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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 5,
+1858-1862, by Abraham Lincoln
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 5, 1858-1862
+
+Author: Abraham Lincoln
+
+Release Date: September 30, 2004 [EBook #2657]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WRITINGS OF LINCOLN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+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+this to whomever you please, but do not publish it in the paper.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.
+
+
+
+
+VERSE TO "LINNIE"
+
+September 30,? 1858.
+
+TO "LINNIE":
+
+A sweet plaintive song did I hear And I fancied that she was the singer.
+May emotions as pure as that song set astir Be the wont that the future
+shall bring her.
+
+
+
+
+NEGROES ARE MEN
+
+TO J. U. BROWN.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, OCT 18, 1858
+
+HON. J. U. BROWN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I do not perceive how I can express myself more plainly
+than I have in the fore-going extracts. In four of them I have expressly
+disclaimed all intention to bring about social and political equality
+between the white and black races and in all the rest I have done the
+same thing by clear implication.
+
+I have made it equally plain that I think the negro is included in the
+word "men" used in the Declaration of Independence.
+
+I believe the declaration that "all men are created equal" is the great
+fundamental principle upon which our free institutions rest; that negro
+slavery is violative of that principle; but that, by our frame of
+government, that principle has not been made one of legal obligation;
+that by our frame of government, States which have slavery are to retain
+it, or surrender it at their own pleasure; and that all
+others--individuals, free States and national Government--are
+constitutionally bound to leave them alone about it.
+
+I believe our Government was thus framed because of the necessity
+springing from the actual presence of slavery, when it was framed.
+
+That such necessity does not exist in the Territories when slavery is not
+present.
+
+In his Mendenhall speech Mr. Clay says: "Now as an abstract principle
+there is no doubt of the truth of that declaration (all men created
+equal), and it is desirable, in the original construction of society, to
+keep it in view as a great fundamental principle."
+
+Again, in the same speech Mr. Clay says: "If a state of nature existed
+and we were about to lay the foundations of society, no man would be more
+strongly opposed than I should to incorporate the institution of slavery
+among its elements."
+
+Exactly so. In our new free Territories, a state of nature does exist. In
+them Congress lays the foundations of society; and in laying those
+foundations, I say, with Mr. Clay, it is desirable that the declaration
+of the equality of all men shall be kept in view as a great fundamental
+principle, and that Congress, which lays the foundations of society,
+should, like Mr. Clay, be strongly opposed to the incorporation of
+slavery and its elements.
+
+But it does not follow that social and political equality between whites
+and blacks must be incorporated because slavery must not. The declaration
+does not so require.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+[Newspaper cuttings of Lincoln's speeches at Peoria, in 1854, at
+Springfield, Ottawa, Chicago, and Charleston, in 1858. They were pasted
+in a little book in which the above letter was also written.]
+
+
+
+
+TO A. SYMPSON.
+
+BLANDINSVILLE, Oct 26, 1858
+
+A. SYMPSON, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Since parting with you this morning I heard some things which
+make me believe that Edmunds and Morrill will spend this week among the
+National Democrats, trying to induce them to content themselves by voting
+for Jake Davis, and then to vote for the Douglas candidates for senator
+and representative. Have this headed off, if you can. Call Wagley's
+attention to it and have him and the National Democrat for Rep. to
+counteract it as far as they can.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SENATORIAL ELECTION LOST AND OUT OF MONEY
+
+TO N. B. JUDD.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, NOVEMBER 16, 1858
+
+HON. N. B. JUDD
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 15th is just received. I wrote you the same day.
+As to the pecuniary matter, I am willing to pay according to my ability;
+but I am the poorest hand living to get others to pay. I have been on
+expenses so long without earning anything that I am absolutely without
+money now for even household purposes. Still, if you can put in two
+hundred and fifty dollars for me toward discharging the debt of the
+committee, I will allow it when you and I settle the private matter
+between us. This, with what I have already paid, and with an outstanding
+note of mine, will exceed my subscription of five hundred dollars. This,
+too, is exclusive of my ordinary expenses during the campaign, all of
+which, being added to my loss of time and business, bears pretty heavily
+upon one no better off in [this] world's goods than I; but as I had the
+post of honor, it is not for me to be over nice. You are feeling
+badly,--"And this too shall pass away," never fear.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+THE FIGHT MUST GO ON
+
+TO H. ASBURY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, November 19, 1858.
