973.7L63 
 Q*i 
 
 V/arren, Louis A. 
 
 Lincoln Autobiographies 
 
 Prepared for Lanman, Fell, Hicks, and 
 
 Scripps 
 
 nWxj 
 
LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 and 
 
 HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER 
 
i i 
 
 LINCOLN 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHIES 
 
 Prepared for 
 
 LANMAN, FELL, 
 HICKS and SCREPPS 
 
LINCOLN 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHIES 
 
 Prepared for 
 Lanman, Fell, Hicks and Scripps 
 
 compiled by 
 
 Louis A. Warren, Director 
 
 Lincoln National Life Foundation 
 
 Published by 
 
 LINCOLNIANA PUBLISHERS 
 
 Fort Wayne, Indiana 
 
 1942 
 
Copyright 1942 
 
 by 
 
 Lincolniana Publishers 
 
LINCOLN AUTOBIOGRAPHIES 
 
 There are jour holograph writings 
 of Abraham Lincoln which contain the 
 basic facts of his life and comprise 
 what is known as the Lincoln auto- 
 biographies. The group consists of an 
 ''Outline for Lanman" "Notes for 
 Fell;' "Memoir for Hicks; 9 and 
 "Sketch in the Third Person for 
 Scripps" 
 
 The outline of his life which Lin- 
 coln sent Charles Lanman, the editor 
 of The Dictionary of Congress, in 
 1858, consisted of just forty-nine 
 words which seemed to be sufficient to 
 tell all about himself up to that time. 
 
 In December 1859 Jesse W. Fell 
 wrote to Abraham Lincoln asking for 
 some personal biographical notes and 
 Lincoln complied with his request 
 I stating that "There is not much of it, 
 for the reason, I suppose, that there is 
 not much of me." He then warned Fell 
 about the use of the memorandum ; he 
 said, "If anything be made of it, I 
 wish it to be modest, and not go be- 
 yond the material." There are about 
 600 words in the sketch and it is the 
 one which has been so widely circu- 
 lated. 
 
 Thomas Hicks, the artist, visited 
 Springfield in June 1860 for the pur- 
 
pose of making a painting of Lincoln 
 and asked the nominee for a bio- 
 graphical memoir. Lincoln wrote in 
 pencil on a small piece of paper a very 
 brief statement about his birth and 
 parentage. It contained but fifty-nine 
 words. 
 
 The most important autobiographi- 
 cal writing which Abraham Lincoln 
 has contributed to posterity, a sketch 
 prepared for John Locke Scripps, is 
 in reality little known, except among 
 the best posted students of the Presi- 
 dent. Many Lincoln biographers com- 
 pletely ignored this sketch, and 
 several erroneous statements about 
 Mr. Lincoln would not have appeared, 
 if these facts stated by Lincoln him- 
 self had been known to them. This ex- 
 haustive autobiography was written 
 by Lincoln in the third person and 
 contains about 3,600 words. 
 
 OUTLINE FOR LANMAN 
 
 Born, February 12, 1809, in Hardin 
 County, Kentucky. 
 
 Education defective. 
 
 Profession, a lawyer. 
 
 Have been a captain of volunteers 
 in Black Hawk War. 
 
 Postmaster at a very small office. 
 
 4 
 
Four times a member of the Illinois 
 Legislature, and was a member of the 
 lower house of Congress.* 
 
 NOTES FOR FELL 
 
 I was born February 12, 1809, in 
 Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents 
 were both born in Virginia, of undis- 
 tinguishable 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, 111. My paternal 
 grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emi- 
 grated from Rockingham County, 
 Virginia, to Kentucky, about 1781 or 
 2, where, a year or two later, he was 
 killed by Indians, 1 not in battle, but 
 by stealth, when he was laboring to 
 open a farm in the forest. His ances- 
 tors, who were Quakers, 2 went to Vir- 
 ginia from Berks County, Pennsyl- 
 vania. An effort to identify them with 
 the New England family of the same 
 name ended in nothing more than a 
 similarity of Christian names in both 
 families, such as Enoch, Levi, Morde- 
 cai, Solomon, Abraham, and the like. 3 
 
 ♦This outline was reconstructed in the form of 
 a single sentence by the editor. 
 
