The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Complete

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I have already said that no one who is satisfied of the expediency of
making improvements needs be much uneasy in his conscience about its
constitutionality. I wish now to submit a few remarks on the general
proposition of amending the Constitution. As a general rule, I think we
would much better let it alone. No slight occasion should tempt us to
touch it. Better not take the first step, which may lead to a habit of
altering it. Better, rather, habituate ourselves to think of it as
unalterable. It can scarcely be made better than it is. New provisions
would introduce new difficulties, and thus create and increase appetite
for further change. No, sir; let it stand as it is. New hands have never
touched it. The men who made it have done their work, and have passed
away. Who shall improve on what they did?

Mr. Chairman, for the purpose of reviewing this message in the least
possible time, as well as for the sake of distinctness, I have analyzed
its arguments as well as I could, and reduced them to the propositions I
have stated. I have now examined them in detail. I wish to detain the
committee only a little while longer with some general remarks upon the
subject of improvements. That the subject is a difficult one, cannot be
denied. Still it is no more difficult in Congress than in the State
Legislatures, in the counties, or in the smallest municipal districts
which anywhere exist. All can recur to instances of this difficulty in
the case of county roads, bridges, and the like. One man is offended
because a road passes over his land, and another is offended because it
does not pass over his; one is dissatisfied because the bridge for which
he is taxed crosses the river on a different road from that which leads
from his house to town; another cannot bear that the county should be got
in debt for these same roads and bridges; while not a few struggle hard
to have roads located over their lands, and then stoutly refuse to let
them be opened until they are first paid the damages. Even between the
different wards and streets of towns and cities we find this same
wrangling and difficulty. Now these are no other than the very
difficulties against which, and out of which, the President constructs
his objections of "inequality," "speculation," and "crushing the
treasury." There is but a single alternative about them: they are
sufficient, or they are not. If sufficient, they are sufficient out of
Congress as well as in it, and there is the end. We must reject them as
insufficient, or lie down and do nothing by any authority. Then,
difficulty though there be, let us meet and encounter it. "Attempt the
end, and never stand to doubt; nothing so hard, but search will find it
out." Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall
find the way. The tendency to undue expansion is unquestionably the chief
difficulty.

How to do something, and still not do too much, is the desideratum. Let
each contribute his mite in the way of suggestion. The late Silas Wright,
in a letter to the Chicago convention, contributed his, which was worth
something; and I now contribute mine, which may be worth nothing. At all
events, it will mislead nobody, and therefore will do no harm. I would
not borrow money. I am against an overwhelming, crushing system. Suppose
that, at each session, Congress shall first determine how much money can,
for that year, be spared for improvements; then apportion that sum to the
most important objects. So far all is easy; but how shall we determine
which are the most important? On this question comes the collision of
interests. I shall be slow to acknowledge that your harbor or your river
is more important than mine, and vice versa. To clear this difficulty,
let us have that same statistical information which the gentleman from
Ohio [Mr. Vinton] suggested at the beginning of this session. In that
information we shall have a stern, unbending basis of facts--a basis in
no wise subject to whim, caprice, or local interest. The prelimited
amount of means will save us from doing too much, and the statistics will
save us from doing what we do in wrong places. Adopt and adhere to this
course, and, it seems to me, the difficulty is cleared.

One of the gentlemen from South Carolina [Mr. Rhett] very much deprecates
these statistics. He particularly objects, as I understand him, to
counting all the pigs and chickens in the land. I do not perceive much
force in the objection. It is true that if everything be enumerated, a
portion of such statistics may not be very useful to this object. Such
products of the country as are to be consumed where they are produced
need no roads or rivers, no means of transportation, and have no very
proper connection with this subject. The surplus--that which is produced
in one place to be consumed in another; the capacity of each locality for
producing a greater surplus; the natural means of transportation, and
their susceptibility of improvement; the hindrances, delays, and losses
of life and property during transportation, and the causes of each, would
be among the most valuable statistics in this connection. From these it
would readily appear where a given amount of expenditure would do the
most good. These statistics might be equally accessible, as they would be
equally useful, to both the nation and the States. In this way, and by
these means, let the nation take hold of the larger works, and the States
the smaller ones; and thus, working in a meeting direction, discreetly,
but steadily and firmly, what is made unequal in one place may be
equalized in another, extravagance avoided, and the whole country put on
that career of prosperity which shall correspond with its extent of
territory, its natural resources, and the intelligence and enterprise of
its people.




