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Published November, 1909. Norujooti $reBB J. S. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. CI.A251374 CONTENTS Introduction : PAGE Abraham Lincoln ix Biographical Note xxxvii Addresses, Inaugurals, and Letters : I. To the People of Sangamon, March 9, 1832 . 1 II. Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Spring- field, Illinois, January 27, 1837 ... 3 III. At the Second Presbyterian Church, Spring- field, Illinois, December, 1839 . . .11 IV. In Reply to Stephen A. Douglas, delivered at Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854 . . 15 V. From a Letter to Joshua F. Speed, August 24, 1855 30 VI. From a Speech discussing the Decision in the Dred Scott Case, delivered at Springfield, Illinois, June 26, 1857 35 VII. Speech, known as the "Divided House" Speech, before the Republican State Con- vention, at Springfield, Illinois, June 17, 1858 49 VIII. Speech in Reply to Judge Douglas's Criticism of the "Divided House" Speech, delivered at the Tremont House, Chicago, July 10, 1858 65 Vlll CONTENTS IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. XXII. From Lincoln's Reply to Douglas, at Alton Illinois, October 15, 1858 . From Address at Cooper Institute, New York, February 27, 1860 . Farewell to the Citizens of Springfield, Feb ruary 1, 1861 From Addresses delivered on the Journey to Washington, February 11-27, 1861 Address in Independence Hall in Philadel- phia, February 22, 1861 . First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861 Letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862 Reply to Committee from Chicago, Septem ber 13, 1862 The Emancipation Proclamation, January 1 1863 Reply to the Workingmen of Manchester. England, January 19, 1863 Reply to J. C. Conkling, dated August 26 1863 The Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863 The Second Inaugural Address, March 4 1865 The Last Public Address, April 11, 1865 Notes THE SPEECHES, INAUGURALS, AND LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN INTRODUCTION Abraham Lincoln belongs to history, and only secondarily and incidentally, as it were, to litera- ture. He was one of the great makers of history, and he is enrolled among the tragic heroes of his- tory. When we think of him, we think first of all of the victorious President who brought us through the most perilous crisis in our annals. He is the great captain of Walt Whitman's poem, which has become one of our national hymns, — the wise and valiant captain who steered our ship of state through the tempestuous seas which threatened to wreck our national hopes and ideals, and with them the democratic hopes of the civilized world. But Lincoln our chief of state instantly evokes the image of Lincoln the man; for he is the most human, the most intimately known, and the most vividly realizable of all our presidents. At once Xll ABRAHAM LINCOLN personality in them. Waves of feeling pass through them and over them — slight ripples here, great billows there. It is because the soul of Lincoln is reflected even in his formal state papers that they have a literary as well as a political interest. Let us substantiate this statement. Here, in the midst of his first inaugural, is a notable passage: — To those who really love the Union may I not speak, before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes? . . . Will you hazard so desperate a step while any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence ? That is unlike the usual type of state paper (and note, in passing, the echo from " Hamlet" here). And the second inaugural is even more striking in its sustained emotion : " Fondly do we hope ..." " With malice toward none ..." Yes, this is liter- ature because a great heart beats in it, and naturally uses the language of the imagination, uses it with impressive effect. Compare the colder and re- served dignity of Washington's Farewell Address with such writing; what a difference! To study Lincoln's style, then, is to study Lin- ABRAHAM LINCOLN Xlll coin's soul as it manifests itself in the best speech of which he was capable. For the style, as a great French critic said, is the man. Le style est rhomme meme. This is preeminently true of a man so natural and genuine as Lincoln was. So that to consider his writings from the literary point of view is to consider them at once for their meaning, that is for their truth and reasonableness, and for their distinctive qualities of expressiveness. It is to become more conscious of the secret of their effectiveness, — their rhythm, their strength and felicity of word and phrase, their imagery, their illustration. We but look into them more in- tently, more curiously, and be it said, more lovingly than we do when we are considering only their bearing on the great political questions which they discuss. They interest us supremely as revealing the spirit of Lincoln. It is that spirit which gives the words life and color and movement. And now — to take up the second of the points mentioned above — it is not fair to these writings of Lincoln to regard them as the easy and unstudied utterances of a man who did not care whether they had literary qualities or not. They were xiv ABRAHAM LINCOLN carefully wrought out by one who was very partic- ular about the way in which he said things. Lin- coln, from his early youth on, took great pains to speak and write well. He was very ambitious: he wanted to be a politician, — a great politician, perchance, — and he knew that the politician's mas- ter key to success was effective language. So he commenced early to study the art of saying things; and he labored continuously in many interesting ways to improve and enrich his powers of expression until he was able to produce a masterpiece like his Gettysburg Address. There is no more striking in- stance than this of the wise recognition of the impor- tance of learning to speak and write well. It is not too much to say that he owed his political eminence to his unremitting effort to use his mother tongue skilfully and persuasively. In trying, however, to account for Lincoln's success as a persuader of men we must not fail to take account of the most powerful factor in it. Lincoln wanted to learn how to speak the truth, to fit words to things with exactness and clearness. He loved truth more than he loved place or anything else in this world. He was ambitious, as we have said; but he never ABRAHAM LINCOLN XV sacrificed truth to ambition. His power over men lay largely in his profound and obvious sincerity. He made them feel his determination to get at the truth for himself, and to present it in its own vic- torious power to others. This, we are assured by those who followed him in his great debates with Douglas, gave him his advantage over a man who was master of all the resources and devices of the platform speaker. It was a triumph over many disadvantages — his awkward gait, his homely fea- tures (as they were generally considered), and his shabby appearance. Lincoln had no use for the mere thrust and parry and fence of the speaker who talks to win. He had only scorn for what he describes in his humorous way as the " specious and fantastic arguments by which a man may prove that a horse chestnut is a chest- nut horse." He had no patience with the trimming and hedging and dodging which are so often resorted to by vote-catching politicians, or with what he char- acterizes so admirably as " sophistical contrivances groping for some middle ground between right and wrong." He never occupied that middle ground. His was a whole-hearted devotion to the truth as he XVI ABRAHAM LINCOLN saw it and felt it, and this gave him his ascendency over men. It winged his language, and sent it home to the minds and consciences of his hearers. Of the beginnings of his training as a master of discourse we have his own striking account in a con- versation reported by a gentleman who was travel- ling with him just after he had given his famous Cooper Institute Address: — "I want very much to know," said the gentle- man to Lincoln, "how you got this unusual power of 'putting things.' It must have been a matter of education. No man has it by nature alone. What has your education been ? " "Well, as to education, the newspapers are correct. I never went to school more than six months of my life. But, as you say, this must be a product of culture in some form. I have been putting the question you ask me to myself while you have been talking. I say this; that among my earliest recollections, I remember how, when a mere child, I used to get irritated when any- body talked to me in a way I could not under- stand. I don't think I ever got angry at any- thing else in my life. But that always disturbed my temper and has ever since. I can remember ABRAHAM LINCOLN xvii going to my little bedroom, after hearing the neighbors talk of an evening, with my father, and spend no small part of the night walking up and down, and trying to make out the exact meaning of some of their, to me, dark sayings. I could not sleep, though I often tried to, when I got in such a hunt after an idea, until I caught it ; and when I thought I had got it, I was not satisfied until I had repeated it over and over, until I had put it in language plain enough, as I thought, for any boy I knew to comprehend. This was a kind of passion with me, and it has stuck- by me; for I am never easy now, when I am han- dling a thought, till I have bounded it north and bounded it south, and bounded it east and bounded it west. Perhaps that accounts for the charac- teristic you observe in my speeches, though I never put the two things together before." ^ There could not have been a more effective dis- cipline for a writer or speaker than that. It was sup- plemented by unremitting practice. The boy used up every shred of paper he could find to write on. His handwriting was unusually good from the first not the rough and uneven hand of the typical back- woodsman. And he paid no less attention to speak- XV111 ABRAHAM LINCOLN ing. He delivered stump speeches to his compan- ions, he cultivated his gift of story-telling and talked and " yarned " endlessly in stores and taverns to ad- miring groups. He joined with the promising young men in Springfield to found a debating society or lyceum, and advised his young friend William H. Herndon (afterward his law partner and his biogra- pher) to follow the same method of self-improvement : "You young men get together and form a 'Rough and Ready Club/ and have regular meetings and speeches. Take in everybody you can get." The address which Lincoln delivered in January, 1837, before the Springfield Young Men's Lyceum on the Perpetuation of our Political Institutions is striking evidence of the effort he was making to perfect him- self in the art of expression. It is the obvious " lit- erary " effort of a young man in training. But it is very well done. Here is a typical passage which shows the formal balanced style of the older orators whom Lincoln was studying. It is the more worth while because it expresses that rev- erence for law which characterized Lincoln his life through — a reverence which we are sadly lacking in to-day: — ABRAHAM LINCOLN xix Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap; let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling-books, and in almanacs ; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legisla- tive halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors, and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars. Compare the somewhat formal and high-flown quality of this with the terse, compact, and direct manner of Lincoln's mature writing, and you get a good idea of the development of his style. It be- came more natural and simple, more individual and weighty. We cannot help marvelling at the results which Lincoln obtained by his self-education, when we realize how slow and laborious was the process. Until he was twenty-one years old he was no more than his father's servant, tied to the little homestead in the wilds. In the short autobiography which XX ABRAHAM LINCOLN he wrote in 1860 for campaign purposes, he thus records the simple facts of his scanty and retarded education : — Abraham now thinks that the aggregate of all his schooling did not amount to one year. . . . What he has in the way of education he has picked up. After he was twenty-three, and had separated from his father, he studied English grammar — imperfectly of course, but so as to speak and to write as well as he now does. He studied and nearly mastered the six books of Euclid since he was a member of Congress. He regrets his want of education, and does what he can to supply the want. Lincoln here uses the word education in its ordi- nary sense of school and college education. As a mat- ter of fact, of education in the broader sense of the term he had received a good deal — and in a sense, too, which includes literary education. For, strange as it may seem, Lincoln owed very much in those rude days to books; we might almost say he owed everything in the way of culture to them. He had very few books to read; very few were obtainable, although he scoured the country for miles round; but ABRAHAM LINCOLN XXI the few he did have were mighty influences in his life. He got more out of them than most boys get out of an unlimited supply or out of the resources of a Carnegie library. He read and reread, and pondered and thoroughly assimilated what he found in them. That was why they yielded such treasure to him. He did not merely dip into them or skim them. He read them eagerly and with a definite purpose. That is the reading which counts. He realized that they were his only means of culture, his only way of getting into touch with the larger distant world of civilization, his only means of contact with history and human culture; and he made the most of them. We get our most vivid glimpse into this world of books in Mrs. Eleanor Atkinson's valuable account of " Lincoln's Boyhood," which is woven out of remi- niscences of his cousin and playmate, Dennis Hanks. We hear the ambitious lad saying : — "Denny, the things I want to know is in books. My best friend's the man who'll git me one." "Well," comments old Dennis, "books wasn't as plenty as wild cats ; but I got him one by cutting cord wood. It had lots o' yarns in it." [The book was the " Arabian Nights. "J "I reckon Abe read XX11 ABRAHAM LINCOLN that book a dozen times an' knowed all the yarns by heart. He didn't have nothin' much else to read excep' Aunt Sairy's Bible. He cut four cords of wood onct to git one stingy little slice of a book. It was a life o' Washington, an' he'd lay over the Statoots o' Indiany half the night. We'd git hold o' a newspaper onct in a while, an' Abe larned Henry Clay's speeches by heart. He liked the stories in the Bible, too, an' he got a little book o' fables some'ers." Here we have mentioned a majority of the books which young Lincoln owned. The complete list seems to be : the two text-books, Weems's " Life of Washing- ton " and a small history of the United States, together with a Webster's spelling-book and dictionary, the Bible, ^Esop's Fables, " Arabian Nights/ 7 " Rob- inson Crusoe," " Pilgrim's Progress," and Franklin's " Autobiography." Then we must add Clay's speeches and a life of this admired statesman, and finally some law books — those Statutes of Indiana above mentioned and a mutilated copy of Black- stone's " Commentaries " which he rescued from a rubbish barrel. This was good solid diet; there was no trash in it. ABRAHAM LINCOLN xxni The list is characteristic of Lincoln's interest in books and of his reading habit throughout his life. He did not read much or widely; he had nothing of the scholar's interest in books. But he liked the great books. He kept by him and read continually the two greatest books there are in English: the Bible and Shakespeare. His speeches are full of the echoes of these. The influence of the Bible upon his style is obvious; it confirmed his native tendency to simple dignity and directness of speech. There is not a nobler influence nor a better an- tidote to vulgarity and pompousness. In fact, the decline of the influence of the Bible has undoubtedly been a factor in the sad deterioration of our speech. Lincoln's vocabulary and sentence structure are of the Biblical type; the diction is simple Saxon; the sentences short, firm, and clear-cut. Again let us be concrete. Note the Biblical cast of this passage from the second inaugural, and the strong, sure tread of the sentences: — Both [parties, North and South] 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 XXIV ABRAHAM LINCOLN 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 pur- poses. . . . Or take some passage which illustrates the quality of simple lucidity in diction and clearness of structure which are the peculiar excellences of the Biblical manner, — this, from the first inau- gural, will serve: — Physically speaking, we cannot separate ; we cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the pres- ence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face; and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separa- tion than before? 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 ABRAHAM LINCOLN XXV and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you. But we have been led away from a consideration of Lincoln's reading — how much it counted in his life and yet how little there was of it — to ex- amples of its influence, especially the influence of the Bible, upon his style. The influence of Shake- speare is not so great. It came rather later in life, and then it was strong and constant. Lincoln read the plays continually; he would often read parts of them aloud. 1 He discussed them frequently and sought the views of actors on the meaning of certain passages. But there is little trace in his writings of a Shakespearian affluence and rich- ness of diction. Lincoln frequently slips in a Shake- spearian phrase, or an apt line or two, as in the instance we have already drawn attention to; and that is enough to give to his writings a literary 1 Writing to Mr. James H. Hackett, the actor, in 1863, he says : " Some of Shakespeare's plays I have never read; while others I have gone over perhaps as frequently as any unprofessional reader. Among the latter are ' Lear/ * Richard III/ ' Henry VIII/ ; Hamlet/ and especially *. Macbeth.' I think nothing equals ' Macbeth.' " XXVI ABRAHAM LINCOLN savor which the alert and educated reader cannot but notice and take pleasure in. Finally, in regard to books and reading, we must not slight the law books, — the Statutes and the Black- stone. Their influence was also an influence towards clearness and precision. To be sure, the language of the law is cumbersome in the extreme, — endlessly repetitious; but it aims to be unequivocal and exact, and these were the virtues that attracted Lincoln. He loved the logic of the law, its quest of fairness and justice, its consideration of both sides of an argument, its concern with the precise meaning of words — a matter in which Lincoln was tireless. Lincoln tried to carry these qualities into his political argument and debate. He became famous in his law practice for his clear statements to the jury. He was impressively fair and just to his opponents. He did not browbeat or exaggerate or misrepresent. It is true, as Professor Paul Shorey so well said in speaking at a Lincoln cele- bration, that "the law is a study which makes a small man cunning and a large man sagacious. " Lincoln was a large man, and his reading — from that first eager conning of the Statutes and Black- ABRAHAM LINCOLN XXVll stone to his late training and practice as a lawyer — made him sagacious as well as keen, orderly minded as well as astute, just and fair as well as trenchant and powerful as a debater. It ripened the eager politician into the cautious statesman. There are other qualities of Lincoln's nature reflected in his writings of which note must be taken — certain native endowments which enter into the texture of his style and genius. He was powerful, determined, and courageous; but he was likewise kindly and tender. He was deeply earnest; but his earnestness was sweetened and saved from harsh- ness and excess by his humor. Kindliness, tender- ness, and humor gave color and graciousness to his style. Of all these traits his humor is most commonly known. It served him best. What a salutary and saving quality real humor is ! How much we miss it in the Olympian gravity of the great President whom we can often compare or contrast so profitably with Lincoln, the heroic Washington. Humor is a precious form of imagination. To be able to see the humorous side of a thing is to be protected against one-sidedness; it is the first and essential xxvill ABE AH AM LINCOLN step to seeing all round a situation or proposition, and is therefore an ingredient of fair-mindedness. It is also an element of humility. It protects a man against himself and his own egotism, as well as against others. A happy illustration is Lincoln's retort to the zealous admirer who shouted as he greeted Lincoln at a reception, "I believe in God Almighty and Abraham Lincoln!" To which came the quick reply: " You're more than half right, sir." A humorous story was Lincoln's favorite way of escaping from difficult interviews. Joking was his diversion in his heavy hours, a refuge from his troubles and melancholy. Fur- thermore, it flavored his speeches with a quaint homeliness in anecdote or allusion to which he owed not a little of his hold upon the ruder spirits. For example, he is alluding in his first debate with Douglas to the way in which the judge referred to him as a "kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman," and meets the patronizing air of the phrase with inimitable humor. " As the judge had complimented me with these pleasant titles (I must confess to my weakness), I was a little ' taken,' for it came from a great man. I was not very much accus- ABRAHAM LINCOLN XXIX tomed to flattery, and it came sweeter to me. I was rather like the Hoosier with the gingerbread, when he said he reckoned he loved it better than any other man, and got less of it." There was, to be sure, an element of coarseness at times in Lincoln's humor; that sort of grossness commonly styled "Rabelaisian" (after the great French writer, Rabe- lais), which is a survival of those early days among the rough fellows of the frontier; but we meet none of it in the literary legacy which we cherish. Of flashes and sallies of humor and wit there are fewer and fewer as we proceed, until in the speeches of the presidential years they are quite rare. One typical instance is his reply to the committee which urged him to issue a proclamation of inde- pendence. He remarked: "I do not want to issue a document that the whole world will see must necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope's bull against the comet." His stjde becomes grave and solemn; it has that "high seriousness" which our great English critic, Matthew Arnold, says is the note of the grand style in literature. If we hesitate to use the phrase "grand style" as suitable, it is because of the extreme simplicity of much of Lin- XXX ABRAHAM LINCOLN coin's writing and oratory. Could there possibly be greater plainness than in this paragraph from the Cooper Institute Address ? You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an issue; and the burden of proof is upon you. You produce your proof; and what is it? Why, that our party has no existence in your sec- tion — 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 ca/inot escape this conclusion ; and yet are you willing to abide by it ? If you are, you will probably soon find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in your section this very year. You will then begin to discover, as the truth plainly is, that your proof does not touch this issue. The fact that we get no votes in your section 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 principle 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 ABRAHAM LINCOLN XXXI to have started — to a discussion of the right or wrong of our principle. The force of plainness can no further go. It is the mature fruit of that early boyish passion to see clearly and to state everything clearly. It was wonderfully effective for its purpose; and the nature of that effectiveness is well indicated by Lincoln's biographers in their comments on the reception of this address: " Such was the apt choice of words, the easy precision of sentences, the simple strength of propositions, the fairness of every point he assumed, and the force of every conclusion he drew, that his listeners followed him with the interest and delight a child feels in its easy mastery of a plain sum in arithmetic." This plainness, this " in- teresting and delightful" and convincing plainness, this limpid lucidity, is the basic virtue of Lincoln's style. It is not the lucidity of the word or of the sentence merely; but the lucidity which illuminates whole arguments and long statements. We find it in the admirable narrative of events and clear state- ments of issues in the first message to Congress. We find it in sections of the first inaugural, — for instance, in the paragraphs devoted to the conten- XXXli ABRAHAM LINCOLN tion that "the union of these states is perpetual," and in those which deal with the rights and rela- tions of minorities. We find it again in the closely knit paragraphs of his Springfield speech (the "house divided against itself" speech) and of some speeches in the debate with Douglas. But united with this quality of clearness are those other qualities to which we have also alluded before; those which manifest the deeper feelings of Lincoln's heart. The Springfield speech itself closes with such a passage: how moving it is! Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friends — those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work, who do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the con- stant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all then to falter now? — now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissev- ABRAHAM LINCOLN XXXlli ered, and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail — if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come. Of this quality of deep feeling, expressed in the simplest language, we have the noblest example in the Gettysburg Address. There are the exquisite fineness and that other quality of tenderness, of compassionate humanity and imaginative sympathy, which the tragic experiences of the war matured in him. Examples might be cited from both speeches and letters. Perhaps the most classically beautiful of them is the letter of condolence to Mrs. Bixby, worthy, by reason of qualities as rare and indefinable as is the aroma of the Gettysburg Ad- dress, to take a place of honor with that incom- parable speech. Here it is; it cannot be too often quoted : — November 21, 1864. Dear Madam : — I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously XXXIV ABRAHAM LINCOLN on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruit- less must be any words of mine which should at- tempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tender- ing 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 freedom. Yours very sincerely and respectfully, Abraham Lincoln. With that we may close. It is as perfect in its way as a flawless lyric poem. It enshrines those qualities by which Lincoln endeared himself to the heart of a people, and at the same time it gives him rank with the masters of our English tongue. This introduction has been devoted exclusively to the endeavor to put the young student in the way of finding and feeling those qualities in Lincoln's writings which give them high rank as literature, and have won for them golden tributes from the most ABRAHAM LINCOLN XXXV exacting of modern critics. Following the maxim with which we started, that " the style is the man," we have tried to indicate the excellences of Lin- coln's style in terms of the noble traits of Lincoln's manhood. To the exemplary power of that man- hood we always return. The final value of the study of the writings of any great nature lies in the edify- ing contact with that nature, the enrichment and refinement of our own by it. And to-day the life and character of Lincoln, as we may reach them through the study of his distinc- tive writings and speeches, need all the emphasis which can be given to them — and especially for the older students in our high schools. For it is no exaggeration to say that the spirit of democracy has. found no higher and nobler expression than it has in the career and the character of Abrahan Lincoln. He stands forth — a man of lowly origin, of narrow opportunities, of slender material resources, — aye, of actual indigence for most of his life — as our greatest exemplar of the power of character. We are in danger — to put it mildly — of priding ourselves too much on our material success, and of going too eagerly in quest of it. Our annals xxxvi ABRAHAM LINCOLN are full of boasted records of beggars become Crce- suses, of office boys become millionnaires. These are comparatively vulgar successes, for they do not necessarily involve the higher qualities of character. The great spirits of the world have been mostly poor men, or men of small means. Lincoln's success, his surprising rise from the obscurity of backwoods life to the highest eminence which a citizen can reach, is an inspiring success of character in its highest qualities — love of truth and justice, of country and humanity. It has the heroic note in it; that worth which enables us to add Lincoln to the great company of heroes whom Carlyle has canonized in his " Heroes and Hero Worship." Lincoln was entirely untainted by our dangerous modern ambition for money. Rather was he of those who, as the great scientist Agassiz put it, have no time for that trivial aim. Lincoln's heart was set on other things. What those were, these writings of his should demonstrate. It is because we need more of them in our growing youth, more of the disinterest- edness and devotion, the simplicity, the public spirit, the modest unselfishness, the uprightness and ideal- ism which they reflect, that it is desirable, — yea ABRAHAM LINCOLN XXXVU imperative, — that our young men and women should become intimately familiar with the life and work, the personality and spirit, of Abraham Lincoln. Biographical Note The best introduction to the life of Lincoln is the brief autobiography which he wrote in June, 1860, at the request of a friend for use in preparing a cam- paign biography. This gives us a compact, bird's eye view of his career as Lincoln himself saw it. This will be found in the "Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln," compiled and edited by his biographers, John G. Nicolay and John Hay (2 vols., Century Company) . Their standard Life of Lincoln in ten volumes (same publishers) is the authoritative source for the smallest details of Lincoln's life and the history of the times in which he lived. It is an indispensable reference book. There is a condensa- tion in one volume, which may be strongly recom- mended. Less voluminous and more manageable than the ten volumes are the lives by W. H. Herndon, Lincoln's law partner (two vols., Putnam), and Miss Tarbell (two vols., the McClure Company). XXXVlll ABRAHAM LINCOLN Good short lives of Lincoln are those by John T. Morse, Jr., in the American Statesmen Series (Houghton, Mifflin and Co.), Norman Hapgood (the Macmillan Company), Noah Brooks, in the Heroes of the Nations Series (G. P. Putnam's Sons), and Alonzo Rothschild (Houghton, Mifflin and Company). Among the popular lives for young people those by Charles Carleton Coffin and W. M. Thayer may be mentioned. These may be supplemented by the intimate account of Lincoln's life at the White House given in Frank B. Carpenter's "Six Months at the White House, or The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln " (Houghton, Mifflin and Company). The essays by James Russell Lowell and Carl Schurz and the commemorative address by Emerson should certainly be read; as well as the poems by Stedman, Bryant, Holmes, Stoddard, and Gilder, supplementing Lowell's noble lines in his Commem- oration Ode. A good history of the United States should be available for references in following the allusions to the events of the Civil War contained in Lincoln's writings. LINCOLN'S SPEECHES, INAUGURALS, AND LETTERS I THE CLOSING PARAGRAPHS OF AN ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF SANGAMON COUNTY, WHEN LINCOLN WAS FOR THE FIRST TIME A CAN- DIDATE FOR THE OFFICE OF REPRESENTA- TIVE TO THE LEGISLATURE OF ILLINOIS. IT IS DATED NEW SALEM, MARCH 9, 1832. But, fellow-citizens, I shall conclude. Consid- ering the great degree of modesty which should always attend youth, it is probable I have already been more presuming than becomes me. How- ever, upon the subjects of which I have treated, 1 5 have spoken as I have thought. I may be wrong in regard to any or all of them; but, holding it a sound maxim that it is better only to be some- times right than at all times wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous I shall be 10 ready to renounce them. Every man is said to have his peculiar ambi- tion. