THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN LINCOLN ROOM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY MEMORIAL the Class of 1901 founded by HARLAN HOYT HORNER and HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN ABRAHAM LINCOLN Wood engraving by Timothy Cole from an ambrotype taken for Marcus L. Ward in Springfield, 111., May 20, i860, two days after Lincoln's nom- ination for President. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY if ABRAHAM LINCOLN New York Francis D. Tandy Company Selected from " Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln." Copyright, 1894, by John G. Nicolay and John Hay Copyright, 1905, by FRANCIS D. TANDY i CONTENTS Autobiography, June, i860 . Memorandum Given to Hicks s Sketch Written for Fell Speech at Springfield . Lincoln's Writings PAGE 3 3 C 3 1 39 65 AUTOBIOGRAPHIES A Short Autobiography, written in June, i860, at the Request of a Friend to use in preparing a pop- ULAR Campaign Biography in the Election of that Year. Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, then in Hardin, now in the more recent- ly formed county of La Rue, Kentucky. His father, Thomas, and grandfather, Abraham, were born in Rockingham County, Virginia, whither their ancestors had come from Berks County, Pennsylvania. His line- age has been traced no farther back than this. The family were originally Quakers, though 4 ABRAHAM LINCOLN in later times they have fallen away from the peculiar habits of that people. The grand- father, Abraham, had four brothers — Isaac, Jacob, John, and Thomas. So far as known, the descendants of Jacob and John are still in Virginia. Isaac went to a place near where Vir- ginia, North Carolina, and Ten- nessee join; and his descendants are in that region. Thomas came to Kentucky, and after many years died there, whence his descendants went to Mis- souri. Abraham, grandfather of the subject of this sketch, came to Kentucky, and was killed by Indians about the year 1784. He left a widow, three sons, and two daughters. The eldest son, Mordecai, remained in Ken- tucky till late in life, when he removed to Hancock County, AUTOBIOGRAPHY 5 Illinois, where soon after he died, and where several of his descendants still remain. The second son, Josiah, removed at an early day to a place on Blue River, now within Hancock County, Indiana, but no recent information of him or his family has been obtained. The eldest sister, Mary, married Ralph Crume, and some of her de- scendants are now known to be in Breckinridge County, Ken- tucky. The second sister, Nancy, married William Brum- field, and her family are not known to have left Kentucky, but there is no recent informa- tion from them. Thomas, the youngest son, and father of the present subject, by the early death of his father and very narrow circumstances of his mother, even in childhood was 6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN a wandering laboring-boy and grew up literally without educa- tion. He never did more in the way of writing than to bungling- ly write his own name. Before he was grown he passed one year as a hired hand with his uncle Isaac on Watauga, a branch of the Holston River. Getting back into Kentucky, and having reached his twenty- eighth year, he married Nancy Hanks — mother of the present subject — in the year 1806. She also was born in Virginia; and relatives of hers of the name of Hanks, and of other names, now reside in Coles, in Macon, and in Adams counties, Illinois, and also in Iowa. The present sub- ject has no brother or sister of the whole or half blood. He had a sister, older than himself, who was grown and married, AUTOBIOGRAPHY J but died many years ago, leav- ing no child; also a brother, younger than himself, who died in infancy. Before leaving Ken- tucky, he and his sister were sent, for short periods, to A B C schools, the first kept by Za- chariah Riney, and the second by Caleb Hazel. At this time his father re- sided on Knob Creek, on the road from Bardstown, Ken- tucky, to Nashville, Tennessee, at a point three or three and a half miles south or southwest of Atherton's Ferry, on the Rolling Fork. From this place he re- moved to what is now Spencer County, Indiana, in the autumn of 1816, Abraham then being in his eighth year. This removal was partly on account of slavery, but chiefly on account of the dif- ficulty in land titles in Kentucky. 8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN He settled in an unbroken forest, and the clearing away of surplus wood was the great task ahead. Abraham, though very young, was large for his age, and had an ax put into his hands at once; and from that till within his twenty-third year he was almost constantly handling that most useful instrument — less, of course, in plowing and harvest- ing seasons. At this place Abra- ham took an early start as a hunter, which was never much improved afterwards. A few days before the completion of his eighth year, in the absence of his father, a flock of wild turkeys approached the new log cabin, and Abraham with a rifle-gun, standing inside, shot through a crack and killed one of them. He has never since pulled a trig- ger on any larger game. In