that the restoration of the restriction of 1820, making the United States
territory free territory, would dissolve the Union. Gentlemen, it will
require a decided majority to pass such an act. We, the majority, being
able constitutionally to do all that we purpose, would have no desire to
dissolve the Union. Do you say that such restriction of slavery would
be unconstitutional, and that some of the States would not submit to its
enforcement? I grant you that an unconstitutional act is not a law; but
I do not ask and will not take your construction of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court of the United States is the tribunal to decide such a
question, and we will submit to its decisions; and if you do also,
there will be an end of the matter. Will you? If not, who are the
disunionists--you or we? We, the majority, would not strive to dissolve
the Union; and if any attempt is made, it must be by you, who so loudly
stigmatize us as disunionists. But the Union, in any event, will not be
dissolved. We don't want to dissolve it, and if you attempt it we won't
let you. With the purse and sword, the army and navy and treasury, in our
hands and at our command, you could not do it. This government would be
very weak indeed if a majority with a disciplined army and navy and
a well-filled treasury could not preserve itself when attacked by an
unarmed, undisciplined, unorganized minority. All this talk about the
dissolution of the Union is humbug, nothing but folly. We do not want to
dissolve the Union; you shall not.
ON THE DANGER OF THIRD-PARTIES
TO JOHN BENNETT.
SPRINGFIELD, AUG. 4, 1856
DEAR SIR:--I understand you are a Fillmore man. If, as between Fremont
and Buchanan, you really prefer the election of Buchanan, then burn this
without reading a line further. But if you would like to defeat Buchanan
and his gang, allow me a word with you: Does any one pretend that Fillmore
can carry the vote of this State? I have not heard a single man pretend
so. Every vote taken from Fremont and given to Fillmore is just so much
in favor of Buchanan. The Buchanan men see this; and hence their great
anxiety in favor of the Fillmore movement. They know where the shoe
pinches. They now greatly prefer having a man of your character go for
Fillmore than for Buchanan because they expect several to go with you, who
would go for Fremont if you were to go directly for Buchanan.
I think I now understand the relative strength of the three parties in
this State as well as any one man does, and my opinion is that to-day
Buchanan has alone 85,000, Fremont 78,000, and Fillmore 21,000.
This gives B. the State by 7000 and leaves him in the minority of the
whole 14,000.
Fremont and Fillmore men being united on Bissell, as they already are,
he cannot be beaten. This is not a long letter, but it contains the whole
story.
Yours as ever,
A. LINCOLN.
TO JESSE K. DUBOIS.
SPRINGFIELD, Aug. 19, 1856.
DEAR DUBOIS: Your letter on the same sheet with Mr. Miller's is just
received. I have been absent four days. I do not know when your court
sits.
Trumbull has written the committee here to have a set of appointments
made for him commencing here in Springfield, on the 11th of Sept., and
to extend throughout the south half of the State. When he goes to
Lawrenceville, as he will, I will strain every nerve to be with you and
him. More than that I cannot promise now.
Yours as truly as ever,
A. LINCOLN.
TO HARRISON MALTBY.
[Confidential]
SPRINGFIELD, September 8, 1856.
DEAR SIR:--I understand you are a Fillmore man. Let me prove to you that
every vote withheld from Fremont and given to Fillmore in this State
actually lessens Fillmore's chance of being President. Suppose Buchanan
gets all the slave States and Pennsylvania, and any other one State
besides; then he is elected, no matter who gets all the rest. But suppose
Fillmore gets the two slave States of Maryland and Kentucky; then Buchanan
is not elected; Fillmore goes into the House of Representatives, and may
be made President by a compromise. But suppose, again, Fillmore's friends
throw away a few thousand votes on him in Indiana and Illinois; it will
inevitably give these States to Buchanan, which will more than compensate
him for the loss of Maryland and Kentucky, will elect him, and leave
Fillmore no chance in the House of Representatives or out of it.
This is as plain as adding up the weight of three small hogs. As Mr.
