The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Complete

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"I am not now going to discuss the question what is a material
obstruction. We do not greatly differ about the law. The cases produced
here are, I suppose, proper to be taken into consideration by the court
in instructing a jury. Some of them I think are not exactly in point, but
I am still willing to trust his honor, Judge McLean, and take his
instructions as law. What is reasonable skill and care? This is a thing
of which the jury are to judge. I differ from the other side when it says
that they are bound to exercise no more care than was taken before the
building of the bridge. If we are allowed by the Legislature to build the
bridge which will require them to do more than before, when a pilot comes
along, it is unreasonable for him to dash on heedless of this structure
which has been legally put there. The Afton came there on the 5th and lay
at Rock Island until next morning. When a boat lies up the pilot has a
holiday, and would not any of these jurors have then gone around to the
bridge and gotten acquainted with the place? Pilot Parker has shown here
that he does not understand the draw. I heard him say that the fall from
the head to the foot of the pier was four feet; he needs information. He
could have gone there that day and seen there was no such fall. He should
have discarded passion and the chances are that he would have had no
disaster at all. He was bound to make himself acquainted with the place.

"McCammon says that the current and the swell coming from the long pier
drove her against the long pier. In other words drove her toward the very
pier from which the current came! It is an absurdity, an impossibility.
The only recollection I can find for this contradiction is in a current
which White says strikes out from the long pier and then like a ram's
horn turns back, and this might have acted somehow in this manner.

"It is agreed by all that the plaintiff's boat was destroyed and that it
was destroyed upon the head of the short pier; that she moved from the
channel where she was with her bow above the head of the long pier, till
she struck the short one, swung around under the bridge and there was
crowded and destroyed.

"I shall try to prove that the average velocity of the current through
the draw with the boat in it should be five and a half miles an hour;
that it is slowest at the head of the pier and swiftest at the foot of
the pier. Their lowest estimate in evidence is six miles an hour, their
highest twelve miles. This was the testimony of men who had made no
experiment, only conjecture. We have adopted the most exact means. The
water runs swiftest in high water and we have taken the point of nine
feet above low water. The water when the Afton was lost was seven feet
above low water, or at least a foot lower than our time. Brayton and his
assistants timed the instruments, the best instruments known in measuring
currents. They timed them under various circumstances and they found the
current five miles an hour and no more. They found that the water at the
upper end ran slower than five miles; that below it was swifter than five
miles, but that the average was five miles. Shall men who have taken no
care, who conjecture, some of whom speak of twenty miles an hour, be
believed against those who have had such a favorable and well improved
opportunity? They should not even qualify the result. Several men have
given their opinion as to the distance of the steamboat Carson, and I
suppose if one should go and measure that distance you would believe him
in preference to all of them.

"These measurements were made when the boat was not in the draw. It has
been ascertained what is the area of the cross section of this stream and
the area of the face of the piers, and the engineers say that the piers
being put there will increase the current proportionally as the space is
decreased. So with the boat in the draw. The depth of the channel was
twenty-two feet, the width one hundred and sixteen feet; multiply these
and you have the square-feet across the water of the draw, viz.: 2552
feet. The Afton was 35 feet wide and drew 5 feet, making a fourteenth of
the sum. Now, one-fourteenth of five miles is five-fourteenths of one
mile--about one third of a mile--the increase of the current. We will
call the current five and a half miles per hour. The next thing I will
try to prove is that the plaintiff's (?) boat had power to run six miles
an hour in that current. It had been testified that she was a strong,
swift boat, able to run eight miles an hour up stream in a current of
four miles an hour, and fifteen miles down stream. Strike the average and
you will find what is her average--about eleven and a half miles. Take
the five and a half miles which is the speed of the current in the draw
and it leaves the power of that boat in that draw at six miles an hour,
528 feet per minute and 8 4/5 feet to the second.

