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LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
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 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
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SELECTED 
 
 Speeches &? Writings 
 
 OF 
 
 ABRAHAM 
 LINCOLN 
 
 Illustrated by Lester Elliot 
 
 The Greystone Press: New York 
 
PUBLISHED BY THE GREYSTONE PRESS 
 lOO SIXTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 13, N. Y. 
 
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 "I Am Humble Abraham Lincoln." 
 
 (First political speech, delivered at Poppsville, 
 Sangamon Co., III., in 1832.) 
 
 Gentlemen and fellow-citizens: I pre- 
 sume you all know who I am. I am 
 humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been 
 solicited by my many friends to become 
 a candidate for the Legislature. My 
 politics are short and sweet. I am in 
 favor of a national bank. 1 am in favor 
 of the internal improvement system and 
 a high protective tariff. These are my 
 sentiments and political principles. If 
 elected, I shall be thankful; if not, it will 
 be all the same." 
 
 Education 
 
 (Address at New Salem, III, March 9, 1832, 
 when a candidate for the Legislature.) 
 
 Upon the subject of education, not pre- 
 suming to dictate any plan or system 
 respecting it, I can only say that I view it 
 
 [7] 
 
as the most important subject which we, 
 as a people, can be engaged in. 
 
 "That every man may receive at least a 
 moderate education, and thereby be 
 enabled to read the histories of his own 
 and other countries, by which he may 
 duly appreciate the value of our free in- 
 stitutions, appears to be an object of 
 vital importance; even on this account 
 alone, to say nothing of the advantages 
 and satisfaction to be derived from all 
 being able to read the Scriptures and 
 other works, both of a religious and 
 moral nature, for themselves. 
 
 "For my part, I desire to see the time 
 when education, by its means, morality, 
 sobriety, enterprise, and integrity, shall 
 become much more general than at 
 present, and should be gratified to have 
 it in my power to contribute something 
 to the advancement of any measure 
 which might have a tendency to acceler- 
 ate the happy period. 
 
 "Every man is said to have his peculiar 
 ambition. Whether it be true or not, I 
 
 [81 
 
can say, for one, that I have no other so 
 great as that of being truly esteemed by 
 my fellow-men. How far I shall succeed 
 in gratifying this ambition is yet to be 
 developed. I am young, and unknown 
 to many of you. I was born, and have 
 ever remained, in the most humble 
 walks of life. I have no wealthy popular 
 relations or friends to recommend me. 
 My case is thrown exclusively upon the 
 independent voters of the country; and, 
 if elected, they will have conferred a 
 favor upon me, for which I shall be 
 unremitting in my labors to compensate, 
 "But, if the good people in their wis- 
 dom shall see fit to keep me in the back- 
 ground, I have been too familiar with 
 disappointment to be very much cha- 
 grined." 
 
 Candidate for the Legislature 
 
 (Letter to the Sangamon Journal, Springfield, 
 III, June 13, 1836.) 
 
 I go for all sharing the privileges of the 
 government who assist in bearing its 
 
burdens, consequently I go for admitting 
 all whites to the right of suffrage who 
 pay taxes or bear arms (by no means 
 excluding females). 
 
 "While acting as their representative 
 I shall be governed by their will on all 
 subjects upon which I have the means of 
 knowing what their will is, and upon all 
 others I shall do what my own judgment 
 teaches me will best advance their in- 
 terests, whether elected or not. 
 
 "I go for distributing the proceeds of 
 the sale of public lands to the several 
 States, to enable our State, in common 
 with others, to dig canals and construct 
 railroads without borrowing money and 
 paying interest on it." 
 
 Domestic Slavery 
 
 (In the Illinois Legislature, March 3, 1837, in 
 opposition to a resolution on the subject.) 
 
 They believe that the institution of 
 slavery is founded on both injustice and 
 
 ;io] 
 
bad policy; but that the promulgation of 
 abolition doctrines tends rather to in- 
 crease than abate its evils. 
 
 "They believe that the Congress of the 
 United States has no power, under the 
 Constitution, to interfere with the institu- 
 tion of slavery in the different States. 
 
 "They believe that the Congress of the 
 United States has the power, under the 
 Constitutions 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 their opinions 
 and those contained in the said resolu- 
 tions is their reasons for entering this 
 protest. 
 
 [Signed] ^ 
 
 "Dan Stone, 
 "A. Lincoln. 
 
 "Representatives from Sangamon Co., 
 111." 
 
 [11] 
 
Free Institutions 
 
 (An address delivered at the age of twenty- 
 eighty Springfield, III., January, 1837.) 
 
 In the great journal of things happening 
 under the sun, we, the American people, 
 find our account running under date of 
 the nineteenth century of the Christian 
 era. 
 
 "We find ourselves in the peaceful pos- 
 session of the fairest portion of the earth, 
 as regards extent of territory, fertility of 
 soil, and salubrity of climate. 
 
 "We find ourselves under the govern- 
 ment of a system of political institutions 
 conducing more essentially to the ends 
 of civil and religious liberty than any of 
 which the history of former times tells 
 us. 
 
 "We, when mounting the stage of our 
 existence, found ourselves the legal in- 
 heritors of these fundamental blessings. 
 
 "We toiled, not in the acquisition or 
 establishment of them: they are a legacy 
 bequeathed us by a once hardy, brave, 
 
 [12] 
 
and patriotic, but now lamented and de- 
 parted race of ancestors. 
 
 "Theirs was the task (and nobly they 
 performed it) to possess themselves, and, 
 through themselves, us, of this goodly 
 land, and to uprear upon its hills and 
 valleys a political edifice of liberty and 
 equal rights; 'tis ours only to transmit 
 these— the former unprof aned by the foot 
 of an invader; the latter undecoyed by 
 the lapse of time and untorn by usurpa- 
 tion, to the latest generation that fate 
 shall permit the world to know. 
 
 "This task, gratitude to our fathers, 
 justice to ourselves, duty to posterity- 
 all imperatively require us faithfully to 
 perform. 
 
 "How, then, shall we perform it? At 
 what point shall we expect the approach 
 of danger? Shall we expect some trans- 
 atlantic military giant to step the ocean 
 and crush us at a blow? 
 
 "Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, 
 and Africa combined, with all the 
 treasure of the earth (our own excepted) 
 
 [13] 
 
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 be expected? Answer: if it 
 ever reaches us, it must spring up among 
 us. 
 
 "It cannot come from abroad. If de- 
 struction be our lot, we must ourselves 
 be its author and finisher. As a nation of 
 freeman, we must live through all time, 
 or die by suicide." 
 
 The Just Cause 
 
 ( Speech at Springfield, III, during the Harrison 
 Presidential campaign, 1840.) 
 
 Many free countries have lost their 
 liberty, and ours may lose hers; but if 
 she shall, be it my proudest plume, not 
 that I was last to desert, but that I never 
 deserted, her. 
 
 [14] 
 
"I know that the great volcano at 
 Washington, aroused and directed by the 
 evil spirit that reigns there, is belching 
 forth the lava of political corruption in a 
 current broad and deep, which is sweep- 
 ing with frightful velocity over the whole 
 length and breadth of the land, bidding 
 fair to leave unscathed no green spot or 
 living thing. 
 
 "I cannot deny that all may be swept 
 away. Broken by it, I, too, may be; bow 
 to it I never will. The possibility that 
 we may fail in the struggle ought not to 
 deter us from the support of a cause 
 which we believe to be just. It shall not 
 deter me. 
 
 "If ever I feel the soul within me ele- 
 vate and expand to those dimensions not 
 wholly unworthy of its Almighty Archi- 
 tect, it is when I contemplate the cause 
 of my country, deserted by all the world 
 beside, and I standing up boldly, alone, 
 and hurling defiance at her victorious 
 oppressors. 
 
 "Here, without contemplating conse- 
 
 [15] 
 
quences, before Heaven, and in the face 
 of the world, I swear eternal fidelity 
 to the just cause, as I deem it, of the 
 land of my life, my liberty, and my love; 
 and who that thinks with me will not 
 fearlessly adopt the oath that I take? 
 
 "Let none falter who thinks he is right, 
 and we may succeed. 
 
 "But if, after all, we shall fail, be it so, 
 we still have the proud consolation of 
 saying to our consciences, and to the de- 
 parted shade of our country's freedom, 
 that the cause approved of our judg- 
 ment, and adorned of our hearts in 
 disaster, in chains, in death, we never 
 faltered in defending/' 
 
 To His Dying Father 
 
 (Letter to his brother-in-law, John Johnson, 
 January 12, 1851.) 
 
 I sincerely hope father may yet recover 
 his health; but, at all events, tell him to 
 remember to call upon and confide in our 
 
 [16] 
 
great and good and merciful Maker, who 
 will not turn away from him in any ex- 
 tremity. He notes the fall of a sparrow, 
 and numbers the hairs of our heads; and 
 He will not forget the dying man who 
 puts his trust in Him. 
 
 "Say to him, if we could meet now it 
 is doubtful whether it would not be 
 more painful than pleasant; but that, if 
 it be his lot to go now, he will soon have 
 a joyous meeting with loved ones gone 
 before, and where the rest of us, through 
 the help of God, hope ere long to join 
 them." 
 
 Redemption of the African Race 
 
 (Eulogy on the life and character of Henry 
 Clay, Springfield, III, July 16, 1852.) 
 
 This suggestion of the possible ultimate 
 redemption of the African race and 
 African continent was made twenty-five 
 years ago. Every succeeding year has 
 added strength to the hope of its realiza- 
 
 [17] 
 
tion. May it indeed be realized! Pharaoh's 
 country was cursed with plagues, and 
 his hosts drowned in the Red Sea for 
 striving to retain a captive people who 
 had already served them more than four 
 hundred years. May like disaster never 
 befall us! 
 
 "If, as the friends of colonization hope, 
 the present and coming generations of 
 our countrymen shall, by any means, 
 succeed in freeing our land from the 
 dangerous presence of slavery, and at 
 the same time restoring a captive people 
 to their long-lost fatherland, with bright 
 prospects for the future, and this, too, so 
 gradually that neither races nor indivi- 
 duals shall have suffered by the change, 
 it will, indeed, be a glorious consumma- 
 tion. 
 
 "And if to such a consummation the 
 efforts of Mr. Clay shall have con- 
 tributed, it will be what he most ardently 
 wished; and none of his labors will have 
 been more valuable to his country and 
 his kind." 
 
 [181 
 
The Injustice of Slavery 
 
 ( Speech at Peoria, III, October 16, 1854. ) 
 
 This declared indifference, but, as I must 
 think, covert zeal, for the spread of 
 slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it be- 
 cause of the monstrous injustice of slavery 
 itself; I hate it because it deprives our 
 republic of an example of its just in- 
 fluence in the world; enables the enemies 
 of free institutions with plausibility to 
 taunt us as hypocrites; causes the real 
 friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity; 
 and, especially, because it forces so 
 many really good men among ourselves 
 into an open war with the very funda- 
 mental principles of civil liberty, criticis- 
 ing 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,— 
 but it has no just application, as here 
 attempted. Or, perhaps, I should rather 
 say, that whether it has such just applica- 
 
 [19] 
 
tion depends upon whether a negro is 
 not, or is, a man. If he is not a man, in 
 that case he who is a man may, as a 
 matter of self-government, do just what 
 he pleases with him. But if the negro is 
 a man, is it not to that extent a total 
 destruction of self-government to say that 
 he, too, shall not govern himself? 
 
 "When the white man governs himself 
 that is self-government; but when he 
 governs himself, and also governs another 
 man, that is more than self-government 
 —that is despotism. 
 
 "What I do say is, that no man is good 
 enough to govern another man without 
 that other's consent. 
 
 "The master not only governs the slave 
 without his consent, but he governs him 
 by a set of rules altogether different from 
 those which he prescribes for himself. 
 Allow all the governed an equal voice in 
 the government; that, and that only, is 
 self-government. 
 
 "Slavery is founded in the selfishness 
 of man's nature— opposition to it, in his 
 
 [20] 
 
love of justice. These principles are an 
 eternal antagonism; and when brought 
 into collision so fiercely as slavery ex- 
 tension brings them, shocks and throes 
 and convulsions must ceaselessly follow. 
 
 "Repeal the Missouri Compromise- 
 repeal all compromise— and repeal the 
 Declaration of Independence— repeal all 
 past history— still you cannot repeal hu- 
 man nature. 
 
 "I particularly object to the new posi- 
 tion which the avowed principles of the 
 Nebraska law gives to slavery in the 
 body politic. I object to it, because it 
 assumes that there can be moral right in 
 the enslaving of one man by another. I 
 object to it as a dangerous dalliance for 
 a free people,— a sad evidence that feel- 
 ing prosperity, we forget right,— that 
 liberty as a principle we have ceased to 
 revere. 
 
 "Little by little, but steadily as man's 
 march to the grave, we have been giving 
 up the old for the new faith. Near eighty 
 years ago we began by declaring that all 
 
 [21] 
 
men are created equal; but now from 
 that beginning we have run down to the 
 other declaration that for some men to 
 enslave others is a 'sacred right of self- 
 government/ These principles cannot 
 stand together. They are as opposite as 
 God and Mammon. 
 
 "Our republican robe is soiled and 
 trailed in the dust. Let us purify it. Let 
 us turn and wash it white, in the spirit, 
 if not in the blood, of the Revolution. 
 
 "Let us turn slavery from its claims 
 of 'moral right' back upon its existing 
 legal rights, and its arguments of 'neces- 
 sity.' Let us return it to the position our 
 fathers gave it, and there let it rest in 
 peace. 
 
 "Let us re-adopt the Declaration of 
 Independence, and the practices and 
 policy which harmonize with it. Let 
 North and South— let all Americans— let 
 all lovers of liberty everywhere, join in 
 the great and good work. 
 
