to send a delegate from your circuit to the June convention. I wish to say
that I think it all-important that a delegate should be sent. Mr. Clay's
chance for an election is just no chance at all. He might get New York,
and that would have elected in 1844, but it will not now, because he must
now, at the least, lose Tennessee, which he had then, and in addition the
fifteen new votes of Florida, Texas, Iowa, and Wisconsin. I know our good
friend Browning is a great admirer of Mr. Clay, and I therefore fear he is
favoring his nomination. If he is, ask him to discard feeling, and try
if he can possibly, as a matter of judgment, count the votes necessary to
elect him.
In my judgment we can elect nobody but General Taylor; and we cannot elect
him without a nomination. Therefore don't fail to send a delegate.
Your friend as ever,
A. LINCOLN.
REMARKS IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
MAY 11, 1848.
A bill for the admission of Wisconsin into the Union had been passed.
Mr. Lincoln moved to reconsider the vote by which the bill was passed.
He stated to the House that he had made this motion for the purpose of
obtaining an opportunity to say a few words in relation to a point raised
in the course of the debate on this bill, which he would now proceed to
make if in order. The point in the case to which he referred arose on the
amendment that was submitted by the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Collamer]
in Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union, and which was
afterward renewed in the House, in relation to the question whether the
reserved sections, which, by some bills heretofore passed, by which an
appropriation of land had been made to Wisconsin, had been enhanced in
value, should be reduced to the minimum price of the public lands. The
question of the reduction in value of those sections was to him at this
time a matter very nearly of indifference. He was inclined to desire that
Wisconsin should be obliged by having it reduced. But the gentleman from
Indiana [Mr. C. B. Smith], the chairman of the Committee on Territories,
yesterday associated that question with the general question, which is now
to some extent agitated in Congress, of making appropriations of alternate
sections of land to aid the States in making internal improvements, and
enhancing the price of the sections reserved, and the gentleman from
Indiana took ground against that policy. He did not make any special
argument in favor of Wisconsin, but he took ground generally against the
policy of giving alternate sections of land, and enhancing the price of
the reserved sections. Now he [Mr. Lincoln] did not at this time take the
floor for the purpose of attempting to make an argument on the general
subject. He rose simply to protest against the doctrine which the
gentleman from Indiana had avowed in the course of what he [Mr. Lincoln]
could not but consider an unsound argument.
It might, however, be true, for anything he knew, that the gentleman
from Indiana might convince him that his argument was sound; but he [Mr.
Lincoln] feared that gentleman would not be able to convince a majority
in Congress that it was sound. It was true the question appeared in a
different aspect to persons in consequence of a difference in the point
from which they looked at it. It did not look to persons residing east of
the mountains as it did to those who lived among the public lands. But,
for his part, he would state that if Congress would make a donation of
alternate sections of public land for the purpose of internal improvements
in his State, and forbid the reserved sections being sold at $1.25, he
should be glad to see the appropriation made; though he should prefer
it if the reserved sections were not enhanced in price. He repeated, he
should be glad to have such appropriations made, even though the reserved
sections should be enhanced in price. He did not wish to be understood
as concurring in any intimation that they would refuse to receive such an
appropriation of alternate sections of land because a condition enhancing
the price of the reserved sections should be attached thereto. He believed
his position would now be understood: if not, he feared he should not be
able to make himself understood.
But, before he took his seat, he would remark that the Senate during the
present session had passed a bill making appropriations of land on that
principle for the benefit of the State in which he resided the State
of Illinois. The alternate sections were to be given for the purpose of
constructing roads, and the reserved sections were to be enhanced in value
in consequence. When that bill came here for the action of this House--it
had been received, and was now before the Committee on Public Lands--he
desired much to see it passed as it was, if it could be put in no more
favorable form for the State of Illinois. When it should be before this
House, if any member from a section of the Union in which these lands
did not lie, whose interest might be less than that which he felt, should
propose a reduction of the price of the reserved sections to $1.25, he
should be much obliged; but he did not think it would be well for those
who came from the section of the Union in which the lands lay to do
so.--He wished it, then, to be understood that he did not join in the
warfare against the principle which had engaged the minds of some members
of Congress who were favorable to the improvements in the western country.
There was a good deal of force, he admitted, in what fell from the
chairman of the Committee on Territories. It might be that there was no
precise justice in raising the price of the reserved sections to $2.50 per
acre. It might be proper that the price should be enhanced to some extent,
though not to double the usual price; but he should be glad to have such
an appropriation with the reserved sections at $2.50; he should be better
pleased to have the price of those sections at something less; and he
should be still better pleased to have them without any enhancement at
all.
