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LINCOLN 
 
The selections in this vokime are takei- 
 by permission, from the authorized edition ot 
 " The Complete Works of Abraham Lin- 
 coln," by John G. Nicolay and John Hay. 
 
This reduced copy of a photograph of Abraham 
 Lincoln (from the original negative taken in 
 i860) is here published by special permission 
 given to the Century Co. by the owner, George 
 B. Ayres, artist, of Philadelphia. 
 
LINCOLN 
 
 PASSAGES FROM HIS 
 SPEECHES AND LETTERS 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 RICHARD WATSON GILDER 
 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 NEW YORK . . MCMI 
 
iH6 j 
 [the library of! 
 
 I CONGRESS, I 
 I Two CoHtb Rece/vedI 
 
 SEP. 25 1901 ' 
 
 ^OPVR(QHT ENTRY 
 
 CLASS ^XXc N* 
 
 COPY D. 
 
 Copyright, 1901, by 
 The Century Co, 
 
 • •• I 
 
 THE DEVINNE PRESS. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction ix 
 
 1 Lincoln's Ambition ... 3 
 
 II To A Friend 5 
 
 HI Advice to Young Lawyers 9 
 
 IV Slavery 15 
 
 V Slavery i8 
 
 VI The Real Southern View 
 
 OF Slavery 20 
 
 VII The Right of Self-Gov- 
 
 ernment 26 
 
 VIII Meaning of the Declara- 
 tion OF Independence . 30 
 
 IX "A House Divided against 
 
 Itself Cannot Stand " . 34 
 X Resistance to the Su- 
 preme Court 36 
 
 XI Repeal of the Missouri 
 
 Compromise 42 
 
 XII Notes for Speeches ... 47 
 XIII The Negro Included in 
 vii 
 
PAGE 
 
 THE Declaration of In- 
 dependence 50 
 
 XIV The Dred Scott Decision 53 
 
 XV The Wrong of Slavery . 58 
 
 XVI The Principles of Jef- 
 ferson 70 
 
 XVII A Look into the Future . 74 
 
 xviii Autobiographical .... 79 
 
 XIX An Appeal to the South . 84 
 
 XX Farewell Address at 
 Springfield, Illinois, 
 February ii, 1861 . . . 108 
 
 XXI From his Reply to the 
 Address of Welcome at 
 Indianapolis, Indiana, 
 February ii, 1861 . . . no 
 
 XXII Address in Independence 
 Hall, Philadelphia, Feb- 
 ruary 22, 1861 1X2 
 
 XXIII First Inaugural Address, 
 
 March 4, 1861 116 
 
 XXIV Letter to Horace Greeley 144 
 
 XXV Dependence upon God . . 147 
 
 XXVI Meditation on the Divine 
 
 Will 149 
 
 XXVII Letter to General Mc- 
 
 Clellan 151 
 
 viii 
 
PAGE 
 
 XXVIII Telegram to General 
 
 McClellan 158 
 
 XXIX Emancipation Proclamation 159 
 
 XXX Letter to the Working- 
 men OF Manchester, 
 England 166 
 
 XXXI Letter TO General Hooker 172 
 
 XXXII Letter to General Grant 175 
 
 xxxiii Letter to J. C. Conkling 177 
 
 XXXIV The Gettysburg Address . 190 
 
 xxxv Response to a Serenade . 193 
 
 XXXVI Letter of Condolence to 
 Mrs. Bixby of Boston, 
 Massachusetts .... 197 
 xxxvii Second Inaugural Address 199 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Of style, in the ordinary use of 
 the word, Lincoln may be said to 
 have had little. He certainly 
 did not strive for an artistic 
 method of expression through 
 such imitation of the masters, 
 for instance, as Robert Louis 
 Stevenson's. There was nothing 
 ambitiously elaborate or self- 
 consciously simple in Lincoln's 
 way of writing. He had not the 
 scholar's range of words. He 
 was not always grammatically ac- 
 curate. He would doubtless have 
 been very much surprised if any 
 one had told him that he had a 
 "style " at all. And yet, because 
 he was determined to be under- 
 stood, because he was honest, be- 
 
cause he had a warm heart and 
 a true, because he had read good 
 books eagerly and not coldly, 
 and because there was m him a 
 native good taste, as well as a 
 strain of imagination, he achieved 
 a singularly clear and forcible 
 style, which took color from his 
 own noble character, and be- 
 came a thing individual and dis- 
 tinguished. 
 
 He was,indeed,extremely mod- 
 est about his accomplishments. 
 His great desire was to convince 
 those whom he addressed, and if 
 he could do this,— if he could 
 make his views clear to them, still 
 more if he could make them ap- 
 pear reasonable,— he was satis- 
 fied. In one of his speeches in 
 the great debate with Douglas he 
 said: "Gentlemen, Judge Doug- 
 las informed you that this speech 
 of mine was probably carefully 
 
prepared. I admit that it was. 
 I am not a master of language ; 
 I have not a fine education ; I am 
 not capable of entering into a 
 disquisition upon dialectics, 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. But 
 I don't care about a quibble in 
 regard to words. I know what I 
 meant, and I will not leave this 
 crowd in doubt, if I can explain 
 it to them, what I really meant in 
 the use of that paragraph." 
 
 Who are, to Americans at 
 least, the two most interesting 
 men of action of the nineteenth 
 century? Why not Napoleon 
 and Lincoln? No two men 
 could have been more radically 
 different in many ways ; but they 
 were both great rulers, one ac- 
 cording to the "good old plan " 
 
of might, the other by the good 
 new plan of right : autocrat — 
 democrat. They were ahke in 
 this — that both were intensely in- 
 teresting personalities ; both were 
 moved by imagination ; and both 
 acquired remarkable power of ex- 
 pression. One used this power to 
 carry out his own sometimes wise, 
 sometimes selfish, purposes ; to 
 dominate and to deceive ; the 
 other for the expression of truth 
 and the persuasion of his fellow- 
 men. 
 
 Napoleon's literary art was 
 the making of phrases which 
 pierced like a Corsican knife or 
 tingled the blood like the call of 
 a trumpet. His words went to 
 their mark quick as a stroke of 
 lightning. When he speaks it is 
 as if an earthquake had passed 
 under one's feet. 
 
 Lincoln's style is very differ- 
 
ent; heroic, appealing, gracious 
 or humorous, it does not so 
 much startle as melt the heart. 
 These men were alike in this — 
 that they learned to express them- 
 selves by dint of long practice, and 
 both in youth wrote much non- 
 sense. Napoleon in his young 
 days wrote romance and history ; 
 Lincoln wrote verse and composed 
 speeches. Napoleon failed as a 
 literary man ; Lincoln certainly 
 did not make any great success as 
 a lyceum lecturer; in fact, his 
 style was at its best only when 
 his whole heart was enlisted. 
 
 Lincoln's style, at its best, is 
 characterized by great simplicity 
 and directness, which in them- 
 selves are artistic qualities. In 
 addition there is an agreeable 
 cadence, not overdone except in 
 one curious instance, — a passage 
 of the Second Inaugural, — where 
 
it deflects into actual rhythm 
 and rhyme : 
 
 Fondly do we hope — fervently do we 
 
 pray- 
 That this mighty scourge of war may 
 
 speedily pass away. 
 
 This does not spoil, but it some- 
 what injures, one of the most 
 memorable of his writings. 
 
 Then there is in Lincoln a 
 quaintness, a homeliness and 
 humor of illustration, along with 
 a most engaging frankness and 
 intellectual honesty. The reader 
 has both an intellectual and moral 
 satisfaction in the clearness and 
 fairness of the statement. All 
 this affects agreeably the literary 
 form, and helps to give Lincoln's 
 style at times the charm of imagi- 
 native utterance ; for imagination 
 in literature is, essentially, the 
 faculty of seeing clearly and the 
 
art of stating clearly the actual 
 reality. There was nothing of 
 invention in Lincoln's imagina- 
 tion ; his was the imagination 
 that is implied in a strong realiza- 
 tion of the truth of things in the 
 mind of the writer or speaker. 
 
 When these letters and 
 speeches of Lincoln were appear- 
 ing in the papers as part of the 
 news of the day, I wonder how 
 many of us who were then living 
 appreciated them from the liter- 
 ary point of view. I remember- 
 that at a certain period, some 
 time after the war, I seemed for 
 the first time to awake fully to 
 the attraction of Lincoln's style. 
 Beginning with the famous and 
 familiar speech at Gettysburg, I 
 reread many of his writings, and 
 felt everywhere his genius for 
 expression. 
 
 Where and how did Lincoln 
 
gain this mastery of expression? 
 He said of himself: 
 
 The aggregate of all his schooling 
 did not amount to one year. He 
 was never in a college or academy as 
 a student. . . . What he has in the 
 way of education he has picked up. 
 After he was twenty-three and had 
 separated from his father, he studied 
 English grammar — imperfectly, of 
 course, but so as to speak and write 
 as well as he now does. He studied 
 and nearly mastered the six books of 
 Euclid since he was a member of Con- 
 gress. He regrets his want of edu- 
 cation and does what he can to supply 
 the want. 
 
 As a boy at home we are told that 
 he would write, and do sums in 
 arithmetic, on the wooden shovel 
 by the fireside, shaving off the 
 used surface and beginning 
 again. At nineteen it is re- 
 corded that he "had read every 
 
book he could find, and could 
 spell down the whole country." 
 He read early the Bible, ^sop's 
 "Fables," "Robinson Crusoe," 
 "Pilgrim's Progress," a history 
 of the United States, Weems's 
 "Life of Washington," Frank- 
 lin's "Autobiography"; later, 
 the life of Clay and the works of 
 Burns and Shakspere. Not a 
 bad list of books if taken seri- 
 ously and not mixed with trash ; 
 for, of course, culture has to do 
 not so much with the extent of 
 the information as with the depth 
 of the impression. 
 
 The youthful Lincoln pon- 
 dered also over the Revised 
 Statutes of Indiana; and "he 
 would sit in the twilight and read 
 a dictionary as long as he could 
 see." John Hanks said: "When 
 Abe and I returned to the house 
 from work he \\ ould iro to the 
 
cupboard, snatch a piece of corn- 
 bread, take down a book, sit 
 down, cock his legs up as high 
 as his head, and read." At 
 twenty-four, when he was sup- 
 posed to be keeping a shop, 
 Nicolay and Hay speak of the 
 "grotesque youth, habited in 
 homespun tow, lying on his back, 
 with his feet on the trunk of the 
 tree, and poring over his book by 
 the hour, grinding around with 
 the shade as it shifted from north 
 to east." 
 
 The youth not only read and 
 thought, but wrote, among other 
 things, nonsensical verses ; and 
 he composed speeches. He went 
 early into politics, and soon be- 
 came a thoughtful and effective 
 speaker and debater. Of the 
 language that Lincoln heard and 
 used in boyhood, says Nicolay, 
 in an essay on " Lincoln's Literary 
 
Experiments " printed since the 
 "Life" was issued, "though the 
 vocabulary was scanty, the words 
 were short and forcible." He 
 learned among men and women 
 poor and inured to hardship 
 how the plain people think and 
 feel. 
 
 In his young manhood at 
 Springfield he measured wits with 
 other bright young lawyers, in 
 plain and direct language before 
 plain and simple-minded audi- 
 tors, either in political discus- 
 sion or in the court-room ; either 
 in the capital or in the country 
 towns of Illinois. His mathemat- 
 ical and legal studies were an aid 
 to precise statement, and his na- 
 tive honesty made him frank and 
 convincing in argument. He felt 
 himself to be a poor defender of 
 a guilty client, and sometimes 
 shirked the job. 
 
If for a brief period in his 
 youth he indulged in anything 
 resembHng the spread-eagle style 
 of oratory, he was quick, as Nico- 
 lay declares, to realize the dan- 
 ger and overcome the tempta- 
 tion. His secretary relates that 
 in his later years he used to re- 
 peat with glee the description of 
 the Southwestern orator of whom 
 it is said: "He mounted the ros- 
 trum, threw back his head, shined 
 his eyes, and left the conse- 
 quences to God." 
 
 By practice in extemporary 
 speaking Lincoln learned to do a 
 most difficult thing — namely, to 
 produce literature on his legs. It 
 is difficult thus to produce litera- 
 ture, because the words must flow 
 with immediate precision. It is 
 unusual for a politician to go 
 through life always addressing 
 audiences, and yet always avoid- 
 xxii 
 
ing the orator's temptation to 
 please and captivate by extrava- 
 gant and false sentiment and 
 statement. The writer, and par- 
 ticularly the political writer, is 
 tempted to this sort of immo- 
 rality, but still more the speaker, 
 for with the latter the reward of 
 applause is prompt and seductive. 
 It is amazing to look over Lin- 
 coln's record and find how seldom 
 he went beyond bounds, how fair 
 and just he was, how responsible 
 and conscientious his utterances 
 long before these utterances be- 
 came of national importance. 
 Yet it was largely because of this 
 very quality that they assumed 
 national importance. And then 
 both his imagination and his sym- 
 pathy helped him here, for while 
 he saw and keenly felt his own 
 side of the argument, he could 
 see as clearly, and he could sym- 
 xxiii 
 
pathetically understand, the side 
 of his opponent. 
 
 Lincoln was barely twenty- 
 three when, as a candidate for 
 the legislature, he issued a formal 
 address to the people of Sanga- 
 mon County. It is the first paper 
 preserved by Nicolay and Hay in 
 their collection of his addresses 
 and letters. Nicolay well says 
 that "as a literary production no 
 ordinary college graduate would 
 need to be ashamed of it." 
 
 In this address we already find 
 that honest purpose, that "sweet 
 reasonableness " and persuasive- 
 ness of speech, which is charac- 
 teristic of his later and more cele- 
 brated utterances. In his gath- 
 ered writings and addresses we 
 find, indeed, touches of the true 
 Lincoln genius here and there 
 from the age of twenty-three on. 
 In the literary record of about his 
 xxiv 
 
thirty-third year occur some of 
 the most surprising proofs of the 
 dehcacy of his nature — of that 
 culture of the soul which had 
 taken place in him in the midst 
 of such harsh and unpromis- 
 ing environment. Reference is 
 made to the letters written to 
 his young friend Joshua F. 
 Speed, a member of the Ken- 
 tucky family associated by mar- 
 riage with the family of the poet 
 Keats. 
 
 In Lincoln's early serious verse 
 the feeling is right, though the 
 art is lacking; but the verses 
 are interesting in that they 
 show a good ear. Note has been 
 m.ade of a pleasing cadence in 
 Lincoln's prose ; and it is not 
 strange that he should show a 
 rhythmical sense in his verse. 
 He showed a good deal of com- 
 mon sense in not going on with 
 
 XXV 
 
this sort of thing, and in confin- 
 ing the pubHcation of his inade- 
 quate rhymes to the sacred privacy 
 of indulgent and sympathetic 
 friendship. 
 
 We come now to Lincoln 
 the accomplished orator. His 
 speech in Congress on the 28th 
 of January, 1848, on the Mexican 
 War, strikes the note of solemn 
 verity and of noble indignation 
 which a little later rang through 
 the country and, with other 
 voices, aroused it to a sense of 
 impending danger. 
 
 It was in 1851 that he wrote 
 some family letters that not only 
 show him in a charming light as 
 the true and wise friend of his 
 shiftless stepbrother, but the af- 
 fectionate guardian of his step- 
 mother, who had been such a 
 good mother to him. There is 
 something Greek in the clear 
 
phrase and pure reason of these 
 epistles. 
 
 Dear Brother : When I came 
 into Charleston day before yesterday, 
 I learned that you are anxious to sell 
 the land where you live and move to 
 Missouri. I have been thinking of 
 this ever since, and cannot but think 
 such a notion is utterly foolish. 
 What can you do in Missouri better 
 than here? Is the land any richer? 
 Can you there, any more than here, 
 raise corn and wheat and oats without 
 work? Will anybody there, any 
 more than here, do your work for 
 you? If you intend to go to work, 
 there is no better place than right 
 where you are ; if you do not intend 
 to go to work, you cannot get along 
 anywhere. Squirming and crawling 
 about from place to place can do no 
 good. You have raised no crop this 
 year ; and what you really want is to 
 sell the land, get the money, and 
 spend it. Part with the land you 
 xxvii 
 
have, and, my life upon it, you will 
 never after own a spot big enough 
 to bury you in. 
 
 We find in his Peoria speech of 
 1854 a statement of his long con- 
 tention against the extension of 
 slavery, and a proof of his ability 
 to cope intellectually with the 
 ablest debaters of the West. His 
 Peoria speech was in answer to 
 Judge Douglas, with whom four 
 years afterward he held the fa- 
 mous debate. Lincoln was now 
 forty-five years old, and his ora- 
 tory contains that moral impetus 
 which was to give it greater and 
 greater power. 
 
 In 1856 occurred the Fremont 
 and Dayton campaign, which 
 came not so very far from being 
 the Fremont and Lincoln cam- 
 paign. In a speech in this cam- 
 paign he used a memorable 
 xxviii 
 
phrase: "All this talk about the 
 dissolution of the Union is hum- 
 bug, nothing but folly. We do 
 not want to dissolve the Union; 
 you shall noty In his famous 
 speech delivered at Springfield, 
 Illinois, at the close of the Re- 
 publican State Convention of 
 1858, — in which he had been 
 named as candidate for United 
 States senator, — the skilful and 
 serious orator rises not merely 
 to the broad level of nationality, 
 but to the plane of universal hu- 
 manity. As events thicken and 
 threaten, his style becomes more 
 solemn. So telling at last his 
 power of phrase that it would 
 hardly seem to be an exaggera- 
 tion to declare that the war itself 
 was partly induced by the fact 
 that Abraham Lincoln was able 
 to express his pregnant thoughts 
 with the art of a master. How 
 
familiar now these words of 
 prophecy : 
 
 " A house divided against itself 
 cannot stand." I believe this gov- 
 ernment 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. 
 
 The cadence of Lincoln's prose 
 with its burden of high hope, 
 touched with that heroism which 
 is so near to pathos, reminds one 
 of the Leitmotif, the " leading 
 motive " in symphony and 
 music-drama of which musicians 
 make use, and which is espe- 
 cially characteristic of the man- 
 ner of Wagner : 
 
 Two years ago the Republicans of 
 the nation mustered over thirteen 
 hundred thousand strong. We did 
 this under the single impulse of re- 
 
 XXX 
 
sistance to a common danger, with 
 every external circumstance against 
 us. Of strange, discordant, and even 
 hostile elements, we gathered from 
 the four winds, and formed and 
 fought the battle through, under the 
 constant hot fire of a disciplined, 
 proud, and pampered enemy. Did 
 we brave all then to falter now — 
 now, when that same enemy is waver- 
 ing, dissevered, and belligerent? 
 The result is not doubtful. We shall 
 not fail — if we stand firm, we shall 
 not fail. Wise counsels may accel- 
 erate or ?nistakes delay it, hit, soojier 
 or later, the victory is sure to come. 
 
 We have arrived now at the 
 period of the joint debate be- 
 tween Lincoln and Douglas. In 
 Lincoln we have the able and 
 practised attorney, with one side 
 of his nature open to the eternal ; 
 in Douglas the skilful lawyer, 
 adroit and ambitious, not easily 
 
moved by the moral appeals 
 which so quickly took hold upon 
 Lincoln, but a man capable of 
 right and patriotic action when 
 the depths of his nature were 
 stirred. 
 
 One of the most characteristic 
 qualities of Lincoln's expression 
 is its morality, its insight, its pro- 
 phecy ; and in the now famous de- 
 bate he reached well-nigh the 
 fullness of his power to put great 
 thoughts into fitting language. 
 Straight his words went into the 
 minds and hearts of eagerly 
 listening crowds. The question, 
 he contended, was as to the right 
 or the wrong of slavery : 
 
 That [he said] is the real issue. 
 That is the issue that will continue 
 in this country when these poor 
 tongues of Judge Douglas and myself 
 shall be silent. It is the eternal 
 
struggle between these two principles 
 — right and wrong — throughout the 
 world. They are the two principles 
 that have stood face to face from the 
 beginning of time, and will ever con- 
 tinue to struggle. The one is the 
 common right of humanity, and the 
 other the divine right of kings. 
 
 A recent biographer of Lincoln, 
 Mr. John T. Morse, Jr., says that 
 "it is just appreciation, not ex- 
 travagance, to say that the cheap 
 and miserable little volume, now 
 out of print, containing in bad 
 newspaper type 'The Lincoln and 
 Douglas Debates,' holds some of 
 the masterpieces of oratory of all 
 ages and nations." 
 
