The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Complete

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But I began this letter not for what I have been writing, but to say
something on that subject which you know to be of such infinite
solicitude to me. The immense sufferings you endured from the first days
of September till the middle of February you never tried to conceal from
me, and I well understood. You have now been the husband of a lovely
woman nearly eight months. That you are happier now than the day you
married her I well know, for without you could not be living. But I have
your word for it, too, and the returning elasticity of spirits which is
manifested in your letters. But I want to ask a close question, "Are you
now in feeling as well as judgment glad that you are married as you are?"
From anybody but me this would be an impudent question, not to be
tolerated; but I know you will pardon it in me. Please answer it
quickly, as I am impatient to know. I have sent my love to your Fanny so
often, I fear she is getting tired of it. However, I venture to tender it
again.

Yours forever,
LINCOLN.




TO JAMES S. IRWIN.

SPRINGFIELD, November 2, 1842.
JAS. S. IRWIN ESQ.:

Owing to my absence, yours of the 22nd ult. was not received till this
moment. Judge Logan and myself are willing to attend to any business in
the Supreme Court you may send us. As to fees, it is impossible to
establish a rule that will apply in all, or even a great many cases.
We believe we are never accused of being very unreasonable in this
particular; and we would always be easily satisfied, provided we could
see the money--but whatever fees we earn at a distance, if not paid
before, we have noticed, we never hear of after the work is done. We,
therefore, are growing a little sensitive on that point.

Yours etc.,
A. LINCOLN.




1843

RESOLUTIONS AT A WHIG MEETING AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, MARCH 1, 1843.

The object of the meeting was stated by Mr. Lincoln of Springfield, who
offered the following resolutions, which were unanimously adopted:

Resolved, That a tariff of duties on imported goods, producing sufficient
revenue for the payment of the necessary expenditures of the National
Government, and so adjusted as to protect American industry, is
indispensably necessary to the prosperity of the American people.

Resolved, That we are opposed to direct taxation for the support of the
National Government.

Resolved, That a national bank, properly restricted, is highly necessary
and proper to the establishment and maintenance of a sound currency, and
for the cheap and safe collection, keeping, and disbursing of the public
revenue.

Resolved, That the distribution of the proceeds of the sales of the
public lands, upon the principles of Mr. Clay's bill, accords with the
best interests of the nation, and particularly with those of the State of
Illinois.

Resolved, That we recommend to the Whigs of each Congressional district
of the State to nominate and support at the approaching election a
candidate of their own principles, regardless of the chances of success.

Resolved, That we recommend to the Whigs of all portions of the State to
adopt and rigidly adhere to the convention system of nominating
candidates.

Resolved, That we recommend to the Whigs of each Congressional district
to hold a district convention on or before the first Monday of May next,
to be composed of a number of delegates from each county equal to double
the n tuber of its representatives in the General Assembly, provided,
each county shall have at least one delegate. Said delegates to be
chosen by primary meetings of the Whigs, at such times and places as they
in their respective counties may see fit. Said district conventions each
to nominate one candidate for Congress, and one delegate to a national
convention for the purpose of nominating candidates for President and
Vice-President of the United States. The seven delegates so nominated to
a national convention to have power to add two delegates to their own
number, and to fill all vacancies.

Resolved, That A. T. Bledsoe, S. T. Logan, and A. Lincoln be appointed a
committee to prepare an address to the people of the State.

Resolved, That N. W. Edwards, A. G. Henry, James H. Matheny, John C.
Doremus, and James C. Conkling be appointed a Whig Central State
Committee, with authority to fill any vacancy that may occur in the
committee.




CIRCULAR FROM WHIG COMMITTEE.

Address to the People of Illinois.

FELLOW-CITIZENS:-By a resolution of a meeting of such of the Whigs of the
State as are now at Springfield, we, the undersigned, were appointed to
prepare an address to you. The performance of that task we now
undertake.

Several resolutions were adopted by the meeting; and the chief object of
this address is to show briefly the reasons for their adoption.

