The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Complete

A >> Abraham Lincoln >> The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Complete


Again, it is charged, or rather insinuated, that officers of the Bank
have loaned money at usurious rates of interest. Suppose this to be
true, are we to send a committee of this House to inquire into it?
Suppose the committee should find it true, can they redress the injured
individuals? Assuredly not. If any individual had been injured in this
way, is there not an ample remedy to be found in the laws of the land?
Does the gentleman from Coles know that there is a statute standing in
full force making it highly penal for an individual to loan money at a
higher rate of interest than twelve per cent? If he does not he is too
ignorant to be placed at the head of the committee which his resolution
purposes and if he does, his neglect to mention it shows him to be too
uncandid to merit the respect or confidence of any one.

But besides all this, if the Bank were struck from existence, could not
the owners of the capital still loan it usuriously, as well as now?
whatever the Bank, or its officers, may have done, I know that usurious
transactions were much more frequent and enormous before the commencement
of its operations than they have ever been since.

The next insinuation is, that the Bank has refused specie payments.
This, if true is a violation of the charter. But there is not the least
probability of its truth; because, if such had been the fact, the
individual to whom payment was refused would have had an interest in
making it public, by suing for the damages to which the charter entitles
him. Yet no such thing has been done; and the strong presumption is,
that the insinuation is false and groundless.

From this to the end of the resolution, there is nothing that merits
attention--I therefore drop the particular examination of it.

By a general view of the resolution, it will be seen that a principal
object of the committee is to examine into, and ferret out, a mass of
corruption supposed to have been committed by the commissioners who
apportioned the stock of the Bank. I believe it is universally
understood and acknowledged that all men will ever act correctly unless
they have a motive to do otherwise. If this be true, we can only suppose
that the commissioners acted corruptly by also supposing that they were
bribed to do so. Taking this view of the subject, I would ask if the Bank
is likely to find it more difficult to bribe the committee of seven,
which, we are about to appoint, than it may have found it to bribe the
commissioners?

(Here Mr. Linder called to order. The Chair decided that Mr. Lincoln was
not out of order. Mr. Linder appealed to the House, but, before the
question was put, withdrew his appeal, saying he preferred to let the
gentleman go on; he thought he would break his own neck. Mr. Lincoln
proceeded:)

Another gracious condescension! I acknowledge it with gratitude. I know
I was not out of order; and I know every sensible man in the House knows
it. I was not saying that the gentleman from Coles could be bribed, nor,
on the other hand, will I say he could not. In that particular I leave
him where I found him. I was only endeavoring to show that there was at
least as great a probability of any seven members that could be selected
from this House being bribed to act corruptly, as there was that the
twenty-four commissioners had been so bribed. By a reference to the
ninth section of the Bank charter, it will be seen that those
commissioners were John Tilson, Robert K. McLaughlin, Daniel Warm, A.G.
S. Wight, John C. Riley, W. H. Davidson, Edward M. Wilson, Edward L.
Pierson, Robert R. Green, Ezra Baker, Aquilla Wren, John Taylor, Samuel
C. Christy, Edmund Roberts, Benjamin Godfrey, Thomas Mather, A. M.
Jenkins, W. Linn, W. S. Gilman, Charles Prentice, Richard I. Hamilton,
A.H. Buckner, W. F. Thornton, and Edmund D. Taylor.

These are twenty-four of the most respectable men in the State. Probably
no twenty-four men could be selected in the State with whom the people
are better acquainted, or in whose honor and integrity they would more
readily place confidence. And I now repeat, that there is less
probability that those men have been bribed and corrupted, than that any
seven men, or rather any six men, that could be selected from the members
of this House, might be so bribed and corrupted, even though they were
headed and led on by "decided superiority" himself.

In all seriousness, I ask every reasonable man, if an issue be joined by
these twenty-four commissioners, on the one part, and any other seven
men, on the other part, and the whole depend upon the honor and integrity
of the contending parties, to which party would the greatest degree of
credit be due? Again: Another consideration is, that we have no right to
make the examination. What I shall say upon this head I design
exclusively for the law-loving and law-abiding part of the House. To
those who claim omnipotence for the Legislature, and who in the plenitude
of their assumed powers are disposed to disregard the Constitution, law,
good faith, moral right, and everything else, I have not a word to say.
But to the law-abiding part I say, examine the Bank charter, go examine
the Constitution, go examine the acts that the General Assembly of this
State has passed, and you will find just as much authority given in each
and every of them to compel the Bank to bring its coffers to this hall
and to pour their contents upon this floor, as to compel it to submit to
this examination which this resolution proposes. Why, Sir, the gentleman
from Coles, the mover of this resolution, very lately denied on this
floor that the Legislature had any right to repeal or otherwise meddle
with its own acts, when those acts were made in the nature of contracts,
and had been accepted and acted on by other parties. Now I ask if this
resolution does not propose, for this House alone, to do what he, but the
other day, denied the right of the whole Legislature to do? He must
either abandon the position he then took, or he must now vote against his
own resolution. It is no difference to me, and I presume but little to
any one else, which he does.

