SPEECHES & LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1832-1865
Edited by
MERWIN ROE
London: Published
by J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd
and in New York
by E.P. Dutton & Co
First issue of this Edition 1907; Reprinted 1909, 1910, 1912
Mr. Bryce's Introduction to 'Lincoln's Speeches' is printed from plates
made and type set by the University Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.
Taken by permission from 'The Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln,'
Century Company, 1894
[Illustration: WHEN HE SENT HIS GREAT VOICE FORTH OUT OF HIS BREAST, &
HIS WORDS FELL LIKE THE WINTER SNOWS, NOR THEN WOULD ANY MORTAL CONTEND
WITH ULYSSES--HOMER. ILIAD.]
INTRODUCTION
No man since Washington has become to Americans so familiar or so
beloved a figure as Abraham Lincoln. He is to them the representative
and typical American, the man who best embodies the political ideals of
the nation. He is typical in the fact that he sprang from the masses of
the people, that he remained through his whole career a man of the
people, that his chief desire was to be in accord with the beliefs and
wishes of the people, that he never failed to trust in the people and to
rely on their support. Every native American knows his life and his
speeches. His anecdotes and witticisms have passed into the thought and
the conversation of the whole nation as those of no other statesman have
done.
He belongs, however, not only to the United States, but to the whole of
civilized mankind. It is no exaggeration to say that he has, within the
last thirty years, grown to be a conspicuous figure in the history of
the modern world. Without him, the course of events not only in the
Western hemisphere but in Europe also would have been different, for he
was called to guide at the greatest crisis of its fate a State already
mighty, and now far more mighty than in his days, and the guidance he
gave has affected the march of events ever since. A life and a character
such as his ought to be known to and comprehended by Europeans as well
as by Americans. Among Europeans, it is especially Englishmen who ought
to appreciate him and understand the significance of his life, for he
came of an English stock, he spoke the English tongue, his action told
upon the progress of events and the shaping of opinion in all British
communities everywhere more than it has done upon any other nation
outside America itself.
This collection of Lincoln's speeches seeks to make him known by
his words as readers of history know him by his deeds. In
popularly-governed countries the great statesman is almost of necessity
an orator, though his eminence as a speaker may be no true measure
either of his momentary power or of his permanent fame, for wisdom,
courage and tact bear little direct relation to the gift for speech. But
whether that gift be present in greater or in lesser degree, the
character and ideas of a statesman are best studied through his own
words. This is particularly true of Lincoln, because he was not what may
be called a professional orator. There have been famous orators whose
speeches we may read for the beauty of their language or for the wealth
of ideas they contain, with comparatively little regard to the
circumstances of time and place that led to their being delivered.
Lincoln is not one of these. His speeches need to be studied in close
relation to the occasions which called them forth. They are not
philosophical lucubrations or brilliant displays of rhetoric. They are a
part of his life. They are the expression of his convictions, and derive
no small part of their weight and dignity from the fact that they deal
with grave and urgent questions, and express the spirit in which he
approached those questions. Few great characters stand out so clearly
revealed by their words, whether spoken or written, as he does.
Accordingly Lincoln's discourses are not like those of nearly all the
men whose eloquence has won them fame. When we think of such men as
Pericles, Demosthenes, Æschines, Cicero, Hortensius, Burke, Sheridan,
Erskine, Canning, Webster, Gladstone, Bright, Massillon, Vergniaud,
Castelar, we think of exuberance of ideas or of phrases, of a command of
appropriate similes or metaphors, of the gifts of invention and of
exposition, of imaginative flights, or outbursts of passion fit to stir
and rouse an audience to like passion. We think of the orator as gifted
with a powerful or finely-modulated voice, an imposing presence, a
graceful delivery. Or if--remembering that Lincoln was by profession a
lawyer and practised until he became President of the United States--we
think of the special gifts which mark the forensic orator, we should
expect to find a man full of ingenuity and subtlety, one dexterous in
handling his case in such wise as to please and capture the judge or the
jury whom he addresses, one skilled in those rhetorical devices and
strokes of art which can be used, when need be, to engage the listener's
feelings and distract his mind from the real merits of the issue.
Of all this kind of talent there was in Lincoln but little. He was not
an artful pleader; indeed, it was said of him that he could argue well
only those cases in the justice of which he personally believed, and was
unable to make the worse appear the better reason. For most of the
qualities which the world admires in Cicero or in Burke we should look
in vain in Lincoln's speeches. They are not fine pieces of exquisite
diction, fit to be declaimed as school exercises or set before students
as models of composition.
What, then, are their merits? and why do they deserve to be valued and
remembered? How comes it that a man of first-rate powers was deficient
in qualities appertaining to his own profession which men less
remarkable have possessed?
To answer this question, let us first ask what were the preparation and
training Abraham Lincoln had for oratory, whether political or forensic.
