to be naturally inca- 
 pable of rising to equality. To emancipate the 
 mind from this false underestimate of itself 
 is the great task which printing came into 
 the world to perform. It is difficult for us now 
 and here to conceive how strong this slavery 
 of the mind was, and how long it did of neces- 
 sity take to break its shackles, and to get a 
 habit of freedom of thought established. It 
 
 103 
 
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. — Lcdiire on ''Discoveries, In- 
 ventions, and Improvements,'" beforethe Spring- 
 field {III.) Library Association; February 22, 
 i860. 
 
 AND 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. 
 That makes an issue; and the burden of 
 
 104 
 
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, 
 
 105 
 
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 
 
 1 06 
 
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 wherewith 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 
 
 107 
 
search for a man who should be neither a 
 living man nor a dead man; such as a policy 
 of "don't care" on a question about which 
 all true men do care; such as Union appeals 
 beseeching true Union men to yield to Dis- 
 unionists, reversing the divine rule, and call- 
 ing, not the sinners, but the righteous to re- 
 pentance; such as invocations to Washington, 
 imploring men to unsay what Washington 
 said and undo what Washington did. 
 
 Neither let us be slandered from our duty 
 by false accusations against us, nor fright- 
 ened from it by menaces of destruction to the 
 government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. 
 Let us have faith that right makes might ; and 
 in that faith let us to the end dare to do our 
 duty as we understand it. — Speech at Cooper 
 Union, New York; February 27, i860. 
 
 ONE SIXTH, and a little more, of the pop- 
 ulation of the United States are slaves, 
 looked upon as property, as nothing but prop- 
 erty. The cash value of these slaves, at a 
 moderate estimate, is $2,000,000,000. This 
 amount of property value has a vast influence 
 on the minds of its owners, very naturally. 
 The same amount of property would have an 
 equal influence upon us if owned in the North. 
 Human nature is the same — people at the 
 South are the same as those at the North, 
 barring the diflerence in circumstances. Pub- 
 ]ic opinion is founded, to a great extent, on 
 
 108 
 
a property basis. What lessens the value of 
 properly 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 v/ill 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 
 
 109 
 
a question of dollars and cents; — the AV 
 mighty has drawn a line across the land, be- 
 low which it must be cultivated by slave labor, 
 above which by free labor. They would say : 
 "If the question is between the white man 
 and the negro, I am for the white man; if 
 between the negro and the crocodile, I am for 
 the negro." There is a strong effort to make 
 this policy of indifference prevail, but it can- 
 not be a durable one. A "don't care" policy 
 won't prevail, for everybody does care. . . . 
 
 The proposition that there is a struggle be- 
 tween the white man and the negro contains 
 a falsehood. There is no struggle. If there 
 was, I should be for the white man. If two 
 men are adrift at sea on a plank which will 
 bear up but one, the law justifies either in 
 pushing the other off. I never had to struggle 
 to keep a negro from enslaving me, nor did 
 a negro ever have to fight to keep me from 
 enslaving him. . . . 
 
 If the Republicans, who think slavery is 
 wrong, get possession of the General Govern- 
 ment, we may not root out the evil at once, 
 but may at least prevent its extension. If I 
 find a venomous snake lying on the open 
 prairie, I seize the first stick and kill him at 
 once; but if that snake is in bed with my 
 children, I must be more cautious; — I shall, 
 in striking the snake, also strike the children, 
 or arouse the reptile to bite the children. 
 Slavery is the venomous snake in bed with the 
 children. But if the question is whether to 
 
 no 
 
kill it on the prairie or put it in bed with the 
 other children, I am inclined to think we 'd 
 kill it. 
 
 The Democracy are given to bushwhack- 
 ing. After having their errors and misstate- 
 m.ents continually thrust in their faces, they 
 pay no heed, but go on howling about Seward 
 and the "irrepressible conflict." That is 
 bushwhacking. So with John Brown and 
 Harper's Ferry. They charge it upon the 
 Republican party, and ignominiously fail in 
 all attempts to substantiate the charge. Yet 
 they go on with their bushwhacking, the pack 
 in full cry after John Brown. The Democrats 
 had just been whipped in Ohio and Pennsyl- 
 vania, and seized upon the unfortunate Har- 
 per's Ferry affair to influence other elections 
 then pending. They said to each other, 
 "Jump in; now 's your chance"; and were 
 sorry there were no more killed. But they 
 did n't succeed well. Let them go on with 
 their howling. They will succeed when by 
 slandering women you get them to love you, 
 and by slandering men you get them to vote 
 for you. — Speech at Hartford, Conn. ; March 
 5, i860. 
 
 NOW, gentlemen, the Republicans desire 
 to place this great question of slavery 
 on the very basis on which our fathers placed 
 it, and no other. It is easy to demonstrate 
 
 III 
 
that "our fathers who framed this govern- 
 ment under which we live" looked on slavery 
 as wrong, and so framed it and everything 
 about it as to square with the idea that it was 
 wrong, so far as the necessities arising from 
 its existence permitted. In forming the Con- 
 stitution they found the slave-trade existing, 
 capital invested in it, fields depending upon 
 it for labor, and the whole system resting 
 upon the importation of slave labor. They 
 therefore did not prohibit the slave-trade at 
 once, but they gave the power to prohibit it 
 after twenty years. Why was this? What 
 other foreign trade did they treat in that way ? 
 Would they have done this if they had not 
 thought slavery wrong? 
 
 Another thing was done by some of the 
 same men who framed the Constitution, and 
 afterward adopted as their own act by the 
 first Congress held under that Constitution, 
 of which many of the framers were members 
 — they prohibited the spread of slavery in 
 the Territories. Thus the same men, the 
 framers of the Constitution, cut off the supply 
 and prohibited the spread of slavery; and 
 both acts show conclusively that they con- 
 sidered that the thing was wrong. 
 
 If additional proof is wanting, it can be 
 found in the phraseology of the Constitution, 
 When men are framing a supreme law and 
 chart of government to secure blessings and 
 prosperity to untold generations yet to come, 
 they use language as short and direct and 
 
 112 
 
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 ! 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 didn'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 
 8 113 
 
whether you pay them or not ! I like the 
 system which lets a man quit when he wants 
 to, and wish it might prevail everywhere. One 
 of the reasons why I am opposed to slavery is 
 just here. What is the true condition of the 
 laborer? I take it that it is best for all to 
 leave each man free to acquire property as 
 fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I 
 don't believe in a law to prevent a man from 
 getting rich; it would do more harm than 
 good. So while we do not propose any war 
 upon capital, we do wish to allow the hum- 
 blest man an equal chance to get rich with 
 everybody else. When one starts poor, as 
 most do in the race of life, free society is such 
 that he knows he can better his condition; 
 he knows that there is no fixed condition of 
 labor for his whole life. I am not ashamed 
 to confess that twenty-five years ago I was a 
 hired laborer, mauling rails, at work on a 
 flatboat — just what might happen to any 
 poor man's son. I want every man to have 
 the chance — and I believe a black man is 
 entitled to it — in which he can better his 
 condition — when he may look forward and 
 hope to be a hired laborer this year and the 
 next, work for himself afterward, and finally 
 to hire men to work for him. That is the true 
 system. Up here in New England you have 
 a soil that scarcely sprouts black-eyed beans, 
 and yet where will you find wealthy men so 
 wealthy, and poverty so rarely in extremity? 
 There is not another such place on earth ! I 
 
 114 
 
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, i860. 
 