Fillmore has no possible chance to carry Illinois for himself, it is
plainly to his interest to let Fremont take it, and thus keep it out of
the hands of Buchanan. Be not deceived. Buchanan is the hard horse to beat
in this race. Let him have Illinois, and nothing can beat him; and he will
get Illinois if men persist in throwing away votes upon Mr. Fillmore.
Does some one persuade you that Mr. Fillmore can carry Illinois? Nonsense!
There are over seventy newspapers in Illinois opposing Buchanan, only
three or four of which support Mr. Fillmore, all the rest going for
Fremont. Are not these newspapers a fair index of the proportion of the
votes? If not, tell me why.
Again, of these three or four Fillmore newspapers, two, at least, are
supported in part by the Buchanan men, as I understand. Do not they know
where the shoe pinches? They know the Fillmore movement helps them, and
therefore they help it. Do think these things over, and then act according
to your judgment.
Yours very truly,
A. LINCOLN.
TO Dr. R. BOAL.
Sept. 14, 1856.
Dr. R. BOAL, Lacon, Ill.
MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 8th inviting me to be with [you] at Lacon on
the 30th is received. I feel that I owe you and our friends of Marshall a
good deal, and I will come if I can; and if I do not get there, it will be
because I shall think my efforts are now needed farther south.
Present my regards to Mrs. Boal, and believe [me], as ever,
Your friend,
A. LINCOLN.
TO HENRY O'CONNER, MUSCATINE, IOWA.
SPRINGFIELD, Sept. 14, 1856.
DEAR SIR:--Yours, inviting me to attend a mass-meeting on the 23d inst.,
is received. It would be very pleasant to strike hands with the Fremonters
of Iowa, who have led the van so splendidly, in this grand charge which
we hope and believe will end in a most glorious victory. All thanks, all
honor to Iowa! But Iowa is out of all danger, and it is no time for us,
when the battle still rages, to pay holiday visits to Iowa. I am sure you
will excuse me for remaining in Illinois, where much hard work is still to
be done.
Yours very truly,
A. LINCOLN.
AFTER THE DEMOCRATIC VICTORY OF BUCHANAN
FRAGMENT OF SPEECH AT A REPUBLICAN BANQUET IN CHICAGO, DECEMBER 10, 1856.
We have another annual Presidential message. Like a rejected lover making
merry at the wedding of his rival, the President felicitates himself
hugely over the late Presidential election. He considers the result a
signal triumph of good principles and good men, and a very pointed rebuke
of bad ones. He says the people did it. He forgets that the "people," as
he complacently calls only those who voted for Buchanan, are in a minority
of the whole people by about four hundred thousand votes--one full tenth
of all the votes. Remembering this, he might perceive that the "rebuke"
may not be quite as durable as he seems to think--that the majority may
not choose to remain permanently rebuked by that minority.
The President thinks the great body of us Fremonters, being ardently
attached to liberty, in the abstract, were duped by a few wicked and
designing men. There is a slight difference of opinion on this. We think
he, being ardently attached to the hope of a second term, in the concrete,
was duped by men who had liberty every way. He is the cat's-paw. By much
dragging of chestnuts from the fire for others to eat, his claws are burnt
off to the gristle, and he is thrown aside as unfit for further use.
As the fool said of King Lear, when his daughters had turned him out of
doors, "He 's a shelled peascod" ("That 's a sheal'd peascod").
So far as the President charges us "with a desire to change the domestic
institutions of existing States," and of "doing everything in our power to
deprive the Constitution and the laws of moral authority," for the whole
party on belief, and for myself on knowledge, I pronounce the charge an
unmixed and unmitigated falsehood.
Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion
can change the government practically just so much. Public opinion, on any
subject, always has a "central idea," from which all its minor thoughts
radiate. That "central idea" in our political public opinion at the
beginning was, and until recently has continued to be, "the equality
of men." And although it has always submitted patiently to whatever of
inequality there seemed to be as matter of actual necessity, its constant
working has been a steady progress toward the practical equality of all
men. The late Presidential election was a struggle by one party to discard
that central idea and to substitute for it the opposite idea that slavery
is right in the abstract, the workings of which as a central idea may be
the perpetuity of human slavery and its extension to all countries and
colors. Less than a year ago the Richmond Enquirer, an avowed advocate of
slavery, regardless of color, in order to favor his views, invented the
phrase "State equality," and now the President, in his message, adopts
the Enquirer's catch-phrase, telling us the people "have asserted the
constitutional equality of each and all of the States of the Union as
States." The President flatters himself that the new central idea is
completely inaugurated; and so indeed it is, so far as the mere fact of a
Presidential election can inaugurate it. To us it is left to know that the
majority of the people have not yet declared for it, and to hope that they
never will.
All of us who did not vote for Mr. Buchanan, taken together, are a
majority of four hundred thousand. But in the late contest we were divided
between Fremont and Fillmore. Can we not come together for the future? Let
every one who really believes and is resolved that free society is not and
shall not be a failure, and who can conscientiously declare that in the
last contest he has done only what he thought best--let every such one
have charity to believe that every other one can say as much. Thus let
bygones be bygones; let past differences as nothing be; and with steady
eye on the real issue let us reinaugurate the good old "central idea" of
the republic. We can do it. The human heart is with us; God is with us. We
shall again be able, not to declare that "all States as States are equal,"
nor yet that "all citizens as citizens are equal," but to renew the
broader, better declaration, including both these and much more, that "all
men are created equal."
TO Dr. R. BOAL.
SPRINGFIELD, Dec. 25, 1856.
DEAR SIR:-When I was at Chicago two weeks ago I saw Mr. Arnold, and from
a remark of his I inferred he was thinking of the speakership, though
I think he was not anxious about it. He seemed most anxious for harmony
generally, and particularly that the contested seats from Peoria and
McDonough might be rightly determined. Since I came home I had a talk with
Cullom, one of our American representatives here, and he says he is for
you for Speaker and also that he thinks all the Americans will be for you,
unless it be Gorin, of Macon, of whom he cannot speak. If you would like
to be Speaker go right up and see Arnold. He is talented, a practised
debater, and, I think, would do himself more credit on the floor than in
the Speaker's seat. Go and see him; and if you think fit, show him this
letter.
Your friend as ever,
A. LINCOLN.
1857
TO JOHN E. ROSETTE. Private.
SPRINGFIELD, ILL., February 10, 1857.
DEAR SIR:--Your note about the little paragraph in the Republican was
received yesterday, since which time I have been too unwell to notice
it. I had not supposed you wrote or approved it. The whole originated
in mistake. You know by the conversation with me that I thought the
establishment of the paper unfortunate, but I always expected to throw
no obstacle in its way, and to patronize it to the extent of taking and
paying for one copy. When the paper was brought to my house, my wife said
to me, "Now are you going to take another worthless little paper?" I said
to her evasively, "I have not directed the paper to be left." From this,
in my absence, she sent the message to the carrier. This is the whole
story.
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN.
RESPONSE TO A DOUGLAS SPEECH
SPEECH IN SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, JUNE 26, 1857.
FELLOW-CITIZENS:--I am here to-night partly by the invitation of some of
you, and partly by my own inclination. Two weeks ago Judge Douglas spoke
here on the several subjects of Kansas, the Dred Scott decision, and Utah.
I listened to the speech at the time, and have the report of it since.
It was intended to controvert opinions which I think just, and to assail
(politically, not personally) those men who, in common with me, entertain
those opinions. For this reason I wished then, and still wish, to make
some answer to it, which I now take the opportunity of doing.
I begin with Utah. If it prove to be true, as is probable, that the people
of Utah are in open rebellion to the United States, then Judge Douglas is
in favor of repealing their territorial organization, and attaching them
to the adjoining States for judicial purposes. I say, too, if they are in
rebellion, they ought to be somehow coerced to obedience; and I am not now
prepared to admit or deny that the Judge's mode of coercing them is not
as good as any. The Republicans can fall in with it without taking back
anything they have ever said. To be sure, it would be a considerable
backing down by Judge Douglas from his much-vaunted doctrine of
self-government for the Territories; but this is only additional proof
of what was very plain from the beginning, that that doctrine was a mere
deceitful pretense for the benefit of slavery. Those who could not
see that much in the Nebraska act itself, which forced governors, and
secretaries, and judges on the people of the Territories without their
choice or consent, could not be made to see, though one should rise from
the dead.