Born in rude and abject poverty, he had never any education, except what
he gave himself, till he was approaching manhood. Not even books
wherewith to inform and train his mind were within his reach. No school,
no university, no legal faculty had any part in training his powers.
When he became a lawyer and a politician, the years most favourable to
continuous study had already passed, and the opportunities he found for
reading were very scanty. He knew but few authors in general literature,
though he knew those few thoroughly. He taught himself a little
mathematics, but he could read no language save his own, and can have
had only the faintest acquaintance with European history or with any
branch of philosophy.
The want of regular education was not made up for by the persons among
whom his lot was cast. Till he was a grown man, he never moved in any
society from which he could learn those things with which the mind of an
orator or a statesman ought to be stored. Even after he had gained some
legal practice, there was for many years no one for him to mix with
except the petty practitioners of a petty town, men nearly all of whom
knew little more than he did himself.
Schools gave him nothing, and society gave him nothing. But he had a
powerful intellect and a resolute will. Isolation fostered not only
self-reliance but the habit of reflection, and, indeed, of prolonged and
intense reflection. He made all that he knew a part of himself. He
thought everything out for himself. His convictions were his own--clear
and coherent. He was not positive or opinionated, and he did not deny
that at certain moments he pondered and hesitated long before he decided
on his course. But though he could keep a policy in suspense, waiting
for events to guide him, he did not waver. He paused and reconsidered,
but it was never his way either to go back upon a decision once made, or
to waste time in vain regrets that all he expected had not been
attained. He took advice readily, and left many things to his ministers;
but he did not lean upon his advisers. Without vanity or ostentation, he
was always independent, self-contained, prepared to take full
responsibility for his acts.
That he was keenly observant of all that passed under his eyes, that his
mind played freely round everything it touched, we know from the
accounts of his talk, which first made him famous in the town and
neighbourhood where he lived. His humour, and his memory for anecdotes
which he could bring out to good purpose, at the right moment, are
qualities which Europe deems distinctively American, but no great man of
action in the nineteenth century, even in America, possessed them in the
same measure. Seldom has so acute a power of observation been found
united to so abundant a power of sympathy.
These remarks may seem to belong to a study of his character rather than
of his speeches, yet they are not irrelevant, because the interest of
his speeches lies in their revelation of his character. Let us, however,
return to the speeches and to the letters, some of which, given in this
volume, are scarcely less noteworthy than are the speeches.
What are the distinctive merits of these speeches and letters? There is
less humour in them than his reputation as a humorist would have led us
to expect. They are serious, grave, practical. We feel that the man does
not care to play over the surface of the subject, or to use it as a way
of displaying his cleverness. He is trying to get right down to the very
foundation of the matter and tell us what his real thoughts about it
are. In this respect he sometimes reminds us of Bismarck's speeches,
which, in their rude, broken, forth-darting way, always go straight to
their destined aim; always hit the nail on the head. So too, in their
effort to grapple with fundamental facts, Lincoln's bear a sort of
likeness to Cromwell's speeches, though Cromwell has far less power of
utterance, and always seems to be wrestling with the difficulty of
finding language to convey to others what is plain, true and weighty to
himself. This difficulty makes the great Protector, though we can
usually see what he is driving at, frequently confused and obscure.
Lincoln, however, is always clear. Simplicity, directness and breadth
are the notes of his thought. Aptness, clearness, and again, simplicity,
are the notes of his diction. The American speakers of his generation,
like most of those of the preceding generation, but unlike those of that
earlier generation to which Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Marshall and
Madison belonged, were generally infected by a floridity which made them
a by-word in Europe. Even men of brilliant talent, such as Edward
Everett, were by no means free from this straining after effect by
highly-coloured phrases and theatrical effects. Such faults have to-day
virtually vanished from the United States, largely from a change in
public taste, to which perhaps the example set by Lincoln himself may
have contributed. In the forties and fifties florid rhetoric was
rampant, especially in the West and South, where taste was less polished
than in the older States. That Lincoln escaped it is a striking mark of
his independence as well as of his greatness. There is no superfluous
ornament in his orations, nothing tawdry, nothing otiose. For the most
part, he addresses the reason of his hearers, and credits them with
desiring to have none but solid arguments laid before them. When he does
appeal to emotion, he does it quietly, perhaps even solemnly. The note
struck is always a high note. The impressiveness of the appeal comes not
from fervid vehemence of language, but from the sincerity of his own
convictions. Sometimes one can see that through its whole course the
argument is suffused by the speaker's feeling, and when the time comes
for the feeling to be directly expressed, it glows not with fitful
flashes, but with the steady heat of an intense and strenuous soul.
