to inform you that the dueling business still rages in this city. Day
before yesterday Shields challenged Butler, who accepted, and proposed
fighting next morning at sunrise in Bob Allen's meadow, one hundred
yards' distance, with rifles. To this Whitesides, Shields's second, said
"No," because of the law. Thus ended duel No. 2. Yesterday Whitesides
chose to consider himself insulted by Dr. Merryman, so sent him a kind
of quasi-challenge, inviting him to meet him at the Planter's House in
St. Louis on the next Friday, to settle their difficulty. Merryman made
me his friend, and sent Whitesides a note, inquiring to know if he meant
his note as a challenge, and if so, that he would, according to the
law in such case made and provided, prescribe the terms of the meeting.
Whitesides returned for answer that if Merryman would meet him at the
Planter's House as desired, he would challenge him. Merryman replied in
a note that he denied Whitesides's right to dictate time and place, but
that he (Merryman) would waive the question of time, and meet him at
Louisiana, Missouri. Upon my presenting this note to Whitesides and
stating verbally its contents, he declined receiving it, saying he had
business in St. Louis, and it was as near as Louisiana. Merryman
then directed me to notify Whitesides that he should publish the
correspondence between them, with such comments as he thought fit. This
I did. Thus it stood at bedtime last night. This morning Whitesides, by
his friend Shields, is praying for a new trial, on the ground that
he was mistaken in Merryman's proposition to meet him at Louisiana,
Missouri, thinking it was the State of Louisiana. This Merryman hoots
at, and is preparing his publication; while the town is in a ferment,
and a street fight somewhat anticipated.
But I began this letter not for what I have been writing, but to
say something on that subject which you know to be of such infinite
solicitude to me. The immense sufferings you endured from the first days
of September till the middle of February you never tried to conceal from
me, and I well understood. You have now been the husband of a lovely
woman nearly eight months. That you are happier now than the day you
married her I well know, for without you could not be living. But I have
your word for it, too, and the returning elasticity of spirits which is
manifested in your letters. But I want to ask a close question, "Are
you now in feeling as well as judgment glad that you are married as you
are?" From anybody but me this would be an impudent question, not to
be tolerated; but I know you will pardon it in me. Please answer it
quickly, as I am impatient to know. I have sent my love to your Fanny so
often, I fear she is getting tired of it. However, I venture to tender
it again.
Yours forever,
LINCOLN.
TO JAMES S. IRWIN.
SPRINGFIELD, November 2, 1842.
JAS. S. IRWIN ESQ.:
Owing to my absence, yours of the 22nd ult. was not received till this
moment. Judge Logan and myself are willing to attend to any business
in the Supreme Court you may send us. As to fees, it is impossible to
establish a rule that will apply in all, or even a great many cases.
We believe we are never accused of being very unreasonable in this
particular; and we would always be easily satisfied, provided we could
see the money--but whatever fees we earn at a distance, if not paid
before, we have noticed, we never hear of after the work is done. We,
therefore, are growing a little sensitive on that point.
Yours etc.,
A. LINCOLN.
1843
RESOLUTIONS AT A WHIG MEETING AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, MARCH 1, 1843.
The object of the meeting was stated by Mr. Lincoln of Springfield, who
offered the following resolutions, which were unanimously adopted:
Resolved, That a tariff of duties on imported goods, producing
sufficient revenue for the payment of the necessary expenditures of the
National Government, and so adjusted as to protect American industry, is
indispensably necessary to the prosperity of the American people.
Resolved, That we are opposed to direct taxation for the support of the
National Government.
Resolved, That a national bank, properly restricted, is highly necessary
and proper to the establishment and maintenance of a sound currency, and
for the cheap and safe collection, keeping, and disbursing of the public
revenue.
Resolved, That the distribution of the proceeds of the sales of the
public lands, upon the principles of Mr. Clay's bill, accords with the
best interests of the nation, and particularly with those of the State
of Illinois.
Resolved, That we recommend to the Whigs of each Congressional district
of the State to nominate and support at the approaching election a
candidate of their own principles, regardless of the chances of success.
Resolved, That we recommend to the Whigs of all portions of the State
to adopt and rigidly adhere to the convention system of nominating
candidates.
Resolved, That we recommend to the Whigs of each Congressional district
to hold a district convention on or before the first Monday of May next,
to be composed of a number of delegates from each county equal to double
the number of its representatives in the General Assembly, provided,
each county shall have at least one delegate. Said delegates to be
chosen by primary meetings of the Whigs, at such times and places as
they in their respective counties may see fit. Said district conventions
each to nominate one candidate for Congress, and one delegate to
a national convention for the purpose of nominating candidates for
President and Vice-President of the United States. The seven delegates
so nominated to a national convention to have power to add two delegates
to their own number, and to fill all vacancies.