 "If we do this, we shall not only have 
 
 '22' 
 
saved the Union, but shall have so saved 
 it, as to make and to keep it forever 
 worthy of saving. We shall have so 
 saved it that the succeeding millions of 
 free, happy people, the world over, shall 
 rise up and call us blessed to the latest 
 generations/' 
 
 A Danger To Liberty 
 
 (Reply to Stephen A. Douglas, on the Kansas 
 and Nebraska Bill, Springfield, III, October 
 4, 1854.) 
 
 Be not deceived. The spirit of the Revo- 
 lution and the spirit of Nebraska are 
 antipodes; and the former is being rapid- 
 ly displaced by the latter. Shall we make 
 no effort to arrest this? Already the 
 liberal party throughout the world ex- 
 press the apprehension 'that the one 
 retrograde institution in America is un- 
 dermining the principles of progress, and 
 fatally violating the noblest political 
 
 23 
 
system the world ever saw/ This is not 
 the taunt of enemies, but the warning of 
 friends. Is it quite safe to disregard it— 
 to disparage it? Is there no danger to 
 liberty itself in discarding the earliest 
 practice, and first precept of our ancient 
 faith? 
 
 "In our greedy haste to make profit of 
 the negro, let us beware lest we cancel 
 and rend in pieces even the white man's 
 character of freedom. 
 
 "My distinguished friend, Douglas, 
 says it is an insult to the emigrant to 
 Kansas and Nebraska to suppose they 
 are not able to govern themselves. We 
 must not slur over an argument of this 
 kind because it happens to tickle the ear. 
 It must be met and answered. 
 
 "I admit the emigrant to Kansas and 
 Nebraska is competent to govern him- 
 self, but, I deny his right to govern any 
 other person without that persons con- 
 sent" 
 
 [24] 
 
Half Slave and Half Free? 
 
 ( Letter to Hon. Geo. Robertson, Lexington Ky., 
 August 15, 1855.) 
 
 So far as peaceful voluntary emancipa- 
 tion is concerned, the condition of the 
 negro slave in America, scarcely less ter- 
 rible to the contemplation of a free mind, 
 is now as fixed and hopeless of change 
 for the better as that of the lost souls of 
 the finally impenitent. 
 
 "The Autocrat of all the Russias will 
 resign his crown, and proclaim his sub- 
 jects free republicans, sooner than will 
 our American masters voluntarily give up 
 their slaves. 
 
 "Our political problem now is, Can we 
 as a nation continue together permanent- 
 ly—forever—half slave and half free? 
 The problem is too mighty for me. May 
 God in his mercy superintend the solu- 
 tion!" 
 
 25] 
 
"All Men Are Created Equal." 
 
 (Speech at the Republican banquet, Chicago, 
 III., December 10, 1856, after the Presidential 
 campaign. ) 
 
 Our government rests in public opinion. 
 Whoever can change public opinion can 
 change the government practically just 
 so much. Public opinion, on any subject, 
 always has a 'central idea/ from which 
 all its minor thoughts radiate. That 'cen- 
 tral idea' in our political public opinion 
 at the beginning was, and until recently 
 has continued to be, 'the equality of 
 man.' And although it has always sub- 
 mitted patiently to whatever of inequality 
 there seemed to be as matter of actual 
 necessity, its constant working has been 
 a steady progress toward the practical 
 equality of all men. 
 
 "Let everyone who really believes, and 
 is resolved, that free society is not and 
 shall not be a failure, and who can 
 conscientiously declare that in the past 
 contest he has done only what he thought 
 
 [26] 
 
best, let every such one have charity to 
 believe that every other one can say as 
 much. 
 
 "Thus let bygones be bygones; let 
 party differences as nothing be; and with 
 steady eye on the real issue, let us rein- 
 augurate the good old 'central ideas' of 
 the republic. We can do it. The human 
 heart is with us; God is with us. 
 
 "We shall again be able not to declare 
 that 'all States as States are equal/ nor 
 yet that 'all citizens as citizens are equal/ 
 but to renew the broader, better declara- 
 tion, including both these and much 
 more, that 'all men are created equal/" 
 
 The Dred Scott Decision 
 
 (Delivered at Springfield, III., June 26, 1857.) 
 
 The Chief Justice does not directly assert, 
 but plainly assumes as a fact, that the 
 public estimate of the black man is more 
 favorable now than it was in the days of 
 the Revolution. 
 
 [27] 
 
"In those days, by common consent, 
 the spread of the black mans bondage 
 to the new countries was prohibited; but 
 now Congress decides that it will not 
 continue the prohibition, and the Su- 
 preme Court decides that it could not if 
 it would. 
 
 'In those days, our Declaration of 
 Independence was held sacred by all, 
 and thought to include all; but now, to 
 aid in making the bondage of the negro 
 universal and eternal, it is assailed and 
 sneered at, and constructed and hawked 
 at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise 
 from their graves, they could not at ajl 
 recognize it. 
 
 "All the powers of earth seem rapidly 
 combining against him; Mammon is after 
 him, ambition follows, philosophy fol- 
 lows, and the theology of the day is fast 
 joining the cry. They have him in his 
 prison house, they have searched his 
 person and left no prying instrument 
 with him. One after another they have 
 closed the heavy iron doors upon him; 
 
 [281 
 
and now they have him, as it were, 
 bolted in with a lock of a hundred keys, 
 which can never be unlocked without the 
 concurrence of every key; the keys in the 
 hands of a hundred different men, and 
 they scattered to a hundred different and 
 distant places, and they stand musing 
 as to what invention, in all the dominions 
 of mind and matter, can be produced to 
 make the impossibility of his escape more 
 complete than it is." 
 
 A House Divided 
 
 ( The following speech— afterward severely criti- 
 cised by many of the author's own friends— 
 was delivered by Mr. Lincoln at Springfield, 
 III., June 17, 1858, at the close of the Re- 
 publican State Convention, which nominated 
 him for the United States Senate.) 
 
 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 
 
 [291 
 
object, and confident promise, of putting 
 an end to slavery agitation. Under the 
 operation of that policy that agitation has 
 not only not ceased, but has constantly 
 augmented. 
 
 "In my opinion, it will not cease until 
 a crisis shall have been reached and 
 passed. 
 
 "'A house divided against itself can- 
 not stand/ I believe this government 
 cannot endure permanently half slave 
 and half free. I do not expect the Union 
 to be dissolved; I do not expect the house 
 to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be 
 divided. It will become all one thing, of 
 all the other. 
 
 "Either the opponents of slavery will 
 arrest the further spread of it, and place 
 it where the public mind shall rest in 
 the belief that it is in the course of 
 ultimate extinction; or its advocates will 
 push it forward, till it shall become alike 
 lawful in all the States— old as well as 
 new, North as well as South. 
 
 "Our cause, then, must be intrusted 
 
 [30] 
 
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. 
 
 "The result is not doubtful. We shall 
 not fail— if we stand firm, we shall not 
 fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or 
 mistakes delay it, but, sooner, or later, 
 the victory is sure to come." 
 
 The Declaration of Independence 
 
 (Reply to Senator Douglas, Chicago, III., July 
 10, 1858.) 
 
 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, 
 that all men are created equal; that they 
 are endowed by their Creator with cer- 
 tain inalienable rights; that among these 
 are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
 piness; that to secure these rights, gov- 
 ernments are instituted among men, de- 
 riving their just powers from the consent 
 of the governed/ There is the origin of 
 Popular Sovereignty. Who, then, shall 
 
 [31] 
 
come in at this day and claim that he 
 invented it? 
 
 "I am not master of language; I have 
 not a fine education; I am not capable of 
 entering into a disquisition upon dia- 
 lectics, as I believe you call it; but I do 
 not believe the language I employed 
 bears any such construction as Judge 
 Douglas puts upon it. I have said a 
 hundred times, and I have now no in- 
 clination to take it back, that I believe 
 there is no right, and ought to be no 
 inclination, in the people of the free 
 States to enter into the slave States and 
 interfere with the question of slavery at 
 all. 
 
 "We find a race of men living in that 
 day whom we claim as our fathers and 
 grandfathers; they were iron men; they 
 fought for the principle that they were 
 contending for; and we understood that 
 by what they then did it has followed 
 that the degree of prosperity which we 
 now enjoy has come to us. 
 
 32 
 
"We hold this annual celebration (4th 
 of July) to remind ourselves of all the 
 good done in this process of time, of how 
 it was done, and who did it, and how we 
 are historically connected with it; and we 
 go from these meetings in better humor 
 with ourselves— we feel more attached 
 the one to the other, and more firmly 
 bound to the country we inhabit. 
 
 "In every way we are better men in 
 the age, and race, and country in which 
 we live, for these celebrations. But after 
 we have done all of this we have not yet 
 reached the whole. There is something 
 else connected with it. 
 
 "We have besides these, men— de- 
 scended by blood from our ancestors— 
 among us, perhaps half our people, who 
 are not descendants at all of these men; 
 they are men who have come from 
 Europe— German, Irish, French, and 
 Scandinavian— men that have come from 
 Europe themselves, or whose ancestors 
 have come hither and settled here, find- 
 
 [33] 
 
ing themselves our equals in all things. 
 
 "If they look back through this history 
 to trace their connection with those days 
 by blood, they find they have none— they 
 cannot carry themselves back into that 
 glorious epoch and make themselves feel 
 that they are part of us. But when they 
 look through that old Declaration of 
 Independence, they find that those old 
 men say that "We hold these truths to be 
 self-evident, that all men are created 
 equal,' and then they feel that that moral 
 sentiment taught in that day evidences 
 their relation to those men; that it is the 
 father of all moral principal in them, and 
 that they have a right to claim it as 
 though they were blood of the blood, 
 and flesh of the flesh, of the men who 
 write that Declaration; and so they are. 
 
 "That is the electric cord in the Dec- 
 laration 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 mind of men 
 throughout the world. 
 
 [34] 
 
"My friend has said to me that I am a 
 poor hand to quote Scripture; I will try 
 it again, however. It is said in one of the 
 admonitions of our Lord, 'As your Father 
 in heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect.' 
 The Saviour, I suppose, did not expect 
 that any human creature could be perfect 
 as the Father in heaven; but he said, 'As 
 your Father in heaven is perfect, be ye 
 also perfect.' He set that up as a stan- 
 dard, and he who did most toward reach- 
 ing that standard, attained the highest 
 degree of moral perfection. 
 
 "So I say in relation to the principle 
 that all men are created equal, let it be 
 as nearly reached as we can. If we 
 cannot give freedom to every creature, 
 let us do nothing that will impose slavery 
 upon any other creature. 
 
 "I leave you, hoping that the lamp of 
 liberty will burn in your bosoms until 
 there shall no longer be a doubt that all 
 men are created free and equal." 
 
 35] 
 
A Political Speech 
 
 (Speech at Springfield, III, July 17, 1858.) 
 
 Senator Douglas is of world-wide re- 
 nown. All the anxious politicians of his 
 party, or who have been of his party for 
 years past, have been looking upon him 
 as certainly, at no distant day, to be the 
 President of the United States. They 
 have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful 
 face, post offices, land offices, marshal- 
 ships, and cabinet appointments, charge- 
 ships, and foreign missions, bursting and 
 sprouting out in wonderful exuberance, 
 ready to be laid hold of by their greedy 
 hands. 
 
 "And as they have been gazing upon 
 this attractive picture so long, they can- 
 not, in the little distraction that has taken 
 place in the party, bring themselves to 
 give up the charming hope; but with 
 greedier anxiety they rush about him, 
 sustain him, and give him marches, 
 triumphal entries, and receptions beyond 
 
 [36] 
 
what, even in the days of his highest 
 prosperity, they could have brought 
 about in his favor. 
 
 "On the contrary, nobody has ever ex- 
 pected me to be President. In my poor, 
 lean, lank face, nobody has ever seen 
 that any cabbages were sprouting out. 
 These are disadvantages, all taken to- 
 gether, that the Republicans labor under. 
 We have to fight this battle upon prin- 
 ciple, and upon principle alone. 
 
 "I am, in a certain sense, made the 
 standard-bearer in behalf of the Re- 
 publicans. I was made so merely be- 
 cause there had to be someone so placed, 
 I being no wise preferable to any other 
 one of the twenty-five—perhaps a hun- 
 dred—we have in the Republican ranks. 
 
 "Then, I say I wish it to be distinctly 
 understood and borne in mind that we 
 have to fight this battle without many— 
 perhaps without any— of the external 
 aids which are brought to bear against 
 us. So I hope those with whom I am 
 
 [37] 
 
surrounded have principle enough to 
 nerve themselves for the task, and leave 
 nothing undone that can be fairly done, 
 to bring about the right result." 
 
 "This Nation Cannot Live on 
 Injustice/' 
 
 (Remarks defending his speech, June 17: "A 
 House Divided Aagainst Itself/' etc.) 
 
 Friends, I have thought about this matter 
 a great deal, have weighed the question 
 well from all corners, and am thoroughly 
 convinced the time has come when it 
 should be uttered; and if it must be that 
 I must go down because of this speech, 
 then let me go down linked to truth,— die 
 in the advocacy of what is right and just. 
 "This nation cannot live on injustice. 
 'A house divided against itself cannot 
 stand/ I say again and again." 
 
 38 
 
Lincoln and Douglas 
 
 (First joint debate, Ottawa, III., August 
 21, 1858.) 
 