The impression which most of the speeches leave on the reader is that
their matter has been carefully thought over even when the words have
not been learnt by heart. But there is an anecdote that on one occasion,
early in his career, Lincoln went to a public meeting not in the least
intending to speak, but presently being called for by the audience, rose
in obedience to the call, and delivered a long address so ardent and
thrilling that the reporters dropped their pencils and, absorbed in
watching him, forgot to take down what he said. It has also been stated,
on good authority, that on his way in the railroad cars, to the
dedication of the monument on the field of Gettysburg, he turned to a
Pennsylvanian gentleman who was sitting beside him and remarked, "I
suppose I shall be expected to say something this afternoon; lend me a
pencil and a bit of paper," and that he thereupon jotted down the notes
of a speech which has become the best known and best remembered of all
his utterances, so that some of its words and sentences have passed into
the minds of all educated men everywhere.
That famous Gettysburg speech is the best example one could desire of
the characteristic quality of Lincoln's eloquence. It is a short speech.
It is wonderfully terse in expression. It is quiet, so quiet that at the
moment it did not make upon the audience, an audience wrought up by a
long and highly-decorated harangue from one of the prominent orators of
the day, an impression at all commensurate to that which it began to
make as soon as it was read over America and Europe. There is in it not
a touch of what we call rhetoric, or of any striving after effect. Alike
in thought and in language it is simple, plain, direct. But it states
certain truths and principles in phrases so aptly chosen and so
forcible, that one feels as if those truths could have been conveyed in
no other words, and as if this deliverance of them were made for all
time. Words so simple and so strong could have come only from one who
had meditated so long upon the primal facts of American history and
popular government that the truths those facts taught him had become
like the truths of mathematics in their clearness, their breadth, and
their precision.
The speeches on Slavery read strange to us now, when slavery as a living
system has been dead for forty years, dead and buried hell deep under
the detestation of mankind. It is hard for those whose memory does not
go back to 1865 to realize that down till then it was not only a
terrible fact, but was defended--defended by many otherwise good men,
defended not only by pseudo-scientific anthropologists as being in the
order of nature, but by ministers of the Gospel, out of the sacred
Scriptures, as part of the ordinances of God. Lincoln's position, the
position of one who had to induce slave-owning fellow-citizens to listen
to him and admit persuasion into their heated and prejudiced minds, did
not allow him to denounce it with horror, as we can all so easily do
to-day. But though his language is calm and restrained, he never
condescends to palter with slavery. He shows its innate evils and
dangers with unanswerable force. The speech on the Dred Scott decision
is a lucid, close and cogent piece of reasoning which, in its wide view
of Constitutional issues, sometimes reminds one of Webster, sometimes
even of Burke, though it does not equal the former in weight nor the
latter in splendour of diction.
Among the letters, perhaps the most impressive is that written to Mrs.
Bixley, the mother of five sons who had died fighting for the Union in
the armies of the North. It is short, and it deals with a theme on which
hundreds of letters are written daily. But I do not know where the
nobility of self-sacrifice for a great cause, and of the consolation
which the thought of a sacrifice so made should bring, is set forth with
such simple and pathetic beauty. Deep must be the fountains from which
there issues so pure a stream.
The career of Lincoln is often held up to ambitious young Americans as
an example to show what a man may achieve by his native strength, with
no advantages of birth or environment or education. In this there is
nothing improper, nothing fanciful. The moral is one which may well be
drawn, and in which those on whose early life Fortune has not smiled may
find encouragement. But the example is, after all, no great
encouragement to ordinary men, for Lincoln was an extraordinary man.
He triumphed over the adverse conditions of his early years because
Nature had bestowed on him high and rare powers. Superficial observers
who saw his homely aspect and plain manners, and noted that his
fellow-townsmen, when asked why they so trusted him, answered that it
was for his common-sense, failed to see that his common-sense was a part
of his genius. What is common-sense but the power of seeing the
fundamentals of any practical question, and of disengaging them from the
accidental and transient features that may overlie these
fundamentals--the power, to use a familiar expression, of getting down
to bed rock? One part of this power is the faculty for perceiving what
the average man will think and can be induced to do. This is what keeps
the superior mind in touch with the ordinary mind, and this is perhaps
why the name of "common-sense" is used, because the superior mind seems
in its power of comprehending others to be itself a part of the general
sense of the community. All men of high practical capacity have this
power. It is the first condition of success. But in men who have
received a philosophical or literary education there is a tendency to
embellish, for purposes of persuasion, or perhaps for their own
gratification, the language in which they recommend their conclusions,
or to state those conclusions in the light of large general principles,
a tendency which may, unless carefully watched, carry them too high
above the heads of the crowd. Lincoln, never having had such an
education, spoke to the people as one of themselves. He seemed to be
saying not only what each felt, but expressing the feeling just as each
would have expressed it. In reality, he was quite as much above his
neighbours in insight as was the polished orator or writer, but the
plain directness of his language seemed to keep him on their level. His
strength lay less in the form and vesture of the thought than in the
thought itself, in the large, simple, practical view which he took of
the position. And thus, to repeat what has been said already, the
sterling merit of these speeches of his, that which made them effective
when they were delivered and makes them worth reading to-day, is to be
found in the justness of his conclusions and their fitness to the
circumstances of the time. When he rose into higher air, when his words
were clothed with stateliness and solemnity, it was the force of his
conviction and the emotion that thrilled through his utterance, that
printed the words deep upon the minds and drove them home to the hearts
of the people.