There was one portion of the argument of the gentleman from Indiana, the
chairman of the Committee on Territories [Mr. Smith], which he wished to
take occasion to say that he did not view as unsound. He alluded to the
statement that the General Government was interested in these internal
improvements being made, inasmuch as they increased the value of the lands
that were unsold, and they enabled the government to sell the lands which
could not be sold without them. Thus, then, the government gained by
internal improvements as well as by the general good which the people
derived from them, and it might be, therefore, that the lands should
not be sold for more than $1.50 instead of the price being doubled. He,
however, merely mentioned this in passing, for he only rose to state,
as the principle of giving these lands for the purposes which he had
mentioned had been laid hold of and considered favorably, and as there
were some gentlemen who had constitutional scruples about giving money
for these purchases who would not hesitate to give land, that he was
not willing to have it understood that he was one of those who made
war against that principle. This was all he desired to say, and having
accomplished the object with which he rose, he withdrew his motion to
reconsider.
ON TAYLOR'S NOMINATION
TO E. B. WASHBURNE.
WASHINGTON, April 30,1848.
DEAR WASHBURNE:
I have this moment received your very short note asking me if old Taylor
is to be used up, and who will be the nominee. My hope of Taylor's
nomination is as high--a little higher than it was when you left. Still,
the case is by no means out of doubt. Mr. Clay's letter has not advanced
his interests any here. Several who were against Taylor, but not for
anybody particularly, before, are since taking ground, some for Scott
and some for McLean. Who will be nominated neither I nor any one else can
tell. Now, let me pray to you in turn. My prayer is that you let nothing
discourage or baffle you, but that, in spite of every difficulty, you send
us a good Taylor delegate from your circuit. Make Baker, who is now with
you, I suppose, help about it. He is a good hand to raise a breeze.
General Ashley, in the Senate from Arkansas, died yesterday. Nothing else
new beyond what you see in the papers.
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN
DEFENSE OF MEXICAN WAR POSITION
TO REV. J. M. PECK
WASHINGTON, May 21, 1848. DEAR SIR:
....Not in view of all the facts. There are facts which you have kept out
of view. It is a fact that the United States army in marching to the Rio
Grande marched into a peaceful Mexican settlement, and frightened the
inhabitants away from their homes and their growing crops. It is a fact
that Fort Brown, opposite Matamoras, was built by that army within a
Mexican cotton-field, on which at the time the army reached it a young
cotton crop was growing, and which crop was wholly destroyed and the field
itself greatly and permanently injured by ditches, embankments, and the
like. It is a fact that when the Mexicans captured Captain Thornton and
his command, they found and captured them within another Mexican field.
Now I wish to bring these facts to your notice, and to ascertain what is
the result of your reflections upon them. If you deny that they are
facts, I think I can furnish proofs which shall convince you that you are
mistaken. If you admit that they are facts, then I shall be obliged for
a reference to any law of language, law of States, law of nations, law of
morals, law of religions, any law, human or divine, in which an authority
can be found for saying those facts constitute "no aggression."
Possibly you consider those acts too small for notice. Would you venture
to so consider them had they been committed by any nation on earth against
the humblest of our people? I know you would not. Then I ask, is the
precept "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to
them" obsolete? of no force? of no application?
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN.
ON ZACHARY TAYLOR NOMINATION
TO ARCHIBALD WILLIAMS.
WASHINGTON, June 12, 1848.
DEAR WILLIAMS:--On my return from Philadelphia, where I had been attending
the nomination of "Old Rough," (Zachary Taylor) I found your letter in a
mass of others which had accumulated in my absence. By many, and often, it
had been said they would not abide the nomination of Taylor; but since the
deed has been done, they are fast falling in, and in my opinion we shall
have a most overwhelming, glorious triumph. One unmistakable sign is that
all the odds and ends are with us--Barnburners, Native Americans, Tyler
men, disappointed office-seeking Locofocos, and the Lord knows what. This
is important, if in nothing else, in showing which way the wind blows.
Some of the sanguine men have set down all the States as certain for
Taylor but Illinois, and it as doubtful. Cannot something be done even in
Illinois? Taylor's nomination takes the Locos on the blind side. It turns
the war thunder against them. The war is now to them the gallows of
Haman, which they built for us, and on which they are doomed to be hanged
themselves.
Excuse this short letter. I have so many to write that I cannot devote
much time to any one.
Yours as ever,
A. LINCOLN.
SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
JUNE 20, 1848.
In Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union, on the Civil and
Diplomatic Appropriation Bill:
Mr. CHAIRMAN:--I wish at all times in no way to practise any fraud upon
the House or the committee, and I also desire to do nothing which may be
very disagreeable to any of the members. I therefore state in advance that
my object in taking the floor is to make a speech on the general subject
of internal improvements; and if I am out of order in doing so, I give the
chair an opportunity of so deciding, and I will take my seat.