 It is interesting to recall the 
 fact that, in the pause of his af- 
 fairs after the debate with Doug- 
 las, Lincoln took up the then 
 popular custom of lyceum-lec- 
 turing. In the very year before 
 
his election to the Presidency the 
 great statesman and orator was 
 engaged in delivering a totally 
 uninspired lecture on "Discov- 
 eries, Inventions, and Improve- 
 ments " in towns near Spring- 
 field, and in Springfield itself on 
 Washington's Birthday in the 
 fateful year of i860. There was 
 little in this lecture to attract the 
 slightest attention ; and while it 
 may have given satisfaction 
 among neighbors, it could never 
 have added to his fame. Yet 
 when he had the opportunity of 
 an engagement to lecture on po- 
 litical subjects in this same month 
 of February, he made what is now 
 known as the "great address " at 
 Cooper Union. Soon after this 
 came his nomination, then his 
 election to the Presidency of the 
 United States ; and with these 
 events he may be said to have 
 xxxiv 
 
resumed his true literary career, 
 for his style was at its best only 
 when he was dealing with a cause 
 in which his whole heart was en- 
 listed. 
 
 By way of contrast to what has 
 passed and is to come, let us cull 
 some of the passages in which 
 shone Lincoln's wit and humor. 
 How pleasing it is to know that 
 his melancholy nature, his bur- 
 dened spirit, were refreshed 
 with glimpses — often storms — of 
 mirth ! They say that to see 
 Lmxoln laugh was an amazing 
 sight. 
 
 The humor of which we learn 
 so much from those who heard 
 him tell his quaint and often 
 Rabelaisian stories came out 
 sharply and roughly in one of his 
 congressional speeches, in which 
 he referred with grim sarcasm to 
 General Cass's military record 
 
 XXXV 
 
as used for political ammunition. 
 Here are some later touches of 
 his wit : "The plainest print can- 
 not be read through a gold 
 eagle." "If you think you can 
 slander a woman into loving you, 
 or a man into voting for you, try 
 it till you are satisfied." Again : 
 "Has Douglas the exclusive right 
 in this country to be on all sides 
 of all questions ? " Again : " In 
 his numerous speeches now being 
 made in Illinois, Senator Douglas 
 regularly argues against the doc- 
 trine of the equality of men ; and 
 while he does not draw the con- 
 clusion that the superiors ought 
 to enslave the inferiors, he evi- 
 dently wishes his hearers to draw 
 that conclusion. He shirks the 
 responsibility of pulling the house 
 down, but he digs under it that 
 it may fall of its own weight." 
 "The enemy would fight," said 
 xxxvi 
 
the President once, in a letter to 
 General Hooker, "in intrench- 
 ments, and have you at a disad- 
 vantage, and so, man for man, 
 worst you at that point, while his 
 main force would in some way be 
 getting an advantage of you 
 northward. In one word, I would 
 not take any risk of being en- 
 tangled upon the river like an ox 
 jumped half over a fence and ha- 
 ble to be torn by dogs front and 
 rear without a fair chance to gore 
 one way or kick the other." It 
 was also to Hooker that he wrote : 
 "Only those generals who gain 
 successes can set up dictators. 
 What I now ask of you is military 
 success, and I will risk the dicta- 
 torship." 
 
 In a letter written in 1859 to a 
 Boston committee he said, in de- 
 scribing a change in party stan- 
 dards : " I remember being once 
 xxxvii 
 
much amused at seeing two par- 
 tially intoxicated men engaged in 
 a fight with their greatcoats on, 
 which fight, after a long and ra- 
 ther harmless contest, ended in 
 each haying fought himself out 
 of his own coat and into that of 
 the other. If the two leading 
 parties of this day are really iden- 
 tical with the two in the days of 
 Jefferson and Adams, they have 
 performed the same feat as the 
 two drunken men." And this is 
 from his very last public address : 
 "Concede that the new govern- 
 ment of Louisiana is only to what 
 it should be as the egg is to the 
 fowl, we shall sooner have the 
 fowl by hatching the egg than by 
 smashing it." 
 
 A specimen of his spoken wit 
 is the story told of his reply to 
 the countryman who at a recep- 
 tion said,— in the prepared speech 
 
 XXX VIU 
 
that patriots so often shoot at the 
 President as they plunge past him 
 in the processions through the 
 White House,—" I beheve in God 
 Ah-nighty and Abraham Lin- 
 coln." "You 're more than half 
 right," quickly answered the 
 President. When, at a confer- 
 ence with Confederate leaders, he 
 was reminded by the Southern 
 commissioner, Mr. Hunter, that 
 Charles I entered into an agree- 
 ment with "parties in arms 
 against the government," Lincoln 
 said: "I do not profess to be 
 posted in history. In all such 
 matters I will turn you over to 
 Seward. All I distinctly recollect 
 about the case of Charles I is that 
 he lost his head." 
 
 Lincoln was elected to the Presi- 
 dency of a country on the verge 
 of civil war. In his farewell to 
 xxxix 
 
his fellow-townsmen sounds again 
 that musical "motive" of which 
 I have spoken, recurring like 
 the refrain of a sad but heroic 
 poem. Remember the passage 
 quoted before. It occurred in his 
 speech of 1858: "The result is 
 not doubtful. We shall not fail 
 —if we stand firm, we shall not 
 fail. Wise counsels may accel- 
 erate or mistakes delay it, but, 
 sooner or later, the victory is sure 
 to come." 
 
 In parting from his old neigh- 
 bors he said : 
 
 Here my children have been born, 
 and one is buried, I now leave, not 
 knowing when or whether ever I may 
 return, with a task before me greater 
 than that which rested upon Wash- 
 ington. Without the assistance of 
 that Divine Being who ever attended 
 him I cannot succeed. With that 
 assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in 
 xl 
 
him, who can go with me and re- 
 main with you, and be everywhere 
 for good, let us confidently hope that 
 all will yet be well. 
 
 The First Inaugural concludes 
 with a passage of great tender- 
 ness. We learn from Nicolay 
 and Hay that the suggestion of 
 that passage, its first draft indeed, 
 came from Seward. But com- 
 pare this first draft with the pas- 
 sage as amended and adopted by 
 Lincoln ! This is Seward's : 
 
 I close. We are not, we must not 
 be. aliens or enemies, but fellow- 
 countrymen and brethren. Although 
 passion has strained our bonds of af- 
 fection too hardly, they must not, I 
 am sure they will not, be broken. 
 The mystic chords which, proceeding 
 from so many battle-fields and so 
 many patriot graves, pass through all 
 the hearts and all hearths in this 
 broad continent of ours, will yet again 
 xli 
 
harmonize in their ancient music 
 when breathed upon by the guardian 
 angel of the nation. 
 
 And this is Lincoln's : 
 
 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. Tlie mystic 
 chords of memory, stretching from 
 every battle-field and patriot grave 
 to every living heart and hearthstone 
 all over this broad land, will yet swell 
 the chorus of the Union when again 
 touched, as surely they will be, by 
 the better angels of our nature. 
 
 There is in this last something 
 that suggests music ; again we 
 hear the strain of the Leitmotif. 
 Strangely enough, in 1858 Lin- 
 coln himself had used a figure 
 not the same as, but suggestive 
 of, this very one now given by 
 xlii 
 
Seward. He was speaking of the 
 moral sentiment, the sentiment 
 of equaHty, in the Declaration of 
 Independence. " T/iat,''^ he said, 
 "is the electric chord in that Dec- 
 laration, that links the hearts of 
 patriotic and liberty-loving men 
 together, that will link those pa- 
 triotic hearts as long as the love 
 of freedom exists in the minds of 
 men throughout the world." 
 
 In the final paragraph of the 
 Second Inaugural we find again 
 the haunting music with which 
 the First Inaugural closed. On 
 the heart of what American — 
 North or South — are not the 
 words imprinted? 
 
 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 na- 
 tion's wounds ; to care for him who 
 xliii 
 
shall have borne the battle, and for 
 his widow, and his orphan — to do 
 all which may achieve and cherish a 
 just and lasting peace among our- 
 selves, and with all nations. 
 
 As the great musician brings 
 somewhere to its highest expres- 
 sion the motive which has been 
 entwined from first to last in his 
 music-drama, so did the expres- 
 sion of Lincoln's passion for his 
 country reach its culmination in 
 the tender and majestic phrases 
 of the Gettysburg Address : 
 
 In a larger sense, we cannot 
 dedicate — we cannot consecrate — 
 we cannot hallow — this ground. 
 The brave men, living and dead, 
 who struggled here, have conse- 
 crated 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 they did here. It is for us, 
 xliv 
 
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 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 re- 
 solve that these, dead shall not have 
 died in vain ; that this nation, under 
 God, shall have a new birth of free- 
 dom ; and that government of the 
 people, by the people, for the people, 
 shall not perish from the earth. 
 
 But there is a letter of Lin- 
 coln's which may well be asso- 
 ciated with the Gettysburg 
 Address. It was written, just 
 one year after the delivery of 
 the Address, to a mother who, 
 the President heard, had lost five 
 sons in the army. I believe the 
 xlv 
 
number was not so large, though 
 that does not matter. 
 
 Executive Mansion, 
 Washington, 
 
 November 21, 1864. 
 Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts. 
 Dear Madam : I have been 
 shown in the files of the War De- 
 partment a statement of the Adjutant- 
 General of Massachusetts that you 
 are the mother of five sons v^^ho have 
 died gloriously on the field of battle. 
 I feel how weak and fruitless must 
 be any words of mine which should 
 attempt to beguile you from the 
 grief of a loss so overwhelming. 
 But I cannot refrain from tendering 
 to you the consolation that may be 
 found in the thanks of the Republic 
 they died to save. I pray that our 
 heavenly Father may assuage the 
 anguish of your bereavement, and 
 leave you only the cherished memory 
 of the loved and lost, and the solemn 
 pride that must be yours to have 
 xlvi 
 
laid so costly a sacrifice upon the 
 altar of freedom. 
 
 Yours very sincerely 
 
 and respectfully, 
 Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 This letter of consolation in its 
 simplicity and fitness again re- 
 calls the Greek spirit. It is like 
 one of those calm monuments of 
 grief which the traveler may still 
 behold in that small cemetery 
 under the deep Athenian sky, 
 where those who have been dead 
 so many centuries are kept alive 
 in the memories of men by an art 
 which is immortal. 
 
 xlvli 
 
LINCOLN 
 
LINCOLN 
 
 LINCOLN S AMBITION 
 
 From an address to the people of Sangamon 
 County, issued March 9, 1832. 
 
 Every man is said to have his 
 peculiar ambition. Whether it 
 be true or not, I can say, for 
 one, that I have no other so 
 great as that of being truly es- 
 teemed of my fellow-men, by 
 rendering myself worthy of 
 their esteem. How far I shall 
 succeed in gratifying this am- 
 bition is yet to be developed. 
 I am young, and unknown to 
 m.any of you. I was born, and 
 have ever remained, in the 
 most humble walks of life. I 
 have no wealthy or popular re- 
 
lations or friends to recommend 
 me. My case is thrown ex- 
 clusively upon the independent 
 voters of the country ; and, if 
 elected, they will have con- 
 ferred 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 background, I have been 
 too familiar with disappoint- 
 ments to be very much cha- 
 grined. 
 
II 
 
 TO A FRIEND 
 
 From a letter to Joshua F. Speed, dated 
 February 3, 1842. 
 
 You well know that I do not feel 
 my own sorrows much more 
 keenly than I do yours, when I 
 know of them ; and yet I as- 
 sure you I was not much hurt 
 by what you wrote me of your 
 excessively bad feehng at* the 
 time you wrote. 
 
 Not that I am less capable 
 of sympathizing with you now 
 than ever, not that I am less 
 your friend than ever, but be- 
 cause I hope and believe that 
 your present anxietv and dis- 
 tress about her health and her 
 life must and will forever ban- 
 
ish those horrid doubts which 
 I know you sometimes felt as 
 to the truth of your affection 
 for her. If they can once and 
 forever be removed (and I al- 
 most feel a presentiment that 
 the Almighty has sent your 
 present affliction expressly for 
 that object), surely nothing can 
 come in their stead to fill their 
 immeasurable measure of mis- 
 ery. 
 
 The death-scenes of those 
 we love are surely painful 
 enough ; but these we are pre- 
 pared for and expect to see : 
 they happen to all, and all 
 know they must happen. Pain- 
 ful as they are, they are not an 
 unlooked-for sorrow. Should 
 she, as you fear, be destined to 
 an early grave, it is indeed a 
 great consolation to know that 
 she is so well prepared to meet 
 it. Her religion, which you 
 once disliked so much, I will 
 
venture you now prize most 
 highly. But I hope your mel- 
 ancholy bodings as to her early 
 death are not well founded. I 
 even hope that ere this reaches 
 you she will have returned with 
 improved and still improving 
 health, and that you will have 
 met her, and forgotten the sor- 
 rows of the past in the enjoy- 
 ments of the present. 
 
 I would say more if I could, 
 but it seems that I have said 
 enough. It really appears to 
 me that you yourself ought to 
 rejoice, and not sorrow, at this 
 indubitable evidence of your 
 undying affection for her. 
 Why, Speed, if you did not 
 love her, although you might 
 not wish her death, you would 
 most certainly be resigned to 
 it. Perhaps this point is no 
 longer a question with you, 
 and my pertinacious dwelling 
 upon it is a rude intrusion upon 
 
 7 
 
your feelings. If so, you must 
 pardon me. You know the 
 hell I have suffered on that 
 point, and how tender I am 
 upon it. 
 
Ill 
 
 ADVICE TO YOUNG LAWYERS 
 
 Notes for a law lecture, written about 
 July I, 1850. 
 
 I AM not an accomplished law- 
 yer. I find quite as much 
 material for a lecture in those 
 points wherein I have failed as 
 in those wherein I have been 
 moderately successful. 
 
 The leading rule for the law- 
 yer, as for the man of every 
 other calling, is diligence. 
 Leave nothing for to-morrow 
 which can be done to-day. 
 Never let your correspondence 
 fall behind. Whatever piece 
 of business you have in hand, 
 before stopping, do all the la- 
 bor pertaining to it which can 
 
then be done. When you 
 bring a common-law suit, if 
 you have the facts for doing so, 
 write the declaration at once. 
 If a law point be involved, 
 examine the books, and note 
 the authority you rely on upon 
 the declaration itself, where you 
 are sure to find it when wanted. 
 The same of defenses and pleas. 
 In business not likely to be liti- 
 gated, — ordinary collection 
 cases, foreclosures, partitions, 
 and the like, — make all exam- 
 inations of titles, and note them, 
 and even draft orders and de- 
 crees in advance. This course 
 has a triple advantage : it 
 avoids omissions and neglect, 
 saves your labor when once 
 done, performs the labor out of 
 court when you have leisure, 
 rather than in court when you 
 have not. 
 
 Extemporaneous speaking 
 should be practised and culti- 
 
 10 
 
vated. It is the lawyer's ave- 
 nue to the public. However 
 able and faithful he may be in 
 other respects, people are slow 
 to bring him business if he can- 
 not make a speech. And yet 
 there is not a more fatal error 
 to young lawyers than relying 
 too much on speech-making. 
 If any one, upon his rare pow- 
 ers of speaking, shall claim an 
 exemption from the drudgery 
 of the law, his case is a failure 
 in advance. 
 
 Discourage litigation. Per- 
 suade your neighbors to com- 
 promise whenever you can. 
 Point out to them how the 
 nominal winner is often a real 
 loser — in fees, expenses, and 
 waste of time. As a peace- 
 maker the lawyer has a supe- 
 rior opportunity of being a 
 good man. There will still be 
 business enough. 
 
 Never stir up litigation. A 
 11 
 
worse man can scarcely be 
 found than one who does this. 
 Who can be more nearly a fiend 
 than he who habitually over- 
 hauls the register of deeds in 
 search of defects in titles, 
 whereon to stir up strife, and 
 put money in his pocket? A 
 moral tone ought to be infused 
 into the profession which 
 should drive such men out of 
 it. 
 
 The matter of fees is impor- 
 tant, far beyond the mere ques- 
 tion of bread and butter in- 
 volved. Properly attended to, 
 fuller justice is done to both 
 lawyer and client. An exor- 
 bitant fee should never be 
 claimed. As a general rule, 
 never take your whole fee in 
 advance, nor any more than a 
 small retainer. When fully 
 paid beforehand, you are more 
 than a common mortal if you 
 can feel the same interest in 
 
 12 
 
the case as if something was 
 still in prospect for you, as well 
 as for your client. And when 
 you lack interest in the case 
 the job will very likely lack 
 skill and diligence in the per- 
 formance. Settle the amount 
 of fee and take a note in ad- 
 vance. Then you will feel that 
 you are working for something, 
 and you are sure to do your 
 work faithfully and well. 
 Never sell a fee-note — at least 
 not before the consideration 
 service is performed. It leads 
 to negligence and dishonesty 
 — negligence by losing interest 
 in the case, and dishonesty in 
 refusing to refund when you 
 have ahowed the consideration 
 to fail. 
 
 There is a vague popular 
 belief that lawyers are neces- 
 sarily dishonest. I say vague, 
 because when we consider to 
 what extent confidence and 
 
 13 
 
honors are reposed in and con- 
 ferred upon lawyers by the 
 people, it appears improbable 
 that their impression of dis- 
 honesty is very distinct and 
 vivid. Yet the impression is 
 common, almost universal. 
 Let no young man choosing 
 the law for a calling for a mo- 
 ment yield to the popular be- 
 Hef. Resolve to be honest at 
 all events ; and if in your own 
 judgment you cannot be an 
 honest lawyer, resolve to be 
 honest without being a lawyer. 
 Choose some other occupation, 
 rather than one in the choos- 
 ing of which you do, in ad- 
 vance, consent to be a knave. 
 
 u 
 
IV 
 
 SLAVERY 
 
 A fragment, written about July i, 1854. 
 
 Equality in society alike beats 
 inequality, whether the latter 
 be of the British aristocratic sort 
 or of the domestic slavery sort. 
 We know Southern men 
 declare that their slaves are 
 better oE than hired laborers 
 amongst us. How little they 
 know whereof they speak! 
 There is no permanent class of 
 hired laborers amongst us. 
 Twenty-five years ago I was a 
 hired laborer. The hired la- 
 borer of yesterday labors on his 
 own account to-day, and will 
 hire others to labor for him to- 
 morrow. 
 
 16 
 
Advancement — improve- 
 ment in condition — is the order 
 of things in a society of equals. 
 As labor is the common bur- 
 den of our race, so the effort 
 of some to shift their share of 
 the burden onto the shoulders 
 of others is the great durable 
 curse of the race. Originally 
 a curse for transgression upon 
 the whole race, when, as by 
 slavery, it is concentrated on a 
 part only, it becomes the 
 double-refined curse of God 
 upon his creatures. 
 
 Free labor has the inspira- 
 tion of hope ; pure slavery has 
 no hope. The power of hope 
 upon human exertion and hap- 
 piness is wonderful. The 
 slave-master himself has a con- 
 ception of it, and hence the 
 system of tasks among slaves. 
 The slave whom you cannot 
 drive with the lash to break 
 seventy-five pounds of hemp in 
 
 16 
 
a day, if you will task him to 
 break a hundred, and promise 
 him pay for all he does over, 
 he will break you a hundred 
 and fifty. You have substi- 
 tuted hope for the rod. 
 
 And yet perhaps it does not 
 occur to you that, to the extent 
 of your gain in the case, you 
 have given up the slave system 
 and adopted the free system of 
 labor. 
 
 17 
 
V 
 
 SLAVERY 
 
 A fragmentjof the same date as the preceding. 
 
 If a can prove, however con- 
 clusively, that he may of right 
 enslave B, why may not B 
 snatch the same argument and 
 prove equally that he may en- 
 slave A? You say A is white 
 and B is black. It is color, 
 then ; the lighter having the 
 right to enslave the darker? 
 Take care. By this rule you 
 are to be slave to the first man 
 you meet with a fairer skin 
 than your own. 
 
 You do not mean color ex- 
 actly? You mean the whites 
 are intellectually the superiors 
 of the blacks, and therefore 
 
 18 
 
have the right to enslave them? 
 Take care again. By this rule 
 you are to be slave to the first 
 man you meet with an intellect 
 superior to your own. 
 
 But, say you, it is a question 
 of interest, and if you make it 
 your interest you have the right 
 to enslave another. Very well. 
 And if he can make it his in- 
 terest he has the right to en- 
 slave you. 
 
 ly 
 
VI 
 
 THE REAL SOUTHERN VIEW 
 OF SLAVERY 
 
 From a speech delivered at Peoria, Illinois, 
 October 16,1854, in reply to Senator Douglas. 
 
 Equal justice to the South, it 
 is said, requires us to consent 
 to the extension of slavery to 
 new countries. That is to say, 
 inasmuch as you do not object 
 to my taking my hog to Ne- 
 braska, therefore I must not 
 object to you taking your 
 slave. 
 