 1 Grandfather killed by the Indians in 1786. 
 
 2 The family intermarried with Quakers. They 
 were originally Puritans. 
 
 3 Lineage now traced back to Samuel Lincoln 
 of Hingham, Massachusetts. 
 
My father, at the death of his 
 father, was but six years of age 4 , and 
 he grew up literally without education. 
 He removed from Kentucky to what 
 is now Spencer 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 ani- 
 mals 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- 
 derstand Liatin, happened to sojourn 
 in the neighborhood, he was looked 
 upon as a wizard. There was absolute- 
 ly nothing to excite ambition for edu- 
 cation. 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 ad- 
 vance I now have upon this store of 
 education I have picked up from time 
 to time under the pressure of neces- 
 sity. 
 
 I was raised to farm work, which I 
 continued till I was twenty-two. At 
 twenty-two I came to Illinois, and 
 passed the first year in Macon Coun- 
 
 4 Apparently the father was ten years of age 
 at time of massacre. 
 
ty. Then I got to New Salem, at that 
 time in Sangamon, now in Menard, 
 County where I remained a year as a 
 sort of elerk in a store. Then came the 
 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 through 
 the campaign, was elated, ran for the 
 Legislature the same year (1832) and 
 was beaten — the only time I have ever 
 been beaten by the people. The next, 
 and three succeeding biennial elec- 
 tions, I was elected to the Legislature. 
 I was not a candidate afterwards. 5 
 During this legislative period I had 
 studied law, and removed to Spring- 
 field to practice it. In 1846 I was once 
 elected to the Lower House of Con- 
 gress. Was not a candidate for re-elec- 
 tion. From 1849 to 1854, both inclu- 
 sive, practiced law more assiduously 
 than ever before. Always a Whig in 
 politics, and generally on the Whig 
 electoral tickets, making active can- 
 vasses. I was losing interest in politics 
 when the repeal of the Missouri Com- 
 promise 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 
 
 3 He was elected to the legislature again in 1854, 
 but resigned to become a candidate for senator. 
 
am in height six feet, four inches, 
 nearly; lean in flesh, weighing, on an 
 average, one hundred and eighty 
 pounds; dark complexion, with course 
 black hair and gray eyes. No other 
 marks or brands recollected. 
 
 MEMOIR FOR HICKS 
 
 I was born February 12, 1809, in 
 then Hardin County, Kentucky, at a 
 point within the now recently formed 
 county of Larue, a mile, or a mile & a 
 half, from where Hodgensville now 
 is. 1 My parents being dead, and my 
 own memory not serving, I know no 
 means of identifying the precise lo- 
 cality. It was on Nolin Creek. 2 
 
 SKETCH IN THIRD PERSON 
 FOR SCRIPPS 
 
 Abraham Lincoln was born. Febru- 
 ary 12, 1809, then in Hardin, now in 
 the more recently formed county of 
 La Rue, Kentucky. His father, 
 Thomas, and grandfather, Abraham, 
 were born in Rockingham County, 
 Virginia, 1 whither their ancestors had 
 come from Berks County, Pennsyl- 
 vania. His lineage has been traced no 
 
 1 It is three miles from the place of Lincoln's 
 birthplace to Hodgen's mill site. 
 
 2 The birthplace was between the forks of Nolin 
 River, three miles from the north fork and 
 one mile from the south fork. 
 