I am by no means the special advocate of the Bank. I have long thought
that it would be well for it to report its condition to the General
Assembly, and that cases might occur, when it might be proper to make an
examination of its affairs by a committee. Accordingly, during the last
session, while a bill supplemental to the Bank charter was pending before
the House, I offered an amendment to the same, in these words: "The said
corporation shall, at the next session of the General Assembly, and at
each subsequent General Session, during the existence of its charter,
report to the same the amount of debts due from said corporation; the
amount of debts due to the same; the amount of specie in its vaults, and
an account of all lands then owned by the same, and the amount for which
such lands have been taken; and moreover, if said corporation shall at
any time neglect or refuse to submit its books, papers, and all and
everything necessary for a full and fair examination of its affairs, to
any person or persons appointed by the General Assembly, for the purpose
of making such examination, the said corporation shall forfeit its
charter."

This amendment was negatived by a vote of 34 to 15. Eleven of the 34 who
voted against it are now members of this House; and though it would be
out of order to call their names, I hope they will all recollect
themselves, and not vote for this examination to be made without
authority, inasmuch as they refused to receive the authority when it was
in their power to do so.

I have said that cases might occur, when an examination might be proper;
but I do not believe any such case has now occurred; and if it has, I
should still be opposed to making an examination without legal authority.
I am opposed to encouraging that lawless and mobocratic spirit, whether
in relation to the Bank or anything else, which is already abroad in the
land and is spreading with rapid and fearful impetuosity, to the ultimate
overthrow of every institution, of every moral principle, in which
persons and property have hitherto found security.

But supposing we had the authority, I would ask what good can result from
the examination? Can we declare the Bank unconstitutional, and compel it
to desist from the abuses of its power, provided we find such abuses to
exist? Can we repair the injuries which it may have done to individuals?
Most certainly we can do none of these things. Why then shall we spend
the public money in such employment? Oh, say the examiners, we can
injure the credit of the Bank, if nothing else, Please tell me,
gentlemen, who will suffer most by that? You cannot injure, to any
extent, the stockholders. They are men of wealth--of large capital; and
consequently, beyond the power of malice. But by injuring the credit of
the Bank, you will depreciate the value of its paper in the hands of the
honest and unsuspecting farmer and mechanic, and that is all you can do.
But suppose you could effect your whole purpose; suppose you could wipe
the Bank from existence, which is the grand ultimatum of the project,
what would be the consequence? why, Sir, we should spend several thousand
dollars of the public treasure in the operation, annihilate the currency
of the State, render valueless in the hands of our people that reward of
their former labors, and finally be once more under the comfortable
obligation of paying the Wiggins loan, principal and interest.




OPPOSITION TO MOB-RULE

ADDRESS BEFORE THE YOUNG MEN'S LYCEUM OF SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS.

January 27, 1837.

As a subject for the remarks of the evening, "The Perpetuation of our
Political Institutions" is selected.

In the great journal of things happening under the sun, we, the American
people, find our account running under date of the nineteenth century of
the Christian era. We find ourselves in the peaceful possession of the
fairest portion of the earth as regards extent of territory, fertility of
soil, and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government
of a system of political institutions conducing more essentially to the
ends of civil and religious liberty than any of which the history of
former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, found
ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled
not in the acquirement or establishment of them; they are a legacy
bequeathed us by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and
departed, race of ancestors. Theirs was the task (and nobly they
performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves us, of this
goodly land, and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys a political
edifice of liberty and equal rights; it is ours only to transmit
these--the former unprofaned by the foot of an invader, the latter
undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation--to the latest
generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task gratitude
to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our
species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.

How then shall we perform it? At what point shall we expect the approach
of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect
some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a
blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with
all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest,
with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from
the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand
years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer:
If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from
abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and
finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die
by suicide.