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for b 1 2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN one, that I have no other so great as that of be- ing truly esteemed of my fellow-men by render- ing myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet 5 to be developed. I am young and unknown to many of you; I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walks of life. I have no wealthy or popular relations or friends to recom- mend me. My case is thrown exclusively upon i o the independent voters of the county, and if elected, they will have conferred a favor upon me for which I shall be unremitting in my labors to compensate. But if the good people in their wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the back- 15 ground, I have been too familiar with disappoint- ments to be very much chagrined. Your friend and fellow-citizen, A. Lincoln. II FROM AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE YOUNG MEN'S LYCEUM OF SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, ON THE PERPETUATION OF OUR POLITICAL INSTITU- TIONS, JANUARY 27, 1837. In the great journal of things happening under the sun, we, the American people, find our account run- ning under date of the nineteenth century of the Christian era. We find ourselves in the peaceful possession of the fairest portion of the earth as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salu- brit} r of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal in- heritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them; they are a legacy bequeathed us by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and de- parted, race of ancestors. Theirs was the task 3 4 ABRAHAM LINCOLN (and nobly they performed it) to possess them- selves, and through themselves us, of this goodly land, and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys a political edifice of liberty and equal rights ; 'tis 5 ours only to transmit these — the former unpro- faned by the foot of an invader, the latter unde- cayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpa- tion — to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task gratitude to :oour fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform. How then shall we perform it ? At what point shall we expect the approach of danger ? By what i 5 means shall we fortify against it ? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow ? Never ! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their 20 military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thou- sand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to ABRAHAM LINCOLN 5 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. 5 I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is even now something of ill omen amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country — the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions in lieu of the sober judg- ic ment of courts, and the worse than savage mobs for the executive ministers of justice. This disposition is awfully fearful in any community; and that it now exists in ours, though grating to our feelings to admit, it v/ould be a violation of truth and an insult to our if intelligence to deny. Accounts of outrages com- mitted by mobs form the everyday news of the times. They have pervaded the country from New England to Louisiana. . . . It would be tedious as well as useless to recount 2c the horrors of all of them. Those happening in the State of Mississippi and at St. Louis are perhaps the most dangerous examples and revolting to humanity. . . . 6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN Turn then to that horror-striking scene at St. Louis. A single victim only was sacrificed there. This story is very short and perhaps the most highly tragic of anything of its length that has ever been 5 witnessed in real life. A mulatto man by the name of Mcintosh was seized in the street, dragged to the suburbs of the city, chained to a tree, and actually burned to death; and all within a single hour from the time he had been a freeman attending to his own to business and at peace with the world. Such are the effects of mob law, and such are the scenes becoming more and more frequent in this land so lately famed for love of law and order, and the stories of which have even now grown too familiar to is attract anything more than an idle remark. . . . I know the American people are much attached to their government; I know they would suffer much for its sake;. I know they would endure evils long and patiently before they would ever think of ex- 20 changing it for another, — yet, notwithstanding all this, if the laws be continually despised and disre- garded, if their rights to be secure in their persons and property are held by no better tenure than the ca- price of a mob, the alienation of their affections from ABRAHAM LINCOLN 7 the government is the natural consequence; and to that, sooner or later, it must come. Here then is one point at which danger may be ex- pected. The question recurs, " How shall we fortify against 5 it?" The answer is simple. Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his poster- ity, swear by the blood of the Revolution never to violate in the least particular the laws of the country, and never to tolerate their violation by others. As 10 the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and laws let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor — let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample 15 on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap ; let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let 20 it be written in primers, spelling-books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, pro- claimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political 8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay of all sexes and tongues and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars. 5 While ever a state of feeling such as this shall universally or even very generally prevail throughout the nation, vain will be every effort, and fruitless every attempt, to subvert our national freedom. . . . I do not mean to say that the scenes of the Revo- 10 lution are now or ever will be entirely forgotten, but that, like everything else, they must fade upon the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time. In history, we hope, they will be read of, and recounted, so long as the Bible shall 15 be read; but even granting that they will, their influence cannot be what it heretofore has been. Even then they cannot be so universally known nor so vividly felt as they were by the generation just gone to rest. At the close of that struggle, nearly 20 every adult male had been a participator in some of its scenes. The consequence was that of those scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son, or a brother, a living history was to be found in every family — a history bearing the indubitable testimo- ABRAHAM LINCOLN 9 nies of its own authenticity, in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the very scenes related — a history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned. But those 5 histories are gone. They can be read no more for- ever. They were a fortress of strength; but what invading foeman could never do, the silent artillery of time has done — the levelling of its walls. They are £«tne. They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all- 10 restless hurricane has swept over them, and left only here and there a lonely trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and un- shaded, to murmur in a few more gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated limbs more ruder 15 storms, then to sink and be no more. They were pillars of the temple of liberty ; and now that they have crumbled away that temple must fall unless we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober 20 reason. Passion has helped us, but can do so no more. It will in the future be our enemy. Reason — cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason — must fur- nish all the materials for our future support and 10 ABRAHAM LINCOLN defence. Let those materials be moulded into general intelligence, sound morality, and, in particular, a reverence for the Constitution and laws; and that we improved to the last, that we remained free to S the last, that we revered his name to the last, that during his long sleep we permitted no hostile foot to pass over or desecrate his resting-place, shall be that which to learn the last trump shall awaken our Washington. o Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the rock of its basis, and, as truly as has been said of the only greater institution, "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Ill THE CONCLUSION OF LINCOLN'S SPEECH CLOSING A POLITICAL DEBATE BETWEEN LINCOLN AND OTHERS AGAINST STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS AND OTHERS (AMONG THEM MR. LAMBORN), HELD IN THE SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURqp OF SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, IN DECEMBER, 1839. v Mr. Lamborn insists that the difference between trie Van Buren party and the Whigs is, that although the former sometimes err in practice, they are always correct in principle, whereas the latter are wrong in principle; and the better to 5 impress this proposition, he uses a figurative ex- pression in these words: " The Democrats are vulnerable in the heel, but they are sound in the heart and in the head." The first branch of the figure — that is, that the Democrats are vulner- ic able in the heel — I admit is not merely figuratively but literally true. Who that looks but for a mo- ment at their Swartwouts, their Prices, their Har- ringtons, and their hundreds of others, scampering away with the public money to Texas, to Europe, 15 11 12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN and to every spot of the earth where a villain may hope to find refuge from justice, can at all doubt that they are most distressingly affected in their heels with a species of running fever ? It 5 seems that this malady of their heels operates on the sound-headed and honest-hearted crea- tures very much like the cork leg in the song did on its owner, which, when he had once got started on it, the more he tried to stop it, the 10 more it would run away. At the hazard of wear- ing this point theadbare, I will relate an anec- dote which seems to be too strikingly in point to be omitted. A witty Irish soldier, who was always boasting of his bravery when no danger was near, 15 but who invariably retreated without orders at the first charge of the engagement, being asked by his captain why he did so, replied, " Captain, I have as brave a heart as Julius Caesar ever had; but somehow or other, whenever danger approaches, 20 my cowardly legs will run away with it." So it is with Mr. Lamborn's party. They take the public money into their hands for the most laudable purpose that wise heads and honest hearts can dictate, but before they can possibly get it out again ABRAHAM LINCOLN 13 their rascally vulnerable heels will run away with them. . . . Mr. Lamborn refers to the late elections in the States, and, from their results, confidently predicts every State in the Union will vote for Mr. Van 5 Buren at the next presidential election. Address that argument to cowards and knaves! With the free and the brave it will effect nothing. It may be true: if it must, let it. Many free countries have lo^t their liberties, and ours may lose hers; but if she 10 shall, be it my proudest plume, not that I was the last to desert, but that I never deserted her. I know that the great volcano at Washington, aroused and directed by the evil spirit that reigns there, is belching forth the lava of political corruption 15 in a current broad and deep, which is sweeping with frightful velocity over the whole length and breadth of the land, bidding fair to leave unscathed no green spot or living thing, while on its bosom are riding, like demons on the wave of hell,' the imps of 20 that evil spirit, and fiendishly taunting all those who dare to resist its destroying course with the hopelessness of their efforts; and, knowing this, I cannot deny that all may be swept away. Broken 14 ABRAHAM LINCOLN by it, I too may be ; bow to it, I never will. The prob- ability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. It shall not deter me. If ever I feel the soul 5 within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country deserted by all the world beside, and I standing up, boldly, alone, hurling defiance at her victorious 10 oppressors. Here, without contemplating conse- quences, before Heaven and in the face of the world, I swear eternal fealty to the just cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life, my liberty, and my love. And who that thinks with me will not fearlessly adopt the 15 oath that I take ? Let none falter who thinks he is right, and we may succeed. But if, after all, we shall fail, be it so; we still shall have the proud consolation of saying to our consciences and to the departed shade of our country's freedom, that the 20 cause approved of our judgment and adored of our hearts, in disaster, in chains, in torture, in death, we never faltered in defending. IV FROM A SPEECH IN REPLY TO SENATOR STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, AT PEORIA, ILLINOIS OCTOBER 16, 1854. ' This declared indifference, but, as I must think, real, covert zeal, for the spread of slavery, I cannot bu^hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injus- tice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world, 5 enables the enemies of free institutions with plausi- bility to taunt us as hypocrites, causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many good men amongst our- selves into an open war with the very fundamental 10 principles of civil liberty, criticising the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest. . . Equal justice to the South, it is said, requires us to consent to the extension of slavery to new countries. 15 That is to say, that inasmuch as you do not object to my taking my hog to Nebraska, therefore I must 16 ABRAHAM LINCOLN not object to your taking your slave. Now, I admit that this is perfectly logical, if there is no difference between hogs and slaves. But while you thus require me to deny the humanity of the negro, I wish to ask 5 whether you of the South, yourselves, have ever been willing to do as much? It is kindly pro- vided 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 the}^ can of their sensibility to physical pain. These sympathies in the bosoms of the Southern people manifest in 5 many ways their sense of the wrong of slavery, and their consciousness that after all, there is humanity in the negro. If they deny this, let me address them a few plain questions. In 1820 you joined the North almost unanimously in declaring the African !c slave-trade piracy, and in annexing to it the punish- ment of death. Why did you do this ? If you did not feel that it was wrong, why did you join in pro- viding that men should be hung for it ? The prac- tice was no more than bringing wild negroes from ABRAHAM LINCOLN 17 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, 3^ou have among you a sneaking indi- vidual of the class of native tyrants known as the 5 slave-dealer. He watches your necessities, and crawls up to buy your slave at a speculating price. If you cannot help it, you sell to him; but if you canNielp it, you drive him from your door. You despise him utterly; you do not recognize him i< as a friend, or even as an honest man. Your children must not play with his; they may rollic 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 with- 1 out so much as touching him. It is common with you to join hands with the men you meet; but with the slave-dealer you avoid the ceremony, — instinctively shrinking from the snaky contact. If he grows rich and retires from business, you 2 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. 18 ABRAHAM LINCOLN And yet again. There are in the United States and Territories, including the District of Columbia, over four hundred and thirty thousand free blacks. At five hundred dollars per head they are worth s over two hundred millions of dollars. How comes this vast amount of property to be running about without owners ? We do not see free horses or free cattle running at large. How is this? All these free blacks are the descendants of slaves, or tohave been slaves themselves; and they would be slaves now but for something which has operated on their white owners, inducing them at vast pecun- iary sacrifice to liberate them. What is that some- thing ? Is there any mistaking it ? In all these [5 cases it is your sense of justice and human sympathy continually telling you that the poor negro has some natural right to himself, — that those who deny it and make mere merchandise of him deserve kick- ings, contempt, and death. . . . 20 But one great argument in support of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise is still to come. That argument is " the sacred right of self-government." . . . Some poet has said, — " Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." ABRAHAM LINCOLN 19 At the hazard of being thought one of the fools of this quotation, I meet that argument, — I rush in, — I take that bull by the horns. . . . My faith in the proposition that each man should do precisely as he pleases with all which is exclusively his own, lies 5 at the foundation of the sense of justice there is in me. I extend the principle to communities of men as well as, to individuals. I so extend it because it is politi- caHy wise as well as naturally just, — politically wise in saving us from broils about matters which do not 10 concern us. Here, or at Washington, I would not trouble myself with the oyster laws of Virginia, or the cranberry laws of Indiana. The doctrine of self- government is right, — absolutely and eternally right ; but it has no just application as here attempted. 15 Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has any application here 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 j ust what he pleases with him. But if the negro is 20 a man, is it not to that extent a total destruction of self-government to say that he, too, shall not govern himself? When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs him- 20 ABRAHAM LINCOLN self and also governs another man, that is more than self-government, — that is despotism. If the negro is a man, then my ancient faith teaches me that "all men are created equal," and that there can be no 5 moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another. Judge Douglas frequently and with bitter irony and sarcasm paraphrases our argument by saying, "The white people of Nebraska are good enough to 10 govern themselves, but they are not good enough to govern a few miserable negroes!" Well, I doubt not that the people of Nebraska are and will continue to be as good as the average of people elsewhere. I do not say the contrary. What 15 1 do say is that no man is good enough to govern an- other man without that other's consent. I say this is the leading principle, — the sheet-anchor of Amer- ican republicanism. . . . But Nebraska is urged as a great Union-saving 20 measure. Well, I too go for saving the Union. Much as I hate slavery, I would consent to the ex- tension 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 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 21 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 things which ever endangers the Union. When it came upon us, all was peace and quiet. The nation was looking to the forming of new bonds of union, and a long course of peace and prosperity seemed to lie before us. In the whole range of possibility, « there scarcely appears to me to have been anything out of which the slavery agitation could have been revived, except the very project of repealing the Missouri Compromise. Every inch of territory we owned already had a definite settlement of the i« slavery question, by which all parties were pledged to abide. Indeed, there was no uninhabited country on the continent which we could acquire, if we except some extreme northern regions which are wholly out of the question. 2 c In this state of affairs the Genius of Discord himself could scarcely have invented a way of again setting us by the ears but by turning back and destroying 22 ABRAHAM LINCOLN the peace measures 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 5 never seen before. Who is responsible for this ? Is it those who resist the measure, or those who cause- lessly brought it forward and pressed it through, hav- ing reason to know, and in fact knowing, it must and would be resisted ? It could not but be expected 10 by its author that it would be looked upon as a meas- ure 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 is aspect it could not but produce agitation. Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature — opposi- tion to it in his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism, and when brought into colli- sion so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, 20 shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow. Repeal the Missouri Compromise, repeal all compromises, repeal the Declaration of Indepen- dence, repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature. It still will be the abundance of ABRAHAM LINCOLN 23 man's heart that slavery extension is wrong, and out of the abundance of his heart his mouth will continue to speak. . . . The Missouri Compromise ought to be restored. For the sake of the Union, it ought to be restored. 5 We ought to elect a House of Representatives which will vote its restoration. If by any means we omit to do this, what follows ? Slavery may or may not be established in Nebraska. But whether it be or not, we shall have repudiated — discarded 10 from the councils of the nation — the spirit of compromise; for who, after this, will ever trust in a national compromise? The spirit of mutual concession — that spirit which first gave us the Constitution, and which has thrice saved the Union 15 — we shall have strangled and cast from us forever. And what shall we have in lieu of it ? The South flushed with triumph and tempted to excess; the North, betrayed as they believe, brooding on wrong and burning for revenge. One side will provoke, 20 the other resent. The one will taunt, the other defy; one aggresses, the other retaliates. . . . But restore the compromise, and what then ? We thereby restore the national faith, the national 24 ABRAHAM LINCOLN confidence, the national feeling of brotherhood. We thereby reinstate the spirit of concession and compromise, that spirit which has never failed us in past perils, and which may be safely trusted for 5 all the future. The South ought to join in doing this. The peace of the nation is as dear to them as to us. In memories of the past and hopes of the future, they share as largely as we. It would be on their part a great act — great in its spirit, and 10 great in its effect. It would be worth to the nation a hundred years' purchase of peace and prosperity. And what of sacrifice would they make? They only surrender to us what they gave us for a consid- eration long, long ago; what they have not now 15 asked for, struggled or cared for; what has been thrust upon them, not less to their astonishment than to ours. . . . I particularly object to the new position which the avowed principle of this Nebraska law gives to 20 slavery in the body politic. I object to it because it assumes that there can be moral right in the enslaving of one man by another. I object to it as a dangerous dalliance for a free people — a sad evidence that, feeling prosperity, we forget right; ABRAHAM LINCOLN 25 that liberty, as a principle, we have ceased to revere. I object to it because the fathers of the republic eschewed and rejected it. The argument of "ne- cessity" was the only argument they ever admitted in favor of slavery; and so far, and so far only, as 5 it carried them did they ever go. They found the institution existing among us, which they could hpt help, and they cast blame upon the British king for having permitted its introduction. Before the Constitution they prohibited its introduction 10 into the Northwestern Territory, the only country we owned then free from it. At the framing and adoption of the Constitution, they forbore to so much as mention the word " slave" or "slavery" in the whole instrument. In the provision for the 15 recovery of fugitives, the slave is spoken of as a "person held to serve or labor." In that prohibit- ing the abolition of the African slave-trade for twenty years, that trade is spoken of as "the migra- tion or importation of such persons as any of the 20 States now existing shall think proper to admit," etc. These are the only provisions alluding to slavery. Thus the thing is hid away in the Constitution, just as an afflicted man hides away a wen or cancer 26 ABRAHAM LINCOLN which he dares not cut out at once, lest he bleed to death, — with the promise, nevertheless, that the cutting may begin at a certain time. Less than this our fathers could not do, and more they would 5 not do. Necessity drove them so far, and farther they would not go. But this is not all. The earliest Congress under the Constitution took the same view of slavery. They hedged and hemmed it in to the narrowest limits of necessity. . . . 