Resolved, That A. T. Bledsoe, S. T. Logan, and A. Lincoln be appointed a
committee to prepare an address to the people of the State.
Resolved, That N. W. Edwards, A. G. Henry, James H. Matheny, John
C. Doremus, and James C. Conkling be appointed a Whig Central State
Committee, with authority to fill any vacancy that may occur in the
committee.
CIRCULAR FROM WHIG COMMITTEE.
Address to the People of Illinois.
FELLOW-CITIZENS:-By a resolution of a meeting of such of the Whigs of
the State as are now at Springfield, we, the undersigned, were appointed
to prepare an address to you. The performance of that task we now
undertake.
Several resolutions were adopted by the meeting; and the chief object of
this address is to show briefly the reasons for their adoption.
The first of those resolutions declares a tariff of duties upon foreign
importations, producing sufficient revenue for the support of the
General Government, and so adjusted as to protect American industry, to
be indispensably necessary to the prosperity of the American people;
and the second declares direct taxation for a national revenue to
be improper. Those two resolutions are kindred in their nature, and
therefore proper and convenient to be considered together. The question
of protection is a subject entirely too broad to be crowded into a
few pages only, together with several other subjects. On that point we
therefore content ourselves with giving the following extracts from
the writings of Mr. Jefferson, General Jackson, and the speech of Mr.
Calhoun:
"To be independent for the comforts of life, we must fabricate them
ourselves. We must now place the manufacturer by the side of the
agriculturalist. The grand inquiry now is, Shall we make our own
comforts, or go without them at the will of a foreign nation? He,
therefore, who is now against domestic manufactures must be for reducing
us either to dependence on that foreign nation, or to be clothed in
skins and to live like wild beasts in dens and caverns. I am not one of
those; experience has taught me that manufactures are now as necessary
to our independence as to our comfort." Letter of Mr. Jefferson to
Benjamin Austin.
"I ask, What is the real situation of the agriculturalist? Where has the
American farmer a market for his surplus produce? Except for cotton, he
has neither a foreign nor a home market. Does not this clearly prove,
when there is no market at home or abroad, that there [is] too much
labor employed in agriculture? Common sense at once points out the
remedy. Take from agriculture six hundred thousand men, women, and
children, and you will at once give a market for more breadstuffs than
all Europe now furnishes. In short, we have been too long subject to the
policy of British merchants. It is time we should become a little
more Americanized, and instead of feeding the paupers and laborers
of England, feed our own; or else in a short time, by continuing our
present policy, we shall all be rendered paupers ourselves."--General
Jackson's Letter to Dr. Coleman.
"When our manufactures are grown to a certain perfection, as they soon
will be, under the fostering care of government, the farmer will find
a ready market for his surplus produce, and--what is of equal
consequence--a certain and cheap supply of all he wants; his prosperity
will diffuse itself to every class of the community." Speech of Hon. J.
C. Calhoun on the Tariff.
The question of revenue we will now briefly consider. For several
years past the revenues of the government have been unequal to its
expenditures, and consequently loan after loan, sometimes direct and
sometimes indirect in form, has been resorted to. By this means a
new national debt has been created, and is still growing on us with
a rapidity fearful to contemplate--a rapidity only reasonably to be
expected in time of war. This state of things has been produced by a
prevailing unwillingness either to increase the tariff or resort to
direct taxation. But the one or the other must come. Coming expenditures
must be met, and the present debt must be paid; and money cannot always
be borrowed for these objects. The system of loans is but temporary in
its nature, and must soon explode. It is a system not only ruinous while
it lasts, but one that must soon fail and leave us destitute. As an
individual who undertakes to live by borrowing soon finds his original
means devoured by interest, and, next, no one left to borrow from, so
must it be with a government.
We repeat, then, that a tariff sufficient for revenue, or a direct tax,
must soon be resorted to; and, indeed, we believe this alternative is
now denied by no one. But which system shall be adopted? Some of our
opponents, in theory, admit the propriety of a tariff sufficient for
a revenue, but even they will not in practice vote for such a tariff;
while others boldly advocate direct taxation. Inasmuch, therefore, as
some of them boldly advocate direct taxation, and all the rest--or so
nearly all as to make exceptions needless--refuse to adopt the tariff,
we think it is doing them no injustice to class them all as advocates
of direct taxation. Indeed, we believe they are only delaying an open
avowal of the system till they can assure themselves that the people
will tolerate it. Let us, then, briefly compare the two systems. The
tariff is the cheaper system, because the duties, being collected in
large parcels at a few commercial points, will require comparatively few
officers in their collection; while by the direct-tax system the land
must be literally covered with assessors and collectors, going forth
like swarms of Egyptian locusts, devouring every blade of grass and
other green thing. And, again, by the tariff system the whole revenue is
paid by the consumers of foreign goods, and those chiefly the luxuries,
and not the necessaries, of life. By this system the man who contents
himself to live upon the products of his own country pays nothing at
all. And surely that country is extensive enough, and its products
abundant and varied enough, to answer all the real wants of its people.