+
+HENRY ASBURY, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 13th was received some days ago. The fight must
+go on. The cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at the end of
+one or even one hundred defeats. Douglas had the ingenuity to be
+supported in the late contest both as the best means to break down and to
+uphold the slave interest. No ingenuity can keep these antagonistic
+elements in harmony long. Another explosion will soon come.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REALIZATION THAT DEBATES MUST BE SAVED
+
+TO C. H. RAY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, Nov.20, 1858
+
+DR. C. H. RAY
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I wish to preserve a set of the late debates (if they may
+be called so), between Douglas and myself. To enable me to do so, please
+get two copies of each number of your paper containing the whole, and
+send them to me by express; and I will pay you for the papers and for
+your trouble. I wish the two sets in order to lay one away in the
+[undecipherable word] and to put the other in a scrapbook. Remember, if
+part of any debate is on both sides of the sheet it will take two sets to
+make one scrap-book.
+
+I believe, according to a letter of yours to Hatch, you are "feeling like
+h-ll yet." Quit that--you will soon feel better. Another "blow up" is
+coming; and we shall have fun again. Douglas managed to be supported both
+as the best instrument to down and to uphold the slave power; but no
+ingenuity can long keep the antagonism in harmony.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+TO H. C. WHITNEY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, November 30, 1858
+
+H. C. WHITNEY, ESQ.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Being desirous of preserving in some permanent form the
+late joint discussion between Douglas and myself, ten days ago I wrote to
+Dr. Ray, requesting him to forward to me by express two sets of the
+numbers of the Tribune which contain the reports of those discussions. Up
+to date I have no word from him on the subject. Will you, if in your
+power, procure them and forward them to me by express? If you will, I
+will pay all charges, and be greatly obliged, to boot. Hoping to visit
+you before long, I remain
+
+As ever your friend,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO H. D. SHARPE.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, Dec. 8, 1858.
+
+H. D. SHARPE, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Your very kind letter of Nov. 9th was duly received. I do not
+know that you expected or desired an answer; but glancing over the
+contents of yours again, I am prompted to say that, while I desired the
+result of the late canvass to have been different, I still regard it as
+an exceeding small matter. I think we have fairly entered upon a durable
+struggle as to whether this nation is to ultimately become all slave or
+all free, and though I fall early in the contest, it is nothing if I
+shall have contributed, in the least degree, to the final rightful
+result.
+
+Respectfully yours,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO A. SYMPSON.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, Dec.12, 1858.
+
+ALEXANDER SYMPSON, Esq.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I expect the result of the election went hard with you. So
+it did with me, too, perhaps not quite so hard as you may have supposed.
+I have an abiding faith that we shall beat them in the long run. Step by
+step the objects of the leaders will become too plain for the people to
+stand them. I write merely to let you know that I am neither dead nor
+dying. Please give my respects to your good family, and all inquiring
+friends.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ON BANKRUPTCY
+
+
+NOTES OF AN ARGUMENT.
+
+December [?], 1858.
+
+Legislation and adjudication must follow and conform to the progress of
+society.
+
+The progress of society now begins to produce cases of the transfer for
+debts of the entire property of railroad corporations; and to enable
+transferees to use and enjoy the transferred property, legislation and
+adjudication begin to be necessary.
+
+Shall this class of legislation just now beginning with us be general or
+special?
+
+
+
+
+Section Ten of our Constitution requires that it should be general,
+
+if possible. (Read the section.)
+
+Special legislation always trenches upon the judicial department; and in
+so far violates Section Two of the Constitution. (Read it.)
+
+Just reasoning--policy--is in favor of general legislation--else the
+Legislature will be loaded down with the investigation of smaller
+cases--a work which the courts ought to perform, and can perform much
+more perfectly. How can the Legislature rightly decide the facts between
+P. & B. and S.C.
+
+It is said that under a general law, whenever a R. R. Co. gets tired of
+its debts, it may transfer fraudulently to get rid of them. So they
+may--so may individuals; and which--the Legislature or the courts--is
+best suited to try the question of fraud in either case?
+
+It is said, if a purchaser have acquired legal rights, let him not be
+robbed of them, but if he needs legislation let him submit to just terms
+to obtain it.
+
+Let him, say we, have general law in advance (guarded in every possible
+way against fraud), so that, when he acquires a legal right, he will have
+no occasion to wait for additional legislation; and if he has practiced
+fraud let the courts so decide.
+
+
+
+
+A LEGAL OPINION BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+The 11th Section of the Act of Congress, approved Feb. 11, 1805,
+prescribing rules for the subdivision of sections of land within the
+United States system of surveys, standing unrepealed, in my opinion, is
+binding on the respective purchasers of different parts of the same
+section, and furnishes the true rule for surveyors in establishing lines
+between them. That law, being in force at the time each became a
+purchaser, becomes a condition of the purchase.
+
+And, by that law, I think the true rule for dividing into quarters any
+interior section or sections, which is not fractional, is to run straight
+lines through the section from the opposite quarter section corners,
+fixing the point where such straight lines cross, or intersect each
+other, as the middle or centre of the section.