The first of those resolutions declares a tariff of duties upon foreign
importations, producing sufficient revenue for the support of the General
Government, and so adjusted as to protect American industry, to be
indispensably necessary to the prosperity of the American people; and the
second declares direct taxation for a national revenue to be improper.
Those two resolutions are kindred in their nature, and therefore proper
and convenient to be considered together. The question of protection is
a subject entirely too broad to be crowded into a few pages only,
together with several other subjects. On that point we therefore content
ourselves with giving the following extracts from the writings of Mr.
Jefferson, General Jackson, and the speech of Mr. Calhoun:

"To be independent for the comforts of life, we must fabricate them
ourselves. We must now place the manufacturer by the side of the
agriculturalist. The grand inquiry now is, Shall we make our own
comforts, or go without them at the will of a foreign nation? He,
therefore, who is now against domestic manufactures must be for reducing
us either to dependence on that foreign nation, or to be clothed in skins
and to live like wild beasts in dens and caverns. I am not one of those;
experience has taught me that manufactures are now as necessary to our
independence as to our comfort." Letter of Mr. Jefferson to Benjamin
Austin.

"I ask, What is the real situation of the agriculturalist? Where has the
American farmer a market for his surplus produce? Except for cotton, he
has neither a foreign nor a home market. Does not this clearly prove,
when there is no market at home or abroad, that there [is] too much labor
employed in agriculture? Common sense at once points out the remedy.
Take from agriculture six hundred thousand men, women, and children, and
you will at once give a market for more breadstuffs than all Europe now
furnishes. In short, we have been too long subject to the policy of
British merchants. It is time we should become a little more
Americanized, and instead of feeding the paupers and laborers of England,
feed our own; or else in a short time, by continuing our present policy,
we shall all be rendered paupers ourselves."--General Jackson's Letter
to Dr. Coleman.

"When our manufactures are grown to a certain perfection, as they soon
will be, under the fostering care of government, the farmer will find a
ready market for his surplus produce, and--what is of equal
consequence--a certain and cheap supply of all he wants; his prosperity
will diffuse itself to every class of the community." Speech of Hon. J.
C. Calhoun on the Tariff.

The question of revenue we will now briefly consider. For several years
past the revenues of the government have been unequal to its
expenditures, and consequently loan after loan, sometimes direct and
sometimes indirect in form, has been resorted to. By this means a new
national debt has been created, and is still growing on us with a
rapidity fearful to contemplate--a rapidity only reasonably to be
expected in time of war. This state of things has been produced by a
prevailing unwillingness either to increase the tariff or resort to
direct taxation. But the one or the other must come. Coming
expenditures must be met, and the present debt must be paid; and money
cannot always be borrowed for these objects. The system of loans is but
temporary in its nature, and must soon explode. It is a system not only
ruinous while it lasts, but one that must soon fail and leave us
destitute. As an individual who undertakes to live by borrowing soon
finds his original means devoured by interest, and, next, no one left to
borrow from, so must it be with a government.

We repeat, then, that a tariff sufficient for revenue, or a direct tax,
must soon be resorted to; and, indeed, we believe this alternative is now
denied by no one. But which system shall be adopted? Some of our
opponents, in theory, admit the propriety of a tariff sufficient for a
revenue, but even they will not in practice vote for such a tariff; while
others boldly advocate direct taxation. Inasmuch, therefore, as some of
them boldly advocate direct taxation, and all the rest--or so nearly all
as to make exceptions needless--refuse to adopt the tariff, we think it
is doing them no injustice to class them all as advocates of direct
taxation. Indeed, we believe they are only delaying an open avowal of
the system till they can assure themselves that the people will tolerate
it. Let us, then, briefly compare the two systems. The tariff is the
cheaper system, because the duties, being collected in large parcels at a
few commercial points, will require comparatively few officers in their
collection; while by the direct-tax system the land must be literally
covered with assessors and collectors, going forth like swarms of
Egyptian locusts, devouring every blade of grass and other green thing.
And, again, by the tariff system the whole revenue is paid by the
consumers of foreign goods, and those chiefly the luxuries, and not the
necessaries, of life. By this system the man who contents himself to
live upon the products of his own country pays nothing at all. And
surely that country is extensive enough, and its products abundant and
varied enough, to answer all the real wants of its people. In short, by
this system the burthen of revenue falls almost entirely on the wealthy
and luxurious few, while the substantial and laboring many who live at
home, and upon home products, go entirely free. By the direct-tax system
none can escape. However strictly the citizen may exclude from his
premises all foreign luxuries,--fine cloths, fine silks, rich wines,
golden chains, and diamond rings,--still, for the possession of his
house, his barn, and his homespun, he is to be perpetually haunted and
harassed by the tax-gatherer. With these views we leave it to be
determined whether we or our opponents are the more truly democratic on
the subject.