10 But now it is to be transformed into a " sacred right." Nebraska brings it forth, places it on the highroad to extension and perpetuity, and with a pat on its back says to it, " Go, and God speed you." Henceforth it is to be the chief jewel of the nation 15 — the very figurehead of the ship of state. Little by little, but steadily as man's march to the grave, we have been giving up the old for the new faith. Near eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that 20 beginning we have run down to the other declara- tion, that for some men to enslave others is a " sacred sight of self-government." These prin- ciples cannot stand together. They are as oppo- site as God and Mammon; and who ever holds to ABRAHAM LINCOLN 27 the one must despise the other. When Pettit, in connection with his support of the Nebraska bill, called the Declaration of Independence "a self- evident lie," he only did what consistency and candor require all other Nebraska men to do. 5 Of the forty-odd Nebraska senators who sat present and heard him, no one rebuked him. Nor am I apprised that any Nebraska newspaper, or any Nebraska orator, in the whole nation has ever re- buked him. If this had been said among Marion's 10 men, Southerners though they were, what would have become of the man who said it ? If this had been said to the men who captured Andre, the man who said it would probably have been hung sooner than Andre was. If it had been said in old Inde- 15 pendence Hall seventy-eight years ago, the very doorkeeper would have throttled the man and thrust him into the street. Let no one be deceived. The spirit of seventy-six and the spirit of Nebraska are utter antagonisms; and the former is being 20 rapidly displaced by the latter. Fellow-countrymen, Americans, South as well as North, shall we make no effort to arrest this ? Already the liberal party throughout the world 28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN express the apprehension "that the one retro- grade institution in America is undermining the principles of progress, and fatally violating the noblest political system the world ever saw." This 5 is not the taunt of enemies, but the warning of friends. Is it quite safe to disregard it — to de- spise it ? Is there no danger to liberty itself in dis- carding the earliest practice and first precept of our ancient faith ? In our greedy chase to make 10 profit of the negro, let us beware lest we " cancel and tear in pieces " even the white man's charter of freedom. Our republican robe is soiled and trailed in the dust. Let us repurify it. Let us turn and wash 15 it white in the spirit, if not the blood, of the Revolution. Let us turn slavery from its claims of "moral right" back upon its existing legal rights and its arguments of "necessity." Let us return it to the position our fathers gave it, and there let 20 it rest in peace. Let us readopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it the practices and policy which harmonize with it. Let North and South — let all Americans — let all lovers of liberty every- where join in the great and good work. If we do ABRAHAM LINCOLN 29 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 5 us blessed to the latest generations. . . . FROM A LETTER TO JOSHUA F. SPEED, DATED AUGUST 24, 1855. You suggest that in political action now, you and I would differ. I suppose we would; not quite so much, however, as you may think. You know I dislike slavery, and you fully admit the abstract 5 wrong of it. So far there is no cause of difference. But you say that sooner than yield your legal right to the slave, especially at the bidding of those who are not themselves interested, you would see the Union dissolved. I am not aware that any ioone is bidding you yield that right; very certainly I am not. I leave that matter entirely to yourself. I also acknowledge your rights and my obligations under the Constitution in regard to your slaves. I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted 15 down and caught and carried back to their stripes and unrequited toil; but I bite my lips and keep quiet. In 1841, you and I had together a tedious low- water trip on a steamboat, from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, 30 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 31 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. 5 It is not fair for you to assume that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exer- cises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feel- 10 ings in order to maintain their loyalty to the Con- stitution and the Union. I do oppose the exten- sion 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 15 we must. You say if you were President, you would send an army and hang the leaders of the Missouri outrages upon the Kansas elections; still, if Kansas fairly votes herself a slave State she must be admitted, or the Union must be dissolved. 20 But how if she votes herself a slave State unfairly; that is, by the very means for which you say you would hang men ? Must she still be admitted, or the Union dissolved ? That will be the phase of 32 ABRAHAM LINCOLN the question when it first becomes a practical one. In your assumption that there may be a fair decision of the slavery question in Kansas, I plainly see that you and I would differ about the Nebraska 5 law. I look upon that enactment, not as a law, but as a violence from the beginning. It was con- ceived in violence, is maintained in violence, and is being executed in violence. I say it was con- ceived in violence, because the destruction of the io Missouri Compromise, under the circumstances, was nothing less than violence. It was passed in violence, because it could not have passed at all but for the votes of many members in violence of the known will of their constituents. It is main- istained in violence, because the elections since clearly demand its repeal, and the demand is openly disregarded. . . . That Kansas will form a slave constitution, and with it ask to be admitted into the Union, I 20 take to be already a settled question, and so settled by the very means you so pointedly condemn. By every principle of law ever held by any court North or South, every negro taken to Kansas is free; yet in utter disregard of this — in the spirit ABRAHAM LINCOLN 33 of violence merely — that beautiful Legislature gravely passes a law to hang any man who shall venture to inform a negro of his legal rights. This is the subject and real object of the law. If, like Hainan, they should hang upon the gallows of their 5 own building, I shall not be among the mourners for their fate. In my humble sphere, I shall advo- cate the restoration of the Missouri Compromise so long as Kansas remains a Territory; and when, by all these foul means, it seeks to come into the 10 Union as a slave State, I shall oppose it. . . . You say that if Kansas fairly votes herself a free State, as a Christian you will rejoice at it. All decent slaveholders talk that way, and I do not doubt their candor; but they never vote 15 that way. Although in a private letter or con- versation you will express your preference that Kansas should be free, you would vote for no man for Congress who would say the same thing pub- licly. No such man could be elected from any 20 district in a slave State. You think Stringfellow and company ought to be hung. . . . The slave- breeders and slave-traders are a small, odious, and detested class among you; and yet in politics they 34 ABRAHAM LINCOLN dictate the course of all of you, and are as com- pletely your masters as you are the master of your own negroes. You inquire where I now stand. That is a disputed point. I think I am a Whig; s 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 attempting to unwhig me for that. I now do more than oppose the ex- 10 tension 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 15 rapid. As a nation we began by declaring 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 20 and Catholics. When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy. VI FROM A SPEECH DISCUSSING THE DECISION IN THE DRED SCOTT CASE, AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, 26 JUNE, 1857. And now as to the Dred Scott decision. That decision declares two propositions, — first, that a negro cannot sue in the United States courts; and, secondly, that Congress cannot prohibit slavery in the Territories. It was made by a divided court — 5 dividing differently on the different points. Judge Douglas does not discuss the merits of the decision, and in that respect I shall follow his example. . . . He denounces all who question the correct- ness of that decision, as offering violent resistance 10 to it. But who resists it ? Who has, in spite of the decision, declared Dred Scott free, and re- sisted the authority of his master over him ? . . . We believe as much as Judge Douglas (per- haps more) in obedience to and respect for the 15 judicial department of government. We think its decisions on constitutional questions, when fully settled, should control not only the partic- 35 36 ABRAHAM LINCOLN ular cases decided, but the general policy of the country, subject to be disturbed only by amend- ments of the Constitution, as provided in that instrument itself. More than this would be revo- s lution. But we think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it overrule this. We offer no resistance to it. 10 If this important decision had been made by the unanimous concurrence of the judges, and without any apparent partisan bias, and in ac- cordance with legal public expectation, and with the steady practice of the departments through- 15 out our history, and had been in no part based on assumed historical facts, which are not really true; or if wanting in some of these, it had been before the court more than once, and had there been affirmed and reaffirmed through a course of 20 years, — it then might be, perhaps would be factious, nay, even revolutionary, not to acquiesce in it as a precedent. But when, as is true, we find it wanting in all these claims to the public confidence, it is not re- ABRAHAM LINCOLN 37 sistance, it is not factiousness, it is not even disre- spectful to treat it as not having yet quite estab- lished a settled doctrine for the country. . . . I have said, in substance, that the Dred Scott decision was in part based on assumed historical 5 facts which were not really true, and I ought not to leave the subject without giving some reasons for saying this; I therefore give an instance or two, which I think fully sustain me. Chief Jus- tice Taney, in delivering the opinion of the major- 10 ity of the court, insists at great length that negroes were no part of the people who made, or for whom was made the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution of the United States. On the contrary, Judge Curtis, in his dissent- 15 ing opinion, shows that in five of the then thir- teen States — to wit, New Hampshire, Massachu- setts, New York, New Jersey, and North Caro- lina — free negroes were voters, and in proportion to their numbers had the same part in making 20 the Constitution that the white people had. He shows this with so much particularity as to leave no doubt of its truth; and as a sort of conclusion on that point, holds the following language : — 38 ABRAHAM LINCOLN "The Constitution was ordained and estab- lished by the people of the United States, through the action, in each State, of those persons who were qualified by its laws to act thereon in behalf of themselves and all other citizens of the State. In some of the States, as we have seen, colored persons were among those qualified by law to act on the subject. These colored persons were not only included in the body of 'the people of the United States' by whom the Constitution was or- dained and established ; but in at least five of the States they had the power to act, and doubtless did act, by their suffrages, upon the question of its adoption." Again, Chief Justice Taney says: — "It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion, in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlight- ened portions of the world at the time of the Dec- laration of Independence, and when the Consti- tution of the United States was framed and adopted." And again, after quoting from the Declaration, he says : — ABRAHAM LINCOLN 39 "The general words above quoted would seem to include the whole human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day, would be so understood." In these the Chief Justice does not directly assert 5 but plainly assumes, as a fact, that the public estimate of the black man is more favorable now than it was in the days of the Revolution. This assumption is a mistake. In some trifling par- ticulars the condition of that race has been amelio- 10 rated; but as a whole, in this country, the change between then and now is decidedly the other way; and their ultimate destiny has never appeared so hopeless as in the last three or four years. In two of the five States — New Jersey and North Caro-15 Una — that then gave the free negro the right of voting, the right has since been taken away, and in a third — New York — it has been greatly abridged; while it has not been extended, so far as I know, to a single additional State, though the num- 20 ber of the States has more than doubled. In those days, as I understand, masters could, at their own pleasure, emancipate their slaves; but since then such legal restraints have been made upon 40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN emancipation as to amount almost to prohibi- tion. In those days legislatures held the unques- tioned power to abolish slavery in their respective States, but now it is becoming quite fashionable 5 for State constitutions to withhold that power from the legislatures. In those days, by common consent, the spread of the black man's bondage to the new countries was prohibited, but now Congress decides that it will not continue the pro- iohibition, and the Supreme Court decides that it could not if it would. In those days our Declara- tion of Independence was held sacred by all, and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the negro universal and eternal, is it is assailed and sneered at and construed, and hawked at and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it. All the powers of earth seem rapidly combin- ing against him. Mammon is after him, ambition 20 follows, philosophy follows, and the theology of the day is fast joining the cry. They have him in his prison house; they have searched his person, and left no prying instrument with him. One after another they have closed the heavy iron ABRAHAM LINCOLN 41 doors upon him; and now they have him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of a hundred keys, which can never be unlocked without the concurrence of every key — the keys in the hands of a hundred different men, and they scattered to a hundred 5 different and distant places; and they stand mus- ing as to what invention, in all the dominions of mind and matter, can be produced to make the impossibility of his escape more complete than it is. It is grossly incorrect to say or assume that the 10 public estimate of the negro is more favorable now than it was at the origin of the government. Three years and a half ago, Judge Douglas brought forward his famous Nebraska bill. The country was at once in a blaze. He scorned all 15 opposition, and carried it through Congress. Since then he has seen himself superseded in a presi- dential nomination by one indorsing the general doctrine of his measure, but at the same time standing clear of the odium of its untimely agita- 20 tion and its gross breach of national faith; and he has seen that successful rival constitutionally elected, not by the strength of friends, but by the division of adversaries, being in a popular minority 42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN of nearly four hundred thousand votes. He has seen his chief aids in his own State, Shields and Richardson, politically speaking, successively tried, convicted, and executed for an offence not their 5 own, but his. And now he sees his own case stand- ing next on the docket for trial. There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people at the idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races; and 10 Judge Douglas evidently is basing his chief hope upon the chances of his being able to appropriate the benefit of this disgust to himself. If he can, by much drumming and repeating, fasten the odium of that idea upon his adversaries, he thinks 15 he can struggle through the storm. He therefore clings to this hope, as a drowning man to the last plank. He makes an occasion for lugging it in from the opposition to the Dred Scott decision. He finds the Republicans insisting that the Decla- 20 ration of Independence includes all men, black as well as white, and forthwith he boldly denies that it includes negroes at all, and proceeds to argue gravely that all who contend it does, do so only because they want to vote, and eat, and sleep, and ABRAHAM LINCOLN 48 marry with negroes! He will have it that they cannot be consistent else. Now I protest against the counterfeit logic which concludes that, because I do not want a black woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. I need not have 5 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 bread she earns with her own hands without asking leave of any one else, she is my equal, and the equal of all others. 10 Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the Dred Scott case, admits that the language of the Dec- laration is broad enough to include the whole human family, but he and Judge Douglas argue that the authors of that instrument did not intend 15 to include negroes, by the fact they did not at once actually place them on an equality with the whites. Now this grave argument comes to just nothing at all, by the other fact that they did not at once, or ever afterward, actually place all white 20 people on an equality with one another. And this is the staple argument of both the chief justice and the senator for doing this obvious violence to the plain, unmistakable language of the Declaration. 44 ABRAHAM LINCOLN I think the authors of that notable instrument intended 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, 5 size, intellect, moral developments, or social capac- ity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what respects they did consider all men created equal — equal with " certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of 10 happiness." This they said, and this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet that they were about to confer it imme- diately upon them. In fact, they had no power 15 to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and 20 revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life ABRAHAM LINCOLN 45 to all people of all colors everywhere. The asser- tion 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 5 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 hate- ful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant 10 when such should reappear in this fair land and commence their vocation, they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack. I have now briefly expressed my view of the meaning and object of that part of the Declara-15 tion of Independence which declares that "all men are created equal." Now let us hear Judge Douglas's view of the same subject, as I find it in the printed report of his late speech. Here it is: — 20 "No man can vindicate the character, motives, and conduct of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, except upon the hypothesis that they referred to the white race alone, and not to the African, when they declared all men to have 25 46 ABRAHAM LINCOLN been created equal; that they were speaking of British subjects on this continent being equal to British subjects born and residing in Great Britain; that they were entitled to the same inalienable 5 rights, and among them were enumerated life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Dec- laration was adopted for the purpose of justify- ing the colonists in the eyes of the civilized world, in withdrawing their allegiance from the British 10 crown, and dissolving their connection with the mother country." My good friends, read that carefully over some leisure hour, and ponder well upon it; see what a mere wreck — mangled ruin — it makes of our 15 once glorious Declaration. "They were speaking of British subjects on this continent being equal to British subjects born and residing in Great Britain!" Why, according to this, not only negroes but white peo- 20 pie outside of Great Britain and America were not spoken of in that instrument. The Eng- lish, Irish, and Scotch, along with white Ameri- cans, were included, to be sure, but the French, Germans, and other white people of the world are 25 all gone to pot along with the judge's inferior races! ABRAHAM LINCOLN 47 I had thought the Declaration promised some- thing better than the condition of British sub- jects; but no, it only meant that we should be equal to them in their own oppressed and unequal condition. According to that, it gave no promise 5 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 contemplated the progressive improvement in the condition 10 of all men everywhere; but no, it merely "was adopted for the purpose of justifying the colonists in the eyes of the civilized world in withdrawing their allegiance from the British crown, and dis- solving their connection with the mother country." 15 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 battlefield after the victory is won. I understand you are preparing to celebrate 20 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 48 ABRAHAM LINCOLN suppose you will celebrate 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 5 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 created equal to all British subjects born and then residing in Great Britain." o 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 interesting memorial of the dead past ? — thus shorn of its vitality sand practical value, and left without the germ or even the suggestion of the individual rights of man in it ? VII SPEECH DELIVERED BEFORE THE REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLI- NOIS, AFTER LINCOLN'S NOMINATION FOR UNITED STATES SENATOR, JUNE 17, 1858; KNOWN AS THE "DIVIDED HOUSE" SPEECH. If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. 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 5 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 believe 10 this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, — I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become e 49 50 ABRAHAM LINCOLN all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its 5 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. Have we no tendency to the latter condition ? Let any one who doubts carefully contemplate that 10 now almost complete legal combination — piece of machinery, so to speak — compounded of the Ne- braska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not only what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted ; but also let 15 him study the history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evi- dences of design and concert of action among its chief architects from the beginning. The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded 20 from more than half the States by State constitu- tions, and from most of the national territory by congressional prohibition. Four days later com- menced the struggle which ended in repealing that congressional prohibition. This opened all the na- ABRAHAM LINCOLN 51 tional territory to slavery, and was the first point gained. But so far, Congress only had acted; and an in- dorsement by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable to save the point already gained and 5 give chance for more. This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argument of Squatter Sovereignty, otherwise called sacred right of self-government, which latter phrase, 10 though expressive of the only rightful basis of any government, was so perverted in this attempted use of it, as to amount to just this : That if any one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object. That argument was incorporated 15 into the Nebraska Bill itself, in the language which follows : " It being the true intent and meaning of this act, not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom; but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate 20 their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor of Squatter Sovereignty and sacred right of self-govern- 52 ABRAHAM LINCOLN ment. "But," said opposition members, "let us amend the bill so as to expressly declare that the people of the Territory may exclude slavery." "Not we," said the friends of the measure, and 5 down they voted the amendment. While the Nebraska Bill was passing through Congress, a law case, involving the question of a negro's freedom, by reason of his owner having voluntarily taken him first into a free State and iothen into a Territory covered by the congressional prohibition, and held him as a slave for a long time in each, was passing through the United States Cir- cuit Court for the District of Missouri; and both Nebraska Bill and lawsuit were brought to a decision, 15 in the same month of May, 1854. The negro's name was " Dred Scott," which name now designates the decision finally rendered in the case. Before the then next presidential election, the law case came to, and was argued, in the Supreme Court of the United 20 States ; but the decision of it was deferred until after the election. Still, before the election, Senator Trum- bull, on the floor of the Senate, requested the leading- advocate of the Nebraska Bill to state his opinion whether the people of a Territory can constitutionally ABRAHAM LINCOLN 53 exclude slavery from their limits, and the latter answers: "That is a question for the Supreme Court." The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorsement, such as it was, secured. That 5 was the second point gained. The indorsement, however, fell short of a clear popular majority by nearly four hundred thousand votes, and so, perhaps, was not overwhelmingly reliable and satisfactory. The outgoing President, in his last annual message, 10 as impressively as possible echoed back upon the people the weight and authority of the indorsement. The Supreme Court met again; did not announce their decision, but ordered a reargument. The presidential inauguration came, and still no decision 15 of the Court; but the incoming President in his inaugural address fervently exhorted the people to abide by the forthcoming decision, whatever it might be. Then, in a few days, came the decision. The reputed author of the Nebraska Bill finds 20 an early occasion to make a speech at this capitol, indorsing the Dred Scott decision, and vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The new Presi- dent, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman 54 ABRAHAM LINCOLN letter to indorse and strongly construe that decision, and to express his astonishment that any different view had ever been entertained ! At length a squabble springs up between the 5 President and the author of the Nebraska Bill, on the mere question of fact whether the Lecompton constitution was, or was not, in any just sense, made by the people of Kansas; and in that quarrel, the latter declares that all he wants is a fair vote 10 for the people, and that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up. I do not understand his declaration that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up, to be intended by him other than as an apt definition of the policy he 15 would impress upon the public mind, — the principle for which he declares he has suffered so much, and is ready to suffer to the end. And well may he cling to that principle. If he has any parental feeling, well may he cling to it. That principle is the only 20 shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Un- der the Dred Scott decision, " squatter sovereignty " squatted out of existence, tumbled down like tem- porary scaffolding; like the mould at the foundry, it served through one blast, and fell back into loose ABRAHAM LINCOLN 55 sand, — helped to carry an election, and then was kicked to the winds. His late joint struggle with the Republicans against the Lecompton constitution, involves nothing of the original Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was made on a point — the right of 5 the people to make their own constitution — upon which he and the Republicans have never differed. The several points of the Dred Scott decision in connection with Senator Douglas's "care not" policy, constitute the piece of machinery in its 10 present state of advancement. This was the third point gained. The working points of that ma- chinery are: — First. That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no descendant of such slave, can 15 ever be a citizen of any State, in the sense of that term as used in the Constitution of the United States. This point is made in order to deprive the negro, in every possible event, of the benefit of that provi- sion of the United States Constitution which declares 20 that " citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." Secondly. That, " subject to the Constitution of 56 ABRAHAM LINCOLN the United States/' neither Congress nor a terri- torial legislature can exclude slavery from any United States Territory. This point is made in order that individual men may fill up the Territories 5 with slaves, without danger of losing them as property, and thus enhance the chances of per- manency to the institution through all the future. Thirdly. That whether the holding a negro in actual slavery in a free State makes him free as 10 against the holder, the United States Courts will not decide, but will leave to be decided by the courts of any slave State the negro may be forced into by the master. This point is made, not to be pressed immediately; but if acquiesced in for a 15 while, and apparently indorsed by the people at an election, then to sustain the logical conclusion that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do with Dred Scott in the free State of Illinois, every other master may lawfully do, with any other one, 20 or one thousand slaves in Illinois, or in any other free State. Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with it, the Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of it, is to educate and mould public opinion not to ABRAHAM LINCOLN 57 care whether slavery is voted down or voted up. This shows exactly where we now are, and partially, also, whither we are tending. It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back, and run the mind over the string of historical 5 facts already stated. Several things will now appear less dark and mysterious than they did when they were transpiring. The people were to be left " perfectly free," " subject only to the Con- stitution." What the Constitution had to do with 10 it, outsiders could not then see. Plainly enough now ; it was an exactly fitted niche for the Dred Scott decision to afterwards come in, and declare the perfect freedom of the people to be just no freedom at all. Why was the amendment expressly declaring 15 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 20 election? Plainly enough now: the speaking out then would have damaged the perfectly free argu- ment upon which the election was to be carried. Why the outgoing President's felicitation on the 58 ABRAHAM LINCOLN indorsement? Why the delay of a reargument? Why the incoming President's advance exhorta- tion in favor of the decision? These things look like the cautious patting and petting of a 5 spirited horse, preparatory 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 adapta- to tions are the result of preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places, and by different workmen — Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance (Douglas, 15 Pierce, Taney, Buchanan), — and when we see those timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted 20 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 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 59 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. It should not be overlooked that by the Ne- 5 braska Bill the people of a State as well as Terri- tory were to be left "perfectly free," "subject only to the Constitution. " Why mention a State ? They were legislating for Territories, and not for or about States. Certainly the people of a State 10 are and ought to be subject to the Constitution of the United States; but why is mention of this lugged into this merely territorial law? Why are the people of a Territory and the people of a State therein lumped together, and their rela- 15 tion to the Constitution therein treated as being precisely the same? While the opinion of the Court by Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case, and the separate opinions of all the concurring judges, expressly declare that the Constitution 20 of the United States neither permits Congress nor a territorial legislature to exclude slavery from any United States Territory, they all omit to declare whether or not the same Constitution permits 60 ABRAHAM LINCOLN a State or the people of a State to exclude it. Pos- sibly this is a mere omission ; but who can be quite sure if McLean or Curtis ° had sought to get into the opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the s people of a State to exclude slavery from their limits, — just as Chase and Mace ° sought to get such declara- tion in behalf of the people of a Territory, into the Nebraska Bill, — I ask, who can be quite sure that it would not have been voted down in the one 10 case as it had been in the other ? The nearest approach to the point of declaring the power of a State over slavery is made by Judge Nelson. He approaches it more than once, using the pre- cise idea, and almost the language too, of the 15 Nebraska act. On one occasion his exact language is " except in cases where the power is restrained by the Constitution of the United States, the law of the State is supreme over the subject of slavery within its jurisdiction." In what cases the power 20 of the State is so restrained by the United States Constitution is left an open question, precisely as the same question, as to the restraint on the power of the Territories, was left open in the Nebraska act. Put this and that together, and we have another ABRAHAM LINCOLN 61 nice little niche, which we may, erelong, see filled with another Supreme Court decision, declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits. And this may especially be expected if the doctrine 5 of " care not whether slavery be voted down or voted up" shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give promise that such a decision can be main- tained when made. Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of be- 10 ing alike lawful in all the States. Welcome or un- welcome, such decision is probably coming, and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the pres- ent political dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie down, pleasantly dreaming that the 15 people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free, and we shall awake to the reality instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State. To meet and overthrow the power of that dynasty is the work now before all those who would 20 pervent that consummation. That is what we have to do. How can we best do it? There are those who denounce us openly to their own friends, and yet whisper to us softly that 62 ABRAHAM LINCOLN Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with which to effect that object. They wish us to infer all from the fact that he now has a little quar- rel with the present head of that dynasty, and that 5 he has regularly voted with us on a single point, upon which he and we have never differed . They remind us that he is a great man and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted. But " a living dog is better than a dead lion. " Judge xo Douglas, if not a dead lion, for this work is at least a caged and toothless one. How can he oppose the advances of slavery ? He don't care anything about it. His avowed mission is impressing the " public heart" to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas 15 Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas's superior talent will be needed to resist the revival of the African slave-trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to revive that trade is approaching ? He has not said so. Does he really think so ? But if it is, 20 how can he resist it ? For years he has labored to prove it a sacred right of white men to take negro slaves into the new Territories. Can he possibly show that it is a less sacred right to buy them where they can be bought cheapest ? And unquestionably ABRAHAM LINCOLN 63 they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in Vir- ginia. He has done all in his power to reduce the whole question of slavery to one of a mere right of property: and, as such, how can he oppose the foreign slave-trade ? — how can he refuse that trade 5 in that property shall be " perfectly free, " unless he does it as a protection to home production ? And as the home producers will probably not ask the protection, he will be wholly without a ground of opposition. IC Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser to-day than he was yesterday — that he may rightfully change when he finds him- self wrong. But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and infer that he will make any particular change, 15 of which he himself has given no intimation ? Can we safely base our action upon any such vague inference ? Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge Douglas's position, question his motives, or do 20 aught that can be personally offensive to him. Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on principle, so that our cause may have assist- ance from his great ability, I hope to have inter- 64 ABRAHAM LINCOLN posed no adventitious obstacle. But, clearly, he is not now with us — he does not pretend to be — he does not promise ever to be. Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and con- 5 ducted by, its own undoubted friends — those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work, who do care for the result. Two years ago the Repub- licans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single 10 impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a 15 disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all then to falter now ? — now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent ? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail. If we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate 20 or mistakes delay it; but sooner or later the victory is sure to come. VIII FROM A SPEECH IN REPLY TO JUDGE DOUG- LAS'S CRITICISM OF THE " DIVIDED HOUSE " SPEECH MADE ON THE DAY PRECEDING THIS ONE, WHICH WAS DELIVERED BY LINCOLN ON JULY 10, 1858. Judge Douglas made two points upon my recent speech at Springfield. H*e says they are to be the issues of this campaign. The first one of these points he bases upon the language in a speech which I de- livered at Springfield, which I believe I can quote cor- 5 rectly from memory. I said that "we are now far into the fifth year since a policy was instituted for the avowed object and with the confident promise of put- ting an end to slavery agitation; under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, 10 but has constantly augmented. I believe it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to 15 f 65 66 ABRAHAM LINCOLN be dissolved," — I am quoting from my speech, — "I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents 5 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 until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, 10 North as well as South." That is the paragraph ! In this paragraph which I have quoted in your hearing, and to which I ask the attention of all, Judge Douglas thinks he discovers great political heresy. I want your attention par- 15 ticularly to what he has inferred from it. He says I am in favor of making all the States of this Union uniform in all their internal regulations; that in all their domestic concerns I am in favor of making them entirely uniform. He draws this inference 20 from the language I have quoted to you. He says that I am in favor of making war by the North upon the South for the extinction of slavery ; that I am also in favor of inviting (as he expresses it) the South to a war upon the North for the purpose of nationalizing ABRAHAM LINCOLN 67 slavery. Now, it is singular enough, if you will care- fully read that passage over, that I did not say that I was in favor of anything in it. I only said what I expected would take place. I made a prediction only — it may have been a foolish one, perhaps. I did not 5 even say that I desired that slavery should be put in course of ultimate extinction. I do say so now, however; so there need be no longer any difficulty about that. It may be written down in the great speech. 10 Gentlemen, Judge Douglas informed you that this speech of mine was probably carefully prepared. I admit that it was. I am not master of language; I have not a fine education; I am not capable of entering into a disquisition upon dialectics, as 1 15 believe you call it; but I do not believe the language I employed bears any such construction as Judge Douglas puts upon it. But I don't care about a quibble in regard to words. I know what I meant, and I will not leave this crowd in doubt, if I can 20 explain it to them, what I really meant in the use of that paragraph. I am not, in the first place, unaware that this government has -endured eighty-two years half 68 ABRAHAM LINCOLN slave and half free. I know that. I am tolerably well acquainted with the history of the country, and I know that it has endured eighty-two years half slave and half free. I believe — and that is 5 what I meant to allude to there — I believe it has endured, because, during all that time, until the in- troduction of the Nebraska Bill, the public mind did rest all the time in the belief that slavery was in course of ultimate extinction. That was what iogave us the rest that we had through that period of eighty-two years; at least, so I believe. I have always hated slavery, I think, as much as any Abolitionist, — I have been an old-line Whig, — I have always hated it, but I have always been 15 quiet about it until this new era of the introduc- tion of the Nebraska Bill began. I always be- lieved that everybody was against it, and that it was in course of ultimate extinction. . . . They had reason so to believe. 20 The adoption of the Constitution and its attend- ant history led the people to believe so, and that such was the belief of the framers of the Con- stitution itself. Why did those old men, about the time of the adoption of the Constitution, decree ABRAHAM LINCOLN 69 that slavery should not go into the new Terri- tory where it had not already gone ? Why declare that within twenty years the African slave-trade, by which slaves are supplied, might be cut off by Congress? Why were all these acts? I mights enumerate more of these acts; but enough. What were they but a clear indication that the framers^ of the Constitution intended and expected the ultimate extinction of that institution? And now when I say, — as I said in my speech that Judge ro Douglas has quoted from, — when I say that I think the opponents of slavery will resist 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 ex- tinction, I only mean to say that they will place it 15 where the founders of this government originally placed it. I have said a hundred times, and I have now no inclination to take it back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the 20 people of the free States, to enter into the slave States and interfere with the question of slavery at all. . . . And when it is said that I am in favor of interfering with slavery where it exists, I know 70 ABRAHAM LINCOLN it is unwarranted by anything I have ever intended, and, as I believe, by anything I have ever said. If by any means I have ever used language which could fairly be so construed (as, however, I believe I never s have), I now correct it. . . . Now, in relation to his inference that I am in favor of a general consolidation of all the local institutions of the various States. ... I have said very many times in Judge Douglas's hearing iothat no man believed more than I in the prin- ciple of self-government; that it lies at the bottom of all my ideas of just government from beginning to end. ... I think that I have said it in your hearing, that I believe each individual is naturally 15 entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other man's rights; that each community, as a State, has a right to do exactly as it pleases with all the concerns within that State that interfere 20 with the right of no other State; and that the general government upon principle has no right to interfere with anything other than that general class of things that does concern the whole. I have said that at all times; I have said as illustrations that I do not ABRAHAM LINCOLN 71 believe in the right of Illinois to interfere with the cranberry laws of Indiana, the oyster laws of Virginia, or the liquor laws of Maine. How is it, then, that Judge Douglas infers, because I hope to see slavery put where the public mind 5 shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, that I am in favor of Illinois going over and interfering with the cranberry laws of Indiana ? What can authorize him to draw any such inference ? I suppose there might be one 10 thing that at least enabled him to draw such an inference, that would not be true with me or many others ; that is, because he looks upon all this mat- ter of slavery as an exceedingly little thing, — this matter of keeping one-sixth of the population of the 15 whole nation in a state of oppression and tyranny unequalled in the world. He looks upon it as being an exceedingly little thing, only equal to the question of the cranberry laws of Indiana ; as something hav- ing no moral question in it; as something on a par zo with the question of whether a man shall pasture his land with cattle or plant it with tobacco ; so little and so small a thing that he concludes, if I could desire that anything should be done to bring about the 12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN ultimate extinction of that little thing, I must be in favor of bringing about an amalgamation of all the other little things in the Union. Now, it so happens — and there, I presume, is the foundation of this mistake 5 — that the Judge thinks thus; and it so happens that there is a vast portion of the American people that do not look upon that matter as being this very little thing. They look upon it as a vast moral evil; they can prove it as such by the writings of those who gave ious the blessings of liberty which we enjoy, and that they so looked upon it, and not as an evil merely confining itself to the States where it is situated; and while we agree that by the Constitution we assented to, in the States where it exists we have no right to 15 interfere with it, because it is in the Constitution, we are both by duty and inclination to stick by that Constitution in all its letter and spirit from beginning to end. So much, then, as to my disposition, my wish, to 20 have all the State legislatures blotted out and to have one consolidated government and a uni- formity of domestic regulations in all the States; by which I suppose it is meant, if we raise corn here we must make sugar-cane grow here too, and we ABRAHAM LINCOLN 73 must make those things which grow North grow in the South. All this I suppose he understands I am in favor of doing. Now, so much for all this non- sense — for I must call it so. The Judge can have no issue with me on a question of establishing uni- 5 formity in the domestic regulations of the States. . . My fellow-citizens, getting back a little, — for I pass from these points, — when Judge Douglas makes his threat of annihilation upon the " alliance," he is cautious to say that that warfare of his is 10 to fall upon the leaders of the Republican party. Almost every word he utters and every distinction he makes has its significance. He means for the Re- publicans who do not count themselves as leaders to be his friends; he makes no fuss over them, it is the 15 leaders that he is making war upon. He wants it understood that the mass of the Republican party are really his friends. It is only the leaders that are doing something, that are intolerant, and require extermination at his hands. As this is clearly and 20 unquestionably the light in which he presents that matter, I want to ask your attention, addressing my- self to Republicans here, that I may ask you some questions as to where you, as the Republican party, 74 ABRAHAM LINCOLN would be placed if you sustained Judge Douglas in his present position by a reelection ? I do not claim, gentlemen, to be unselfish; I do not pretend that I would not like to go to the United States Senate, — 5 1 make no such hypocritical pretence; but I do say to you, that in this mighty issue it is nothing to you, nothing to the mass of the people of the nation, whether or not Judge Douglas or myself shall ever be heard of after this night. It may be a trifle to either oof us; but in connection with this mighty question, upon which hang the destinies of the nation, perhaps, it is absolutely nothing. But where will you be placed if you reindorse Judge Douglas ? Don't you know how apt he is, how exceedingly anxious he is, at 15 all times to seize upon anything and everything to persuade you that something he has done you did yourselves ? Why, he tried to persuade you last night that our Illinois Legislature instructed him to introduce the Nebraska Bill. There was nobody in 20 that Legislature ever thought of it; but still he fights furiously for the proposition; and that he did it because there was a standing instruction to our senators to be always introducing Nebraska bills. He tells you he is for the Cincinnati platform; ABRAHAM LINCOLN 75 he tells you he is for the Dred Scott decision; he tells you — not in his speech last night, but sub- stantially in a former speech — that he cares not if slavery is voted up or down; he tells you the struggle on Lecompton is past — it may come up 5 again or not, and if it does, he stands where he stood when, in spite of him and his opposition, you built up the Republican party. If you indorse him, you tell him you do not care whether slavery be voted up or down, and he will close, or try to close, your 10 mouths with his declaration, repeated by the day, the week, the month, and the year. . . . We were often, — more than once, at least, — in the course of Judge Douglas's speech last night, reminded that this government was made for white 15 men, — that he believed it 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 war- ranted. I protest, now and forever, against that 20 counterfeit logic which presumes that, because I do not want a negro woman for a slave, I do necessarily want her for wife. My understanding is, that I need not have her for either; but, as God made us 76 ABRAHAM LINCOLN separate, we can leave one another alone, and do one another much good thereby. There are white men enough to marry all the white women, and enough black meii to marry all the black women; and in 5 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 10 won't mix there. I should say at least that that was a self-evident truth. Now, it happens that we meet together once every year, somewhere about the 4th of July, for some reason or other. These 4th of July gatherings, 75 1 suppose, have their uses. If you will indulge me, I will state what I suppose to be some of them. We are now a mighty nation: we are thirty, or about thirty, millions of people, and we own and 20 inhabit about one-fifteenth part of the dry land of the whole earth. We run our memory back over the pages of history for about eighty-two years, and we discover that we were then a very small people in point of numbers, vastly inferior to what we are now, ABRAHAM LINCOLN 77 with a vastly less extent of country, with vastly less of everything we deem desirable among men. We look upon the change as exceedingly advantageous to us and to our posterity, and we fix upon something that happened away back, as in some way or other 5 being connected with this rise of prosperity. We find a race of men living in that day whom we claim as our fathers and grandfathers; they were iron men; they fought for the principle that they were contend- ing for, and we understand that by what they then 10 did, it has followed that the degree of prosperity which we now enjoy has come to us. We hold this annual celebration to remind ourselves of all the good done in this process of time, — of how it was done, and who did it, and how we are historically 15 connected with it; and we go from these meetings in better humor with ourselves, — we feel more at- tached the one to the other, and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. In every way we are better men, in the age and race and country in which 20 we live, for these celebrations. But after we have done all this, we have not yet reached the^whole. There is something else connected with it. We have, besides these men — descended by blood from 78 ABRAHAM LINCOLN our ancestors — among us, perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men; they are men who have come from Europe, — German, Irish, French, and Scandinavian, — men that have 5 come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equal in all things. If they look back through this history, to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none : they cannot carry io themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us; but when they look through that old Declaration of Inde- pendence, they find that those old men say that "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all is 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 zothe blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who wrote that Declaration; and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men to- gether; that will link those patriotic hearts as long ABRAHAM LINCOLN 79 as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world. Now, sirs, for the purpose of squaring things with this idea of " don't care if slavery is voted up or voted down"; for sustaining the Dred Scott decision; 5 for holding that the Declaration of Independence did not mean anything at all, — we have Judge Douglas giving his exposition of what the Declara- tion of Independence means, and we have him saying that the people of America are equal to the 10 people of England. According to his construction, 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 15 rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and to transform this government 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 20 much is to be done for them as their condition will allow, : — what are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that 80 ABRAHAM LINCOLN all the arguments 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 5 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 it whatever way you will, — whether it come from the mouth of a king, an excuse for enslaving the i° people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one 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 15 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 prin- ciple, and making exceptions to it — where will it 20 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 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 81 true, let us tear it out. [Cries of "No! No!"] Let us stick to it, then; let us stand firmly by it, then. It may be argued that there are certain conditions that make necessities and impose them upon us, and 5 to the extent that a necessity is imposed upon a man, he must submit to it. I think that was the condition in which we found ourselves when we established this government. We had slaves among us; we could not get our Constitution unless we permitted 1° them to remain in slavery; we could not secure the good we did secure, if we grasped for more; but, having by necessity submitted to that much, it does not destroy the principle that is the char- ter of our liberties. Let that charter stand as our 15 standard. My friend has said to me that I am a poor hand to quote Scripture. I will try it again, however. It is said in one of the admonitions of our Lord, "Be ye [therefore] perfect even as your Father which is 20 in heaven is perfect." The Saviour, I suppose, did not expect that any human creature could be perfect as Father in heaven; but He said: " As your Father in heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect." He set 82 ABRAHAM LINCOLN that up as a standard, 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 5 nearly reached as we can. If we cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do nothing that will impose slavery upon any other creature. Let us, then, turn this government back into the channel in which the framers of the Constitution orginally placed it. 10 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, proposes, — not intentionally, — working in the traces that tend to make this one universal slave nation. He is one that runs in that 15 direction, and as such I resist him. My friends, I have detained you about as long as I desired to do, and I have only to say, let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man, this race and that race and the other race being 20 inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position. Let us discard all these things , and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 83 My friends, I could not, without launching off upon some new topic, which would detain you too long, continue to-night. I thank you for this most exten- sive audience that you have furnished me to-night. I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn 5 in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal. IX FROM LINCOLN'S REPLY TO DOUGLAS IN THE SEVENTH AND LAST JOINT DEBATE, AT ALTON, ILLINOIS, OCTOBER 15, 1858. I have stated upon former occasions, and I may as well state again, what I understand to be the real issue of this controversy between Judge Doug- las and myself. On the point of rny wanting to 5 make war between the free and the slave States, there has been no issue between us. So, too, when he assumes that I am in favor of introducing a perfect social and political equality between the white and black races. These are false issues, foupon which Judge Douglas has tried to force the controversy. There is no foundation in truth for the charge that I maintain either of these propo- sitions. The real issue in this controversy — the one pressing upon every mind — is the sentiment on rsthe part of one class that looks upon the institu- tion of slavery as a wrong, and of another class 84 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 85 that does not look upon it as a wrong. The senti- ment that contemplates the institution of slavery in this country as a wrong is the sentiment of the Republican party. It is the sentiment around which all their actions, all their arguments, circle; 5 from which all their