 I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, 
 to interfere with the institution of slavery 
 in the State where it exists. I believe I 
 have no lawful right to do so, and I have 
 no inclination to do so. I agree with Judge 
 Douglas: he [the negro] is not my equal 
 in many respects— certainly not in color; 
 perhaps not in moral or intellectual en- 
 dowment. But in the right to eat the 
 bread— without the leave of anybody else 
 —which his own hand earns, he is my 
 equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, 
 and the equal of every living man. 
 
 "I think, and shall try to show, that 
 it is wrong, wrong in its direct effect, 
 letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska 
 —and wrong in its prospective principle, 
 allowing it to spread to every other part 
 of the wide world, where men can be 
 found inclined to take it. 
 
 :»] 
 
"I have no prejudice against the South- 
 ern people. They are just what we would 
 be in their situation. If slavery did not 
 now exist among them, they would not 
 introduce it. If it did now exist among 
 us, we should not instantly give it up. 
 This I believe of the masses North and 
 South. Doubtless there are individuals 
 on both sides who would not hold slaves 
 under any circumstances; and others who 
 would gladly introduce slavery anew, if it 
 were out of existence. 
 
 "When Southern people tell us they are 
 no more responsible for the origin of 
 slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact. 
 When it is said that the institution exists, 
 and that it is very difficult to get rid of 
 it in any satisfactory way, I can under- 
 stand and appreciate the saying. I surely 
 will not blame them for not doing what 
 I should not know how to do myself. If 
 all earthly power were given me, I 
 should not know what to do, as to the 
 existing institution. 
 
 "With public sentiment, nothing can 
 
 [40] 
 
fail; without it, nothing can succeed. 
 Consequently, he who molds public senti- 
 ment goes deeper than he who enacts 
 statutes or pronounces decisions. He 
 makes statutes and decisions possible or 
 impossible to be executed." 
 
 (Second joint debate, Freeport, III., August 
 27, 1858.) 
 
 Answers to the seven questions pro- 
 pounded by Mr. Douglas: 
 
 "I do not now, nor ever did, stand in 
 favor of the unconditional repeal of the 
 Fugitive Slave Law. 
 
 "I do not now, nor ever did, stand 
 pledged against the admission of any 
 more slave States into the Union. 
 
 "I do not stand pledged against the 
 admission of a new State into the Union, 
 with such a constitution as the people of 
 that State may see fit to make. 
 
 "I do not stand to-day pledged to the 
 abolition of slavery in the District of 
 Columbia. 
 
 [41] 
 
"I do not stand pledged to the prohibi- 
 tion of the slave trade between the dif- 
 ferent States. 
 
 "I am impliedly, if not expressly, 
 pledged to a belief in the right and duty 
 of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the 
 United States Territories. 
 
 "I am not generally opposed to honest 
 acquisition of territory; and, in any given 
 case, I would or would not oppose such 
 acquisition, accordingly, as I might think 
 such acquisition would or would not 
 aggravate the slavery question among 
 ourselves." 
 
 (Third joint debate, Jonesboro, III., Septembef 
 15, 1858.) 
 
 I say, in the way our fathers originally 
 left the slavery question, the institution 
 was in the course of ultimate extinction, 
 and the public mind rested in the belief 
 that it was in the course of ultimate ex- 
 tinction. I say, when this Government 
 was first established, it was the policy of 
 
 [42] 
 
its founders to prohibit the spread of 
 slavery into the new Territories of the 
 United States, where it had not existed. 
 "All I have asked or desired anywhere, 
 is that it should be placed back again 
 upon the basis that the fathers of our 
 Government originally placed it upon. I 
 have no doubt that it would become ex- 
 tinct for all time to come, if we but re- 
 adopted the policy of the fathers by re- 
 stricting it to the limits it has already 
 covered— restricting it from the new Ter- 
 ritories." 
 
 ( Fourth joint debate, Charleston, III., September 
 18, 1858.) 
 
 I have always wanted to deal with every- 
 one I meet candidly and honestly. If I 
 have made any assertion not warranted 
 by facts, and it is pointed out to me, I 
 will withdraw it cheerfully. 
 
 "The Nebraska-Kansas bill was intro- 
 duced four years and a half ago, and if 
 the agitation is ever to come to an end, 
 
 [431 
 
we may say we are four years and a half 
 nearer the end. So, too, we can say we 
 are four and a half nearer the end of the 
 world; and we can just as clearly see the 
 end of the world as we can see the end 
 of this agitation. 
 
 "If Kansas should sink to-day, and 
 leave a great vacant space in the earth's 
 surface, this vexed question would still 
 be among us. I say, then, there is no 
 way of putting an end to the slavery 
 agitation amongst us but to put it back 
 upon the basis where our fathers placed 
 it, no way but to keep it out of our new 
 Territories— to restrict it forever to the 
 old States where it now exists. Then the 
 public mind will rest in the belief that 
 it is in the course of ultimate extinction/' 
 
 (Fifth joint debate, Galesburg, III., October 
 7, 1858.) 
 
 And now it only remains for me to say 
 that I think it is a very grave question 
 for the people of this Union to consider 
 
 [44; 
 
whether, in view of the fact that this 
 slavery question has been the only one 
 that has ever endangered our republican 
 institutions— the only one that has ever 
 threatened or menaced a dissolution of 
 the Union, that has ever disturbed us 
 in such a way as to make us fear for the 
 perpetuity of our liberty— in view of these 
 facts, I think it is an exceedingly interest- 
 ing and important question for this 
 people to consider— whether we shall 
 engage in the policy of acquiring addi- 
 tional territory, discarding altogether 
 from our consideration while obtaining 
 new territory, the question how it may 
 affect us in regard to this, the only 
 endangering, element to our liberties and 
 national greatness." 
 
 (Sixth joint debate, Quincy, III., October 
 13, 1858.) 
 
 We have in this nation this element of 
 domestic slavery. It is the opinion of all 
 the great men who have expressed an 
 
 [451 
 
opinion upon it, that it is a dangerous 
 element. We keep up a controversy in 
 regard to it. That controversy necessarily 
 springs from differences of opinion, and 
 if we can learn exactly— can reduce to 
 the lowest elements— what that difference 
 of opinion is, we perhaps shall be better 
 prepared for discussing the different 
 systems of policy that we would propose 
 in regard to that disturbing element. 
 
 "I suggest that the difference of 
 opinion, reduced to its lowest terms, is no 
 other than the difference between the 
 men who think slavery a wrong and 
 those who do not think it wrong. 
 
 "We think it is a wrong not confining 
 itself merely to the persons or the States 
 where it exists, but that it is a wrong in 
 its tendency, to say the least, that extends 
 itself to the existence of the whole nation. 
 
 "Because we think it wrong, we pro- 
 pose a course of policy that shall deal 
 with it as a wrong. We deal with it as 
 with any other wrong, in so far as we can 
 prevent its growing any larger, and so 
 
 [46] 
 
deal with it that, in the run of time, there 
 may be some promise of an end to it." 
 
 (Seventh and last joint debate, Alton, III, 
 October 15, 1858.) 
 
 It may be argued that there are certain 
 conditions that make necessities and im- 
 pose them upon us, and to the extent that 
 a necessity is imposed upon a man he 
 must submit to it. I think that was the 
 condition in which we found ourselves 
 when we established this government. 
 
 "We had slaves among us; we could 
 not get our constitution unless we per- 
 mitted them to remain in slavery; we 
 could not secure the good we did secure 
 if we grasped for more; and having by 
 necessity submitted to that much, it does 
 not destroy the principle that is the 
 charter of our liberties. Let the charter 
 remain as a standard. 
 
 "I think the authors of that notable 
 instrument intended to include all men, 
 
 [471 
 
but they did not mean to declare all men 
 equal in all respects. 
 
 "They defined with tolerable distinct- 
 ness in what they did consider all men 
 created equal: equal in certain inalien- 
 able rights, among which are life, liberty, 
 and the pursuit of happiness. This they 
 said, and this they meant. They did not 
 mean to assert the obvious untruth, that 
 all men were then actually enjoying that 
 quality, or yet that they were about to 
 confer it immediately upon them. In 
 fact, they had no power to confer such 
 a boon. They meant simply to declare 
 the right, so that the enforcement of it 
 might follow as fast as circumstances 
 should permit. 
 
 "They meant to set up a standard 
 maxim for free society, which should be 
 familiar to all, constantly looked to, con- 
 stantly labored for, and even though 
 never perfectly attained, constantly ap- 
 proximated, and thereby constantly 
 spreading and deepening its influence 
 
 [48] 
 
and augmenting the happiness and value 
 of life to all people, of all colors, every- 
 where. 
 
 "There, again, are the sentiments I 
 have expressed in regard to the Declara- 
 tion of Independence upon a former 
 occasion— sentiments which have been 
 put in print and read wherever anybody 
 cared to know what so humble an indivi- 
 dual as myself chose to say in regard 
 to it" 
 
 Freedom 
 
 (Letter to the Republicans of Boston, 
 April 1859.) 
 
 This is a world of compensation, and he 
 who would he no slave, must consent to 
 have no slave. Those who deny freedom 
 to others deserve it not for themselves, 
 and under a just God cannot long re- 
 tain it." 
 
 [49] 
 
Natural Rights of the Negro 
 
 (Speech at Columbus, 0. y September ', 1859.) 
 
 I have no purpose to introduce political 
 and social equality between the white 
 and the black races. There is a physical 
 difference between the two which in 
 my judgment, will probably forbid their 
 ever living together upon the footing of 
 perfect equality, and inasmuch as it be- 
 comes a necessity that there must be a 
 difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, 
 am in favor of the race to which I belong 
 having the superior position. 
 
 "I have never said anything to the 
 contrary, but I hold that, notwithstanding 
 all this, there is no reason in the world 
 why the negro is not entitled to all the 
 natural rights enumerated in the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, the right to life, 
 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 
 
 "In the right to eat the bread— without 
 leave of anybody else— which his own 
 
 [50] 
 
hands earn, he is my equal, and the 
 equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of 
 every living man." 
 
 On the Opposition 
 
 (Speech at Cincinnati, O., September, 1859, 
 addressed particularly to Kentuckians.) 
 
 I will tell you, so far as I am authorized 
 to speak for the opposition, what we 
 mean to do with you. We mean to treat 
 you, as near as we possibly can, as Wash- 
 ington, Jefferson, and Madison treated 
 you. We mean to leave you alone, and 
 in no way to interfere with your institu- 
 tion; to abide by all and every com- 
 promise of the Constitution, and, in a 
 word, coming back to the original propo- 
 sition, to treat you so far as degenerated 
 men (if we have degenerated) may, 
 according to examples of those noble 
 fathers— Washington, Jefferson and Madi- 
 son. 
 
 "We mean to remember that you are 
 
 T511 
 
as good as we; that there is no difference 
 between us other than the difference of 
 circumstances. We mean to recognize 
 and bear in mind always that you have 
 as good hearts in your bosoms as other 
 people, or as we claim to have, and treat 
 you accordingly. We mean to marry 
 your girls when we have a chance,— the 
 white ones, I mean,— and I have the 
 honor to inform you that I once did 
 have a chance in that way. 
 
 "The good old maxims of the Bible are 
 applicable to human affairs, and in this, 
 as in other things, we may say here that 
 he who is not for us is against us; he 
 who gathereth not with us scattereth. 
 
 "I should be glad to have some of the 
 many good and able and noble men of 
 the South to place themselves where we 
 can confer upon them the high honor 
 of an election upon one or the other end 
 of our ticket. It would do my soul good 
 to do that thing. 
 
 "It would enable us to teach them 
 that, inasmuch as we elect one of their 
 
 [52] 
 
number to carry out our principles, we 
 are free from the charge that we mean 
 more than we say." 
 
 Autobiography 
 
 The following autobiography was 
 written by Mr. Lincoln's own hand at 
 the request of J. W. Fell of Springfield, 
 III, December 20, 1859. In the note 
 which accompanied it the writer says: 
 "Herewith is a little sketch as you re- 
 quested. There is not much of it, for the 
 reason, I suppose, that there is not much 
 of me." 
 
 I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin 
 Co., Ky. My parents were both born in 
 Virginia, of undistinguished families- 
 second families, 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 Co., 
 and others in Mason Co., 111. My paternal 
 
 [53] 
 
grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emi- 
 grated from Rockingham Co., Va., to 
 Kentucky, about 1781 or 1782, where, a 
 year or two later, he was killed by 
 Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, 
 when he was laboring to open a farm in 
 the forest. His ancestors, who were 
 Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks 
 Co., Pa. An effort to identify them with 
 the New England family of the same 
 name ended in nothing more definite 
 than a similarity of Christian names in 
 both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mor- 
 decai, Solomon, Abraham, and the like 
 "My father, at the death of his father^ 
 was but six years of age, and grew up 
 literally without any education. He re- 
 moved from Kentucky to what is now 
 Spencer Co., Ind., 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 re- 
 
 [541 
 
quired of a teacher beyond readin', 
 writin', and cipherinV to the rule of 
 three. If a straggler, supposed to under- 
 stand Latin, happened to sojourn 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, at which 
 I continued till I was twenty-two. At 
 twenty-one I came to Illinois, and passed 
 the first year in Macon County. Then I 
 got to New Salem, at that time in Sanga- 
 mon, now Menard County, where I re- 
 mained a year as a sort of clerk in a 
 store. Then came the Black Hawk War, 
 and I was elected a captain of volunteers 
 —a success which gave me more pleasure 
 
 [56] 
 
than any I have had since. I went into 
 the campaign, was elected, 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 elections 
 I was elected to the Legislature. I was 
 not a candidate afterward. During the 
 legislative period I had studied law, and 
 removed to Springfield to practice it. 
 In 1846 I was elected to the Lower 
 House of Congress. Was not a candidate 
 for re-election. From 1849 to 1854, both 
 inclusive, practiced law more assiduously 
 than ever before. Always a Whig in poli- 
 tics, and generally on the Whig electoral 
 ticket, 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- 
 
 [57] 
 
dred and eighty pounds; dark com- 
 plexion, with coarse black hair and gray 
 eyes—no other marks or brands recol- 
 lected. 
 