What is a great man? Common speech, which after all must be our guide to
the sense of the terms which the world uses, gives this name to many
sorts of men. How far greatness lies in the power and range of the
intellect, how far in the strength of the will, how far in elevation of
view and aim and purpose,--this is a question too large to be debated
here. But of Abraham Lincoln it may be truly said that in his greatness
all three elements were present. He had not the brilliance, either in
thought or word or act, that dazzles, nor the restless activity that
occasionally pushes to the front even persons with gifts not of the
first order. He was a patient, thoughtful, melancholy man, whose
intelligence, working sometimes slowly but always steadily and surely,
was capacious enough to embrace and vigorous enough to master the
incomparably difficult facts and problems he was called to deal with.
His executive talent showed itself not in sudden and startling strokes,
but in the calm serenity with which he formed his judgments and laid his
plans, in the undismayed firmness with which he adhered to them in the
face of popular clamour, of conflicting counsels from his advisers,
sometimes, even, of what others deemed all but hopeless failure. These
were the qualities needed in one who had to pilot the Republic through
the heaviest storm that had ever broken upon it. But the mainspring of
his power, and the truest evidence of his greatness, lay in the nobility
of his aims, in the fervour of his conviction, in the stainless
rectitude which guided his action and won for him the confidence of the
people. Without these things neither the vigour of his intellect nor the
firmness of his will would have availed.
There is a vulgar saying that all great men are unscrupulous. Of him it
may rather be said that the note of greatness we feel in his thinking
and his speech and his conduct had its source in the loftiness and
purity of his character. Lincoln's is one of the careers that refute
this imputation on human nature.
JAMES BRYCE
The following is a list of Lincoln's published works:
SELECTIONS.--Letters on Questions of National Policy, etc., 1863;
Dedicatory Speech of President Lincoln, etc., at the Consecration of
Gettysburg Cemetery, Nov. 19th, 1863, 1864; The Last Address of
President Lincoln to the American People, 1865; The Martyr's Monument,
1865; In Memoriam, 1865; Gems from A. Lincoln, 1865; The President's
Words, 1866; Emancipation Proclamation--Second Inaugural
Address--Gettysburg Speech, 1878; Two Inaugural Addresses and Gettysburg
Speech, 1889; The Gettysburg Speech and other Papers, with an essay on
Lincoln by J.R. Lowell (Riverside Literature Series, 32), 1888; The
Table Talk of Abraham Lincoln, ed. W.O. Stoddard, 1894; Political
Debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in the celebrated
campaign of 1858 in Illinois, etc. Also the two great speeches of
Abraham Lincoln at Ohio in 1859, 1894; Political Speeches and Debates of
Abraham Lincoln and S.A. Douglas, 1854-1861, edited by A.T. Jones, 1895;
Lincoln, Passages from his Speeches and Letters, with Introduction by
R.W. Gilder, 1901.
COMPLETE EDITIONS OF WORKS, LETTERS, AND SPEECHES.--H.J. Raymond,
History of the Administration of Abraham Lincoln (Speeches, Letters,
etc.), 1864; Abraham Lincoln, Pen and Voice, being a Complete
Compilation of his Letters, Public Addresses, Messages to Congress, ed.
G.M. Van Buren, etc., 1890; Complete Works, ed. J.G. Nicolay and J. Hay,
2 vols., 1894; enlarged edition, with Introduction by R.W. Gilder, etc.,
1905, etc.; A. Lincoln's Speeches, compiled by L.E. Chittenden, 1895;
The Writings of A. Lincoln, ed. A.B. Lapsley, with an Introduction by
Theodore Roosevelt, and a life by Noah Brooks, etc. (Federal Edition),
1905; etc.
LIFE.--H.J. Raymond; The Life and Public Services of A.L., etc., with
Anecdotes and Personal Reminiscences, by F.B. Carpenter, 1865; J.H.
Barrett, 1865; J.G. Holland, 1866; W.H. Lamon, 1872; W.O. Stoddard,
1884; I.N. Arnold, 1885; J.G. Nicolay and J. Hay, 1890; Condensed
Edition, 1902; Recollections of President Lincoln and his
Administration, 1891; C.C. Coffin, 1893; J.T. Morse, 1893; J. Hay (The
Presidents of the United States), 1894; C.A. Dana, Lincoln and his
Cabinet, etc., 1896; J.H. Choate, 1900; Address delivered before the
Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, Nov. 13, 1900; I.M. Tarbell, 1900;
W.E. Curtis, The True Abraham Lincoln, 1903; J.H. Barrett, A. Lincoln
and his Presidency, 1904; J. Baldwin, 1904. A. Rothschild, Lincoln,
Master of Men, 1906; F.T. Hill, Lincoln the Lawyer, 1906.