 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, i860. 
 
 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 
 
 "5 
 
have already done this many, many times; 
 and it is in print, and open to all who will 
 read. Those who will not read or heed what 
 I have already publicly said would not read 
 or heed a repetition of it. "If they hear not 
 Moses and the prophets, neither will they be 
 persuaded though one rose from the dead." 
 — Letter to William S. Speer ; October 23, 
 i860. 
 
 WHEN the people rise in mass in behalf 
 of the Union and the liberties of this 
 country, truly may it be said, "The gates of 
 hell cannot prevail against them." In all 
 trying positions in which I shall be placed, 
 and doubtless I shall be placed in many such, 
 my reliance will be upon you and the people 
 of the United States; and I wish you to re- 
 member, now and forever, that it is your busi- 
 ness, and not mine ; that if the union of these 
 States and the liberties of this people shall be 
 lost, it is but little to any one man of fifty-two 
 years of age, but a great deal to the thirty 
 millions of people who inhabit these United 
 States, and to their posterity in all coming 
 time. — Remarks at Indianapolis ; February 
 II, 1861, 
 
 IN their [the Secessionists'] view, the Union 
 as a family relation would seem to be no 
 regular marriage, but rather a sort of "free- 
 love" arrangement, to be maintained only 
 
 116 
 
m "passional attraction." By the way, in 
 vhat consists the special sacredness of a 
 )tate? I speak not of the position assigned 
 
 a State in the Union by the Constitution; 
 or that, by the bond, we all recognize. That 
 )osition, however, a State cannot carry out 
 )f the Union with it. I speak of that assumed 
 )rimary right of a State to rule all which is 
 ess than itself, and ruin all which is larger 
 han itself. If a State and a county, in a given 
 :ase, should be equal in extent of territory, 
 ind equal in number of inhabitants, in what, 
 LS a matter of principle, is the State better 
 han the county? Would an exchange of 
 lames be an exchange of rights upon princi- 
 )le? On what rightful principle may a State, 
 )eing not more than one-fiftieth part of the 
 lation in soil and population, break up the 
 lation and then coerce a proportionally larger 
 iUbdivision of itself in the most arbitrary way ? 
 A^hat mysterious right to play tyrant is con- 
 erred on a district of country with its people, 
 )y merely calling it a State ? Fellow-citizens, 
 
 ' am not asserting anything; I am merely 
 Lsking questions for you to consider. — Re- 
 narks to the Indiana Legislature ; February 
 :2, 1861. 
 
 1 AGREE with you, Mr. Chairman, that the 
 ■- working-men are the basis of all govern- 
 nents, for the plain reason that they are the 
 nore numerous. . . . 
 
 Mr. Chairman, I hold that while man exists 
 117 
 
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. 
 
 THERE is no crisis but an artificial one. 
 What is there now to warrant the con- 
 dition of affairs presented by our friends over 
 
 118 
 
the river? Take even their own view of the 
 questions involved, and there is nothing to 
 justify the course they are pursuing. I re- 
 peat, then, there is no crisis, excepting such 
 a one as may be gotten up at any time by 
 turbulent men aided by designing politicians. 
 My advice to them, under such circumstances, 
 is to keep cool. If the great American people 
 only keep their temper on both sides of the 
 line, the troubles will come to an end, and 
 the question which now distracts the country 
 svill be settled, just as surely as all other diffi- 
 :ultiesof a like character which have originated 
 In this government have been adjusted. Let 
 :he people on both sides keep their self-pos- 
 jession, and just as other clouds have cleared 
 iway in due time, so will this great nation con- 
 ;inue to prosper as heretofore. 
 
 It is often said that the tariff is the specialty 
 Df Pennsylvania. Assuming that direct taxa- 
 :ion is not to be adopted, the tariff question 
 nust be as durable as the government itself, 
 [t is a question of national housekeeping. It 
 s to the government what replenishing the 
 Tieal-tub is to the family. Ever-varying 
 rircumstances will require frequent modifica- 
 ions as to the amount needed and the sources 
 )f supply. So far there is little difference of 
 )pinion among the people. It is as to whether 
 md how far, duties on imports shall be ad- 
 usted to favor home production in the home 
 narket, that controversy begins. One party 
 
 119 
 
insists that such adjustment oppresses one 
 class for the advantage of another; while the 
 other party argues that, with all its incidents, 
 in the long run all classes are benefited. . . . 
 I have by no means a thoroughly matured 
 judgment upon this subject, especially as to 
 details; some general ideas are about all. I 
 
 y have long thought it would be to our advan- 
 tage to produce any necessary article at home 
 which can be made of as good quality and 
 with as little labor at home as abroad, at least 
 by the difference of the carrying from abroad. 
 In such case the carrying is demonstrably a 
 dead loss of labor. For instance, labor being 
 the true standard of value, is it not plain that 
 if equal labor get a bar of railroad iron out of 
 a mine in England, and another out of a mine 
 in Pennsylvania, each can be laid down in a 
 track at home cheaper than they could ex- 
 change countries, at least by the carriage? 
 If there be a present cause why one can be 
 both made and carried cheaper in money 
 price than the other can be made without 
 carrying, that cause is an unnatural and in- 
 jurious one, and ought gradually, if not 
 rapidly, to be removed. — Remarks at Pitts- 
 
 ~~ burg; February 15, 1861. 
 
 THERE is nothing that could ever bring 
 me to consent — willingly to consent — 
 to the destruction of this Union (in which not 
 only the great city of New York, but the 
 
 120 
 
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. 
 
 AWAY 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- 
 
 121 
 
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. 
 
 1HOLD 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 
 
 J22 
 
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 
 
 123 
 
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- 
 
 124 
 
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 vi^all 
 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- 
 
 125 
 
out faith of being in the right? If the Al- 
 mighty Ruler of Nations, with his eternal 
 truth and justice, be on your side of the 
 North, or on yours of the South, that truth 
 and that justice will surely prevail by the 
 judgment of this great tribunal of the Ameri- 
 can people. . . , 
 
 In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow- 
 countrymen, and not in mine, is the momen- 
 tous issue of civil war. The government will 
 not assail you. You can have no conflict 
 without being yourselves the aggressors. You 
 have no oath registered in heaven to destroy 
 the government, while I shall have the most 
 solemn one to "preserve, protect, and de- 
 fend it." 
 