 "Yours very truly, 
 
 "A. Lincoln." 
 
 A Protective Tariff 
 
 (Letter to Dr. Edward Wallace, October 
 11, 1859.) 
 
 I believe if we could have a moderate, 
 carefully adjusted protective tariff, so far 
 acquiesced in as not to be a perpetual 
 subject of political strife, squabbles, 
 changes, and uncertainties, it would be 
 better for us." 
 
 "Right Makes Might" 
 
 (Speech at Cooper Institute, February 27, 
 1860.) 
 
 I defy anyone to show that any living 
 man in the whole world ever did, prior 
 
 [58] 
 
to the beginning of the present century 
 (and I might almost say prior to the 
 beginning of the last half of the present 
 century), declare that, in his understand- 
 ing, any proper division of local from 
 Federal authority, or any part of the 
 Constitution, forbade the Federal Gov- 
 ernment to control as to slavery in the 
 Federal Territories. 
 
 "To those who now so declare, I give, 
 not only 'our fathers who framed the 
 government under which we live/ but 
 with them all other living men within 
 the century in which it was framed, 
 among whom to search, and they shall 
 not be able to find the evidence of a 
 single man agreeing with them. 
 
 "I do not mean to say we are bound 
 to follow implicitly in whatever our 
 fathers did. To do so would be to discard 
 all the lights of current experience, to 
 reject all progress, all improvement. 
 What I do say is, that if we would sup- 
 plant the opinions and policy of our 
 fathers in any case, we should do so upon 
 
 [59] 
 
evidence so conclusive, and argument so 
 clear, that even their authority, fairly 
 considered and weighed, cannot stand; 
 and most surely not in a case whereof we 
 ourselves declare they understood the 
 question better than we. 
 
 "Let all who believe that 'our fathers, 
 who framed the government under which 
 we live,' understood this question just 
 as well, and even better, than we do now, 
 speak as they spoke, and act as they 
 acted upon it. 
 
 "It is exceedingly desirable that all 
 parts of this great confederacy shall be 
 at peace, and in harmony, one with 
 another. Let us Republicans do our part 
 to have it so. Even though much pro- 
 voked, let us do nothing through passion 
 and ill-temper. 
 
 "Even though the Southern people will 
 not so much as listen to us, let us calmly 
 consider their demands, and yield to 
 them if, in our deliberate view of our 
 duty, we possibly can. Judging by all 
 they say and do, and by the subject and 
 
 [601 
 
nature of their controversy with us, let us 
 determine, if we can, what will satisfy 
 them. 
 
 "Wrong as we think slavery is, we can 
 yet afford to let it alone where it is, be- 
 cause that much is due to the necessity 
 arising from its actual presence in the 
 nation. But can we, while our votes will 
 prevent it, allow it to spread into the 
 national Territories, and to overrun us 
 here in these free States? 
 
 "If our sense of duty forbids this, then 
 let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and 
 effectively. Let us be diverted by none 
 of those sophistical contrivances where- 
 with we are so industriously plied and 
 belabored— contrivances such as groping 
 for some middle ground between the 
 right and wrong, vain as the search for 
 a man who should be neither a living 
 man nor a dead man; such as a policy 
 of 'don't care' on a question about which 
 all true men do care; such as Union ap- 
 peals beseeching true Union men to yield 
 to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule. 
 
 [61] 
 
and calling, not the sinners, but the 
 righteous to repentance; such as invoca- 
 tions to Washington imploring men to 
 unsay what Washington said, and undo 
 what Washington did. 
 
 "Let us have faith that right makes 
 might, and in that faith, let us, to the 
 end, dare to do our duty, as we under- 
 stand it." 
 
 "We Shall Try." 
 
 ( Speech at Leavenworth, Kans., spring of 1860. ) 
 
 If we shall constitutionally elect a Presi- 
 dent, it will be our duty to see that you 
 also submit. Old John Brown has been 
 executed for treason against a State. We 
 cannot object, even though he agreed 
 with us in thinking slavery wrong. That 
 cannot excuse violence, bloodshed, and 
 treason. It could avail him nothing that 
 he might think himself right. So, if we 
 constitutionally elect a president, and, 
 therefore, you undertake to destroy the 
 Union, it will be our duty to deal with 
 
 [62] 
 
you as old John Brown has been dealt 
 with. We shall try to do our duty. We 
 hope and believe that in no section 
 will a majority so act as to render such 
 extreme measure necessary." 
 
 His Nomination for the Presidency 
 
 (Reply to the President of the Convention, at 
 the Homestead, Springfield, May 19, 1860.) 
 
 I tender to you, and through you to the 
 Republican National Convention, and all 
 the people represented in it, my pro- 
 foundest thanks for the high honor done 
 me, which you now formally announce. 
 "Deeply, and even painfully, sensible 
 of the great responsibility which is in- 
 separable from this high honor,— a re- 
 sponsibility which I could almost wish 
 had fallen upon some one of the far 
 more eminent men and experienced 
 statesmen whose distinguished names 
 were before the convention,— I shall, by 
 your leave, consider more fully the reso- 
 lutions of the convention, denominated 
 
 [63] 
 
the platform, and, without any unneces- 
 sary or unreasonable delay, respond to 
 you, Mr. Chairman, in writing, not 
 doubting that the platform will be found 
 satisfactory, and the nomination grate- 
 fully accepted." 
 
 "I See the Storm Coming."— "With 
 God's Help I Shall Not Fail." 
 
 (A quiet talk in the State House, Springfield, 
 III, during the campaign of 1860.) 
 
 I know there is a God, and that He hates 
 injustice and slavery. I see the storm 
 coming, and I know that His hand is in 
 it. If He has a place and work for me,— 
 and I think He has,— I believe I am 
 ready. 
 
 "I am nothing, but truth is everything. 
 I know I am right because I know that 
 liberty is right, for Christ teaches it, and 
 Christ is God. 
 
 "I have told them that 'a house divided 
 against itself cannot stand/ and Christ 
 
 [64] 
 
and reason say the same; and they will 
 find it so. Douglas don't care whether 
 slavery is voted up or voted down, but 
 God cares, and humanity cares, and I 
 care; and with God's help I shall not fail. 
 "I may not see the end; but it will 
 come, and I shall be vindicated; and 
 these men will find that they have not 
 read their Bibles aright." 
 
 "All Are Brothers/' 
 
 (Rejoicing over the November election, Spring- 
 field, III., November 20, 1860, at a political 
 meeting. ) 
 
 I rejoice with you in the success which 
 has so far attended the Republican 
 cause, yet in all our rejoicing let us 
 neither express nor cherish any hard 
 feelings toward any citizen who by his 
 vote differed with us. Let us at all times 
 remember that all American citizens 
 are brothers of a common country, and 
 should dwell together in the bonds of 
 fraternal feeling." 
 
 [651 
 
The People 
 
 (Speech at Bloomington, III., en route to 
 Chicago, November 21, 1860.) 
 
 I am glad to meet you, after a longer 
 separation than has been common be- 
 tween you and me. I thank you for the 
 good report you made of the election in 
 old McLean. The people of the country 
 have again fixed up their affairs for a 
 constitutional period of time. 
 
 "By the way, I think very much of the 
 people, as an old friend said he thought 
 of a woman. He said when he lost his 
 wife, who had been a great help to him 
 in his business, he thought he was ruined 
 —that he could never find another to fill 
 her place. At length, however, he mar- 
 ried another, who he found did quite as 
 well as the first, and that his opinion 
 now was that any woman would do well 
 who was well done by. 
 
 "So I think of the whole people of the 
 nation— they will ever do well if well 
 done by. We will try to do well by them 
 
 [661 
 
in all parts of the country, North and 
 South, with entire confidence that all 
 will be well with all of us." 
 
 Farewell Address 
 
 (When leaving Springfield for Washington, 
 February 11, 1861.) 
 
 My friends, no one not in my position 
 can appreciate the sadness I feel at this 
 parting. To this people I owe all that I 
 am. Here I have lived more than a quar- 
 ter of a century. Here my children were 
 born, and here one of them lies buried. 
 
 "I know not how soon I shall see you 
 again. A duty devolves upon me which 
 is greater, perhaps, than that which has 
 devolved upon any other man since the 
 days of Washington. He never would 
 have succeeded except for the aid of 
 divine Providence, upon which he at all 
 times relied. 
 
 "I feel that I cannot succeed without 
 the same divine aid which sustained him; 
 
 [67] 
 
and on the same Almighty Being I place 
 my reliance for support, and I hope you, 
 my friends, will pray that I may receive 
 the divine assistance, without which I 
 cannot succeed, but with which success 
 is certain. Again, I bid you all an affec- 
 tionate farewell." 
 
 "Preserve the Union." 
 
 (In response to an address of welcome by 
 Governor O. P. Morton, Indianapolis, Febru- 
 ary 11, 1861.) 
 
 In all trying positions in which I shall be 
 placed, and, doubtless, I shall be placed 
 in many such, my reliance will be placed 
 upon you and the people of the United 
 States; and I wish you to remember, 
 now and forever, that it is your business, 
 and not mine; that if the union of these 
 States, and the liberties of this people, 
 shall be lost, it is but little to any one 
 man of fifty-two years of age, but a 
 great deal to the thirty millions of people 
 
 [68] 
 
who inhabit these United States, and to 
 their posterity in all coming time. 
 
 "It is your business to rise up and pre- 
 serve the Union and liberty for your- 
 selves, and not for me." 
 
 The People's Power As Eternal As 
 the Principle of Liberty. 
 
 (Speech at Later enceburg, Ind., February 12, 
 1861.) 
 
 The power intrusted to me shall be exer- 
 cised as perfectly to protect the rights of 
 your neighbors across the river, as to 
 protect yours on this side. I know no 
 difference in the protection of constitu- 
 tional rights on either side of the river. 
 
 "If, in my brief term of public office, I 
 shall be wicked or foolish, if you remain 
 right and true and honest, you cannot be 
 betrayed. My power is temporary and 
 fleeting; yours is as eternal as the prin- 
 ciple of liberty. 
 
 "Cultivate and protect that sentiment, 
 
 [69] 
 
and your ambitious leaders will be re- 
 duced to the position of servants instead 
 of masters." 
 
 The Support of the People 
 
 (Address to the Ohio Legislature, Columbus, 
 February 13, 1861.) 
 
 It is true, as has been said by the Presi- 
 dent of the Senate, that very great re- 
 sponsibility rests upon me in the position 
 to which the votes of the American 
 people have called me. I am deeply 
 sensible of that weighty responsibility, 
 I cannot but know, what you all know, 
 that without a name— perhaps without 
 a reason why I should have a name- 
 there has fallen upon me a task such as 
 did not rest upon the Father of his 
 Country. 
 
 "And, so feeling, I cannot but turn 
 and look back for the support without 
 which it will be impossible for me to per- 
 form that great task. I turn, then, and 
 
 [70] 
 
look to the American people, and to that 
 God who has never forsaken them/' 
 
 "I Shall Very Soon Pass Away." 
 
 (Address at Columbus, O., from the Capitol 
 steps, February 13, 1861.) 
 
 I am doubly thankful that you have 
 appeared here to give me this greeting. 
 It is not much to me, for I shall very soon 
 pass away from you; but we have a large 
 country and a large future before us, and 
 the manifestations of good will toward 
 the government, and affection for the 
 Union, which you may exhibit, are of 
 immense value to you and your posterity 
 forever/' 
 
 The People Must Rule 
 
 ( Speech at the depot, Steubenville, O., February 
 14, 1861.) 
 
 I fear that great confidence in my abili- 
 ties is unfounded. The place I am about 
 
 [71] 
 
to assume is encompassed by vast diffi- 
 culties. As I am, nothing shall be want- 
 ing on my part. Unless sustained by the 
 American people and God, I cannot hope 
 to be successful. I believe the devotion 
 to the Constitution is equally great on 
 both sides of the river; it is only the dif- 
 ferent understandings of it. The only 
 dispute is, what are their rights? 
 
 "If the majority should not rule, who 
 should be the judge? When such a judge 
 is found we must be all bound by his 
 decision. That judge is the majority of 
 the American people; if not, then the 
 minority must control. Would that be 
 right, just, or generous? Assuredly not. 
 
 "If a wrong policy is adopted, the 
 opportunity to condemn it would occur 
 in four years; then I can be turned out, 
 and a better man, with better views, put 
 in my place." 
 
 [72] 
 
"A Just and Equitable Tariff." 
 
 (Address at Pittsburg, Pa., February 15, 1861.) 
 
 According to my political education, I 
 am inclined to believe that the people in 
 the various portions of the country should 
 have their own views carried out through 
 their representatives in Congress; that 
 consideration of the tariff bill should not 
 be postponed until the next session of the 
 National Legislature. 
 
 "No subject should engage your repre- 
 sentatives more closely than that of the 
 tariff. If I have any recommendation to 
 make, it will be that every man who is 
 called upon to serve the people, in a 
 representative capacity, should study the 
 whole subject thoroughly, as I intend to 
 do myself, looking to all the varied in- 
 terests of the common country, so that, 
 when the time for action arrives, ade- 
 quate protection shall be extended to 
 the coal and iron of Pennsylvania and 
 the corn of Illinois. 
 
 "Permit me to express the hope that 
 
 [731 
 
the important subject may receive such 
 consideration at the hands of your repre- 
 sentatives that the interest of no part of 
 the country may be overlooked, but 
 that all sections may share in the com- 
 mon benefit of a just and equitable tariff." 
 