OPPORTUNITIES FOR YOUNG POLITICIANS

TO WILLIAM H. HERNDON.

WASHINGTON, June 22, 1848.

DEAR WILLIAM:--Last night I was attending a sort of caucus of the Whig
members, held in relation to the coming Presidential election. The whole
field of the nation was scanned, and all is high hope and confidence.
Illinois is expected to better her condition in this race. Under these
circumstances, judge how heartrending it was to come to my room and find
and read your discouraging letter of the 15th. We have made no gains, but
have lost "H. R. Robinson, Turner, Campbell, and four or five more." Tell
Arney to reconsider, if he would be saved. Baker and I used to do
something, but I think you attach more importance to our absence than is
just. There is another cause. In 1840, for instance, we had two senators
and five representatives in Sangamon; now we have part of one senator and
two representatives. With quite one third more people than we had then,
we have only half the sort of offices which are sought by men of the
speaking sort of talent. This, I think, is the chief cause. Now, as to
the young men. You must not wait to be brought forward by the older men.
For instance, do you suppose that I should ever have got into notice if I
had waited to be hunted up and pushed forward by older men? You young men
get together and form a "Rough and Ready Club," and have regular meetings
and speeches. Take in everybody you can get. Harrison Grimsley, L. A.
Enos, Lee Kimball, and C. W. Matheny will do to begin the thing; but as
you go along gather up all the shrewd, wild boys about town, whether just
of age, or a little under age, Chris. Logan, Reddick Ridgely, Lewis
Zwizler, and hundreds such. Let every one play the part he can play
best,--some speak, some sing, and all "holler." Your meetings will be of
evenings; the older men, and the women, will go to hear you; so that it
will not only contribute to the election of "Old Zach," but will be an
interesting pastime, and improving to the intellectual faculties of all
engaged. Don't fail to do this.

You ask me to send you all the speeches made about "Old Zach," the war,
etc. Now this makes me a little impatient. I have regularly sent you the
Congressional Globe and Appendix, and you cannot have examined them, or
you would have discovered that they contain every speech made by every
man in both houses of Congress, on every subject, during the session. Can
I send any more? Can I send speeches that nobody has made? Thinking it
would be most natural that the newspapers would feel interested to give
at least some of the speeches to their readers, I at the beginning of the
session made arrangements to have one copy of the Globe and Appendix
regularly sent to each Whig paper of the district. And yet, with the
exception of my own little speech, which was published in two only of the
then five, now four, Whig papers, I do not remember having seen a single
speech, or even extract from one, in any single one of those papers. With
equal and full means on both sides, I will venture that the State
Register has thrown before its readers more of Locofoco speeches in a
month than all the Whig papers of the district have done of Whig speeches
during the session.

If you wish a full understanding of the war, I repeat what I believe I
said to you in a letter once before, that the whole, or nearly so, is to
be found in the speech of Dixon of Connecticut. This I sent you in
pamphlet as well as in the Globe. Examine and study every sentence of
that speech thoroughly, and you will understand the whole subject. You
ask how Congress came to declare that war had existed by the act of
Mexico. Is it possible you don't understand that yet? You have at least
twenty speeches in your possession that fully explain it. I will,
however, try it once more. The news reached Washington of the
commencement of hostilities on the Rio Grande, and of the great peril of
General Taylor's army. Everybody, Whigs and Democrats, was for sending
them aid, in men and money. It was necessary to pass a bill for this. The
Locos had a majority in both houses, and they brought in a bill with a
preamble saying: Whereas, War exists by the act of Mexico, therefore we
send General Taylor money. The Whigs moved to strike out the preamble, so
that they could vote to send the men and money, without saying anything
about how the war commenced; but being in the minority, they were voted
down, and the preamble was retained. Then, on the passage of the bill,
the question came upon them, Shall we vote for preamble and bill
together, or against both together? They did not want to vote against
sending help to General Taylor, and therefore they voted for both
together. Is there any difficulty in understanding this? Even my little
speech shows how this was; and if you will go to the library, you may get
the Journal of 1845-46, in which you will find the whole for yourself.

