973.7L63 
 RJ35 
 
 Quinby, Laurie J. 
 
 Jefferson-Lincoln 
 Symposium of What 
 Constitutes Americanism 
 
JNCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 and 
 
 HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER 
 
Jefferson - Lincoln 
 
 Symposium 
 
 of what constitutes 
 
 Americanism 
 
 Selected and Arranged by 
 LAURIE J. QUINBY 
 
 r^^ 
 
 1936 
 
 DAVIES PRINTING COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 
 
 225 East Fourth Street 
 
 Los Angele6 
 
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114 
 
 DEDICATED TO 
 
 THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
 
 THE DAY has arrived for the American people to 
 rouse themselves to the dangers that threaten. They 
 must go forward under the principles of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence and the Constitution, especially 
 as expressed in the Preambles to these two great 
 documents. Next to Washington — who stands alone 
 — the two out-standing Presidents who, in their 
 policies, most exemplified the principles of those two 
 documents, were THOMAS JEFFERSON and 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 Though times may change, and the general 
 course of progress make many turns, true principles 
 that underlie all advancement are based upon 
 natural law and never change. Because the Pream- 
 bles to the Declaration of Independence and the 
 Federal Constitution state sound principles to con- 
 tinued progress, and for the reason that these two 
 great Presidents demonstrated their eternal truth, 
 proudly we follow the illustrious leadership of 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON and ABRAHAM 
 LINCOLN. 
 
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 
 
 WE HOLD these truths to be self-evident: that all men 
 are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator 
 with certain unalienable rights ; that among these are life, 
 liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these 
 rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving 
 their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, 
 whenever any form of government becomes destructive of 
 these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, 
 and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on 
 such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as 
 to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and 
 happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments 
 long established should not be changed for light and tran- 
 sient causes ; and experience hath shown that mankind are 
 more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to 
 right themselves by abolishing forms to which they are 
 accustomed. 
 
 The JEFFERSON— LINCOLN GROUP HERE- 
 BY AFFIRMS THAT THOSE PRINCIPLES ANI- 
 MATED THE FATHERS WHO FRAMED AND 
 INCORPORATED THEM INTO THE CONSTI- 
 TUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, and that 
 whatever abuses have crept into the social and eco- 
 nomic life of America are due to the violation of 
 those principles. Further, we declare that no form of 
 government devoted to the principles of LIBERTY 
 will ever survive, save through the jealous attention 
 and constant interest of the people. The TREE OF 
 LIBERTY must be watered by the sweat of far-see- 
 ing PATRIOTS — jealous of their natural rights. 
 
 PREAMBLE TO THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 WE, THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, in order 
 to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure 
 domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, pro- 
 mote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of 
 
Liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and estab- 
 lish this Constitution for the United States of America. 
 
 Now, therefore, we, AMERICANS of the JEF- 
 FERSON—LINCOLN GROUP hereby re-affirm our 
 devotion and allegiance to every Article and every 
 section and paragraph of that Constitution, includ- 
 ing each and several Amendments to it that hereto- 
 fore have been and hereafter may be duly adopted 
 by the people. 
 
 In further recognition of these principles, to a 
 candid people, we submit consideration of the follow- 
 ing statements of principles and policies, made by 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON and ABRAHAM 
 LINCOLN : 
 
 LINCOLN AT GETTYSBURG : ... It is for us, rather, 
 to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who 
 fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather 
 for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining be- 
 fore us — that from these honored dead we take increased 
 devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full 
 measure of devotion ; that we here highly resolve that these 
 dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under 
 God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that govern- 
 ment of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not 
 perish form the earth. 
 
 SAID THOMAS JEFFERSON: 
 
 The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts 
 only as are injurious to others. 
 
 Reason and free inquiry are the only effective agents 
 against error. They are the natural enemies of error and 
 error only. 
 
 It is error alone which needs the support of government. 
 Truth can stand by itself. 
 
 What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half 
 the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. 
 
 (Notes on Virginia.) 
 
The basis of our governments being the opinion of the 
 people, the very first object should be to keep that right. 
 My general aim would be, to make the States one as to every 
 thing connected with foreign nations, and several as to 
 everything purely domestic. 
 
 I think it very material to separate, in the hands of Con- 
 gress, the executive and legislative powers, as the judiciary 
 are, in some degree. 
 
 (Letter to Carrington, 1787.) 
 
 The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time, 
 with the blood of patriots and tyrants. 
 
 (Letter to Col. Smith, Nov., 1787.) 
 
 A man's moral sense must be unusually strong if slavery 
 does not make him a thief. 
 
 (Letter to Edw. Bancroft, Jan., '88.) 
 
 The accounts of the United States ought to be, and may 
 be made as simple as those of a common farmer, and capa- 
 ble of being understood by common farmers. 
 
 (Letter to James Madison, March, 1790.) 
 