 Now, I admit that this is 
 perfectly logical, if there is no 
 difference between hogs and 
 negroes. But while you thus re- 
 quire me to deny the humanity 
 of the negro, I wish to ask whe- 
 20 
 
ther you of the South yourselves 
 have ever been wilhng to do as 
 much. It is kindly provided 
 that of all those who come into 
 the world only a small percen- 
 tage are natural tyrants. That 
 percentage is no larger in the 
 slave States than in the free. 
 The great majority South, as 
 well as North, have human 
 sympathies, of which they can 
 no more divest themselves than 
 they can of their sensibility to 
 physical pain. These sympa- 
 thies in the bosoms of the 
 Southern people manifest, in 
 many ways, their sense of the 
 wrong of slavery, and their 
 consciousness that, after all, 
 there is humanity in the negro. 
 If they deny this, let me ad- 
 dress them a few plain ques- 
 tions. In 1820 you joined the 
 North, almost unanimously, in 
 declaring the African slave- 
 trade piracy, and in annexing 
 21 
 
to it the punishment of death. 
 Why did you do this? If you 
 did not feel that it was wrong, 
 why did you join in providing 
 that men should be hung for it? 
 The practice was no more than 
 bringing wild negroes from 
 Africa to such as would buy 
 them. But you never thought 
 of hanging men for catching 
 and seUing wild horses, wild 
 buffaloes, or wild bears. 
 
 Again, you have among you 
 a sneaking individual of the 
 class of native tyrants known 
 as the " Slave- Dealer." He 
 watches your necessities, and 
 crawls up to buy your slave at 
 a speculating price. If you 
 cannot help it, you sell to him ; 
 but if you can help it, you 
 drive him from your door. 
 You despise him utterly. You 
 do not recognize him as a 
 friend, or even as an honest 
 man. Your children must not 
 
 22 
 
play with his ; they may rollick 
 freely with the little negroes, 
 but not with the slave-dealer's 
 children. If you are obliged 
 to deal with him, you try to 
 get through the job without so 
 much as touching him. It is 
 common with you to join hands 
 with the men you meet, but 
 with the slave-dealer you avoid 
 the ceremony — instinctively 
 shrinking from the snaky con- 
 tact. If he grows rich and re- 
 tires from business, you still 
 remember him, and still keep 
 up the ban of non-intercourse 
 upon him and his family. 
 Now why is this? You do 
 not so treat the man who deals 
 in corn, cotton, or tobacco. 
 
 And yet again. There are 
 in the United States and Ter- 
 ritories, including the District 
 of Columbia, 433,643 free 
 blacks. At five hundred dol- 
 lars per head they are worth 
 
 23 
 
over two hundred millions of 
 dollars. How comes this vast 
 amount of property to be run- 
 ning about without owners? 
 We do not see free horses or 
 free cattle running at large. 
 How is this? All these free 
 blacks are the descendants of 
 slaves, or have been slaves 
 themselves ; and they would be 
 slaves now but for something 
 which has operated on their 
 white owners, inducing them 
 at vast pecuniary sacrifice to 
 liberate them. What is that 
 something? Is there any mis- 
 taking it? In all these cases 
 it is your sense of justice and 
 human sympathy continually 
 telling you that the poor negro 
 has some natural right to him- 
 self — that those who deny it 
 and make mere merchandise 
 of him deserve kickings, con- 
 tempt, and death. 
 
 And now why will you ask us 
 
 24 
 
I 
 
 to deny the humanity of the 
 slave, and estimate him as only 
 the equal of the hog? Why ask 
 us to do what you will not do 
 yourselves? Why ask us to do 
 for nothing what two hundred 
 millions of dollars could not 
 induce you to do? 
 
 25 
 
VII 
 
 THE RIGHT OF SELF- 
 GOVERNMENT 
 
 From a speech delivered at Peoria, Illinois, 
 Octoberi6, 1854, in reply to Senator Douglas. 
 
 But one great argument in 
 support of the repeal of the 
 Missouri Compromise is still to 
 come. That argument is " the 
 sacred right of self-govern- 
 ment." It seems our distin- 
 guished senator has found great 
 difficulty in getting his antag- 
 onists, even in the Senate, to 
 meet him fairly on this argu- 
 ment. Some poet has said : 
 
 Fools rush in where angels fear to 
 tread. 
 
 At the hazard of being thought 
 one of the fools of this quota- 
 
 26 
 
tion, I meet that argument — I 
 rush m — I take that bull by the 
 horns. I trust I understand 
 and truly estimate the right of 
 self-government. My faith in 
 the proposition that each man 
 should do precisely as he 
 pleases with all which is ex- 
 clusively his own lies at the 
 foundation of the sense of jus- 
 tice there is in me. 
 
 I extend the principle to 
 communities of men as well as 
 to individuals. I so extend it 
 because it is politically wise as 
 well as naturally just : politi- 
 cally wise in saving us from 
 broils about matters which do 
 not concern us. Here, or at 
 Washington, I would not trou- 
 ble myself with the oyster laws 
 of Virginia, or the cranberry 
 laws of Indiana. 
 
 The doctrine of self-govern- 
 ment is right, — absolutely and 
 eternally right, — but it has no 
 
 ■27 
 
just application as here at- 
 tempted. Or perhaps I should 
 rather say that whether it has 
 such apphcation 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-govern- 
 ment 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. If the negro 
 is a man, why then my ancient 
 faith teaches me that " all men 
 are created equal," and that 
 there can be no moral right in 
 connection with one man's mak- 
 ing a slave of another. 
 
 28 
 
Judge Douglas frequently, 
 with bitter irony and sarcasm, 
 paraphrases our argument by 
 saying : " The white people of 
 Nebraska are good enough to 
 govern themselves, but they 
 are not good enough to govern 
 a few miserable negroes! " 
 
 Well! I doubt not that the 
 people of Nebraska are and 
 will continue to be as good as 
 the average of people else- 
 where. I do not say the con- 
 trary. What I do say is that 
 no man is good enough to gov- 
 ern another man without that 
 other's consent. I say this is 
 the leading principle, the sheet- 
 anchor, of American republi- 
 canism. 
 
 29 
 
VIII 
 
 MEANING OF THE DECLARA- 
 TION OF INDEPENDENCE 
 
 From a speech delivered at Springfield, Illi- 
 nois, June 26, 1857. 
 
 Chief Justice Taney, in his 
 opinion in the Dred Scott case, 
 admits that the language of the 
 Declaration is broad enough 
 to include the whole human 
 family, but he and Judge 
 Douglas argue that the authors 
 of that instrument did not 
 intend to include negroes, by 
 the fact that they did not at 
 once actually place them on an 
 equality with the whites. 
 
 Now this grave argument 
 comes to just nothing at all, by 
 the other fact that they did not 
 
 30 
 
at once, or ever afterward, actu- 
 ally place all white people on 
 an equality with one another. 
 And this is the staple argument 
 of both the chief justice and 
 the senator for doing this ob- 
 vious violence to the plain, 
 unmistakable language of the 
 Declaration! 
 
 I think the authors of that 
 notable instrument intended to 
 include all men, but they did 
 not intend to declare all men 
 equal In all respects. They did 
 not mean to say all were equal 
 in color, size, intellect, moral 
 developments, or social capa- 
 city. They defined with toler- 
 able distinctness in what re- 
 spects they did consider all 
 men created equal — equal with 
 '* certain inalienable rights, 
 among which are life, liberty, 
 and the pursuit of happiness." 
 This they said, and this they 
 meant. They did not mean to 
 
 31 
 
assert the obvious untruth that 
 all were then actually enjoying 
 that equality, nor yet that they' 
 were about to confer it immedi- 
 ately upon them. In fact, they 
 had no power to confer such a 
 boon. They meant simply to 
 declare the right, so that en- 
 forcement of it might follow as 
 fast as circumstances should 
 permit. 
 
 They meant to set up a stan- 
 dard maxim for free society, 
 which should be familiar to all, 
 and revered by all ; constantly 
 looked to, constantly labored 
 for, and even though never 
 perfectly attained, constantly 
 approximated, and thereby 
 constantly spreading and deep- 
 ening its influence and aug- 
 menting the happiness and 
 value of life to all people of all 
 colors everywhere. 
 
 The assertion that " all men 
 are created equal " was of no 
 
 32 
 
practical use in effecting our 
 separation from Great Britain ; 
 and it was placed in the Dec- 
 laration not for that, but for 
 future use. Its authors meant 
 it to be — as, thank God, it is 
 now -proving itself — a stum- 
 bling-block to all those who in 
 after times might seek to turn 
 a free people back into the 
 hateful paths of despotism. 
 They knew the proneness of 
 prosperity to breed tyrants, and 
 they meant when such should 
 reappear in this fair land and 
 commence their vocation, they 
 should find left for them at 
 least one hard nut to crack. 
 
 33 
 
IX 
 
 A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINSJ 
 ITSELF CANNOT STAND " f^ 
 
 From a speech delivered June i6, 1858, (" 
 Springfield, Illinois, at the close of the Rj. 
 publican State Convention by which Linco- ' 
 had been named as its candidate for Unitfr 
 States senator. ?v 
 
 If we could first know wherf 
 we are, and whither we art* 
 tending, we could better judge 
 what to do, and how to do it- 
 We are now far into the fifth 
 year since a policy was initiated 
 with the avowed object and 
 confident promise of putting an, 
 end to slavery agitation. Un- 
 der the operation of that pol- 
 icy, that agitation has not only 
 not ceased, but has constantly 
 augmented. In my opinion, it 
 34 
 
will not cease until a crisis 
 shall have been reached and 
 passed. " A house divided 
 against itself cannot stand." 
 I believe this government can- 
 not endure permanently half 
 slave ^nd half free. 
 
 I do not expect the Union 
 .0 be dissolved — I do not ex- 
 ect the house to fall — but I 
 lo expect it will cease to be 
 livided. It will become all 
 )ne thing, or all the other. 
 Either the opponents of slav- 
 ery 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 ad- 
 vocates will push it forward till 
 it shall become alike lawful in 
 all the States, old as well as 
 new, North as well as South. 
 
 35 
 
X 
 
 RESISTANCE TO THE SUP*IEME 
 COURT 
 
 From a speech delivered at Chicago, IIH- 
 nois, July lo, 1858. 
 
 I HAVE expressed heretofore, 
 and I now repeat, my opposi- 
 tion to the Dred Scott deci- 
 sion ; but I should be allowed 
 to state the nature of that op- 
 position, and I ask your indul- 
 gence while I do so. 
 
 What is fairly implied by 
 the term Judge Douglas has 
 used, "resistance to the deci- 
 sion"? I do not resist it. If 
 I wanted to take Dred Scott 
 from his master, I would be 
 interfering with property, and 
 that terrible difficulty that 
 
 36 
 
Judge Douglas speaks of, of 
 interfering with property, would 
 arise. But I am doing no such 
 thing as that ; all that I am 
 doing is refusing to obey it as 
 a political rule. If I were in 
 Congress, and a vote should 
 come up on a question whe- 
 ther slavery should be pro- 
 hibited in a new Territory, in 
 spite of the Dred Scott deci- 
 sion, I would vote that it 
 should. 
 
 That is what I would do. 
 Judge Douglas said last night 
 that before the decision he 
 might advance his opinion, and 
 it might be contrary to the de- 
 cision when it was made ; but 
 after it was made he would 
 abide by it until it was re- 
 versed. Just so! We let this 
 property abide by the decision, 
 but we will try to reverse that 
 decision. We will try to put it 
 where Judge Douglas would 
 
 37 
 
not object, for he says he will 
 obey it until it is reversed. 
 Somebody has to reverse that 
 decision, since it is made ; and 
 we mean to reverse it, and we 
 mean to do it peaceably. 
 
 What are the uses of deci- 
 sions of courts? They have 
 two uses. As rules of prop- 
 erty they have two uses. First 
 — they decide upon the ques- 
 tion before the court. They 
 decide in this case that Dred 
 Scott is a slave. Nobody 
 resists that. Not only that, 
 but they say to everybody else 
 that persons standing just as 
 Dred Scott stands are as he is. 
 That is, they say that when a 
 question comes up upon an- 
 other person, it will be so de- 
 cided again, unless the court 
 decides in another way, unless 
 the court overrules its decision. 
 Well, we mean to do what we 
 can to have the court decide 
 
 38 
 
the other way. That is one 
 thing we mean to try to do. 
 
 The sacredness that Judge 
 Douglas throws around this 
 decision is a degree of sacred- 
 ness that has never been before 
 thrown around any other de- 
 cision. I have never heard of 
 such a thing. Why, decisions 
 apparently contrary to that de- 
 cision, or that good lawyers 
 thought were contrary to that 
 decision, have been made by 
 that very court before. It is 
 the first of its kind ; it is an 
 astonisher in legal history. It 
 is a new wonder of the world. 
 It is based upon falsehood in 
 the main as to the facts — alle- 
 gations of facts upon which it 
 stands are not facts at all in 
 many instances ; and no deci- 
 sion made on any question — 
 the first instance of a decision 
 made under so many unfav- 
 orable circumstances — thus 
 
 39 
 
placed has ever been held by 
 the profession as law, and it 
 has always needed confirmation 
 before the lawyers regarded it 
 as settled law. 
 
 But Judge Douglas will have 
 it that all hands must take this 
 extraordinary decision, made 
 under these extraordinary cir- 
 cumstances, and give their vote 
 in Congress in accordance with 
 it, yield to it and obey it in 
 every possible sense. Circum- 
 stances alter cases. Do not gen- 
 tlemen here remember the case 
 of that same Supreme Court, 
 some twenty- five or thirty years 
 ago, deciding that a national 
 bank was constitutional? I 
 ask if somebody does not re- 
 member that a national bank 
 was declared to be constitu- 
 tional? Such is the truth, 
 whether it be remembered or 
 not. The bank charter ran 
 out, and a recharter was 
 
 40 
 
granted by Congress. That 
 recharter was laid before Gen- 
 eral Jackson. It was urged 
 upon him, when he denied the 
 constitutionality of the bank, 
 that the Supreme Court had 
 decided that it was constitu- 
 tional ; and General Jackson 
 then said that the Supreme 
 Court had no right to lay down 
 a rule to govern a coordinate 
 branch of the government, the 
 members of which had sworn to 
 support the Constitution — that 
 each member had sworn to sup- 
 port that Constitution as he 
 understood it. I will venture 
 here to say that I have heard 
 Judge Douglas say that he ap- 
 proved of General Jackson for 
 that act. What has now be- 
 come of all his tirade against 
 " resistance to the Supreme 
 Court"? 
 
 41 
 
XI 
 
 REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI 
 COMPROMISE 
 
 From Lincoln's reply to Douglas in the 
 joint debate at Jonesboro, Illinois, Septem- 
 ber 15, 1858. 
 
 The judge has gone over a 
 long account of the Old Whig 
 and Democratic parties, and it 
 connects itself with this charge 
 against Trumbull and myself. 
 
 He says that they agreed 
 upon a compromise in regard 
 to the slavery question in 1850 ; 
 that in a national Democratic 
 convention resolutions were 
 passed to abide by that com- 
 promise as a finality upon the 
 slavery question. He also says 
 that the Whig party in national 
 convention agreed to abide by 
 
 42 
 
and regard as a finality the 
 compromise of 1850: I un- 
 derstand the judge to be ako- 
 gether right about that ; I un- 
 derstand that part of the history 
 of the country as stated by him 
 to be correct. I recollect that 
 I, as a member of that party, 
 acquiesced in that compromise. 
 I recollect in the Presidential 
 election which followed, when 
 we had General Scott up for 
 the Presidency, Judge Douglas 
 was around berating us Whigs 
 as abolitionists, precisely as he 
 does to-day — not a bit of dif- 
 ference. I have often heard 
 him. We could do nothing 
 when the Old Whig party was 
 alive that was not abolitionism, 
 but it has got an extremely good 
 name since it has passed away. 
 When that compromise was 
 made, it did not repeal the old 
 Missouri Compromise. It left 
 a region of United States ter- 
 43 
 
ritory half as large as the pres- 
 ent territory of the United 
 States, north of the hne of 360 
 30', in which slavery was pro- 
 hibited by act of Congress. 
 This compromise did not re- 
 peal that one. It did not 
 affect or propose to repeal it. 
 But at last it became Judge 
 Douglas's duty, as he thought 
 (and I find no fault with him), 
 as chairman of the Committee 
 on Territories, to bring in a 
 bill for the organization of a 
 territorial government — first of 
 one, then of two Territories 
 north of that line. When he 
 did so it ended in his inserting 
 a provision substantially repeal- 
 ing the Missouri Compromise. 
 That was because the com.- 
 promise of 1850 had not 
 repealed it. 
 
 And now I ask why he could 
 not have left that compromise 
 alone. We were quiet from 
 
the agitation of the slavery 
 question. We were making 
 no fuss about it. All had ac- 
 quiesced in the compromise 
 measures of 1850. We never 
 had been seriously disturbed 
 by any abolition agitation be- 
 fore that period. When he 
 came to form governments for 
 the Territories north of the line 
 of 36*^ 30', why could he not 
 have let that matter stand as it 
 was standing? Was it neces- 
 sary to the organization of a 
 Territory? Not at all. Iowa 
 lay north of the line, and had 
 been organized as a Territory, 
 and came into the Union as a 
 State without disturbing that 
 compromise. There was no 
 sort of necessity for destroying 
 it to organize these Territories. 
 But, gentlemen, it would take 
 up all my time to meet all the 
 little quibbling arguments of 
 Judge Douglas to show that 
 45 
 
the Missouri Compromise was 
 repealed by the compromise of 
 1 850. My own opinion is that 
 a careful investigation of all 
 the arguments to sustain the 
 position that that compromise 
 was virtually repealed by the 
 compromise of 1850 would 
 show that they are the merest 
 fallacies. I have the report 
 that Judge Douglas first 
 brought into Congress at the 
 time of the introduction of the 
 Nebraska Bill, which in its 
 original form did not repeal 
 the Missouri Compromise, and 
 he there expressly stated that 
 he had forborne to do so be- 
 cause it had not been done by 
 the compromise of 1850. 
 
 I close this part of the dis- 
 cussion on my part by asking 
 him the question again, " Why, 
 when we had peace under the 
 Missouri Compromise, could 
 you not have let it alone? " 
 
 46 
 
XII 
 
 NOTES FOR SPEECHES 
 
 Written about October i, 1858. 
 
 Suppose it is true that the 
 negro is inferior to the white in 
 the gifts of nature ; is it not 
 the exact reverse of justice that 
 the white should for that rea- 
 son take from the negro any 
 part of the httle which he has 
 had given him? " Give to him 
 that is needy " is the Christian 
 rule of charity ; but " Take 
 from him that is needv " is the 
 rule of slavery. 
 
 The sum of pro-slavery theol- 
 ogy seems to be this : " Slav- 
 ery is not universally right, nor 
 yet universally wrong ; it is bet- 
 
 47 
 
ter for some people to be 
 slaves ; and, in such cases, it is 
 the will of God that they be 
 such." 
 
 Certainly there is no con- 
 tending against the will of God ; 
 but still there is some difficulty 
 in ascertaining and applying it 
 to particular cases. For in- 
 stance, we will suppose the 
 Rev. Dr. Ross has a slave 
 named Sambo, and the ques- 
 tion is, " Is it the will of God 
 that Sambo shall remain a slave, 
 or be set free?" The Al- 
 mighty gives no audible answer 
 to the question, and his revela- 
 tion, the Bible, gives none — or 
 at most none but such as ad- 
 mits of a squabble as to its 
 meaning ; no one thinks of ask- 
 ing Sambo's opinion on it. So 
 at last it comes to this, that Dr. 
 Ross is to decide the question ; 
 and while he considers it, he 
 sits in the shade, with gloves on 
 
 48 
 
his hands, and subsists on the 
 bread that Sambo is earning in 
 the burning sun. If he decides 
 that God wills Sambo to con- 
 tinue a slave, he thereby retains 
 his own comfortable position ; 
 but if he decides that God wills 
 Sambo to be free, he thereby 
 has to walk out of the shade, 
 throw off his gloves, and delve 
 for his own bread. Will Dr. 
 Ross be actuated by the perfect 
 impartiality which has ever 
 been considered most favorable 
 to correct decisions? 
 
 49 
 
XIII 
 
 THE NEGRO INCLUDED IN THE 
 DECLARATION OF IN- 
 DEPENDENCE 
 
 From Lincoln's reply to Douglas in the 
 Galesburg joint debate, October 7, 1858. 
 
 The judge has alluded to the 
 Declaration of Independence, 
 and insisted that negroes are 
 not included in that Declara- 
 tion, and that it is a slander 
 upon the framers of that instru- 
 ment to suppose that negroes 
 were meant therein ; and he 
 asks you : Is it possible to be- 
 lieve that Mr. Jefferson, who 
 penned the immortal paper, 
 could have supposed himself 
 applying the language of that 
 instrument to the negro race, 
 
 50 
 
and yet held a portion of that 
 race in slavery? Would he 
 not at once have freed them? 
 I only have to remark upon 
 this part of the judge's speech 
 (and that, too, very briefly, for 
 I shall not detain myself, or 
 you, upon that point for any 
 great length of time), that I be- 
 lieve the entire records of the 
 world, from the date of the 
 Declaration of Independence 
 up to within three years ago, 
 may be searched in vain for 
 one single affirmation, from one 
 single man, that the negro was 
 not included in the Declaration 
 of Independence. I think I 
 may defy Judge Douglas to 
 show that he ever said so, that 
 Washington ever said so, that 
 any President ever said so, that 
 any member of Congress ever 
 said so, or that any living man 
 upon the whole earth ever said 
 so, until the necessities of the 
 
 51 
 
present policy of the Demo- 
 cratic party, in regard to slav- 
 ery, had to invent that affirma- 
 tion. 
 