propositions radiate. They look upon it as being a moral, social, and political wrong; and while they contemplate it as such, they nevertheless have due regard for its actual existence among us, and the difficulties of getting 10 rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to all the con- stitutional obligations thrown about it. Yet hav- ing a due regard for these, they desire a policy in regard to it that looks to its not creating any more danger. They insist that it, as far as may be, 15 be treated as a wrong, and one of the methods of treating it as a wrong is to make provision that it shall grow no larger. They also desire a policy that looks to a peaceful end of slavery sometime, as being a wrong. These are the views they enter- 20 tain in regard to it, as I understand them; and all their sentiments, all their arguments and propo- sitions, are brought within this range. I have said, and I repeat it here, that if there be a man 86 ABRAHAM LINCOLN amongst us who does not think that the institu- tion of slavery is wrong in any one of the aspects of which I have spoken, he is misplaced, and ought not to be with us. And if there be a man amongst 5 us who is so impatient of it as a wrong as to disre- gard its actual presence among us and the difficulty of getting rid of it suddenly in a satisfactory way, and to disregard the constitutional obligations thrown about it, that man is misplaced if he is on ioour platform. We disclaim sympathy with him in practical action. He is not placed properly with us. On this subject of treating it as a wrong, and limiting its spread, let me say a word. Has anything ever threatened the existence of this Union save and is except this very institution of slavery ? What is it that we hold most dear amongst us ? Our own liberty and prosperity. What has ever threatened our liberty and prosperity save and except this institution of slavery ? If this is true, how do you 20 propose to improve the condition of things by en- larging slavery — by spreading it out and making it bigger ? You may have a wen or cancer upon your person, and not be able to cut it out lest you bleed to death; but surely it is no way to cure it, ABRAHAM LINCOLN 87 to engraft it and spread it over your whole body. That is no proper way of treating what you regard as a wrong. You see this peaceful way of dealing with it as a wrong — restricting the spread of it, and not allowing it to go into new countries where 5 it has not already existed. That is the peaceful way, the old-fashioned way, the way in which the fathers themselves set us the example. On the other hand, I have said there is a senti- ment which treats it as not being wrong. That is 10 the Democratic sentiment of this day. I do not mean to say that every man who stands within that range positively asserts that it is right. That class will include all who positively assert that it is right, and all who, like Judge Douglas, treat it as 15 indifferent, and do not say it is either right or wrong. These two classes of men fall within the general class of those who do not look upon it as a wrong. And if there be among you anybody who supposes that he, as a Democrat, can consider him- 2 o self "as much opposed to slavery as anybody," I would like to reason with him. You never treat it as a wrong. What other thing that you con- sider as a wrong, do you deal with as you deal with 88 ABRAHAM LINCOLN that ? Perhaps you say it is wrong, but your leader never does, and you quarrel with anybody who says it is wrong. Although you pretend to say so yourself, you can find no fit place to deal 5 with it as a wrong. You must not say anything about it in the free States, because it is not here. You must not say anything about it in the slave States, because it is there. You must not say anything about it in the pulpit, because that is reli- 10 gion, and has nothing to do with it. You must not say anything about it in politics, because that will disturb the security of "my place." There is no place to talk about it as being a wrong, although you say yourself it is a wrong. But finally you 15 will screw yourself up to the belief that if the people of the slave States should adopt a system of gradual emancipation on the slavery question, you would be in favor of it. You would be in favor of it! You say that is getting it in the right place, and you 20 would be glad to see it succeed. But you are deceiv- ing yourself. You all know that Frank Blair and Gratz Brown, down there in St. Louis, undertook to introduce that system in Missouri. They fought as valiantly as they could for the system of gradual ABRAHAM LINCOLN 89 emancipation which you pretend you would be glad to see succeed. Now I will bring you to the test. After a hard fight, they were beaten; and when the news came over here, you threw up your hats and hurrahed for Democracy. More than 5 that, take all the argument made in favor of the system you have proposed, and it carefully excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in the insti- tution of slavery. The arguments to sustain that policy carefully exclude it. Even here to-day you 10 heard Judge Douglas quarrel with me because I uttered a wish that it might sometime come to an end. Although Henry Clay could say he wished every slave in the United States was in the country of his ancestors, I am denounced by those pretend- 15 ing to respect Henry Clay for uttering a wish that it might sometime, in some peaceful way, come to an end. The Democratic policy in regard to that institu- tion will not tolerate the merest breath, the slightest 20 hint, of the least degree of wrong about it. Try it by some of Judge Douglas's arguments. He says he " don't care whether it is voted up or voted down " in the Territories. I do not care myself, in dealing 90 ABRAHAM LINCOLN with that expression, whether it is intended to be expressive of his individual sentiments on the sub- ject, or only of the national policy he desires to have established. It is alike valuable for my purpose. 5 Any man can say that who does not see anything wrong in slavery, but no man can logically say it who does see a wrong in it; because no man can logically say he don't care whether a wrong is voted up or voted down. He may say he don't care i o whether an indifferent thing is voted up or down, but he must logically have a choice between a right thing and a wrong thing. He contends that what- ever community wants slaves has a right to have them. So they have if it is not a wrong. But i 5 if it is a wrong, he cannot say people have a right to do wrong. He says that, upon the score of equality, slaves should be allowed to go into a new Territory like other property. This is strictly logi- cal if there is no difference between it and other 20 property. If it and other property are equal, his argument is entirely logical. But if you insist that one is wrong and the other right, there is no use to institute a comparison between right and wrong. You may turn over everything in the Democratic ABRAHAM LINCOLN 91 policy from beginning to end, whether in the shape it takes on the statute-book, in the shape it takes in the Dred Scott decision, in the shape it takes in conversation, or the shape it takes in short maxim- like arguments — it everywhere carefully excludes 5 the idea that there is anything wrong in it. 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 between these two principles — I0 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 hu- manity, and the other the divine right of kings. It 15 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 20 of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslav- ing another race, it is the same tyrannical principle. I was glad to express my gratitude at Quincy, and 92 ABRAHAM LINCOLN I reexpress it here to Judge Douglas — that he looks to no end of the institution of slavery. That will help the people to see where the struggle really is. It will hereafter place with us all men who 5 really do wish the wrong may have an end. And whenever we can get rid of the fog which obscures the real question, — when we can get Judge Doug- las and his friends to avow a policy looking to its perpetuation, — we can get out from among them 10 that class of men and bring them to the side of those who treat it as a wrong. Then there will soon be an end of it, and that end will be its "ultimate extinction." Whenever the issue can be distinctly made, and all extraneous matter thrown out, so 15 that men can fairly see the real difference between the parties, this controversy will soon be settled, and it will be done peaceably too. There will be no war, no violence. It will be placed again where the wisest and best men of the world placed it. Brooks 20 of South Carolina once declared that when this Con- stitution was framed, its framers did not look to the institution existing until this day. When he said this, I think he stated a fact that is fully borne out by the history of the times. But he also said ABRAHAM LINCOLN 93 they were better and wiser men than the men of these days; yet the men of these days had expe- rience which they had not, and by the invention of the cotton-gin it became a necessity in this country that slavery should be perpetual. I now say that, s willingly or unwillingly, purposely or without pur- pose, Judge Douglas has been the most prominent instrument in changing the position of the insti- tution to slavery, — -which the fathers of the govern- ment expected to come to an end ere this, — and 10 putting it upon Brooks's cotton-gin basis — plac- ing it where he openly confesses he has no desire there shall ever be an end of it. X FROM THE ADDRESS AT COOPER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 27, 1860. Mr. President and Fellow-citizens of New York: The facts with which I shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there anything new in the general use I shall make of them. If there 5 shall be any novelty, it will be in the mode of pre- senting the facts, and the inferences and observa- tions following that presentation. In his speech last autumn at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New York Times, Senator Douglas said : — io Our fathers, when they framed the government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now. I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I so adopt it because it furnishes a 1 5 precise and an agreed starting-point for a discus- sion between Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It simply 94 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 95 leaves the inquiry: What was the understanding those fathers had of the question mentioned ? What is the frame of government under which we live? The answer must be, "The Constitution of the United States." That Constitution consists of 5 the original, framed in 1787, and under which the present government first went into operation, and twelve subsequently framed amendments, the first ten of which were framed in 1789. Who were our fathers that framed the Consti- io tution ? I suppose the "thirty-nine" who signed the original instrument may be fairly called our fathers who framed that part of the present govern- ment. It is almost exactly true to say they framed it, and it is altogether true to say they fairly repre- 15 sented the opinion and sentiment of the whole nation at that time. Their names, being familiar to nearly all, and accessible to quite all, need not now be repeated. I take these "thirty-nine," for the present, . as 20 being "our fathers who framed the government under which we live." What is the question which, according to the text, those fathers understood "just as well, and even better, than we do now"? 96 ABRAHAM LINCOLN It is this: Does the proper division of local from Federal authority, or anything in the Consti- tution, forbid our Federal Government to control as to slavery in our Federal Territories ? 5 Upon this, Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and Republicans the negative. This affirmation and denial form an issue ; and this issue — this question — is precisely what the text declares our fathers understood " better than we." Let us now 10 inquire whether the " thirty-nine," or any of them, ever acted upon this question; and if they did, how they acted upon it — how they expressed that better understanding. . . . Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our 15 thirty-nine fathers "who framed the government under which we live," who have, upon their official responsibility and their corporal oaths, acted upon the very question which the text affirms they " un- derstood just as well, and even better, than we do 20 now "; and twenty-one of them — a clear majority of the whole " thirty-nine " — so acting upon it as to make them guilty of gross political impropriety and wilful perjury if, in their understanding, any proper division between local and Federal authority, ABRAHAM LINCOLN 97 or anything in the Constitution they had made themselves, and sworn to support, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories. Thus the twenty-one acted; and, as actions speak louder than words, 5 so actions under such responsibility speak still louder. . . . The sum of the whole is that of our thirty-nine fathers who framed the original Constitution, twenty-one — a clear majority of the whole — cer- 10 tainly understood that no proper division of local from Federal authority, nor any part of the Consti- tution, forbade the Federal Government to control slavery in the Federal Territories; while all the rest had probably the same understanding. Such, 15 unquestionably, was the understanding of our fathers who framed the original Constitution; and the text affirms that they understood the question " better than we." B.ut, so far, I have been considering the under- 20 standing of the question manifested by the framers of the original Constitution. In and by the original instrument, a mode was provided for amending it; and, as I have already stated, the present frame of 98 ABRAHAM LINCOLN ''the government under which we live " ^consists of that original, and twelve amendatory articles framed and adopted since. . . . It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine 5 framers of the original Constitution, and the sev- enty-six members of the Congress which framed the amendments thereto, taken together, do certainly include those who may be fairly called "our fathers who framed the government under which we live." ro And so assuming, I defy any man to show that any one of them ever, in his whole life, declared that, in his understanding, any proper division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Consti- tution, forbade the Federal Government to control '■5 as to slavery in the Federal Territories. I go a step further. I defy any one to show that any living man in the whole world ever did, prior to the begin- ning of the present century (and I might almost say prior to the beginning of the last half of the present so century), declare that, in his understanding, .any proper division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories. To those who now so declare I give ABRAHAM LINCOLN 99 not only "our fathers who framed the government under which we live," but with them all other living men within the century in which it was framed, among whom to search, and they shall not be able to find the evidence of a single man agreeing with 5 them. Now, and here, let me guard a little against being misunderstood. I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do so would be to discard all the lights of current ex- 10 perience — to reject all progress, all improvement. What I do say is that if we would supplant the opin- ions and policy of our fathers in any case, we should do so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument so clear, that even their great authority, fairly con- 15 sidered and weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case whereof we ourselves declare they understood the question better than we. If any man at this day sincerely believes that a proper division of local from Federal authority, or 20 any part of the Constitution, forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories, he is right to say so, and to enforce his position by all truthful evidence and fair argument 100 ABRAHAM LINCOLN which he can. But he has no right to mislead others, who have less access to history, and less leisure to study it, into the false belief that "our fathers who framed the government under which 5 we live" were of the same opinion — thus substi- tuting falsehood and deception for truthful evidence and fair argument. If any man at this day sincerely believes "our fathers who framed the government under which we live" used and applied principles, o in other cases, which ought to have led them to understand that a proper division of local from Federal authority, or some part of the Con- stitution, forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories, 5 he is right to say so. But he should, at the same time, brave the responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he understands their princi- ples better than they did themselves; and espe- cially should he not shirk that responsibility by io asserting that they " understood the question just as well, and even better, than we do now." But enough! Let all who believe that "our fathers who framed the government under which we live understood this question just as well, and ABRAHAM LINCOLN 101 even better, than we do now," speak as they spoke, and act as they acted upon it. This is all Repub- licans ask — all Republicans desire — in relation to slavery. As those fathers marked it, so let it be again marked, as an evil not to be extended, but to 5 be tolerated and protected only because of and so far as its actual presence among us makes that toleration and protection a necessity. Let all the guaranties those fathers gave it be not grudgingly, but fully and fairly, maintained. For this Repub- *° licans contend, and with this, so far as I know or believe, they will be content. And now, if they would listen, — as I suppose they will not, — I would address a few words to the Southern people. 15 I would say to them: You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just people; and I consider that in the general qualities of reason and justice you are not inferior to any other people. Still, when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce 20 us as reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to " Black Repub- licans." In all your contentions with one another, 102 ABRAHAM LINCOLN each of you deems an unconditional condemnation of " Black Republicanism" as the first thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite — license, 5 so to speak — among you to be admitted or per- mitted to speak at all. Now can you or not be prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite just to us, or even to yourselves ? Bring forward your charges and specifications, and then iobe patient long enough to hear us deny or justify. You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an issue; and the burden of proof is upon you. You produce your proof; and what is it ? Why, that our party has no existence in your section — is gets no votes in your section. The fact is substan- tially 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 20 escape this conclusion; and yet, are you willing to abide by it ? If you are, you will probably soon find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in your section this very year. You will then begin to discover, as the truth plainly is, ABRAHAM LINCOLN 103 that your proof does not touch the issue. The fact that we get no votes in your section 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 5 principle 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 10 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 de- nounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of whether our principle, put in practice, would wrong 15 your section; and so meet us as if it were possible 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 "20 thought so clearly right as to adopt it, and indorse it again and again, upon their official oaths, is in fact so clearly wrong as to demand your condem- nation without a moment's consideration. 104 ABRAHAM LINCOLN Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warning against sectional parties given by Wash- ington in his Farewell Address. Less than eight years before Washington gave that warning, he had, 5 as President of the United States, approved and signed an act of Congress enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory, which act embodied the policy of the government upon that subject up to and at the very moment he penned iothat warning; and about one year after he penned it, he wrote Lafayette that he considered that prohibition a wise measure, expressing in the same connection his hope that we should at some time have a confederacy of free States. i 5 Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has since arisen upon this same subject, is that warning a weapon in your hands against us, or in our hands against you ? Could Washington him- self speak, would he cast the blame of that section- 20 alism upon us, who sustain his policy, or upon you, who repudiate it ? We respect that warning of Washington, and we commend it to you, together with his example pointing to the right application of it, ABRAHAM LINCOLN 105 But you say you are conservative — eminently conservative — while we are revolutionary, destruc- tive, or something of the sort. What is conserva- tism ? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried ? We stick to, con- 5 tend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed the government under which we live"; while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon sub- 10 stituting something new. True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided on new propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of i 5 you are for reviving the foreign slave-trade; some for a congressional slave code for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the Territories to prohibit slavery within their limits; some for maintaining slavery in the Territories through 20 the judiciary; some for the "gur-reat pur-rinciple " that "if one man would enslave another, no third man should object," fantastically called " popu- lar sovereignty"; but never a man among you is 106 ABRAHAM LINCOLN in favor of Federal prohibition of slavery in Federal Territories, according to the practice of " our fathers who framed the government under which we live." Not one of all your various plans can show a 5 precedent or an advocate in the century within which our government originated. Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism for yourselves, and your charge of destructiveness against us, are based on the most clear and stable foundations. ro Again, you say we have made the slavery question more prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded the old policy of the fathers. We re- sisted, and still resist, your innovation; and thence comes the greater prominence of the question. Would you have that question reduced to its for- mer proportions ? Go back to that old policy. What has been will be again, under the same con- 20 ditions. If you would have the peace of the old times, readopt the precepts and policy of the old times. You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? ABRAHAM LINCOLN' 107 Harper's Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was no Republican; and you have failed to impli- cate a single Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty in that matter, you know it, or you do not know it. 5 If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not desig- nating the man and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the proof. You 10 need not be told that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, is simply malicious slander. . . . John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white 15 men to get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with the many 20 attempts, related in history, at the assassination of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ven- 108 ABRAHAM LINCOLN tures the attempt, which ends in little less than his own execution. . . . And how much would it avail 3^ou, if you could, by the use of John Brown, Helper's Book, and 5 the like, break up the Republican organization? Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed. There is a judgment and a feeling against slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a half of 10 votes. You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling — that sentiment — by breaking up the political organization which rallies around it. . . . But you will break up the Union rather than sub- mit to a denial of your constitutional rights. x 5 That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be palliated, if not fully justified, were we proposing, by the mere force of numbers, to deprive you of some right plainly written down in the Con- stitution. But we are proposing no such thing. 20 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 prop- erty. But no such right is specifically written in ABRAHAM LINCOLN 109 the Constitution. That instrument is literally silent 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 5 will destroy the government, unless you be allowed to construe and force the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events. This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps 10 you will say the Supreme Court has decided the disputed constitutional question in your favor. Not quite so. But waiving the lawyer's distinction between dictum and decision, the court has decided the question for you in a sort of way. The court i 5 has substantially said, it is your constitutional right to take slaves into the Federal Territories, and to hold them there as property. When I say the decision was made in a sort of way, I mean it was made in a divided court, by a bare majority 20 of the judges, and they not quite agreeing with one another in the reasons for making it; that it is so made as that its avowed supporters disagree with one another about its meaning, and that it was 110 ABRAHAM LINCOLN mainly based upon a mistaken statement of fact — the statement in the opinion that "the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution." 5 An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of property in a slave is not " distinctly and expressly affirmed" in it. Bear in mind, the judges do not pledge their judicial opinion that such right is impliedly affirmed in the Constitution; obut they pledge their veracity that it is "distinctly and expressly" affirmed there — "distinctly," that is, not mingled with anything else — "expressly," that is, in words meaning just that, without the aid of any inference, and susceptible of no other t5 meaning. If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that such right is affirmed in the instrument by implication, it would be open to others to show that neither the word "slave" nor "slavery" is to be 20 found in the Constitution, nor the word "property" even, in any connection with language alluding to the things slave, or slavery; and that wherever in that instrument the slave is alluded to, he is called a "person"; and wherever his master's legal right ABRAHAM LINCOLN 111 in relation to him is alluded to, it is spoken of as " service or labor which may be due" — as a debt payable in service or labor. Also it would be open to show, by contemporaneous history, that this mode of alluding to slaves and slavery, instead of 5 speaking of them, was employed on purpose to ex- clude from the Constitution the idea that there could be property in man. To show all this is easy and certain. When this obvious mistake of the judges shall be 10 brought to their notice, is it not reasonable to expect that they will withdraw the mistaken statement, and reconsider the conclusion based upon it ? And then it is to be remembered that "our fathers who framed the government under which we live" 15 — the men who made the Constitution — decided this same constitutional question in our favor long ago: decided it without division among them- selves when making the decision; without division among themselves about the meaning of it after 20 it was made, and, so far as any evidence is left, without basing it upon any mistaken statement of facts. Under all these circumstances, do you really 112 ABRAHAM LINCOLN feel yourselves justified to break up this govern- ment unless such a court decision as yours is shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action ? But you will not abide 5 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 de- stroyed it will be upon us ! That is cool. A high- wayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters 10 through his teeth, " Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer ! " To be sure, what a robber demanded of me — my money — - was my own ; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote 1 5 is my own ; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distin- guished in principle. A few words now to the Republicans. It is ex- 20 ceedingly desirable that all parts of this great Con- federacy shall be at peace, and in harmony one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it so. Even though much provoked, let us do noth- ing through passion and ill temper. Even though ABRAHAM LINCOLN 113 the Southern people will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can. Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of their controversy with 5 us, let us determine, if we can, what will satisfy them. Will they be satisfied if the Territories be uncon- ditionally surrendered to them ? We know they will not. In all their present complaints against us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned. Invasions 10 and insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and insurrections ? We know it will not. We so know, because we know we never had any- thing to do with invasions and insurrections; and 15 yet this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the denunciation. . . . These natural and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them ? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join 20 them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly — done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated — we must place our- selves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas's 114 ABRAHAM LINCOLN new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their 5 fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to be- lieve that all their troubles proceed from us. ° I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely in this way. Most of them would probably say to us, "Let us alone; do nothing to us, and say what you please about slavery." But we do let them alone, — have never disturbed them, — so s that, after all, it is what we say which dissatisfies them. They will continue to accuse us of doing, until we cease saying. I am also aware they have not as yet in terms de- manded the overthrow of our free State constitu- >o tions. Yet those constitutions declare the wrong of slavery with more solemn emphasis than do all other sayings against it; and when all these other sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow of these constitutions will be demanded, and nothing ABRAHAM LINCOLN 115 be left to resist the demand. It is nothing to the contrary that they do not demand the whole of this just now. Demanding what they do, and for the reason they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this consummation. Holding, as they do, 5 that slavery is morally right and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national recog- nition of it as a legal right and a social blessing. Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground save our conviction that slavery is wrong. If 10 slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitu- tions against it are themselves wrong, and should be silenced and swept away. If it is right, we can- not justly object to its nationality — its universality; if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its 15 extension — its enlargement. All they ask we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right and our thinking it wrong is the precise fact upon which depends 20 the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recog- nition as being right; but thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them ? Can we cast our votes 116 ABRAHAM LINCOLN with their view, and against our own ? In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this ? Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford s 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 Ter- ritories, and to overrun us here in these free States ? 10 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 industriously plied and be- labored — contrivances such as groping for some 15 middle ground between the right and the wrong: vain as the 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 20 true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance; such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Wash- ington said and undo what Washington did. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 111 Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened 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 5 end dare to do our duty as we understand it. XI FAREWELL TO THE CITIZENS OF SPRINGFIELD ON LINCOLN'S DEPARTURE FOR WASHING- TON, FEBRUARY 11, 1861. My Friends: No one, not in my position, can appreciate the sadness I feel at this parting. To this people I owe all that I am. Here I have lived more than a quarter of a century; here my children 5 were born, and here one of them lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see you again. A duty devolves upon me which is, perhaps, greater than that which has devolved upon any other man since the days of Washington. He never would have succeeded io except by the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed without the same Divine aid which sustained him, and on the same Almighty Being I place my reliance for support; and I hope you, my friends, will all 15 pray that I may receive that Divine assistance, without which I cannot succeed, but with which success is certain. Again I bid you an affectionate farewell. 118 XII ADDRESSES DELIVERED BY LINCOLN ON THE JOURNEY FROM SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, TO WASHINGTON, D.C., FEBRUARY 11 TO 27, 1861. REPLY TO AN ADDRESS OF WELCOME AT INDIAN- APOLIS, INDIANA, FEBRUARY 11, 1861 Governor Morton and Fellow-citizens of the State of Indiana: Most heartily do I thank you for this mag- nificent reception; and while I cannot take to my- self any share of the compliment thus paid, more than that which pertains to a mere instrument — 5 an accidental instrument perhaps I should say — of a great cause, I yet must look upon it as a magnifi- cent reception, and as such most heartily do I thank you for it. You have been pleased to address your- self to me chiefly in behalf of this glorious Union in r which we live, in all of which you have my hearty sympathy, and, as far as may be within my power, will have, one and inseparably, my hearty cooperation. 119 120 ABRAHAM LINCOLN While I do not expect, upon this occasion, or until I get to Washington, to attempt any lengthy speech, I will only say that to the salvation of the Union there needs but one single thing, the hearts of a people like 5 yours. 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, i° my reliance will be upon you and the people of the United States; and I wish you to remember, now and forever, that it is your business, 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 15 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. It is your business to rise up and perserve the Union and liberty for yourselves, and not for me. I appeal to you again 20 to constantly bear in mind that not with politicians, not with Presidents, not with office-seekers, but with you, is the question : Shall the Union and shall the liberties of this country be preserved to the latest generations ? ABRAHAM LINCOLN 121 ADDRESS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF NEW YORK, AT ALBANY, N.Y., FEBRUARY 18, 1861. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the General As- sembly of the State of New York : It is with feelings of great diffidence, and, I may say, with feelings of awe, perhaps greater than I have recently experienced, that I meet you here in this place. The history of 5 this great State, the renown of those great men who have stood here, and have spoken here, and been heard here, all crowd around my fancy, and incline me to shrink from any attempt to address you. Yet I have some confidence given me by the generous io manner in which you have invited me, and by the still more generous manner in which you have received me, to speak further. You have invited and received me without distinction of party. I cannot for a moment suppose that this has been done in any is considerable degree with reference to my personal services, but that it is done, in so far. as I am regarded, at this time, as the representative of the majesty of this great nation. I doubt not this is the truth, and the whole truth, of the case, and this is as it should be. 20 It is more gratifying to me that this reception has 122 ABRAHAM LINCOLN been given to me as the elected representative of a free people, than it could possibly be if tendered merely as an evidence of devotion to me, or to any one man personally. 5 And now I think it were more fitting that I should close these hasty remarks. It is true that, while I hold myself, without mock modesty, the humblest of all individuals that have ever been elevated to the presidency, I have a more difficult task to perform 10 than any one of them. You have generously tendered me the support — the united support — of the great Empire State. For this, in behalf of the nation — in behalf of the present and future of the nation — in behalf of civil J 5 and religious liberty for all time to come, most grate- fully do I thank you. I do not propose to enter into an explanation of any particular line of policy, as to our present difficulties, to be adopted by the incom- ing administration. I deem it just to you, to myself, 20 to all, that I should see everything, that I should hear everything, that I should have every light that can be brought within my reach, in order that, when I do speak, I shall have enjoyed every opportunity to take correct and true ground; and for this ABRAHAM LINCOLN 123 reason I do not propose to speak at this time of the policy of the government. But when the time comes, I shall speak, as well as I am able, for the good of the present and future of this country — for the good both of the North and of the South — for 5 the good of the one and the other, and of all sec- tions of the country. In the meantime, if we have patience, if we restrain ourselves, if we allow our- selves not to run off in a passion, I still have con- fidence that the Almighty, the Maker of the uni- lo verse, will, through the instrumentality of this great and intelligent people, bring us through this as he has through all the other difficulties of our country. Relying on this, I again thank you for this generous reception. x 5 ADDRESS TO THE SENATE OF NEW JERSEY AT TRENTON, FEBRUARY 21, 1861. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Senate of the State of New Jersey : I am very grateful to you for the honorable reception of which I have been the object. I cannot but remember the place that New Jersey holds in our early history. In the Revolutionary 2 o 124 ABRAHAM LINCOLN struggle few of the States among the Old Thirteen had more of the battle-fields of the country within their limits than New Jersey. May I be pardoned if, upon this occasion, I mention that away back in my 5 childhood, the earliest days of my being able to read, I got hold of a small book, such a one as few of the younger members have ever seen — Weems's "Life of Washington." I remember all the accounts there given of the battle-fields and struggles for the 10 liberties of the country, and none^fixed themselves upon my imagination so deeply as the struggle here at Trenton, New Jersey. The crossing of the river, the contest with the Hessians, the great hardships endured at that time, all fixed themselves on my 15 memory more than any single Revolutionary event; and you all know, for you have all been boys, how these early impressions last longer than any others. I recollect thinking then, boy even though I was, that there must have been something more than common 20 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 exceedingly anxious ABRAHAM LINCOLN 125 that this Union, the Constitution, 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 Almighty, 5 and of this, his almost chosen people, for perpetuat- ing the object of that great struggle. You give me this reception, as I understand, without distinction of party. I learn that this body is composed of a majority of gentlemen who, in the exercise of their 10 best judgment in the choice of a chief magistrate, did not think I was the man. I understand, never- theless, that they come forward here to greet me as the constitutionally elected President of the United States — as citizens of the United States to meet i S the man who, for the time being, is the representative of the majesty of the nation — united by the single purpose to perpetuate the Constitution, the Union, and the liberties of the people. As such, I accept this reception more gratefully than I could do did lac believe it were tendered to me as an individual. XIII ADDRESSES AT INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILA- DELPHIA, AND AT WASHINGTON, D.C. ADDRESS IN INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA, FEBRUARY 22, 1861. Mr. Cuyler: I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself standing in this place, where were col- lected together the wisdom, the patriotism, the devo- tion to principle, from which sprang the institu- 5 tions under which we live. You have kindly sug- gested to me that in my hands is the task of restor- ing peace to our distracted country. I can say in return, sir, that all the political sentiments I enter- tain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to to draw them, from the sentiments which originated in and were given to the world from this hall. I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declara- 126 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 127 tion of Independence. I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here and framed and adopted that Declaration. I have pondered over the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army 5 who achieved that independence. I have often in- quired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of separation of the colonies from the motherland, but that sentiment in the 10 Declaration of Independence 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 15 should have an equal chance. This is the senti- ment embodied in the Declaration of Indepen- dence. Now, my friends, can this country be saved on that basis ? If it can I will consider myself one of the happiest men in the world if 1 20 can help to save it. If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful. But if this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say I would rather be 128 ABRAHAM LINCOLN assassinated on this spot than surrender it. Now, in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed and war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course; and I 5 may say in advance that there will be no bloodshed unless it is forced upon the government. The govern- ment will not use force, unless force is used against it. My friends, this is wholly an unprepared speech. I did not expect to be called on to say a word when 10 1 came here. I supposed I was merely to do some- thing toward raising a flag. I may, therefore, have said something indiscreet. [Cries of "No, no."] But I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by, and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to 15 die by. REPLY TO THE MAYOR OF WASHINGTON, D.C., FEBRUARY 27, 1861. Mr. Mayor : I thank you, and through you the municipal authorities of this city who accom- pany you, for this welcome. And as it is the first time in my life, since the present phase of politics 20 has presented itself in this country, that I have ABRAHAM LINCOLN 129 said anything publicly within a region of country where the institution of slavery exists, I will take this occasion to say that I think very much of the ill-feeling that has existed and still exists between the people in the section from which I came ands the people here, is dependent upon a misunder- standing of one another. I therefore avail myself of this opportunity to assure you, Mr. Mayor, and all the gentlemen present, that I have not now, and never have had, any other than as kindly 10 feelings toward you as to the people of my own section. I have not now and never have had any disposition to treat you in any respect otherwise than as my own neighbors. I have not now any purpose to withhold from you any of the benefits 15 of the Constitution under any circumstances, that I would not feel myself constrained to with- hold from my own neighbors; and I hope, in a word, that when we become better acquainted, — and I say it with great confidence, — we shall like 20 each other the more. . . . XIV FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS, MARCH 4, 1861. Fellow-citizens of the United States: In compliance with a custom as old as the government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly, and to take in your presence the oath prescribed by the Constitu- 5 tion of the United States to be taken by the Presi- dent " before he enters on the execution of his office. " I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement. [o Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Re- publican administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such 15 apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the pub- lished speeches of him who now addresses you. I do 130 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 131 but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Those who 5 nominated and elected me did so with full knowl- edge that I had made this and many similar dec- larations and never recanted them. And, more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and 1° emphatic resolution which I now read: Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclu- 15 sively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our politi- cal fabric depend, and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among 20 the gravest of crimes. I now reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing so, I only press upon the public attention the most con- clusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that 2 5 132 ABRAHAM LINCOLN the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming ad- ministration. I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the 5 laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause — as cheerfully to one section as to another. There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause 10 I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions : — No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another shall, in consequence of any law or regulation x 5 therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due. It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of 20 what we call fugitive slaves ; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution — to this pro- vision as much as to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms ABRAHAM LINCOLN 133 of this clause "shall be delivered up, " their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not with nearly equal una- nimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath ? 5 There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by State authority; but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others 10 by which authority it is done. And should any one in any case be content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept ? Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not 15 all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave ? And might it not be well at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Consti- 20 tution which guarantees that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immu- nities of citizens in the several States?" I take the official oath to-day with no mental 134 ABRAHAM LINCOLN reservations, and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules. And while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do sug- 5 gest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional. 10 It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under our National Constitution. During that period fifteen different and greatly distinguished citizens have, in succession, admin- istered the executive branch of the government. i 5 They have conducted it through many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope of precedent, I now enter upon the same task for a brief constitutional term of four years under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the Federal 20 Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted. I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is per- petual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in ABRAHAM LINCOLN 135 the fundamental 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 ter- mination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the 5 Union will endure forever — it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself. Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of 10 contract merely, can it, as a contract, 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? is Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that, in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles 20 of Association in 1774. It was matured and con- tinued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that 136 ABRAHAM LINCOLN it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confeder- ation in 1778. And, finally, in 1787 one of the de- clared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union. " s But if the destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity. It follows from these views that no State upon its io own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union ; that resolves and ordinances 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 J 5 circumstances. I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitu- tion and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Consti- tution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws 20 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 American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or in some authori- ABRAHAM LINCOLN 137 tative 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 constitutionally defend and maintain itself. In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or 5 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 10 what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States, in any interior locamty, shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens 15 from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so 20 irritating, and so nearly impracticable withal, that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such offices. The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be fur- 138 ABRAHAM LINCOLN nished in all parts of the Union. So far as possible, the people everywhere shall have that sense of per- fect security which is most favorable to calm thought and reflection. The course here indicated will be 5 followed unless current events and experience shall show a modification or change to be proper, and in every case and exigency my best discretion will be exercised according to circumstances actually exist- ing, and with a view and a hope of a peaceful solution 10 of the national troubles and the restoration of frater- nal sympathies and affections. That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy the Union at all events, and are glad of any pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor 15 deny; but if there be such, I need address no word to them. To those, however, who really love the Union may I not speak ? Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, 20 its memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it ? Will you hazard so desperate a step while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from have no real ex- istence ? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to ABRAHAM LINCOLN 139 are greater than all the real ones you fly from — will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake ? All profess to be content in the Union if all constitu- tional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right, plainly written in the Constitution, 5 has been denied ? I think not. Happily the human mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the 10 mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution — certainly would if such a right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All 1uhe vital rights of minor- 15 ities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guarantees, and pro- hibitions, in the Constitution, that controversies never arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable 20 to every question which may occur in practical ad- ministration. No foresight can anticipate, nor any document of reasonable length contain, express provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugi- 140 ABB AH AM LINCOLN tives from labor be surrendered by national or by State authority? The Constitution does not ex- pressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories ? The Constitution does not expressly 5 say. Must Congress protect slavery in the Terri- tories ? The Constitution does not expressly say. From questions of this class spring all our consti- tutional controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If the minority will ionot acquiesce, the majority must or the government must cease. There is no other alternative; for con- tinuing the government is acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority in such case will secede rather than 15 acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority re- fuses to be controlled by such minority. For in- stance, why may not any portion of a new conf eder- 20 acy a year or two hence arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it ? All who cherish disunion senti- ments are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 141 Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to compose a new Union, as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed secession ? Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by consti- 5 tutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or despotism. Unanimity is impossible; 10 the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the major- ity principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left. I do not forget the position assumed by some, that 15 constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding, in any case, upon the parties to a suit, as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to a very high respect and consideration in 2C all parallel cases by all other departments of the government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, Still the evil effeot following it, being limited to that 142 ABRAHAM LINCOLN • particular case, with the chance that it may be over- ruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must 5 confess that if the policy of the government, upon vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will 10 have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide 15 cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes. One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is 20 wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution, and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave-trade, are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community ABRAHAM LINCOLN 143 where the moral sense of the people imperfectly sup- ports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, cannot be per- fectly cured; and it would be worse in both cases after 5 the separation of the sections than before. The for- eign slave-trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived, without restriction, in one section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially sur- rendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other. 10 Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other; l5 but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face ; and inter- course, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory 20 after separation than before ? 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 144 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 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. 5 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 ioit. I cannot be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the National Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people over 15 the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself; and I should, under existing circumstances, favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add that to 20 me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions originated by others not espe- cially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be ABRAHAM LINCOLN 145 precisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution — which amendment, however, I have not seen — has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the 5 domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be applied constitu- 10 tional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable. The chief magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the States. The 15 people themselves can do this also if they choose ; but the executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present government, as it came to his hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his successor. 20 Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world ? In our present differences is either party without faith of being in 146 ABRAHAM LINCOLN the right ? If the Almighty 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 s great tribunal of the American people. By the frame of the government under which we live, this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief; and have, with equal wisdom, provided for the return 10 of that little to their own hands at very short in- tervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years. I5 My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an obj ect to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated 20 by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration will have no ABRAHAM LINCOLN 147 immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no sin- gle good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him 5 who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty. In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. 