We have nothing published yet with special reference to the Taylor race;
but we soon will have, and then I will send them to everybody. I made an
internal-improvement speech day before yesterday, which I shall send home
as soon as I can get it written out and printed,--and which I suppose
nobody will read.

Your friend as ever,
A. LINCOLN.




SALARY OF JUDGE IN WESTERN VIRGINIA

REMARKS IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JUNE 28, 1848.

Discussion as to salary of judge of western Virginia:--Wishing to
increase it from $1800 to $2500.

Mr. Lincoln said he felt unwilling to be either unjust or ungenerous, and
he wanted to understand the real case of this judicial officer. The
gentleman from Virginia had stated that he had to hold eleven courts. Now
everybody knew that it was not the habit of the district judges of the
United States in other States to hold anything like that number of
courts; and he therefore took it for granted that this must happen under
a peculiar law which required that large number of courts to be holden
every year; and these laws, he further supposed, were passed at the
request of the people of that judicial district. It came, then, to this:
that the people in the western district of Virginia had got eleven courts
to be held among them in one year, for their own accommodation; and being
thus better accommodated than neighbors elsewhere, they wanted their
judge to be a little better paid. In Illinois there had been until the
present season but one district court held in the year. There were now to
be two. Could it be that the western district of Virginia furnished more
business for a judge than the whole State of Illinois?




NATIONAL BANK

JULY, 1848,
[FRAGMENT]

The question of a national bank is at rest. Were I President, I should
not urge its reagitation upon Congress; but should Congress see fit to
pass an act to establish such an institution, I should not arrest it by
the veto, unless I should consider it subject to some constitutional
objection from which I believe the two former banks to have been free.




YOUNG v.s. OLD--POLITICAL JEALOUSY

TO W. H. HERNDON.

WASHINGTON, July 10, 1848.
DEAR WILLIAM:

Your letter covering the newspaper slips was received last night. The
subject of that letter is exceedingly painful to me, and I cannot but
think there is some mistake in your impression of the motives of the old
men. I suppose I am now one of the old men; and I declare on my veracity,
which I think is good with you, that nothing could afford me more
satisfaction than to learn that you and others of my young friends at
home were doing battle in the contest and endearing themselves to the
people and taking a stand far above any I have ever been able to reach in
their admiration. I cannot conceive that other men feel differently. Of
course I cannot demonstrate what I say; but I was young once, and I am
sure I was never ungenerously thrust back. I hardly know what to say. The
way for a young man to rise is to improve himself every way he can, never
suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him. Allow me to assure you that
suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in any situation. There may
sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will
succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel
to brood over the attempted injury. Cast about and see if this feeling
has not injured every person you have ever known to fall into it.

Now, in what I have said I am sure you will suspect nothing but sincere
friendship. I would save you from a fatal error. You have been a studious
young man. You are far better informed on almost all subjects than I ever
have been. You cannot fail in any laudable object unless you allow your
mind to be improperly directed. I have some the advantage of you in the
world's experience, merely by being older; and it is this that induces me
to advise. You still seem to be a little mistaken about the Congressional
Globe and Appendix. They contain all of the speeches that are published
in any way. My speech and Dayton's speech which you say you got in
pamphlet form are both word for word in the Appendix. I repeat again, all
are there.

Your friend, as ever,
A. LINCOLN.




GENERAL TAYLOR AND THE VETO

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JULY 27, 1848.