 1 Grandfather Abraham born in Berks County, 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
farther back than this. 2 The family 
 were originally Quakers, though in 
 later times they have fallen away from 
 the peculiar habits of that people. 8 
 The grandfather, Abraham, had four 
 brothers — Isaac, Jacob, John, and 
 Thomas. So far as known, the descend- 
 ants of Jacob and John are still in 
 Virginia. Isaac went to a place near 
 where Virginia, North Carolina, and 
 Tennessee join; and his descendants 
 are in that region. Thomas came to 
 Kentucky, and after many years died 
 there, whence his descendants went to 
 Missouri. Abraham, grandfather of 
 the subject of this sketch, came to 
 Kentucky, and was killed by Indians 
 about the year 1784. 4 He left a widow, 
 three sons, and two daughters. The 
 eldest son, Mordecai, remained in 
 Kentucky till late in life, when he 
 removed to Hancock County, 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 eld- 
 est sister, Mary, married Ralph Crume, 
 
 2 Lineage now traced back to Samuel Lincoln 
 of Hingham, Massachusetts. 
 
 3 The family intermarried with Quakers. They 
 were originally Puritans. 
 
 4 Grandfather killed by the Indians in 1786. 
 
and some of her descendants are now 
 known to be in Breckenridge County, 
 Kentucky. The second sister, Nancy, 
 married William Brumfield, and her 
 family are not known to have left 
 Kentucky, but there is no recent in- 
 formation from them. Thomas, the 
 youngest son, and father of the pres- 
 ent subject, by the early death of his 
 father, and very narrow circumstances 
 of his mother, even in childhood was 
 a wandering laboring-boy, and grew 
 up literally without education. He 
 never did more in the way of writing 
 than to bunglingly 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 subject has 
 no brother or sister of the whole or 
 half blood. He had a sister, older than 
 himself, who was grown and married, 
 but died many years ago, leaving no 
 child; also a brother, younger than 
 10 
 
himself, who died in infancy. Before 
 leaving Kentucky, he and his sister 
 were sent, for short periods, to A B C 
 schools, the first kept by Zachariah 
 Riney, and the second by Caleb Hazel. 
 At this time his father resided on 
 Knob Creek, on the road from Bards- 
 town, Kentucky, to Nashville, Ten- 
 nessee, 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 removed 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 difficulty in 
 land titles in Kentucky. He settled in 
 an unbroken forest, and the clearing 
 away of surplus wood was the great 
 task ahead. Abraham, though very 
 young, was large of 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 hand- 
 ling that most useful instrument — less, 
 of course, in plowing and harvesting 
 seasons. At this place Abraham took 
 an early start as a hunter, which was 
 never much improved afterward. A 
 few days before the completion of 
 his eighth year, in the absence of his 
 father, a flock of wild turkeys ap- 
 proached the new log cabin, and Ab- 
 
 11 
 
raham with a rifle-gun, standing in- 
 side, shot through a crack and killed 
 one of them. He has never since 
 pulled a trigger on any larger game. 
 In the autumn of 1818 his mother 
 died; and a year afterward his father 
 married Mrs. Sally Johnston, at Eliza- 
 bethtown, Kentucky, a widow with 
 three children of her first marriage. 
 She proved a good and kind mother to 
 Abraham, and is still living in Coles 
 County, Illinois. There were no chil- 
 dren of this second marriage. 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, Sweeney, 5 and 
 
 Azel W. Dorsey. He does not remem- 
 ber any other. The family of Mr. 
 Dorsey now resides in Schuyler 
 County, Illinois. Abraham now thinks 
 that the aggregate of all his schooling 
 did not amount to one year. He was 
 never in a college or academy as a 
 student, and never inside of a college 
 or academy 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 English grammar 
 — imperfectly, of course, but so as 
 
 5 The name of this teacher was James Swaney. 
 12 
 
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 
 apparently killed for a time. When 
 he was nineteen, still residing 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 owner, without other assist- 
 ance, 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 ne- 
 groes from the boat, and then "cut 
 cable," "weighed anchor," and left. 
 
 March 1, 1830, Abraham having 
 just completed his twenty- first year, 
 his father and family, with the fami- 
 lies of the two daughters and sons-in- 
 law of his stepmother, left the old 
 homestead in Indiana and came to 
 Illinois. Their mode of conveyance 
 was wagons drawn by ox-teams, and 
 Abraham drove one of the teams. 
 They reached the county of Macon, 
 
 13 
 
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 timberland 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 Abra- 
 ham. 
 