 I am loath to close. We are not enemies, 
 but friends. We must not be enemies. 
 Though passion may have strained, it must 
 not break our bonds of affection. The mystic 
 chords of memory, stretching from every 
 battle-field and patriot grave to every living 
 heart and hearthstone all over this broad 
 land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union 
 when again touched, as surely they will be, 
 by the better angels of our nature. — First 
 Inaugural Address; March 4, 1861. 
 
 MUCH is said about the "sovereignty" 
 of the States; but the word even is not 
 in the National Constitution, nor, as is be- 
 lieved, in any of the State constitutions. What 
 
 126 
 
is "sovereignty" in the political sense of the 
 term? 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 
 
 J27 
 
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 
 
 128 
 
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 
 9 129 
 
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? . . . 
 
 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 
 
 130 
 
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." 
 
 • ••••••a 
 
 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- 
 
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 
 
 132 
 
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 
 
 ^33 
 
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- 
 fess it astonishes me. That you should object 
 
 134 
 
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 Fremont'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 
 
 I3S 
 
position, nor alfow others to assume it on my 
 responsibility. 
 
 You speak of it as being the only means of 
 saving the government. On the contrary, it 
 is itself the surrender of the government. Can 
 it be pretended that it is any longer the Gov- 
 ernment of the United States — any govern- 
 ment of constitution and laws — wherein a 
 general or a president may make permanent 
 rules of property by proclamation ? I do not 
 say Congress might not with propriety pass a 
 law on the point, just such as General Fre- 
 mont proclaimed. I do not say I might not, 
 as a member of Congress, vote for it. What 
 1 object to is, that I, as President, shall ex- 
 pressly or impliedly seize and exercise the 
 permanent legislative functions of the gov- 
 ernment. — Letter to O. H. Browning; Sep- 
 tember 22, 1861. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR: The lady bearer of this 
 says she has two sons who want to 
 work. Wanting to work is so rare a want 
 that it should be encouraged. — Note to Major 
 Ramsey; October 17, 1861. 
 
 IT has been said that one bad general is 
 better than two good ones; and the say- 
 ing is true, if taken to mean no more than that 
 an army is better directed by a single mind, 
 though inferior, than by two superior ones at 
 variance and cross-purposes with each other. 
 
 136 
 
And the same is true in all joint operations 
 wherein those engaged can have none but a 
 common end in view, and can differ only as 
 to the choice of means. In a storm at sea no 
 one on board can v^^ish the ship to sink; and 
 yet not infrequently all go down together be- 
 cause too many will direct, and no single mind 
 can be allowed to control. 
 
 It is not needed nor fitting here that a gen- 
 eral argument should be made in favor of 
 popular institutions; but there is one point, 
 with its connections, not so hackneyed as 
 most others, to which I ask a brief attention. 
 It is the effort to place capital on an equal 
 footing with, if not above, labor, in the struc- 
 ture of government. It is assumed that labor 
 is available only in connection with capital; 
 that nobody labors unless somebody else, own- 
 ing capital, somehow by the use of it induces 
 him to labor. This assumed, it is next con- 
 sidered whether it is best that capital shall hire 
 laborers, and thus induce them to work by 
 their own consent, or buy them and drive 
 them to it without their consent. Having 
 proceeded thus far, it is naturally concluded 
 that all laborers are either hired laborers or 
 what we call slaves. And, further, it is as- 
 sumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is 
 fixed in that condition for life. 
 
 Now, there is no such relation between 
 capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any 
 such thing as a free man being fixed for life 
 
 137 
 
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 pruden*^, 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 
 
 139 
 
desirable has been even greater. We thus 
 have, at one view, w^hat 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 250,000,000. 
 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. 
 
 I 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 1 was in a 
 good humor." 
 
 J4O 
 
CAN you, for your States, do better than 
 to take the course [compensated eman- 
 cipation] I urge? Discarding punctilio and 
 maxims adapted to more manageable times, 
 and looking only to the unprecedentedly stern 
 facts of our case, can you do better in any 
 possible event ? You prefer that the constitu- 
 tional relation of the States to the nation shall 
 be practically restored without disturbance 
 of that institution; and if this were done, my 
 whole duty in this respect, under the Consti- 
 tution and my oath of office, would be per- 
 formed. But it is not done, and we are try- 
 ing to accomplish it by war. The incidents 
 of the war cannot be avoided. If the war 
 continues long, as it must if the object be not 
 sooner attained, the institution in your States 
 will be extinguished by mere friction and 
 abrasion — by the mere incidents of the war. 
 It will be gone, and you will have nothing 
 valuable in lieu of it. Much of its value is 
 gone already. How much better for you and 
 for your people to take the step which at once 
 shortens the war and secures substantial com- 
 pensation for that which is sure to be wholly 
 lost in any other event ! How much better 
 to thus save the money which else we sink 
 forever in the war ! How much better to do 
 it while we can, lest the war erelong render 
 us pecuniarily unable to do it ! How much 
 better for you as seller, and the nation as 
 buyer, to sell out and buy out that without 
 which the war could never have been, than 
 
 141 
 
to sink both the thing to be sold and the price 
 of it in cutting one another's throats? I do 
 not speak of emancipation at once, but of a 
 decision at once to emancipate gradually. 
 Room in South America for colonization can 
 be obtained cheaply and in abundance, and 
 when numbers shall be large enough to be 
 company and encouragement for one another, 
 the freed people will not be so reluctant to go. 
 — Appeal to Border State Representatives; 
 July 12, 1862. 
 
 YOUR race is suffering, in my judgment, 
 the greatest wrong inflicted on any 
 people. But even when you cease to be slaves, 
 you are yet far removed from being placed 
 on an equality with the white race. You are 
 cut off from many of the advantages which 
 the other race enjoys. The aspiration of men 
 is to enjoy equality with the best when free, 
 but on this broad continent not a single man 
 of your race is made the equal of a single man 
 of ours. Go where you are treated the best, 
 and the ban is still upon you. . . . But for 
 your race among us there could not be war, 
 although many men engaged on either side 
 do not care for you one way or the other. , . . 
 It is better for us both, therefore, to be sepa- 
 rated. I know that there are free men among 
 you who, even if they could better their con- 
 dition, are not as much inclined to go out of 
 the country as those who, being slaves, could 
 
 142 
 
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 
 
 143 
 
the great God who made him. — Address 
 to a Deputation of Colored Men; August 14, 
 1862. 
 