the AUTOBIOGRAPHY 9 autumn of 1 8 1 8 his mother died ; and a year afterwards his father married Mrs. Sally Johnston, at Elizabethtown, Kentucky, a widow with three children of her first marriage. She proved a good and kind mother to Abra- ham, and is still living in Coles County, Illinois. There were no children of this second mar- riage. His father's residence continued at the same place in Indiana till 1830. While here Abraham went to A B C schools by littles, kept successively by Andrew Crawford, Swee- ney, and Azel W. Dorsey. He does not remember any other. The family of Mr. Dorsey now resides in Schuyler County, Illi- nois. Abraham now thinks that the aggregate of all his school- ing did not amount to one year. He was never in a college or IO ABRAHAM LINCOLN academy as a student, and never inside of a college or acad- emy building till since he had a law license. 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 Eng- lish grammar — imperfectly, of course, but so as to speak and 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. In his tenth year he was kicked by a horse, and ap- parently killed for a time. When he was nineteen, still re- siding in Indiana, he made his first trip upon a flatboat to New Orleans. He was a hired hand merely, and he and a son of the AUTOBIOGRAPHY II owner, without other assistance, made the trip. The nature of part of the " cargo-load," as it was called, made it necessary for them to linger and trade along the sugar-coast; and one night they were attacked by seven negroes with intent to kill and rob them. They were hurt some in the melee, but succeeded in driving the negroes from the boat, and then u cut cable," " weighed anchor," and left. March i, 1830, Abraham having just completed his twen- ty-first year, his father and family, with the families of the two daughters and sons-in-law of his stepmother, left the old homestead in Indiana and came to Illinois. Their mode of con- veyance was wagons drawn by ox-teams, and Abraham drove one of the teams. They reached 12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN the county of Macon, and stopped there some time within the same month of March. His father and family settled a new place on the north side of the Sangamon River, at the junction of the timber-land and prairie, about ten miles westerly from Decatur. Here they built a log cabin, into which they removed, and made sufficient of rails to fence ten acres of ground, fenced and broke the ground, and raised a crop of sown corn upon it the same year. These are, or are supposed to be, the rails about which so much is being said just now, though these are far from being the first or only rails ever made by Abraham. The sons-in-law were tempo- rarily settled in other places in the county. In the autumn all hands were greatly afflicted with ague AUTOBIOGRAPHY 13 and fever, to which they had not been used, and by which they were greatly discouraged, so much so that they determined on leaving the county. They re- mained, however, through the succeeding winter, which was the winter of the very celebrated " deep snow " of Illinois. Dur- ing that winter Abraham, to- gether with his stepmother's son, John D. Johnston, and John Hanks, yet residing in Macon County, hired themselves to Denton Offutt to take a flatboat from Beardstown, Illinois, to New Orleans ; and for that pur- pose were to join him — Offutt — at Springfield, Illinois, so soon as the snow should go off. When it did go off, which was about the first of March, 1831, the county was so flooded as to make traveling by land impracticable; 14 ABRAHAM LINCOLN to obviate which difficulty they purchased a large canoe, and came down the Sangamon River in it. This is the time and the manner of Abraham's first en- trance into Sangamon County. They found Offutt at Spring- field, but learned from him that he had failed in getting a boat at Beardstown. This led to their hiring themselves to him for twelve dollars per month each, and getting the timber out of the trees and building a boat at Old Sangamon town on the Sanga- mon River, seven miles north- west of Springfield, which boat they took to New Orleans, sub- stantially upon the old contract. During this boat-enterprise acquaintance with Offutt, who was previously an entire stran- ger, he conceived a liking for Abraham, and believing he AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1 5 could turn him to account, he contracted with him to act as clerk for him, on his return from New Orleans, in charge of a store and mill at New Salem, then in Sangamon, now in Me- nard County. Hanks had not gone to New Orleans, but hav- ing a family, and being likely to be detained from home longer than at first expected, had turned back from St. Louis. He is the same John Hanks who now engineers the " rail enterprise ' at Decatur, and is a first cousin to Abraham's mother. Abra- ham's father, with his own fam- ily and others mentioned, had, in pursuance of their intention, re- moved from Macon to Coles County. John D. Johnston, the stepmother's son, went to them, and Abraham stopped indefinite- ly and for the first time, as it 1 6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN were, by himself at New Salem, before mentioned. This was in July, 1 83 1. Here he rapidly made acquaintances and friends. In less than a year Offutt's busi- ness was failing — had almost failed — when the Black Hawk war of 1832 broke out. Abra- ham joined a volunteer com- pany, and, to his own surprise, was elected captain of it. He says he has not since had any success in life which gave him so much satisfaction. He went to the campaign, served near three months, met the ordinary hard- ships of such an expedition, but was in no battle. He now owns, in Iowa, the land upon which his own warrants for the service were located. Returning from the campaign, and encouraged by his great popularity among his immediate neighbors, he the AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1 7 same year ran for the legisla- ture, and was beaten — his own precinct, however, casting its votes 277 for and 7 against him — and that, too, while he was an avowed Clay man, and the pre- cinct the autumn afterwards giv- ing a majority of 1 15 to General Jackson over Mr. Clay. This was the only time Abraham was ever beaten on a direct vote of the people. He was now with- out means and out of business, but was anxious to remain with his friends who had treated him with so much generosity, espe- cially as he had nothing else- where to go to. He studied what he should do — thought of learning the blacksmith trade — thought of trying to study law — rather thought he could not suc- ceed at that without a better education. Before long, strange- I 8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN ly enough, a man offered to sell, and did sell, to Abraham and another as poor as himself, an old stock of goods, upon credit. They opened as merchants; and he says that was the store. Of course they did nothing but get deeper and deeper in debt. He was appointed postmaster at New Salem — the office being too insignificant to make his politics an objection. The store winked out. The surveyor of Sanga- mon offered to depute to Abra- ham that portion of his work which was within his part of the County. He accepted, procured a compass and chain, studied Flint and Gibson a little, and went at it. This procured bread, and kept soul and body together. The election of 1834 came, and he was then elected to the legislature by the highest AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1 9 vote cast for any candidate. Major John T. Stuart, then in full practice of the law, was also elected. During the canvass, in a private conversation he encour- aged Abraham [to] study law. After the election he borrowed books of Stuart, took them home with him, and went at it in good earnest. He studied with no- body. He still mixed in the surveying to pay board and clothing bills. When the legis- lature met, the law-books were dropped, but were taken up again at the end of the session. He was reelected in 1836, 1838, and 1840. In the autumn of 1836 he obtained a law license, and on April 15, 1837, removed to Springfield, and commenced the practice — his old friend Stuart taking him into partner- ship. March 3, 1837, by a pro- 20 ABRAHAM LINCOLN test entered upon the " Illinois House Journal " of that date, at pages 817 and 818, Abraham, with Dan Stone, another repre- sentative of Sangamon, briefly defined his position on the slav- ery question; and so far as it goes, it was then the same that it is now. The protest is as follows : " Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having passed both branches of the Gen- eral Assembly at its present ses- sion, the undersigned hereby protest against the passage of the same. " They believe that the insti- tution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of Aboli- tion doctrines tends rather to in- crease than abate its evils. AUTOBIOGRAPHY 21 " They believe that the Con- gress of the United States has no power under the Constitution to interfere with the institution of slavery in the different States. " They believe that the Con- gress of the United States has the power, under the Constitution, to abolish slavery in the Dis- trict of Columbia, but that the power ought not to be exercised unless at the request of the peo- ple of the District. " The difference between these opinions and those contained in the above resolutions is their reason for entering this protest. " Dan Stone, " A. Lincoln, " Representatives from the County of Sangamon." In 1838 and 1840, Mr. Lin- coln's party voted for him as 22 ABRAHAM LINCOLN Speaker, but being in the minor- ity he was not elected. After 1840 he declined a reelection to the legislature. He was on the Harrison electoral ticket in 1840, and on that of Clay in 1844, an d spent much time and labor in both those canvasses. In No- vember, 1842, he was married to Mary, daughter of Robert S. Todd, of Lexington, Kentucky. They have three living children, all sons, one born in 1843, one in 1850, and one in 1853. They lost one, who was born in 1846. In 1846 he was elected to the lower House of Congress, and served one term only, commenc- ing in December, 1847, an d end- ing with the inauguration of General Taylor, in March, 1849. All the battles of the Mexican war had been fought before Mr. Lincoln took his seat in Con- AUTOBIOGRAPHY 23 gress, but the American army was still in Mexico, and the treaty of peace was not fully and formally ratified till the June afterwards. Much has been said of his course in Congress in re- gard to this war. A careful ex- amination of the " Journal " and " Congressional Globe " shows that he voted for all the supply measures that came up, and for all the measures in any way fa- vorable to the officers, soldiers, and their families, who con- ducted the war through : with the exception that some of these measures passed without yeas and nays, leaving no record as to how particular men voted. The " Journal " and " Globe " also show him voting that the war was unnecessarily and un- constitutionally begun by the President of the United States. 24 ABRAHAM LINCOLN This is the language of Mr. Ashmun's amendment, for which Mr. Lincoln and nearly or quite all other Whigs of the House of Representatives voted. Mr. Lincoln's reasons for the opinion expressed by this vote were briefly that the President had sent General Taylor into an inhabited part of the country belonging to Mexico, and not to the United States, and thereby had provoked the first act of hostility, in fact the commence- ment of the war; that the place, being the country bordering on the east bank of the Rio Grande, was inhabited by native Mexi- cans born there under the Mexi- can Government, and had never submitted to, nor been con- quered by, Texas or the United States, nor transferred to either by treaty; that although Texas AUTOBIOGRAPHY 2§ claimed the Rio Grande as her boundary, Mexico had never rec- ognized it, and neither Texas nor the United States had ever enforced it; that there was a broad desert between that and the country over which Texas had actual control; that the coun- try where hostilities commenced, having once belonged to Mexico,, must remain so until it was somehow legally transferred, which had never been done. Mr. Lincoln thought the act of sending an armed force among the Mexicans was unnec- essary, inasmuch as Mexico was in no way molesting or menacing the United States or the people thereof; and that it was uncon- stitutional, because the power of levying war is vested in Con- gress, and not in the President. He thought the principal motive l6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN for the act was to divert public attention from the surrender of " Fifty-four, forty, or fight " to Great Britain, on the Oregon boundary question. Mr. Lincoln was not a can- didate for reelection. This was determined upon and declared before he went to Washington, in accordance with an under- standing among Whig friends, by which Colonel Hardin and Colonel Baker had each pre- viously served a single term in this same district. In 1848, during his term in Congress, he advocated General Taylor's nomination for the presidency, in opposition to all others, and also took, an active part for his election after his nomination, speaking a few times in Maryland, near Wash- ington, several times in Massa- AUTOBIOGRAPHY 2J chusetts, and canvassing quite fully his own district in Illinois, which was followed by a major- ity in the district of over fifteen hundred for General Taylor. Upon his return from Con- gress he went to the practice of the law with greater earnestness than ever before. In 1852 he was upon the Scott electoral tic- ket, and did something in the way of canvassing, but owing to the hopelessness of the cause in Illinois he did less than in pre- vious presidential canvasses. In 1854 his profession had al- most superseded the thought of politics in his mind, when the repeal of the Missouri Com- promise aroused him as he had never been before. In the autumn of that year he took the stump with no broader practical aim or object than to 28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN secure, if possible, the reelection of Hon. Richard Yates to Con- gress. His speeches at once at- tracted a more marked attention than thev had ever before done. As the canvass proceeded he was drawn to different parts of the State outside of Mr. Yates's dis- trict. He did not abandon the law, but gave his attention by turns to that and politics. The State agricultural fair was at Springfield that year, and Doug- las was announced to speak there. In the canvass of 1856 Mr. Lincoln made over fifty speeches, no one of which, so far as he remembers, was put in print. One of them was made at Ga- lena, but Mr. Lincoln has no rec- ollection of any part of it being printed; nor does he remember whether in that speech he said AUTOBIOGRAPHY 29 anything about a Supreme Court decision. He may have spoken upon that subject, and some of the newspapers may have re- ported him as saying what is now ascribed to him; but he thinks he could not have ex- pressed himself as represented. Autobiographical Memoran- dum GIVEN TO THE ARTIST Hicks, June 14, i860. I was born February 12, 1809, in then Hardin County, Kentucky, at a point within the now county of La Rue, a mile, or a mile and a half, from where Hodgen's mill now is. My parents being dead, and my own memory not serving, I know no means of identifying the precise locality. It was on Nolin Creek. A. Lincoln. June 14, i860. 