10 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 defend it." 15 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 20 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. XV LETTER TO HORACE GREELEY Executive Mansion, Washington, August 22, 1862. Hon. Horace Greeley: Dear Sir: I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed to myself through the New York Trib- une. If there be in it any statements or assump- 5 tions 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 io 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 15 doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it the 148 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 149 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 5 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 10 save the Union 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 15 race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear 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 1 20 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. 150 ABRAHAM LINCOLN I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modi- fication of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. Yours, A. Lincoln. XVI REPLY TO THE CHICAGO COMMITTEE OF UNITED RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS, WHICH HAD URGED THE PRESIDENT TO ISSUE A PROCLA- MATION OF EMANCIPATION, SEPTEMBER 13, 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 5 they represent the divine will. I am sure that either the one or the other class is mistaken in that belief, 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 His will to others on 10 a point so connected with my duty, it might be sup- posed He would reveal 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, 1 15 will do it. These are not, however, the days of miracles, and I suppose it will be granted that I am 151 152 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 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. 5 For instance, the other day four gentlemen of stand- ing and intelligence from New York called as a delegation on business connected with the war; but, before leaving, two of them earnestly beset me to proclaim general emancipation ; upon which the 10 other two at once attacked them. You know also that the last session of Congress had a decided majority of antislavery men, yet they could not unite on this policy. And the same is true of the religious people. Why, the rebel soldiers are pray- 15 ing with a great deal more earnestness, I fear, than our own troops, and expecting God to favor their side; for one of our soldiers who had been taken prisoner told Senator Wilson a few days since that he met with nothing so discouraging as the evident 20 sincerity of those he was among in their prayers. But we will talk over the merits of the case. What good would a proclamation of emancipation from me do, especially as we are now situated ? I do not want to issue a document that the whole ABRAHAM LINCOLN 153 world will see must necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope's bull against the comet. Would my word free the slaves, when I cannot even enforce the Con- stitution in the rebel States ? Is there a single court, or magistrate, or individual that would be 5 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, which I ap- proved, and which offers protection and freedom to the slaves of rebel masters who come within our 10 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 15 such a multitude ? General Butler wrote me a few days since that he was issuing more rations to the slaves who have rushed to him than to all the white troops under his command. They eat, and that is all; though it is true General Butler is feed- 20 ing the whites also by the thousand, for it nearly amounts to a famine there. If, now, the pressure of the war should call off our forces from New Or- leans to defend some other point, what is to prevent 154 ABRAHAM LINCOLN the masters from reducing the blacks to slavery again ? For I am told that whenever the rebels take any black prisoners, free or slave, they imme- diately auction them off. They did so with those 5 they took from a boat that was aground in the Tennessee River a few days ago. And then I am very ungenerously attacked for it ! For instance, when, after the late battles at and near Bull Run, an expedition went out from Washington under a flag 10 of truce to bury the dead and bring in the wounded, and the rebels seized the blacks who went along to help, and sent them into slavery, Horace Greeley said in his paper that the government would proba- 15 bly do nothing about it. What could I do ? Now, then, tell me, if you please, what possible result of good would follow the issuing of such a proclamation as you desire ? Understand, I raise no objections against it on legal or constitutional grounds; for, as commander-in-chief of the army 20 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 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 155 as a practical war measure, to be decided on accord- ing to the advantages or disadvantages it may offer to the suppression of the rebellion. I admit that slavery is the root of the rebellion, or at least its sine qua non. The ambition of poli- 5 ticians may have instigated them to act, but they would have been impotent without slavery as their instrument. I will also concede that emancipa- tion would help us in Europe, and convince them that we are incited by something more than ambi- «> tion. I grant, further, that it would help somewhat 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 15 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 20 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 thou- sand bayonets in the Union armies from the border 156 ABRAHAM LINCOLN slave States. It would be a serious matter if, in consequence 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 5 ago, or as six months ago — not so many to-day as yesterday. Every day increases 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 io important principle to rally and unite the people, in the fact that constitutional government is at stake. This is a fundamental idea going down about as deep as anything. Do not misunderstand me because I have men- 15 tioned these objections. They indicate the difficul- ties that have thus far prevented my action in some such way as you desire. I have not decided against a proclamation of liberty to the slaves, but hold the matter under advisement; and I can assure you 20 that the subject is on my mind, by day and night, more than any other. Whatever shall appear to be God's will, I will do. I trust that in the freedom with which I have canvassed your Views I have not in any respect injured your feelings. XVII THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION, JANU- ARY 1, 1863. Whereas, on the twenty-second day of Sep- tember, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit : — 5 "That 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 io then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Ex- ecutive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recog- nize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any 15 of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. 157 158 ABRAHAM LINCOLN "That the Executive will, on the first day of Janu- ary aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the 5 United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith rep- resented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a ma- jority of the qualified voters of such State shall have J ° participated, shall in the absence of strong counter- vailing testimony be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people thereof are not then in rebellion against the United States." Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of 15 \he United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for 20 suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full ABRAHAM LINCOLN 159 period of 100 days from the day first above men- tioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit : — 5 Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans) , Mississippi, Ala- 10 bama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Caro- lina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities 15 of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued. And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held 20 as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free ; and that the executive government of the United States, in- cluding the military and naval authorities thereof, 160 ABRAHAM LINCOLN will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary 5 self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reason- able wages. And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable condition will be received into the 10 armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man ves- sels of all sorts in said service. And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon mili- 15 tary necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God. XVIII REPLY TO AN ADDRESS FROM THE WORKING- MEN OF MANCHESTER, ENGLAND, DATED JANU- ARY 19, 1863. I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the address and resolutions which you sent me on the eve of the New Year. When I came, on the 4th of March, 1861, through a free and con- stitutional election, to preside in the governments of the United States, the country was found at the verge of civil war. Whatever might have been the cause, or whosesoever the fault, one duty paramount to all others was before me; namely, to maintain and preserve at once the Constitution io and the integrity of the Federal Republic. A con- scientious purpose to perform this duty is the key to all the measures of administration which have been, and to all which will hereafter be, pursued. Under our frame of government and by my official oath, 15 I could not depart from this purpose if I would. It M 161 162 ABRAHAM LINCOLN is not always in the power of governments to enlarge or restrict the scope of moral results which follow the policies that they may deem it necessary for the public safety from time to time to adopt. 5 I have understood well that the duty of self- preservation rests solely with the American people ; but I have at the same time been aware that favor or disfavor of foreign nations might have a material influence in enlarging or prolonging the struggle 10 with disloyal men in which the country is engaged. A fair examination of history has served to authorize a belief that the past actions and. influences of the United States were generally regarded as having been beneficial toward mankind. I have therefore reck- 15 oned upon the forbearance of nations. Circum- stances, to some of which you kindly allude, induce me especially to expect that if justice and good faith should be practised by the United States, they would encounter no hostile influence on the part of Great 20 Britain. It is now a pleasant duty to acknowledge the demonstration you have given of your desire that a spirit of amity and peace toward this country may prevail in the councils of your queen, who is respected and esteemed in your own country only ABRAHAM LINCOLN 163 more than she is by the kindred nation which has its home on this side of the Atlantic. 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 5 and studiously represented that the attempt to over- throw 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 10 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 sanc- tion to that attempt. Under the circumstances, I cannot but regard your decisive utterances upon the 15 question as an instance of sublime Christian heroism, which has not been surpassed 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, 20 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 hesita- tion in assuring you that they will excite admira- 164 ABRAHAM LINCOLN tion, esteem, and the most reciprocal feelings of friendship among the American people. I hail this interchange of sentiment, therefore, as an augury that whatever else may happen, whatever misfortune 5 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. XIX REPLY TO J. C. CONKLING IN RESPONSE TO AN INVITATION TO ADDRESS A MASS-MEETING AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, DATED AUGUST 26, 1863. My dear Sir: Your letter inviting me to attend a mass-meeting of unconditional Union men, to be held at the capital of Illinois on the third day of September, has been received. It would be very agreeable to me to thus meet my old friends at my 5 own home, but I cannot just now be absent from here so long as a visit there would require. The meeting is to be of all those who maintain unconditional devotion to the Union; and I am sure my old political friends will thank me for ten- 10 dering, as I do, the nation's gratitude to those and other noble men whom no partisan malice or parti- san hope can make false to the nation's life. There are those who are dissatisfied with me. To such I would say: You desire peace, and you blame 15 me that we do not have it. But how can we attain 165 166 ABRAHAM LINCOLN it ? There are but three conceivable ways. First, to suppress the rebellion by force of arms. This I am trying to do. Are you for it ? If you are, so far we are agreed. If you are not for it, a second way 5 is to give up the Union. I am against this. Are you for it ? If you are, you should say so plainly. If you are not for force, nor yet for dissolution, there only remains some imaginable compromise. I do not believe any compromise embracing the main- 10 tenance of the Union is now possible. All I learn leads to a directly opposite belief. The strength of the rebellion is its military, its army. That army dominates all the country and all the people within its range. Any offer of terms made by any man or 15 men within that range, in opposition to that army, is simply nothing for the present, because such man or men have no power whatever to enforce their side of a compromise, if one were made with them. To illustrate: Suppose refugees from the South 20 and peace men of the North get together in con- vention, and frame and proclaim a compromise embracing a restoration of the Union. In what way can that compromise be used to keep Lee's army out of Pennsylvania? Meade's army can ABRAHAM LINCOLN 167 keep Lee's out of Pennsylvania, and, I think, can ultimately drive it out of existence. But no paper compromise, to which the controllers of Lee's army are not agreed, can at all affect that army. In an effort at such compromise we should waste 5 time which the enemy would improve to our dis- advantage; and that would be all. A compro- mise, to be effective, must be made either with those who control the rebel army, or with the people first liberated from the domination of that 10 army by the success of our own army. Now, allow me to assure you that no word or intima- tion from that rebel army, or from any of the men controlling it, in relation to any peace compro- mise, has ever come to my knowledge or belief. 15 All charges and insinuations to the contrary are deceptive and groundless. And I promise you that if any such proposition shall hereafter come, it shall not be rejected and kept a secret from you. I freely acknowledge myself the servant 20 of the people, according to the bond of service, — the United States Constitution, — and that, as such, I am responsible to them. But to be plain. You are dissatisfied with me 168 ABRAHAM LINCOLN about the negro. Quite likely there is a differ- ence of opinion between you and myself upon that subject. I certainly wish that all men could be free, while I suppose you do not. Yet I have s neither adopted nor proposed any measure which is not consistent with even your views, provided you are for the Union. I suggested compensated emancipation, to which you replied, you wished not to be taxed to buy negroes. But I had not 10 asked you to be taxed to buy negroes, except in such way as to save you from greater taxation to save the Union exclusively by other means. You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation, and perhaps would have it retracted. You say it is 15 unconstitutional. I think differently. I think the Constitution invests its commander-in-chief with the law of war in time of war. The most that can be said — if so much — is that slaves are property. Is there, has there ever been, any question that, by the law 20 of war, property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when needed ? And is it not needed when- ever taking it helps us or hurts the enemy ? Armies the world over destroy enemies' property when they cannot use it, and even destroy their own to keep ABRAHAM LINCOLN 169 it from the enemy. Civilized belligerents do all in their power to help themselves or hurt the enemy, except a few things regarded as barbarous or cruel. Among the exceptions are the massacre of vanquished foes and non-combatants, male and female. 5 But the proclamation, as law, either is valid or is not valid. If it is not valid, it needs no retrac- tion. If it is valid, it cannot be retracted any more than the dead can be brought to life. Some of you profess to think its retraction would operate 10 favorably for the Union. Why better after the re- traction than before the issue? There was more than a year and a half of trial to suppress the rebellion before the proclamation issued, the last one hundred days of which passed under an explicit 15 notice that it was coming, unless averted by those in revolt returning to their allegiance. The war has certainly progressed as favorably for us since the issue of the proclamation as before. I know, as fully as one can know the opinions of others, that 20 some of the commanders of our armies in the field who have given us our most important successes, believe the emancipation policy and the use of colored troops constitute the heaviest blow yet 170 ABRAHAM LINCOLN dealt to the rebellion, and that at least one of these important successes could not have been achieved when it was but for the aid of black soldiers. Among the commanders holding these views are some who 5 have never had any affinity with what is called Abolitionism or with Republican party politics, but who hold them purely as military opinions. I sub- mit these opinions as being entitled to some weight against the objections often urged, that emancipa- iotion and arming the blacks are unwise as military measures, and were not adopted as such in good faith. You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but no matter. 15 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 urge you to continue fighting, it will be an apt time 20 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 help- ing the enemy, to that extent it weakened the ABRAHAM LINCOLN 111 enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think differently? I thought that whatever negroes could be got to do as soldiers leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to you ? But negroes, 5 like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do anything 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 being made, 10 must be kept. The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea. Thanks to the great Northwest for it. t Nor yet wholly to them. Three hundred miles up they met New England, Empire, 15 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 nation alone, and let none be banned who bore 20 an honorable part in it. And while those who 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, Murfrees- 172 ABRAHAM LINCOLN boro, 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 5 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 principle it lives by and keeps alive, for man's vast future, — thanks to 10 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 freemen there 15 can be no successful 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 remember that with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and 20 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. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 173 Still, let us not be oversanguine of a speedy, final triumph. Let us be quite sober. Let us diligently apply the means, never doubting that a just God, in His own good time, will give us the rightful result. 5 XX THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS, NOVEMBER 19, 1863. Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, con- ceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 5 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- io 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. 15 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 re- member what we say here, but it can never forget 174 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 175 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 ad- vanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these 5 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 ic that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. XXI - SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS, MARCH 4, 1865. Fellow-countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of 5 a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies co of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encour- aging to all. With high hope for the future, no pre- 15 diction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an im- pending civil war. All dreaded it — all sought to 176 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 177 avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to sav- ing the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war — seek- ing to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by 5 negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive ; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came. One-eighth of the whole population were colored 10 slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend 15 this interest was the object for which the insur- gents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude 20 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, 178 ABRAHAM LINCOLN and a result 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 5 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 an- swered fully. 10 The Almighty has his own purposes. " Woe unto the world because of offences ! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offences which, in the is providence 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 offence came, shall we discern therein 20 any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth ABRAHAM LINCOLN 179 piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments 5 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 i< shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations. XXII LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS, APRIL 11, 1865. We meet this evening not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart. The evacuation of Petersburg and Rich- mond, and the surrender of the principal insurgent army, give hope of a righteous and speedy peace, 5 whose joyous expression cannot be restrained. In the midst of this, however, He from whom all bless- ings flow must not be forgotten. A call for a national thanksgiving is being prepared, and will be duly promulgated. Nor must those whose harder part to gives us the cause of rejoicing be overlooked. Their honors must not be parcelled out with others. I my- self was near the front, and had the high pleasure of transmitting much of the good news to you; but no part of the honor for plan or execution is mine. To 15 General Grant, his skilful officers and brave men, all belongs. The gallant navy stood ready, but was not in reach to take active part. By these recent successes the reinauguration of the 180 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 181 national authority — reconstruction — 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 5 us to treat with — no one man has authority to give up the rebellion for any other man. We simply must begin with and mould from disorganized and discordant elements. Nor is it a small additional embarrassment that we, the loyal people, differ among 10 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 answer. In spite of this precaution, however, 15 it comes to my knowledge that I am much censured for some supposed agency in setting up and seeking to sustain the new State government of Louisiana. In this I have done just so much as, and no more than, the public knows. In the annual message of 20 December, 1863, and in the accompanying proclama- tion, I presented a plan of reconstruction, as the phrase goes, which I promised, if adopted by any State, should be acceptable to and sustained by the execu- 182 ABRAHAM LINCOLN tive government of the nation. I distinctly stated that this was not the only plan which might possibly be acceptable, and I also distinctly protested that the executive claimed no right to say when or 5 whether members should be admitted to seats in Congress from such States. This plan was in advance submitted to the then Cabinet, and distinctly ap- proved by every member of it. One of them sug- gested that I should then and in that connection 10 apply the Emancipation Proclamation to the there- tofore excepted parts of Virginia and Louisiana; that I should drop the suggestion about apprentice- ship for freed people, and that I should omit the protest against my own power in regard to the ad- 15 mission of members to Congress. But even he ap- proved every part and parcel of the plan which has since been employed or touched by the action of Louisiana. The new constitution of Louisiana, declaring 20 emancipation for the whole State, practically applies the proclamation to the part previously excepted. It does not adopt apprenticeship for freed people, and it is silent, as it could not well be otherwise, about the admission of members to Congress. So that, as ABRAHAM LINCOLN 183 it applies to Louisiana, every member of the Cabinet fully approved the plan. The message went to Con- gress, and I received many commendations of the plan, written and verbal, and not a single objection to it from any professed emancipationist came to my 5 knowledge until after the news reached Washington that the people of Louisiana had begun to move in accordance with it. From about July, 1862, I had corresponded with different persons supposed to be interested [in] seeking a reconstruction of a State 10 government for Louisiana. When the message of 1863, with the plan before mentioned, reached New Orleans, General Banks wrote me that he was con- fident that the people, with his military cooperation, would reconstruct substantially on that plan. 1 15 wrote to him and some of them to try it. They tried it, and the result is known. Such has been my only agency in setting up the Louisiana government. As to sustaining it, my promise is out, as before stated. But as bad promises are better broken than 20 kept, I shall treat this as a bad promise, and break it whenever I shall be convinced that keeping it is adverse to the public interest; but I have not yet been so convinced. I have been shown a letter on 184 ABRAHAM LINCOLN this subject, supposed to be an able one, in which the writer expresses regret that my mind has not seemed to be definitely fixed on the question whether the seceded States, so called, are in the Union or out of it. 5 It would perhaps add astonishment to his regret were he to learn that since I have found professed Union men endeavoring to make that question, I have pur- posely forborne any public expression upon it. As appears to me, that question has not been, nor yet is, 10 a practically material one, and that any discussion of it, while it thus remains practically immaterial, could have no effect other than the mischievous one of dividing our friends. As yet, whatever it may here- after become, that question is bad as the basis of is a controversy, and good for nothing at all — a merely pernicious abstraction. We all agree that the seceded States, so called, are out of their proper practical relation with the Union, and that the sole object of the government, civil and 20 military, in regard 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. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 185 Finding themselves safely at home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they had ever been abroad. Let us all join in doing the acts necessary to restoring the proper practical relations between these States and the Union, and each forever after innocently indulge 5 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 having been out of it. The amount of constituency, so to speak, on which the new Louisiana government rests, would ic be more satisfactory to all if it contained 50,000, or 30,000, or even 20,000, instead of only about 12,000, as it does. It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the 15 very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers. Still, the question is not whether the Louisiana government, as it stands, is quite all that is desirable. The question is, will it be wiser to take it as it is and 20 help to improve it, or to reject and disperse it ? Can Louisiana be brought into proper practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new State government? Some 12,000 voters 186 ABRAHAM LINCOLN in the heretofore slave State of Louisiana have sworn allegiance to the Union, assumed to be the right- ful political power of the State, held elections, organ- ized a State government, adopted a free-State con- 5 stitution, giving the benefit of public schools equally to black and white, and empowering the legislature to confer the elective franchise upon the colored man. Their legislature has already voted to ratify the con- stitutional amendment recently passed by Congress, 10 abolishing slavery throughout the nation. These 12,000 persons are thus fully committed to the Union and to perpetual freedom in the State — com- mitted to the very things, and nearly all the things, the nation wants — and they ask the nation's recognition 15 and its assistance to make good their committal. Now, if we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and disperse them. We, in effect, say to the white man: You are worthless or worse; we will neither help you, nor be helped by you. To the 20 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 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 187 and paralyzing both black and white, has any ten- dency to bring Louisiana into proper practical rela- tions with the Union, I have so far been unable to perceive it. If, on the contrary, we recognize and sustain the new government of Louisiana, the con- 5 verse 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 man, too, in seeing 10 all united for him, is inspired 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 15 that the new government of Louisiana 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. Again, if we reject Louisiana, we also reject one 20 vote in favor of the proposed amendment to the na- tional Constitution. To meet this proposition it has been argued that no more than three-fourths of those States which have not attempted secession are neces- 188 ABRAHAM LINCOLN sary to validly ratify the amendment. I do not com- mit myself against this further than to say that such a ratification would be questionable, and sure to be persistently questioned, while a ratification by three- 5 fourths of all the States would be unquestioned and unquestionable. I repeat the question : Can Louisi- ana be brought into proper practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new State government ? What has been said of Louisiana 10 will apply generally to other States. And yet so great peculiarities pertain to each State, and such impor- tant and sudden changes occur in the same State, and withal so new and unprecedented is the whole case, that no exclusive and inflexible plan can safely be 15 prescribed as to details and collaterals. Such ex- clusive and inflexible plan would surely become a new entanglement. Important principles may and must be inflexible. In the present situation, as the phrase goes, it may be my duty to make some new announce- 20 ment to the people of the South. I am considering, and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will be proper. NOTES Page 1. This was Lincoln's first public address, and the earliest product of his pen, he being only twenty-three years old. He was defeated; it was his first and only defeat by a direct popular vote. The paragraphs strike the keynotes of Lincoln's career. You may try to characterize these. Note the style : direct- ness and simplicity. II Page 3. Lincoln, eager in his desire for education and practice in public speaking, had helped to organize the Young Men's Lyceum at Springfield. This ambitious oratorical effort was well received, was published in the local newspaper, and increased the young orator's reputation. It strikes another great note : Lincoln's profound reverence for law and order under the Constitution, as the pillars of that "proud fabric of freedom" reared by the Fathers of the Republic. The style is more consciously elaborate, and the essay is obviously a rhetorical " effort." Ill Page 11. William H. Herndon's account of how this debate came about gives us a picture of these early days of political activity. The store-gatherings which figure 189 190 NOTES so continually in Lincoln's life were the great school and training ground of the young politicians. "One evening, while the usual throng of loungers sur- rounded the inviting fireplace in Speed's store, the con- versation turned on political matters. The disputants waxed warm and acrimonious as the discussion proceeded. Business being over for the day, I strolled back, and seating myself on a keg, listened with eager interest to the battle going on among those would-be statesmen. Douglas", I recollect, was leading on the Democratic side. He had already learned the art of dodging in debate, but still he was subtle, fiery, and impetuous. He charged the Whigs with every blunder and political crime he could imagine. . . . At last, with great vehemence he sprang up and abruptly made a challenge to those who differed with him to discuss the whole matter publicly, remarking that, ' this store is no place to talk politics."' — The contest was arranged, with four on each side, and each speaker given an evening. "Lincoln occupied the last evening, and although the people by that time had grown a little tired of the monotony and well-worn repetition, yet Lincoln's manner of presenting his thoughts and answering his Democratic opponents excited renewed interest. So deep was the impression he created that he was asked to furnish his speech to the Sangamon Journal for publication." Here appears one of the innumerable anecdotes with which Lincoln so habitually illustrated his speeches to the delight of his Western audiences. NOTES 191 IV Page 15. We here skip a considerable period of time. Lincoln had been elected to Congress in 1846, and made a few speeches there during his single term of service. He then returned to Springfield to resume his practice of the law. The first period of his public life had ended. Six years of assiduous work and widening experience as a travelling lawyer were to prepare him for the greater labors of his second and final period of political effort consummated by his election as President of the United States. He was now thirty-nine years of age. It is curious to find him speaking of himself as being already old. Writing to Mr. Herndon "to say that Mr. Stevens of Georgia, a little slim, pale-faced, consumptive man, . . . has just concluded the very best speech of an hour's length I ever heard," he adds, "My old, withered, dry eyes are full of tears yet." Again, in another letter written to Herndon a little later (July 10, 1848), he says, " I suppose I am now one of the old men." The letter is so finely characteristic that the rest of it should be printed here: "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 taking 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 192 NOTES sure I was never ungenerously thrust back. I hardly know what to say. The way for a young man to rise is to im- prove 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 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." The Peoria speech in reply to Douglas meant Lincoln's return to politics. It was called forth by the passage of the Kansas- Nebraska Act of 1854 and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The Act dealt with the organization of the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, and contained the proviso that they should be free to organize their do- mestic institutions, including slavery, each in its own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States. The passage of the Act was due to the extraordinarily effective labors of Stephen A. Douglas in the Senate. It stirred the country, and aroused great anger in the North. Once more Lincoln found himself face to face with his old antagonist. "The Little Giant," as Douglas was styled, " is always in sight," says Herndon. The speech is a sort of prelude to the series of Joint Debates between Lincoln and Douglas in the senatorial campaign of 1858. In it the great slavery issue looms up; and Lincoln broadly states his position. NOTES 193 Page 30. These passages from a letter to his friend Speed supplement the foregoing speech at Peoria in a more per- sonal way. VI Page 35. The famous Dred Scott decision had been handed down by the Supreme Court on 6th March, 1857. Scott was a negro slave who had been brought from Missouri to Illinois, where slavery was illegal, and then into the Louisiana Territory (now Minnesota), and was there sold to a new master, whose right to hold him Scott disputed, claiming that his residence in a free State had given him his liberty. The Supreme Court, presided over by Chief Justice Taney, had before it two questions : first, whether Scott was a citizen of the United States entitled as such to bring suit in the courts ; and, second, whether his residence on free soil for two years made him free. It decided (with two important dissenting opinions) : 1st, that negroes were not included in the statement of the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal; in other words, that " negroes had no rights which the white man was bound to respect"; 2d, that no negro could become a citizen of the United States; 3d, that the right to hold slaves as property was affirmed in the Constitution; 4th, that neither Congress nor any territorial legislature could exclude slavery from any Territory. 194 NOTES VII Page 49. This famous speech, commonly known as the " divided house " speech, from the Biblical allusion in the opening paragraph, probably affected Lincoln's career more fatefully than any other speech of his. It lost him the senatorship in 1858, and won him the Presidency in 1860 — at least, that is the plausible view. On the 16th June, 1858, the Illinois Republican Convention unanimously nominated Lincoln as their " first and only choice for the United States Senate as the successor to Stephen A. Douglas." On the evening following the nomination, Lincoln opened his cam- paign with this speech. It was a bold oratorical utterance, and created a sensation in Illinois, and then throughout the country. Lincoln knew that he was nailing a dangerous flag to the masthead. He had prepared his speech in antici- pation of his nomination with the greatest care. He had read it first to his intimate friend Herndon, and later to a group of friends whose opinions he invited. But Mr. Herndon's account of the circumstances is so very interest- ing that we must quote from it : — " He had been all along led to expect it, and with that in view had been earnestly and quietly at work preparing a speech in acknowledgment of the honor about to be conferred on him. This speech he wrote on stray envelopes and scraps of paper, as ideas suggested themselves, putting them into that miscel- laneous and convenient receptacle, his hat. As the conven- tion drew near, he copied the whole on connected sheets, care- fully revising every line and sentence. . . . After he had NOTES 195 finished the final draft of the speech, he locked the office door, drew the curtain across the glass panel in the door, and read it to me. At the end of each paragraph he would halt and wait for my comments. I remember what I said after hearing the first paragraph, wherein occurs the celebrated figure of the house divided against itself: 'It is true, but is it wise or politic to say so?' He responded: 'That ex- pression is a truth of all human experience, " a house divided against itself cannot stand," and "he that runs may read." The proposition also is true, and has been for six thousand years. I want to use some universally known figure ex- pressed in simple language as universally well known, that may strike home to the minds of men in order to raise them up to the peril of the times. I do not believe I would be right in changing or omitting it. I would rather be de- feated with this expression in the speech, and uphold and discuss it before the people, than be victorious without it.' " — " Abraham Lincoln," by Herndon and Weik, Vol. II, pp. 66' and 67. See also the account of the consulta- tion with his friends, "not one of whom endorsed it" (pp. 68-99). We must admire Lincoln's noble stand; but his cautious and alarmed friends were right as to the immediate effect of the speech. His enemies hailed it as the best of cam- paign documents in their favor. So it proved. Douglas made it food for his powder throughout the campaign; and he won. But Lincoln was the master of a larger strategy. The far-sighted view he took, and maintained throughout the campaign in all his speeches, and in the great debates 196 NOTES with Douglas, matured public opinion, and brought him the later nomination for the Presidency. The speech is admirably written and constructed, and is worthy of study as a connected whole. We may note the great skill with which Lincoln insinuates that there had been a conspiracy or collusion between the two Presidents (Pierce and Buchanan, his successor), Chief Justice Taney, and Senator Douglas, as leader of the Democrats in the Senate, to nationalize slavery; that is, between the "Stephen and Roger, and Franklin and James" of his speech. 52 : 23. Senator Trumbull, a judge of the Supreme Court in Illinois, and later a United States senator, was one of Lincoln's most powerful supporters in the campaign. 54 : 1. The Silliman letter was addressed to President Buchanan in 1856 by citizens of Connecticut, Professor Silliman of Yale being prominent among them, on the state of affairs in Kansas. 60 : 3. McLean or Curtis: two Northern members of the Supreme Court (which consisted of five Southern and four Northern members) who dissented from the majority opinion in the Dred Scott decision. 60 : 6. Chase and Mace: Chase, an anti-slavery senator from Ohio, was Douglas's chief opponent in the debate on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill; Mace, a Democratic represent- ative from Indiana, also opposed the Bill. VIII Page 65. Douglas lost no time in replying to Lincoln's speech. As quickly as possible after his return from Wash- NOTES 197 ington to his home in Chicago a public reception was given to him by his friends, and from the balcony of the Tremont House he made his speech on 9th July, 1858. Lincoln, who was on friendly terms with Douglas, was present at the re- ception; and after Douglas had concluded, there were calls for him. "He appeared, and quietly said that the hour was late, the audience weary, and that to answer Judge Douglas one must begin earlier in the evening. He did not know that he should be able to answer him, but those who cared to hear him try, would come there next evening." (From Chittenden's " Abraham Lincoln's Speeches," p. 86.) 74 : 6. In this mighty issue. . . . With this personal reference we may compare the closing words of a speech given at Beardstown, 12th August, 1858, which contains a eulogy of the Declaration of Independence that ranks it, in Herndon's opinion, with the Gettysburg address. It is quoted by Herndon (Vol. II, pp. 84-85). The conclusion runs : — " 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 In- dependence. 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 indifference to earthly honors, I do claim to be actuated in this contest by something higher than an anxiety for office. I charge you to drop every paltry and insignificant thought for 198 NOTES any man's success. It is nothing; I am nothing; Judge Douglas is nothing. But do not destroy that immortal emblem of humanity — the Declaration of American In- dependence." IX Page 84. This is the only passage we give from the historical debates between Douglas and Lincoln in the campaign in which they contested for the United States senatorship. It is an important summing up, although not in Lincoln's best manner, being somewhat repetitious. The debates should be studied as a whole, or at least the more important of them (this may be done in the con- venient volume edited by Bouton, published by Holt & Com- pany) . A general idea of the series may be gained from the graphic account written by Mr. Horace White in Herndon's "Life" (Vol. II, pp. 86-132). Mr. White concludes his account by saying: "I think this was the most important intel- lectual wrestle that has ever taken place in this country, and that it will bear comparison with any that history men- tions. Its consequences we all know. It gave Mr. Lincoln such prominence in the public eye that his nomination to the Presidency became possible and almost inevitable. It put an apple of discord in the Democratic party which hope- lessly divided it at Charleston, thus making Republican success in 1860 morally certain. This was one of Mr. Lincoln's designs." NOTES 199 Page 94. This speech, commonly regarded as one of Lincoln's great speeches, was an important factor in his prospects. It was his personal introduction to the East, and it made him a presidential possibility. He realized its importance, and after his acceptance of the invitation of the Young Men's Central Republican Union of New York City, he devoted himself with great assiduity to the preparation of his speech. Here was a challenge to him to test his prowess before an audience very different in character from those to which he had appealed in the West. The Eastern people were anxious to see and hear the man who had be- come a national figure in his debates with Douglas. It was a great audience which gathered at Cooper In- stitute; it was cultured and critical, and included men eminent in all walks of life. Lincoln was escorted to the platform by Horace Greeley and David Dudley Field. William. Cullen Bryant, who presided, introduced him, and beside him on the platform were men like Henry Ward Beecher and Joseph Choate. Mr. Choate has recorded that Lincoln seemed ill at ease, beforehand, as in fact he after- wards admitted. Mr. Herndon recorded that for the first time Lincoln felt somewhat ashamed of his clothes, — ill- fitting and creased as his newly purchased suit was. But he rose to the occasion, and when he had warmed up to the work, he held the closest attention of his audience. He did so by the sheer weight of his matter and the masterly lucidity and utter simplicity of his style. "It was mar- 200 NOTES vellous,*' says Mr. Choate, "to see how this untutored man, by mere self-discipline and the chastening of his own spirit, had outgrown all meretricious arts and found his way to the grandeur and strength of absolute simplicity." The re- straint which he showed in speaking of the South and of slavery was as effective as the fervor of his closing periods of moral appeal. The speech made a powerful impression. All the papers printed it in full the next day. Horace Greeley's paper, the Tribune, remarked : " The vast assemblage frequently rang with cheers and shouts of applause, which were prolonged and intensified at the close. No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience." And Greeley, later recalling the event, wrote: "I do not hesitate to pronounce Mr. Lincoln's speech the very best political address to which I ever listened, and I have heard some of Webster's grandest. As a literary effort it would not of course bear comparison with many of Webster's speeches; but regarded as an effort to convince the largest number that they ought to be on the speaker's side, not on the other, I do not hesitate to pronounce it unsurpassed." XI Page 118. The scene in the dingy waiting room when Lincoln's friends and neighbors bade him good-bye on his departure for the Capital was deeply affecting. As they filed past, he silently shook their hands. It was only after the presidential party had boarded the train and the con- ductor was about to give the signal to start that Lincoln NOTES 201 spoke these few simple and touching sentences from the platform. Note especially the words which hint a pre- monition that this might be a final parting. XII Page 119. At various towns on the way to Washington Lincoln delivered short addresses, from which we select the most significant and characteristic. A sense of the im- pending crisis pervades them all. It must be recalled that after Lincoln's election, the South, declaring him to be "a sectional and minority President," seceded from the Union, organized a Confederate government, and seized upon Federal property. It is to face this grave situation that Lincoln is journeying to the Capital and the White House. It will be noted that in the address at Trenton, on the eve of Washington's birthday, Lincoln makes an apposite and interesting allusion to one of the few books of his boy- hood, — Weems's " Life of Washington." On the day follow- ing, Washington's birthday, he finds himself " filled with deep emotion," in the historic Independence Hall, Philadelphia, "from which sprang the institutions under which we live." Here he was called upon to raise a flag in honor of the recent admission of Kansas as a State of the Union. The last words of the speech reflect no doubt rumors then current that personal violence would be attempted against the new President. It may be recalled that when the body of the murdered President was taken back to Springfield to be buried on 3d 202 NOTES May, 1865, the route was the same as that followed on this Eastward journey. This was done at the earnest request of the towns along the route, eager to honor the man who had quickened in the hearts of the citizens a deeper affection than any which had ever been evoked by a Chief Magis- trate of the Nation. XIV Page 130. This Inaugural Address was delivered on 4th March, 1861, a little more than a month before the actual outbreak of hostilities between the North and the South. Lincoln had organized the government, and his Cabinet included Seward, Chase, and Stanton. The Confederate government had also been provisionally organized, with Jefferson Davis as President; and besides seizing Federal property, it had invested Fort Sumter and had declared itself out of the Union. Lincoln wrote the address before coming to Washington, and submitted it for criticism to men whose judgment he valued, and by whose criticisms he profited. Finally, he sought William Seward's opinion. Seward approved of the "strong and conclusive" argument, but thought that "some words of affection, some of calm and cheerful con- fidence, should be added." By way of illustrating he wrote out a paragraph, the substance of which Lincoln liked. But Seward's manner was not Lincoln's; and so Lincoln made several changes in it. There is no more interesting study in Lincoln's style than is afforded by the comparison of the two versions. Here the}' are: — NOTES 203 " I close. We are not, we must not be, aliens or ene- mies, but fellow-countrymen and brethren. Although pas- sion has strained our bonds of affection too hardly, they must not, I am sure they will not, be broken. The mystic chords which, pro- ceeding from so many bat- tlefields and so many patriot graves, pass through all the hearts and all hearths in this broad continent of ours, will yet again harmonize in their ancient music when breathed upon by the guar- dian angel of the nation." " 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." The Address is quiet and simple; and therefore it dis- appointed many who expected a brilliant rhetorical flourish. It was calculated to allay passion; and the more it was studied, the better it was liked. It was delivered to a vast crowd. Lincoln was well heard, and every sentence was followed with rapt and eager atten- tion. Few things are more significant of Lincoln's relations with men, and with rivals and opponents, than the fact that when he rose to speak the man who took his hat was his old friend and enemy, "the little giant," Stephen A. 204 NOTES Douglas, and that the judge who administered the oath was Chief Justice Taney of the Dred Scott case, of whom Lincoln had so freely spoken his mind. XV Page 148. Horace Greeley, a distinguished editor but a somewhat severe critic of the Administration, published in the New York Tribune of 20th August, 1862, — at the very time when Lincoln was considering the issuing of his Proclamation of Independence, — an open letter ad- dressed to Lincoln entitled The Prayer of Twenty Millions, severely criticising him for giving in too much to pro-slavery sentiment, and failing to satisfy the hopes of twenty millions of loyal people. XVI Page 151. This letter is especially interesting from the fact that Lincoln, when he wrote it, had made up his mind to issue a Proclamation of Emancipation, and was only biding his time. A few days later, following the battle of Antietam, he issued his provisional proclamation. The letter shows how well he could formulate the case against his contemplated course of action. XVII Page 157. The provisional Proclamation, dated 22 Sep- tember, 1862, had announced that on the 1st January fol- lowing he would declare all slaves " within any State or any NOTES 205 designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, " thenceforward and forever free. XVIII Page 161. Unlike the well-to-do people and tradesmen of England, the workingmen sympathized largely with the North. Notwithstanding the fact that Manchester was hard hit by the blockade of the Confederate ports during the war, the workingmen of that city sent an address to the President, expressing their support of his policy. XIX Page 165. In June, 1863, a meeting had been held in Springfield, Illinois, to express hostility to the government, and to advocate the formation of a Northwestern Con- federacy. To counteract this, the Republicans decided to hold a mass-meeting, and the committee of arrangements, of which' J. C. Conkling was chairman, invited Lincoln to speak. This is his reply. XX Page 174. At Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania, were fought in July, 1863, the great battles which proved to be the turn- ing point of the war. It was decided to dedicate a portion of the battle-ground as a national cemetery, and the solemn ceremony took place there on 9th November, 1863. The oration of the day was given by one of the most finished speakers of the country, Edward Everett; and after his 206 NOTES long and eloquent oration, the President rose to add a few words — this classic of eloquence, which ranks with the greatest examples of ancient and modern times. It con- clusively places Lincoln among the great masters of English speech. Lincoln felt, after he had spoken, that his speech was a failure. (This has been made the theme of a charming story, "The Perfect Tribute," by Mary Shipman Andrews, which the student is urged to read.) Not so others, as is shown by the letter which Everett wrote to him the day after the ceremonies, to which Lincoln replied as follows : — Executive Mansion, Washington, November 20, 1863. Hon. Edward Everett: My dear Sir: Your kind note of to-day is received. In our respective parts yesterday, you could not have been excused to make a short address, nor I a long one. I am pleased to know that, in your judgment, the little I did say was not entirely a failure. Of course I knew Mr. Everett would not fail, and yet, while the whole discourse was emi- nently satisfactory, and will be of great value, there were passages in it which transcended my expectations. The point made against the theory of the General Government being only an agency whose principals are the States, was new to me, and, as I think, is one of the best arguments for the national supremacy. The tribute to our noble women for their angel ministering to the suffering soldiers sur- passes, in its way, as do the subjects of it, whatever has gone before. NOTES 207 Our sick boy, for whom you kindly inquire, we hope is past the worst. Your obedient servant A. Lincoln. XXI Page 176. This is a unique state document — "the most sublime state paper of the century," said an authorita- tive English newspaper. State documents do not usually throb with deep feeling as this does; nor are they expres- sions of religious aspiration and hope. Now that the end of the war seems to be near, Lincoln's great nature, deepened and refined by four years of anguish, dares to express itself. But he is master of his emotions, and finds fitting language for them; wonderfully effective language; simple and direct as ever, but, with the possible exception of the Gettysburg Address, more deeply freighted with feeling. Indeed, opinions are divided as to which is the high- water mark of Lincoln's genius: Lincoln himself seemed to prefer this Inaugural. He wrote to Thurlow Weed as follows : — Executive Mansion, Washington, March 15, 1865. Dear Mr. Weed: 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 — perhaps better than — anything I have produced; but I believe it is not immediately popular. Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose 208 NOTES 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 falls most directly on myself, I thought others might afford for me to tell it. Truly yours, A. Lincoln. XXII Page 180. Lincoln delivered this address three days before his assassination. It looks toward the bright future, and outlines his policy of reconstruction. The Rhetoric of Oratory By EDWIN DU BOIS SHURTER Cloth i2mo $1.10 net " An unusually sensible and scientific treatment of the subject, as helpful to the graduate who is already in the game of life as to teacher and student in secondary school and college. It deals with the rhetoric of oratory, rather than the elocution of oratory." — Journal of Education. Select Orations Illustrating American Political History By SAMUEL B. 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