 DEAR 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, 
 the 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 
 
 144 
 
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. 
 
 THE 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 
 10 145 
 
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, Hke 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 
 
which I approved, and which offers protec- 
 tion and freedom to the slaves of rebel mas- 
 ters who come within our lines ? Yet I cannot 
 learn that that law has caused a single slave 
 to come over to us. And suppose they could 
 be induced by a proclamation of freedom 
 from me to throw themselves upon us, what 
 should we do with them ? How can we feed 
 and care for such a multitude ? . . . 
 
 Now, then, tell me, if you please, what pos- 
 sible result of good would follow the issuing 
 of such a proclamation as you desire? Un- 
 derstand, I raise no objections against it 
 on legal or constitutional grounds; for, as 
 commander-in-chief of the army and navy, in 
 time of war I suppose I have a right to take 
 any measure which may best subdue the 
 enemy; nor do I urge objections of a moral 
 nature, in view of possible consequences of 
 insurrection and massacre at the South. I 
 view this matter as a practical war measure, 
 to be decided on according to the advantages 
 or disadvantages it may offer to the suppres- 
 sion of the rebellion. 
 
 I admit that slavery is the root of the rebel- 
 lion, or at least its sine qua non. The ambi- 
 tion of politicians may have instigated them 
 to act, but they would have been impotent 
 without slavery as their instrument. I will 
 also concede that emancipation would help 
 us in Europe, and convince them that we are 
 incited by something more than ambition. 
 I grant, further, that it would help somewhat 
 
 147 
 
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 
 
 148 
 
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. 
 
 ON 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. 
 
 IN 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, 
 
 149 
 
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 
 
 ISO 
 
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. 
 
 A 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 
 
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, just — a way which, if followed, 
 
 152 
 
the world will forever applaud, and God must 
 forever bless. — Annual Message to Congress; 
 December i, 1862. 
 
 DEAR FANNY: It is with deep regret 
 that I learn of the death of your kind 
 and brave father, and especially that it is affect- 
 ing your young heart beyond what is common 
 in such cases. In this sad world of ours sorrow 
 comes to all, and to the young it comes with 
 bitterer agony because it takes them una- 
 wares. The older have learned ever to expect 
 it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation 
 to your present distress. Perfect relief is not 
 possible, except with time. You cannot now 
 realize that you will ever feel better. Is not 
 this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are 
 sure to be happy again. To know this, which 
 is certainly true, will make you some less 
 miserable now. I have had experience enough 
 to know what I say, and you need only to 
 believe it to feel better at once. The mem- 
 ory of your dear father, instead of an agony, 
 will yet be a sad, sweet feeling in your heart 
 of a purer and holier sort than you have 
 known before. 
 
 Please present my kind regards to your 
 afflicted mother. — Letter to Miss Fanny 
 McCullough; December 23, 1862. 
 
 THE division of a State is dreaded as a 
 precedent. But a measure made ex- 
 pedient by a war is no precedent for times of 
 
 153 
 
/ 
 
 \ 
 
 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. 
 
 THAT 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 
 
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. 
 
 GENERAL: 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 
 
 155 
 
be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best 
 for you to know that there are some things in 
 regard to which I am not quite satisfied with 
 you. I believe you to be a brave and skilful 
 soldier, which of course I like. I also believe 
 you do not mix politics with your profession, 
 in which you are right. You have confidence 
 in yourself, which is a valuable if not an 
 indispensable quality. You are ambitious, 
 which, within reasonable bounds, does good 
 rather than harm; but I think that during 
 General Burnside's command of the army 
 you have taken counsel of your ambition and 
 thwarted him as much as you could, in which 
 you did a great wrong to the country and to a 
 most meritorious and honorable brother offi- 
 cer, I have heard, in such a way as to believe 
 it, of your recently saying that both the army 
 and the government needed a dictator. Of 
 course it was not for this, but in spite of it, 
 that I have given you the command. Only 
 those generals who gain successes can set up 
 dictators. What I now ask of you is military 
 success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The 
 government will support you to the utmost 
 of its ability, which is neither more nor less 
 than it has done and will do for all command- 
 ers. I much fear that the spirit which you 
 have aided to infuse into the army, of criti- 
 cising their commander and withholding con- 
 fidence from him, will now turn upon you. 
 I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down. 
 Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive 
 
 IS6 
 
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. 
 
 MY 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 
 
this life and of that to come, is most propi- 
 tious for the meeting proposed. — Letter to 
 Alexander Reed; February 22, 1863. 
 
 TRUTH 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 A ndrew 
 Johnson, of Tennessee; March 26, 1863. 
 
 WHEREAS, 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 
 
 159 
 
national sins, and to pray for clemency and 
 forgiveness. — Proclamation of April 30, 
 1863, as a National Fast Day; March 30, 
 1863. 
 
 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. 
 
 YOU 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, only as if there were no rebellion. 
 
 160 
 
The Constitution itself rejects this view. The 
 military arrests and detentions which have 
 been made, including those of Mr. Vallandig- 
 ham, which are not different in principle from 
 the others, have been for prevention, and 
 not for punishment — as injunctions to stay 
 injury, as proceedings to keep the peace; 
 and hence, like proceedings in such cases and 
 for like reasons, they have not been accom- 
 panied with indictments, or trials by juries, 
 nor in a single case by any punishment what- 
 ever, beyond what is purely incidental to the 
 prevention. The original sentence of im- 
 prisonment in Mr. Vallandigham's case was 
 to prevent injury to the military service only, 
 and the modification of it was made as a less 
 disagreeable mode to him of securing the 
 same prevention. . . . 
 
 We all know that combinations, armed in 
 some instances, to resist the arrest of deserters 
 began several months ago; that more recently 
 the like has appeared in resistance to the en- 
 rolment preparatory to a draft; and that 
 quite a number of assassinations have oc- 
 curred from the same animus. These had to 
 be met by military force, and this again has 
 led to bloodshed and death. And now, under 
 a sense of responsibility more weighty and 
 enduring than any which is merely official, 
 I solemnly declare my belief that this hin- 
 drance of the military, including maiming and 
 murder, is due to the course in which Mr. 
 Vallandigham has been engaged in a greater 
 II i6i 
 
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 
 
 162 
 
committed to the following propositions and 
 to nothing else: 
 
 1. That there is now a rebellion in the 
 United States, the object and tendency of 
 which is to destroy the National Union; and 
 that, in your opinion, an army and navy are 
 constitutional means for suppressing that 
 rebellion; 
 
 2. That no one of you will do anything 
 which, in his own judgment, will tend to 
 hinder the increase, or favor the decrease, or 
 lessen the efficiency of the army or navy while 
 engaged in the effort to suppress that rebel- 
 lion; and 
 
 3. That each of you will, in his sphere, do 
 all he can to have the officers, soldiers, and 
 seamen of the army and navy, while engaged 
 in the effort to suppress the rebellion, paid, 
 fed, clad, and otherwise well provided for and 
 supported. 
 