+
+Nearly, perhaps quite, all the original surveys are to some extent
+erroneous, and in some of the sections, greatly so. In each of the
+latter, it is obvious that a more equitable mode of division than the
+above might be adopted; but as error is infinitely various perhaps no
+better single rules can be prescribed.
+
+At all events I think the above has been prescribed by the competent
+authority.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, Jany. 6, 1859.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO M. W. DELAHAY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, March 4, 1859.
+
+M. W. DELAHAY, Esq.
+
+MY DEAR SIR: Your second letter in relation to my being with you at your
+Republican convention was duly received. It is not at hand just now, but
+I have the impression from it that the convention was to be at
+Leavenworth; but day before yesterday a friend handed me a letter from
+Judge M. F. Caraway, in which he also expresses a wish for me to come,
+and he fixes the place at Ossawatomie. This I believe is off of the
+river, and will require more time and labor to get to it. It will push me
+hard to get there without injury to my own business; but I shall try to
+do it, though I am not yet quite certain I shall succeed.
+
+I should like to know before coming, that while some of you wish me to
+come, there may not be others who would quite as lief I would stay away.
+Write me again.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. M. MORRIS.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, March 28, 1859.
+
+W. M. MORRIS, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Your kind note inviting me to deliver a lecture at Galesburg
+is received. I regret to say I cannot do so now; I must stick to the
+courts awhile. I read a sort of lecture to three different audiences
+during the last month and this; but I did so under circumstances which
+made it a waste of no time whatever.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+
+
+
+TO H. L. PIERCE AND OTHERS.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, April 6, 1859.
+
+GENTLEMEN:--Your kind note inviting me to attend a festival in Boston, on
+the 28th instant, in honor of the birthday of Thomas Jefferson, was duly
+received. My engagements are such that I cannot attend.
+
+Bearing in mind that about seventy years ago two great political parties
+were first formed in this country, that Thomas Jefferson was the head of
+one of them and Boston the headquarters of the other, it is both curious
+and interesting that those supposed to descend politically from the party
+opposed to Jefferson should now be celebrating his birthday in their own
+original seat of empire, while those claiming political descent from him
+have nearly ceased to breathe his name everywhere.
+
+Remembering, too, that the Jefferson party was formed upon its supposed
+superior devotion to the personal rights of men, holding the rights of
+property to be secondary only, and greatly inferior, and assuming that
+the so-called Democracy of to-day are the Jefferson, and their opponents
+the anti-Jefferson, party, it will be equally interesting to note how
+completely the two have changed hands as to the principle upon which they
+were originally supposed to be divided. The Democracy of to-day hold the
+liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when in conflict with
+another man's right of property; Republicans, on the contrary, are for
+both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the
+dollar.
+
+I remember being once much amused at seeing two partially intoxicated men
+engaged in a fight with their great-coats on, which fight, after a long
+and rather harmless contest, ended in each having fought himself out of
+his own coat and into that of the other. If the two leading parties of
+this day are really identical with the two in the days of Jefferson and
+Adams, they have performed the same feat as the two drunken men.
+
+But soberly, it is now no child's play to save the principles of
+Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation. One would state with great
+confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler
+propositions of Euclid are true; but nevertheless he would fail, utterly,
+with one who should deny the definitions and axioms. The principles of
+Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society. And yet they
+are denied and evaded, with no small show of success. One dashingly calls
+them "glittering generalities." Another bluntly calls them "self-evident
+lies." And others insidiously argue that they apply to "superior races."
+These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and
+effect--the supplanting the principles of free government, and restoring
+those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would delight a
+convocation of crowned heads plotting against the people. They are the
+vanguard, the miners and sappers, of returning despotism. We must repulse
+them, or they will subjugate us. This is a world of compensation; and he
+who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny
+freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God,
+cannot long retain it. All honor to Jefferson to the man who, in the
+concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single
+people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a mere
+revolutionary document an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all
+times, and so to embalm it there that to-day and in all coming days it
+shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of
+reappearing tyranny and oppression.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO T. CANISIUS.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, May 17, 1859.
+
+DR. THEODORE CANISIUS.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Your note asking, in behalf of yourself and other German
+citizens, whether I am for or against the constitutional provision in
+regard to naturalized citizens, lately adopted by Massachusetts, and
+whether I am for or against a fusion of the Republicans and other
+opposition elements for the canvass of 1860, is received.