Among those who have written short lives are: Mrs. H. Beecher Stowe,
D.W. Bartlett, C.G. Leland, J.C. Power, etc.
CONTENTS
Lincoln's First Public Speech--From an Address to the People of Sangamon
County, March 9, 1832
Letter to Col. Robert Allen, June 21, 1836
From a Letter Published in the Sangamon "Journal," June 13, 1836
From his Address before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Jan. 27,
1837
Letter to Mrs. O.H. Browning, Springfield, April 1, 1838
From a Political Debate, Springfield, Dec, 1839
Letter to W.G. Anderson, Lawrenceville, Ill., Oct. 31, 1840
Extract from a Letter to John T. Stuart, Springfield, Ill., Jan. 23,
1841
From his Address before the Springfield Washingtonian Temperance
Society, Feb. 22, 1842
From a Circular of the Whig Committee, March 4, 1843
From a Letter to Martin M. Morris, Springfield, Ill., March 26, 1843
From a Letter to Joshua F. Speed, Springfield, Ill., Oct. 22, 1846
From a Letter to Wm. H. Herndon, Washington, Jan. 8, 1848
From a Letter to Wm. H. Herndon, Washington, June 22, 1848
From a Letter to Wm. H. Herndon, Washington, July 10, 1848
Letter to John D. Johnston, Jan. 2, 1851
Letter to John D. Johnston, Shelbyville, Nov. 4, 1851
Note for Law Lecture--Written about July 1, 1850
A Fragment--Written about July 1, 1854
A Fragment on Slavery, July 1854
From his Reply to Senator Douglas, Peoria, Oct. 16, 1854
From a Letter to the Hon. Geo. Robertson, Lexington, Ky.; Springfield,
Ill., Aug. 15, 1855
From a Letter to Joshua F. Speed, Aug. 24, 1855
Lincoln's "Lost Speech," May 19, 1856
Speech on the Dred Scott Case, Springfield, Ill., June 26, 1857
The "Divided House" Speech, Springfield, Ill., June 17, 1858
From his Speech at Chicago in Reply to the Speech of Judge Douglas, July
10, 1858
From a Speech at Springfield, Ill., July 17, 1858
From Lincoln's Reply to Douglas in the First Joint Debate, Ottawa, Ill.,
Aug. 21, 1858
From Lincoln's Rejoinder to Judge Douglas at Freeport, Ill., Aug. 27,
1858
From Lincoln's Reply to Douglas at Jonesboro', Sept. 15, 1858
From Lincoln's Reply to Douglas at Charleston, Ill., Sept. 18, 1858
From Lincoln's Reply to Judge Douglas at Galesburg, Ill., Oct. 7, 1858
Notes for Speeches--Written about Oct. 1, 1858
From Lincoln's Reply to Douglas in the Seventh and Last Joint Debate, at
Alton, Ill., Oct. 15, 1858
From Speech at Columbus, Ohio, Sept. 16, 1859
From Speech at Cincinnati, Ohio, Sept. 17, 1859
From a Letter to J.W. Fell, Dec. 20, 1859
From the Address at Cooper Institute, N.Y., Feb. 27, 1860
Lincoln's Farewell to the Citizens of Springfield, Ill., Feb. 11, 1861
Letter to Hon. Geo. Ashmun, Accepting the Nomination for Presidency, May
23, 1860
Letter to Miss Grace Bedell, Springfield, Ill., Oct. 19, 1860
From his Address to the Legislature at Indianapolis, Feb. 12, 1861
From his Address to the Legislature at Columbus, Ohio, Feb. 13, 1861
From his Remarks at Pittsburgh, Pa., Feb. 15, 1861
From his Address at Trenton, N.J., Feb. 21, 1861
Address in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Feb. 22, 1861
His Reply to the Mayor of Washington, D.C., Feb. 27, 1861
First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861
Address at Utica, N.Y., Feb. 18, 1861
From his First Message to Congress, at the Special Session, July 4, 1861
From his Message to Congress at its Regular Session, Dec. 3, 1861
Letter to Gen. G.B. McClellan, Washington, Feb. 3, 1862
Proclamation Revoking Gen. Hunter's Order Setting the Slaves Free, May
19, 1862
Appeal to the Border States in Behalf of Compensated Emancipation, July
12, 1862
From Letter to Cuthbert Bullitt, July 28, 1862
Letter to August Belmont, July 31, 1862
Letter to Horace Greeley, Aug. 22, 1862
From his Reply to the Chicago Committee of United Religious
Denominations, Sept. 13, 1862
From the Annual Message to Congress, Dec. 1, 1862
Emancipation Proclamation, Jan. 1, 1863
Letter to General Grant, July 13, 1863
Letter to ---- Moulton, Washington, July 31, 1863
Letter to Mrs. Lincoln, Washington, Aug. 8, 1863
Letter to James H. Hackett, Washington, Aug. 17, 1863
Note to Secretary Stanton, Washington, Nov. 11, 1863
Letter to James C. Conkling, Aug. 26, 1863
His Proclamation for a Day of Thanksgiving, Oct. 3, 1863
Remarks at the Dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Nov.
