The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 5

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THE WRITINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Volume Five

1858-1862


CONSTITUTIONAL EDITION




TO SYDNEY SPRING, GRAYVILLE, ILL.

SPRINGFIELD, June 19, 1858.

SYDNEY SPRING, Esq.

MY DEAR SIR:--Your letter introducing Mr. Faree was duly received. There
was no opening to nominate him for Superintendent of Public Instruction,
but through him Egypt made a most valuable contribution to the
convention. I think it may be fairly said that he came off the lion of
the day--or rather of the night. Can you not elect him to the
Legislature? It seems to me he would be hard to beat. What objection
could be made to him? What is your Senator Martin saying and doing? What
is Webb about?

Please write me. Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.




TO H. C. WHITNEY.

SPRINGFIELD, June 24, 1858

H. C. WHITNEY, ESQ.

DEAR SIR:--Your letter enclosing the attack of the Times upon me was
received this morning. Give yourself no concern about my voting against
the supplies. Unless you are without faith that a lie can be successfully
contradicted, there is not a word of truth in the charge, and I am just
considering a little as to the best shape to put a contradiction in. Show
this to whomever you please, but do not publish it in the paper.

Your friend as ever,

A. LINCOLN.




TO J. W. SOMERS.

SPRINGFIELD, June 25, 1858.

JAMES W. SOMERS, Esq.

MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 22nd, inclosing a draft of two hundred
dollars, was duly received. I have paid it on the judgment, and herewith
you have the receipt. I do not wish to say anything as to who shall be
the Republican candidate for the Legislature in your district, further
than that I have full confidence in Dr. Hull. Have you ever got in the
way of consulting with McKinley in political matters? He is true as
steel, and his judgment is very good. The last I heard from him, he
rather thought Weldon, of De Witt, was our best timber for
representative, all things considered. But you there must settle it among
yourselves. It may well puzzle older heads than yours to understand how,
as the Dred Scott decision holds, Congress can authorize a Territorial
Legislature to do everything else, and cannot authorize them to prohibit
slavery. That is one of the things the court can decide, but can never
give an intelligible reason for.

Yours very truly,

A. LINCOLN.




TO A. CAMPBELL.

SPRINGFIELD, June 28, 1858.

A. CAMPBELL, Esq.

MY DEAR SIR:--In 1856 you gave me authority to draw on you for any sum
not exceeding five hundred dollars. I see clearly that such a privilege
would be more available now than it was then. I am aware that times are
tighter now than they were then. Please write me at all events, and
whether you can now do anything or not I shall continue grateful for the
past.

Yours very truly,

A. LINCOLN.




TO J. GILLESPIE.

SPRINGFIELD, July 16, 1858.

HON. JOSEPH GILLESPIE.

MY DEAR SIR:--I write this to say that from the specimens of Douglas
Democracy we occasionally see here from Madison, we learn that they are
making very confident calculation of beating you and your friends for the
lower house, in that county. They offer to bet upon it. Billings and Job,
respectively, have been up here, and were each as I learn, talking
largely about it. If they do so, it can only be done by carrying the
Fillmore men of 1856 very differently from what they seem to [be] going
in the other party. Below is the vote of 1856, in your district:

Counties.

Counties. Buchanan. Fremont. Fillmore.
Bond ............ 607 153 659
Madison ......... 1451 1111 1658
Montgomery ...... 992 162 686
---- ---- ----
3050 1426 3003

By this you will see, if you go through the calculation, that if they get
one quarter of the Fillmore votes, and you three quarters, they will beat
you 125 votes. If they get one fifth, and you four fifths, you beat them
179. In Madison, alone, if our friends get 1000 of the Fillmore votes,
and their opponents the remainder, 658, we win by just two votes.

This shows the whole field, on the basis of the election of 1856.

Whether, since then, any Buchanan, or Fremonters, have shifted ground,
and how the majority of new votes will go, you can judge better than I.

Of course you, on the ground, can better determine your line of tactics
than any one off the ground; but it behooves you to be wide awake and
actively working.

Don't neglect it; and write me at your first leisure. Yours as ever,

A. LINCOLN.




TO JOHN MATHERS, JACKSONVILLE, ILL.