 I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on 
 this ground: that "All powers not delegated to the United 
 States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, 
 are reserved to the States, or to the people." To take a 
 single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn 
 around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a 
 boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any 
 definition. 
 
 (On National Banks, February 15, '91.) 
 
 Truth between candid minds, can never do harm. We 
 must preserve the liberty we have obtained only by un- 
 remitting labors and perils. 
 
 (April, 1796.) 
 
 . . . whenever the General Government assumes undelegated 
 powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void and of no force: 
 . . . that the government created by this compact was not 
 
made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers 
 delegated to itself; since that would have made its discre- 
 tion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers. 
 
 (November, 1798.) 
 
 ... to take from the States all the powers of self-govern- 
 ment and transfer them to a general and consolidated gov- 
 ernment, without regard to the special delegations and 
 reservations solemnly agreed to in that compact, is not for 
 the peace, happiness and prosperity of the States. . . . every 
 State has a natural right in cases not within the compact, 
 to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by 
 others within their limits. . . . Free government is founded 
 in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy and not 
 confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind 
 down those whom we are obliged to trust with power : that 
 our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and 
 no further, our confidence may go. ... In questions of power 
 then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind 
 him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. 
 
 (November, 1798.) 
 
 If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this 
 Union or to change its republican form, let them stand un- 
 disturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of 
 opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to com- 
 bat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a 
 republican government cannot be strong; that this govern- 
 ment is not strong enough. But would the honest patriot, in 
 the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a govern- 
 ment which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic 
 and visionary fear that this government, the world's best 
 hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself? I 
 trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest 
 government on earth. . . . Sometimes it is said that man 
 cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, 
 then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have 
 we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let 
 history answer this question. 
 
 (First Inaugural, March 4, '01.) 
 
It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience 
 for himself, to resist invasion of it in the case of others, or 
 their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own. 
 
 (April, 1803.) 
 
 Referring to the National Bank : 
 
 This institution is one of the most deadly hostility exist- 
 ing, against the principles and form of our Constitution. 
 
 Now, while we are strong, it is the greatest duty we owe 
 to the safety of our Constitution, to bring this powerful 
 enemy to a perfect subordination under its authorities. 
 
 (December 13, 1803.) 
 
 I may err in my measures, but never shall deflect from 
 the intention to fortify the public liberty by every possible 
 means, and to put it out of the power of the few to riot on 
 the labors of the many. . . . The most effectual (protection 
 of reason and truth) hitherto found, is the freedom of the 
 press. 
 
 (June, 1804.) 
 As yet our manufacturers (workpeople) are as much at 
 their ease, as independent and moral as our agricultural 
 inhabitants, and they will continue so as long as there are 
 vacant lands for them to resort to; because, whenever it 
 shall be attempted by the other classes to reduce them to the 
 minimum of subsistence, they will quit their trades and go 
 to laboring the earth. 
 
 (January 4, 1805.) 
 
 The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead. The will 
 and power of a man expires with his life, by nature's law. 
 . . . The soil is the gift of God to the living. 
 
 (January, 1805.) 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN: 
 
 All honor to Jefferson — the man who, in the concrete 
 pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single 
 people, had the coolness, forecast, and sagacity to introduce 
 into a merely revolutionary document an abstract truth, ap- 
 
 8 
 
plicable to all men and all times, and so embalm it there 
 that today and in all coming days it shall be a rebuke and 
 a stumbling block to the very harbingers of reappearing 
 tyranny and oppression. 
 
 (Letter written in 1859.) 
 
 I have never had a feeling politically, that did not spring 
 from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence. ... It was that which gave promise that in due 
 time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all 
 men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the 
 sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 (February 22, 1862.) 
 
 I do not mean to say that we are bound to follow implicitly 
 in whatever our fathers did. To do so would be to discard 
 all the lights of current experience — to reject all progress, 
 all improvement. What I do say is that if we would supplant 
 the opinions 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 considered and 
 weighed, cannot stand. . . . Human action can be modified 
 to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed. . . . 
 Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith 
 let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it. 
 
 (Cooper Union, Feb. 27, 1860.) 
 
 All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with 
 all the treasures of the earth (our own excepted) in their 
 military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could 
 not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on 
 the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. 
 
 At what point, then, is the approach of danger (to our 
 institutions) to be expected? I answer: If it ever reach us 
 it must spring up amongst us ; it cannot come from abroad. 
 
 If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author 
 and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through 
 all time, or die by suicide. 
 
 (January 27, 1837.) 
 
 9 
 
Many free countries have lost their liberties, and ours 
 may lose hers; but if she shall, be it my proudest plume 
 (boast), not that I was the last to desert, but that I never 
 deserted her. 
 
 (December, 1839.) 
 