19, 1863
From his Annual Message to Congress, Dec. 8, 1863
Letter to Secretary Stanton, Washington, March 1, 1864
Letter to Governor Michael Hahn, Washington, March 13, 1864
Address at a Sanitary Fair, March 18, 1864
Letter to A.G. Hodges, April 4, 1864
Address at a Sanitary Fair at Baltimore, April 18, 1864
Letter to General Grant, April 30, 1864
From Address to the 166th Ohio Regiment, Aug. 22, 1864
Reply to a Serenade, Nov. 10, 1864
Letter to Mrs. Bixley, Nov. 21, 1864
Letter to General Grant, Washington, Jan. 19, 1865
Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865
Letter to Thurlow Weed, March 15, 1865
From an Address to an Indiana Regiment, March 17, 1865
His Last Public Address, April 11, 1865
APPENDIX
Anecdotes
PUBLISHERS' NOTE
For permission to use extracts from "The Complete Works of Abraham
Lincoln," edited by John G. Nicolay and John Hay, the Publishers wish to
thank The Century Company.
They also wish to thank Mr. William H. Lambert, the owner of the
copyright, and Mrs. Sarah A. Whitney for their courtesy in allowing them
to publish "Lincoln's Lost Speech."
LINCOLN'S SPEECHES AND LETTERS
_Lincoln's First Public Speech. From an Address to the People of
Sangamon County. March 9, 1832_
Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or
system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most
important subject which we, as a people, can be engaged in. That every
man may receive at least a moderate education, and thereby be enabled to
read the histories of his own and other countries, by which he may duly
appreciate the value of our free institutions, appears to be an object
of vital importance, even on this account alone, to say nothing of the
advantages and satisfaction to be derived from all being able to read
the Scriptures and other works, both of a religious and moral nature,
for themselves.
For my part, I desire to see the time when education--and by its means
morality, sobriety, enterprise, and industry--shall become much more
general than at present; and should be gratified to have it in my power
to contribute something to the advancement of any measure which might
have a tendency to accelerate that happy period.
With regard to existing laws, some alterations are thought to be
necessary. Many respectable men have suggested that our estray laws--the
law respecting the issuing of executions, the road law, and some
others--are deficient in their present form, and require alterations.
But considering the great probability that the framers of those laws
were wiser than myself, I should prefer not meddling with them, unless
they were first attacked by others, in which case I should feel it both
a privilege and a duty to take that stand which, in my view, might tend
to the advancement of justice.
But, fellow-citizens, I shall conclude. Considering the great degree of
modesty which should always attend youth, it is probable I have already
been more presuming than becomes me. However, upon the subjects of which
I have treated, I have spoken as I have thought. I may be wrong in
regard to any or all of them; but, holding it a sound maxim that it is
better only to be sometimes right than at all times wrong, so soon as I
discover my opinions to be erroneous I shall be ready to renounce them.
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 esteemed of my fellow-men by rendering myself worthy of their
esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be
developed. I am young and unknown to many of you; I was born and have
ever remained in the most humble walks of life. I have no wealthy or
popular relations or friends to recommend me. My case is thrown
exclusively upon the independent voters of the county, and if elected,
they will have conferred a favour upon me for which I shall be
unremitting in my labours to compensate. But if the good people in their
wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too
familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined.
Your friend and fellow-citizen,
A. LINCOLN.
_Letter to Colonel Robert Allen. June 21, 1836_
Dear Colonel, I am told that during my absence last week you passed
through this place, and stated publicly that you were in possession of a
fact or facts which, if known to the public, would entirely destroy the
prospects of N.W. Edwards and myself at the ensuing election; but that,
through favour to us, you should forbear to divulge them. No one has
needed favours more than I, and, generally, few have been less unwilling
to accept them; but in this case favour to me would be injustice to the
public, and therefore I must beg your pardon for declining it. That I
once had the confidence of the people of Sangamon, is sufficiently
evident; and if I have since done anything, either by design or
misadventure, which if known would subject me to a forfeiture of that
confidence, he that knows of that thing, and conceals it, is a traitor
to his country's interest.
I find myself wholly unable to form any conjecture of what fact or
facts, real or supposed, you spoke; but my opinion of your veracity will
not permit me for a moment to doubt that you at least believed what you
said. I am flattered with the personal regard you manifested for me; but
I do hope that, on more mature reflection, you will view the public
interest as a paramount consideration, and therefore determine to let
the worst come. I here assure you that the candid statement of facts on
your part, however low it may sink me, shall never break the tie of
personal friendship between us. I wish an answer to this, and you are at
liberty to publish both, if you choose.