The Chair: I will not undertake to anticipate what the gentleman may say
on the subject of internal improvements. He will, therefore, proceed in
his remarks, and if any question of order shall be made, the chair will
then decide it.
Mr. Lincoln: At an early day of this session the President sent us what
may properly be called an internal improvement veto message. The late
Democratic convention, which sat at Baltimore, and which nominated General
Cass for the Presidency, adopted a set of resolutions, now called the
Democratic platform, among which is one in these words:
"That the Constitution does not confer upon the General Government the
power to commence and carry on a general system of internal improvements."
General Cass, in his letter accepting the nomination, holds this language:
"I have carefully read the resolutions of the Democratic national
convention, laying down the platform of our political faith, and I adhere
to them as firmly as I approve them cordially."
These things, taken together, show that the question of internal
improvements is now more distinctly made--has become more intense--than
at any former period. The veto message and the Baltimore resolution I
understand to be, in substance, the same thing; the latter being the more
general statement, of which the former is the amplification the bill of
particulars. While I know there are many Democrats, on this floor and
elsewhere, who disapprove that message, I understand that all who voted
for General Cass will thereafter be counted as having approved it, as
having indorsed all its doctrines.
I suppose all, or nearly all, the Democrats will vote for him. Many of
them will do so not because they like his position on this question,
but because they prefer him, being wrong on this, to another whom they
consider farther wrong on other questions. In this way the internal
improvement Democrats are to be, by a sort of forced consent, carried over
and arrayed against themselves on this measure of policy. General Cass,
once elected, will not trouble himself to make a constitutional argument,
or perhaps any argument at all, when he shall veto a river or harbor bill;
he will consider it a sufficient answer to all Democratic murmurs to point
to Mr. Polk's message, and to the Democratic platform. This being the
case, the question of improvements is verging to a final crisis; and the
friends of this policy must now battle, and battle manfully, or surrender
all. In this view, humble as I am, I wish to review, and contest as well
as I may, the general positions of this veto message. When I say general
positions, I mean to exclude from consideration so much as relates to the
present embarrassed state of the treasury in consequence of the Mexican
War.
Those general positions are: that internal improvements ought not to be
made by the General Government--First. Because they would overwhelm the
treasury Second. Because, while their burdens would be general, their
benefits would be local and partial, involving an obnoxious inequality;
and Third. Because they would be unconstitutional. Fourth. Because the
States may do enough by the levy and collection of tonnage duties; or if
not--Fifth. That the Constitution may be amended. "Do nothing at all, lest
you do something wrong," is the sum of these positions is the sum of
this message. And this, with the exception of what is said about
constitutionality, applying as forcibly to what is said about making
improvements by State authority as by the national authority; so that we
must abandon the improvements of the country altogether, by any and every
authority, or we must resist and repudiate the doctrines of this message.
Let us attempt the latter.
The first position is, that a system of internal improvements would
overwhelm the treasury. That in such a system there is a tendency to undue
expansion, is not to be denied. Such tendency is founded in the nature
of the subject. A member of Congress will prefer voting for a bill which
contains an appropriation for his district, to voting for one which
does not; and when a bill shall be expanded till every district shall be
provided for, that it will be too greatly expanded is obvious. But is
this any more true in Congress than in a State Legislature? If a member
of Congress must have an appropriation for his district, so a member of
a Legislature must have one for his county. And if one will overwhelm
the national treasury, so the other will overwhelm the State treasury. Go
where we will, the difficulty is the same. Allow it to drive us from the
halls of Congress, and it will, just as easily, drive us from the State
Legislatures. Let us, then, grapple with it, and test its strength. Let
us, judging of the future by the past, ascertain whether there may not be,
in the discretion of Congress, a sufficient power to limit and restrain
this expansive tendency within reasonable and proper bounds. The President
himself values the evidence of the past. He tells us that at a certain
point of our history more than two hundred millions of dollars had been
applied for to make improvements; and this he does to prove that the
treasury would be overwhelmed by such a system. Why did he not tell us how
much was granted? Would not that have been better evidence? Let us turn
to it, and see what it proves. In the message the President tells us
that "during the four succeeding years embraced by the administration of
President Adams, the power not only to appropriate money, but to apply it,
under the direction and authority of the General Government, as well to
the construction of roads as to the improvement of harbors and rivers,
was fully asserted and exercised." This, then, was the period of greatest
enormity. These, if any, must have been the days of the two hundred
millions. And how much do you suppose was really expended for improvements
during that four years? Two hundred millions? One hundred? Fifty? Ten?
Five? No, sir; less than two millions. As shown by authentic documents,
the expenditures on improvements during 1825, 1826, 1827, and 1828
amounted to one million eight hundred and seventy-nine thousand six
hundred and twenty-seven dollars and one cent. These four years were the
period of Mr. Adams's administration, nearly and substantially. This fact
shows that when the power to make improvements "was fully asserted and
exercised," the Congress did keep within reasonable limits; and what has
been done, it seems to me, can be done again.