The third resolution declares the necessity and propriety of a national
bank. During the last fifty years so much has been said and written both
as to the constitutionality and expediency of such an institution, that
we could not hope to improve in the least on former discussions of the
subject, were we to undertake it. We, therefore, upon the question of
constitutionality content ourselves with remarking the facts that the
first national bank was established chiefly by the same men who formed
the Constitution, at a time when that instrument was but two years old,
and receiving the sanction, as President, of the immortal Washington;
that the second received the sanction, as President, of Mr. Madison, to
whom common consent has awarded the proud title of "Father of the
Constitution"; and subsequently the sanction of the Supreme Court, the
most enlightened judicial tribunal in the world. Upon the question of
expediency, we only ask you to examine the history of the times during
the existence of the two banks, and compare those times with the
miserable present.

The fourth resolution declares the expediency of Mr. Clay's land bill.
Much incomprehensible jargon is often used against the constitutionality
of this measure. We forbear, in this place, attempting an answer to it,
simply because, in our opinion, those who urge it are through party zeal
resolved not to see or acknowledge the truth. The question of
expediency, at least so far as Illinois is concerned, seems to us the
clearest imaginable. By the bill we are to receive annually a large sum
of money, no part of which we otherwise receive. The precise annual sum
cannot be known in advance; it doubtless will vary in different years.
Still it is something to know that in the last year--a year of almost
unparalleled pecuniary pressure--it amounted to more than forty thousand
dollars. This annual income, in the midst of our almost insupportable
difficulties, in the days of our severest necessity, our political
opponents are furiously resolving to take and keep from us. And for
what? Many silly reasons are given, as is usual in cases where a single
good one is not to be found. One is that by giving us the proceeds of
the lands we impoverish the national treasury, and thereby render
necessary an increase of the tariff. This may be true; but if so, the
amount of it only is that those whose pride, whose abundance of means,
prompt them to spurn the manufactures of our country, and to strut in
British cloaks and coats and pantaloons, may have to pay a few cents more
on the yard for the cloth that makes them. A terrible evil, truly, to
the Illinois farmer, who never wore, nor ever expects to wear, a single
yard of British goods in his whole life. Another of their reasons is
that by the passage and continuance of Mr. Clay's bill, we prevent the
passage of a bill which would give us more. This, if it were sound in
itself, is waging destructive war with the former position; for if Mr.
Clay's bill impoverishes the treasury too much, what shall be said of one
that impoverishes it still more? But it is not sound in itself. It is
not true that Mr. Clay's bill prevents the passage of one more favorable
to us of the new States. Considering the strength and opposite interest
of the old States, the wonder is that they ever permitted one to pass so
favorable as Mr. Clay's. The last twenty-odd years' efforts to reduce
the price of the lands, and to pass graduation bills and cession bills,
prove the assertion to be true; and if there were no experience in
support of it, the reason itself is plain. The States in which none, or
few, of the public lands lie, and those consequently interested against
parting with them except for the best price, are the majority; and a
moment's reflection will show that they must ever continue the majority,
because by the time one of the original new States (Ohio, for example)
becomes populous and gets weight in Congress, the public lands in her
limits are so nearly sold out that in every point material to this
question she becomes an old State. She does not wish the price reduced,
because there is none left for her citizens to buy; she does not wish
them ceded to the States in which they lie, because they no longer lie in
her limits, and she will get nothing by the cession. In the nature of
things, the States interested in the reduction of price, in graduation,
in cession, and in all similar projects, never can be the majority. Nor
is there reason to hope that any of them can ever succeed as a Democratic
party measure, because we have heretofore seen that party in full power,
year after year, with many of their leaders making loud professions in
favor of these projects, and yet doing nothing. What reason, then, is
there to believe they will hereafter do better? In every light in which
we can view this question, it amounts simply to this: Shall we accept our
share of the proceeds under Mr. Clay's bill, or shall we rather reject
that and get nothing?