_Lincoln's Opinion on Universal Suffrage. From a Letter published in the
Sangamon "Journal." June 13, 1836_
I go for all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in
bearing its burdens: consequently I go for admitting all whites to the
right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms [by no means excluding
females].
_From an Address before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois.
January 27, 1837_
As a subject for the remarks of the evening "The perpetuation of our
political institutions" is selected. In the great journal of things
happening under the sun, we, the American people, find our account
running under the date of the nineteenth century of the Christian era.
We find ourselves in the peaceful possession of the fairest portion of
the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and
salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system
of political institutions conducing more essentially to the ends of
civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former
times tells us. We, when remounting the stage of existence, found
ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled
not in the acquirement or the establishment of them; they are a legacy
bequeathed to us by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented
and departed race of ancestors.
Theirs was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves,
and through themselves us, of this goodly land, and to rear upon its
hills and valleys a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; 'tis
ours only to transmit these,--the former unprofaned by the foot of the
invader; the latter undecayed by lapse of time. This, our duty to
ourselves and to our posterity, and love for our species in general,
imperatively require us to perform.
How, then, shall we perform it? At what point shall we expect the
approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we
expect some transatlantic military giant to step across the ocean and
crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa
combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their
military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not, by force,
take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a
trial of a thousand years.
At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer,
if it ever reaches us, it must spring up among us. It cannot come from
abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and
finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die
by suicide.
There is even now something of ill omen among us. I mean the increasing
disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to
substitute wild and furious passions in lieu of the sober judgment of
courts; and the worse than savage mobs for the executive ministers of
justice. This disposition is awfully fearful in any community; and that
it now exists in ours, though grating to our feelings to admit, it would
be a violation of truth and an insult to our intelligence to deny.
* * * * *
I know the American people are _much_ attached to their government. I
know they would suffer _much_ for its sake. I know they would endure
evils long and patiently before they would ever think of exchanging it
for another. Yet, notwithstanding all this, if the laws be continually
despised and disregarded, if their rights to be secure in their persons
and property are held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob, the
alienation of their affection for the government is the natural
consequence, and to that sooner or later it must come.
Here, then, is one point at which danger may be expected. The question
recurs, how shall we fortify against it? The answer is simple. Let every
American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity,
swear by the blood of the Revolution never to violate in the least
particular the laws of the country, and never to tolerate their
violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support
of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the
Constitution and the Laws let every American pledge his life, his
property, and his sacred honour; let every man remember that to violate
the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the
charter of his own and his children's liberty. Let reverence for the
laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that
prattles on her lap. Let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in
colleges. Let it be written in primers, spelling-books, and in almanacs.
Let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and
enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the
political religion of the nation.
When I so pressingly urge a strict observance of all the laws, let me
not be understood as saying that there are no bad laws, or that
grievances may not arise for the redress of which no legal provisions
have been made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say that
although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as
possible, still, while they continue in force, for the sake of example
they should be religiously observed. So also in unprovided cases. If
such arise, let proper legal provisions be made for them with the least
possible delay, but till then let them, if not too intolerable, be borne
with.
There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law. In any
case that may arise, as, for instance, the promulgation of abolitionism,
one of two positions is necessarily true--that is, the thing is right
within itself, and therefore deserves the protection of all law and all
good citizens, or it is wrong, and therefore proper to be prohibited by
legal enactments; and in neither case is the interposition of mob law
either necessary, justifiable, or excusable....
They (histories of the Revolution) were pillars of the temple of
liberty; and now that they have crumbled away, that temple must fall
unless we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars,
hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason. Passion has helped us, but
can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason--cold,
calculating, unimpassioned reason--must furnish all the materials for
our future support and defence. Let those materials be moulded into
general intelligence, sound morality, and, in particular, a reverence
for the Constitution and laws; and that we improved to the last, that we
remained free to the last, that we revered his name to the last, that
during his long sleep we permitted no hostile foot to pass over or
desecrate his resting-place, shall be that which to learn the last trump
shall awaken our Washington.
Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the rock of its
basis; and as truly as has been said of the only greater institution,
"the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
Many great and good men, sufficiently qualified for any task they should
undertake, may ever be found, whose ambition would aspire to nothing
beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair. But
such belong not to the family of the lion or the brood of the eagle.
What? Think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Cæsar, or a
Napoleon? Never! Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks
regions hitherto unexplored. It sees no distinction in adding story to
story upon the monuments of fame erected to the memory of others. It
denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to
tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It
thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it,
whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving free men. Is
it unreasonable, then, to expect that some men, possessed of the
loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its
utmost stretch, will at some time spring up among us? And when such a
one does, it will require the people to be united with each other,
attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to
successfully frustrate his design.
Distinction will be his paramount object, and although he would as
willingly, perhaps more so, acquire it by doing good as harm, yet that
opportunity being passed, and nothing left to be done in the way of
building up, he would sit down boldly to the task of pulling down. Here,
then, is a probable case, highly dangerous, and such a one as could not
well have existed heretofore.
* * * * *
All honour to our Revolutionary ancestors, to whom we are indebted for
these institutions. They will not be forgotten. In history we hope they
will be read of, and recounted, so long as the Bible shall be read. But
even granting that they will, their influence cannot be what it
heretofore has been. Even then, they cannot be so universally known, nor
so vividly felt, as they were by the generation just gone to rest. At
the close of that struggle, nearly every adult male had been a
participator in some of its scenes. The consequence was, that of those
scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son, or a brother, a
living history was to be found in every family,--a history bearing the
indubitable testimonies to its own authenticity in the limbs mangled, in
the scars of wounds received in the midst of the very scenes related; a
history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all, the wise
and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned. But those histories are
gone. They can be read no more for ever. They were a fortress of
strength; but what the invading foemen could never do, the silent
artillery of time has done,--the levelling of its walls. They are gone.
They were a forest of giant oaks; but the resistless hurricane has swept
over them, and left only here and there a lonely trunk, despoiled of its
verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a
few more gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated limbs a few
more ruder storms, and then to sink and be no more.
HUMOROUS ACCOUNT OF HIS EXPERIENCES WITH A LADY HE WAS REQUESTED TO
MARRY
_A Letter to Mrs. O.H. Browning. Springfield, Illinois. April 1, 1838_
Dear Madam, Without apologising for being egotistical, I shall make the
history of so much of my life as has elapsed since I saw you the subject
of this letter. And, by the way, I now discover that in order to give a
full and intelligible account of the things I have done and suffered
since I saw you, I shall necessarily have to relate some that happened
before.
It was, then, in the autumn of 1836 that a married lady of my
acquaintance, and who was a great friend of mine, being about to pay a
visit to her father and other relatives residing in Kentucky, proposed
to me that on her return she would bring a sister of hers with her on
condition that I would engage to become her brother-in-law with all
convenient dispatch. I, of course, accepted the proposal, for you know I
could not have done otherwise had I really been averse to it; but
privately, between you and me, I was most confoundedly well pleased with
the project. I had seen the said sister some three years before, thought
her intelligent and agreeable, and saw no good objection to plodding
life through hand-in-hand with her. Time passed on, the lady took her
journey, and in due time returned, sister in company, sure enough. This
astonished me a little, for it appeared to me that her coming so readily
showed that she was a trifle too willing, but on reflection it occurred
to me that she might have been prevailed on by her married sister to
come, without anything concerning me having been mentioned to her, and
so I concluded that if no other objection presented itself, I would
consent to waive this. All this occurred to me on hearing of her arrival
in the neighbourhood--for, be it remembered, I had not yet seen her,
except about three years previous, as above mentioned. In a few days we
had an interview, and, although I had seen her before, she did not look
as my imagination had pictured her. I knew she was over-size, but she
now appeared a fair match for Falstaff. I knew she was called an "old
maid," and I felt no doubt of the truth of at least half of the
appellation, but now, when I beheld her, I could not for my life avoid
thinking of my mother; and this, not from withered features,--for her
skin was too full of fat to permit of its contracting into wrinkles--but
from her want of teeth, weather-beaten appearance in general, and from a
kind of notion that ran in my head that nothing could have commenced at
the size of infancy and reached her present bulk in less than
thirty-five or forty years; and, in short, I was not at all pleased with
her. But what could I do? I had told her sister that I would take her
for better or for worse, and I made a point of honour and conscience in
all things to stick to my word, especially if others had been induced to
act on it, which in this case I had no doubt they had, for I was now
fairly convinced that no other man on earth would have her, and hence
the conclusion that they were bent on holding me to my bargain. "Well,"
thought I, "I have said it, and, be the consequences what they may, it
shall not be my fault if I fail to do it." At once I determined to
consider her my wife, and this done, all my powers of discovery were put
to work in search of perfections in her which might be fairly set off
against her defects. I tried to imagine her handsome, which, but for her
unfortunate corpulency, was actually true. Exclusive of this, no woman
that I have ever seen has a finer face. I also tried to convince myself
that the mind was much more to be valued than the person, and in this
she was not inferior, as I could discover, to any with whom I had been
acquainted.
Shortly after this, without attempting to come to any positive
understanding with her, I set out for Vandalia, when and where you first
saw me. During my stay there I had letters from her which did not change
my opinion of either her intellect or intention, but, on the contrary,
confirmed it in both.
All this while, although I was fixed "firm as the surge-repelling rock"
in my resolution, I found I was continually repenting the rashness which
had led me to make it. Through life I have been in no bondage, either
real or imaginary, from the thraldom of which I so much desired to be
free. After my return home I saw nothing to change my opinion of her in
any particular. She was the same, and so was I. I now spent my time in
planning how I might get along in life after my contemplated change of
circumstances should have taken place, and how I might procrastinate the
evil day for a time, which I really dreaded as much, perhaps more, than
an Irishman does the halter.