But in all this it is very plain the Judge evades the only question the
Republicans have ever pressed upon the Democracy in regard to Utah. That
question the Judge well knew to be this: "If the people of Utah peacefully
form a State constitution tolerating polygamy, will the Democracy admit
them into the Union?" There is nothing in the United States Constitution
or law against polygamy; and why is it not a part of the Judge's "sacred
right of self-government" for the people to have it, or rather to keep
it, if they choose? These questions, so far as I know, the Judge never
answers. It might involve the Democracy to answer them either way, and
they go unanswered.
As to Kansas. The substance of the Judge's speech on Kansas is an effort
to put the free-State men in the wrong for not voting at the election of
delegates to the constitutional convention. He says:
"There is every reason to hope and believe that the law will be fairly
interpreted and impartially executed, so as to insure to every bona fide
inhabitant the free and quiet exercise of the elective franchise."
It appears extraordinary that Judge Douglas should make such a statement.
He knows that, by the law, no one can vote who has not been registered;
and he knows that the free-State men place their refusal to vote on the
ground that but few of them have been registered. It is possible that this
is not true, but Judge Douglas knows it is asserted to be true in letters,
newspapers, and public speeches, and borne by every mail and blown by
every breeze to the eyes and ears of the world. He knows it is boldly
declared that the people of many whole counties, and many whole
neighborhoods in others, are left unregistered; yet he does not venture
to contradict the declaration, or to point out how they can vote without
being registered; but he just slips along, not seeming to know there is
any such question of fact, and complacently declares:
"There is every reason to hope and believe that the law will be
fairly and impartially executed, so as to insure to every bona fide
inhabitant the free and quiet exercise of the elective franchise."
I readily agree that if all had a chance to vote they ought to have voted.
If, on the contrary, as they allege, and Judge Douglas ventures not to
particularly contradict, few only of the free-State men had a chance to
vote, they were perfectly right in staying from the polls in a body.
By the way, since the Judge spoke, the Kansas election has come off. The
Judge expressed his confidence that all the Democrats in Kansas would
do their duty-including "free-State Democrats," of course. The returns
received here as yet are very incomplete; but so far as they go, they
indicate that only about one sixth of the registered voters have really
voted; and this, too, when not more, perhaps, than one half of the
rightful voters have been registered, thus showing the thing to have
been altogether the most exquisite farce ever enacted. I am watching with
considerable interest to ascertain what figure "the free-State Democrats"
cut in the concern. Of course they voted,--all Democrats do their
duty,--and of course they did not vote for slave-State candidates. We soon
shall know how many delegates they elected, how many candidates they had
pledged to a free State, and how many votes were cast for them.
Allow me to barely whisper my suspicion that there were no such things in
Kansas as "free-State Democrats"--that they were altogether mythical, good
only to figure in newspapers and speeches in the free States. If there
should prove to be one real living free-State Democrat in Kansas, I
suggest that it might be well to catch him, and stuff and preserve his
skin as an interesting specimen of that soon-to-be extinct variety of the
genus Democrat.
And now as to the Dred Scott decision. That decision declares two
propositions--first, that a negro cannot sue in the United States courts;
and secondly, that Congress cannot prohibit slavery in the Territories. It
was made by a divided court dividing differently on the different points.
Judge Douglas does not discuss the merits of the decision, and in that
respect I shall follow his example, believing I could no more improve on
McLean and Curtis than he could on Taney.
He denounces all who question the correctness of that decision, as
offering violent resistance to it. But who resists it? Who has, in spite
of the decision, declared Dred Scott free, and resisted the authority of
his master over him?
Judicial decisions have two uses--first, to absolutely determine the case
decided, and secondly, to indicate to the public how other similar cases
will be decided when they arise. For the latter use, they are called
"precedents" and "authorities."