 And with the further understanding that 
 upon receiving the letter and names thus in- 
 dorsed, I will cause them to be published, 
 which publication shall be, within itself, a 
 revocation of the order in relation to Mr. Val- 
 landigham. — Letter to Committee of Ohio 
 Democrats; June 29, 1863. 
 
 WE are contending with an enemy, who, 
 as I understand, drives every able- 
 bodied man he can reach into his ranks, very 
 much as a butcher drives bullocks into a 
 
 163 
 
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. 
 
 rOOME of] you say you will not fight to free 
 LO 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 
 
urge you to continue fighting, it will be an apt 
 time then for you to declare you will not fight 
 to free negroes. 
 
 I thought that in your struggle for the 
 Union, to whatever extent the negroes should 
 cease helping the enemy, to that extent it 
 weakened the enemy in its resistance to you. 
 Do you think differently? I thought that 
 whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers, 
 leaves just so much less for white soldiers to 
 do in saving the Union. Does it appear other- 
 wise to you? But negroes, like other people, 
 act upon motives. Why should they do any- 
 thing for us if we will do nothing for them? 
 If they stake their lives for us they must be 
 prompted by the strongest motive, even the 
 promise of freedom. And the promise, be- 
 ing made, must be kept. 
 
 The signs look better. The Father of 
 Waters again goes unvexed to the sea. Thanks 
 to the great Northwest for it. Nor yet wholly 
 to them. Three hundred miles up they met 
 New England, Empire, Keystone, and Jersey, 
 hewing their way right and left. The sunny 
 South, too, in more colors than one, also lent 
 a hand. On the spot, their part of the history 
 was jotted down in black and white. The 
 job was a great national one, and let none be 
 banned who bore an honorable part in it. 
 And while those who have cleared the great 
 river may well be proud, even that is not all. 
 It is hard to say that anything has been more 
 bravely and well done than at Antietam, 
 
 165 
 
Murfreesboro', Gettysburg, and on many 
 fields of lesser note. Nor must Uncle Sam's 
 web-feet be forgotten. At all the watery 
 margins they have been present. Not only 
 on the deep sea, the broad bay, and the rapid 
 river, but also up the narrow, muddy bayou, 
 and wherever the ground was a little damp, 
 they have been and made their tracks. Thanks 
 to all : for the great republic — for the prin- 
 ciple it lives by and keeps alive — for man's 
 vast future — thanks to all. 
 
 Peace does not appear so distant as it did. 
 I hope it will come soon, and come to stay, 
 and so come as to be worth the keeping in all 
 future time. It will then have been proved 
 that among free men there can be no success- 
 ful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and 
 that they who take such appeal are sure to 
 lose their case and pay the cost. And then 
 there will be some black men who can remem- 
 ber that with silent tongue, and clenched 
 teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet 
 they have helped mankind on to this great 
 consummation, while I fear there will be 
 some white ones unable to forget that with 
 malignant heart and deceitful speech they 
 strove to hinder it. — Letter to James C, 
 Conkling to he read at Union meeting in 
 Springfield, III.; August 26, 1863. 
 
 FOURSCORE and seven years ago our 
 fathers brought forth on this continent 
 a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedi- 
 
 166 
 
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. 
 
 r 
 
 '"P^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 
 things, called by the same name, liberty. And 
 it follows that each of the things is, by the 
 
 168 
 
respective parties, called by two different and I 
 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 i8, 
 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. 
 
 THERE 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 
 
 170 
 
if we should wait, before collecting a tax, 
 to adjust the taxes upon each man in exact 
 proportion with every other man, we should 
 never collect any tax at all. There may be 
 mistakes made sometimes; things may be 
 done wrong, while the officers of the govern- 
 ment do all they can to prevent mistakes. 
 But I beg of you, as citizens of this great re- 
 public, not to let your minds be carried off 
 from the great work we have before us. This 
 struggle is too large for you to be diverted 
 from it by any small matter. When you re- 
 turn to your homes, rise up to the height of 
 a generation of men worthy of a free govern- 
 ment, and we v.'ill carry out the great work 
 we have commenced. — Remarks to the 
 i6^h Ohio Regiment; August i8, 1864. 
 
 IN regard to this great book, I have but to 
 say, it is the best gift God has given to 
 man. All the good Saviour gave to the world 
 was communicated through this book. But 
 for it we could not know right from wrong. 
 All things most desirable for man's welfare, 
 here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed 
 in it. To you I return my most sincere thanks 
 for the very elegant copy of the great Book of 
 God which you present. — Remarks to a 
 Negro Delegation; September 7, 1864. 
 
 WE cannot have free government without 
 elections; and if the rebellion could 
 force us to forego or postpone a national elec- 
 
 171 
 
tion, it might fairly claim to have already 
 conquered and ruined us. The strife of the 
 election is but human nature practically ap- 
 plied to the facts of the case. What has oc- 
 curred in this case must ever recur in similar 
 cases. Human nature will not change. In 
 any future great national trial, compared 
 with the men of this, we shall have as weak 
 and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and 
 as good. Let us, therefore, study the incidents 
 of this as philosophy to learn wisdom from, 
 and none of them as wrongs to be revenged. 
 But the election, along with its incidental 
 and undesirable strife, has done good too. 
 It has demonstrated that a people's govern- 
 ment can sustain a national election in the 
 midst of a great civil war. Until now, it has 
 not been known to the world that this was a 
 possibility. It shows, also, how sound and 
 how strong we still are. It shows that, even 
 among candidates of the same party, he who 
 is most devoted to the Union and most op- 
 posed to treason can receive most of the 
 people's votes. It shows, also, to the extent 
 yet known, that we have more men now than 
 we had when the war began. Gold is good 
 in its place, but living, brave, patriotic men 
 are better than gold. 
 
 But the rebellion continues, and now that 
 the election is over, may not all having a com- 
 mon interest reunite in a common effort to 
 save our common country? For my own 
 part, I have striven and shall strive to avoid 
 
 172 
 
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 lo, 1864. 
 
 DEAR 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, 
 
 173 
 
I 
 
 T seems that there is now no organized 
 military Torce 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. 
 
 174 
 
NEITHER 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 ofl"ensesl for it 
 must needs be that off'enses 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 
 
 175 
 
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. 
 
 EVERY 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 
 
 C176 
 
falls most directly on myself, I thought others 
 might afford for me to tell it. — Letter to 
 Thurlow Weed; March 15, 1865. 
 