"Next I propose to show that there are no cross currents. I know their
witnesses say that there are cross currents--that, as one witness says,
there were three cross currents and two eddies; so far as mere statement,
without experiment, and mingled with mistakes, can go, they have proved.
But can these men's testimony be compared with the nice, exact, thorough
experiments of our witnesses? Can you believe that these floats go across
the currents? It is inconceivable that they could not have discovered
every possible current. How do boats find currents that floats cannot
discover? We assume the position then that those cross currents are not
there. My next proposition is that the Afton passed between the S. B.
Carson and the Iowa shore. That is undisputed.

"Next I shall show that she struck first the short pier, then the long
pier, then the short one again and there she stopped." Mr. Lincoln then
cited the testimony of eighteen witnesses on this point.

"How did the boat strike when she went in? Here is an endless variety of
opinion. But ten of them say what pier she struck; three of them testify
that she struck first the short, then the long and then the short for the
last time. None of the rest substantially contradict this. I assume that
these men have got the truth because I believe it an established fact. My
next proposition is that after she struck the short and long pier and
before she got back to the short pier the boat got right with her bow up.
So says the pilot Parker--that he got her through until her starboard
wheel passed the short pier. This would make her head about even with the
head of the long pier. He says her head was as high or higher than the
head of the long pier. Other witnesses confirmed this one. The final
stroke was in the splash door aft the wheel. Witnesses differ, but the
majority say that she struck thus."

Court adjourned.

14th day, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 1857.

Mr. A. LINCOLN resumed. He said he should conclude as soon as possible.
He said the colored map of the plaintiff which was brought in during one
stage of the trial showed itself that the cross currents alleged did not
exist. That the current as represented would drive an ascending boat to
the long pier but not to the short pier, as they urge. He explained from
a model of a boat where the splash door is, just behind the wheel. The
boat struck on the lower shoulder of the short pier as she swung around
in the splash door; then as she went on around she struck the point or
end of the pier, where she rested. "Her engineers," said Mr. Lincoln,
"say the starboard wheel then was rushing around rapidly. Then the boat
must have struck the upper point of the pier so far back as not to
disturb the wheel. It is forty feet from the stern of the Afton to the
splash door, and thus it appears that she had but forty feet to go to
clear the pier. How was it that the Afton with all her power flanked over
from the channel to the short pier without moving one foot ahead? Suppose
she was in the middle of the draw, her wheel would have been 31 feet from
the short pier. The reason she went over thus is her starboard wheel was
not working. I shall try to establish the fact that the wheel was not
running and that after she struck she went ahead strong on this same
wheel. Upon the last point the witnesses agree, that the starboard wheel
was running after she struck, and no witnesses say that it was running
while she was out in the draw flanking over."

Mr. Lincoln read from the testimonies of various witnesses to prove that
the starboard wheel was not working while the Afton was out in the
stream.

"Other witnesses show that the captain said something of the machinery of
the wheel, and the inference is that he knew the wheel was not working.
The fact is undisputed that she did not move one inch ahead while she was
moving this 31 feet sideways. There is evidence proving that the current
there is only five miles an hour, and the only explanation is that her
power was not all used--that only one wheel was working. The pilot says
he ordered the engineers to back her up. The engineers differ from him
and said they kept on going ahead. The bow was so swung that the current
pressed it over; the pilot pressed the stern over with the rudder, though
not so fast but that the bow gained on it, and only one wheel being in
motion the boat nearly stood still so far as motion up and down is
concerned, and thus she was thrown upon this pier. The Afton came into
the draw after she had just passed the Carson, and as the Carson no doubt
kept the true course the Afton going around her got out of the proper
way, got across the current into the eddy which is west of a straight
line drawn down from the long pier, was compelled to resort to these
changes of wheels, which she did not do with sufficient adroitness to
save her. Was it not her own fault that she entered wrong, so far wrong
that she never got right? Is the defence to blame for that?

"For several days we were entertained with depositions about boats
'smelling a bar.' Why did the Afton then, after she had come up smelling
so close to the long pier sheer off so strangely. When she got to the
centre of the very nose she was smelling she seemed suddenly to have lost
her sense of smell and to have flanked over to the short pier."