30 Autobiographical Sketch Written for Jesse W. Fell, December 20, 1859. Springfield, Dec. 20, 1859. J. W. Fell, Esq. My dear Sir: Herewith is a little sketch, as you requested. There is not much of it, for the reason, I suppose, that there is not much of me. If anything be made out of it, I wish it to be modest, and not to go beyond the material. If it were thought necessary to incorporate anything from any of my speeches, I sup- pose there would be no objec- tion. Of course it must not ap- pear to have been written by myself. Yours very truly, A. Lincoln. 31 32 ABRAHAM LINCOLN I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Ken- tucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistin- guished families — second fami- lies, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams, and others in Macon County, Illinois. My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rock- ingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky about 1781 or 1782, where a year or two later he was killed by the Indians, not in bat- tle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest. His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County, Pennsylvania. An effort to identify them with the New England family of the AUTOBIOGRAPHY ^3 same name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity of Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon; Abraham, and the like. My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age, and he grew up literally without education. He removed from Kentucky to what is now Spen- cer County, Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our new home about the time the State came into the Union. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond " readin', writin', and cipherin' " to the rule of three. If a straggler supposed to un- 34 ABRAHAM LINCOLN derstand Latin happened to so- journ in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three, but that was all. I have not been to school since. The little advance I now have upon this store of education, I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity. I was raised to farm work, which I continued till I was twenty-two. At twenty-one I came to Illinois, Macon County. Then I got to New Salem, at that time in Sangamon, now in Menard County, where I re- mained a year as a sort of clerk in a store. Then came the AUTOBIOGRAPHY 2S Black Hawk war; and I was elected a captain of volunteers, a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since. I went the campaign, was elated, ran for the legisla- ture the same year (1832), and was beaten — the only time I ever have been beaten by the people. The next and three succeeding biennial elections I was elected to the legislature. I was not a candidate afterwards. During this legislative period I had studied law, and removed to Springfield to practice it. In 1846 I was once elected to the lower House of Congress. Was not a candidate for reelection. From 1849 t0 I ^54> DOtn inclu- sive, practiced law more assidu- ously than ever before. Always a Whig in politics; and gener- ally on the Whig electoral 36 ABRAHAM LINCOLN tickets, making active canvasses. I was losing interest in politics when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known. If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be said I am, in height, six feet four inches, nearly ; lean in flesh, weighing on an average one hun- dred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes. No other marks or brands recollected. Yours truly, A. Lincoln. Hon. J. W. Fell. SPEECH AT SPRINGFIELD The " House Divided Against Itself " Speech, 1 at Springfield, June 16, 1858. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention: 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 agitation. Under the operation of that pol- 1 The above speech was delivered at Springfield, 111. , at the close of the Republican State Conven- tion held at that time and place, and by which Con- vention Mr. Lincoln had been named as their can- didate for United States Senator. Mr. Douglas was not present. 39 40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN icy, 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 this Government cannot endure per- manently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall ; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the oppo- nents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is the course of ultimate extinction; or its ad- vocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South. SPEECH 41 Have we no tendency to the latter condition? Let anyone who doubts care- fully contemplate that now al- most complete legal combina- tion — piece of machinery, so to speak — compounded of the Ne- braska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him con- sider, not only what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted; but also let him study the history of its con- struction, and trace if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design and con- cert of action among its chief architects from