+
+Massachusetts is a sovereign and independent State; and it is no
+privilege of mine to scold her for what she does. Still, if from what she
+has done an inference is sought to be drawn as to what I would do, I may
+without impropriety speak out. I say, then, that, as I understand the
+Massachusetts provision, I am against its adoption in Illinois, or in any
+other place where I have a right to oppose it. Understanding the spirit
+of our institutions to aim at the elevation of men, I am opposed to
+whatever tends to degrade them. I have some little notoriety for
+commiserating the oppressed negro; and I should be strangely inconsistent
+if I could favor any project for curtailing the existing rights of white
+men, even though born in different lands, and speaking different
+languages from myself. As to the matter of fusion, I am for it if it can
+be had on Republican grounds; and I am not for it on any other terms. A
+fusion on any other terms would be as foolish as unprincipled. It would
+lose the whole North, while the common enemy would still carry the whole
+South. The question of men is a different one. There are good, patriotic
+men and able statesmen in the South whom I would cheerfully support, if
+they would now place themselves on Republican ground, but I am against
+letting down the Republican standard a hairsbreadth.
+
+I have written this hastily, but I believe it answers your questions
+substantially.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE GOVERNOR, AUDITOR, AND TREASURER OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
+
+GENTLEMEN:
+
+In reply to your inquiry; requesting our written opinion as to what your
+duty requires you to do in executing the latter clause of the Seventh
+Section of "An Act in relation to the payment of the principal and
+interest of the State debt," approved Feb'y 22, 1859, we reply that said
+last clause of said section is certainly indefinite, general, and
+ambiguous in its description of the bonds to be issued by you; giving no
+time at which the bonds are to be made payable, no place at which either
+principal or interest are to be paid, and no rate of interest which the
+bonds are to bear; nor any other description except that they are to be
+coupon bonds, which in commercial usage means interest-paying bonds with
+obligations or orders attached to them for the payment of annual or
+semiannual interest; there is we suppose no difficulty in ascertaining,
+if this act stood alone, what ought to be the construction of the terms
+"coupon bonds" and that it, would mean bonds bearing interest from the
+time of issuing the same. And under this act considered by itself the
+creditors would have a right to require such bonds. But your inquiry in
+regard to a class of bonds on which no interest is to be paid or shall
+begin to run until January 1, 1860, is whether the Act of February 18,
+1857, would not authorize you to refuse to give bonds with any coupons
+attached payable before the first day of July, 1860. We have very
+maturely considered this question and have arrived at the conclusion that
+you have a right to use such measures as will secure the State against
+the loss of six months' interest on these bonds by the indefiniteness of
+the Act of 1859. While it cannot be denied that the letter of the laws
+favor the construction claimed by some of the creditors that
+interest-bearing bonds were required to be issued to them, inasmuch as
+the restriction that no interest is to run on said bonds until 1st
+January, 1860, relates solely to the bonds issued under the Act of 1857.
+And the Act of 1859 directing you to issue new bonds does not contain
+this restriction, but directs you to issue coupon bonds. Nevertheless the
+very indefiniteness and generality of the Act of 1859, giving no rate of
+interest, no time due, no place of payment, no postponement of the time
+when interest commences, necessarily implies that the Legislature
+intended to invest you with a discretion to impose such terms and
+restrictions as would protect the interest of the State; and we think you
+have a right and that it is your duty to see that the State Bonds are so
+issued that the State shall not lose six months' interest. Two plans
+present themselves either of which will secure the State. 1st. If in
+literal compliance with the law you issue bonds bearing interest from 1st
+July, 1859, you may deduct from the bonds presented three thousand from
+every $100,000 of bonds and issue $97,000 of coupon bonds; by this plan
+$3000 out of $100,000 of principal would be extinguished in consideration
+of paying $2910 interest on the first of January, 1860--and the interest
+on the $3000 would forever cease; this would be no doubt most
+advantageous to the State. But if the Auditor will not consent to this,
+then, 2nd. Cut off of each bond all the coupons payable before 1st July,
+1860.
+
+One of these plans would undoubtedly have been prescribed by the
+Legislature if its attention had been directed to this question.
+
+May 28, 1859.
+
+
+
+
+ON LINCOLN'S SCRAP BOOK
+
+TO H. C. WHITNEY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, December 25, 1858.
+
+H. C. WHITNEY, ESQ.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I have just received yours of the 23rd inquiring whether I
+received the newspapers you sent me by express. I did receive them, and
+am very much obliged. There is some probability that my scrap-book will
+be reprinted, and if it shall, I will save you a copy.
+
+Your friend as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+1859
+FIRST SUGGESTION OF A PRESIDENTIAL OFFER.
+TO S. GALLOWAY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., July 28, 1859.
+
+HON. SAMUEL GALLOWAY.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your very complimentary, not to say flattering, letter of
+the 23d inst. is received. Dr. Reynolds had induced me to expect you
+here; and I was disappointed not a little by your failure to come. And
+yet I fear you have formed an estimate of me which can scarcely be
+sustained on a personal acquaintance.