 The sons-in-law were temporarily 
 settled in other places in the county. 
 In the autumn all hands were greatly 
 afflicted with ague 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 remained, 
 however, through the succeeding win- 
 ter, which was the winter of the very 
 celebrated "deep snow" of Illinois. 
 During that winter Abraham, to- 
 gether with his stepmother's son, John 
 D. Johnston, and John Hanks, yet re- 
 siding in Macon County, hired them- 
 selves to Denton Offut to take a flat- 
 boat from Beardstown, Illinois, to 
 
New Orleans; and for that purpose 
 were to join him — Offut — at Spring- 
 field, 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 impractic- 
 able; 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 entrance into Sangamon County. 
 They found Offut at Springfield, 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 Sangamon River, seven 
 miles northwest of Springfield, which 
 boat they took to New Orleans, sub- 
 stantially upon the old contract. 
 
 During this boat-enterprise ac- 
 quaintance with Offut, who was pre- 
 viously an entire stranger, he con- 
 ceived a liking for Abraham, and be- 
 lieving he 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 Menard County. Hanks had 
 not gone to New Orleans, but having 
 
a family, and being likely to be de- 
 tained from home longer than at first 
 expected, had turned back from St. 
 Louis. He is the same John Hanks 
 who now engineers the "rail enter- 
 prise" at Decatur, and is a first cousin 
 to Abraham's mother. Abraham's 
 father, with his own family and 
 others mentioned, had, in pursuance 
 of their intention, removed from 
 Macon to Coles County. John D. 
 Johnston, the stepmother's son, went 
 to them, and Abraham stopped in- 
 definitely and for the first time, as it 
 Were, by himself at New Salem, be- 
 fore mentioned. This was in July, 
 1831. Here he rapidly made acquaint- 
 ances and friends. In less than a 
 year Offut's business was failing — 
 had almost failed — when the Black 
 Hawk war of 1832 broke out. Abra- 
 ham joined a volunteer company, and, 
 to his own surprise, was elected cap- 
 tain 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 hardships 
 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 
 
 16 
 
immediate neighbors, he the same 
 year ran for the legislature, 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 precinct 
 the autumn afterward giving a major- 
 ity of 115 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, especially as he had 
 nothing elsewhere to go to. He studied 
 what he should do — thought of learn- 
 ing the blacksmith trade — thought of , 
 trying to study law — rather thought 
 he could not succeed at that without a 
 better education. Before long, 
 strangely 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 in- 
 significant to make his politics an 
 objection. The store winked out. The 
 surveyor of Sangamon offered to de- 
 pute to Abraham that portion of his 
 
 17 
 
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 vote cast 
 for any candidate. 6 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 nobody. He still mixed in the 
 surveying to pay board and clothing 
 bills. When the legislature met, the 
 law-books were dropped, but were 
 taken up again at the end of the ses- 
 sion. 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 protest 
 entered upon the "Illinois House 
 Journal" of that date, at pages 817 
 and 818, Abraham, with Dan Stone, 
 another representative of Sangamon, 
 
 6 John Dawson received fourteen votes more 
 than Lincoln. 
 
 18 
 
briefly defined his position on the 
 slavery 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 General Assembly at 
 its present session, the undersigned 
 hereby protest against the passage of 
 the same. 
 
 They believe that the institution of 
 slavery is founded on both injustice 
 and bad policy, but that the promul- 
 gation of Abolition doctrines tends 
 rather to increase than abate its evils. 
 
 They believe that the Congress 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 Congress of 
 the United States has the power, under 
 the Constitution, to abolish slavery 
 in the District of Columbia, but that 
 the power ought not to be exercised 
 unless at the request of the people of 
 the District. 
 
 The difference between these opin- 
 ions and those contained in the above 
 resolutions is their reason for enter- 
 ing this protest. 
 
 DAN STONE, 
 A. LINCOLN, 
 
 19 
 
Representatives from the County of 
 Sangamon. 
 