the beginning. The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more than half the States by State consti- tutions, and from most of the national territory by congres- sional prohibition. Four days 42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN later commenced the struggle which ended in repealing that congressional prohibition. This opened all the national territory to slavery, and was the first point gained. But, so far, Congress only had acted; and an indorsement by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable, to save the point already gained and give chance for more. This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been pro- vided for, as well as might be, in the notable argument of " squatter sovereignty," other- wise called " sacred right of self-government," which latter phrase, through 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 SPEECH 43 one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object. That argu- ment was incorporated into the Nebraska bill itself, in the lan- guage 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 there- from, but to leave the people thereof per- fectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, sub- ject only to the Constitution of the United States." Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor of " squat- ter sovereignty," and " sacred right of self-government." " But," said opposition mem- bers, " 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, 44 ABRAHAM LINCOLN and down they voted the amend- ment. 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 then into a Territory cov- ered by the congressional pro- hibition, and held him as a slave for a long time in each, was pass- ing through the United States Circuit Court for the District of Missouri; and both Nebraska bill and lawsuit were brought to a decision in the same month of May, 1854. The negro's name was " Dred Scott," which name now designates the decision finally made in the case. Before the then next Presidential elec- tion, the law case came to, and was argued in, the Supreme SPEECH 45 Court of the United States; but the decision of it was deferred until after the election. Still, before the election, Senator Trumbull, on the floor of the Senate, requested the leading ad- vocate of the Nebraska bill to state his opinion whether the people of a Territory can con- stitutionally exclude slavery from their limits; and the latter answered: "That is a question for the Supreme Court." The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorsement, such as it was, se- cured. That was the second point gained. The indorse- ment, however, fell short of a clear popular majority by nearly four hundred thousand votes, and so, perhaps, was not over- whelmingly reliable and satisfac- tory. The outgoing President, 46 ABRAHAM LINCOLN in his last annual message, as impressively as possible echoed back upon the people the weight and authority of the indorse- ment. The Supreme Court met again; did not announce their decision, but ordered a re- argument. The presidential in- auguration came, and still no decision of the court; but the incoming President, in his inau- gural address, fervently ex- horted 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 an early occa- sion to make a speech at this capital indorsing the Dred Scott decision, and vehemently de- nouncing all opposition to it. The new President, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silli- SPEECH 47 man 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 President and the author of the Nebraska bill on the mere question of fact, whether the Lecompton consti- tution was or was not in any just sense made by the people of Kan- sas; and in that quarrel the lat- ter declares that all he wants is a fair vote for the people, and that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted np. I do not understand his declara- tion, 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 would impress upon the public mind — the principle 48 ABRAHAM LINCOLN for which he declares he has suf- fered 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 prin- ciple is the only shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred Scott decision 11 squatter sovereignty " squatted out of existence, tumbled down like temporary scaffolding; like the mold at the foundry, served through one blast, and fell back into loose sand; helped to carry an election, and then was kicked to the winds. His late joint struggle with the Republicans, against the Lecompton consti- tution, involves nothing of the original Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was made on a point — the right of a people to make their own constitution — SPEECH 49 upon which he and the Repub- licans 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 present state of advancement. This was the third point gained. The work- ing points of that machinery are: First, That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no descendant of such slave, can 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 bene- fit of that provision of the United States Constitution which declares that " The citi- zens