 And I will remind Judge 
 Douglas and this audience that 
 while Mr. Jefferson was the 
 owner of slaves, as undoubtedly 
 he was, in speaking upon this 
 very subject, he used the strong 
 language that " he trembled for 
 his country when he remem- 
 bered that God was just " ; and 
 I will offer the highest premium 
 in my power to Judge Douglas 
 if he will show that he, in all 
 his life, ever uttered a sentiment 
 at all akin to that of Jefferson. 
 
 52 
 
XIV 
 
 THE DRED SCOTT DECISION 
 
 From Lincoln's reply to Douglas in the 
 Galesburg joint debate, October 7, 1858. 
 
 The essence of the Dred Scott 
 case is compressed into the 
 sentence which I will now read : 
 " Now, as we have already said 
 in an earlier part of this opin- 
 ion, upon a different point, the 
 right of property in a slave is 
 distinctly and expressly affirmed 
 in the Constitution." I repeat 
 it, " the right of property in a 
 slave is distinctly and expressly 
 affirmed in the Constitution"! 
 What is it to be " affirmed " in 
 the Constitution? Made firm 
 in the Constitution — so made 
 that it cannot be separated 
 from the Constitution without 
 
 53 
 
breaking the Constitution — 
 durable as the Constitution, 
 and part of the Constitution? 
 Now, remembering the provi- 
 sion of the Constitution which 
 I have read, affirming that that 
 instrument is the supreme law 
 of the land ; that the judges of 
 every State shall be bound by 
 it, any law or constitution of 
 any State to the contrary not- 
 withstanding ; that the right of 
 property in a slave is affirmed 
 in that Constitution, is made, 
 formed into, and cannot be 
 separated from it without 
 breaking it — durable as the in- 
 strument, part of the instru- 
 ment, — what follows as a short 
 and even syllogistic argument 
 from it? I think it follows — 
 and I submit to the considera- 
 tion of men capable of arguing, 
 whether as I state it, in syllo- 
 gistic form, the argument has 
 any fault in it : 
 
 54 
 
Nothing in the constitution 
 or laws of any State can de- 
 stroy a right distinctly and ex- 
 pressly affirmed in the Consti- 
 tution of the United States. 
 
 The right of property in a 
 slave is distinctly and expressly 
 affirmed in the Constitution of 
 the United States. 
 
 Therefore nothing in the 
 constitution or laws of any 
 State can destroy the right of 
 property in a slave. 
 
 1 believe that no fault can be 
 pointed out in that argument ; 
 assuming the truth of the prem- 
 ises, the conclusion, so far as I 
 have capacity at all to under- 
 stand it, follows inevitably. 
 There is a fault in it, as I think, 
 but the fault is not in the rea- 
 soning ; the falsehood, in fact, 
 is a fault in the premises. I 
 believe that the right of prop- 
 erty in a slave is not distinctly 
 and expressly affirmed in the 
 
 55 
 
Coiistitution, and Judge Doug- 
 las thinks it is. I believe that 
 the Supreme Court and the 
 advocates of that decision may 
 search in vain for the place in 
 the Constitution where the right 
 of property in a slave is dis- 
 tinctly and expressly affirmed. 
 I say, therefore, that I think 
 one of the premises is not true 
 in fact. But it is true with 
 Judge Douglas. It is true with 
 the Supreme Court who pro- 
 nounced it. They are estopped 
 from denying it, and being es- 
 topped from denying it, the con- 
 clusion follows that, the Con- 
 stitution of the United States 
 being the supreme law, no con- 
 stitution or law can interfere 
 with it. It being affirmed m 
 the decision that the right of 
 property in a slave is distinctly 
 and expressly affirmed in the 
 Constitution, the conclusion in- 
 evitably follows that no State 
 
 56 
 
law or constitution can destroy 
 that right. I then say to Judge 
 Douglas, and to all others, that 
 I think it will take a better an- 
 swer than a sneer to show that 
 those who have said that the 
 right of property in a slave is 
 distinctly and expressly affirmed 
 in the Constitution are not pre- 
 pared to show that no constitu- 
 tion or law can destroy that 
 right. I say I believe it will 
 take a far better argument than 
 a mere sneer to show to the 
 minds of inteUigent men that 
 whoever has so said is not pre- 
 pared, whenever public senti- 
 ment is so far advanced as to 
 justify it, to say the other. 
 
 57 
 
XV 
 
 THE WRONG OF SLAVERY 
 
 From Lincoln's opening speech in the de- 
 bate with Douglas at Quincy, Illinois, Oc- 
 tober 13, 1858. 
 
 We have in this nation the ele- 
 ment of domestic slavery. It 
 is a matter of absolute certainty 
 that it is a disturbing element. 
 It is the opinion of all the great 
 men who have expressed an 
 opinion upon it, that it is a dan- 
 gerous element. We keep up 
 a controversy in regard to it. 
 That controversy necessarily 
 springs from difference of opin- 
 ion, and if we can learn exactly 
 — can reduce to the lowest ele- 
 ments — what that difference of 
 opinion is, we perhaps shall be 
 better prepared for discussing 
 
 58 
 
the different systems of policy 
 that we would propose in re- 
 gard to that disturbing element. 
 
 I suggest that the difference 
 of opinion, reduced to its low- 
 est terms, is no other than the 
 difference between the men 
 who think slavery a wrong and 
 those who do not think it 
 wrong. The Republican party 
 think it wrong — we think it is a 
 moral, a social, and a political 
 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 
 which in its tendency, to say 
 the least, affects the existence 
 of the whole nation. Because 
 we think it wrong, we propose 
 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 deal with it that 
 
 69 
 
in the run of time there may be 
 some promise of an end to it. 
 We have a due regard to the 
 actual presence of it amongst 
 us, and the difficulties of get- 
 ting rid of it in any satisfactory 
 way, and all the constitutional 
 obligations thrown about it. I 
 suppose that in reference both 
 to its actual existence in the 
 nation, and to our constitu- 
 tional obligations, we have no 
 right at all to disturb it in the 
 States where it exists, and we 
 profess that we have no more 
 inclination to disturb it than we 
 have the right to do it. We go 
 further than that : we don't pro- 
 pose to disturb it where, in one 
 instance, we think the Constitu- 
 tion would permit us. We think 
 the Constitution would permit 
 us to disturb it in the District of 
 Columbia. Still we do not pro- 
 pose to do that, unless it should 
 be in terms which I don't sup- 
 
 60 
 
pose the nation is very likel\' 
 soon to agree to — the terms of 
 making the emancipation grad- 
 ual and compensating the un- 
 wilhng owners. AVhere we 
 suppose we have the constitu- 
 tional right, we restrain our- 
 selves in reference to the actual 
 existence of the institution and 
 the difficulties thrown about it. 
 We also oppose it as an evil so 
 far as it seeks to spread itself. 
 We insist on the policy that 
 shall restrict it to its present 
 limits. We don't suppose that 
 in doing this we violate any- 
 thing due to the actual presence 
 of the institution, or anything 
 due to the constitutional guar- 
 anties thrown around it. 
 
 We oppose the Dred Scott 
 decision in a certain w^ay, upon 
 which I ought perhaps to ad- 
 dress you in a few words. 
 We do not propose that \vhen 
 Dred Scott has been decided to 
 
 61 
 
be a slave by the court, we, as 
 a mob, will decide him to be 
 free. We do not propose that, 
 when any other one, or one 
 thousand, shall be decided by 
 that court to be slaves, we will 
 in any violent way disturb the 
 rights of property thus settled ; 
 but we nevertheless do oppose 
 that decision as a political rule, 
 which shall be binding on the 
 voter to vote for nobody who 
 thinks it wrong, which shall be 
 binding on the members of 
 Congress or the President to 
 favor no measure that does not 
 actually concur with the prin- 
 ciples of that decision. We do 
 not propose to be bound by it 
 as a political rule in that way, 
 because we think it lays the 
 foundation not merely of en- 
 larging and spreading out what 
 we consider an evil, but it lays 
 the foundation for spreading 
 that evil into the States them- 
 
 62 
 
selves. We propose so resist- 
 ing it as to have it reversed if 
 we can, and a new judicial rule 
 established upon this subject. 
 I will add this, that if there 
 be any man who does not be- 
 lieve that slavery is wrong in 
 the three aspects which I have 
 mentioned, or in any one of 
 them, that man is misplaced 
 and ought to leave us. While, 
 on the other hand, if there be 
 any man in the Republican 
 party who is impatient over the 
 necessity springing from its 
 actual presence, and is impa- 
 tient of the constitutional guar- 
 anties thrown around it, and 
 would act in disregard of these, 
 he too is misplaced, standing 
 with us. He will find his place 
 somewhere else , for we have a 
 due regard, so far as we are 
 capable of understanding them, 
 for all these things. This, gen- 
 tlemen, as well as I can give it, 
 
 63 
 
is a plain statement of our prin- 
 ciples in all their enormity. 
 
 I will say now that there is 
 a sentiment in the country con- 
 trary to me — a sentiment which 
 holds that slavery is not wrong, 
 and therefore goes for the pol- 
 icy that does not propose deal- 
 ing with it as a wrong. That 
 policy is the Democratic pol- 
 icy, and that sentiment is the 
 Democratic sentiment. If 
 there be a doubt in the mind 
 of any one of this vast audi- 
 ence that this is really the cen- 
 tral idea of the Democratic 
 party, in relation to this sub- 
 ject, I ask him to bear with me 
 while I state a few things tend- 
 ing, as I think, to prove that 
 proposition. 
 
 In the first place, the lead- 
 ing man, — I think I may do my 
 friend Judge Douglas the honor 
 of caUing him such, — advo- 
 cating the present Democratic 
 
 64 
 
policy, never himself says it is 
 wrong. He has the high dis- 
 tinction, so far as I know, of 
 never having said slavery is 
 either right or wrong. Almost 
 everybody else says one or the 
 other, but the Judge never does. 
 If there be a man in the Demo- 
 cratic party who thinks it is 
 wrong, and yet clings to that 
 party, I suggest to him in the 
 lirst place that his leader don't 
 talk as he does, for he never 
 says that it is wrong. 
 
 In the second place, I sug- 
 gest to him that if he will ex- 
 amine the policy proposed to 
 be carried forward, he will find 
 that he carefully excludes the 
 idea that there is anything 
 wrong in it. If you will ex- 
 amine the arguments that are 
 made on it, you will find that 
 every one carefully excludes 
 the idea that there is anything 
 wrong in slavery. 
 
 * 65 
 
Perhaps that Democrat who 
 says he is as much opposed to 
 slavery as I am will tell me 
 that I am wrong about this. 
 I wish him to examine his own 
 course in regard to this matter 
 a moment, and then see if his 
 opinion will not be changed a 
 little. You say it is wrong ; 
 but don't you constantly object 
 to anybody else saying so? Do 
 you not constantly argue that 
 this is not the right place to op- 
 pose it ? You say it must not be 
 opposed in the free States, be- 
 cause slavery is not there ; it 
 must not be opposed in the slave 
 States, because it is there ; it 
 must not be opposed in poHtics, 
 because that will make a fuss ; 
 it must not be opposed in the 
 pulpit, because it is not re- 
 ligion. Then where is the 
 place to oppose it? There is 
 no suitable place to oppose it. 
 There is no plan in the country 
 
 66 
 
to oppose this evil overspread- 
 ing the continent, which you 
 say yourself is coming. Frank 
 Blair and Gratz Brown tried to 
 get up a system of gradual 
 emancipation in Missouri, had 
 an election in August, and got 
 beat ; and you, Mr. Democrat, 
 threw up your hat and hal- 
 looed, " Hurrah for Democ- 
 racy! " 
 
 So I say again, that in re- 
 gard to the arguments that are 
 made, when Judge Douglas 
 says he " don't care whether 
 slavery is voted up or voted 
 down," whether he means that 
 as an individual expression of 
 sentiment, or only as a sort of 
 statement of his views on na- 
 tional policy, it is alike true to 
 say that he can thus argue 
 logically if he don't see any- 
 thing wrong in it ; but he can- 
 not say so logically if he ad- 
 mits that slavery is wrong. 
 
 67 
 
He cannot say that he would 
 as soon see a wrong voted up 
 as voted down. When Judge 
 Douglas says that whoever or 
 whatever community wants 
 slaves, they have a right to have 
 them, he is perfectly logical if 
 there is nothing wrong in the 
 institution ; but if you admit 
 that it is wrong, he cannot 
 logically say that anybody has 
 a right to do wrong. When 
 he says that slave property and 
 horse and hog property are 
 ahke to be allowed to go into 
 the Territories, upon the prin- 
 ciples of equality, he is reason- 
 ing truly if there is no differ- 
 ence between them as property ; 
 but if the one is property, 
 held rightfully, and the other 
 is wrong, then there is no 
 equality between the right and 
 wrong ; so that, turn it in any 
 way you can, in all the argu- 
 ments sustaining the Demo- 
 
 68 
 
cratic policy, and in that policy 
 itself, there is a careful, studied 
 exclusion of the idea that there 
 is anything wrong in slavery. 
 
 Let us understand this. I 
 am not, just here, trying to 
 prove that we are right and 
 they are wrong. I have been 
 stating where we and they 
 stand, and trying to show what 
 is the real difference between 
 us ; and I now say that when- 
 ever we can get the question 
 distinctly stated, — can get all 
 these men who believe that 
 slavery is in some of these re- 
 spects wrong, to stand and act 
 with us in treating it as a 
 wrong, — then, and not till then, 
 I think, will we in some way 
 come to an end of this slavery 
 agitation. 
 
 69 
 
XVI 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 JEFFERSON 
 
 From a letter to H. L. Pierce and others, 
 dated April 6, 1859. 
 
 I REMEMBER being once much 
 amused at seeing two partially 
 intoxicated men engaged in a 
 fight with their greatcoats on, 
 which fight, after a long and 
 rather harmless contest, ended 
 in each having fought himself 
 out of his own coat and into 
 that of the other. If the two 
 leading parties of this day are 
 really identical with the two in 
 the days of Jefferson and 
 Adams, they have performed 
 the same feat as the two 
 drunken men. 
 
 70 
 
But, soberly, it is now no 
 child's play to save the prin- 
 ciples of Jefferson from total 
 overthrow in this nation. One 
 would state with great confi- 
 dence that he could convince 
 any sane child that the simpler 
 propositions of Euclid are true ; 
 but nevertheless he would fail 
 utterly with one who should 
 deny the definitions and axi- 
 oms. 
 
 The principles of Jefferson 
 are the definitions and axioms 
 of free society. And yet they 
 are denied and evaded, with 
 no small show of success. One 
 dashingly calls them " glitter- 
 ing generalities." Another 
 bluntly calls them " self-evi- 
 dent Hes." And others insidi- 
 ously argue that they apply to 
 "superior races." These ex- 
 pressions, differing in form, are 
 identical in object and effect — 
 the supplanting the principles 
 
 71 
 
of free government, and restor- 
 ing those of classification, caste, 
 and legitimacy. They would 
 dehght a convocation of 
 crowned heads plotting against 
 the people. They are the van- 
 guard, the miners and sappers, 
 of returning despotism. We 
 must repulse them, or they will 
 subjugate us. This is a world 
 of compensation ; and he who 
 would be no slave must consent 
 to have no slave. Those who 
 deny freedom to others de- 
 serve it not for themselves, and, 
 under a just God, cannot long 
 retain it. 
 
 All honor to Jefferson — to 
 the man who, in the concrete 
 pressure of a struggle for na- 
 tional independence by a single 
 people, had the coolness, fore- 
 cast, and capacity to introduce 
 into a merely revolutionary 
 document an abstract truth, 
 applicable to all men and all 
 
 72 
 
times, and so to embalm it 
 there that to-day and in ail 
 coming days it shall be a re- 
 buke and a stumbling-block to 
 the very harbingers of reap- 
 pearing tyranny and oppres- 
 sion. 
 
 73 
 
XVII 
 
 A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE 
 
 From a speech delivered at Cincinnati, Ohio, 
 September 17, 1859. 
 
 We know that '' you are all of 
 a feather," and that we have to 
 beat you all together, and we 
 expect to do it. We don't 
 intend to be very impatient 
 about it. We mean to be as 
 deliberate and calm about it as 
 it is possible to be, but as firm 
 and resolved as it is possible 
 for men to be. When we do 
 as we say, beat you, you per- 
 haps want to know what we 
 will do with you. 
 
 I will tell you, so far as I 
 am authorized to speak for 
 the opposition, what we mean 
 74 
 
to do with you. We mean 
 to treat you, as near as we 
 possibly can, as Washington, 
 Jefferson, and Madison treated 
 you. We mean to leave you 
 alone, and in no way to inter- 
 fere with your institution ; to 
 abide by all and every com- 
 promise of the Constitution, 
 and, in a word, coming back to 
 the original proposition, to treat 
 you, so far as degenerated men 
 (if we have degenerated) may, 
 according to the example of 
 those noble fathers — Washing- 
 ton, Jefferson, and Madison. 
 We mean to remember that 
 you are 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 
 
 75 
 
mean to marr}^ 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. 
 
 I have told you what vvX 
 mean to do. I want to know, 
 now, when that thing takes 
 place, what do you mean to 
 do? I often hear it intimated 
 that you mean to divide the 
 Union whenever a Republican 
 or anything like it is elected 
 President of the United States. 
 [A voice: "That is so."] 
 " That is so," one of them says ; 
 I wonder if he is a Kentuck- 
 ian? [A voice: "He is a 
 Douglas man."] Well, then, I 
 want to know what you are 
 going to do with your half of 
 it. Are you going to split the 
 Ohio down through, and push 
 your half off a piece? Or are 
 you going to keep it right 
 
 76 
 
alongside of us outrageous fel- 
 lows? Or are you going to 
 build up a wall some way be- 
 tween your country and ours, 
 by which that movable prop- 
 erty of yours can't come over 
 here any more, to the danger 
 of your losing it? Do you 
 think you can better yourselves 
 on that subject by leaving us 
 here under no obligation what- 
 ever to return those specimens 
 of your movable property that 
 come hither? 
 
 You have divided the Union 
 because we would not do right 
 with you, as you think, upon 
 that subject ; when we cease to 
 be under obligations to do any- 
 thing for you, how much bet- 
 ter off do you think you will 
 be? Will you make war upon 
 us and kill us all? Why, gen- 
 tlemen, I think you are as gal- 
 lant and as brave men as live ; 
 that you can fight as bravely in 
 
 77 
 
a good cause, man for man, as 
 any other people living ; that 
 you have shown yourselves 
 capable of this upon various 
 occasions ; but man for man, 
 you are not better than we are, 
 and there are not so many of 
 you as there are of us. You 
 will never make much of a hand 
 at whipping us. If we were 
 fewer in numbers than you, I 
 think that you could whip us ; 
 if we were equal it would likely 
 be a drawn battle ; but being 
 inferior in numbers, you will 
 make nothing by attempting to 
 master us. 
 
 78 
 
XVIII 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 
 
 From a letter to J. W. Fell, dated De- 
 cember 20, 1859. 
 
 I WAS born February 12, 1809, 
 in Hardin County, Kentucky. 
 My parents were both born in 
 Virginia, of undistinguished 
 famihes — second famiHes, per- 
 haps I should say. My mother, 
 who died in my tenth year, was 
 of a family of the name of 
 Hanks, some of whom now re- 
 side in Adams, and others in 
 Macon County, Illinois. My 
 paternal grandfather, Abraham 
 Lincoln, emigrated from Rock- 
 ingham County, Virginia, to 
 Kentucky about 1781 or 1782, 
 where a year or two later he was 
 
 79 
 
killed by the 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 County, Pennsyl- 
 vania. 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, Mordecai, Solomon, 
 Abraham, and the like. 
 
 My father, at the death of 
 his father, was but six years of 
 age, and he grew up literally 
 without education. He re- 
 moved from Kentucky to 
 what is now Spencer County, 
 Indiana, in my eighth year. 
 We reached our new home 
 about the time the State came 
 into the Union. It was a wild 
 region, with many bears and 
 other wild animals still in the 
 
 80 
 
woods. There I grew up. 
 There were some schools, so 
 called, but no qualification was 
 ever required of a teacher be- 
 yond "readin', writin', and 
 cipherin' " to the rule of three. 
 If a straggler supposed to un- 
 derstand Latin happened to 
 sojourn in the neighborhood, he 
 was looked upon as a wizard. 
 There was absolutely nothing 
 to excite ambition for educa- 
 tion. Of course, when I came 
 of age I did not know much. 
 Still, somehow, I could read, 
 write, and cipher to the rule of 
 three, but that was all. I have 
 not been to school since. The 
 little advance I now have upon 
 this store of education I have 
 picked up from time to time 
 under the pressure of necessity. 
 I was raised to farm work, 
 which I continued till I was 
 twenty-two. At twenty-one I 
 came to Illinois, Macon County. 
 