I hope I am over-wary; but if I am not, there is even now something of
ill omen amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which
pervades the country--the growing disposition to substitute the wild and
furious passions in lieu of the sober judgment of courts, and the worse
than savage mobs for the executive ministers of justice. This
disposition is awfully fearful in any community; and that it now exists
in ours, though grating to our feelings to admit, it would be a violation
of truth and an insult to our intelligence to deny. Accounts of outrages
committed by mobs form the everyday news of the times. They have pervaded
the country from New England to Louisiana; they are neither peculiar to
the eternal snows of the former nor the burning suns of the latter; they
are not the creature of climate, neither are they confined to the slave
holding or the non-slave holding States. Alike they spring up among the
pleasure-hunting masters of Southern slaves, and the order-loving
citizens of the land of steady habits. Whatever then their cause may be,
it is common to the whole country.

It would be tedious as well as useless to recount the horrors of all of
them. Those happening in the State of Mississippi and at St. Louis are
perhaps the most dangerous in example and revolting to humanity. In the
Mississippi case they first commenced by hanging the regular gamblers--a
set of men certainly not following for a livelihood a very useful or very
honest occupation, but one which, so far from being forbidden by the
laws, was actually licensed by an act of the Legislature passed but a
single year before. Next, negroes suspected of conspiring to raise an
insurrection were caught up and hanged in all parts of the State; then,
white men supposed to be leagued with the negroes; and finally, strangers
from neighboring States, going thither on business, were in many
instances subjected to the same fate. Thus went on this process of
hanging, from gamblers to negroes, from negroes to white citizens, and
from these to strangers, till dead men were seen literally dangling from
the boughs of trees upon every roadside, and in numbers almost sufficient
to rival the native Spanish moss of the country as a drapery of the
forest.

Turn then to that horror-striking scene at St. Louis. A single victim
only was sacrificed there. This story is very short, and is perhaps the
most highly tragic of anything of its length that has ever been witnessed
in real life. A mulatto man by the name of McIntosh was seized in the
street, dragged to the suburbs of the city, chained to a tree, and
actually burned to death; and all within a single hour from the time he
had been a freeman attending to his own business and at peace with the
world.

Such are the effects of mob law, and such are the scenes becoming more
and more frequent in this land so lately famed for love of law and order,
and the stories of which have even now grown too familiar to attract
anything more than an idle remark.

But you are perhaps ready to ask, "What has this to do with the
perpetuation of our political institutions?" I answer, It has much to do
with it. Its direct consequences are, comparatively speaking, but a
small evil, and much of its danger consists in the proneness of our minds
to regard its direct as its only consequences. Abstractly considered,
the hanging of the gamblers at Vicksburg was of but little consequence.
They constitute a portion of population that is worse than useless in any
community; and their death, if no pernicious example be set by it, is
never matter of reasonable regret with any one. If they were annually
swept from the stage of existence by the plague or smallpox, honest men
would perhaps be much profited by the operation. Similar too is the
correct reasoning in regard to the burning of the negro at St. Louis.
He had forfeited his life by the perpetration of an outrageous murder
upon one of the most worthy and respectable citizens of the city, and had
he not died as he did, he must have died by the sentence of the law in a
very short time afterwards. As to him alone, it was as well the way it
was as it could otherwise have been. But the example in either case was
fearful. When men take it in their heads to-day to hang gamblers or burn
murderers, they should recollect that in the confusion usually attending
such transactions they will be as likely to hang or burn some one who is
neither a gambler nor a murderer as one who is, and that, acting upon the
example they set, the mob of to-morrow may, and probably will, hang or
burn some of them by the very same mistake. And not only so: the
innocent, those who have ever set their faces against violations of law
in every shape, alike with the guilty fall victims to the ravages of mob
law; and thus it goes on, step by step, till all the walls erected for
the defense of the persons and property of individuals are trodden down
and disregarded. But all this, even, is not the full extent of the evil.
By such examples, by instances of the perpetrators of such acts going
unpunished, the lawless in spirit are encouraged to become lawless in
practice; and having been used to no restraint but dread of punishment,
they thus become absolutely unrestrained. Having ever regarded
government as their deadliest bane, they make a jubilee of the suspension
of its operations, and pray for nothing so much as its total
annihilation. While, on the other hand, good men, men who love
tranquillity, who desire to abide by the laws and enjoy their benefits,
who would gladly spill their blood in the defense of their country,
seeing their property destroyed, their families insulted, and their lives
endangered, their persons injured, and seeing nothing in prospect that
forebodes a change for the better, become tired of and disgusted with a
government that offers them no protection, and are not much averse to a
change in which they imagine they have nothing to lose. Thus, then, by
the operation of this mobocratic spirit which all must admit is now
abroad in the land, the strongest bulwark of any government, and
particularly of those constituted like ours, may effectually be broken
down and destroyed--I mean the attachment of the people. Whenever this
effect shall be produced among us; whenever the vicious portion of
population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and
thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision-stores, throw
printing presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious
persons at pleasure and with impunity, depend on it, this government
cannot last. By such things the feelings of the best citizens will
become more or less alienated from it, and thus it will be left without
friends, or with too few, and those few too weak to make their friendship
effectual. At such a time, and under such circumstances, men of
sufficient talent and ambition will not be wanting to seize the
opportunity, strike the blow, and overturn that fair fabric which for the
last half century has been the fondest hope of the lovers of freedom
throughout the world.