Mr. Lincoln said there was no practicability in the project of building a
tunnel under the river, for there "is not a tunnel that is a successful
project in this world. A suspension bridge cannot be built so high but
that the chimneys of the boats will grow up till they cannot pass. The
steamboat men will take pains to make them grow. The cars of a railroad
cannot without immense expense rise high enough to get even with a
suspension bridge or go low enough to get through a tunnel; such expense
is unreasonable.

"The plaintiffs have to establish that the bridge is a material
obstruction and that they have managed their boat with reasonable care
and skill. As to the last point high winds have nothing to do with it,
for it was not a windy day. They must show due skill and care.
Difficulties going down stream will not do, for they were going up
stream. Difficulties with barges in tow have nothing to do with the
accident, for they had no barge." Mr. Lincoln said he had much more to
say, many things he could suggest to the jury, but he wished to close to
save time.




TO JESSE K. DUBOIS.

DEAR DUBOIS:

BLOOMINGTON, Dec. 19, 1857.

J. M. Douglas of the I. C. R. R. Co. is here and will carry this letter.
He says they have a large sum (near $90,000) which they will pay into the
treasury now, if they have an assurance that they shall not be sued
before Jan., 1859--otherwise not. I really wish you could consent to
this. Douglas says they cannot pay more, and I believe him.

I do not write this as a lawyer seeking an advantage for a client; but
only as a friend, only urging you to do what I think I would do if I were
in your situation. I mean this as private and confidential only, but I
feel a good deal of anxiety about it.

Yours as ever,
A. LINCOLN.




TO JOSEPH GILLESPIE.

SPRINGFIELD, Jan. 19, 1858.

MY DEAR SIR: This morning Col. McClernand showed me a petition for a
mandamus against the Secretary of State to compel him to certify the
apportionment act of last session; and he says it will be presented to
the court to-morrow morning. We shall be allowed three or four days to
get up a return, and I, for one, want the benefit of consultation with
you.

Please come right up.

Yours as ever,
A. LINCOLN.




TO J. GILLESPIE.

SPRINGFIELD, Feb 7, 1858

MY DEAR SIR: Yesterday morning the court overruled the demurrer to
Hatches return in the mandamus case. McClernand was present; said nothing
about pleading over; and so I suppose the matter is ended.

The court gave no reason for the decision; but Peck tells me
confidentially that they were unanimous in the opinion that even if the
Gov'r had signed the bill purposely, he had the right to scratch his name
off so long as the bill remained in his custody and control.

Yours as ever,
A. LINCOLN.




TO H. C. WHITNEY.

SPRINGFIELD, December 18, 1857.
HENRY C. WHITNEY, ESQ.

MY DEAR SIR:--Coming home from Bloomington last night I found your letter
of the 15th.

I know of no express statute or decisions as to what a J. P. upon the
expiration of his term shall do with his docket books, papers, unfinished
business, etc., but so far as I know, the practice has been to hand over
to the successor, and to cease to do anything further whatever, in
perfect analogy to Sections 110 and 112, and I have supposed and do
suppose this is the law. I think the successor may forthwith do whatever
the retiring J. P. might have done. As to the proviso to Section 114 I
think it was put in to cover possible cases, by way of caution, and not
to authorize the J. P. to go forward and finish up whatever might have
been begun by him.

The view I take, I believe, is the Common law principle, as to retiring
officers and their successors, to which I remember but one exception,
which is the case of Sheriff and ministerial officers of that class.

I have not had time to examine this subject fully, but I have great
confidence I am right. You must not think of offering me pay for this.

Mr. John O. Johnson is my friend; I gave your name to him. He is doing
the work of trying to get up a Republican organization. I do not suppose
"Long John" ever saw or heard of him. Let me say to you confidentially,
that I do not entirely appreciate what the Republican papers of Chicago
are so constantly saying against "Long John." I consider those papers
truly devoted to the Republican cause, and not unfriendly to me; but I do
think that more of what they say against "Long John" is dictated by
personal malice than themselves are conscious of. We can not afford to
lose the services of "Long John" and I do believe the unrelenting warfare
made upon him is injuring our cause. I mean this to be confidential.