Now for the second portion of the message--namely, that the burdens of
improvements would be general, while their benefits would be local and
partial, involving an obnoxious inequality. That there is some degree
of truth in this position, I shall not deny. No commercial object of
government patronage can be so exclusively general as to not be of some
peculiar local advantage. The navy, as I understand it, was established,
and is maintained at a great annual expense, partly to be ready for
war when war shall come, and partly also, and perhaps chiefly, for the
protection of our commerce on the high seas. This latter object is, for
all I can see, in principle the same as internal improvements. The driving
a pirate from the track of commerce on the broad ocean, and the removing
of a snag from its more narrow path in the Mississippi River, cannot,
I think, be distinguished in principle. Each is done to save life and
property, and for nothing else.
The navy, then, is the most general in its benefits of all this class
of objects; and yet even the navy is of some peculiar advantage to
Charleston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, beyond what it
is to the interior towns of Illinois. The next most general object I
can think of would be improvements on the Mississippi River and its
tributaries. They touch thirteen of our States-Pennsylvania, Virginia,
Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois,
Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Now I suppose it will not be denied
that these thirteen States are a little more interested in improvements on
that great river than are the remaining seventeen. These instances of the
navy and the Mississippi River show clearly that there is something of
local advantage in the most general objects. But the converse is also
true. Nothing is so local as to not be of some general benefit. Take,
for instance, the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Considered apart from its
effects, it is perfectly local. Every inch of it is within the State of
Illinois. That canal was first opened for business last April. In a very
few days we were all gratified to learn, among other things, that sugar
had been carried from New Orleans through this canal to Buffalo in New
York. This sugar took this route, doubtless, because it was cheaper than
the old route. Supposing benefit of the reduction in the cost of carriage
to be shared between seller and the buyer, result is that the New Orleans
merchant sold his sugar a little dearer, and the people of Buffalo
sweetened their coffee a little cheaper, than before,--a benefit resulting
from the canal, not to Illinois, where the canal is, but to Louisiana and
New York, where it is not. In other transactions Illinois will, of course,
have her share, and perhaps the larger share too, of the benefits of the
canal; but this instance of the sugar clearly shows that the benefits of
an improvement are by no means confined to the particular locality of
the improvement itself. The just conclusion from all this is that if the
nation refuse to make improvements of the more general kind because their
benefits may be somewhat local, a State may for the same reason refuse to
make an improvement of a local kind because its benefits may be somewhat
general. A State may well say to the nation, "If you will do nothing for
me, I will do nothing for you." Thus it is seen that if this argument of
"inequality" is sufficient anywhere, it is sufficient everywhere, and puts
an end to improvements altogether. I hope and believe that if both the
nation and the States would, in good faith, in their respective spheres
do what they could in the way of improvements, what of inequality might be
produced in one place might be compensated in another, and the sum of the
whole might not be very unequal.
But suppose, after all, there should be some degree of inequality.
Inequality is certainly never to be embraced for its own sake; but is
every good thing to be discarded which may be inseparably connected with
some degree of it? If so, we must discard all government. This Capitol
is built at the public expense, for the public benefit; but does any one
doubt that it is of some peculiar local advantage to the property-holders
and business people of Washington? Shall we remove it for this reason?
And if so, where shall we set it down, and be free from the difficulty?
To make sure of our object, shall we locate it nowhere, and have Congress
hereafter to hold its sessions, as the loafer lodged, "in spots about"?
I make no allusion to the present President when I say there are few
stronger cases in this world of "burden to the many and benefit to the
few," of "inequality," than the Presidency itself is by some thought to
be. An honest laborer digs coal at about seventy cents a day, while the
President digs abstractions at about seventy dollars a day. The coal
is clearly worth more than the abstractions, and yet what a monstrous
inequality in the prices! Does the President, for this reason, propose to
abolish the Presidency? He does not, and he ought not. The true rule, in
determining to embrace or reject anything, is not whether it have any evil
in it, but whether it have more of evil than of good. There are few things
wholly evil or wholly good. Almost everything, especially of government
policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment
of the preponderance between them is continually demanded. On this
principle the President, his friends, and the world generally act on
most subjects. Why not apply it, then, upon this question? Why, as to
improvements, magnify the evil, and stoutly refuse to see any good in
them?
Mr. Chairman, on the third position of the message the constitutional
question--I have not much to say. Being the man I am, and speaking, where
I do, I feel that in any attempt at an original constitutional argument
I should not be and ought not to be listened to patiently. The ablest and
the best of men have gone over the whole ground long ago. I shall attempt
but little more than a brief notice of what some of them have said. In
relation to Mr. Jefferson's views, I read from Mr. Polk's veto message: