upon these principles to ultimately beat them. In order to do so, I think
we want and must have a national policy in regard to the institution of
slavery that acknowledges and deals with that institution as being
wrong. Whoever desires the prevention of the spread of slavery and the
nationalization of that institution yields all when he yields to any
policy that either recognizes slavery as being right or as being an
indifferent thing. Nothing will make you successful but setting up a
policy which shall treat the thing as being wrong: When I say this, I do
not mean to say that this General Government is charged with the duty of
redressing or preventing all the wrongs in the world, but I do think that
it is charged with preventing and redressing all wrongs which are wrongs
to itself. This Government is expressly charged with the duty of providing
for the general welfare. We believe that the spreading out and
perpetuity of the institution of slavery impairs the general welfare.
We believe--nay, we know--that that is the only thing that has ever
threatened the perpetuity of the Union itself. The only thing which has
ever menaced the destruction of the government under which we live is this
very thing. To repress this thing, we think, is, Providing for the general
welfare. Our friends in Kentucky differ from us. We need not make our
argument for them, but we who think it is wrong in all its relations, or
in some of them at least, must decide as to our own actions and our own
course, upon our own judgment.
I say that we must not interfere with the institution of slavery in the
States where it exists, because the Constitution forbids it, and the
general welfare does not require us to do so. We must not withhold an
efficient Fugitive Slave law, because the Constitution requires us, as
I understand it, not to withhold such a law. But we must prevent the
outspreading of the institution, because neither the Constitution nor
general welfare requires us to extend it. We must prevent the revival of
the African slave trade, and the enacting by Congress of a Territorial
slave code. We must prevent each of these things being done by either
Congresses or courts. The people of these United States are the rightful
masters of both Congresses and courts, not to overthrow the Constitution,
but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
To do these things we must employ instrumentalities. We must hold
conventions; we must adopt platforms, if we conform to ordinary custom;
we must nominate candidates; and we must carry elections. In all these
things, I think that we ought to keep in view our real purpose, and in
none do anything that stands adverse to our purpose. If we shall adopt a
platform that fails to recognize or express our purpose, or elect a man
that declares himself inimical to our purpose, we not only take nothing by
our success, but we tacitly admit that we act upon no other principle
than a desire to have "the loaves and fishes," by which, in the end, our
apparent success is really an injury to us.
I know that this is very desirable with me, as with everybody else, that
all the elements of the opposition shall unite in the next Presidential
election and in all future time. I am anxious that that should be; but
there are things seriously to be considered in relation to that matter.
If the terms can be arranged, I am in favor of the union. But suppose
we shall take up some man, and put him upon one end or the other of the
ticket, who declares himself against us in regard to the prevention of the
spread of slavery, who turns up his nose and says he is tired of hearing
anything more about it, who is more against us than against the enemy,
what will be the issue? Why, he will get no slave States, after all,--he
has tried that already until being beat is the rule for him. If we
nominate him upon that ground, he will not carry a slave State; and
not only so, but that portion of our men who are high-strung upon the
principle we really fight for will not go for him, and he won't get a
single electoral vote anywhere, except, perhaps, in the State of Maryland.
There is no use in saying to us that we are stubborn and obstinate because
we won't do some such thing as this. We cannot do it. We cannot get our
men to vote it. I speak by the card, that we cannot give the State of
Illinois in such case by fifty thousand. We would be flatter down than the
"Negro Democracy" themselves have the heart to wish to see us.
After saying this much let me say a little on the other side. There are
plenty of men in the slave States that are altogether good enough for me
to be either President or Vice-President, provided they will profess their
sympathy with our purpose, and will place themselves on the ground that
our men, upon principle, can vote for them. There are scores of them, good
men in their character for intelligence and talent and integrity. If such
a one will place himself upon the right ground, I am for his occupying one
place upon the next Republican or opposition ticket. I will heartily
go for him. But unless he does so place himself, I think it a matter of
perfect nonsense to attempt to bring about a union upon any other basis;
that if a union be made, the elements will scatter so that there can be no
success for such a ticket, nor anything like success. The good old maxims
of the Bible axe applicable, and truly applicable, to human affairs, and
in this, as in other things, we may say here that he who is not for us is
against us; he who gathereth not with us, scattereth. I should be glad to
have some of the many good and able and noble men of the South to place
themselves where we can confer upon them the high honor of an election
upon one or the other end of our ticket. It would do my soul good to do
that thing. It would enable us to teach them that, inasmuch as we select
one of their own number to carry out our principles, we are free from the
charge that we mean more than we say.
But, my friends, I have detained you much longer than I expected to do.
I believe I may do myself the compliment to say that you have stayed
and heard me with great patience, for which I return you my most sincere
thanks.
ON PROTECTIVE TARIFFS
TO EDWARD WALLACE.
CLINTON, October 11, 1859
Dr. EDWARD WALLACE.
MY DEAR SIR:--I am here just now attending court. Yesterday, before I left
Springfield, your brother, Dr. William S. Wallace, showed me a letter of
yours, in which you kindly mention my name, inquiring for my tariff views,
and suggest the propriety of my writing a letter upon the subject. I was
an old Henry-Clay-Tariff Whig. In old times I made more speeches on that
subject than any other.
I have not since changed my views. I believe yet, if we could have a
moderate, carefully adjusted protective tariff, so far acquiesced in as
not to be a perpetual subject of political strife, squabbles changes, and
uncertainties, it would be better for us. Still it is my opinion that just
now the revival of that question will not advance the cause itself, or the
man who revives it.
I have not thought much on the subject recently, but my general impression
is that the necessity for a protective tariff will ere long force its
old opponents to take it up; and then its old friends can join in and
establish it on a more firm and durable basis. We, the Old Whigs, have
been entirely beaten out on the tariff question, and we shall not be able
to re-establish the policy until the absence of it shall have demonstrated
the necessity for it in the minds of men heretofore opposed to it.
With this view, I should prefer to not now write a public letter on the
subject. I therefore wish this to be considered confidential. I shall be
very glad to receive a letter from you.
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN.
ON MORTGAGES
TO W. DUNGY.
SPRINGFIELD, November, 2, 1859.
WM. DUNGY, Esq.
DEAR SIR:--Yours of October 27 is received. When a mortgage is given
to secure two notes, and one of the notes is sold and assigned, if the
mortgaged premises are only sufficient to pay one note, the one assigned
will take it all. Also, an execution from a judgment on the assigned note
may take it all; it being the same thing in substance. There is redemption
on execution sales from the United States Court just as from any other
court.
You did not mention the name of the plaintiff or defendant in the suit,
and so I can tell nothing about it as to sales, bids, etc. Write again.
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN.
FRAGMENT OF SPEECH AT LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS,
DECEMBER, 1859.
............. But you Democrats are for the Union; and you greatly fear
the success of the Republicans would destroy the Union. Why? Do the
Republicans declare against the Union? Nothing like it. Your own statement
of it is that if the Black Republicans elect a President, you "won't stand
it." You will break up the Union. If we shall constitutionally elect a
President, it will be our duty to see that you submit. Old John Brown has
been executed for treason against a State. We cannot object, even though
he agreed with us in thinking slavery wrong. That cannot excuse violence,
bloodshed and treason. It could avail him nothing that he might think
himself right. So, if we constitutionally elect a President, and therefore
you undertake to destroy the Union, it will be our duty to deal with you
as old John Brown has been dealt with. We shall try to do our duty. We
hope and believe that in no section will a majority so act as to render
such extreme measures necessary.
TO G. W. DOLE, G. S. HUBBARD, AND W. H. BROWN.
SPRINGFIELD, Dec. 14, 1859
MESSRS. DOLE, HUBBARD & BROWN.
GENT.:--Your favor of the 12th is at hand, and it gives me pleasure to
be able to answer it. It is not my intention to take part in any of
the rivalries for the gubernatorial nomination; but the fear of being
misunderstood upon that subject ought not to deter me from doing justice
to Mr. Judd, and preventing a wrong being done to him by the use of nay
name in connection with alleged wrongs to me.
In answer to your first question, as to whether Mr. Judd was guilty of
any unfairness to me at the time of Senator Trumbull's election, I answer
unhesitatingly in the negative; Mr. Judd owed no political allegiance
to any party whose candidate I was. He was in the Senate, holding over,
having been elected by a Democratic Constituency. He never was in any
caucus of the friends who sought to make me U. S. Senator, never gave me
any promises or pledges to support me, and subsequent events have greatly
tended to prove the wisdom, politically, of Mr. Judd's course. The
election of Judge Trumbull strongly tended to sustain and preserve the
position of that lion of the Democrats who condemned the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise, and left them in a position of joining with us in
forming the Republican party, as was done at the Bloomington convention in
1856.
During the canvass of 1858 for the senatorship my belief was, and
still is, that I had no more sincere and faithful friend than Mr.
Judd--certainly none whom I trusted more. His position as chairman of the
State Central Committee led to my greater intercourse with him, and to
my giving him a larger share of my confidence, than with or to almost any
other friend; and I have never suspected that that confidence was, to any
degree, misplaced.