 THERE are but few aspects of this great 
 war on which I have not already ex- 
 pressed my views by speaking or writing. 
 There is one — the recent effort of "our er- 
 ring brethren," sometimes so called, to em- 
 ploy the slaves in their armies. The great 
 question with them has been, "Will the negro 
 fight for them.?" They ought to know better 
 than we, and doubtless do know better than 
 we. I may incidentally remark that, having 
 in my life heard many arguments — or strings 
 of words meant to pass for arguments — 
 intended to show that the negro ought to be 
 a slave — if he shall now really fight to keep 
 himself a slave, it will be a far better argu- 
 ment why he should remain a slave than I 
 have ever before heard. He, perhaps, ought 
 to be a slave if he desires it ardently enough 
 to fight for it. Or, if one out of four will, for 
 his own freedom, fight to keep the other three 
 in slavery, he ought to be a slave for his sel- 
 fish meanness. I have always thought that 
 all men should be free; but if any should be 
 slaves, it should be first those who desire it 
 for themselves, and secondly those who desire 
 it for others. Whenever I hear any one argu- 
 ing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see 
 it tried on him personally. — Remarks to an 
 Indiana Regiment; March 17, 1865. 
 12 177 
 
BY 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 
 
safely at home, it would be utterly immaterial 
 whether they had ever been abroad. Let us 
 all join in doing the acts necessary to restor- 
 ing the proper practical relations between 
 these States and the Union, and each forever 
 after innocently indulge his own opinion 
 whether in doing the acts he brought the 
 States from without into the Union, or only 
 gave them proper assistance, they never hav- 
 ing been out of it. . , . 
 
 Now, if we reject and spurn them [Louisi- 
 anans asking for State government under the 
 Union], we do our utmost to disorganize and 
 disperse them. We, in efifect, say to the white 
 man: You are worthless or worse; we will 
 neither help you, nor be helped by you. To 
 the blacks we say : This cup of liberty which 
 these, your old masters, hold to your lips we 
 will dash from you, and leave you to the 
 chances of gathering the spilled and scattered 
 contents in some vague and undefined when, 
 where, and how. If this course, discouraging 
 and paralyzing both white and black, has any 
 tendency to bring Louisiana into proper prac- 
 tical relations with the Union, I have so far 
 been unable to perceive it. If, on the con- 
 trary, we recognize and sustain the new gov- 
 ernment of Louisiana, the converse of all this 
 is made true. We encourage the hearts and 
 nerve the arms of the 12,000 to adhere to their 
 work, and argue for it, and proselyte for it, 
 and fight for it, and feed it, and grow it, and 
 ripen it to a complete success. The colored 
 
 179 
 
man, too, in seeing all united for him, is in- 
 spired with vigilance, and energy, and daring, 
 to the same end. Grant that he desires the 
 elective franchise, will he not attain it sooner 
 by saving the already advanced steps toward 
 it than by running backward over them? 
 Concede that the new government of Louisi- 
 ana is only to what it should be as the egg is 
 to the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by 
 hatching the egg than by smashing it, — 
 Speech on Reconstruction ; April ii, 1865. 
 
 180 
 
INDEX 
 
 [Note: L. is the abbreviation of Lincoln,] 
 
 Abolition. See Slavery. 
 
 Agriculture, advantages of thorough cultivation, 89, 94 ; 
 agricultural fairs a social bond, 89. 
 
 Alton, 111., debate with Douglas at, 72. 
 
 Army, The (for Negro soldiers, see Slavery), on 
 military dictatorship, 156; L. disparages contention 
 about rank, 140, 158 ; instigators of desertion worthier 
 of punishment than deserters, 160; draft is constitu- 
 tional, 163 ; triumphs of, 165 ; soldiers consecrate 
 their lives, 166. 
 
 Baltimore, Md., remarks at sanitary fair in, 168. 
 
 Banks. See Finance. 
 
 Baptists, letter to committee of, 169. 
 
 Bible, The, all sufficient for present and future life,. 
 171. 
 
 Bixby, Mrs., letter to, 173. 
 
 Bloomington, III, speech before First Republican Con- 
 vention at, 43. 
 
 Border State Representatives, appeal to, 141. 
 
 Browning, O. H., letter to, 134. 
 
 Buchanan, James, accepts doctrine of" State equality," 
 47; conspirator in re Dred Scott decision, 53. 
 
 Canisius, Dr. Theodore, letter to, 80. 
 
 Capital. Sfe Labor. 
 
 Cass, Lewis, burlesque of his military career, 21. 
 
 Charleston, L'., debate with Douglas at, 65. 
 
 Chicago, 111., speech at Republican banquet in, Dec. 
 
 10, 1856,46; speech at, July 10, 1858, 54; remarks 
 
 to representatives of churches in, 145. 
 Christian Commission, L. endorses, 157. 
 Cincinnati, O., speech at, Sept. 17, 1859, 83 ; remarks 
 
 to Germans at, Feb. 12. 1861, 117. 
 
 181 
 
Clay, Henry, eulogy of, 25 ; in favor of gradual eman- 
 cipation, 25, 40. 
 
 Clinton, 111., 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, 20. 
 
 Conkling, James C, letter to, 164. 
 
 Constitution, The. Set- Slavery. 
 
 Cooper Union, New York, speech at, 104. 
 
 Corning, Erastus, and others, letter to, 160. 
 
 Crittenden, J. J., letter to, 76. 
 
 Declaration of Independence {see also Slavery), 
 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 Democrsis 4; in New York 
 an "equally divided gang of i>jgs," 21; has ex- 
 changed coats with Republican ^jarty, 77 ; puts dollar 
 before the man, 77 , bushwhacking tactics of, iii. 
 
 Discoveries, Inve'.tions, and Improvements, lecture 
 on, 96. 
 
 Divine Will, meditation on the, 150. 
 
 Douglas, Senator Stephen A., L. attacks his popular 
 sovereignty theory, 34 ; L. replies to him at Spring- 
 field, June 26, 1S57, 48 ; his version of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, 50 ; conspirator in re Dred 
 Scott decision, 53 ; L. replies to him at Chicago, 
 July 10, 1858, 54 ; L. contrasts himself with, 59 ; de- 
 bate with L. at Jonesboro, 62 ; debate with L. at 
 Charleston, 65 ; debate with L. at Quincy, 70 ; debate 
 with L. at Alton, 72; dangerous enemy of liberty, 
 81 ; contrasted with Jefferson, 82 ; L. denounces 
 his parallel between negro and crocodile, 83, 84, no. 
 
 Dred Scott Decision. See Slavery. 
 
 Durley, Williamson, letter to, 11. 
 
 Education, basis of enduring prosperity, 93, 95. 
 Edwardsville, 111., speech at, 61. 
 Emancipation. .5"^^ Slavery. 
 Emancipation Proclamation, Preliminary, 149. 
 