The fifth resolution recommends that a Whig candidate for Congress be run
in every district, regardless of the chances of success. We are aware
that it is sometimes a temporary gratification, when a friend cannot
succeed, to be able to choose between opponents; but we believe that that
gratification is the seed-time which never fails to be followed by a most
abundant harvest of bitterness. By this policy we entangle ourselves.
By voting for our opponents, such of us as do it in some measure estop
ourselves to complain of their acts, however glaringly wrong we may
believe them to be. By this policy no one portion of our friends can
ever be certain as to what course another portion may adopt; and by this
want of mutual and perfect understanding our political identity is
partially frittered away and lost. And, again, those who are thus
elected by our aid ever become our bitterest persecutors. Take a few
prominent examples. In 1830 Reynolds was elected Governor; in 1835 we
exerted our whole strength to elect Judge Young to the United States
Senate, which effort, though failing, gave him the prominence that
subsequently elected him; in 1836 General Ewing, was so elected to the
United States Senate; and yet let us ask what three men have been more
perseveringly vindictive in their assaults upon all our men and measures
than they? During the last summer the whole State was covered with
pamphlet editions of misrepresentations against us, methodized into
chapters and verses, written by two of these same men,--Reynolds and
Young, in which they did not stop at charging us with error merely, but
roundly denounced us as the designing enemies of human liberty, itself.
If it be the will of Heaven that such men shall politically live, be it
so; but never, never again permit them to draw a particle of their
sustenance from us.

The sixth resolution recommends the adoption of the convention system for
the nomination of candidates. This we believe to be of the very first
importance. Whether the system is right in itself we do not stop to
inquire; contenting ourselves with trying to show that, while our
opponents use it, it is madness in us not to defend ourselves with it.
Experience has shown that we cannot successfully defend ourselves without
it. For examples, look at the elections of last year. Our candidate for
governor, with the approbation of a large portion of the party, took the
field without a nomination, and in open opposition to the system.
Wherever in the counties the Whigs had held conventions and nominated
candidates for the Legislature, the aspirants who were not nominated were
induced to rebel against the nominations, and to become candidates, as is
said, "on their own hook." And, go where you would into a large Whig
county, you were sure to find the Whigs not contending shoulder to
shoulder against the common enemy, but divided into factions, and
fighting furiously with one another. The election came, and what was the
result? The governor beaten, the Whig vote being decreased many
thousands since 1840, although the Democratic vote had not increased any.
Beaten almost everywhere for members of the Legislature,--Tazewell, with
her four hundred Whig majority, sending a delegation half Democratic;
Vermillion, with her five hundred, doing the same; Coles, with her four
hundred, sending two out of three; and Morgan, with her two hundred and
fifty, sending three out of four,--and this to say nothing of the
numerous other less glaring examples; the whole winding up with the
aggregate number of twenty-seven Democratic representatives sent from
Whig counties. As to the senators, too, the result was of the same
character. And it is most worthy to be remembered that of all the Whigs
in the State who ran against the regular nominees, a single one only was
elected. Although they succeeded in defeating the nominees almost by
scores, they too were defeated, and the spoils chucklingly borne off by
the common enemy.

We do not mention the fact of many of the Whigs opposing the convention
system heretofore for the purpose of censuring them. Far from it. We
expressly protest against such a conclusion. We know they were
generally, perhaps universally, as good and true Whigs as we ourselves
claim to be.