My relations with Mr. Judo since the organization of the Republican
party, in, our State, in 1856, and especially since the adjournment of the
Legislature in Feb., 1857, have been so very intimate that I deem it an
impossibility that he could have been dealing treacherously with me. He
has also, at all times, appeared equally true and faithful to the party.
In his position as chairman of the committee, I believe he did all that
any man could have done. The best of us are liable to commit errors, which
become apparent by subsequent developments; but I do not know of a single
error, even, committed by Mr. Judd, since he and I have acted together
politically.
I, had occasionally heard these insinuations against Mr. Judd, before the
receipt of your letter; and in no instance have I hesitated to pronounce
them wholly unjust, to the full extent of my knowledge and belief. I have
been, and still am, very anxious to take no part between the many friends,
all good and true, who are mentioned as candidates for a Republican
gubernatorial nomination; but I can not feel that my own honor is quite
clear if I remain silent when I hear any one of them assailed about
matters of which I believe I know more than his assailants.
I take pleasure in adding that, of all the avowed friends I had in the
canvass of last year, I do not suspect any of having acted treacherously
to me, or to our cause; and that there is not one of them in whose
honesty, honor, and integrity I, today, have greater confidence than I
have in those of Mr. Judd.
I dislike to appear before the public in this matter; but you are at
liberty to make such use of this letter as you may think justice requires.
Yours very truly,
A. LINCOLN.
TO G. M. PARSONS AND OTHERS.
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, December 19, 1859.
MESSRS. G. M. PARSONS AND OTHERS, CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, ETC.
GENTLEMEN:--Your letter of the 7th instant, accompanied by a similar one
from the governor-elect, the Republican State officers, and the Republican
members of the State Board of Equalization of Ohio, both requesting of me,
for publication in permanent form, copies of the political debates between
Senator Douglas and myself last year, has been received. With my grateful
acknowledgments to both you and them for the very flattering terms in
which the request is communicated, I transmit you the copies. The copies I
send you are as reported and printed by the respective friends of Senator
Douglas and myself, at the time--that is, his by his friends, and mine by
mine. It would be an unwarrantable liberty for us to change a word or
a letter in his, and the changes I have made in mine, you perceive, are
verbal only, and very few in number. I wish the reprint to be precisely as
the copies I send, without any comment whatever.
Yours very truly,
A. LINCOLN.
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
TO J. W. FELL,
SPRINGFIELD, December 20, 1859.
J. W. FELL, Esq.
MY DEAR SIR:--Herewith is a little sketch, as you requested. There is not
much of it, for the reason, I suppose, that there is not much of me. If
anything be made out of it, I wish it to be modest, and not to go beyond
the material. If it were thought necessary to incorporate anything from
any of my speeches I suppose there would be no objection. Of course it
must not appear to have been written by myself.
Yours very truly, A. LINCOLN
------
I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents
were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families--second families,
perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a
family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams, and others
in Macon County, Illinois. My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln,
emigrated from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky about 1781 or
1782, where a year or two later he was killed by the Indians, not in
battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest.
His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County,
Pennsylvania. An effort to identify them with the New England family
of the same name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity of
Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon,
Abraham, and the like.
My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age, and he
grew up literally without education. He removed from Kentucky to what is
now Spencer County, Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our new home
about the time that State came into the Union. It was a wild region, with
many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up.
There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required
of a teacher beyond "readin', writin', and cipherin"' to the Rule of
Three. If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn
in the neighborhood he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely
nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age I
did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to
the Rule of Three, but that was all. I have not been to school since. The
little advance I now have upon this store of education I have picked up
from time to time under the pressure of necessity.
I was raised to farm work, which I continued till I was twenty-two. At
twenty-one I came to Illinois, Macon County. Then I got to New Salem, at
that time in Sangamon, now in Menard County, where I remained a year as a
sort of clerk in a store. Then came the Black Hawk war; and I was elected
a captain of volunteers, a success which gave me more pleasure than any I
have had since. I went the campaign, was elected, ran for the Legislature
the same year (1832), and was beaten--the only time I ever have been
beaten by the people. The next and three succeeding biennial elections I
was elected to the Legislature. I was not a candidate afterward. During
this legislative period I had studied law, and removed to Springfield to
practice it. In 1846 I was once elected to the lower House of Congress.
Was not a candidate for re-election. From 1849 to 1854, both inclusive,
practiced law more assiduously than ever before. Always a Whig in
politics; and generally on the Whig electoral tickets, making active
canvasses. I was losing interest in politics when the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is
pretty well known.
If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be said I
am, in height, six feet four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on an
average one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black
hair and gray eyes. No other marks or brands recollected.
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN.
ON NOMINATION TO THE NATIONAL TICKET
To N. B. JUDD.
SPRINGFIELD, FEBRUARY 9, 1859
HON. N. B. JUDD.