 Fashion, influence of, 6. 
 
 Fast Day, proclamation of, March 30, 1863, 158. 
 
 182 
 
Finance, L. in candidacy for Illinois legislature an- 
 nounces himself in favor of national bank, i ; L. op- 
 poses examination of State Bank without legislative 
 authority, i ; tax on bank circulation, 154 ; necessary 
 inequalities in taxation, 170. 
 
 Fisher, C. H., letter to, 115. 
 
 Fletcher, Governor Thomas C, letter to, 174. 
 
 " Fooling the People," remark on, 61. 
 
 Free Trade. See Tariff. 
 
 Fremont, General John C, L. opposes his OtOtX of 
 military emancipation, 135. 
 
 Fugitive Slave Law. See Slavery. 
 
 Galena, 111., speech at, 44. 
 
 Galesburg, 111., debate with Douglas at, 66. 
 
 Galloway, Samuel, letter to, 80. 
 
 Gentry, Matthew (an insane friend of L.), poem on, 13. 
 
 Gettysburg, Pa., dedication of National Cemetery at, 
 166. 
 
 Government {see also Slavery), object of, to secure 
 to labor its product, 9 ; notes on, 27 ; rests on public 
 opinion, 46 ; central idea of, is human equality, 46 ; 
 L. endorses principle of greatest good to greatest num- 
 ber, 118; supreme control should be vested in one 
 person, 136 ; liberty versus tyranny, 168 ; elections a 
 necessity of free, 171. 
 
 Greeley, Horace, letter to, 144. 
 
 Gurney, Mrs., reply to an address by, 149. 
 
 Hammond, J. H., his " mud-sill " theory, 90. 
 Hartford, Ct., spe.^ch at, 108. 
 Henry, Dr. A. G , letter to, 76. 
 Herndon, William H., letter to, 19. 
 Homestead Law. L. endorses, ii8. 
 Hooker, General Joseph, letter to, 155. 
 Hunter, General David, letter to, 140. 
 
 Immigrants, no discrimination against, 80, 118. 
 
 Inaugural Address, First, on March 4, 1861, 122. 
 
 Inaugural Address, Second, on March 4» 1861, 175 ; L.'s 
 comments on, 176. 
 
 Indiana Legislature, remarks to, 177. 
 
 Indiana Regiment, remarks to an, 177. 
 
 Indianapolis, Ind., remarks at, 116. 
 
 Internal Improvements, L. in candidacy for Illinois 
 legislature announces himself in favor of, i ; speech in 
 Congress on, June 20, 1848, 16; reply to charge of 
 inequality in, 17 ; absurdity of paying for them with 
 tonnage duties, x8> 
 
 183 
 
Invention, Adam an inventor, 97 ; of speech, 98 ; of 
 writing, 100 ; of printing, 102 ; aided by discovery of 
 America, 104 ; aided by patent laws, 104. 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, Democracy's sole Presidential ma- 
 terial, 20. 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, letter to Jefferson Dinner Commit- 
 tee of Boston, on, 76 ; contrasted with Stephen A. 
 Douglas, 82. 
 
 Johnson, Governor Andrew, letter to, 158. 
 
 Johnston, William, letter to, April 18, 1846, 11; letter 
 to, Sept. 6, 1846. 
 
 Jonesboro, 111., debate with Douglas at, 62. 
 
 Know-nothing, L. not a, 43. 
 
 Labor {see also Government, Slavery\ gives title to 
 product, 9 ; in relation to tariff, 9 ; free, versus slave, 
 27, 86, 90, 114; relation to capital, 90, 137; Ham- 
 mond's " mud-sill " theory, go, 93 ; strikes justifiable, 
 113; workingmen the basis of all governments, 117; 
 wanting to work should be encouraged, 136, 170; 
 workingmen should cherish their political rights, 139 ; 
 solidarity of English and American laborers, 154 ; re- 
 lation to property, 168. 
 
 Law, notes for a lecture on, 23. 
 
 Leavenworth, Kans., speech at, 95. 
 
 Lewiston, 111., speech at, 60. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, poem on, by Lowell, vii ; considers 
 himself an old man, 19; in Black Hawk war, 20 ; as a 
 lawyer, 23 : as a hired laborer, 27, 114; personal ex- 
 perience with slavery, 42 ; still a Whig, Aug. 24, 
 1855, 42 ; votes for Wilmot proviso, 42 ; not a Know- 
 Nothing, 43 ; contrasts himself with Douglas, 59 ; 
 avows his high motives in senatorial contest, 60 ; his 
 feelings upon defeat for Senate, 76 ; youthful im- 
 pressions on reading Weems's Washington, 121 ; his 
 trust in Providence, 149, 150. 
 
 Louisiana, reconstruction in, 178. 
 
 Lowell. James Russell, poem on L. , vii. 
 
 Madison, James, avows word slave ought not to appear 
 in Constitution, 43. 
 
 McCullough, Miss Fannie, letter to, 153. 
 
 Manchester, England, letter to workingmen of, 154. 
 
 Message to Congress, in special session, July 4, 1S61, 
 126; First Annual, Dec. 3, 1861, 136; Second An- 
 nual, Dec. I, 1862, 151; on U. S. notes, Jan. 17, 
 J 863, 154, 
 
 184 
 
Mexican War, President Polk responsible for, 15; vio- 
 lates Golden Rule, 16. 
 
 Military Heroes, speech in Congress on, 20. 
 
 Missouri Compromise (see also Slavery); speech on re- 
 peal of, 2Q. 
 
 Mob Law, L. opposes, i, 2. 
 
 Nebraska. See Slavery. 
 
 Negro, The [sec also Slavery), address to negro dele- 
 gation, Aug. 14, 1862, 142; remarks on Bible to negro 
 delegation, Sept. 7, 1864, 171. 
 
 New Haven, Ct., speech at, iii. 
 
 New Jersey, remarks to Senate of, 121. 
 
 New York City, speech at Cooper Union, Feb. 27, i860, 
 104; remarks at, Feb. 20, 1861, 120; remarks to com- 
 mittee of workingmen of, 168. 
 
 Niagara Falls, notes for lecture on, 22. 
 
 Ohio Democrats, letter to committee of, 160. 
 Ohio Regiment, remarks to the 164th, 170. 
 
 Paris, 111., speech at, 61. 
 
 Peck, J. M., letter to, 16. 
 
 Peoria, 111., speech on repeal of Missouri Compromise 
 
 at, 29. 
 Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions, address on, 2. 
 Persuasion, the honey that catches flies, 5, 9. 
 Philadelphia, Pa., remarks in Independence Hall, Feb. 
 
 22, 1861, 122. 
 Pickett, George E., letter to, 8. 
 Pierce, Franklin, conspirator in re Dred Scott decision, 
 
 53- 
 
 Pittsburg, Pa., remarks at, 118. 
 