 « 81 
 
Then I got to New Salem, at 
 that time in Sangamon, now in 
 Menard County, where I re- 
 mained a year as a sort of clerk 
 in a store. 
 
 Then came the Black Hawk 
 War ; and I was elected a cap- 
 tain of volunteers, a success 
 which gave me more pleasure 
 than any I have had since. I 
 went the campaign, was elated, 
 ran for the legislature the same 
 year (1832), and was beaten — 
 the only time I ever have been 
 beaten by the people. The 
 next and three succeeding bien- 
 nial elections I was elected to 
 the legislature. I was not a 
 candidate afterward. During 
 this legislative period I had 
 studied law, and removed to 
 Springfield to practise it. In 
 1846 I was once elected to the 
 lower House of Congress. 
 Was not a candidate for re- 
 election. From 1849 to 1854, 
 
 82 
 
both inclusive, practised law 
 more assiduously than ever be- 
 fore. Always a Whig in poli- 
 tics ; and generally on the Whig 
 electoral tickets, making active 
 canvasses. I was losing inter- 
 est in pohtics 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 hundred and 
 eighty pounds ; dark complex- 
 ion, with coarse black hair and 
 gray eyes. No other marks or 
 brands recollected. 
 
 88 
 
XIX 
 
 AN APPEAL TO THE SOUTH 
 
 From the address delivered at Cooper In- 
 stitute, New York, February 27, i860. 
 
 And now, if they would listen, 
 
 — as I suppose they will not, 
 
 — I would address a few words 
 to the Southern people. 
 
 I would say to them : You 
 consider yourselves a reason- 
 able and a just people ; and I 
 consider that in the general 
 qualities of reason and justice 
 you are not inferior to any 
 other people. Still, when you 
 speak of us Republicans, you 
 do so only to denounce us as 
 reptiles, or, at the best, as no 
 better than outlaws. You will 
 grant a hearing to pirates or 
 
 84 
 
murderers, but nothing like it 
 to " Black Republicans." In 
 all your contentions with one 
 another, each of you deems an 
 unconditional condemnation of 
 " Black Republicanism " as the 
 first thing to be attended to. 
 Indeed, such condemnation of 
 us seems to be an indispensa- 
 ble prerequisite — license, so to 
 speak — among you to be ad- 
 mitted or permitted to speak at 
 all. Now, can you or not be 
 prevailed upon to pause and to 
 consider whether this is quite 
 just to us, or even to your- 
 selves? Bring forward your 
 charges and specifications, and 
 then be patient long enough to 
 hear us deny or justify. 
 
 You say we are sectional. 
 We deny it. That makes an 
 issue ; and the burden of proof 
 is upon you. You produce 
 your proof; and what is it? 
 Why, that our party has no ex- 
 
 85 
 
istence in your section — gets no 
 votes in your section. The 
 fact is substantially true ; but 
 does it prove the issue? If it 
 does, then, in case we should, 
 without change of principle, 
 begin to get votes in your sec- 
 tion, we should thereby cease 
 to be sectional. You cannot 
 escape this conclusion ; and 
 yet, are you willing to abide by 
 it? If you are, you will prob- 
 ably soon find that we have 
 ceased to be sectional, for we 
 shall get votes in your section 
 this very year. You will then 
 begin to discover, as the truth 
 plainly is, that your proof does 
 not touch the issue. The fact 
 that we get no votes in your 
 section is a fact of your mak- 
 ing, and not of ours. 
 
 And if there be fault in that 
 fact, that fault is primarily 
 yours, and remains so until you 
 show that we repel you by 
 
 86 
 
some wrong principle or prac- 
 tice. If we do repel you by 
 any wrong principle or prac- 
 tice, the fault is ours ; but this 
 brings you to where you ought 
 to have started — to a discus- 
 sion of the right or wrong of 
 our principle. If our principle, 
 put in practice, would wrong 
 your section for the benefit of 
 ours, or for any other object, 
 then our principle, and we with 
 it, are sectional, and are justly 
 opposed and denounced as 
 such. Meet us, then, on the 
 question of whether our prin- 
 ciple, put in practice, would 
 wrong your section ; and so 
 meet us as if it were possible 
 that something may be said on 
 our side. Do you accept the 
 challenge? No! Then you 
 really believe that the principle 
 which " our fathers who framed 
 the government under which we 
 live " thought so clearly right 
 
 87 
 
as to adopt it, and 'indorse it 
 again and again, upon their 
 official oaths, is in fact so 
 clearly wrong as to demand 
 your condemnation without a 
 moment's consideration. 
 
 Some of you delight to flaunt 
 in our faces the warning 
 against sectional parties given 
 by Washington in his Farewell 
 Address. Less than eight years 
 before Washington gave that 
 warning he had, as President 
 of the United States, approved 
 and signed an act of Congress 
 enforcing the prohibition of 
 slavery in the Northwestern 
 Territory, which act embodied 
 the policy of the government 
 upon that subject up to and at 
 the very moment he penned 
 that warning ; and about one 
 year after he penned it, he 
 wrote Lafayette that he consid- 
 ered that prohibition a wise 
 measure, expressing in the same 
 
connection his hope that we 
 should at some time have a 
 confederacy of free States. 
 
 Bearing this in mind, and 
 seeing that sectionahsm has 
 since arisen upon this same 
 subject, is that warning a 
 weapon in your hands against 
 us, or in our hands against you? 
 Could Washington himself 
 speak, would he cast the blame 
 of that sectionalism upon us, 
 who sustain his policy, or upon 
 you, who repudiate it? We 
 respect that warning of Wash- 
 ington, and we commend it to 
 you, together with his example 
 pointing to the right applica- 
 tion of it. 
 
 But you say you are con- 
 servative, — eminently conser- 
 vative, — while we are revolu- 
 tionary, destructive, or some- 
 thing of the sort. • 
 
 What is conservatism? Is 
 it not adherence to the old and 
 
 89 
 
tried, against the new and un- 
 tried? We stick to, contend 
 for, the identical old pohcy on 
 the point in controversy which 
 was adopted by " our fathers 
 who framed the government 
 under which we live " ; while 
 you with one accord reject, and 
 scout, and spit upon that old 
 pohcy, and insist upon substi- 
 tuting something new. 
 
 True, you disagree among 
 yourselves as to what that sub- 
 stitute shall be. You are di- 
 vided on new propositions and 
 plans, but you are unanimous 
 in rejecting and denouncing 
 the old policy of the fathers. 
 Some of you are for reviving 
 the foreign slave-trade ; some 
 for a congressional slave code 
 for the Territories ; some for 
 Congress forbidding the Terri- 
 tories to prohibit slavery within 
 their limits ; some for maintain- 
 ing slavery in the Territories 
 
 90 
 
through the judiciary ; some for 
 the " gur-reat pur-rinciple " that 
 " if one man would enslave an- 
 other, no third man should 
 object," fantastically called 
 "popular sovereignty"; but 
 never a man among you is in 
 favor of Federal prohibition of 
 slavery in Federal Territories, 
 according to the practice of 
 " our fathers who framed the 
 government under which we 
 live." Not one of all your 
 various plans can show a pre- 
 cedent or an advocate in the 
 century within which our gov- 
 ernment originated. 
 
 Consider, then, whether your 
 claim for conservatism for 
 yourselves, and your charge of 
 destructiveness against us, are 
 based on the most clear and 
 stable foundations. 
 
 Again, you say we have 
 made the slavery question more 
 prominent than it formerly was. 
 
 91 
 
We deny it. We admit that it 
 is more prominent, but we deny 
 that we made it so. It was not 
 we, but you, who discarded the 
 old pohcy of the fathers. We 
 resisted, and still resist, your 
 innovation ; and thence comes 
 the greater prominence of the 
 question. Would you have 
 that question reduced to its 
 former proportions? Go back 
 to that old policy. What has 
 been will be again, under the 
 same conditions. If you would 
 have the peace of the old times, 
 readopt the precepts and pol- 
 icy of the old times. 
 
 You charge that we stir up 
 insurrections among your 
 slaves. We deny it ; and what 
 is your proof? Harper's Ferry ! 
 John Brown! ! John Brown 
 was no Republican ; and you 
 have failed to implicate a single 
 Republican in his Harper's 
 Ferry enterprise. If any mem- 
 
 92 
 
ber of our party is guilty in 
 that matter, you know it, or 
 you do not know it. If you 
 do know it, you are inexcusa- 
 ble for not designating the man 
 and proving the fact. If you 
 do not know it, you are inex- 
 cusable for asserting it, and es- 
 pecially for persisting in the 
 assertion after you have tried 
 and failed to make the proof. 
 You need not be told that per- 
 sisting in a charge which one 
 does not know to be true is 
 simply malicious slander. 
 
 Some of you admit that no 
 Republican designedly aided or 
 encouraged the Harper's Ferry 
 affair, but still insist that our 
 doctrines and declarations ne- 
 cessarily lead to such results. 
 We do not believe it. We 
 know we hold no doctrine, and 
 make no declaration, which 
 were not held to and made by 
 " our fathers who framed the 
 
 93 
 
government under which we 
 live." You never dealt fairly 
 by us in relation to this affair. 
 When it occurred, some impor- 
 tant State elections were near 
 at hand, and you were in evi- 
 dent glee with the behef that, 
 by charging the blame upon 
 us, you could get an advantage 
 of us in those elections. The 
 elections came, and your ex- 
 pectations were not quite ful- 
 filled. Every Republican man 
 knew that, as to himself at least, 
 your charge was a slander, and 
 he was not much inclined by 
 it to cast his vote in your favor. 
 Republican doctrines and dec- 
 larations are accompanied with 
 a continual protest against any 
 interference whatever with 
 your slaves, or with you about 
 your slaves. Surely this does 
 not encourage them to revolt. 
 True, we do, in common with 
 " our fathers who framed the 
 
 94 
 
government under which we 
 hve," declare our behef that 
 slavery is wrong ; but the slaves 
 do not hear us declare even 
 this. For anything we say or 
 do, the slaves would scarcely 
 know there is a Republican 
 party. I believe they would 
 not, in fact, generally know it 
 but for your misrepresentations 
 of us in their hearing. In your 
 political contests among your- 
 selves, each faction charges 
 the other with sympathy with 
 Black Republicanism ; and 
 then, to give point to the 
 charge, defines Black Repub- 
 licanism to simply be insur- 
 rection, blood, and thunder 
 among the slaves. 
 
 Slave insurrections are no 
 more common now than they 
 were before the RepubHcan 
 party was organized. What 
 induced the Southampton in- 
 surrection, twenty-eight years 
 
 95 
 
ago, in which at least three 
 times as many Uves were lost 
 as at Harper's Ferry? You can 
 scarcely stretch your very elas- 
 tic fancy to the conclusion that 
 Southampton was " got up by 
 Black Repubhcanism." In the 
 present state of things in the 
 United States, I do not think 
 a general, or even a very ex-' 
 tensive, slave insurrection is 
 possible. The indispensable 
 concert of action cannot be at- 
 tained. The slaves have no 
 means of rapid communica- 
 tion ; nor can incendiary free- 
 men, black or white, supply it. 
 The explosive materials are 
 everywhere in parcels ; but 
 there neither are, nor can be 
 supplied, the indispensable 
 connecting trains. 
 
 Much is said by Southern 
 people about the affection of 
 slaves for their masters and 
 mistresses ; and a part of it, at 
 
 96 
 
least, is true. A plot for an 
 uprising could scarcely be de- 
 vised and communicated to 
 twenty individuals before some 
 one of them, to save the life of 
 a favorite master or mistress, 
 would divulge it. This is the 
 rule ; and the slave revolution 
 in Haiti was not an exception 
 to it, but a case occurring 
 under peculiar circumstances. 
 The Gunpowder Plot of British 
 history, though not connected 
 with slaves, was more in point. 
 In that case, only about twenty 
 were admitted to the secret ; 
 and vet one of them, in his anx- 
 iety to save a friend, betrayed 
 the plot to that friend, and, by 
 consequence, averted the ca- 
 lamity. Occasional poisonings 
 from the kitchen, and open or 
 stealthy assassinations in the 
 field, and local revolts extend- 
 ing to a score or so, will con- 
 tinue to occur as the natural 
 
 7 97 
 
results of slavery ; but no gen- 
 eral insurrection of slaves, as I 
 think, can happen in this coun- 
 try for a long time. Whoever 
 much fears, or much hopes, for 
 such an event, will be alike dis- 
 appointed. 
 
 In the language of Mr. Jef- 
 ferson, uttered many years ago, 
 " It is still in our power to di- 
 rect the process of emancipa- 
 tion and deportation peaceably, 
 and in such slow degrees as 
 that the evil will wear off in- 
 sensibly, and their places be, 
 pari passit, filled up by free 
 white laborers. If, on the 
 contrary, it is left to force itself 
 on, human nature must shudder 
 at the prospect held up." 
 
 Mr. Jefferson did not mean 
 to say, nor do I, that the power 
 of emancipation is in the Fed- 
 eral Government. He spoke 
 of Virginia ; and, as to the 
 power of emancipation, I speak 
 
of the slaveholding States 
 only. The Federal Govern- 
 ment, however, as we insist, has 
 the power of restraining the 
 extension of the institution — 
 the power to insure that a slave 
 insurrection shall never occur 
 on any American soil which is 
 now free from slavery- 
 John Brown's effort was 
 peculiar. It was not a slave 
 insurrection. It was an at- 
 tempt by white men to get up 
 a revolt among slaves, in which 
 the slaves refused to partici- 
 pate. In fact, it was so absurd 
 that the slaves, with all their ig- 
 norance, saw plainly enough it 
 could not succeed. That affair, 
 in its philosophy, corresponds 
 with the many attempts, related 
 in history, at the assassination 
 of kings and emperors. An 
 enthusiast broods over the op- 
 pression of a people till he 
 fancies himself commissioned 
 
 99 
 
 L.ofC. 
 
by Heaven to liberate them. 
 He ventures the attempt, which 
 ends in httle else than his own 
 execution. Orsini's attempt on 
 Louis Napoleon, and John 
 Brown's attempt at Harper's 
 Ferry, were, in their philosophy, 
 precisely the same. The ea- 
 gerness to cast blame on old 
 England in the one case, and 
 on New England in the other, 
 does not disprove the sameness 
 of the two things. 
 
 And how much would it 
 avail you if you could, by the 
 use of John Brown, Helper's 
 book, and the like, break up 
 the Republican organization? 
 Human action can be modified 
 to some extent, but human na- 
 ture cannot be changed. There 
 is a judgment and a feeling 
 against slavery in this nation, 
 which cast at least a million 
 and a half of votes. You can- 
 not destroy that judgment and 
 
 100 
 
feeling — that sentiment — by- 
 breaking up the poHtical organi- 
 zation which ralHes around it. 
 You can scarcely scatter and 
 disperse an army which has 
 been formed into order in the 
 face of your heaviest fire ; but 
 if you could, how much would 
 you gain by forcing the senti- 
 ment which created it out of the 
 peaceful channel of the ballot- 
 box into some other channel? 
 What would that other channel 
 probably be? Would the num- 
 ber of John Browns be lessened 
 or enlarged by the operation? 
 
 But you will break up the 
 Union rather than submit to a 
 denial of your constitutional 
 rights. 
 
 That has a somewhat reck- 
 less sound ; but it would be 
 palliated, if not fully justified, 
 were we proposing, by the mere 
 force of numbers, to deprive you 
 of some right plainly written 
 
 101 
 
down in the Constitution. But 
 we are proposing no such thing. 
 
 When you make these dec- 
 larations you have a specific 
 and well-understood allusion to 
 an assumed constitutional right 
 of yours to take slaves into the 
 Federal Territories, and to hold 
 them there as property. But no 
 such right is specifically written 
 in the Constitution. That in- 
 strument is literally silent about 
 any such right. We, on the 
 contrary, deny that such a right 
 has any existence in the Con- 
 stitution, even by implication. 
 
 Your purpose, then, plainly 
 stated, is that you will destroy 
 the government, unless you be 
 allowed to construe and force 
 the Constitution as you please, 
 on all points in dispute between 
 you and us. You will rule or 
 ruin in all events. 
 
 This, plainly stated, is your 
 language. Perhaps you will 
 
 102 
 
say the Supreme Court has de- 
 cided the disputed constitu- 
 tional question in your favor. 
 Not quite so. But waiving the 
 lawyer's distinction between 
 dictum and decision, the court 
 has decided the question for 
 you in a sort of way. The court 
 has substantially said, it is your 
 constitutional right to take 
 slaves into the Federal Terri- 
 tories, and to hold them there 
 as property. When I say the 
 decision was made in a sort of 
 way, I mean it was made in a 
 divided court, by a bare ma- 
 jority of the judges, and they 
 not quite agreeing v»nth one an- 
 other in the reasons for mak- 
 ing it ; that it is so made as 
 that its avowed supporters dis- 
 agree with one another about 
 its meaning, and that it was 
 mainly based upon a mistaken 
 statement of fact — the state- 
 ment in the opinion that "the 
 
 103 
 
right of property in a slave is 
 distinctly and expressly af- 
 firmed in the Constitution." 
 
 An inspection of the Consti- 
 tution will show that the right 
 of property in a slave is not 
 " distinctly and expressly af- 
 firmed " in it. Bear in mind, 
 the judges do not pledge their 
 judicial opinion that such right 
 is impliedly affi.rmed in the Con- 
 stitution ; but they pledge their 
 veracity that it is " distinctly 
 and expressly " affirmed there 
 — "distinctly," that is, not 
 mingled with anything else ; 
 " expressly," that is, in words 
 meaning just that, without the 
 aid of any inference, and sus- 
 ceptible of no other meaning. 
 
 If they had only pledged 
 their judicial opinion that such 
 right is affirmed in the instru- 
 ment by implication, it would 
 be open to others to show that 
 neither the word " slave " nor 
 
" slavery " is to be found in the 
 Constitution, nor the word 
 "property," even, in any con- 
 nection with language alluding 
 to the things slave or slavery ; 
 and that wherever in that in- 
 strument the slave is alluded to, 
 he is called a "person"; and 
 wherever his master's legal 
 right in relation to him is al- 
 luded to, it is spoken of as 
 "service or labor which may 
 be due " — as a debt payable in 
 service or labor. Also it would 
 be open to show, by contem- 
 poraneous history, that this 
 mode of alluding to slaves and 
 slavery, instead of speaking of 
 them, was employed on pur- 
 pose to exclude from the Con- 
 stitution the idea that there 
 could be property in man. 
 
 To show all this is easy "and 
 certain. 
 
 When this obvious mistake 
 of the judges shall be brought 
 
 105 
 
to their notice, is it not reason- 
 able to expect that they will 
 withdraw the mistaken state- 
 ment, and reconsider the con- 
 clusion based upon it? 
 
 And then it is to be remem- 
 bered that " our fathers who 
 framed the government under 
 which we live " — the men who 
 made the Constitution — de- 
 cided this same constitutional 
 question in our favor long ago : 
 decided it without division 
 among themselves when mak- 
 ing the decision ; without divi- 
 sion among themselves about 
 the meaning of it after it was 
 made, and, so far as any evi- 
 dence is left, without basing it 
 upon any mistaken statement 
 of facts. 
 
 Under all these circum- 
 stances, do you really feel 
 yourselves justified to break up 
 this government unless such a 
 court decision as yours is shall 
 
 106 
 
be at once submitted to as a 
 conclusive and final rule of 
 political action? But you will 
 not abide the election of a 
 Republican President! In that 
 supposed event, you say, you 
 will destroy the Union ; and 
 then, you say, the great crime 
 of having destroyed it will be 
 upon us! That is cool. A 
 highwayman holds a pistol to 
 my ear, and mutters through 
 his teeth, " Stand and deliver, 
 or I shall kill you, and then 
 you will be a murderer!" 
 
 To be sure, what the robber 
 demanded of me — my money 
 — was my own; and I had a 
 clear right to keep it : but it was 
 no more my own than my vote 
 is my own ; and the threat of 
 death to me, to extort my 
 money, and the threat of de- 
 struction to the Union, to ex- 
 tort my vote, can scarcely be 
 distinguished in principle. 
 
 107 
 
XX 
 
 FAREWELL ADDRESS AT 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, 
 
 FEBRUARY II, I 86 I 
 
 My Fiieiids : No one not in 
 my situation can appreciate my 
 feeling of sadness at this part- 
 ing. To this place, and the 
 kindness of these people, I owe 
 everything. Here I have lived 
 a quarter of a century, and 
 have passed from a young to 
 an old man. Here my children 
 have been born, and one is 
 buried. I now leave, not know- 
 ing when or whether ever I 
 may return, with a task before 
 me greater than that which 
 rested upon Washington. 
 Without the assistance of that 
 
 108 
 
Divine Being who ever at- 
 tended him I cannot succeed. 
 With that assistance I cannot 
 fail. Trusting in him, who 
 can go with me and remain 
 with you, and be everywhere 
 for good, let us confidently 
 hope that all will yet be well. 
 To his care commending you, 
 as I hope in your prayers you 
 will commend me, I bid you an 
 affectionate farewell. 
 