 Stand by the Union 
 
 ( Reply to an address of welcome by the Mayor 
 of New York City, February 20, 1861.) 
 
 There is nothing that could ever bring 
 me to willingly consent to the destruction 
 of this Union, under which not only the 
 great commercial City of New York, but 
 the whole country, acquired its great- 
 ness, except it be the purpose for which 
 the Union itself was formed. 
 
 "I understand the ship to be made for 
 the carrying and the preservation of the 
 cargo, and so long as the ship can be 
 saved with the cargo, it should never be 
 abandoned, unless there appears no pos- 
 sibility of its preservation, and it must 
 
 [741 
 
cease to exist, except at the risk of 
 throwing overboard both freight and 
 passengers." 
 
 The Coming Struggle 
 
 (Address in the Senate Chamber, Trenton, N. J., 
 February 21, 1861.) 
 
 May I be pardoned, if, upon this occa- 
 sion, I mention, that away back in my 
 childhood— the earliest days of my being 
 able to read— I got hold of a small book, 
 such a one as few of the younger mem- 
 bers have ever seen, 'Weems' Life of 
 Washington'; I remember all the accounts 
 there given of the battlefields and strug- 
 gles for the liberties of the country, and 
 none fixed themselves upon my imagina- 
 tion so deeply as the struggle here at 
 Trenton. The crossing of the river, the 
 contest with the Hessians, the great 
 hardships endured at that time, all fixed 
 themselves on my memory more than 
 any single Revolutionary event; and you 
 
 [751 
 
all know, for you have all been boys, 
 how these early impressions last longer 
 than any other. 
 
 "I recollect thinking then, boy even 
 though I was, that there must have been 
 something more than common that those 
 men struggled for. I am exceedingly 
 anxious that that thing which they strug- 
 gled for— that something even more than 
 National independence, that something 
 that held out a great promise to all the 
 people of the world for all time to come 
 —I am exceedingly anxious that this 
 Union, the Constitution, and the liberties 
 of the people, shall be perpetuated in 
 accordance with the original idea for 
 which that struggle was made, and I 
 shall be most happy, indeed, if I shall be 
 an humble instrument in the hands of 
 the Almighty, and of this, his most 
 chosen people, for perpetuating the ob- 
 ject of the great struggle." 
 
 76 
 
Peace 
 
 (Address in the Assembly Chamber, Trenton, 
 N. J., February 21, 1861.) 
 
 The man does not live who is more 
 devoted to peace than I am— none who 
 would do more to preserve it. But it may 
 be necessary to put the foot down firmly. 
 And if I do my duty, and do right, you 
 will sustain me, will you not? Received, 
 as I am, by the members of the Legis- 
 lature, the majority of whom do not 
 agree with me in political sentiments, I 
 trust that I may have their assistance 
 in piloting the Ship of State through this 
 voyage, surrounded by perils as it is; 
 for if it should suffer shipwreck now, 
 there will be no pilot ever needed for 
 another voyage." 
 
 Liberty for All Future Time 
 
 (Reply to an Address of Welcome, Indepen- 
 dence Hall, Philadelphia, February 22, 1861.) 
 
 I am filled with deep emotion at finding 
 myself standing here, in this place, where 
 
 [771 
 
were collected the wisdom, the patriot- 
 ism, the devotion to principle, from 
 which sprang the institutions under 
 which we live. You have kindly sug- 
 gested to me that in my hands is the task 
 of restoring peace to the present dis- 
 tracted condition of the country. I can 
 say in return, sir, that all the political 
 sentiments I entertain have been drawn, 
 so far as I have been able to draw them, 
 from the sentiments which originated 
 and were given to the world from this 
 haU. 
 
 "I have never had a feeling, politically, 
 that did not spring from the sentiments 
 embodied in the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence. I have often pondered over the 
 dangers which were incurred by the men 
 who assembled here, and framed and 
 adopted that Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence. I have pondered over the toils 
 that were endured by the officers and 
 soldiers of the army who achieved that 
 Independence. 
 
 "I have often inquired of myself what 
 
 T781 
 
great principle or idea it was that kept 
 this Confederacy so long together. It 
 was not the mere matter of the separa- 
 tion of the colonies from the motherland, 
 but that sentiment in the Declaration of 
 Independence which gave liberty, not 
 alone to the people of this country, but, 
 I hope, to the world for all future time. 
 
 "It was that which you promise, that 
 in due time the weight would be lifted 
 from the shoulders of all men. This is 
 the sentiment embodied in the Declara- 
 tion of Independence. 
 
 "Now, my friends, can this country be 
 saved upon this basis? If it can, I will 
 consider myself one of the happiest men 
 in the world if I can help to save it. If 
 it cannot be saved upon that principle, 
 it will be truly awful. But if this country 
 cannot be saved without giving up that 
 principle, I was about to say I would 
 rather be assassinated on this spot than 
 surrender it." 
 
 79 
 
"Add Star Upon Star." 
 
 ( Remarks when he raised a new flag over Inde- 
 pendence Hall, Philadelphia, February 22, 
 1861.) 
 
 It is on such an occasion as this that we 
 can reason together— reaffirm our devo- 
 tion to the country and the principles of 
 the Declaration of Independence. Let us 
 make up our mind that when we do put 
 a new star upon our banner, it shall be a 
 fixed one, never to be dimmed by the 
 horrors of war, but brightened by the 
 contentment and prosperity of peace. 
 
 "Let us go on to extend the area of 
 our usefulness, add star upon star; until 
 their light shall shine upon five hundred 
 millions of a free and happy people." 
 
 The Flag 
 
 (Address to the Legislature, Harrisburg, Febru- 
 ary 22, 1861.) 
 
 I have already gone through one exceed- 
 ingly interesting scene this morning, in 
 
 [801 
 
the ceremonies at Philadelphia. I was 
 for the first time allowed the privilege of 
 standing in Old Independence Hall, to 
 have a few words addressed to me there, 
 and opening up to me an opportunity of 
 expressing, with much regret, that I had 
 not more time to express something of 
 my own feelings excited by that occasion, 
 somewhat to harmonize and give shape 
 to the feelings that had been really the 
 feelings of my whole life. 
 
 "Besides this, my friends there had 
 provided a magnificent flag of the 
 country. They had arranged it so that I 
 was given the honor of raising it to the 
 head of its staff. And when it went up I 
 was pleased that it went up to its place 
 by the strength of my own feeble arm. 
 When, according to the arrangement, the 
 cord was pulled, and it floated gloriously 
 to the wind without an accident, in the 
 light, glowing sunshine of the morning, 
 I could not help hoping that there was in 
 the entire success of that beautiful cere- 
 mony at least something of an omen of 
 
 [811 
 
what is to come. How could I help feel- 
 ing then, as I often have felt, in the 
 whole of that proceeding I was a very 
 humble instrument? 
 
 "I had not provided the flag; I had not 
 made the arrangements for elevating it 
 to its place. I had applied but a very 
 small portion of my feeble strength in 
 raising it. In the whole transaction I 
 was in the hands of the people who had 
 arranged it. And if I can have the same 
 generous co-operation of the people of 
 the nation, I think the flag of our country 
 may still be kept flaunting gloriously ." 
 
 Arrival In Washington 
 
 Mr. Lincoln arrived in Washington, 
 February 23, 1861. On the 27th he re- 
 sponded to an address of welcome by 
 the mayor, James G. Berrett, in Willard's 
 Hotel, as follows: 
 
 "I will take this occasion to say that 
 
 [82] 
 
I think very much of the ill-feeling that 
 has existed, and still exists, between the 
 people in the sections from whence I 
 came and the people here, is dependent 
 upon a misunderstanding of one another. 
 I therefore avail myself of this oppor- 
 tunity to assure you, Mr. Mayor, and all 
 the gendemen present, that I have not 
 now, and never have had, any other than 
 as kindly feelings toward you as the 
 people of my own section. I have not 
 now, and never have had, any disposi- 
 tion to treat you in any respect otherwise 
 than as my own neighbors. I have not 
 now any purpose to withhold from you 
 any of the benefits of the Constitution, 
 under any circumstances, that I would 
 not feel myself constrained to withhold 
 from my neighbors; and I hope, in a 
 word, that when we shall become better 
 acquainted, and I say it with great con- 
 fidence, we shall like each other the 
 more." 
 
 83 
 
First Inaugural Address 
 
 (March 4, 1861.) 
 
 "Apprehension seems to exist among 
 the people of the Southern States, that 
 by the occasion of a Republican admin- 
 istration, their property and their peace 
 and personal security are to be endang- 
 ered. There has never been any reason- 
 able cause for such apprehension. In- 
 deed, the most ample evidence to the 
 contrary has all the while existed, and 
 been open to their inspection. It is 
 found in nearly all the published 
 speeches of him who now addresses you. 
 
 "I do but quote from one of those 
 speeches, when I declared that 1 have 
 no purpose, directly or indirectly, to 
 interfere with the institution of slavery, 
 in the States where it exists/ 
 
 "I believe I have no lawful right to 
 do so, and I have no inclination to do so. 
 Those who nominated and elected me 
 did so with the full knowledge that I 
 had made this and many similar declara- 
 
 [841 
 
tions, and had never recanted them. I 
 now reiterate these sentiments, and in 
 doing so, I only press upon the public 
 attention the most conclusive evidence 
 of which the case is susceptible, that the 
 property, peace, and security of no sec- 
 tion are to be in any wise endangered by 
 the now incoming administration. 
 
 I take the official oath to-day with no 
 mental reservations, and with no purpose 
 to construe the Constitution or laws by 
 any hypercritical rules; and, while I do 
 not choose now to specify particular acts 
 of Congress as proper to be enforced, I 
 do suggest that it will be much safer for 
 all, both in official and private stations, 
 to conform to and abide by all those acts 
 which stand unrepealed, than to violate 
 any of them, trusting to find impunity in 
 having them held to be unconstitutional. 
 
 "It is seventy-two years since the first 
 inauguration of a president under our 
 national constitution. During that period, 
 fifteen different and very distinguished 
 citizens have in succession administered 
 
 [851 
 
the executive branch of the government. 
 They have conducted it through many 
 perils, and generally with great success. 
 Yet, with this scope for precedent, I now 
 enter upon the same task, for the brief 
 constitutional term of four years, under 
 great and peculiar difficulties. 
 
 "I hold, that in the contemplation of 
 universal law and the Constitution, the 
 union of these States is perpetual. Per- 
 petuity is implied, if not expressed, in the 
 fundamental law of all national govern- 
 ments. It is safe to assert that no govern- 
 ment proper ever had a provision in its 
 organic law for its own termination. Con- 
 tinue to execute all the express pro- 
 visions of our national Constitution, and 
 the Union will endure forever. 
 
 "To those, however, who really love 
 the Union, may I not speak? Before en- 
 tering upon so grave a matter as the 
 destruction of our national fabric, with 
 all its benefits, its memories, and its 
 hopes, would it not be well to ascertain 
 why we do it? Will you hazard so des- 
 
 [86] 
 
perate a step while any portion of the ills 
 you fly from have no real existence. Will 
 you, while the certain ills you fly to are 
 greater than all the real ones you fly 
 from? Will you risk the commission of 
 so fearful a mistake? 
 
 "All profess to be content in the Union 
 if all constitutional rights can be main- 
 tained. Is it true, then, that any right 
 plainly written in the Constitution has 
 been denied? I think not. Happily, the 
 human mind is so constituted that no 
 party can reach to the audacity of doing 
 this.' 
 
 "All the vital rights of minorities and 
 of individuals are so plainly assured to 
 them by affirmations and negations, 
 guarantees and prohibitions, in the Con- 
 stitution, that controversies never arise 
 concerning them. But no organic law 
 can ever be framed with a provision 
 specifically applicable to every question 
 which may occur in practical adminis- 
 tration. No foresight can anticipate, nor 
 any document of reasonable length con- 
 
 [87] 
 
tain, express provision for all possible 
 questions. 
 
 "Shall fugitives from labor be sur- 
 rounded by National or by State author- 
 ity? The Constitution does not expressly 
 say. Must Congress protect slavery in 
 the Territories? The Constitution does 
 not expressly say. 
 
 "From questions of this class spring all 
 our constitutional controversies, and we 
 divide upon them into majorities and 
 minorities. If the minority will not 
 acquiesce, the majority must, or the 
 government must cease. There is no 
 alternative for continuing the govern- 
 ment but acquiescence on the one side or 
 the other. 
 
 "If the minority will secede rather than 
 acquiesce, they make a precedent which, 
 in turn, will ruin and divide them; for 
 a minority of their own will secede from 
 them whenever a majority refuses to be 
 controlled by such a minority. For in- 
 stance, why should not any portion of a 
 new confederacy, a year or two hence, 
 
 [88] 
 
arbitrarily secede again, precisely as por- 
 tions of the present Union now claim to 
 secede from it? 
 
 "All who cherish disunion sentiments 
 are now being educated to the exact tem- 
 per of doing this. Is there such perfect 
 identity of interest among the States t® 
 compose a new union as to produce har- 
 mony only, and prevent renewed seces- 
 sion? Plainly, the central idea of seces- 
 sion is the essence of anarchy. 
 
 "Physically speaking, we cannot separ- 
 ate; we cannot move our respective 
 sections from each other, nor build an 
 impassable wall between them. A hus- 
 band and wife may be divorced, and go 
 out of the presence and beyond the reach 
 of each other; but the different parts of 
 our country cannot do this. They cannot 
 but remain face to face; and intercourse, 
 either amicable or hostile, must continue 
 between them. 
 
 "Is it possible, then, to make that inter- 
 course more advantageous or more satis- 
 factory after separation than before? 
 