Mr. SPEAKER, our Democratic friends seem to be in a great distress
because they think our candidate for the Presidency don't suit us. Most
of them cannot find out that General Taylor has any principles at all;
some, however, have discovered that he has one, but that one is entirely
wrong. This one principle is his position on the veto power. The
gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Stanton] who has just taken his seat,
indeed, has said there is very little, if any, difference on this
question between General Taylor and all the Presidents; and he seems to
think it sufficient detraction from General Taylor's position on it that
it has nothing new in it. But all others whom I have heard speak assail
it furiously. A new member from Kentucky [Mr. Clark], of very
considerable ability, was in particular concerned about it. He thought it
altogether novel and unprecedented for a President or a Presidential
candidate to think of approving bills whose constitutionality may not be
entirely clear to his own mind. He thinks the ark of our safety is gone
unless Presidents shall always veto such bills as in their judgment may
be of doubtful constitutionality. However clear Congress may be on their
authority to pass any particular act, the gentleman from Kentucky thinks
the President must veto it if he has doubts about it. Now I have neither
time nor inclination to argue with the gentleman on the veto power as an
original question; but I wish to show that General Taylor, and not he,
agrees with the earlier statesmen on this question. When the bill
chartering the first Bank of the United States passed Congress, its
constitutionality was questioned. Mr. Madison, then in the House of
Representatives, as well as others, had opposed it on that ground.
General Washington, as President, was called on to approve or reject it.
He sought and obtained on the constitutionality question the separate
written opinions of Jefferson, Hamilton, and Edmund Randolph,--they then
being respectively Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, and
Attorney general. Hamilton's opinion was for the power; while Randolph's
and Jefferson's were both against it. Mr. Jefferson, after giving his
opinion deciding only against the constitutionality of the bill, closes
his letter with the paragraph which I now read:

"It must be admitted, however, that unless the President's mind, on a
view of everything which is urged for and against this bill, is tolerably
clear that it is unauthorized by the Constitution,--if the pro and con
hang so even as to balance his judgment, a just respect for the wisdom of
the legislature would naturally decide the balance in favor of their
opinion. It is chiefly for cases where they are clearly misled by error,
ambition, or interest, that the Constitution has placed a check in the
negative of the President.

"THOMAS JEFFERSON.

"February 15, 1791."


General Taylor's opinion, as expressed in his Allison letter, is as I now
read:

"The power given by the veto is a high conservative power; but, in my
opinion, should never be exercised except in cases of clear violation of
the Constitution, or manifest haste and want of consideration by
Congress."

It is here seen that, in Mr. Jefferson's opinion, if on the
constitutionality of any given bill the President doubts, he is not to
veto it, as the gentleman from Kentucky would have him do, but is to
defer to Congress and approve it. And if we compare the opinion of
Jefferson and Taylor, as expressed in these paragraphs, we shall find
them more exactly alike than we can often find any two expressions having
any literal difference. None but interested faultfinders, I think, can
discover any substantial variation.

But gentlemen on the other side are unanimously agreed that General
Taylor has no other principles. They are in utter darkness as to his
opinions on any of the questions of policy which occupy the public
attention. But is there any doubt as to what he will do on the prominent
questions if elected? Not the least. It is not possible to know what he
will or would do in every imaginable case, because many questions have
passed away, and others doubtless will arise which none of us have yet
thought of; but on the prominent questions of currency, tariff, internal
improvements, and Wilmot Proviso, General Taylor's course is at least as
well defined as is General Cass's. Why, in their eagerness to get at
General Taylor, several Democratic members here have desired to know
whether, in case of his election, a bankrupt law is to be established.
Can they tell us General Cass's opinion on this question?

[Some member answered, "He is against it."]

Aye, how do you know he is? There is nothing about it in the platform,
nor elsewhere, that I have seen. If the gentleman knows of anything which
I do not know he can show it. But to return. General Taylor, in his
Allison letter, says:

"Upon the subject of the tariff, the currency, the improvement of our
great highways, rivers, lakes, and harbors, the will of the people, as
expressed through their representatives in Congress, ought to be
respected and carried out by the executive."