SPRINGFIELD, JULY 20, 1858.

JNO. MATHERS, Esq.

MY DEAR SIR:--Your kind and interesting letter of the 19th was duly
received. Your suggestions as to placing one's self on the offensive
rather than the defensive are certainly correct. That is a point which I
shall not disregard. I spoke here on Saturday night. The speech, not very
well reported, appears in the State journal of this morning. You
doubtless will see it; and I hope that you will perceive in it that I am
already improving. I would mail you a copy now, but have not one [at]
hand. I thank you for your letter and shall be pleased to hear from you
again.

Yours very truly,

A. LINCOLN.




TO JOSEPH GILLESPIE.

SPRINGFIELD, JULY 25, 1858.

HON. J. GILLESPIE.

MY DEAR SIR:--Your doleful letter of the 8th was received on my return
from Chicago last night. I do hope you are worse scared than hurt, though
you ought to know best. We must not lose the district. We must make a job
of it, and save it. Lay hold of the proper agencies, and secure all the
Americans you can, at once. I do hope, on closer inspection, you will
find they are not half gone. Make a little test. Run down one of the
poll-books of the Edwardsville precinct, and take the first hundred known
American names. Then quietly ascertain how many of them are actually
going for Douglas. I think you will find less than fifty. But even if you
find fifty, make sure of the other fifty, that is, make sure of all you
can, at all events. We will set other agencies to work which shall
compensate for the loss of a good many Americans. Don't fail to check the
stampede at once. Trumbull, I think, will be with you before long.

There is much he cannot do, and some he can. I have reason to hope there
will be other help of an appropriate kind. Write me again.

Yours as ever,

A. LINCOLN.




TO B. C. COOK.

SPRINGFIELD, Aug. 2, 1858.

Hon. B. C. COOK.

MY DEAR SIR:--I have a letter from a very true and intelligent man
insisting that there is a plan on foot in La Salle and Bureau to run
Douglas Republicans for Congress and for the Legislature in those
counties, if they can only get the encouragement of our folks nominating
pretty extreme abolitionists.

It is thought they will do nothing if our folks nominate men who are not
very obnoxious to the charge of abolitionism. Please have your eye upon
this. Signs are looking pretty fair.

Yours very truly,

A. LINCOLN.




TO HON. J. M. PALMER.

SPRINGFIELD, Aug. 5, 1858.

HON. J. M. PALMER.

DEAR SIR:--Since we parted last evening no new thought has occurred to
[me] on the subject of which we talked most yesterday.

I have concluded, however, to speak at your town on Tuesday, August 31st,
and have promised to have it so appear in the papers of to-morrow. Judge
Trumbull has not yet reached here.

Yours as ever,

A. LINCOLN.




TO ALEXANDER SYMPSON.

SPRINGFIELD, Aug. 11, 1858.

ALEXANDER SYMPSON, Esq.

DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 6th received. If life and health continue I shall
pretty likely be at Augusta on the 25th.

Things look reasonably well. Will tell you more fully when I see you.

Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.




TO J. O. CUNNINGHAM.

OTTAWA, August 22, 1858.

J. O. CUNNINGHAM, Esq.

MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 18th, signed as secretary of the Republican
club, is received. In the matter of making speeches I am a good deal
pressed by invitations from almost all quarters, and while I hope to be
at Urbana some time during the canvass, I cannot yet say when. Can you
not see me at Monticello on the 6th of September?

Douglas and I, for the first time this canvass, crossed swords here
yesterday; the fire flew some, and I am glad to know I am yet alive.
There was a vast concourse of people--more than could get near enough to
hear.

Yours as ever,

A. LINCOLN.




ON SLAVERY IN A DEMOCRACY.

August ??, 1858

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my
idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the
difference, is no democracy.

A. LINCOLN.




TO B. C. COOK.

SPRINGFIELD, August 2, 1858

HON. B. C. COOK.

MY DEAR SIR:--I have a letter from a very true friend, and intelligent
man, writing that there is a plan on foot in La Salle and Bureau, to run
Douglas Republican for Congress and for the Legislature in those
counties, if they can only get the encouragement of our folks nominating
pretty extreme abolitionists. It is thought they will do nothing if our
folks nominate men who are not very [undecipherable word looks like
"obnoxious"] to the charge of abolitionism. Please have your eye upon
this. Signs are looking pretty fair.