 109 
 
XXI 
 
 FROM HIS REPLY TO THE 
 
 ADDRESS OF WELCOME AT 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, 
 
 FEBRUARY I I, 1861 
 
 In all trying positions in which 
 I shall be placed, and doubtless 
 I shall be placed in many such, 
 my reliance will be upon you 
 and the people of the United 
 States ; and I wish you to re- 
 member, 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 who inhabit these United 
 
 110 
 
States, and to their posterity in 
 all coming time. It is your 
 business to rise up and preserve 
 the Union and hberty for your- 
 selves, and not for me. I 
 appeal to you again to con- 
 stantly bear in mind that not 
 with politicians, not with Presi- 
 dents, not with office-seekers, 
 but with you, is the question: \ 
 Shall the Union and shall the 
 liberties of this country be pre- | 
 served to the latest generations ? / 
 
 111 
 
XXII 
 
 ADDRESS IN INDEPENDENCE 
 HALL, PHILADELPHIA, FEB- 
 RUARY 22, 1861 
 
 I AM filled with deep emotion 
 at finding myself standing in 
 this place, where were collected 
 together the wisdom, the patri- 
 otism, the devotion to princi- 
 ple, from which sprang the in- 
 stitutions under which we live. 
 You have kindly suggested to 
 me that in my hands is the task 
 of restoring peace to our dis- 
 tracted 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 in 
 112 
 
and were given to the world 
 from this hall. I have never 
 had a feeling, politically, that 
 did not spring from the senti- 
 ments embodied in the Dec- 
 laration of Independence. 
 
 I have often pondered over 
 the dangers which were incurred 
 by the men who assembled here 
 and framed and adopted that 
 Declaration. I have pondered 
 over the toils that were endured 
 by the officers and soldiers of 
 the army who achieved that 
 independence. I have often 
 inquired of myself what great 
 principle or idea it was that 
 kept this Confederacy so long 
 together. It was not the mere 
 matter of separation of the 
 colonies from the motherland, 
 but that sentiment in the Dec- 
 laration of Independence 
 which gave liberty not alone to 
 the people of this country, but 
 hope to all the world, for all fu- 
 
 « 113 
 
ture time. It was that which 
 gave promise that in due time 
 the weights would be Hfted 
 from the shoulders of all men, 
 and that all should have an 
 equal chance. This is the 
 sentiment embodied in the 
 Declaration of Independence. 
 
 Now, my friends, can this 
 country be saved on that basis? 
 If it can, I will consider myself 
 one of the happiest men in the 
 world if 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. 
 
 Now, in my view of the 
 present aspect of affairs, there 
 is no need of bloodshed and 
 war. There is no necessity for 
 it. I am not in favor of such 
 a course ; and I may say in ad- 
 
 114 
 
vance that there will be no 
 bloodshed unless it is forced 
 upon the government. The 
 government will not use force 
 unless force is used against it. 
 My friends, this is wholly an 
 unprepared speech. I did not 
 expect to be called on to say a 
 word when I came here. I 
 supposed I was merely to do 
 something toward raising a flag. 
 I may, therefore, have said 
 something indiscreet. But I 
 have said nothing but what I 
 am willing to live by, and, if it 
 be the pleasure of Almighty 
 God, to die by. 
 
 115 
 
XXIII 
 
 FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS, 
 MARCH 4, I 86 I 
 
 Fellow-citizens of the United 
 States : In compliance with a 
 custom as old as the govern- 
 ment itself, I appear before 
 you to address you briefly, and 
 to take in your presence the 
 oath prescribed by the Consti- 
 tution of the United States to 
 be taken by the President " be- 
 fore he enters on the execution 
 of his office." 
 
 I do not consider it neces- 
 sary at present for me to dis- 
 cuss those matters of adminis- 
 tration about which there is no 
 special anxiety or excitement. 
 
 Apprehension seems to exist 
 
 116 
 
among the people of the South- 
 ern States that by the accession 
 of a Repubhcan administration 
 their property and their peace 
 and personal security are to be 
 endangered. There has never 
 been any reasonable cause for 
 such apprehension. Indeed, 
 the most ample evidence to the 
 contrary has all the while ex- 
 isted and been open to their in- 
 spection. 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 declare 
 that " I have no purpose, di- 
 rectly 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 inchna- 
 tion to do so." Those who 
 nominated and elected me did 
 so with full knowledge that I 
 had made this and many similar 
 
 117 
 
declarations, and had never re- 
 canted them. And, more than 
 this, they placed in the platform 
 for my acceptance, and as a law 
 to themselves and to me, the 
 clear and emphatic resolution 
 which I now read : 
 
 Resolved, That the maintenance in- 
 violate of the rights of the States, 
 and especially the right of each State 
 to order and control its own domes- 
 tic institutions according to its own 
 judgment exclusively, is essential to 
 that balance of power on which the 
 perfection and endurance of our 
 political fabric depend, and we de- 
 nounce the lawless invasion by armed 
 force of the soil of any State or Ter- 
 ritory, no matter under what pretext, 
 as among the gravest of crimes. 
 
 I now reiterate these senti- 
 ments ; and, in doing so, I 
 only press upon the public at- 
 tention the most conclusive 
 evidence of which the case is 
 susceptible, that the property, 
 peace, and security of no sec- 
 
 118 
 
tion are to be in any wise en- 
 dangered by the now incoming 
 administration. I add, too, 
 that all the protection which, 
 consistently with the Constitu- 
 tion and the laws, can be given, 
 will be cheerfully given to all 
 the States when lawfully de- 
 manded, for whatever cause — 
 as cheerfully to one section as 
 to another. 
 
 There is much controversy 
 about the delivering up of fugi- 
 tives from service or labor. 
 The clause I now read is as 
 plainly written in the Constitu- 
 tion as any other of its provi- 
 sions : 
 
 No person held to service or 
 labor in one State, under the laws 
 thereof, escaping into another, shall 
 in consequence of any law or regula- 
 tion therein be discharged from such 
 service or labor, but shall be deliv- 
 ered up on claim of the party to 
 whom such service or labor may be 
 due. 
 
 119 
 
It is scarcely questioned that 
 this provision was intended by 
 those who made it for the re- 
 claiming of what we call fugitive 
 slaves ; and the intention of the 
 lawgiver is the law. All mem- 
 bers of Congress swear their 
 support to the whole Constitu- 
 tion — to this provision as much 
 as to any other. To the prop- 
 osition, then, that slaves whose 
 cases come within the terms of 
 this clause " shall be delivered 
 up," their oaths are unanimous. 
 Now, if they would make the 
 effort in good temper, could 
 they not with nearly equal 
 unanimity frame and pass a law 
 by means of which to keep 
 good that unanimous oath? 
 
 There is some difference of 
 opinion whether this clause 
 should be enforced by national 
 or by State authority ; but surely 
 that difference is not a very 
 material one. If the slave is 
 
 120 
 
to be surrendered, it can be of 
 but little consequence to him 
 or to others by which authority 
 it is done. And should any 
 one in any case be content that 
 his oath shall go unkept on a 
 merely unsubstantial contro- 
 versy as to how it shall be 
 kept? 
 
 Again, in any law upon this 
 subject, ought not all the safe- 
 guards of liberty known in civ- 
 ilized and humane jurispru- 
 dence to be introduced, so that 
 a free man be not, in any case, 
 surrendered as a slave? And 
 might it not be well at the 
 same time to provide by law 
 for the enforcement of. that 
 clause in the Constitution 
 which guarantees that " the 
 citizen of each State shall be 
 entitled to all privileges and 
 immunities of citizens in the 
 several States "? 
 
 I take the official oath to- 
 
 121 
 
day with no mental reserva- 
 tions, and with no purpose to 
 construe the Constitution or 
 laws by any hypercritical 
 rules. And while I do not 
 choose now to specify particu- 
 lar 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 vio- 
 late 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 Presi- 
 dent under our National Con- 
 stitution. During that period 
 fifteen different and greatly 
 distinguished citizens have, in 
 succession, administered the 
 executive branch of the govern- 
 ment. They have conducted 
 it through many perils, and 
 
 122 
 
generally with great success. 
 Yet, with all this scope of pre- 
 cedent, I now enter upon the 
 same task for the brief consti- 
 tutional term of four years 
 under great and peculiar diffi- 
 culty. A disruption of the 
 Federal Union, heretofore only 
 menaced, is now formidably 
 attempted. 
 
 I hold that, in contemplation 
 of universal law and of the 
 Constitution, the Union of 
 these States is perpetual. Per- 
 petuity is implied, if not ex- 
 pressed, in the fundamental law 
 of all national governments. 
 It is safe to assert that no gov- 
 ernment proper ever had a 
 provision in its organic law for 
 its own termination. Continue 
 to execute all the express pro- 
 visions of our National Con- 
 stitution, and the Union will 
 endure forever — it being im- 
 possible to destroy it except by 
 
 123 
 
some action not provided for 
 in the instrument itself. 
 
 Again, if the United States 
 be not a government proper, 
 but an association of States in 
 the nature of contract merely, 
 can it, as a contract, be peace- 
 ably unmade by less than all 
 the parties who made it? One 
 party to a contract may violate 
 it — break it, so to speak ; but 
 does it not require all to law- 
 fully rescind it? 
 
 Descending from these gen- 
 eral principles, we find the prop- 
 osition that in legal contem- 
 plation the Union is perpetual 
 confirmed by the history of the 
 Union itself. The Union is 
 much older than the Constitu- 
 tion. It was formed, in fact, 
 by the Articles of Association 
 in 1774. It was matured and 
 continued by the Declaration 
 of Independence in 1776. It 
 was further matured, and the 
 
 124 
 
faith of all the then thirteen 
 States expressly plighted and 
 engaged that it should be per- 
 petual, by the Articles of Con- 
 federation in 1778. And, fi- 
 nally, in 1787 one of the de- 
 clared objects for ordaining 
 and establishing the Constitu- 
 tion was " to form a more per- 
 fect Union." 
 
 But if the destruction of the 
 Union by one or by a part only 
 of the States be lawfully pos- 
 sible, the Union is less perfect 
 than before the Constitution, 
 having lost the vital element of 
 perpetuity. 
 
 It follows from these views 
 that no State upon its own 
 mere motion can lawfully get 
 out of the Union ; that re- 
 solves and ordinances to that 
 effect are legally void ; and that 
 acts of violence, within any 
 State or States, against the au- 
 thority of the United States, are 
 
 125 
 
insurrectionary or revolution- 
 ary, according to circum- 
 stances. 
 
 I therefore consider that, in 
 viewof the Constitution and the 
 laws, the Union is unbroken ; 
 and to the extent of my ability 
 I shall take care, as the Con- 
 stitution itself expressly enjoins 
 upon me, that the laws of the 
 Union be faithfully executed in 
 all the States. Doing this I 
 deem to be only a simple duty 
 on my part ; and I shall per- 
 form it so far as practicable, 
 unless my rightful masters, the 
 American people, shall with- 
 hold the requisite means, or in 
 some authoritative manner di- 
 rect the contrary. I trust this 
 will not be regarded as a men- 
 ace, but only as the declared 
 purpose of the Union that it 
 will constitutionally defend and 
 maintain itself. 
 
 In doing this there needs to 
 
 126 
 
be no bloodshed or violence ; 
 and there shall be none, nnless 
 it be forced upon the national 
 authority. The power con- 
 fided to me will be used to 
 hold, occupy, and possess the 
 property and places belonging 
 to the government, and to col- 
 lect the duties and imposts ; but 
 beyond what may be necessary 
 for these objects, there will be 
 no invasion, no using of force 
 against or among the people 
 anywhere. Where hostility to 
 the United States, in any in- 
 terior locality, shall be so great 
 and universal as to prevent 
 competent resident citizens 
 from holding the Federal 
 offices, there will be no attempt 
 to force obnoxious strangers 
 among the people for that ob- 
 ject. While the strict legal 
 right may exist in the govern- 
 ment to enforce the exercise 
 of these "offices, the attempt to 
 
 127 
 
do so would be so irritating, 
 and so nearly impracticable 
 withal, that I deem it better to 
 forego for the time the uses of 
 such offices. 
 
 The mails, unless repelled, 
 will continue to be furnished in 
 all parts of the Union. So far 
 as possible, the people every- 
 where shall have that sense of 
 perfect security which is most 
 favorable to calm thought and 
 reflection. The course here in- 
 dicated will be followed unless 
 current events and experience 
 shall show a modification or 
 change to be proper, and in 
 every case and exigency my 
 best discretion will be exercised 
 according to circumstances 
 actually existing, and with a 
 view and a hope of a peace- 
 ful solution of the national 
 troubles and the restoration of 
 fraternal sympathies and affec- 
 tions. 
 
 128 
 
That there are persons in 
 one section or another who 
 seek to destroy the Union at 
 all events, and are glad of any 
 pretext to do it, I will neither 
 affirm nor deny ; but if there be 
 such, I need address no word 
 to them. To those, however, 
 who really love the Union may 
 I not speak? 
 
 Before entering upon so 
 grave a matter as the destruc- 
 tion of our national fabric, with 
 all its benefits, its memories, 
 and its hopes, would it not be 
 wise to ascertain precisely why 
 we do it? Will you hazard so 
 desperate a step while there is 
 any possibility that any portion 
 of the ills you fly from have no 
 real 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 fear- 
 ful a mistake? 
 
 9 129 
 
All profess to be content in 
 the Union if all constitutional 
 rights can be maintained. Is 
 it true, then, that any right, 
 plainly written in the Consti- 
 tution, has been denied? I 
 think not. Happily the human 
 mind is so constituted that no 
 party can reach to the audacity 
 of doing this. Think, if you 
 can, of a single instance in 
 which a plainly written provi- 
 sion of the Constitution has 
 ever been denied. If by the 
 mere force of numbers a ma- 
 jority should deprive a minority 
 of any clearly written consti- 
 tutional right, it might, in a 
 moral point of view, justify 
 revolution — certainly would if 
 such a right were a vital one. 
 But such is not our case. All 
 the vital rights of minorities 
 and of individuals are so 
 plainly assured to them by 
 affirmations and negations, 
 
 J30 
 
guaranties and prohibitions, in 
 the Constitution, that contro- 
 versies 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 administration. No 
 foresight can anticipate, nor 
 any document of reasonable 
 length contain, express pro- 
 visions for all possible ques- 
 tions. Shall fugitives from 
 labor be surrendered by na- 
 tional or by State authority? 
 The Constitution does not ex- 
 pressly say. May Congress 
 prohibit slavery in the Terri- 
 tories? The Constitution does 
 not expressly say. Aliist Con- 
 gress protect slavery in the 
 Territories? The Constitu- 
 tion does not expressly say. 
 
 From questions of this class 
 spring all our constitutional 
 controversies, and we divide 
 
 131 
 
upon them into majorities and 
 minorities. If the minority 
 will not acquiesce, the majority 
 must, or the government must 
 cease. There is no other alter- 
 native ; for continuing the gov- 
 ernment is acquiescence on one 
 side or the other. 
 
 If a minority in such case 
 will secede rather than ac- 
 quiesce, they make a precedent 
 which in turn will divide and 
 ruin them ; for a minority of 
 their own will secede from them 
 whenever a majority refuses to 
 be controlled by such minority. 
 For instance, why may not any 
 portion of a new confederacy a 
 year or two hence arbitrarily 
 secede again, precisely as por- 
 tions of the present Union now 
 claim to secede from it? All 
 who cherish disunion senti- 
 ments are now being educated 
 to the exact temper of doing 
 this. 
 
 132 
 
Is there such perfect identity 
 of interests among the States to 
 compose a' new Union, as to 
 produce harmony only, and 
 prevent renewed secession? 
 
 Plainly, the central idea of 
 secession is the essence of an- 
 archy. A majority held in 
 restraint by constitutional 
 cliecks and hmitations, and 
 always changing easily with de- 
 liberate changes of popular 
 opinions and sentiments, is the 
 only true sovereign of a free 
 people. Whoever rejects it 
 does, of necessity, fly to an- 
 archy or to despotism. Una- 
 nimity is impossible ; the rule 
 of a minority, as a permanent 
 arrangement, is wholly inad- 
 missible ; so that, rejecting the 
 majority principle, anarchy or 
 despotism in some form is all 
 that is left. 
 
 I do not forget the position, 
 assumed by some, that consti- 
 
 133 
 
tutional questions are to be de- 
 cided by the Supreme Court ; 
 nor do I deny that such deci- 
 sions must be binding, in any 
 case, upon the parties to a suit, 
 as to the object of that suit, 
 while they are also entitled to 
 very high respect and consid- 
 eration in all parallel cases by 
 all other departments of the 
 government. And while it is 
 obviously possible that such 
 decision may be erroneous in 
 any given case, still the evil 
 effect following it, being Hmited 
 to that particular case, with the 
 chance that it may be overruled 
 and never become a precedent 
 for other cases, can better be 
 borne than could the evils of a 
 different practice. At the 
 same time, the candid citizen 
 must confess that if the policy 
 of the government, upon vital 
 questions affecting the whole 
 people, is to be irrevocably 
 
 134 
 
fixed by decisions of the Su- 
 preme Court, the instant they 
 are made, in ordinary litigation 
 between parties in personal ac- 
 tions, the people will have 
 ceased to be their own rulers, 
 having to that extent practi- 
 cally resigned their government 
 into the hands of that eminent 
 tribunal. Nor is there in this 
 view any assault upon the court 
 or the judges. It is a duty 
 from which they may not 
 shrink to decide cases properly 
 brought before them, and it is 
 no fault of theirs if others seek 
 to turn their decisions to poht- 
 ical purposes. 
 
 One section of our country 
 believes slavery is right, and 
 ought to be extended, while 
 the other believes it is wrong, 
 and ought not to be extended. 
 This is the only substantial dis- 
 pute. The fugitive-slave clause 
 of the Constitution, and the law 
 
 135 
 
for the suppression of the for- 
 eign slave-trade, are each as 
 well enforced, perhaps, as any 
 law can ever be in a community 
 where the moral sense of the 
 people imperfectly supports the 
 law itself. The great body of 
 the people abide by the dry 
 legal obligation in both cases, 
 and a few break over in each. 
 This, I think, cannot be per- 
 fectly cured ; and it would be 
 worse in both cases after the 
 separation of the sections than 
 before. The foreign slave- 
 trade, now imperfectly sup- 
 pressed, would be ultimately 
 revived, without restriction, in 
 one section, while fugitive 
 slaves, now only partially sur- 
 rendered, would not be surren- 
 dered at all by the other. 
 
 Physically speaking, we can- 
 not separate. We cannot re- 
 move our respective sections 
 from each other, nor build an 
 
 136 
 
impassable wall between them. 
 A husband 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 in- 
 tercourse more advantageous 
 or more satisfactory after sepa- 
 ration than before ? Can aliens 
 make treaties easier than friends 
 can make laws? Can treaties 
 be more faithfully enforced be- 
 tween aliens than laws can 
 among friends? 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 old questions as to 
 terms of intercourse are again 
 upon you. 
 
 137 
 
This country, with its insti- 
 tutions, belongs to the people 
 who inhabit it. Whenever they 
 shall grow weary of the exist- 
 ing government, they can exer- 
 cise their constitutional right of 
 amending it, or their revolu- 
 tionary right to dismember or 
 overthrow it. I cannot be 
 ignorant of the fact that many 
 worthy and patriotic citizens 
 are desirous of having the Na- 
 tional Constitution amended. 
 While I make no recommenda- 
 tion of amendments, I fully 
 recognize the rightful authority 
 of the people over the whole 
 subject, to be exercised in either 
 of the modes prescribed in the 
 instrument itself ; and I should, 
 under existing circumstances, 
 favor rather than oppose a fair 
 opportunity being afforded the 
 people to act upon it. I will 
 venture to add that to me the 
 convention mode seems prefer- 
 
 138 
 
able, in that it allows amend- 
 ments to originate with the peo- 
 ple themselves, instead of only 
 permitting them to take or re- 
 ject propositions originated by 
 others not especially chosen for 
 the purpose, and which might 
 not be precisely such as they 
 would wish to either accept or 
 refuse. I understand a pro- 
 posed amendment to the Con- 
 stitution — which amendment, 
 however, I have not seen — has 
 passed Congress, to the effect 
 that the Federal Government 
 shall never interfere with the 
 domestic institutions of the 
 States, including that of per- 
 sons held to service. To avoid 
 misconstruction of what I have 
 said, I depart from my purpose 
 not to speak of particular 
 amendments so far as to say 
 that, holding such a provision 
 to now be implied constitu- 
 tional law, I have no objection 
 
 139 
 
to its being made express and 
 irrevocable. 
 