DEAR Sir:--I am not in a position where it would hurt much for me to not
be nominated on the national ticket; but I am where it would hurt some
for me to not get the Illinois delegates. What I expected when I wrote
the letter to Messrs. Dole and others is now happening. Your discomfited
assailants are most bitter against me; and they will, for revenge upon me,
lay to the Bates egg in the South, and to the Seward egg in the North, and
go far toward squeezing me out in the middle with nothing. Can you help
me a little in this matter in your end of the vineyard. I mean this to be
private.
Yours as ever,
A. LINCOLN
1860
SPEECH AT THE COOPER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK FEBRUARY 27, 1860
MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF NEW YORK:--The facts with which I
shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there anything
new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall be any
novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and the
inferences and observations following that presentation.
In his speech last autumn at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New York
Times, Senator Douglas said:
"Our fathers, when they framed the Government under which we live,
understood this question just as well, and even better than we do now."
I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I so
adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed starting-point for
a discussion between Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed by
Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry: What was the understanding
those fathers had of the question mentioned?
What is the frame of Government under which we live?
The answer must be--the Constitution of the United States. That
Constitution consists of the original, framed in 1787 (and under which
the present Government first went into operation), and twelve subsequently
framed amendments, the first ten of which were framed in 1789.
Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution? I suppose the
"thirty-nine" who signed the original instrument may be fairly called
our fathers who framed that part of the present Government. It is almost
exactly true to say they framed it, and it is altogether true to say they
fairly represented the opinion and sentiment of the whole nation at that
time.
Their names, being familiar to nearly all, and accessible to quite all,
need not now be repeated.
I take these "thirty-nine," for the present, as being our "fathers who
framed the Government under which we live."
What is the question which, according to the text, those fathers
understood "just as well, and even better than we do now"?
It is this: Does the proper division of local from Federal authority, or
anything in the Constitution, forbid our Federal Government to control as
to slavery in our Federal Territories?
Upon this Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and Republicans the
negative. This affirmation and denial form an issue, and this issue--this
question is precisely what the text declares our fathers understood
"better than we."
Let us now inquire whether the "thirty-nine," or any of them, acted upon
this question; and if they did, how they acted upon it--how they expressed
that better understanding.
In 1784, three years before the Constitution--the United States then
owning the Northwestern Territory, and no other--the Congress of the
Confederation had before them the question of prohibiting slavery in
that Territory; and four of the "thirty nine" who afterward framed the
Constitution were in that Congress and voted on that question. Of
these, Roger Sherman, Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh Williamson voted for the
prohibition, thus showing that, in their understanding, no line dividing
local from Federal authority, nor anything else, properly forbade the
Federal Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory. The
other of the four--James McHenry voted against the prohibition, showing
that, for some cause, he thought it improper to vote for it.
In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the convention was in
session framing it, and while the Northwestern Territory still was
the only Territory owned by the United States, the same question of
prohibiting slavery in the Territory again came before the Congress of the
Confederation; and two more of the "thirty-nine" who afterward signed the
Constitution were in that Congress, and voted on the question. They were
William Blount and William Few; and they both voted for the prohibition
thus showing that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from
Federal authority, nor anything else, properly forbade the Federal
Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory. This time the
prohibition became a law, being part of what is now well known as the
Ordinance of '87.
The question of Federal control of slavery in the Territories seems not
to have been directly before the convention which framed the original
Constitution; and hence it is not recorded that the "thirty-nine," or any
of them, while engaged on that instrument, expressed any opinion on that
precise question.
In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under the Constitution, an act
was passed to enforce the Ordinance of '87, including the prohibition of
slavery in the Northwestern Territory. The bill for this act was reported
by one of the "thirty-nine," Thomas Fitzsimmons, then a member of the
House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. It went through all its stages
without a word of opposition, and finally passed both branches without
yeas and nays, which is equivalent to a unanimous passage. In this
Congress there were sixteen of the thirty-nine fathers who framed the
original Constitution. They were John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman, Wm. S.
Johnnson, Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, Thos. Fitzsimmons, William Few,
Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William Paterson, George Claimer, Richard
Bassett, George Read, Pierce Butler, Daniel Carroll, James Madison.
This shows that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from
Federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, properly forbade
Congress to prohibit slavery in the Federal territory; else both their
fidelity to correct principles and their oath to support the Constitution
would have constrained them to oppose the prohibition.
Again: George Washington, another of the "thirty nine," was then President
of the United States, and, as such, approved and signed the bill;
thus completing its validity as a law, and thus showing that, in his
understanding, no line dividing local from Federal authority, nor anything
in the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to
slavery in Federal territory.