Yours very truly,

A. LINCOLN.




TO DR. WILLIAM FITHIAN, DANVILLE, ILL.

BLOOMINGTON, Sept. 3, 1858

DEAR DOCTOR:--Yours of the 1st was received this morning, as also one
from Mr. Harmon, and one from Hiram Beckwith on the same subject. You
will see by the Journal that I have been appointed to speak at Danville
on the 22d of Sept.,--the day after Douglas speaks there. My recent
experience shows that speaking at the same place the next day after D. is
the very thing,--it is, in fact, a concluding speech on him. Please show
this to Messrs. Harmon and Beckwith; and tell them they must excuse me
from writing separate letters to them.

Yours as ever,

A. LINCOLN

P. S.--Give full notice to all surrounding country. A.L.




FRAGMENT OF SPEECH AT PARIS, ILL.,

SEPT. 8, 1858.

Let us inquire what Judge Douglas really invented when he introduced the
Nebraska Bill? He called it Popular Sovereignty. What does that mean? It
means the sovereignty of the people over their own affairs--in other
words, the right of the people to govern themselves. Did Judge Douglas
invent this? Not quite. The idea of popular sovereignty was floating
about several ages before the author of the Nebraska Bill was
born--indeed, before Columbus set foot on this continent. In the year
1776 it took form in the noble words which you are all familiar with: "We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,"
etc. Was not this the origin of popular sovereignty as applied to the
American people? Here we are told that governments are instituted among
men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. If that
is not popular sovereignty, then I have no conception of the meaning of
words. If Judge Douglas did not invent this kind of popular sovereignty,
let us pursue the inquiry and find out what kind he did invent. Was it
the right of emigrants to Kansas and Nebraska to govern themselves, and a
lot of "niggers," too, if they wanted them? Clearly this was no invention
of his because General Cass put forth the same doctrine in 1848 in his so
called Nicholson letter, six years before Douglas thought of such a
thing. Then what was it that the "Little Giant" invented? It never
occurred to General Cass to call his discovery by the odd name of popular
sovereignty. He had not the face to say that the right of the people to
govern "niggers" was the right of the people to govern themselves. His
notions of the fitness of things were not moulded to the brazenness of
calling the right to put a hundred "niggers" through under the lash in
Nebraska a "sacred" right of self-government. And here I submit to you
was Judge Douglas's discovery, and the whole of it: He discovered that
the right to breed and flog negroes in Nebraska was popular sovereignty.




SPEECH AT CLINTON, ILLINOIS,

SEPTEMBER 8, 1858.

The questions are sometimes asked "What is all this fuss that is being
made about negroes? What does it amount to? And where will it end?" These
questions imply that those who ask them consider the slavery question a
very insignificant matter they think that it amounts to little or nothing
and that those who agitate it are extremely foolish. Now it must be
admitted that if the great question which has caused so much trouble is
insignificant, we are very foolish to have anything to do with it--if it
is of no importance we had better throw it aside and busy ourselves with
something else. But let us inquire a little into this insignificant
matter, as it is called by some, and see if it is not important enough to
demand the close attention of every well-wisher of the Union. In one of
Douglas's recent speeches, I find a reference to one which was made by me
in Springfield some time ago. The judge makes one quotation from that
speech that requires some little notice from me at this time. I regret
that I have not my Springfield speech before me, but the judge has quoted
one particular part of it so often that I think I can recollect it. It
runs I think as follows:

"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."