 In 1838 and 1840, Mr. Lincoln's 
 party voted for him as Speaker, but 
 being in the minority he was not 
 elected. After 1840 he declined a re- 
 election to the legislature. He was 
 on the Harrison electoral ticket in 
 1840, and on that of Clay in 1844, 
 and spent much time and labor in 
 both those canvasses. In November, 
 1842, he was married to Mary, daugh- 
 ter 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, commencing in De- 
 cember, 1847, and ending 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 Congress, 
 but the American army was still in 
 Mexico, and the treaty of peace was 
 not fully and formally ratified till 
 the June afterward. Much has been 
 said of his course in Congress in re- 
 gard to this war. A careful examina- 
 tion of the "Journal" and "Congres- 
 sional Globe" shows that he voted 
 for all the supply measures that came 
 
 20 
 
up, and for all the measures in any 
 way favorable to the officers, soldiers, 
 and their families, who conducted 
 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 unconstitution- 
 ally begun by the President of the 
 United States. 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 opin- 
 ion 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 commencement of the war; 
 that the place, being the country bor- 
 dering on the east bank of the Rio 
 Grande, was inhabited by native Mex- 
 icans, born there under the Mexican 
 government, and had never submitted 
 to, nor been conquered by, Texas or 
 the United States, nor transferred to 
 either by treaty; that although Texas 
 claimed the Rio Grande as her bound- 
 ary, Mexico had never recognized it, 
 
 21 
 
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 country where 
 hostilities commenced, having once 
 belonged to Mexico, must remain so 
 until it was somehow legally trans- 
 ferred, which had never been done. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln thought the act of 
 sending an armed force among the 
 Mexicans was unnecessary, inasmuch 
 as Mexico was in no way molesting 
 or menacing the United States or the 
 people thereof; and that it was un- 
 constitutional, because the power of 
 levying war is vested in Congress, 
 and not in the President. He thought 
 the principal motive 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 candidate 
 for re-election. This was determined 
 upon and declared before he went to 
 Washington, in accordance with an 
 understanding among Whig friends, 
 by which Colonel Hardin and Colonel 
 Baker had each previously served a 
 single term in this same district. 
 
 In 1848, during his term in Con- 
 gress, he advocated General Taylor's 
 nomination for the presidency, in op- 
 
 22 
 
position to all others, and also took 
 an active part for his election after 
 his nomination, speaking a few times 
 in Maryland, near Washington, sev- 
 eral times in Massachusetts, and can- 
 vassing quite fully his own district in 
 Illinois, which was followed by a ma- 
 jority in the district of over 1500 for 
 General Taylor. 
 
 Upon his return from Congress he 
 went to the practice of law with 
 greater earnestness than ever before. 
 In 1852 he was upon the Scott elect- 
 oral ticket, and did something in the 
 way of canvassing, but owing to the 
 hopelessness of the cause in Illinois 
 he did less than in previous presiden- 
 tial canvasses. 
 
 In 1854 his profession had almost 
 superseded the thought of politics in 
 his mind, when the repeal of the 
 Missouri Compromise 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 secure, if pos- 
 sible, the re-election of Hon. Richard 
 Yates to Congress. His speeches at 
 once attracted a more marked atten- 
 tion than they had ever before done. 
 As the canvass proceeded he was 
 drawn to different parts of the State 
 outside Mr. Yate's district. He did 
 
 23 
 
not abandon the law, but gave his 
 attention by turns to that and politics. 
 The State agricultural fair was at 
 Springfield that year, and Douglas 
 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. 7 One of them was made 
 at Galena, but Mr. Lincoln has no 
 recollection of any part of it being 
 printed; nor does he remember 
 whether in that speech he said any- 
 thing about a Supreme Court de- 
 cision. He may have spoken upon 
 that subject, and some of the news- 
 papers may have reported him as 
 saying what is now ascribed to him; 
 but he thinks he could not have ex- 
 pressed himself as represented. 
 
 The speech made by Lincoln at Kalamazoo, 
 Michigan on August 27, 1856, appeared in 
 the Detroit Daily Advertiser for August 29, 
 1856. 
 
 24 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS URBANA 
 
 973.7L63QLI C001 
 
 LINCOLN AUTOBIOGRAPHIES FORT WAYNE, IND 
 
 3 0112 03