 [891 
 
Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight 
 always; and when, after much loss on 
 both sides, and no gain on either, you 
 cease fighting, the identical questions as 
 to terms of intercourse are again upon 
 you. 
 
 'Why should there not be a patient 
 confidence in the ultimate justice of the 
 people? Is there any better or equal 
 hope in the world? In our present dif- 
 ferences, is either party without faith of 
 being in the right? If the Almighty 
 Ruler of Nations, with His eternal truth 
 and justice, be on your side of the North, 
 or on your side of the South, that truth 
 and that justice will surely prevail by 
 the judgment of this great tribunal— 
 the American people. 
 
 "My countrymen, one and all, think 
 calmly and well upon this whole subject. 
 Nothing valuable can be lost by taking 
 time. If there be an object to hurry any 
 of you, in hot haste, to a step which you 
 would never take deliberately, that 
 
 [90] 
 
object will be frustrated by taking time; 
 but no good object can be frustrated by 
 it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied 
 still have the old Constitution unim- 
 paired, and, on the sensitive point, the 
 laws of your own framing under it; while 
 the new administration will have no im- 
 mediate power, if it would, to change it. 
 
 "If it were admitted that you who are 
 dissatisfied hold the right side in the 
 dispute, there is still no single reason for 
 precipitate action. Intelligence, patriot- 
 ism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on 
 Him who has never yet forsaken this 
 favored land, are still competent to 
 adjust, in the best way, all our present 
 difficulties. 
 
 "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow- 
 countrymen, and not in mine, is the mo- 
 mentous issue of civil war. 
 
 "The government will not assail you; 
 you can have no conflict without being 
 yourselves the aggressors. 
 
 "You can have no oath registered in 
 
 91 
 
heaven to destroy the government; while 
 I shall have the most solemn one to 'pre- 
 serve, protect, and defend' it. 
 
 "I am loath to close. We are not 
 enemies, but friends. We must not be 
 enemies. Though passion may have 
 strained, it must not break, our bonds 
 of affection. 
 
 "The mystic chords of memory, stretch- 
 ing from every battlefield and patriot 
 grave to every living heart and hearth- 
 stone all over this broad land, will yet 
 swell the chorus of the Union when again 
 touched, as surely they will be, by the 
 better angels of our nature." 
 
 "All Honor to Jefferson." 
 
 (Letter, April 6, 1861, replying to an invitation 
 from the Republicans of Boston to attend a 
 festival in honor of the anniversary of Jef- 
 ferson's birthday.) 
 
 All honor to Jefferson; to a man who, in 
 the concrete pressure of a struggle for 
 national independence by a single peo- 
 
 [921 
 
pie, had the coolness, forecast, and 
 capacity to introduce into a merely revo- 
 lutionary document an abstract truth, 
 applicable to all men and all times, and 
 so to embalm it there, that to-day and in 
 all coming days it shall be a rebuke and 
 a stumbling-block to the harbingers of 
 reappearing tyranny and oppression!" 
 
 Forward Without Fear 
 
 (First annual message to the extra session of 
 Congress, July 4, 1861.) 
 
 As a private citizen the Executive could 
 not have consented that these institutions 
 shall perish; much less could he in be- 
 trayal of so vast and so sacred a trust as 
 these free people have confided to him. 
 He felt that he had no moral right to 
 shrink, or even to count the chances of 
 his own life, in what might follow. 
 
 "In full view of his great responsibility 
 he has so far done what he has deemed 
 his duty. You will now, according to 
 
 [93] 
 
your own judgment, perform yours. He 
 sincerely hopes that your views and your 
 action may so accord with his, as to 
 assure all faithful citizens who have been 
 disturbed in their rights, of a certain and 
 speedy restoration of them under the 
 Constitution and the laws. And having 
 thus chosen our course, without guile and 
 with pure purpose, let us renew our 
 trust in God, and go forward without 
 fear and with manly hearts." 
 
 On Labor 
 
 (Message to Congress, December 3, 1861.) 
 
 Labor is prior to and independent of 
 capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, 
 and could never have existed if labor had 
 not first existed. Labor is the superior 
 of capital, and deserves much the higher 
 consideration. Capital has its rights, 
 which are as worthy of protection as any 
 rights, nor is it denied that there is, and 
 probably always will be, a relation be- 
 
 [94] 
 
tween labor and capital, producing 
 mutual benefits. 
 
 "The prudent, penniless beginner in 
 the world labors for wages a while, saves 
 a surplus with which to buy tools or land 
 for himself, then labors on his own ac- 
 count another while, and at length hires 
 another new beginner to help him. 
 
 "This is the just, and generous, and 
 prosperous system, which opens the way 
 to all, gives hope to all, and consequent 
 energy, and progress, and improvement 
 of condition to all. No men living are 
 more worthy to be trusted than those 
 who toil up from poverty— none less in- 
 clined to take or touch aught which they 
 have not honestly earned. 
 
 "Let them beware of surrendering a 
 political power which they already 
 possess, and which, if surrendered, will 
 surely be used to close the door of ad- 
 vancement against such as they, and to 
 fix new disabilities and burdens upon 
 them, till all of liberty shall be lost. 
 
 "The struggle of to-day is not alto- 
 
 [95] 
 
gether for to-day; it is for a vast future 
 also. With a reliance on Providence, all 
 the more firm and earnest, let us proceed 
 in the great task which events have de- 
 volved upon us." 
 
 Slavery in the District of Columbia. 
 
 (Message to Congress, April 16, 1862, 
 approving the bill.) 
 
 I have never doubted the constitutional 
 authority of Congress to abolish slavery 
 in this District; and I have ever desired 
 to see the national capital freed from the 
 institution in some satisfactory way." 
 
 Gradual Emancipation 
 
 (Conference with the members of Congress 
 from the border slave States, July 12, 1862.) 
 
 If the war continues long, as it must if 
 the object be not sooner attained, the 
 institution in your States will be extin- 
 
guished by mere friction and abrasion— 
 by the mere incidents of the war. It will 
 be gone, and you will have nothing 
 valuable in lieu of it. Much of its value 
 is gone already. 
 
 "How much better for you and for 
 your people to take the step which at 
 once shortens the war, and secures sub- 
 stantial compensation for that which is 
 sure to be wholly lost in any other event! 
 
 "How much better to thus save the 
 money which else we sink forever in 
 the war! 
 
 "How much better to do it while we 
 can, lest the war ere long renders us 
 pecuniarily unable to do it! 
 
 "How much better for you, as seller, 
 and the nation, as buyer, to sell out and 
 buy out that without which the war 
 could never have been, than to sink 
 both the thing to be sold and the price 
 of it in cutting one another's throats! I 
 do not speak of emancipation at once, 
 but of a decision at once to emancipate 
 gradually." 
 
Defends the Secretary of War. 
 
 (Remarks at a war meeting, Washington, 
 August 6, 1862.) 
 
 "General McClellan has sometimes 
 asked for things that the Secretary of 
 War did not give him. General Mc- 
 Clellan is not to blame for asking what 
 he wanted and needed, and the Secretary 
 of War is not to blame for not giving 
 when he had none to give. And I say 
 here, as far as I know, the Secretary of 
 War has withheld no one thing at any 
 time in my power to give him. I have no 
 accusation against him. I believe he is a 
 brave and able man, and I stand here, 
 as justice requires me to do, to take upon 
 myself what has been charged on the 
 Secretary of War, as withholding from 
 him/' 
 
 [98] 
 
"Lives will be Lost." 
 
 (Reply to M. D. Conway, and a friend, who 
 implored Mr. Lincoln to emancipate the 
 the slaves.) 
 
 We grow in this direction daily, and I am 
 not without hope that some great thing 
 is to be accomplished. When the hour 
 comes for dealing with slavery, I trust 
 I shall be willing to act though it costs 
 my life; and, gentlemen, lives will he 
 lost." 
 
 To Save the Union 
 
 (Reply to an editorial of complaint in the N. 
 Y. Tribune, hy Horace Greeley, August 19, 
 1862.) 
 
 "My paramount object is to save the 
 Union, and not either to save or to de- 
 stroy slavery. If I could save the Union 
 without freeing any slave, I would do it. 
 If I could save it by freeing all the slaves, 
 I would do it; and if I could do it by 
 freeing some and leaving others alone, 
 
 T991 
 
I would also do that. What I do about 
 slavery and the colored race, I do be- 
 cause it helps to save this Union; and 
 what I forbear, I forbear because I do 
 not believe it would help to save the 
 Union. I shall do less whenever I shall 
 believe what I am doing hurts the cause, 
 and I shall do more whenever I believe 
 doing more will help the cause." 
 
 God's Will 
 
 (Reply to a deputation from all religious de- 
 nominations of Chicago, September 13, 1862. ) 
 
 I hope it will not be irreverent for me to 
 say that if it is probable that God would 
 reveal His will to others on a point so 
 connected with my duty, it might be sup- 
 posed He would reveal it directly to me; 
 for, unless I am more deceived in myself 
 than I often am, it is my earnest desire 
 to know the will of Providence in this 
 matter. And if I can learn what it is I 
 will do it. 
 
 [1001 
 
"These are not, however, the days of 
 miracles, and I suppose it will be granted 
 that I am not to expect a direct revela- 
 tion. I must study the plain physical 
 facts of the case, ascertain what is pos- 
 sible, and learn what appears to be wise 
 and right. Whatever appears to be God's 
 will I will do it." 
 
 Reading the Emancipation Procla- 
 mation to His Cabinet. 
 
 ( Remarks at the meeting, September 22, 1862. ) 
 
 "Gentlemen: I have, as you are aware, 
 thought a great deal about the relation 
 of this war to slavery, and you will re- 
 member that several weeks ago I read to 
 you an order that I had prepared upon 
 the subject, which, on account of objec- 
 tions made by some of you, was not 
 issued. Ever since then my mind has 
 been much occupied with this subject, 
 and I have thought all along that the 
 time for acting on it might probably 
 come. 
 
 [101] 
 
"I think the time has come now; I wish 
 it was a better time. I wish that we were 
 in a better condition. The action of the 
 army against the rebels has not been 
 quite what I should have best liked, but 
 they have been driven out of Maryland, 
 and Pennsylvania is no longer in danger 
 of invasion. 
 
 "When the rebel army was at Fred- 
 erick, I determined, as soon as it should 
 be driven out of Maryland, to issue a 
 proclamation of emancipation, such as 
 I thought most likely to be useful. I said 
 nothing to anyone, but I made a promise 
 to myself and, hesitating a little, to my 
 Maker. 
 
 "The rebel army is now driven out, 
 and I am going to fulfill that promise. I 
 have got you together to hear what I 
 have written down. I do not wish your 
 advice about the main matter, for that I 
 have determined for myself. This I say 
 without intending anything but respect 
 for any one of you. But I already know 
 the views of each on this question. They 
 
 [1021 
 
have been heretofore expressed, and I 
 have considered them as thoroughly and 
 carefully as I can. What I have written 
 is that which my reflections have deter- 
 mined me to say. If there is anything in 
 the expressions I use, or in any minor 
 matter which any one of you think had 
 best be changed, I shall be glad to re- 
 ceive your suggestions. 
 
 "One other observation I will make. I 
 know very well that many others might, 
 in this matter as in others, do better than 
 I can; and if I was satisfied that the 
 public confidence was more fully pos- 
 sessed by any one of them than by me, 
 and knew of any constitutional way in 
 which he could be put in my place, he 
 should have it. I would gladly yield to 
 him. But though I believe I have not so 
 much of the confidence of the people as I 
 had some time since, I do not know that, 
 all things considered, any other person 
 has more; and, however this may be, 
 there is no way in which I can have any 
 other man put where I am. I am here; 
 
 [1031 
 
I must do the best I can, and bear the 
 responsibility of taking the course which 
 I feel I ought to take." 
 
 Preliminary Proclamation of 
 Emancipation 
 
 (Issued September 22, 1862.) 
 
 That on the first day of January, in the 
 year of our Lord one thousand eight 
 hundred and sixty-three, all persons held 
 as slaves within any State or designated 
 part of a State, the people whereof shall 
 then be in rebellion against the United 
 States, shall be then, thenceforward, and 
 forever, free; and the Executive Govern- 
 ment of the United States, including the 
 military and naval authority thereof, will 
 recognize and maintain the freedom of 
 such persons, and will do no act or acts 
 to repress such persons, or any of them, 
 in any efforts they may make for their 
 actual freedom. 
 
 "That the Executive will, on the first 
 
 [1041 
 
day of January aforesaid, by proclama- 
 tion, designate the States and parts of 
 States, if any, in which the people thereof 
 respectively shall then be in rebellion 
 against the United States; and the fact 
 that any State, or the people thereof, 
 shall on that day be in good faith repre- 
 sented in the Congress of the United 
 States, by members chosen thereto at 
 elections wherein a majority of the quali- 
 fied voters of such State shall have par- 
 ticipated, shall, in the absence of strong 
 countervailing testimony, be deemed 
 conclusive evidence that such State, and 
 the people thereof, are not then in rebel- 
 lion against the United States." 
 
 The Sabbath Day 
 
 (General Orders, November 15, 1862.) 
 
 The importance for man and beast of the 
 prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights 
 of Christian soldiers and sailors, a be- 
 coming deference to the best sentiments 
 
 [1051 
 
of a Christian people, and a due regard 
 for the divine will, demand that Sunday 
 labor in the army and navy be reduced 
 to the measure of strict necessity. 
 
 "The discipline and character of the 
 national forces should not suffer, nor the 
 cause they defend be imperiled by the 
 profanation of the day or name of the 
 Most High. 'At this time of public dis- 
 tress'— adopting the words of Washing- 
 ton in 1776— 'men may find enough to do 
 in the service of God and their country 
 without abandoning themselves to vice 
 and immorality/ 
 
 "The first general order issued by the 
 Father of his Country after the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, indicates the spirit 
 in which our institutions were founded 
 and should ever be defended: 
 
 "'The General hopes and trusts that 
 every officer and man will endeavor to 
 live and act as becomes a Christian 
 soldier defending the dearest rights and 
 liberties of his country?" 
 
 [106] 
 
"The Way Is Plain." 
 
 (Message to Congress, December 1, 1862.) 
 
 The civil war, which has so radically 
 changed, for the moment, the occupation 
 and habits of the American people, has 
 necessarily disturbed the social condi- 
 tions, and affected very deeply the pros- 
 perity of the nations with which we have 
 carried on a commerce that has been 
 steadily increasing throughout a period 
 of half a century. It has, at the same 
 time, excited political ambitions and ap- 
 prehensions which have produced a pro- 
 found agitation throughout the civilized 
 world. In this unusual agitation we have 
 foreborne from taking part in any con- 
 troversy between foreign states, and be- 
 tween parties or factions in such states. 
 We have attempted no propagandism, 
 and acknowledged no revolution. But 
 we have left to every nation the exclusive 
 conduct and management of its own 
 affairs. 
 
 "A return to specie payments, how- 
 
 [107] 
 
ever, at the earliest period compatible 
 with due regard to all interests concerned, 
 should ever be kept in view. Fluctuations 
 in the value of currency are always in- 
 jurious, and to reduce these fluctuations 
 to the lowest possible point will always 
 be a leading purpose in wise legislation. 
 Convertibility, prompt and certain con- 
 vertibility, into coin is generally acknow- 
 ledged to be the best and surest safe- 
 guard against them; and it is extremely 
 doubtful whether a circulation of United 
 States notes, payable in coin, and suf- 
 ficiently large for the wants of the people, 
 can be permanently useful and safely 
 maintained. 
 
 "A nation may be said to consist of its 
 territory, its people, and its laws. The 
 territory is the only part which is of cer- 
 tain durability: f one generation passeth 
 away, and another generation cometh, 
 but the earth abideth forever/ It is of 
 the first importance to duly consider and 
 estimate this ever-enduring part. That 
 portion of the earth's surface which is 
 
 [1081 
 
owned and inhabited by the people of 
 the United States is well adapted to be 
 the home of one national family, and it 
 is not well adapted for two or more. Its 
 vast extent and its variety of climate and 
 productions are of advantage in this age 
 for one people, whatever they might have 
 been in former ages. Steam, telegraphs, 
 and intelligence have brought these to 
 be an advantageous combination for one 
 united people. 
 
 "There is no line, straight or crooked, 
 suitable for a national boundary, upon 
 which to divide. Trace through, from 
 east to west, upon the line between the 
 free and slave country, and we shall find 
 a little more than one-third of its length 
 are rivers, easy to be crossed, and popu- 
 lated, or soon to be populated, thickly 
 upon both sides; while nearly all its 
 remaining length are merely surveyors' 
 lines, over which people may walk back 
 and forth without any consciousness of 
 their presence. No part of this line can 
 be made any more difficult to pass by 
 
 [1091 
 
writing it down on paper or parchment 
 as a national boundary. 
 
 "The fact of separation, if it comes, 
 gives up, on the part of the seceding 
 section, the fugitive slave clause, along 
 with all other constitutional obligations 
 upon the section seceded from, while I 
 should expect no treaty stipulation would 
 ever be made to take its place. 
 
 "Among the friends of the Union there 
 is a great diversity of sentiment and of 
 policy in regard to slavery and the 
 African race amongst us. Some would 
 perpetuate slavery; some would abolish 
 it suddenly, and without compensation; 
 some would abolish it gradually, and 
 with compensation; some would remove 
 the freed people from us, and some 
 would retain them with us; and there 
 are yet other minor diversities. Because 
 of these diversities, we waste much 
 strength among ourselves. By mutual 
 concession we should harmonize and act 
 together. 
 
 "I do not forget the gravity which 
 
 [110] 
 
should characterize a paper addressed to 
 the Congress of the Nation by the Chief 
 Magistrate of the Nation. Nor do I forget 
 that some of you are my seniors; nor that 
 many of you have more experience than 
 I in the conduct of public affairs. Yet I 
 trust that, in view of the great respon- 
 sibility resting upon me, you will per- 
 ceive no want of respect to yourselves 
 in any undue earnestness I may seem to 
 display. 
 
 "We cannot escape history. We of this 
 Congress and this administration will be 
 remembered in spite of ourselves. No 
 personal significance or insignificance 
 can spare one or another of us. The 
 fiery trial through which we pass will 
 light us down in honor or dishonor to 
 the latest generation. 
 
 "We say that we are for the Union. 
 The world will not forget that we say 
 this. We know how to save the Union. 
 The world knows we do know how to 
 save it. We— even we here— hold the 
 power and bear the responsibility. 
 
 [1111 
 
"In giving freedom to the slave, we 
 assure freedom to the free—honorable 
 alike in what we give and what we pre- 
 serve. 
 
 "We shall nobly save or meanly lose 
 the last hope of earth. Other means may 
 succeed; this could not, cannot, fail. 
 
 "The way is plain, peaceful, generous, 
 just— a way which, if followed, the world 
 will forever applaud and God must for- 
 ever bless." 
 
 The Thanks of the Nation 
 
 (Address to the Army of the Potomac, Decem- 
 ber 22, 1862.) 
 
 I have just read your commanding gen- 
 eral's preliminary report of the battle of 
 Fredericksburg. Although you were not 
 successful, the attempt was not an error, 
 nor the failure other than an accident. 
 The courage with which you, in an open 
 field, maintained the contest against an 
 intrenched foe, and the consummate skill 
 and success with which you crossed and 
 
 [1121 
 
recrossed the river, in face of the enemy, 
 show that you possess all the qualities 
 of a great army, which will yet give vic- 
 tory to the cause of the country and of 
 popular government. 
 
 "Condoling with the mourners for the 
 dead, and sympathizing with the severely 
 wounded, I congratulate you that the 
 number of both is comparatively so 
 small. I tender to you, officers and 
 soldiers, the thanks of the nation." 
 
 "The Times Are Dark." 
 
 ( To Rev. Byron Sunderland, Washington, who 
 called with friends during the last days of 
 1862.) 
 
 "I hold myself, in my present position 
 and with the authority vested in me, as 
 an instrument of Providence. I have my 
 own views and purposes. I have my con- 
 victions of duty, and my notions of what 
 is right to be done. But I am conscious 
 every moment that all I am and all I 
 have is subject to the control of a Higher 
 
 [114] 
 
Power, and that Power can use me or not 
 use me in any manner, and at any time, 
 as in His wisdom and might may be 
 pleasing to Him. These are simply with 
 me the convictions and realities of great 
 and vital truths, the power and demon- 
 stration of which I see now in the light 
 of this our national struggle as I have 
 never seen before. 
 
 "God only knows the issue of this busi- 
 ness. He has destroyed nations from the 
 maps of history for their sins. Neverthe- 
 less, my hopes prevail generally above 
 my fears for our Republic. The times 
 are dark, the spirits of ruin are abroad 
 in all their power, and the mercy of God 
 alone can save us." 
 
 Emancipation Proclamation 
 
 (Issued January 1, 1863.) 
 
 Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, 
 President of the United States, by virtue 
 of the power vested in me as Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, 
 
 [115] 
 
in a time of actual armed rebellion 
 against the authority of the Government 
 of the United States, as a fit and neces- 
 sary war measure for suppressing said 
 rebellion, do, on this first day of January, 
 in the year of our Lord one thousand 
 eight hundred and sixty-three, and in 
 accordance with my purpose so to do, 
 publicly proclaimed for the full period 
 of one hundred days from the date of 
 the first above-mentioned order, desig- 
 nate as the States and parts of States 
 therein the people whereof, respectively, 
 are this day in rebellion against the 
 United States, the following, to wit: 
 
 Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana ( except 
 the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, 
 Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, 
 Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, La 
 Fourche, St. Mary, St. Martin and Or- 
 leans, including the city of New Orleans ) , 
 Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, 
 South Carolina, North Carolina, and Vir- 
 ginia (except the forty-eight counties 
 designated as West Virginia, and also the 
 
 [116] 
 
i utiflmmitilHtUtiHiilii 
 
 ...uiiLi t ,>uiti„ MWi&.^iiaujji,, . .jilu tiim. 
 
 EMANCIPATION PRO 
 
counties of Berkley, Accomac, North- 
 ampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess 
 Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities 
 of Norfolk and Portsmouth), which ex- 
 cepted parts are for the present left pre- 
 cisely as if this proclamation were not 
 issued; and by virtue of the power and 
 for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and 
 declare that all persons held as slaves 
 within designated States, or parts of 
 States, are, and henceforward shall be 
 free, and that the Executive Government 
 of the United States, including the mili- 
 tary and naval authorities thereof, will 
 recognize and maintain the freedom of 
 the said persons; and I hereby enjoin 
 upon the people so declared free to ab- 
 stain from all violence, unless in neces- 
 sary self-defense; and I recommend to 
 them that, in all cases when allowed, they 
 labor faithfully for reasonable wages. 
 And I further declare and make known 
 that such persons, of suitable condition, 
 will be received into the armed services 
 positions, stations, and other places, and 
 
 [1181 
 
of the United States, to garrison forts, 
 positions, stations, and other places, and 
 to man vessels of all sorts in said service. 
 And upon this act, sincerely believed 
 to be an act of justice, warranted by the 
 Constitution upon military necessity, I 
 invoke the considerate judgment of man- 
 kind, and the gracious favor of Almighty 
 God. 
 
 On the Emancipation 
 Proclamation 
 
 (Speech to a large body of people who assem- 
 bled before the White House, September 24, 
 1863.) 
 
 What I did, I did after a very full deter- 
 mination, and under a very heavy and 
 solemn sense of responsibility. I can only 
 trust in God I have made no mistake. 
 
 "It is now for the country and the 
 world to pass judgment, and, maybe, take 
 action upon it. In my position, I am 
 environed with difficulties. Yet they are 
 scarcely so great as the difficulties of 
 those who, upon the battlefield, are en- 
 
 [119] 
 
deavoring to purchase, with their blood 
 and their lives, the future happiness and 
 prosperity of their country. Let us never 
 forget them!" 
 
 Pardon for a Deserter. 
 
 (Remarks to Hon. Schuyler Colfax, who asked 
 for a respite. ) 
 
 Some of our generals complain that I 
 impair discipline and subordination in 
 the army by my pardons and respites, but 
 it makes me rested, after a day's hard 
 work, if I can find some good excuse for 
 saving a man's life; and I go to bed 
 happy as I think how joyous the signing 
 of my name makes him and his family 
 and his friends." 
 
 Refusal To Pardon A Man For 
 Importing Slaves. 
 
 (Reply to Mr. Alley, who read a petition for 
 the mans pardon.) 
 
 You know my weakness is to be, if pos- 
 sible, too easily moved by appeals for 
 
 [120] 
 
mercy; and, if this man were guilty of 
 the foulest murder that the arm of man 
 could perpetrate, I might forgive him on 
 such an appeal; but the man who could 
 go to Africa, and rob her of her children, 
 and sell them into interminable bondage, 
 with no other motive than that which is 
 furnished by dollars and cents, is so much 
 worse than the most depraved murderer 
 that he can never receive pardon at my 
 hands." 
 
 Proclamation of Thanksgiving Day. 
 
 (Issued October 3, 1863.) 
 
 The year that is drawing toward its close 
 has been filled with the blessings of 
 fruitful fields and healthful skies. To 
 these bounties, which are so constantly 
 enjoyed that we are prone to forget the 
 source from which they come, others 
 have been added, which are of so extraor- 
 dinary a nature that they cannot fail to 
 penetrate and soften even the heart 
 which is habitually insensible to the 
 
 [121] 
 
ever-watchful Providence of Almighty 
 God. 
 
 "In the midst of a civil war of une- 
 equaled magnitude and severity, which 
 has sometimes seemed to invite and pro- 
 voke the aggression of foreign states, 
 peace has been preserved with all na- 
 tions, order has been maintained, the 
 laws have been respected and obeyed, 
 and harmony has prevailed everywhere, 
 except in the theater of military conflict. 
 
 "The needful diversion of wealth and 
 strength from the fields of peaceful in- 
 dustry to the national defense has not 
 arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the 
 ship. 
 
 "The ax has enlarged the borders of 
 our settlements, and the mines, as well 
 of iron and coal as of the precious 
 metals, have yielded even more abund- 
 antly than heretofore. Population has 
 steadily increased, notwithstanding the 
 waste that has been made by the camp, 
 the siege, and the battlefield, and the 
 country, rejoicing in the consciousness 
 
 [122] 
 
of augmented strength and vigor, is per- 
 mitted to expect continuance of years 
 with large increase of freedom. 
 
 "No human council hath devised, nor 
 hath any mortal hand worked out, these 
 great things. They are the gracious gifts 
 of the Most High God, who, while deal- 
 ing with us in anger for our sins, hath 
 nevertheless remembered mercy. 
 
 "It seemed to me fit and proper that 
 they should be solemnly, reverentially, 
 and gratefully acknowledged as with one 
 heart and voice, by the whole American 
 people. 
 
 "I recommend too, that, while offering 
 up the ascriptions justly due to Him for 
 such singular deliverances and blessings, 
 they do also, with humble penitence for 
 our national perverseness and disobedi- 
 ence, commend to His tender care all 
 those who have become widows, orphans, 
 mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable 
 civil strife in which we are unavoidably 
 engaged, and fervently implore the inter- 
 position of the Almighty hand to heal the 
 
 [ 123 1 
 
wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as 
 soon as may be consistent with divine 
 purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, 
 harmony, tranquillity, and union." 
 
 "The Rebellion Must Dwindle and 
 Die" 
 
 (Letter to General Rosecrans, Chattanooga, 
 Tenn., October 4, 1863.) 
 
 If we can hold Chattanooga and East 
 Tennessee, I think the rebellion must 
 dwindle and die. I understand the main 
 body of the army is very near you— so 
 near that you could 'board at home/ so 
 to speak, and menace or attack him any 
 day. Would not the doing of this be your 
 best mode of counteracting his raids on 
 your communications? But this it not an 
 order/' 
 
 The Gettysburg Address 
 
 (At the dedication of the cemetery, November 
 19, 1863.) 
 
 Four score and seven years ago our 
 fathers brought forth on this continent a 
 
 [1241 
 
mm 
 
new nation, conceived in Liberty, and 
 dedicated to the proposition that all men 
 are created equal. 
 
 "Now we are engaged in a great civil 
 war, testing whether that nation, or any 
 nation so conceived and so dedicated, 
 can long endure. We are met on a great 
 battlefield of that war. We have come to 
 dedicate a portion of that field as a final 
 resting place for those who here gave 
 their lives that that nation might live. 
 It is altogether fitting and proper that 
 we should do this. 
 
 "But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedi- 
 cate—we cannot consecrate— we cannot 
 hallow— this ground. The brave men, liv- 
 ing and dead, who struggled here, have 
 consecrated it, far above our poor power 
 to add or detract. The world will little 
 note, nor long remember what we say 
 here, but it can never forget what thev 
 did here. It is for us the living, rather 
 to be dedicated here to the unfinished 
 work which they who fought here have 
 thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather 
 
 [1261 
 
for us to be here dedicated to the great 
 task remaining before us— that from these 
 honored dead we take increased devotion 
 to that cause for which they gave the 
 last full measure of devotion— that we 
 here highly resolve that these dead shall 
 not have died in vain— that this nation, 
 under God, shall have a new birth of 
 freedom— and that government of the 
 people, by the people, for the people, 
 shall not perish from the earth." 
 
 Asked God for Victory 
 
 { To General Sickles, when he asked Mr. Lincoln 
 what he thought of Gettysburg.) 
 
 I had no fears of Gettbsburg, and if you 
 really want to know I tell you why. 
 
 "In the stress and pinch of the cam- 
 paign there, I went to my room, and got 
 down on my knees*and prayed Almighty 
 Cod for victory at Gettysburg. 
 
 "I told Him that this was His country, 
 and the war was His war, but that we 
 really couldn't stand another Fredericks- 
 
 [1281 
 
burg or Chancellorsville. 
 
 "And then and there I made a solemn 
 vow with my Maker that if he would 
 stand by the boys at Gettysburg I would 
 stand by Him. And He did, and I will. 
 
 "After this, I don't know how it was, 
 and it is not for me to explain, but, some- 
 how or other, a sweet comfort crept into 
 my soul, that God Almighty had taken 
 the whole thing into His own hands, 
 
 and we were bound to win at Gettys- 
 burg. 
 
 "No; General Sickles, I had no fears of 
 Gettysburg, and that is the why." 
 
 Praise for the Colored Soldier. 
 
 (Letter to General James S. Wadsworth, 1864). 
 
 How to better the condition of the col- 
 ored race has long been a study which 
 has attracted my serious and careful at- 
 tention; hence I think I am clear and 
 decided as to what course I shall pursue 
 in the premises, regarding it as a religious 
 
 [129] 
 
duty, as the nation's guardian of these 
 people who have so heroically vindicated 
 their manhood on the battlefield, where, 
 in assisting to save the life of the Re- 
 public, they have demonstrated their 
 right to the ballot, which is but the 
 humane protection of the flag they have 
 so fearlessly defended." 
 
 Proclamation of Thanksgiving and 
 Prayer. 
 
 (To' friends of Union and Liberty, May 
 9, 1864.) 
 
 Enough is known of army operations, 
 within the last five days, to claim our 
 special gratitude to God; while what re- 
 mains undone demands our most sincere 
 prayers to and reliance upon Him, with- 
 out whom all effort is vain. 
 
 "I recommend that all patriots at their 
 homes, in the places of public worship, 
 and wherever they may be, unite in com- 
 mon thanksgiving and prayer to Almightv 
 God." 
 
 [130] 
 
On this Line 
 
 (Speech at a Philadelphia Fair for the benefit 
 of the soldiers, June 18, 1864.) 
 
 War, at the best, is terrible, and this war 
 of ours, in its magnitude and its duration 
 is one of the most terrible. It has de- 
 ranged business totally in many localities, 
 and partially in all localities. It has de- 
 stroyed property and ruined homes; it 
 has produced a national debt and taxa- 
 tion unprecedented, at least in this 
 country; it has carried mourning to al- 
 most every home, until it can almost be 
 said that the 'heavens are hung in black.* 
 
 "Yet the war continues, and several 
 relieving coincidents have accompanied 
 it from the very beginning, which have 
 not been known, as I understand, or have 
 any knowledge of, in any former wars in 
 the history of the world. 
 
 "The sanitary commission, with all its 
 benevolent labors; the Christian commis- 
 sion, with all its Christian and benevolent 
 labors, and the various places, arrange- 
 
 [131] 
 
ments, so to speak, and institutions, have 
 contributed to the comfort and relief of 
 the soldiers. 
 
 "It is a pertinent question, often asked 
 in the mind privately, and from one to 
 the other: 'When is the war to end?' 
 Surely I feel as deep an interest in this 
 question as any other can, but I do not 
 wish to name a day, a month, or a year 
 when it is to end. I do not wish to run 
 any risk of seeing the time come without 
 our being ready for the end, for fear of 
 disappointment because the time has 
 come and not the end. 
 
 "We accepted this war for an object, 
 a worthy object, and the war will end 
 when that object is attained. Under God, 
 I hope it never will end until that time! 
 
 "Speaking of the present campaign, 
 General Grant is reported to have said, 
 1 am going through on this line, if it 
 takes all summer/ This war has taken 
 three years; it was begun, or accepted, 
 upon the line of restoring the national 
 authority over the whole national do- 
 
 [1321 
 
KJȣ? 
 
 & 
 
 frs 
 
main; and for the American people, as 
 far as my knowledge enables me to 
 speak, I say we are going through on 
 this line, if it takes three years more." 
 
 Acceptance of the Nomination for 
 the Presidency 
 
 (Letter, dated June 27, 1864, to Hon. Wm. 
 Dennison, President Republican National 
 Convention. ) 
 
 The nomination is gratefully accepted, as 
 the resolutions of the Convention, called 
 the platform, are heartily approved. I am 
 especially gratified that the soldiers and 
 seamen were not forgotten by the Con- 
 vention, as they forever must, and will, 
 be remembered by the grateful country 
 for whose salvation they devote their 
 lives/' 
 
 "Our Cause is Just/' 
 
 (Reply to a company of clergymen.) 
 My hope of success in this great and 
 terrible struggle rests on that immutable 
 
 [134] 
 
foundation, the justice and goodness of 
 God. And when events are very threaten- 
 ing and prospects very dark, I still hope 
 in some way, which man cannot see, all 
 will be well in the end, because our 
 cause is just, and God is on our side." 
 
 Fourth Annual Message to 
 Congress, December 6, 1864. 
 
 The most remarkable feature in the mili- 
 tary operations of the year is General 
 Sherman's attempted march of three hun- 
 dred miles directly through the insurgent 
 region. It tends to show a great increase 
 of our relative strength that our general- 
 in-chief should feel able to confront and 
 hold in check every active force of the 
 enemy, and yet to detach a well-ap- 
 pointed large army to move on such an 
 expedition. The result not yet being 
 known, conjecture in regard to it is not 
 here indulged. 
 
 "Important movements have also oc- 
 curred during the year to the effect of 
 
 [135] 
 
molding society for durability in the 
 Union. Although short of complete suc- 
 cess, it is much in the right direction 
 that twelve thousand citizens in each of 
 the States of Arkansas and Louisiana 
 have organized loyal State governments, 
 with free constitutions, and are earnestly 
 struggling to maintain and administer 
 them. The movements in the same direc- 
 tion—more extensive, though less definite 
 —in Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee 
 should not be overlooked. But Maryland 
 presents the example of complete success. 
 Maryland is secure to liberty and union 
 for all the future. The genius of rebellion 
 will no more claim Maryland. Like 
 another foul spirit, being driven out, it 
 may seek to tear her, but it will woo her 
 no more. 
 
 "In presenting the abandonment of 
 armed resistance to the national authority 
 on the part of the insurgents, as the only 
 indispensable condition to ending the war 
 on the part of the government, I retract 
 nothing heretofore said as to slavery. 
 
 [136] 
 
"I repeat the declaration, made a year 
 ago, that while I remain in my present 
 position I shall not attempt to retract or 
 modify the emancipation proclamation, 
 nor shall I return to slavery any person 
 who is free by the terms of that procla- 
 mation, or by any of the acts of Congress. 
 
 "If the people should, by whatever 
 mode or means, make it an executive 
 duty to re-enslave such persons, another, 
 and not I, must be their instrument to 
 perform it. 
 
 "In stating a single condition of peace, 
 I mean simply to say that the war will 
 cease on the part of the government 
 whenever it shall have ceased on the 
 part of those who began it." 
 
 Second Inaugural Address 
 
 (March 4, 1865.) 
 
 "Fellow-countrymen: At this second 
 appearing to take the oath of the Presi- 
 dential office, there is less occasion for an 
 extended address than there was at the 
 
 [1371 
 
first. Then a statement, somewhat in 
 detail, of a course to be pursued seemed 
 fitting and proper. Now, at the expira- 
 tion of four years, during which public 
 declarations have been constantly called 
 forth on every point and phase of the 
 great contest which still absorbs the at- 
 tention and engrosses the energies of 
 the nation, little that is new could be 
 presented. 
 
 "The progress of our arms, upon which 
 all else chiefly depends, is as well known 
 to the public as to myself, and it is, I 
 trust, reasonably satisfactory and en- 
 couraging to all. With high hope for the 
 future, no prediction in regard to it is 
 ventured. 
 
 "On the occasion corresponding to this, 
 four years ago, all thoughts were anxious- 
 ly directed to an impending civil war. 
 All dreaded it; all sought to avert it. 
 While the inaugural address was being 
 delivered from this place, devoted alto- 
 gether to saving the Union without war, 
 insurgents' agents were in the city seek- 
 
 [1381 
 
ing to destroy it without war— seeking 
 to dissolve the Union and divide its 
 effects by negotiation. 
 
 "Both parties deprecated war; but one 
 of them would make war rather than let 
 the nation survive, and the other would 
 accept war rather than let it perish. And 
 the war came. 
 
 "The prayer of both could not be 
 answered— those of neither have been 
 answered fully. The Almighty has His 
 own purposes. 'Woe unto the world 
 because of offenses! for it must needs be 
 that offenses come; but woe to that man 
 by whom the offense cometh/ 
 
 "If we shall suppose that American 
 slavery is one of those offenses which, in 
 the providence of God, must needs come, 
 but which, having continued through 
 His appointed time, He now wills to re- 
 move, and that He gives to North and 
 South this terrible war as the woe due to 
 those by whom the offense came, shall 
 we discern therein any departure from 
 those divine attributes which the be- 
 
 [ 139 ] 
 
lievers in a living God always ascribe to 
 Him? 
 
 "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we 
 pray, that this mighty scourge of war 
 may soon pass away. 
 
 "Yet, if God wills that it continue until 
 all the wealth piled by the bondsman's 
 two hundred and fifty years of un- 
 requited toil shall be sunk, and until 
 every drop of blood drawn by the lash 
 shall be paid by another drawn with the 
 sword, as was said three thousand years 
 ago, so still it must be said, 'The judg- 
 ments of the Lord are true and righteous 
 altogether.' 
 
 "With malice toward none, with charity 
 for all, with firmness in the right, as 
 God gives us to see the right, let us 
 strive on to finish the work we are in; 
 to bind up the nation's wounds; to care 
 for him who shall have borne the battle, 
 and for his widow and for his orphan; 
 to do all which may achieve and cherish 
 a just and lasting peace among ourselves, 
 and with all nations." 
 
 [1401 
 
Last Public Address 
 
 (Remarks on April 11, 1865, to a gathering at 
 the White House on the fall of Richmond.) 
 
 '■'We meet this evening not in sorrow, but 
 in gladness of heart. 
 
 "The evacuation of Petersburg and 
 Richmond, and the surrender of the 
 principal insurgent army, give hope of a 
 righteous and speedy peace, whose joy- 
 ous expression cannot be restrained. 
 
 "In the midst of this, however, He 
 from whom all blessings flow must not be 
 , forgotten. Nor must those whose harder 
 part give us the cause of rejoicing be 
 overlooked; their honors must not be 
 parceled out with others. 
 
 "I myself was near the front, and had 
 the high pleasure of transmitting the 
 good news to you; but no part of the 
 honor, for plan or execution, is mine. To 
 General Grant, his skillful officers and 
 brave men, all belongs." 
 
 [142] 
 
A Last Remark 
 
 (Remarks made by the President to his wife 
 while they were out driving in an open car- 
 riage on the afternoon of April 14, 1865, 
 when Mrs. Lincoln said : "You almost startle 
 me by your cheerfulness") 
 
 "And well I may feel so, Mary, for I 
 consider this day the war has come to a 
 close. We must both be more cheerful in 
 the future; between the war and the loss 
 of our darling Willie, we have been very 
 miserable." 
 
 [143]