Now this is the whole matter. In substance, it is this: The people say to
General Taylor, "If you are elected, shall we have a national bank?" He
answers, "Your will, gentlemen, not mine." "What about the tariff?" "Say
yourselves." "Shall our rivers and harbors be improved?" "Just as you
please. If you desire a bank, an alteration of the tariff, internal
improvements, any or all, I will not hinder you. If you do not desire
them, I will not attempt to force them on you. Send up your members of
Congress from the various districts, with opinions according to your own,
and if they are for these measures, or any of them, I shall have nothing
to oppose; if they are not for them, I shall not, by any appliances
whatever, attempt to dragoon them into their adoption."

Now can there be any difficulty in understanding this? To you Democrats
it may not seem like principle; but surely you cannot fail to perceive
the position plainly enough. The distinction between it and the position
of your candidate is broad and obvious, and I admit you have a clear
right to show it is wrong if you can; but you have no right to pretend
you cannot see it at all. We see it, and to us it appears like principle,
and the best sort of principle at that--the principle of allowing the
people to do as they please with their own business. My friend from
Indiana (C. B. Smith) has aptly asked, "Are you willing to trust the
people?" Some of you answered substantially, "We are willing to trust the
people; but the President is as much the representative of the people as
Congress." In a certain sense, and to a certain extent, he is the
representative of the people. He is elected by them, as well as Congress
is; but can he, in the nature of things know the wants of the people as
well as three hundred other men, coming from all the various localities
of the nation? If so, where is the propriety of having a Congress? That
the Constitution gives the President a negative on legislation, all know;
but that this negative should be so combined with platforms and other
appliances as to enable him, and in fact almost compel him, to take the
whole of legislation into his own hands, is what we object to, is what
General Taylor objects to, and is what constitutes the broad distinction
between you and us. To thus transfer legislation is clearly to take it
from those who understand with minuteness the interests of the people,
and give it to one who does not and cannot so well understand it. I
understand your idea that if a Presidential candidate avow his opinion
upon a given question, or rather upon all questions, and the people, with
full knowledge of this, elect him, they thereby distinctly approve all
those opinions. By means of it, measures are adopted or rejected contrary
to the wishes of the whole of one party, and often nearly half of the
other. Three, four, or half a dozen questions are prominent at a given
time; the party selects its candidate, and he takes his position on each
of these questions. On all but one his positions have already been
indorsed at former elections, and his party fully committed to them; but
that one is new, and a large portion of them are against it. But what are
they to do? The whole was strung together; and they must take all, or
reject all. They cannot take what they like, and leave the rest. What
they are already committed to being the majority, they shut their eyes,
and gulp the whole. Next election, still another is introduced in the
same way. If we run our eyes along the line of the past, we shall see
that almost if not quite all the articles of the present Democratic creed
have been at first forced upon the party in this very way. And just now,
and just so, opposition to internal improvements is to be established if
General Cass shall be elected. Almost half the Democrats here are for
improvements; but they will vote for Cass, and if he succeeds, their vote
will have aided in closing the doors against improvements. Now this is a
process which we think is wrong. We prefer a candidate who, like General
Taylor, will allow the people to have their own way, regardless of his
private opinions; and I should think the internal-improvement Democrats,
at least, ought to prefer such a candidate. He would force nothing on
them which they don't want, and he would allow them to have improvements
which their own candidate, if elected, will not.

Mr. Speaker, I have said General Taylor's position is as well defined as
is that of General Cass. In saying this, I admit I do not certainly know
what he would do on the Wilmot Proviso. I am a Northern man or rather a
Western Free-State man, with a constituency I believe to be, and with
personal feelings I know to be, against the extension of slavery. As
such, and with what information I have, I hope and believe General
Taylor, if elected, would not veto the proviso. But I do not know it. Yet
if I knew he would, I still would vote for him. I should do so because,
in my judgment, his election alone can defeat General Cass; and because,
should slavery thereby go to the territory we now have, just so much will
certainly happen by the election of Cass, and in addition a course of
policy leading to new wars, new acquisitions of territory and still
further extensions of slavery. One of the two is to be President. Which
is preferable?