If you quietly co-operate with Mr. J. O. Johnson on getting up an
organization, I think it will be right.

Your friend as ever,
A. LINCOLN.




1858
ANOTHER POLITICAL PATRONAGE REFERENCE
TO EDWARD G. MINER.

SPRINGFIELD, Feb.19, 1858.
MY DEAR SIR:

Mr. G. A. Sutton is an applicant for superintendent of the addition of
the Insane Asylum, and I understand it partly depends on you whether he
gets it.

Sutton is my fellow-townsman and friend, and I therefore wish to say for
him that he is a man of sterling integrity and as a master mechanic and
builder not surpassed by any in our city, or any I have known anywhere,
as far as I can judge. I hope you will consider me as being really
interested for Mr. Sutton and not as writing merely to relieve myself of
importunity. Please show this to Col. William Ross and let him consider
it as much intended for him as for yourself.

Your friend as ever,
A. LINCOLN.




POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

TO W. H. LAMON, ESQ.
SPRINGFIELD, JUNE 11, 1858

DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 9th written at Joliet is just received. Two or
three days ago I learned that McLean had appointed delegates in favor of
Lovejoy, and thenceforward I have considered his renomination a fixed
fact. My opinion--if my opinion is of any consequence in this case, in
which it is no business of mine to interfere--remains unchanged, that
running an independent candidate against Lovejoy will not do; that it
will result in nothing but disaster all round. In the first place,
whosoever so runs will be beaten and will be spotted for life; in the
second place, while the race is in progress, he will be under the
strongest temptation to trade with the Democrats, and to favor the
election of certain of their friends to the Legislature; thirdly, I shall
be held responsible for it, and Republican members of the Legislature who
are partial to Lovejoy will for that purpose oppose us; and lastly, it
will in the end lose us the district altogether. There is no safe way but
a convention; and if in that convention, upon a common platform which all
are willing to stand upon, one who has been known as an abolitionist, but
who is now occupying none but common ground, can get the majority of the
votes to which all look for an election, there is no safe way but to
submit.

As to the inclination of some Republicans to favor Douglas, that is one
of the chances I have to run, and which I intend to run with patience.

I write in the court room. Court has opened, and I must close.

Yours as ever,
A. LINCOLN.




BRIEF AUTOBIOGRAPHY,

JUNE 15, 1858.

The compiler of the Dictionary of Congress states that while preparing
that work for publication, in 1858, he sent to Mr. Lincoln the usual
request for a sketch of his life, and received the following reply:

Born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky.
Education, defective.
Profession, a lawyer.
Have been a captain of volunteers in Black Hawk war.
Postmaster at a very small office.
Four times a member of the Illinois Legislature and was
a member of the lower house of Congress.

Yours, etc.,
A. LINCOLN.






THE WRITINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Volume Three

CONSTITUTIONAL EDITION



THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES I

POLITICAL SPEECHES & DEBATES of LINCOLN WITH DOUGLAS
In the Senatorial Campaign of 1858 in Illinois
SPEECH AT SPRINGFIELD, JUNE 17, 1858



[The following speech was delivered at Springfield, Ill., at the close of
the Republican State Convention held at that time and place, and by which
Convention Mr. LINCOLN had been named as their candidate for United
States Senator. Mr. DOUGLAS was not present.]


Mr. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION:--If we could first know
where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to
do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy
was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an
end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that
agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my
opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and
passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this
government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not
expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but
I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or
all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further
spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief
that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will
push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old
as well as new, North as well as South.

Have we no tendency to the latter condition?