 Speaking of chattel slavery, though the following 
 applies as well today : 
 
 I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its 
 just influence in the world, enables the enemies of free in- 
 stitutions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites, causes 
 the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and es- 
 pecially because it forces so many good men amongst our- 
 selves into an open war with the very fundamental principles 
 of civil liberty, criticising the Declaration of Independence, 
 and insisting that there is no right principle of action but 
 self-interest. . . . The doctrine of self-government is right — 
 absolutely and eternally right. . . . when he (man) governs 
 himself and also governs another man, that is more than 
 self-government — that is despotism. . . . what I say is that 
 no man is good enough to govern another man without that 
 other's consent. I say this is the leading principle — the 
 sheet anchor of American republicanism. . . . Let us re- 
 adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it the 
 practices and policies in harmony with it. ... let all Ameri- 
 cans — let all lovers of liberty everywhere join in the great 
 and good work. 
 
 (October 16, 1854.) 
 
 That we shall do, Shade of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 On the Declaration of Independence : 
 
 I think the authors of that noble 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 men were 
 equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments or social 
 capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what 
 respects they did consider all men equal — equal with "cer- 
 tain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and 
 the pursuit of happiness." Its authors meant it to be — as, 
 
 10 
 
thank God, it is now proving itself — a stumbling block to 
 all those who in after times might seek to turn a free people 
 back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the 
 proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant 
 when such should re-appear in this fair land and commence 
 their vocation, they should find left for them at least one 
 hard nut to crack. 
 
 (August 24, 1855.) 
 
 On the rights of States : 
 
 I think I have said it in your hearing, that I believe each 
 individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with 
 himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in nowise 
 interferes with any other man's rights; that each com- 
 munity, as a State, has a right to do exactly as it pleases 
 with all the concerns within that State that interfere with 
 the right of no other State; and that the general govern- 
 ment has no right to interfere with anything other than that 
 general class of things that does concern the whole. . . . 
 That is the electric cord in that Declaration (that all men are 
 created equal) that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty- 
 loving men together; that will link those patriotic hearts 
 as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men 
 throughout the world. . . . They (arguments denying that 
 all men are created equal) are the arguments that kings 
 have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. 
 You will find that 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 their argu- 
 ment, . . . 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 people of his country, or from the mouth of 
 men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of an- 
 other race — it is the same old serpent. 
 
 (July 10, 1858.) 
 
 11 
 
From Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, quoting 
 a plank of the platform on which he was elected : 
 
 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 exclusively, is essential in 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 the greatest of crimes. 
 
 If by the mere force of numbers a majority should de- 
 prive a minority of any clearly written Constitutional right, 
 it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution — cer- 
 tainly would if such a right were a vital one. ... A majority 
 held in restraint by constitutional 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, the rule 
 of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inad- 
 missible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy 
 or despotism in some form is all that is left. 
 
 Regarding the Supreme Court : 
 
 I do not forget the position assumed by some, that consti- 
 tutional 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, while they are also entitled 
 to a very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases 
 by all other departments of government. ... At the same 
 time, the candid citizen must 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 be- 
 tween parties in personal actions, the people will have 
 ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent, practical- 
 ly resigned their government into the hands of that eminent 
 tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the 
 
 12 
 
court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not 
 shrink, to decide cases properly brought before them, and it 
 is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to 
 
 political purposes. 
 
 * * * 
 
 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 dis- 
 member or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant of the fact 
 that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of hav- 
 ing the National Constitution amended. While I make no 
 recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize the right- 
 ful authority of the people over the whole subject, to be 
 exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instru- 
 ment 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 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 especially chosen for the purpose, 
 and which might not be precisely such as they would wish to 
 either accept or refuse. . . . 
 
 * * * 
 
 Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ulti- 
 mate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope 
 
 in the world ? 
 
 * * * 
 
 . . . 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. 
 
 * * * 
 
 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 cords of 
 memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave 
 to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad 
 land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again 
 
 13 
 
touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our 
 nature. 
 
 To which all American hearts may respond with- 
 out compromising one principle of justice or natural 
 right. 
 
 Finally, in Lincoln's Second Inaugural address, he 
 expressed the following sentiments : 
 
 It may seem strange that any man should dare to ask a 
 just God's assistance in wringing bread from the sweat of 
 other men's faces. 
 
 With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firm- 
 ness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us 
 strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's 
 wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, 
 and for his widow and orphans ; to do all which may achieve 
 and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and 
 with all nations. 
 
 14 
 
W7ITH malice toward 
 " none, with charity 
 for all, with firmness in 
 the right, as God gives 
 us to see the right, let us 
 strive on to finish the 
 work we are in, to bind 
 up the nation's wounds, 
 to care for him who shall 
 have borne the battle, 
 and for his widow and 
 orphans; to do all which 
 may achieve and cherish 
 a just and lasting peace 
 among ourselves and 
 with all nations. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 973 7L63RJ35 C001 
 
 JEFFERSON-LINCOLN SYMPOSIUM OF WHAT CONS 
 
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