of each State shall be en- 50 ABRAHAM LINCOLN titled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." Secondly, That, " subject to the Constitution of the United States," neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature can ex- clude slavery from any United States Territory. This point is made in order that individual men may fill up the Territories with slaves, without danger of losing them as property, and thus enhance the chances of permanency 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 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 SPEECH 51 master. This point is made, not to be pressed immediately; but, if acquiesced in for a while, and apparently indorsed by the people at an election, then to sus- tain the logical conclusion that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do with Dred Scott in the free State of Illinois, every other master might lawfully do with any other one, or one thou- sand 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 mold public opinion, at least Northern public opinion, not to care whether slavery is voted down or voted up. This shows exactly where we now are; and partially, also, whither we are tending. 52 ABRAHAM LINCOLN It will throw additional light on the latter to go back and run the mind over the string of historical facts already stated. Several things will now appear less dark and mysterious than they did when they were trans- piring. The people were to be left " perfectly free," " subject only to the Constitution." What the Constitution had to do with it, outsiders could not then see. Plainly enough now, it was an exactly fitted niche, for the Dred Scott decision to afterwards come in, and declare the perfect free- dom of the people to be just no freedom at all. Why was the amendment, expressly declaring the right of the people, voted down? Plainly enough now, the adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott decision. Why was the SPEECH $3 court decision held up? Why- even a senator's individual opin- ion withheld till after the presi- dential election ? Plainly enough now, the speaking out then would have damaged the " per- fectly free " argument upon which the election was to be car- ried. Why the outgoing Presi- dent's felicitation on the indorse- ment? Why the delay of a re- argument? Why the incoming President's advance exhortation in favor of the decision? These things look like the cautious pat- ting and petting of a 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 exact adaptations 54 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 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, — and when we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few, not omitting even scaffolding — or, if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in — in such case, we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and SPEECH 55 Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draught drawn up before the first blow was struck. It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska bill, the people of a State as well as Ter- ritory were to be left " perfect- ly free," " subject only to the Constitution." Why mention a State? They were legislating for Territories, and not for or about States. Certainly the peo- ple of a State 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- tion to the Constitution therein treated as being precisely the $6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN same? While the opinion of the court by Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case, and the separate opinions of all concurring judges, expressly de- clare that the Constitution of the United States neither permits Congress nor a territorial Leg- islature to exclude slavery from any United States Territory, they all omit to declare whether or not the same Constitution per- mits a State, or the people of a State, to exclude it. Possibly, 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 unlim- ited power in the people of a State to exclude slavery from their limits, just as Chase and Mace sought to get such decla- ration, in behalf of the people of a Territory, into the Nebraska SPEECH 57 bill — I ask, who can be quite sure that it would not have been voted down in one 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 lan- guage, too, of the Nebraska act. On one occasion, his exact lan- guage 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 slav- ery within its jurisdiction." In what cases the power of the States 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 58 ABRAHAM LINCOLN Territories, was left open in the Nebraska act. Put this and that together, and we have another nice little niche, which we may, ere long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision, declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a State to exclude slav- ery from its limits. And this may especially be expected if the doctrine 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 slav- ery now lacks of being alike law- ful in all the States. Welcome, or unwelcome, such decision is probably coming, and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present