+
+Two things done by the Ohio Republican convention--the repudiation of
+Judge Swan, and the "plank" for a repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law--I
+very much regretted. These two things are of a piece; and they are viewed
+by many good men, sincerely opposed to slavery, as a struggle against,
+and in disregard of, the Constitution itself. And it is the very thing
+that will greatly endanger our cause, if it be not kept out of our
+national convention. There is another thing our friends are doing which
+gives me some uneasiness. It is their leaning toward "popular
+sovereignty." There are three substantial objections to this: First, no
+party can command respect which sustains this year what it opposed last.
+Secondly, Douglas (who is the most dangerous enemy of liberty, because
+the most insidious one) would have little support in the North, and by
+consequence, no capital to trade on in the South, if it were not for his
+friends thus magnifying him and his humbug. But lastly, and chiefly,
+Douglas's popular sovereignty, accepted by the public mind as a just
+principle, nationalizes slavery, and revives the African slave trade
+inevitably.
+
+Taking slaves into new Territories, and buying slaves in Africa, are
+identical things, identical rights or identical wrongs, and the argument
+which establishes one will establish the other. Try a thousand years for
+a sound reason why Congress shall not hinder the people of Kansas from
+having slaves, and, when you have found it, it will be an equally good
+one why Congress should not hinder the people of Georgia from importing
+slaves from Africa.
+
+As to Governor Chase, I have a kind side for him. He was one of the few
+distinguished men of the nation who gave us, in Illinois, their sympathy
+last year. I never saw him, but suppose him to be able and right-minded;
+but still he may not be the most suitable as a candidate for the
+Presidency.
+
+I must say I do not think myself fit for the Presidency. As you propose a
+correspondence with me, I shall look for your letters anxiously.
+
+I have not met Dr. Reynolds since receiving your letter; but when I
+shall, I will present your respects as requested.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+IT IS BAD TO BE POOR.
+
+TO HAWKINS TAYLOR
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL. Sept. 6, 1859.
+
+HAWKINS TAYLOR, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 3d is just received. There is some mistake about
+my expected attendance of the U.S. Court in your city on the 3d Tuesday
+of this month. I have had no thought of being there.
+
+It is bad to be poor. I shall go to the wall for bread and meat if I
+neglect my business this year as well as last. It would please me much to
+see the city and good people of Keokuk, but for this year it is little
+less than an impossibility. I am constantly receiving invitations which I
+am compelled to decline. I was pressingly urged to go to Minnesota; and I
+now have two invitations to go to Ohio. These last are prompted by
+Douglas going there; and I am really tempted to make a flying trip to
+Columbus and Cincinnati.
+
+I do hope you will have no serious trouble in Iowa. What thinks Grimes
+about it? I have not known him to be mistaken about an election in Iowa.
+Present my respects to Col. Carter, and any other friends, and believe me
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SPEECH AT COLUMBUS, OHIO.
+
+SEPTEMBER 16, 1859.
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE STATE OF OHIO: I cannot fail to remember that I
+appear for the first time before an audience in this now great State,--an
+audience that is accustomed to hear such speakers as Corwin, and Chase,
+and Wade, and many other renowned men; and, remembering this, I feel that
+it will be well for you, as for me, that you should not raise your
+expectations to that standard to which you would have been justified in
+raising them had one of these distinguished men appeared before you. You
+would perhaps be only preparing a disappointment for yourselves, and, as
+a consequence of your disappointment, mortification to me. I hope,
+therefore, that you will commence with very moderate expectations; and
+perhaps, if you will give me your attention, I shall be able to interest
+you to a moderate degree.
+
+Appearing here for the first time in my life, I have been somewhat
+embarrassed for a topic by way of introduction to my speech; but I have
+been relieved from that embarrassment by an introduction which the Ohio
+Statesman newspaper gave me this morning. In this paper I have read an
+article, in which, among other statements, I find the following:
+
+"In debating with Senator Douglas during the memorable contest of last
+fall, Mr. Lincoln declared in favor of negro suffrage, and attempted to
+defend that vile conception against the Little Giant."
+
+I mention this now, at the opening of my remarks, for the purpose of
+making three comments upon it. The first I have already announced,--it
+furnishes me an introductory topic; the second is to show that the
+gentleman is mistaken; thirdly, to give him an opportunity to correct it.
+
+In the first place, in regard to this matter being a mistake. I have
+found that it is not entirely safe, when one is misrepresented under his
+very nose, to allow the misrepresentation to go uncontradicted. I
+therefore propose, here at the outset, not only to say that this is a
+misrepresentation, but to show conclusively that it is so; and you will
+bear with me while I read a couple of extracts from that very "memorable"
+debate with Judge Douglas last year, to which this newspaper refers. In
+the first pitched battle which Senator Douglas and myself had, at the
+town of Ottawa, I used the language which I will now read. Having been
+previously reading an extract, I continued as follows:
+
+"Now, gentlemen, I don't want to read at any greater length, but this is
+the true complexion of all I have ever said in regard to the institution
+of slavery and the black race. This is the whole of it; and anything that
+argues me into his idea of perfect social and political equality with the
+negro, is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a
+man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse. I will say here,
+while upon this subject, that I have no purpose directly or indirectly to
+interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists.
+I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to
+do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality
+between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference
+between the two which, in my judgment, will probably forbid their ever
+living together upon the footing of perfect equality; and inasmuch as it
+becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge
+Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior
+position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that,
+notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro
+is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration
+of Independence,--the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of
+happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man.
+I agree with judge Douglas, he is not my equal in many respects,
+--certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual
+endowments. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody
+else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal, and the equal of Judge
+Douglas, and the equal of every living man."
+
+Upon a subsequent occasion, when the reason for making a statement like
+this occurred, I said:
+
+"While I was at the hotel to-day an elderly gentleman called upon me to
+know whether I was really in favor of producing perfect equality between
+the negroes and white people. While I had not proposed to myself on this
+occasion to say much on that subject, yet, as the question was asked me,
+I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something in
+regard to it. I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in
+favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of
+the white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of
+making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold
+office, or intermarry with the white people; and I will say in addition
+to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black
+races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together
+on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they can not
+so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of
+superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of
+having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this
+occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the
+superior position, the negro should be denied everything. I do not
+understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave, I must
+necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I can just let
+her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have had a
+black woman for either a slave or a wife. So it seems to me quite
+possible for us to get along without making either slaves or wives of
+negroes. I will add to this that I have never seen, to my knowledge, a
+man, woman, or child, who was in favor of producing perfect equality,
+social and political, between negroes and white men. I recollect of but
+one distinguished instance that I ever heard of so frequently as to be
+satisfied of its correctness, and that is the case of Judge Douglas's old
+friend Colonel Richard M. Johnson. I will also add to the remarks I have
+made (for I am not going to enter at large upon this subject), that I
+have never had the least apprehension that I or my friends would marry
+negroes, if there was no law to keep them from it; but as judge Douglas
+and his friends seem to be in great apprehension that they might, if
+there were no law to keep them from it, I give him the most solemn pledge
+that I will to the very last stand by the law of the State which forbids
+the marrying of white people with negroes."
+
+There, my friends, you have briefly what I have, upon former occasions,
+said upon this subject to which this newspaper, to the extent of its
+ability, has drawn the public attention. In it you not only perceive, as
+a probability, that in that contest I did not at any time say I was in
+favor of negro suffrage, but the absolute proof that twice--once
+substantially, and once expressly--I declared against it. Having shown
+you this, there remains but a word of comment upon that newspaper
+article. It is this, that I presume the editor of that paper is an honest
+and truth-loving man, and that he will be greatly obliged to me for
+furnishing him thus early an opportunity to correct the misrepresentation
+he has made, before it has run so long that malicious people can call him
+a liar.
+
+The Giant himself has been here recently. I have seen a brief report of
+his speech. If it were otherwise unpleasant to me to introduce the
+subject of the negro as a topic for discussion, I might be somewhat
+relieved by the fact that he dealt exclusively in that subject while he
+was here. I shall, therefore, without much hesitation or diffidence,
+enter upon this subject.
+
+The American people, on the first day of January, 1854, found the African
+slave trade prohibited by a law of Congress. In a majority of the States
+of this Union, they found African slavery, or any other sort of slavery,
+prohibited by State constitutions. They also found a law existing,
+supposed to be valid, by which slavery was excluded from almost all the
+territory the United States then owned. This was the condition of the
+country, with reference to the institution of slavery, on the first of
+January, 1854. A few days after that, a bill was introduced into
+Congress, which ran through its regular course in the two branches of the
+national legislature, and finally passed into a law in the month of May,
+by which the Act of Congress prohibiting slavery from going into the
+Territories of the United States was repealed. In connection with the law
+itself, and, in fact, in the terms of the law, the then existing
+prohibition was not only repealed, but there was a declaration of a
+purpose on the part of Congress never thereafter to exercise any power
+that they might have, real or supposed, to prohibit the extension or
+spread of slavery. This was a very great change; for the law thus
+repealed was of more than thirty years' standing. Following rapidly upon
+the heels of this action of Congress, a decision of the Supreme Court is
+made, by which it is declared that Congress, if it desires to prohibit
+the spread of slavery into the Territories, has no constitutional power
+to do so. Not only so, but that decision lays down principles which, if
+pushed to their logical conclusion,--I say pushed to their logical
+conclusion,--would decide that the constitutions of free States,
+forbidding slavery, are themselves unconstitutional. Mark me, I do not
+say the judges said this, and let no man say I affirm the judges used
+these words; but I only say it is my opinion that what they did say, if
+pressed to its logical conclusion, will inevitably result thus.
+
+Looking at these things, the Republican party, as I understand its
+principles and policy, believes that there is great danger of the
+institution of slavery being spread out and extended until it is
+ultimately made alike lawful in all the States of this Union; so
+believing, to prevent that incidental and ultimate consummation is the
+original and chief purpose of the Republican organization. I say "chief
+purpose" of the Republican organization; for it is certainly true that if
+the National House shall fall into the hands of the Republicans, they
+will have to attend to all the other matters of national house-keeping,
+as well as this. The chief and real purpose of the Republican party is
+eminently conservative. It proposes nothing save and except to restore
+this government to its original tone in regard to this element of
+slavery, and there to maintain it, looking for no further change in
+reference to it than that which the original framers of the Government
+themselves expected and looked forward to.
+
+The chief danger to this purpose of the Republican party is not just now
+the revival of the African slave trade, or the passage of a Congressional
+slave code, or the declaring of a second Dred Scott decision, making
+slavery lawful in all the States. These are not pressing us just now.
+They are not quite ready yet. The authors of these measures know that we
+are too strong for them; but they will be upon us in due time, and we
+will be grappling with them hand to hand, if they are not now headed off.
+They are not now the chief danger to the purpose of the Republican
+organization; but the most imminent danger that now threatens that
+purpose is that insidious Douglas popular sovereignty. This is the miner
+and sapper. While it does not propose to revive the African slave trade,
+nor to pass a slave code, nor to make a second Dred Scott decision, it is
+preparing us for the onslaught and charge of these ultimate enemies when
+they shall be ready to come on, and the word of command for them to
+advance shall be given. I say this "Douglas popular sovereignty"; for
+there is a broad distinction, as I now understand it, between that
+article and a genuine popular sovereignty.
+
+I believe there is a genuine popular sovereignty. I think a definition of
+"genuine popular sovereignty," in the abstract, would be about this: That
+each man shall do precisely as he pleases with himself, and with all
+those things which exclusively concern him. Applied to government, this
+principle would be, that a general government shall do all those things
+which pertain to it, and all the local governments shall do precisely as
+they please in respect to those matters which exclusively concern them. I
+understand that this government of the United States, under which we
+live, is based upon this principle; and I am misunderstood if it is
+supposed that I have any war to make upon that principle.
+
+Now, what is judge Douglas's popular sovereignty? It is, as a principle,
+no other than that if one man chooses to make a slave of another man
+neither that other man nor anybody else has a right to object. Applied in
+government, as he seeks to apply it, it is this: If, in a new Territory
+into which a few people are beginning to enter for the purpose of making
+their homes, they choose to either exclude slavery from their limits or
+to establish it there, however one or the other may affect the persons to
+be enslaved, or the infinitely greater number of persons who are
+afterwards to inhabit that Territory, or the other members of the
+families of communities, of which they are but an incipient member, or
+the general head of the family of States as parent of all, however their
+action may affect one or the other of these, there is no power or right
+to interfere. That is Douglas's popular sovereignty applied.
+
+He has a good deal of trouble with popular sovereignty. His explanations
+explanatory of explanations explained are interminable. The most lengthy,
+and, as I suppose, the most maturely considered of this long series of
+explanations is his great essay in Harper's Magazine. I will not attempt
+to enter on any very thorough investigation of his argument as there made
+and presented. I will nevertheless occupy a good portion of your time
+here in drawing your attention to certain points in it. Such of you as
+may have read this document will have perceived that the judge early in
+the document quotes from two persons as belonging to the Republican
+party, without naming them, but who can readily be recognized as being
+Governor Seward of New York and myself. It is true that exactly fifteen
+months ago this day, I believe, I for the first time expressed a
+sentiment upon this subject, and in such a manner that it should get into
+print, that the public might see it beyond the circle of my hearers; and
+my expression of it at that time is the quotation that Judge Douglas
+makes. He has not made the quotation with accuracy, but justice to him
+requires me to say that it is sufficiently accurate not to change the
+sense.