Let any one who doubts, carefully contemplate that now almost complete
legal combination-piece of machinery, so to speak compounded of the
Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider, not only
what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted, but also
let him study the history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or
rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design, and concert of
action, among its chief architects, from the beginning.

The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more than half the
States by State Constitutions, and from most of the National territory by
Congressional prohibition. Four days later, commenced the struggle which
ended in repealing that Congressional prohibition. This opened all the
National territory to slavery, and was the first point gained.

But, so far, Congress only had acted, and an indorsement by the people,
real or apparent, was indispensable to save the point already gained, and
give chance for more.

This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been provided for, as
well as might be, in the notable argument of "squatter sovereignty,"
otherwise called "sacred right of self-government," which latter phrase,
though expressive of the only rightful basis of any government, was so
perverted in this attempted use of it as to amount to just this: That if
any one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to
object. That argument was incorporated into the Nebraska Bill itself, in
the language which follows:

"It being the true intent and meaning of this Act not to legislate
slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to
leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their
domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution
of the United States."

Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor of "squatter
sovereignty," and "sacred right of self-government." "But," said
opposition members, "let us amend the bill so as to expressly declare
that the people of the Territory may exclude slavery." "Not we," said the
friends of the measure, and down they voted the amendment.

While the Nebraska Bill was passing through Congress, a law case,
involving the question of a negro's freedom, by reason of his owner
having voluntarily taken him first into a free State, and then into a
territory covered by the Congressional Prohibition, and held him as a
slave for a long time in each, was passing through the United States
Circuit Court for the District of Missouri; and both Nebraska Bill and
lawsuit were brought to a decision in the same month of May, 1854. The
negro's name was "Dred Scott," which name now designates the decision
finally made in the case. Before the then next Presidential election, the
law case came to, and was argued in, the Supreme Court of the United
States; but the decision of it was deferred until after the election.
Still, before the election, Senator Trumbull, on the floor of the Senate,
requested the leading advocate of the Nebraska Bill to state his opinion
whether the people of a territory can constitutionally exclude slavery
from their limits; and the latter answers: "That is a question for the
Supreme Court."

The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorsement, such as
it was, secured. That was the second point gained. The indorsement,
however, fell short of a clear popular majority by nearly four hundred
thousand votes,(approximately 10% of the vote) and so, perhaps, was not
overwhelmingly reliable and satisfactory. The outgoing President, in his
last annual message, as impressively as possible echoed back upon the
people the weight and authority of the indorsement. The Supreme Court met
again, did not announce their decision, but ordered a reargument. The
Presidential inauguration came, and still no decision of the court; but
the incoming President, in his inaugural address, fervently exhorted the
people to abide by the forth-coming decision, whatever it might be. Then,
in a few days, came the decision.

The reputed author of the Nebraska Bill finds an early occasion to make a
speech at this capital indorsing the Dred Scott decision, and vehemently
denouncing all opposition to it. The new President, too, seizes the early
occasion of the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly construe that
decision, and to express his astonishment that any different view had
ever been entertained!

At length a squabble springs up between the President and the author of
the Nebraska Bill, on the mere question of fact, whether the Lecompton
Constitution was or was not in any just sense made by the people of
Kansas; and in that quarrel the latter declares that all he wants is a
fair vote for the people, and that he cares not whether slavery be voted
down or voted up. I do not understand his declaration, that he cares not
whether slavery be voted down or voted up, to be intended by him other
than as an apt definition of the policy he would impress upon the public
mind,--the principle for which he declares he has suffered so much, and
is ready to suffer to the end. And well may he cling to that principle!
If he has any parental feeling, well may he cling to it. That principle
is the only shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred
Scott decision "squatter sovereignty" squatted out of existence, tumbled
down like temporary scaffolding; like the mould at the foundry, served
through one blast, and fell back into loose sand; helped to carry an
election, and then was kicked to the winds. His late joint struggle with
the Republicans, against the Lecompton Constitution, involves nothing of
the original Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was made on a point--the
right of a people to make their own constitution--upon which he and the
Republicans have never differed.