We believe as much as Judge Douglas (perhaps more) in obedience to, and
respect for, the judicial department of government. We think its decisions
on constitutional questions, when fully settled, should control not only
the particular cases decided, but the general policy of the country,
subject to be disturbed only by amendments of the Constitution as provided
in that instrument itself. More than this would be revolution. But we
think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court that made it
has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have
it to overrule this. We offer no resistance to it.
Judicial decisions are of greater or less authority as precedents
according to circumstances. That this should be so accords both with
common sense and the customary understanding of the legal profession.
If this important decision had been made by the unanimous concurrence of
the judges, and without any apparent partisan bias, and in accordance with
legal public expectation and with the steady practice of the departments
throughout our history, and had been in no part based on assumed
historical facts which are not really true; or, if wanting in some of
these, it had been before the court more than once, and had there been
affirmed and reaffirmed through a course of years, it then might be,
perhaps would be, factious, nay, even revolutionary, not to acquiesce in
it as a precedent.
But when, as is true, we find it wanting in all these claims to the public
confidence, it is not resistance, it is not factious, it is not even
disrespectful, to treat it as not having yet quite established a settled
doctrine for the country. But Judge Douglas considers this view awful.
Hear him:
"The courts are the tribunals prescribed by the Constitution and created
by the authority of the people to determine, expound, and enforce the law.
Hence, whoever resists the final decision of the highest judicial tribunal
aims a deadly blow at our whole republican system of government--a blow
which, if successful, would place all our rights and liberties at the
mercy of passion, anarchy, and violence. I repeat, therefore, that if
resistance to the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, in
a matter like the points decided in the Dred Scott case, clearly within
their jurisdiction as defined by the Constitution, shall be forced upon
the country as a political issue, it will become a distinct and naked
issue between the friends and enemies of the Constitution--the friends and
the enemies of the supremacy of the laws."
Why, this same Supreme Court once decided a national bank to be
constitutional; but General Jackson, as President of the United States,
disregarded the decision, and vetoed a bill for a recharter, partly on
constitutional ground, declaring that each public functionary must support
the Constitution "as he understands it." But hear the General's own words.
Here they are, taken from his veto message:
"It is maintained by the advocates of the bank that its constitutionality,
in all its features, ought to be considered as settled by precedent, and
by the decision of the Supreme Court. To this conclusion I cannot assent.
Mere precedent is a dangerous source of authority, and should not be
regarded as deciding questions of constitutional power, except where
the acquiescence of the people and the States can be considered as well
settled. So far from this being the case on this subject, an argument
against the bank might be based on precedent. One Congress, in 1791,
decided in favor of a bank; another, in 1811, decided against it. One
Congress, in 1815, decided against a bank; another, in 1816, decided in
its favor. Prior to the present Congress, therefore, the precedents drawn
from that course were equal. If we resort to the States, the expressions
of legislative, judicial, and executive opinions against the bank have
been probably to those in its favor as four to one. There is nothing in
precedent, therefore, which, if its authority were admitted, ought to
weigh in favor of the act before me."
I drop the quotations merely to remark that all there ever was in the way
of precedent up to the Dred Scott decision, on the points therein decided,
had been against that decision. But hear General Jackson further:
"If the opinion of the Supreme Court covered the whole ground of this act,
it ought not to control the coordinate authorities of this government. The
Congress, the executive, and the courts must, each for itself, be guided
by its own opinion of the Constitution. Each public officer who takes
an oath to support the Constitution swears that he will support it as he
understands it, and not as it is understood by others."
Again and again have I heard Judge Douglas denounce that bank decision and
applaud General Jackson for disregarding it. It would be interesting
for him to look over his recent speech, and see how exactly his fierce
philippics against us for resisting Supreme Court decisions fall upon his
own head. It will call to mind a long and fierce political war in this
country, upon an issue which, in his own language, and, of course, in his
own changeless estimation, "was a distinct issue between the friends and
the enemies of the Constitution," and in which war he fought in the ranks
of the enemies of the Constitution.