 The chief magistrate derives 
 all his authority from the peo- 
 ple, and they have conferred 
 none upon him to fix terms for 
 the separation of the States. 
 The people themselves can do 
 this also if they choose ; but the 
 executive, as such, has nothing 
 to do with it. His duty is to 
 administer the present govern- 
 ment, as it came to his hands, 
 and to transmit it, unimpaired 
 by him, to his successor. 
 
 Why should there not be a 
 patient confidence in the ulti- 
 mate justice of the people ? Is 
 there any better or equal hope 
 in the world? In our present 
 differences, is either party with- 
 out faith of being in the right? 
 If the Almighty Ruler of Na- 
 tions, with his eternal truth 
 and justice, be on your side of 
 the North, or on yours of the 
 
 140 
 
South, that truth and that jus- 
 tice will surely prevail by the 
 judgment of this great tribunal 
 of the American people. 
 
 By the frame of the govern- 
 ment under which we live, this 
 same people have wisely given 
 their public servants but little 
 power for mischief ; and have, 
 with equal wisdom, provided 
 for the return of that little to 
 their own hands at very short 
 intervals. While the people 
 retain their virtue and vigi- 
 lance, no administration, by any 
 extreme of wickedness or folly, 
 can very seriously injure the 
 government in the short space 
 of four years. 
 
 My countrymen, one and all, 
 think calmly and well upon this 
 whole subject. Nothing valu- 
 able 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 
 ui 
 
take deliberately, that 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 un- 
 impaired, and, on the sensitive 
 point, the laws of your own 
 framing under it ; while the new 
 administration will have no 
 immediate power, if it would, 
 to change either. If it were 
 admitted that you who are dis- 
 satisfied hold the right side in 
 the dispute, there still is no 
 single good reason for precipi- 
 tate action. Intelligence, pa- 
 triotism, 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 
 difficulty. 
 
 In your hands, my dissatisfied 
 fellow-countrymen, and not in 
 mine, is the momentous issue 
 
 142 
 
of civil war. The government 
 will not assail you. You can 
 have no conflict without being 
 yourselves the aggressors. 
 You have no oath registered in 
 heaven to destroy the govern- 
 ment, 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, stretching from 
 every battle-field and patriot 
 grave to every living heart and 
 hearthstone all over this broad 
 land, will yet swell the chorus 
 of the Union when again 
 touched, as surely they will be, 
 by the better angels of our 
 nature. 
 
 143 
 
XXIV 
 
 LETTER TO HORACE GREELEY 
 
 August 22, 1862. 
 
 Dear Sir: I have just read 
 yours of the 19th addressed to 
 myself through the New York 
 " Tribune." If there be in it 
 any statements or assumptions 
 of fact which I may know to 
 be erroneous, I do not, now 
 and here, controvert them. If 
 there be in it any inferences 
 which I may beheve to be 
 falsely drawn, I do not, now 
 and here, argue against them. 
 If there be perceptible in it an 
 impatient and dictatorial tone, 
 I waive it in deference to an 
 old friend whose heart I have 
 always supposed to be right. 
 As to the policy I " seem to 
 
 144 
 
be pursuing," as you say, I have 
 not meant to leave any one in 
 doubt. 
 
 I would save the Union. I 
 would save it the shortest way 
 under the Constitution. The 
 sooner the national authority 
 can be restored, the nearer the 
 Union will be "the Union as 
 it was." If there be those who 
 would not save the Union un- 
 less they could at the same 
 time save slavery, I do not 
 agree with them. If there be 
 those who would not save the 
 Union unless they could at the 
 same time destroy slavery, I do 
 not agree with them. My 
 paramount object in this strug- 
 gle is to save the Union, and is 
 not either to save or to destroy 
 slavery. If I could save the 
 Union without freeing any 
 slave, I would do it ; and if I 
 could save it by freeing all the 
 slaves, I would do it ; and if I 
 
 10 145 
 
could save it by freeing some 
 and leaving others alone, I 
 would also do that. What I do 
 about slavery and the colored 
 race, I do because I beheve it 
 helps to save the Union ; and 
 what I forbear, I forbear be- 
 cause I do not believe it would 
 help to save the Union. I 
 shall do less whenever I shall 
 beheve what I am doing hurts 
 the cause, and I shall do more 
 whenever I shall believe doing 
 more will help the cause. I 
 shall try to correct errors when 
 shown to be errors, and I shall 
 adopt new viev/s so fast as they 
 shall appear to be true views. 
 I have here stated my pur- 
 pose according to my view of 
 official duty ; and I intend no 
 modification of my oft-ex- 
 pressed personal wish that all 
 men everywhere could be free. 
 Yours, 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 146 
 
XXV 
 
 DEPENDENCE UPON GOD 
 
 Reply to an address by Mrs. Gurney, 
 September [28 f], 1862. 
 
 I AM glad of this interview, and 
 glad to know that I have your 
 sympathy and prayers. 
 
 We are indeed going through 
 a great trial — a fiery trial. In 
 the very responsible position in 
 which I happen to be placed, 
 being a humble instrument in 
 the hands of our heavenly 
 Father, as I am, and as we all 
 are, to work out his great pur- 
 poses, I have desired that all 
 my works and acts may be ac- 
 cording to his will, and that it 
 might be so, I have sought his 
 aid ; but if, after endeavoring 
 
 147 
 
to do my best in the light which 
 he affords me, I find my efforts 
 fail, I must believe that, for 
 some purpose unknown to me, 
 he wills it otherwise. 
 
 If I had had my way, this 
 war would never have been 
 commenced. If I had been 
 allowed my way, this war would 
 have been ended before this ; 
 but we find it still continues, 
 and we must believe that he 
 permits it for some wise pur- 
 pose of his own, mysterious and 
 unknown to us ; and though 
 with our limited understand- 
 ings we may not be able to 
 comprehend it, yet we cannot 
 but believe that he who made 
 the world still governs it. 
 
 U8 
 
XXVI 
 
 MEDITATION ON THE 
 DIVINE WILL 
 
 September [30?], 1862. 
 
 The will of God prevails. In 
 great contests each party 
 claims to act in accordance 
 with the will of God. Both 
 rnay be, and one must be, 
 wrong. God cannot be for 
 and against the same thing at 
 the same time. 
 
 In the present civil war it is 
 quite possible that God's pur- 
 pose is something different from 
 the purpose of either party ; 
 and yet the human instrumen- 
 tahties, working just as they 
 do, are of the best adaptation 
 to effect his purpose. I am 
 
 149 
 
almost ready to say that this is 
 probably true ; that God wills 
 this contest, and wills that it 
 shall not end yet. By his 
 mere great power on the minds 
 of the now contestants, he 
 could have either saved or 
 destroyed the Union without 
 a human contest. Yet the con- 
 test began. And, having be- 
 gun, he could give the final 
 victory to either side any day. 
 Yet the contest proceeds. 
 
 150 
 
XXVII 
 
 LETTER TO GENERAL 
 McCLELLAN 
 
 October 13, 1862. 
 
 My dear Sir : You remember 
 my speaking to you of what I 
 called your over-cautiousness. 
 Are you not over-cautious 
 when you assume that you can- 
 not do what the enemy is con- 
 stantly doing? Should you 
 not claim to be at least his 
 equal in prowess, and act upon 
 the claim? 
 
 As I understand, you tele- 
 graphed General Halleck that 
 you cannot subsist your army 
 at Winchester unless the rail- 
 road from Harper's Ferry to 
 that point be put in working 
 
 151 
 
order. But the enemy does 
 now subsist his army at Win- 
 chester, at a distance nearly 
 twice as great from raih^oad 
 transportation as you would 
 have to do without the railroad 
 last named. He now wagons 
 from Culpeper Court House, 
 which is just about twice as 
 far as you would have to do 
 from Harper's Ferry. He is 
 certainly not more than half 
 as well provided with wagons 
 as you are. 
 
 I certainly should be pleased 
 for you to have the advantage 
 of the railroad from Harper's 
 Ferry to Winchester, but it 
 wastes all the remainder of 
 autumn to give it to you, and 
 in fact ignores the question of 
 time, which cannot and must 
 not be ignored. 
 
 Again, one of the standard 
 maxims of war, as you know, 
 is to " operate upon the enemy's 
 
 152 
 
communications as much as 
 possible without exposing your 
 own." You seem to act as if 
 this apphes against you, but 
 cannot apply in your favor. 
 Change positions with the 
 enemy, and think you not he 
 would break your communica- 
 tion with Richmond within the 
 next twenty-four hours? 
 
 You dread his going into 
 Pennsylvania; but if he does 
 so in full force, he gives up his 
 communications to you abso- 
 lutely, and you have nothing to 
 do but to follow and ruin him. 
 If he does so with less than 
 full force, fall upon and beat 
 what is left behind all the easier. 
 Exclusive of the water-hne, you 
 are now nearer Richmond than 
 the enemy is by the route that 
 you can and he must take. 
 Why can you not reach there 
 before him, unless you admit 
 that he is more than your 
 
 153 
 
equal on a march? His route 
 is the arc of a circle, while 
 yours is the chord. The roads 
 are as good on yours as on his. 
 You know I desired, but did not 
 order, you to cross the Potomac 
 below, instead of above, the 
 Shenandoah and Blue Ridge. 
 My idea was that this would at 
 once menace the enemy's com- 
 munications, which I would 
 seize if he would permit. 
 
 If he should move north- 
 ward, I would follow him 
 closely, holding his communi- 
 cations. If he should prevent 
 our seizing his communications 
 and move toward Richmond, 
 I would press closely to him, 
 fight him if a favorable oppor- 
 tunity should present, and at 
 least try to beat him to Rich- 
 mond on the inside track. I say 
 " try " ; if we never try, we shall 
 never succeed. If he makes a 
 stand at Winchester, moving 
 
 154 
 
neither north nor south, I would 
 fight him there, on the idea that 
 if we cannot beat him when he 
 bears the wastage of coming to 
 us, we never can when we bear 
 the wastage of going to him. 
 
 This proposition is a simple 
 truth, and is too important to 
 be lost sight of for a moment. 
 In coming to us he tenders us 
 an advantage which we should 
 not waive. We should not so 
 operate as to merely drive him 
 away. As we must beat him 
 somewhere or fail finally, we 
 can do it, if at all, easier near 
 to us than far away. If we 
 cannot beat the enemy where 
 he now is, we never can, he 
 again being within theintrench- 
 ments of Richmond. 
 
 Recurring to the idea of 
 going to Richmond on the in- 
 side track, the facility of sup- 
 plying from the side away from 
 the enemy is remarkable, as it 
 
 155 
 
were, by the different spokes of 
 a wheel extending from the hub 
 toward the rim, and this whether 
 you move directly by the chord 
 or on the inside arc, hugging 
 the Blue Ridge more closely. 
 The chord-line, as j^ou see, car- 
 ries you by Aldie, Haymarket, 
 and Fredericksburg; and you 
 see how turnpikes, railroads, 
 and finally the Potomac, by 
 Aquia Creek, meet you at all 
 points from Washington ; the 
 same, only the lines lengthened 
 a httle, if you press closer to 
 the Blue Ridge part of the way. 
 The gaps through the Blue 
 Ridge I understand to be about 
 the following distances from 
 Harper's Ferry, to wit : Ves- 
 tal's, 5 miles; Gregory's, 13; 
 Snicker's, 18; Ashby's, 28; 
 Manassas, 38 ; Chester, 4 5 ; and 
 Thornton's, 53. I should 
 think it preferable to take the 
 route nearest the enemy, dis- 
 
 156 
 
abling him to make an im- 
 portant move withont your 
 knowledge, and compelling 
 him to keep his forces together 
 for dread of you. The gaps 
 would enable you to attack if 
 you should wish. For a great 
 part of the way you would be 
 practically between the enemy 
 and both Washington and 
 Richmond, enabling us to spare 
 you the greatest number of 
 troops from here. When at 
 length running for Richmond 
 ahead of him enables him to 
 move this way, if he does so, 
 turn and attack him in rear. 
 But I think he should be en- 
 gaged long before such point 
 is reached. It is all easy if our 
 troops march as well as the 
 enemy, and it is unmanly to 
 say they cannot do it. This 
 letter is in no sense an orden 
 Yours truly, 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 157 
 
XXVIII 
 
 TELEGRAM TO GENERAL 
 McCLELLAN 
 
 October 24 [25?], 1862. 
 
 I HAVE just read your despatch 
 about sore-tongued and fa- 
 tigued horses. Will you par- 
 don me for asking what the 
 horses of your army have done 
 since the battle of Antietam 
 that fatigues anything ? 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 158 
 
XXIX 
 
 EMANCIPATION PROCLAMA- 
 TION 
 
 January i, 1863. 
 
 Whereas, on the twenty-sec- 
 ond day of September, in the 
 year of our Lord one thousand 
 eight hundred and sixty-two, a 
 proclamation was issued by 
 the President of the United 
 States, containing, among 
 other things, the following, to 
 wit : 
 
 " That on the first day of 
 January, in the year of our 
 Lord one thousand eight hun- 
 dred and sixty-three, all per- 
 sons held as slaves within any 
 State, or designated part of a 
 
 159 
 
State, the people whereof shall 
 then be in rebellion against the 
 United States, shall be then, 
 thenceforward, and forever 
 free ; and the Executive Gov- 
 ernment of the United States, 
 including the military and naval 
 authority thereof, will recog- 
 nize and maintain the freedom 
 of such persons, and will do no 
 act or acts to repress such per- 
 sons, or any of them, in any 
 efforts they may make for their 
 actual freedom, 
 
 " That the Executive will, on 
 the first day of January afore- 
 said, by proclamation, desig- 
 nate the States and parts of 
 States, if any, in which the peo- 
 ple 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 represented in the 
 Congress of the United States 
 
 160 
 
by members chosen thereto at 
 elections wherein a majority of 
 the qualified voters of such 
 State shall have participated, 
 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." 
 
 Now, therefore, I, Abraham 
 Lincoln, President of the 
 United States, by virtue of the 
 power in me vested as com- 
 mander-in-chief of thearmvand 
 navy of the United States, in 
 time of actual armed rebellion 
 against the authority and gov- 
 ernment of the United States, 
 and as a fit and necessary war 
 measure for suppressing said 
 rebellion, do, on this first day 
 of January, in the year of our 
 Lord one thousand eight hun- 
 dred and sixty-three, and in 
 
 11 161 
 
accordance with my purpose 
 so to do, publicly proclaimed 
 for the full period of loo 
 days from the day first above 
 mentioned, order and desig- 
 nate as the States and parts 
 of States wherein the people 
 thereof, respectively, are this 
 day in rebellion against the 
 United States, the following, 
 to wit : 
 
 Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana 
 (except the parishes of St. 
 Bernard, Plaquemines, Jeffer- 
 son, St. John, St. Charles, St. 
 James, Ascension, Assumption, 
 Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. 
 .Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, 
 including the city of New Or- 
 leans), Mississippi, Alabama, 
 Florida, Georgia, South Caro- 
 lina, North Carolina, and Vir- 
 ginia (except the forty-eight 
 counties designated as West 
 Virginia, and also the counties 
 of Berkeley, Accomac, North- 
 
 162 
 
ampton, Elizabeth City, York. 
 Princess Anne, and Norfolk, 
 including the cities of Norfolk 
 and Portsmouth), and which 
 excepted parts are for the pres- 
 ent left precisely as if this proc- 
 lamation 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 
 said designated States and parts 
 of States are, and hencefor- 
 ward shall be, free ; and that 
 the Executive Government of 
 the United States, including 
 the military and naval authori- 
 ties thereof, will recognize and 
 maintain the freedom of said 
 persons. 
 
 And I hereby enjoin upon 
 the people so declared to be 
 free to abstain from all violence, 
 unless in necessary self-de- 
 fense; and I recommend to 
 them that, in all cases when 
 
 103 
 
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 service 
 of the United States to garrison 
 forts, positions, stations, and 
 other places, and to man ves- 
 sels of all sorts in said service. 
 
 And upon this act, sincerely 
 believed to be an act of justice, 
 warranted by the Constitution 
 upon military necessity, I in- 
 voke the considerate judgment 
 of mankind and the gracious 
 favor of Almighty God. 
 
 In witness whereof, I have 
 hereunto set my hand, and 
 caused the seal of the United 
 States to be affixed. 
 
 Done at the city of 
 
 Washington, this first 
 
 day of January, in the 
 
 year of our Lord one 
 
 [l, s.] thousand eight hundred 
 
 164 
 
and sixty-three, and of 
 the independence of the 
 United States of Amer- 
 ica the eighty-seventh. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln. 
 By the President : 
 
 William H. Seward, 
 
 Secretary of State. 
 
 165 
 
XXX 
 
 LETTER TO THE WORKING-MEN 
 OF MANCHESTER, ENGLAND 
 
 January 19, 1863. 
 
 To the Working-men of Man- 
 chester : I have the honor to 
 acknowledge the receipt of the 
 address and resolutions which 
 you sent me on the eve of the 
 new year. 
 
 When I came, on the 4th of 
 March, 1861, through a free and 
 constitutional election to pre- 
 side in the government of the 
 United States, the country was 
 found at the verge of civil war. 
 Whatever might have been the 
 cause, or whosesoever the fault, 
 one duty, paramount to all 
 others, was before me, namely, 
 
 166 
 
to maintain and preserve at 
 once the Constitution and the 
 integrity of the Federal Repub- 
 hc. A conscientious purpose 
 to perform this duty is the key 
 to all the measures of adminis- 
 tration which have been and to 
 all which will hereafter be pur- 
 sued. Under our frame of 
 government and my official 
 oath, I could not depart from 
 this purpose if I would. It is 
 not always in the power of 
 governments to enlarge or re- 
 strict the scope of moral results 
 which follow the pohcies that 
 they may deem it necessary for 
 the public safety from time to 
 time to adopt. 
 
 I have understood well that 
 the duty of self-preservation 
 rests solely with the American 
 people ; but I have at the same 
 time been aware that favor or 
 disfavor of foreign nations 
 might have a material in- 
 
 167 
 
fluence in enlarging or prolong- 
 ing the struggle with disloyal 
 men in which the country is 
 engaged. 
 
 A fair examination of history 
 has served to authorize a belief 
 that the past actions and influ- 
 ences of the United States were 
 generally regarded as having 
 been beneficial toward man- 
 kind, I have, therefore, reck- 
 oned upon the forbearance of 
 nations. Circumstances — to 
 some of which you kindly al- 
 lude — induce me especially to 
 expect that if justice and good 
 faith should be practised by the 
 United States, they would en- 
 counter no hostile influence on 
 the part of Great Britain. It 
 is now a pleasant duty to ac- 
 knowledge the demonstration 
 you have given of your desire 
 that a spirit of amity and peace 
 toward this country may pre- 
 vail in the councils of your 
 
 168 
 
Queen, who is respected and es- 
 teemed in your own country 
 only more than she is by the 
 kindred nation which has its 
 home on this side of the Atlan- 
 tic. 
 
 I know and deeply deplore 
 the sufferings which the work- 
 ing-men at Manchester, and in 
 all Europe, are called to endure 
 in this crisis. It has been often 
 and studiously represented that 
 the attempt to overthrow this 
 government, which was built 
 upon the foundation of human 
 rights, and to substitute for it 
 one which should rest exclu- 
 sively on the basis of human 
 slavery, was likely to obtain 
 the favor of Europe. Through 
 the action of our disloyal citi- 
 zens, the working-men of 
 Europe have been subjected 
 to severe trials, for the purpose 
 of forcing their sanction to 
 that attempt. Under the cir- 
 
 169 
 
cumstances, I cannot but re- 
 gard your decisive utterances 
 upon the question as an in- 
 stance of sublime Christian 
 heroism which has not been 
 surpassed in any age or in any 
 country. 
 
 It is indeed an energetic and 
 reinspiring assurance of the 
 inherent power of truth, and 
 of the ultimate and universal 
 triumph of justice, humanity, 
 and freedom. I do not doubt 
 that the sentiments you have 
 expressed will be sustained by 
 your great nation , and, on the 
 other hand, I have no hesita- 
 tion in assuring you that they 
 will excite admiration, esteem, 
 and the most reciprocal feel- 
 ings of friendship among the 
 American people. I hail this 
 interchange of sentiment, there- 
 fore, as an augury that what- 
 ever else may happen, whatever 
 misfortune may befall your 
 
 170 
 
country or my own, the peace 
 and friendship which now exist 
 between the two nations will 
 be, as it shall be my desire to 
 make them, perpetual. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 171 
 
XXXI 
 
 LETTER TO GENERAL 
 HOOKER 
 
 January 26, 1863. 
 