Judge Douglas makes use of the above quotation, and finds a great deal of
fault with it. He deals unfairly with me, and tries to make the people of
this State believe that I advocated dangerous doctrines in my Springfield
speech. Let us see if that portion of my Springfield speech of which
Judge Douglas complains so bitterly, is as objectionable to others as it
is to him. We are, certainly, far into the fifth year since a policy was
initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end
to slavery agitation. On the fourth day of January, 1854, Judge Douglas
introduced the Kansas-Nebraska bill. He initiated a new policy, and that
policy, so he says, was to put an end to the agitation of the slavery
question. Whether that was his object or not I will not stop to discuss,
but at all events some kind of a policy was initiated; and what has been
the result? Instead of the quiet and good feeling which were promised us
by the self-styled author of Popular Sovereignty, we have had nothing but
ill-feeling and agitation. According to Judge Douglas, the passage of the
Nebraska bill would tranquilize the whole country--there would be no more
slavery agitation in or out of Congress, and the vexed question would be
left entirely to the people of the Territories. Such was the opinion of
Judge Douglas, and such were the opinions of the leading men of the
Democratic Party. Even as late as the spring of 1856 Mr. Buchanan said, a
short time subsequent to his nomination by the Cincinnati convention,
that the territory of Kansas would be tranquil in less than six weeks.
Perhaps he thought so, but Kansas has not been and is not tranquil, and
it may be a long time before she may be so.

We all know how fierce the agitation was in Congress last winter, and
what a narrow escape Kansas had from being admitted into the Union with a
constitution that was detested by ninety-nine hundredths of her citizens.
Did the angry debates which took place at Washington during the last
season of Congress lead you to suppose that the slavery agitation was
settled?

An election was held in Kansas in the month of August, and the
constitution which was submitted to the people was voted down by a large
majority. So Kansas is still out of the Union, and there is a probability
that she will remain out for some time. But Judge Douglas says the
slavery question is settled. He says the bill he introduced into the
Senate of the United States on the 4th day of January, 1854, settled the
slavery question forever! Perhaps he can tell us how that bill settled
the slavery question, for if he is able to settle a question of such
great magnitude he ought to be able to explain the manner in which he
does it. He knows and you know that the question is not settled, and that
his ill-timed experiment to settle it has made it worse than it ever was
before.

And now let me say a few words in regard to Douglas's great hobby of
negro equality. He thinks--he says at least--that the Republican party is
in favor of allowing whites and blacks to intermarry, and that a man
can't be a good Republican unless he is willing to elevate black men to
office and to associate with them on terms of perfect equality. He knows
that we advocate no such doctrines as these, but he cares not how much he
misrepresents us if he can gain a few votes by so doing. To show you what
my opinion of negro equality was in times past, and to prove to you that
I stand on that question where I always stood, I will read you a few
extracts from a speech that was made by me in Peoria in 1854. It was made
in reply to one of Judge Douglas's speeches.

(Mr. Lincoln then read a number of extracts which had the ring of the
true metal. We have rarely heard anything with which we have been more
pleased. And the audience after hearing the extracts read, and comparing
their conservative sentiments with those now advocated by Mr. Lincoln,
testified their approval by loud applause. How any reasonable man can
hear one of Mr. Lincoln's speeches without being converted to
Republicanism is something that we can't account for. Ed.)

Slavery, continued Mr. Lincoln, is not a matter of little importance, it
overshadows every other question in which we are interested. It has
divided the Methodist and Presbyterian churches, and has sown discord in
the American Tract Society. The churches have split and the society will
follow their example before long. So it will be seen that slavery is
agitated in the religious as well as in the political world. Judge
Douglas is very much afraid in the triumph that the Republican party will
lead to a general mixture of the white and black races. Perhaps I am
wrong in saying that he is afraid, so I will correct myself by saying
that he pretends to fear that the success of our party will result in the
amalgamation of the blacks and whites. I think I can show plainly, from
documents now before me, that Judge Douglas's fears are groundless. The
census of 1800 tells us that in that year there were over four hundred
thousand mulattoes in the United States. Now let us take what is called
an Abolition State--the Republican, slavery-hating State of New
Hampshire--and see how many mulattoes we can find within her borders. The
number amounts to just one hundred and eighty-four. In the Old
Dominion--in the Democratic and aristocratic State of Virginia--there
were a few more mulattoes than the Census-takers found in New Hampshire.
How many do you suppose there were? Seventy-nine thousand, seven hundred
and seventy-five--twenty-three thousand more than there were in all the
free States! In the slave States there were in 1800, three hundred and
forty-eight thousand mulattoes all of home production; and in the free
States there were less than sixty thousand mulattoes--and a large number
of them were imported from the South.