We mention it merely to draw attention to the disastrous result it
produced, as an example forever hereafter to be avoided. That "union is
strength" is a truth that has been known, illustrated, and declared in
various ways and forms in all ages of the world. That great fabulist and
philosopher Aesop illustrated it by his fable of the bundle of sticks;
and he whose wisdom surpasses that of all philosophers has declared that
"a house divided against itself cannot stand." It is to induce our
friends to act upon this important and universally acknowledged truth
that we urge the adoption of the convention system. Reflection will
prove that there is no other way of practically applying it. In its
application we know there will be incidents temporarily painful; but,
after all, those incidents will be fewer and less intense with than
without the system. If two friends aspire to the same office it is
certain that both cannot succeed. Would it not, then, be much less
painful to have the question decided by mutual friends some time before,
than to snarl and quarrel until the day of election, and then both be
beaten by the common enemy?

Before leaving this subject, we think proper to remark that we do not
understand the resolution as intended to recommend the application of the
convention system to the nomination of candidates for the small offices
no way connected with politics; though we must say we do not perceive
that such an application of it would be wrong.

The seventh resolution recommends the holding of district conventions in
May next, for the purpose of nominating candidates for Congress. The
propriety of this rests upon the same reasons with that of the sixth, and
therefore needs no further discussion.

The eighth and ninth also relate merely to the practical application of
the foregoing, and therefore need no discussion.

Before closing, permit us to add a few reflections on the present
condition and future prospects of the Whig party. In almost all the
States we have fallen into the minority, and despondency seems to prevail
universally among us. Is there just cause for this? In 1840 we carried
the nation by more than a hundred and forty thousand majority. Our
opponents charged that we did it by fraudulent voting; but whatever they
may have believed, we know the charge to be untrue. Where, now, is that
mighty host? Have they gone over to the enemy? Let the results of the
late elections answer. Every State which has fallen off from the Whig
cause since 1840 has done so not by giving more Democratic votes than
they did then, but by giving fewer Whig. Bouck, who was elected
Democratic Governor of New York last fall by more than 15,000 majority,
had not then as many votes as he had in 1840, when he was beaten by seven
or eight thousand. And so has it been in all the other States which have
fallen away from our cause. From this it is evident that tens of
thousands in the late elections have not voted at all. Who and what are
they? is an important question, as respects the future. They can come
forward and give us the victory again. That all, or nearly all, of them
are Whigs is most apparent. Our opponents, stung to madness by the
defeat of 1840, have ever since rallied with more than their usual
unanimity. It has not been they that have been kept from the polls.
These facts show what the result must be, once the people again rally in
their entire strength. Proclaim these facts, and predict this result;
and although unthinking opponents may smile at us, the sagacious ones
will "believe and tremble." And why shall the Whigs not all rally again?
Are their principles less dear now than in 1840? Have any of their
doctrines since then been discovered to be untrue? It is true, the
victory of 1840 did not produce the happy results anticipated; but it is
equally true, as we believe, that the unfortunate death of General
Harrison was the cause of the failure. It was not the election of
General Harrison that was expected to produce happy effects, but the
measures to be adopted by his administration. By means of his death, and
the unexpected course of his successor, those measures were never
adopted. How could the fruits follow? The consequences we always
predicted would follow the failure of those measures have followed, and
are now upon us in all their horrors. By the course of Mr. Tyler the
policy of our opponents has continued in operation, still leaving them
with the advantage of charging all its evils upon us as the results of a
Whig administration. Let none be deceived by this somewhat plausible,
though entirely false charge. If they ask us for the sufficient and
sound currency we promised, let them be answered that we only promised it
through the medium of a national bank, which they, aided by Mr. Tyler,
prevented our establishing. And let them be reminded, too, that their
own policy in relation to the currency has all the time been, and still
is, in full operation. Let us then again come forth in our might, and by
a second victory accomplish that which death prevented in the first. We
can do it. When did the Whigs ever fail if they were fully aroused and
united? Even in single States, under such circumstances, defeat seldom
overtakes them. Call to mind the contested elections within the last few
years, and particularly those of Moore and Letcher from Kentucky, Newland
and Graham from North Carolina, and the famous New Jersey case. In all
these districts Locofocoism had stalked omnipotent before; but when the
whole people were aroused by its enormities on those occasions, they put
it down, never to rise again.