 General : I have placed you at 
 the head of the Army of the 
 Potomac. Of course I have 
 done this upon what appear to 
 me to be sufficient reasons, and 
 yet I think it best for you to 
 know that there are some things 
 in regard to which I am not 
 quite satisfied with you, 
 
 I beheve you to be a brave 
 and skilful soldier, which of 
 course I like. I also beheve 
 you do not mix politics with 
 your profession, in which you 
 are right. You have confi- 
 dence in yourself, which is a 
 
 172 
 
valuable if not an indispensa- 
 ble quality. You are ambitious, 
 which, within reasonable 
 bounds, does good rather than 
 harm ; but I think that during 
 General Burnside's command 
 of the army you have taken 
 counsel of your ambition and 
 thwarted him as much as you 
 could, in which you did a great 
 wrong to the country and to a 
 most meritorious and honorable 
 brother officer.' 
 
 I have heard, in such a way 
 as to believe it, of your re- 
 cently saying that both the army 
 and the government needed a 
 dictator. Of course it was not 
 for this, but in spite of it, that 
 I have given you the command. 
 Only those generals who gain 
 successes can set up dictators. 
 What I now ask of you is 
 military success, and I will risk 
 the dictatorship. The govern- 
 ment will support you to the 
 
 173 
 
utmost of its ability, which is 
 neither more nor less than it 
 has done and will do for all 
 commanders. 
 
 I much fear that the spirit 
 which you have aided to infuse 
 into the army, of criticizing 
 their commander and with- 
 holding confidence from him, 
 will now turn upon you. I 
 shall assist you as far as I can 
 to put it down. Neither you 
 nor Napoleon, if he were alive 
 again, could get any good out 
 of an army while such a spirit 
 prevails in it. 
 
 And now beware of rashness. 
 Beware of rashness, but with 
 energy and sleepless vigilance 
 go forward and give us vic- 
 tories. Yours very truly, 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 174 
 
XXXII 
 
 LETTER TO GENERAL GRANT 
 
 July 13, 1863. 
 
 My dear Ge?icraL : I do not re- 
 member that you and I ever 
 met personally. I write this now 
 as a grateful acknowledgment 
 for the almost inestimable ser- 
 vice you have done the coun- 
 try. I wish to say a word 
 further. When you first 
 reached the vicinity of Vicks- 
 burg, I thought you should do 
 what you finally did — march 
 the troops across the neck, run 
 the batteries with the transports, 
 and thus go below ; and I 
 never had any faith, except a 
 general hope that you knew 
 better than I, that the Yazoo 
 
 175 
 
Pass expedition and the like 
 could succeed. When you got 
 below and took Port Gibson, 
 Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I 
 thought you should go down 
 the river and join General 
 Banks, and when you turned 
 northward, east of the Big 
 Black, I feared it was a mis- 
 take. I now wish to make the 
 personal acknowledgment that 
 you were right and I was 
 wrong. Yours very truly, 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 176 
 
XXXIII 
 
 LETTER TO J. C. CONKLING 
 
 August 26, 1863. 
 
 My dear Sir: Your letter 
 inviting me to attend a mass- 
 meeting of unconditional 
 Union men, to be held at the 
 capital of Illinois on the third 
 day of September, has been re- 
 ceived. It would be very 
 agreeable to me to thus meet 
 my old friends at my own 
 home, but I cannot just now 
 be absent from here so long as 
 a visit there would require. 
 
 The meeting is to be of all 
 those who maintain uncondi- 
 tional devotion to the Union ; 
 and I am sure my old political 
 friends will thank me for ten- 
 
 12 177 
 
dering, as I do, the nation's 
 gratitude to those and other 
 noble men whom no partizan 
 maUce or partizan hope can 
 make false to the nation's life. 
 There are those who are 
 dissatisfied with me. To such 
 I would say : You desire peace, 
 and you blame me that we do 
 not have it. But how can we 
 attain it? There are but three 
 conceivable ways : First, to 
 suppress the rebellion by force 
 of arms. This I am trying to 
 do. Are you for it? If you 
 are, so far we are agreed. If 
 you are not for it, a second way 
 is to give up the Union, I am 
 against this. Are you for it? 
 If you are, you should say so 
 plainly. If you are not for 
 force, nor yet for dissolution, 
 there only remains some imag- 
 inable compromise. I do not 
 believe any compromise em- 
 bracing the maintenance of the 
 
 178 
 
Union is now possible. All I 
 learn leads to a directly oppo- 
 site belief. The strength of the 
 rebellion is its military, its army. 
 That army dominates all the 
 country and all the people 
 within its range. Any offer of 
 terms made by any man or 
 men within that range, in op- 
 position to that army, is simply 
 nothing for the present, because 
 such man or men have no 
 power whatever to enforce their 
 side of a compromise, if one 
 were made with them. 
 
 To illustrate : Suppose refu- 
 gees from the South and peace 
 men of the North get together 
 '' in convention, and frame and 
 proclaim a compromise em- 
 bracing a restoration of the 
 Union. In what way can that 
 compromise be used to keep 
 Lee's army out of Pennsyl- 
 vania? Meade's army can keep 
 Lee's army out of Pennsyl- 
 
 179 
 
vania, and, I think, can ulti- 
 mately drive it out of existence. 
 But no paper compromise to 
 which the controllers of Lee's 
 army are not agreed can at all 
 affect that army. In an effort 
 at such compromise we should 
 waste time which the enemy 
 would improve to our disad- 
 vantage ; and that would be 
 all. A compromise, to be 
 effective, must be made either 
 with those who control the 
 rebel army, or with the people 
 first liberated from the domina- 
 tion of that army by the success 
 of our own army. Now, allow 
 me to assure you that no word 
 or intimation from that rebel 
 army, or from any of the men 
 controlling it, in relation to any 
 peace compromise, has ever 
 come to my knowledge or be- 
 lief. All charges and insinua- 
 tions to the contrary are de- 
 ceptive and groundless. And 
 
 180 
 
T promise you that if any such 
 proposition shall hereafter 
 come, it shall not be rejected 
 and kept a secret from you. I 
 freely acknowledge myself the 
 servant of the people, accord- 
 ing to the bond of service, — 
 the United States Constitution, 
 — and that, as such, I am re- 
 sponsible to them. 
 
 But to be plain. You are 
 dissatisfied with me about the 
 negro. Quite likely there is a 
 difference of opinion between 
 you and myself upon that sub- 
 ject, I certainly wish that all 
 men could be free, while I 
 suppose you do not. Yet I 
 have neither adopted nor pro- 
 posed any measure which is 
 not consistent with even your 
 view, provided you are for the 
 Union. I suggested compen- 
 sated emancipation, to which 
 you replied you wished not to 
 be taxed to buy negroes. But 
 
 181 
 
I had not asked you to be taxed 
 to buy negroes, except in such 
 way as to save you from greater 
 taxation to save the Union ex- 
 clusively by other means. 
 
 You dislike the emancipation 
 proclamation, and perhaps 
 would have it retracted. You 
 say it is unconstitutional. I 
 think differently. I think the 
 Constitution invests -its com- 
 mander-in-chief with the law 
 of war in time of war. The 
 most that can be said — if so 
 much — is that slaves are prop- 
 erty. Is there — has there ever 
 been — any question that by the 
 law of war property, both of 
 enemies and friends, may be 
 taken when needed? And is 
 it not needed whenever taking 
 it helps us, or hurts the enemy? 
 Armies, the world over, destroy 
 enemies' property when they 
 cannot use it ; and even de- 
 stroy their own to keep it from 
 
 182 
 
the enemy. Civilized belliger- 
 ents do all in their power to 
 help themselves or hurt the 
 enemy, except a few things re- 
 garded as barbarous or cruel. 
 Among the exceptions are the 
 massacre of vanquished foes 
 and non-combatants, male and 
 female. 
 
 But the proclamation, as law, 
 either is valid or is not valid. 
 If it is not vahd, it needs no re- 
 traction. If it is valid, it cannot 
 be retracted any more than the 
 dead can be brought to life. 
 Some of you profess to think 
 its retraction would operate fa- 
 vorably for the Union. Why 
 better after the retraction than 
 before the issue? There was 
 more than a year and a half of 
 trial to suppress the rebellion 
 before the proclamation issued ; 
 the last one hundred days of 
 which passed under an explicit 
 notice that it was coming, un- 
 
 183 
 
less averted by those in revolt 
 returning to their allegiance. 
 The war has certainly pro- 
 gressed as favorably for us 
 since the issue of the procla- 
 mation as before. 
 
 I know, as fully as one can 
 know the opinions of others, 
 that some of the commanders 
 of our armies in the field, who 
 have given us our most im- 
 portant successes, believe the 
 emancipation policy and the 
 use of the colored troops con- 
 stitute the heaviest blow yet 
 dealt to the rebellion, and that 
 at least one of these important 
 successes could not have been 
 achieved when it was but for 
 the aid of black soldiers. 
 Among the commanders hold- 
 ing these views are some who 
 have never had any affinity 
 with what is called abolition- 
 ism, or with Republican party 
 politics, but who hold them 
 
 184 
 
purely as military opinions. I 
 submit these opinions as being 
 entitled to some weight against 
 the objections often urged that 
 emancipation and arming the 
 blacks are unwise as military 
 measures, and were not adopted 
 as such in good faith. 
 
 You say you will not fight to 
 free negroes. Some of them 
 seem willing to fight for you ; 
 but no matter. Fight you, 
 then, exclusively, to save the 
 Union. I issued the proclama- 
 tion on purpose to aid you in 
 saving the Union. Whenever 
 you shall have conquered all 
 resistance to the Union, if I 
 shall urge you to continue 
 fighting, it will be an apt time 
 then for you to declare you 
 will not fight to free negroes. 
 
 I thought that in your strug- 
 gle for the Union, to whatever 
 extent the negroes should cease 
 helping the enemy, to that ex- 
 
 185 
 
tent it weakened the enemy in 
 his resistance to you. Do you 
 think differently? I thought 
 that whatever negroes can be 
 got to do as soldiers leaves just 
 so much less for white soldiers 
 to do in saving the Union. 
 Does it appear otherwise to 
 you? But negroes, like other 
 people, act upon motives. 
 Why should they do anything 
 for us if we will do nothing for 
 them? If they stake their 
 lives for us they must be 
 prompted by the strongest 
 motive, even the promise of 
 freedom. And the promise, 
 being made, must be kept. 
 
 The signs look better. The 
 Father of Waters again goes 
 unvexed to the sea. Thanks 
 to the great Northwest for it. 
 Nor yet wholly to them. 
 Three hundred miles up they 
 met New England, Empire, 
 Keystone, and Jersey, hewing 
 
 186 
 
their way right and left. The 
 sunny South, too, in more 
 colors than one, also lent a 
 hand. On the spot, their part 
 of the history was jotted down 
 in black and white. The job 
 was a great national one, and 
 let none be banned who bore 
 an honorable part in it. And 
 while those who have cleared 
 the great river may well be 
 proud, even that is not all. 
 It is hard to say that anything 
 has been more bravely and 
 well done than at Antietam, 
 Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, and 
 on many fields of lesser note. 
 Nor must Uncle Sam's web- 
 feet be forgotten. At all the 
 watery margins they have been 
 present. Not only on the deep 
 sea, the broad bay, and the 
 rapid river, but also up the 
 narrow, muddy bayou, and 
 wherever the ground was a lit- 
 tle damp, they have been and 
 
 187 
 
made their tracks. Thanks to 
 all : for the great republic — for 
 the principle it lives by and 
 keeps ahve — for man's vast fu- 
 ture — thanks to all. 
 
 Peace does not appear so 
 distant as it did. I hope it 
 will come soon, and come to 
 stay ; and so come as to be 
 worth the keeping in all future 
 time. It will then have been 
 proved that among free men 
 there can be no successful ap- 
 peal from the ballot to the bul- 
 let, and that they who take such 
 appeal are sure to lose their 
 case and pay the cost. And 
 then there will be some black 
 men who can remember that 
 with silent tongue, and clenched 
 teeth, and steady eye, and well- 
 poised bayonet, they have 
 helped mankind on to this 
 great consummation, while I 
 fear there will be some white 
 ones unable to forget that with 
 
 188 
 
malignant heart and deceitful 
 speech they strove to hinder it. 
 Still, let us not be over-san- 
 guine of a speedy final triumph. 
 Let us be quite sober. Let us 
 diligently apply the means, 
 never doubting that a just God, 
 in his own good time, will give 
 us the rightful result. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 189 
 
XXXIV 
 
 THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS 
 
 November 19, 1863. 
 
 Fourscore and seven years 
 ago our fathers brought forth 
 on this continent a new nation, 
 conceived in hberty, and dedi- 
 cated 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 battle-field of that 
 war. We have come to dedi- 
 cate a portion of that field as 
 a final resting-place for those 
 who here gave their lives that 
 that nation might live. It is 
 
 190 
 
altogether fitting and proper 
 that we should do this. 
 
 But, in a larger sense, we 
 cannot dedicate — we cannot 
 consecrate — we cannot hallow 
 —this ground. The brave 
 men, living and dead, who 
 struggled here, have conse- 
 crated 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 
 they did here. It is for us, the 
 living, rather, to be dedicated 
 here to the unfinished work 
 which they who fought here 
 have thus far so nobly ad- 
 vanced. It is rather for us to 
 be here dedicated to the great 
 task remaining before us — that 
 from these 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 
 
 191 
 
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. 
 
 192 
 
 r' 
 
XXXV 
 
 RESPONSE TO A SERENADE 
 
 November lo, 1864. 
 
 It has long been a grave ques- 
 tion whether any government, 
 not too strong for the hberties 
 of its people, can be strong 
 enough to maintain its existence 
 in great emergencies. On this 
 point the present rebellion 
 brought our republic to a 
 severe test, and a Presidential 
 election occurring in regular 
 course during the rebellion 
 added not a little to the strain. 
 If the loyal people united 
 were put to the utmost of their 
 strength by the rebellion, must 
 they not fail when divided and 
 partially paralyzed by a polit- 
 ical war among themselves? 
 
 13 193 
 
But the election was a ne- 
 cessity. ^Ve cannot have free 
 government without elections ; 
 and if the rebellion could force 
 us to forego or postpone a 
 national election, it might fairly 
 claim to have already con- 
 quered and ruined us. The 
 strife of the election is but 
 human nature practically ap- 
 plied to the facts of the case. 
 What has occurred in this case 
 must ever recur in similar cases. 
 Human nature will not change. 
 In any future great national 
 trial, compared with the men 
 of this, we shall have as weak 
 and as strong, as silly and as 
 wise, as bad and as good. Let 
 us, therefore, study the inci- 
 dents of this as philosophy to 
 learn wisdom from, and none 
 of them as wrongs to be re- 
 venged. 
 
 But the election, along with 
 its incidental and undesirable 
 
 194 
 
strife, has done good too. It 
 has demonstrated that a peo- 
 ple's government can sustain a 
 national election in the midst 
 of a great civil war. Until 
 now it has not been known 
 to the world that this was a 
 possibility. It shows, also, 
 how sound and how strong 
 we still are. It shows that, 
 even among candidates of the 
 same party, he who is most de- 
 voted to the Union and most 
 opposed to treason can receive 
 most of the people's votes. It 
 shows, also, to the extent yet 
 known, that we have more 
 men now than we had when the 
 war began. Gold is good in its 
 place, but living, brave, patri- 
 otic men are better than gold. 
 But the rebellion continues, 
 and now that the election is 
 over, may not all having a 
 common interest reunite in a 
 common effort to save our 
 
 195 
 
common country? For my 
 own part, I have striven and 
 shall strive to avoid placing any 
 obstacle in the way. So long 
 as I have been here I have not 
 willingly planted a thorn in any 
 man's bosom. While I am 
 deeply sensible to the high 
 compliment of a reelection, and 
 duly grateful, as I trust, to Al- 
 mighty God for having di- 
 rected my countrymen to a 
 right conclusion, as I think, for 
 their own good, it adds no- 
 thing to my satisfaction that 
 any other man may be disap- 
 pointed or pained by the result. 
 May I ask those who have 
 not differed with me to join 
 with me in this same spirit to- 
 ward those who have? And 
 now let me close by asking 
 three hearty cheers for our 
 brave soldiers and seamen 
 and their gallant and skilful 
 commanders. 
 
 196 
 
XXXVI 
 
 LETTER OF CONDOLENCE TO 
 
 MRS. BIXBY OF BOSTON, 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 November 21, 1864. 
 
 Dear Madam : I have been 
 shown in the files of the War 
 Department a statement of the 
 Adjutant-General of Massa- 
 chusetts that you are the 
 mother of five sons who have 
 died gloriously on the field of 
 battle. I feel how weak and 
 fruitless must be any words of 
 mine which should attempt to 
 beguile you from the grief of a 
 loss so overwhelming. But I 
 cannot refrain from tendering 
 to you the consolation that may 
 
 197 
 
be found in the thanks of the 
 Republic they died to save. I 
 pray that our heavenly Father 
 may assuage the anguish of 
 your bereavement, and leave 
 you only the cherished memory 
 of the loved and lost, and the 
 solemn pride that must be 
 yours to have laid so costly a 
 sacrifice upon the altar of free- 
 dom. 
 
 Yours very sincerely 
 and respectfully, 
 
 Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 198 
 
XXXVII 
 
 SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
 
 March 4, 1865. 
 
 Felloiv-coiuitrymeii : At this 
 second appearing to take the 
 oath of the Presidential office, 
 there is less occasion for an 
 extended address than there 
 was at the first. Then a state- 
 ment, somewhat in detail, of a 
 course to be pursued, seemed 
 fitting and proper. Now, at 
 the expiration of four years, 
 during which pubhc declara- 
 tions have been constantly 
 called forth on every point and 
 phase of the great contest 
 which still absorbs the atten- 
 tion and engrosses the energies 
 of the nation, little that is new 
 
 199 
 
could be presented. The prog- 
 ress of our arms, upon which 
 all else chiefly depends, is as 
 well known to the public as to 
 myself ; and it is, I trust, rea- 
 sonably satisfactory and en- 
 couraging to all. With high 
 hope for the future, no pre- 
 diction in regard to it is ven- 
 tured. 
 
 On the occasion correspond- 
 ing to this four years ago, all 
 thoughts were anxiously di- 
 rected to an impending civil 
 war. All dreaded it — all 
 sought to avert it. While the 
 inaugural address was being de- 
 livered from this place, devoted 
 altogether to saving the Union 
 without war, insurgent agents 
 were in the city seeking to de- 
 stroy it without war — seeking 
 to dissolve the Union, and di- 
 vide effects, by negotiation. 
 Both parties deprecated war ; 
 but one of them would make 
 
 200 
 
war rather than let the nation 
 surv^ive ; and the other would 
 accept war rather than let it 
 perish. And the war came. 
 
 One eighth of the whole 
 population were colored slaves, 
 not distributed generally over 
 the Union, but localized in the 
 southern part of it. These 
 slaves constituted a pecuhar 
 and powerful interest. All 
 knew that this interest was, 
 somehow, the cause of the war. 
 To strengthen, perpetuate, and 
 extend this interest was the 
 object for which the insurgents 
 would rend the Union, even by 
 war ; while the government 
 claimed no right to do more 
 than to restrict the territorial 
 enlargement of it. 
 
 Neither party expected for 
 the war the magnitude or the 
 duration which it has already 
 attained. Neither anticipated 
 that the cause of the conflict 
 
 201 
 
might cease with, or even be- 
 fore, the conflict itself should 
 cease. Each looked for an 
 easier triumph, and a result less 
 fundamental and astounding. 
 Both read the same Bible, and 
 pray to the same God ; and each 
 invokes his aid against the 
 other. It may seem strange 
 that any men should dare to 
 ask a just God's assistance in 
 wringing their bread from the 
 sweat of other men's faces ; but 
 let us judge not, that we be not 
 judged. The prayers of both 
 could not be answered — that 
 of neither has been 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 
 
 202 
 
which, in the providence of 
 God, must needs come, but 
 which, having continued 
 through his appointed time, he 
 now wills to remove, and that 
 he gives to both North and 
 South this terrible war, as the 
 woe due to those by whom the 
 offense came, shall we discern 
 therein any departure from 
 those divine attributes which 
 the believers in a living God 
 always ascribe to him? "Fondly 
 do we hope — fervently do we 
 pray — that this mighty scourge 
 of war may speedily pass away. 
 Yet, if God wills that it con- 
 tinue until all the wealth piled 
 by the bondman's two hundred 
 and fifty years of unrequited 
 toil shall be sunk, and until 
 every drop of blood drawn with 
 the lash shall be paid by an- 
 other drawn with the sword, as 
 was said three thousand years 
 ago, so still it must be said, 
 
 203 
 
" The judgments of the Lord 
 are true, and righteous alto- 
 gether." 
 
 With maHce toward none; 
 with charity for all ; with firm- 
 ness in the right, as God gives 
 us to see the right, let us strive 
 on to finish the work we are 
 in ; to bind up the nation's 
 wounds ; to care for him who 
 shall have borne the battle, and 
 for his widow, and his orphan 
 — to do all which mav achieve 
 and cherish a just and lasting 
 peace among ourselves, and 
 with all nations. 
 
 204 
 
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