FRAGMENT OF SPEECH AT EDWARDSVILLE, ILL.,

SEPT. 13, 1858.

I have been requested to give a concise statement of the difference, as I
understand it, between the Democratic and Republican parties, on the
leading issues of the campaign. This question has been put to me by a
gentleman whom I do not know. I do not even know whether he is a friend
of mine or a supporter of Judge Douglas in this contest, nor does that
make any difference. His question is a proper one. Lest I should forget
it, I will give you my answer before proceeding with the line of argument
I have marked out for this discussion.

The difference between the Republican and the Democratic parties on the
leading issues of this contest, as I understand it, is that the former
consider slavery a moral, social and political wrong, while the latter do
not consider it either a moral, a social or a political wrong; and the
action of each, as respects the growth of the country and the expansion
of our population, is squared to meet these views. I will not affirm that
the Democratic party consider slavery morally, socially and politically
right, though their tendency to that view has, in my opinion, been
constant and unmistakable for the past five years. I prefer to take, as
the accepted maxim of the party, the idea put forth by Judge Douglas,
that he "don't care whether slavery is voted down or voted up." I am quite
willing to believe that many Democrats would prefer that slavery should
be always voted down, and I know that some prefer that it be always voted
up; but I have a right to insist that their action, especially if it be
their constant action, shall determine their ideas and preferences on
this subject. Every measure of the Democratic party of late years,
bearing directly or indirectly on the slavery question, has corresponded
with this notion of utter indifference whether slavery or freedom shall
outrun in the race of empire across to the Pacific--every measure, I say,
up to the Dred Scott decision, where, it seems to me, the idea is boldly
suggested that slavery is better than freedom. The Republican party, on
the contrary, hold that this government was instituted to secure the
blessings of freedom, and that slavery is an unqualified evil to the
negro, to the white man, to the soil, and to the State. Regarding it as
an evil, they will not molest it in the States where it exists, they will
not overlook the constitutional guards which our fathers placed around
it; they will do nothing that can give proper offence to those who hold
slaves by legal sanction; but they will use every constitutional method
to prevent the evil from becoming larger and involving more negroes, more
white men, more soil, and more States in its deplorable consequences.
They will, if possible, place it where the public mind shall rest in the
belief that it is in course of ultimate peaceable extinction in God's own
good time. And to this end they will, if possible, restore the government
to the policy of the fathers, the policy of preserving the new
Territories from the baneful influence of human bondage, as the
Northwestern Territories were sought to be preserved by the Ordinance of
1787, and the Compromise Act of 1820. They will oppose, in all its length
and breadth, the modern Democratic idea, that slavery is as good as
freedom, and ought to have room for expansion all over the continent, if
people can be found to carry it. All, or nearly all, of Judge Douglas's
arguments are logical, if you admit that slavery is as good and as right
as freedom, and not one of them is worth a rush if you deny it. This is
the difference, as I understand it, between the Republican and Democratic
parties.

My friends, I have endeavored to show you the logical consequences of the
Dred Scott decision, which holds that the people of a Territory cannot
prevent the establishment of slavery in their midst. I have stated what
cannot be gainsaid, that the grounds upon which this decision is made are
equally applicable to the free States as to the free Territories, and
that the peculiar reasons put forth by Judge Douglas for indorsing this
decision commit him, in advance, to the next decision and to all other
decisions corning from the same source. And when, by all these means, you
have succeeded in dehumanizing the negro; when you have put him down and
made it impossible for him to be but as the beasts of the field; when you
have extinguished his soul in this world and placed him where the ray of
hope is blown out as in the darkness of the damned, are you quite sure
that the demon you have roused will not turn and rend you? What
constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not
our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, our army and our
navy. These are not our reliance against tyranny All of those may be
turned against us without making us weaker for the struggle. Our reliance
is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is in
the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands
everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of
despotism at your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of
bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to
trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own
independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who
rises among you. And let me tell you, that all these things are prepared
for you by the teachings of history, if the elections shall promise that
the next Dred Scott decision and all future decisions will be quietly
acquiesced in by the people.