In short, by this system the burthen of revenue falls almost entirely on
the wealthy and luxurious few, while the substantial and laboring many
who live at home, and upon home products, go entirely free. By the
direct-tax system none can escape. However strictly the citizen may
exclude from his premises all foreign luxuries,--fine cloths, fine
silks, rich wines, golden chains, and diamond rings,--still, for
the possession of his house, his barn, and his homespun, he is to be
perpetually haunted and harassed by the tax-gatherer. With these views
we leave it to be determined whether we or our opponents are the more
truly democratic on the subject.
The third resolution declares the necessity and propriety of a national
bank. During the last fifty years so much has been said and written both
as to the constitutionality and expediency of such an institution, that
we could not hope to improve in the least on former discussions of the
subject, were we to undertake it. We, therefore, upon the question of
constitutionality content ourselves with remarking the facts that the
first national bank was established chiefly by the same men who formed
the Constitution, at a time when that instrument was but two years old,
and receiving the sanction, as President, of the immortal Washington;
that the second received the sanction, as President, of Mr. Madison,
to whom common consent has awarded the proud title of "Father of the
Constitution"; and subsequently the sanction of the Supreme Court, the
most enlightened judicial tribunal in the world. Upon the question of
expediency, we only ask you to examine the history of the times during
the existence of the two banks, and compare those times with the
miserable present.
The fourth resolution declares the expediency of Mr. Clay's land bill.
Much incomprehensible jargon is often used against the constitutionality
of this measure. We forbear, in this place, attempting an answer to it,
simply because, in our opinion, those who urge it are through party
zeal resolved not to see or acknowledge the truth. The question of
expediency, at least so far as Illinois is concerned, seems to us the
clearest imaginable. By the bill we are to receive annually a large sum
of money, no part of which we otherwise receive. The precise annual sum
cannot be known in advance; it doubtless will vary in different years.
Still it is something to know that in the last year--a year of almost
unparalleled pecuniary pressure--it amounted to more than forty thousand
dollars. This annual income, in the midst of our almost insupportable
difficulties, in the days of our severest necessity, our political
opponents are furiously resolving to take and keep from us. And for
what? Many silly reasons are given, as is usual in cases where a single
good one is not to be found. One is that by giving us the proceeds
of the lands we impoverish the national treasury, and thereby render
necessary an increase of the tariff. This may be true; but if so, the
amount of it only is that those whose pride, whose abundance of means,
prompt them to spurn the manufactures of our country, and to strut in
British cloaks and coats and pantaloons, may have to pay a few cents
more on the yard for the cloth that makes them. A terrible evil, truly,
to the Illinois farmer, who never wore, nor ever expects to wear, a
single yard of British goods in his whole life. Another of their reasons
is that by the passage and continuance of Mr. Clay's bill, we prevent
the passage of a bill which would give us more. This, if it were sound
in itself, is waging destructive war with the former position; for if
Mr. Clay's bill impoverishes the treasury too much, what shall be said
of one that impoverishes it still more? But it is not sound in itself.
It is not true that Mr. Clay's bill prevents the passage of one more
favorable to us of the new States. Considering the strength and opposite
interest of the old States, the wonder is that they ever permitted one
to pass so favorable as Mr. Clay's. The last twenty-odd years' efforts
to reduce the price of the lands, and to pass graduation bills and
cession bills, prove the assertion to be true; and if there were no
experience in support of it, the reason itself is plain. The States
in which none, or few, of the public lands lie, and those consequently
interested against parting with them except for the best price, are
the majority; and a moment's reflection will show that they must ever
continue the majority, because by the time one of the original new
States (Ohio, for example) becomes populous and gets weight in Congress,
the public lands in her limits are so nearly sold out that in every
point material to this question she becomes an old State. She does not
wish the price reduced, because there is none left for her citizens
to buy; she does not wish them ceded to the States in which they lie,
because they no longer lie in her limits, and she will get nothing
by the cession. In the nature of things, the States interested in
the reduction of price, in graduation, in cession, and in all similar
projects, never can be the majority. Nor is there reason to hope that
any of them can ever succeed as a Democratic party measure, because we
have heretofore seen that party in full power, year after year,
with many of their leaders making loud professions in favor of these
projects, and yet doing nothing. What reason, then, is there to believe
they will hereafter do better? In every light in which we can view this
question, it amounts simply to this: Shall we accept our share of the
proceeds under Mr. Clay's bill, or shall we rather reject that and get
nothing?