 Poems, " My childhood's home I see again," 11 ; " But 
 here's an object more of dread," 13. 
 
 Polk, James K., speech in Congress arraigning, 15 ; re- 
 ply to position of, on internal improvements, 17. 
 
 Protection. See Tariff. 
 
 President, The, note on the proper policy of, 19. 
 
 Printing, invention of, 102. 
 
 Public Opinion, government rests on, 46. 
 
 Quincy, 111., debate with Douglas at, 70. 
 
 Ramsey, Major, note to, 136. 
 
 Reconstruction, speech on, 178. 
 
 Reed, Alexander, letter to, 157. 
 
 Republican Party, speech before first convention of, in 
 
 Illinois, 43; contrasted with Democratic party, 77; 
 
 not sectional, 104. 
 
 185 
 
Revolution of 1776 compared with temperance revolu- 
 tion, 7. 
 
 Richmond Enquirer, The, invents phrase " State 
 equality," 47. 
 
 Robertson, George, letter to, 40. 
 
 Rosecrans, General William S., letter to, 158. 
 
 Secession. See Union, The. 
 
 Seymour, Governor Horatio, letter to, 163. 
 
 Sharpe, H. D., letter to, 76. 
 
 Slavery {see also Democratic Party ; Government ; 
 Labor ; Union, The ; Republican Party), abolition of, 
 conjoined with temperance reform, 8 ; duty of free 
 States to let it alone in slave States, and to resist its 
 extension into Territories, 11 ; Henry Clay in favor 
 of gradual emancipation, 25; L. denounces extremists 
 on either side of question, 26 ; opposed to natural 
 justice, 28, 29, 30 ; extension into Territories, 29 ; 
 opposed to Declaration of Independence, 29, 40 ; 
 Northern responsibility for, 30; inadequacy of depor- 
 tation of negroes to remedy, 31; L- tolerates Fugi- 
 tive Slave Law, 31; territorial extension of, would 
 justify African slave-trade, 32, 81 ; humanity of the 
 negro, 32 ; Southerners despise the slave-dealer, 33 ; 
 government of another is despotism, 34, 61, 74 ; con- 
 stitutional relations of, 35, 87, 112; comparison of 
 Maine and South Carolina, 35 ; territorial extension 
 of, a source of strife between North and South, 37, 
 72 ; foreign view of American, 39; failure of gradual 
 emancipation in Kentucky, 40 ; renders Fourth of 
 July meaningless, 40 ; hopeless condition of the Ameri- 
 can slave, 41 ; "Can the nation continue half slave 
 andhalf free?" 41 ; L.'s experience with, 42 ; L. votes 
 for Wilmot Proviso, 42 ; Madison avows word slave 
 ought not to appear in Constitution, 43 ; North will 
 not, and South shall not disrupt the Union, 44, 45, 
 95, 106 ; Unionist weaklings, 46 ; human equality 
 central idea of our government, 46, 47; "State equal- 
 ity," invention of Southerners, 47 ; marrying a black 
 woman, 48, 55, 65 ; meaning of the Declaration of 
 Independence, 48, 56, 57, 60, 69, 74 ; Republican 
 view of, contrasted with Democratic, 51, 67; "A 
 house divided against itself," 52 ; the conspiracy /« r^ 
 Dred Scott decision, 52 ; "squatter sovereignty," 54, 
 61, 71, 8i, 85; Douglas's construction of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, 57, 66; Douglas's doctri'-e of 
 unfriendly legislation to exclude slavery from Terri- 
 tories, 62, 71, 75; Jefferson's view of, 66; Douglas's 
 view of, 67, 74 ; L's view of, 69, 74 ; the Fathers' 
 
 186 
 
view of, 70, 105, III ; 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, 80; L. denounces Doug- 
 las's parallel between negro and crocodile, 83, 84, 
 I to; free labor versus slave, 86, 115; Hammond's 
 " mud-sill " theory, 90 ; sophistical pleas of its advo- 
 cates, 107; vested interests in, 108; L. endorses 
 Seward's phrase, " irrepressible conflict," 109 ; the 
 snake in the Union bed, no, 115 ; no struggle be- 
 tween white man and negro, no; not a necessity, 
 115; futility of repeating assurances not to interfere 
 with, in States, 115; freedom the people's fight, 116; 
 L. opposes Fremont'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, 180. 
 
 Speech, invention of, 100. 
 
 Speed, Joshua F., letter to, 42. 
 
 Speer, William S., letter to, 115. 
 
 Springfield. 111., 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, i ; notes on 
 
 protection, jotted down while Congressman-elect, 
 
 Dec. 1847, 9 ; protection abolishes useless labor of 
 
 transportation, 9, 119. 
 Temperance, address to Washingtonian Society of 
 
 Springfield, 111., Feb. 22, 1842, 5; letter to George E. 
 
 Pickett on, 8 ; conjoined with abolition of slavery, 8. 
 
 187 
 
Union, The {see also Slavery), in relation to slavery, ii: 
 not a fiee-love arrangement, ii6; parallel betweer 
 State and county, 117; the crisis of secession artificial 
 118 ; save the Union ship and cargo, 120; shall b« 
 preserved, 121, 124, 144; perpetuity of, 122 ; secessior 
 the essence of anarchy, 124 ; absurdity of secession, 
 125 ; responsibility for viar rests on secessionists, 126 : 
 sentiment for, 126; nature of "sovereignty,'' 127 
 States not sovereign, 127 ; conspiracy of secessionists. 
 129; ability of Union soldiers, 131 ; war for, a test o 
 popular government, 132, 133; impossible to compro 
 mise with secessionists, 134; prophecy of glorious 
 future for, 140; secession springs from men, not land 
 151 ; war has justified, 171. 
 
 Vallandigham, Clement L. See Ohio Democrats. 
 Van Buren, Martin L., speech against administratioi 
 of, 4. 
 
 War, The {see also Army, The ; Slavery ; Union, The)' 
 L. advocates neighborhood meetings in Missouri ti 
 heal partisan strife, 174 ; healing the wounds of, 176. 
 
 Washington, George, tribute to, 8 ; Life of, by Weema 
 impressed L. in youth, 121. 
 
 Washingtonian Society, address before, 5. 
 
 Weed, Thurlow, letter to, 176. 
 
 West Virginia, opinion on admission of, into Union, 153 
 
 Whig Party, contrasted with Democratic, 4 ; passing o 
 the, 42 
 
 Wilmot Proviso. See Slavery. 
 
 Wisconsin State Agricultural Fair, address before, 89. . 
 
 Writing, invention of, 102, 
 
 Young America, character of, 96. 
 Young Men, advice to, 19. 
 
 ^ 11 
 
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