I know the American people are much attached to their government; I know
they would suffer much for its sake; I know they would endure evils long
and patiently before they would ever think of exchanging it for
another,--yet, notwithstanding all this, if the laws be continually
despised and disregarded, if their rights to be secure in their persons
and property are held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob, the
alienation of their affections from the government is the natural
consequence; and to that, sooner or later, it must come.

Here, then, is one point at which danger may be expected.

The question recurs, How shall we fortify against it? The answer is
simple. Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to
his posterity swear by the blood of the Revolution never to violate in
the least particular the laws of the country, and never to tolerate their
violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support
of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution
and laws let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred
honor. Let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on
the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his
children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every
American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap; let it be
taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in
primers, spelling books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the
pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of
justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the
nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave
and the gay of all sexes and tongues and colors and conditions, sacrifice
unceasingly upon its altars.

While ever a state of feeling such as this shall universally or even very
generally prevail throughout the nation, vain will be every effort, and
fruitless every attempt, to subvert our national freedom.

When, I so pressingly urge a strict observance of all the laws, let me
not be understood as saying there are no bad laws, or that grievances may
not arise for the redress of which no legal provisions have been made. I
mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say that although bad laws,
if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still, while they
continue in force, for the sake of example they should be religiously
observed. So also in unprovided cases. If such arise, let proper legal
provisions be made for them with the least possible delay, but till then
let them, if not too intolerable, be borne with.

There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law. In any
case that may arise, as, for instance, the promulgation of abolitionism,
one of two positions is necessarily true--that is, the thing is right
within itself, and therefore deserves the protection of all law and all
good citizens, or it is wrong, and therefore proper to be prohibited by
legal enactments; and in neither case is the interposition of mob law
either necessary, justifiable, or excusable.

But it may be asked, Why suppose danger to our political institutions?
Have we not preserved them for more than fifty years? And why may we not
for fifty times as long?

We hope there is no sufficient reason. We hope all danger may be
overcome; but to conclude that no danger may ever arise would itself be
extremely dangerous. There are now, and will hereafter be, many causes,
dangerous in their tendency, which have not existed heretofore, and which
are not too insignificant to merit attention. That our government should
have been maintained in its original form, from its establishment until
now, is not much to be wondered at. It had many props to support it
through that period, which now are decayed and crumbled away. Through
that period it was felt by all to be an undecided experiment; now it is
understood to be a successful one. Then, all that sought celebrity and
fame and distinction expected to find them in the success of that
experiment. Their all was staked upon it; their destiny was inseparably
linked with it. Their ambition aspired to display before an admiring
world a practical demonstration of the truth of a proposition which had
hitherto been considered at best no better than problematical--namely,
the capability of a people to govern themselves. If they succeeded they
were to be immortalized; their names were to be transferred to counties,
and cities, and rivers, and mountains; and to be revered and sung,
toasted through all time. If they failed, they were to be called knaves
and fools, and fanatics for a fleeting hour; then to sink and be
forgotten. They succeeded. The experiment is successful, and thousands
have won their deathless names in making it so. But the game is caught;
and I believe it is true that with the catching end the pleasures of the
chase. This field of glory is harvested, and the crop is already
appropriated. But new reapers will arise, and they too will seek a
field. It is to deny what the history of the world tells us is true, to
suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up
amongst us. And when they do, they will as naturally seek the
gratification of their ruling passion as others have done before them.
The question then is, Can that gratification be found in supporting and
in maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly
it cannot. Many great and good men, sufficiently qualified for any task
they should undertake, may ever be found whose ambition would aspire to
nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a Gubernatorial or a Presidential
chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the
eagle. What! think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a
Caesar, or a Napoleon? Never! Towering genius disdains a beaten path.
It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. It sees no distinction in adding
story to story upon the monuments of fame erected to the memory of
others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It
scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious.
It thirsts and burns for distinction; and if possible, it will have it,
whether at the expense of emancipating slaves or enslaving freemen. Is
it unreasonable, then, to expect that some man possessed of the loftiest
genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost
stretch, will at some time spring up among us? And when such an one does
it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the
government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate
his designs.