The fifth resolution recommends that a Whig candidate for Congress be
run in every district, regardless of the chances of success. We are
aware that it is sometimes a temporary gratification, when a friend
cannot succeed, to be able to choose between opponents; but we believe
that that gratification is the seed-time which never fails to be
followed by a most abundant harvest of bitterness. By this policy we
entangle ourselves. By voting for our opponents, such of us as do it
in some measure estop ourselves to complain of their acts, however
glaringly wrong we may believe them to be. By this policy no one portion
of our friends can ever be certain as to what course another portion
may adopt; and by this want of mutual and perfect understanding our
political identity is partially frittered away and lost. And, again,
those who are thus elected by our aid ever become our bitterest
persecutors. Take a few prominent examples. In 1830 Reynolds was elected
Governor; in 1835 we exerted our whole strength to elect Judge Young
to the United States Senate, which effort, though failing, gave him the
prominence that subsequently elected him; in 1836 General Ewing, was so
elected to the United States Senate; and yet let us ask what three men
have been more perseveringly vindictive in their assaults upon all our
men and measures than they? During the last summer the whole State
was covered with pamphlet editions of misrepresentations against us,
methodized into chapters and verses, written by two of these same
men,--Reynolds and Young, in which they did not stop at charging us with
error merely, but roundly denounced us as the designing enemies of
human liberty, itself. If it be the will of Heaven that such men shall
politically live, be it so; but never, never again permit them to draw a
particle of their sustenance from us.
The sixth resolution recommends the adoption of the convention system
for the nomination of candidates. This we believe to be of the very
first importance. Whether the system is right in itself we do not stop
to inquire; contenting ourselves with trying to show that, while our
opponents use it, it is madness in us not to defend ourselves with
it. Experience has shown that we cannot successfully defend ourselves
without it. For examples, look at the elections of last year. Our
candidate for governor, with the approbation of a large portion of the
party, took the field without a nomination, and in open opposition to
the system. Wherever in the counties the Whigs had held conventions and
nominated candidates for the Legislature, the aspirants who were not
nominated were induced to rebel against the nominations, and to become
candidates, as is said, "on their own hook." And, go where you would
into a large Whig county, you were sure to find the Whigs not contending
shoulder to shoulder against the common enemy, but divided into
factions, and fighting furiously with one another. The election came,
and what was the result? The governor beaten, the Whig vote being
decreased many thousands since 1840, although the Democratic vote
had not increased any. Beaten almost everywhere for members of the
Legislature,--Tazewell, with her four hundred Whig majority, sending a
delegation half Democratic; Vermillion, with her five hundred, doing
the same; Coles, with her four hundred, sending two out of three; and
Morgan, with her two hundred and fifty, sending three out of four,--and
this to say nothing of the numerous other less glaring examples; the
whole winding up with the aggregate number of twenty-seven Democratic
representatives sent from Whig counties. As to the senators, too, the
result was of the same character. And it is most worthy to be remembered
that of all the Whigs in the State who ran against the regular nominees,
a single one only was elected. Although they succeeded in defeating
the nominees almost by scores, they too were defeated, and the spoils
chucklingly borne off by the common enemy.
We do not mention the fact of many of the Whigs opposing the convention
system heretofore for the purpose of censuring them. Far from it.
We expressly protest against such a conclusion. We know they were
generally, perhaps universally, as good and true Whigs as we ourselves
claim to be.
We mention it merely to draw attention to the disastrous result it
produced, as an example forever hereafter to be avoided. That "union is
strength" is a truth that has been known, illustrated, and declared in
various ways and forms in all ages of the world. That great fabulist and
philosopher Aesop illustrated it by his fable of the bundle of sticks;
and he whose wisdom surpasses that of all philosophers has declared
that "a house divided against itself cannot stand." It is to induce our
friends to act upon this important and universally acknowledged truth
that we urge the adoption of the convention system. Reflection will
prove that there is no other way of practically applying it. In its
application we know there will be incidents temporarily painful; but,
after all, those incidents will be fewer and less intense with than
without the system. If two friends aspire to the same office it is
certain that both cannot succeed. Would it not, then, be much less
painful to have the question decided by mutual friends some time before,
than to snarl and quarrel until the day of election, and then both be
beaten by the common enemy?
Before leaving this subject, we think proper to remark that we do not
understand the resolution as intended to recommend the application of
the convention system to the nomination of candidates for the small
offices no way connected with politics; though we must say we do not
perceive that such an application of it would be wrong.
The seventh resolution recommends the holding of district conventions
in May next, for the purpose of nominating candidates for Congress. The
propriety of this rests upon the same reasons with that of the sixth,
and therefore needs no further discussion.
The eighth and ninth also relate merely to the practical application of
the foregoing, and therefore need no discussion.