political dynasty shall SPEECH 59 be met and overthrown. We shall lie down pleasantly dream- ing that the 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 prevent 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 us softly that Senator Douglas is the aptest in- strument there is with which to effect that object. They wish us to infer all, from the fact that he now has a little quarrel with the present head of the dynasty, and that he has regularly voted 60 ABRAHAM LINCOLN with us on a single point, upon which he and we have never dif- fered. They remind us that he is a great man, and that the larg- est of us are very small ones. Let this be granted. But " a living dog is better than a dead lion." Judge 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 any- thing about it. His avowed mission is impressing the " pub- lic heart " to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas Demo- cratic newspaper thinks Doug- las's superior talent will be needed to resist the revival of the African slave-trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to re- vive that trade is approaching? He has not said so. Does he really think so? But if it is, SPEECH 6l how can he resist it? For years he has labored to prove it a sa- cred right of white men to take negro slaves into the new Ter- ritories. Can he possibly show that it is less a sacred right to buy them where they can be bought cheapest? And unques- tionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in Vir- ginia. He has done all in his power to reduce the whole ques- tion of slavery to one of a mere right of property; and, as such, how can he oppose the foreign slave-trade? How can he re- fuse that trade in that " prop- erty " shall be " perfectly free/' unless he does it as a protection to the home production? And as the home producers will prob- ably not ask the protection, he will be wholly without a ground of opposition. 62 ABRAHAM LINCOLN Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser to-day than he was yes- terday; that he may rightfully change when he finds himself wrong. But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and infer that he will make any particular change 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 misrepre- sent Judge Douglas's position, question his motives, or do aught that can be personally offensive to him. Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on principle, so that our great cause may have assistance from his great ability, I hope to have in- terposed no adventitious ob- stacle. But clearly he is not now with us ; he does not pretend SPEECH 63 to be — he does not promise ever to be. Our cause, then, must be en- trusted 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 na- tion mustered over thirteen hun- dred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discord- ant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all then, to falter now — now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and bellig- 64 ABRAHAM LINCOLN erent? The result is not doubt- ful. 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. A Word About the Writ- ings of Abraham Lincoln. The contents of this little vol- ume are selected from " The Complete Writings of Abraham Lincoln," edited by his private secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John Hay, a new and enlarged edition of which is now being issued by the publishers of this volume. For nearly thirty years the editors were engaged in collect- ing and arranging the material for this work. President Lin- coln encouraged and assisted them, giving them many of his most precious manuscripts with his own hands. The work was finally published at the special 6s 66 ABRAHAM LINCOLN request of Col. Robert T. Lin- coln, and must ever remain the only authorized and standard collection of Lincoln's writings. The new and enlarged edition contains nearly twice as much material as did the first edition published some eleven years ago. This added material comprises everything of any historical or biographical value from the pen of Lincoln which has come to light during the last decade, also numerous biographical and explanatory notes, and special introductions to the various vol- umes. It will also contain a complete bibliography and a comprehensive index. It will be artistically printed on a fine grade of paper, durably bound, and illustrated with up- ward of one hundred portraits of Lincoln, his generals, cabinet WRITINGS 67 officers, and facsimiles of his more celebrated letters and docu- ments. In short, nothing has been omitted which could in any way add to its value from a lit- erary or mechanical standpoint. The aim has been to present this definitive edition of Lin- coln's writings in a style that will make it a fitting monument to its illustrious author and scarcely less illustrious editors. Francis D. Tandy Company, 38 E. 2 1st St., New York. I Autobiography By Lincoln in Will Void iself mn , ty V timp m Sangaynqn. Salem, at that tin* » here X re- new in Menard County. „ 4 nearly: lean in «**- T\« complexion ' Sin,l ^^ C K^a and g P ray eyes. No 1 coarse black na lec ,, P anratfwM I P<» P« os * " H