+
+The sense of that quotation condensed is this: that this slavery element
+is a durable element of discord among us, and that we shall probably not
+have perfect peace in this country with it until it either masters the
+free principle in our government, or is so far mastered by the free
+principle as for the public mind to rest in the belief that it is going
+to its end. This sentiment, which I now express in this way, was, at no
+great distance of time, perhaps in different language, and in connection
+with some collateral ideas, expressed by Governor Seward. Judge Douglas
+has been so much annoyed by the expression of that sentiment that he has
+constantly, I believe, in almost all his speeches since it was uttered,
+been referring to it. I find he alluded to it in his speech here, as well
+as in the copyright essay. I do not now enter upon this for the purpose
+of making an elaborate argument to show that we were right in the
+expression of that sentiment. In other words, I shall not stop to say all
+that might properly be said upon this point, but I only ask your
+attention to it for the purpose of making one or two points upon it.
+
+If you will read the copyright essay, you will discover that judge
+Douglas himself says a controversy between the American Colonies and the
+Government of Great Britain began on the slavery question in 1699, and
+continued from that time until the Revolution; and, while he did not say
+so, we all know that it has continued with more or less violence ever
+since the Revolution.
+
+Then we need not appeal to history, to the declarations of the framers of
+the government, but we know from judge Douglas himself that slavery began
+to be an element of discord among the white people of this country as far
+back as 1699, or one hundred and sixty years ago, or five generations of
+men,--counting thirty years to a generation. Now, it would seem to me
+that it might have occurred to Judge Douglas, or anybody who had turned
+his attention to these facts, that there was something in the nature of
+that thing, slavery, somewhat durable for mischief and discord.
+
+There is another point I desire to make in regard to this matter, before
+I leave it. From the adoption of the Constitution down to 1820 is the
+precise period of our history when we had comparative peace upon this
+question,--the precise period of time when we came nearer to having peace
+about it than any other time of that entire one hundred and sixty years
+in which he says it began, or of the eighty years of our own
+Constitution. Then it would be worth our while to stop and examine into
+the probable reason of our coming nearer to having peace then than at any
+other time. This was the precise period of time in which our fathers
+adopted, and during which they followed, a policy restricting the spread
+of slavery, and the whole Union was acquiescing in it. The whole country
+looked forward to the ultimate extinction of the institution. It was when
+a policy had been adopted, and was prevailing, which led all just and
+right-minded men to suppose that slavery was gradually coming to an end,
+and that they might be quiet about it, watching it as it expired. I think
+Judge Douglas might have perceived that too; and whether he did or not,
+it is worth the attention of fair-minded men, here and elsewhere, to
+consider whether that is not the truth of the case. If he had looked at
+these two facts,--that this matter has been an element of discord for one
+hundred and sixty years among this people, and that the only comparative
+peace we have had about it was when that policy prevailed in this
+government which he now wars upon, he might then, perhaps, have been
+brought to a more just appreciation of what I said fifteen months
+ago,--that "a house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe that
+this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. I do
+not expect the house to fall, I do not expect the Union to dissolve; 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 will rest in the belief
+that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will
+push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old
+as well as new, North as well as South." That was my sentiment at that
+time. In connection with it, I said: "We are now far into the fifth year
+since a policy was inaugurated with the avowed object and confident
+promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of
+the policy that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly
+augmented." I now say to you here that we are advanced still farther into
+the sixth year since that policy of Judge Douglas--that popular
+sovereignty of his--for quieting the slavery question was made the
+national policy. Fifteen months more have been added since I uttered that
+sentiment; and I call upon you and all other right-minded men to say
+whether that fifteen months have belied or corroborated my words.
+
+While I am here upon this subject, I cannot but express gratitude that
+this true view of this element of discord among us--as I believe it
+is--is attracting more and more attention. I do not believe that Governor
+Seward uttered that sentiment because I had done so before, but because
+he reflected upon this subject and saw the truth of it. Nor do I believe
+because Governor Seward or I uttered it that Mr. Hickman of Pennsylvania,
+in, different language, since that time, has declared his belief in the
+utter antagonism which exists between the principles of liberty and
+slavery. You see we are multiplying. Now, while I am speaking of Hickman,
+let me say, I know but little about him. I have never seen him, and know
+scarcely anything about the man; but I will say this much of him: Of all
+the anti-Lecompton Democracy that have been brought to my notice, he
+alone has the true, genuine ring of the metal. And now, without indorsing
+anything else he has said, I will ask this audience to give three cheers
+for Hickman. [The audience responded with three rousing cheers for
+Hickman.]
+
+Another point in the copyright essay to which I would ask your attention
+is rather a feature to be extracted from the whole thing, than from any
+express declaration of it at any point. It is a general feature of that
+document, and, indeed, of all of Judge Douglas's discussions of this
+question, that the Territories of the United States and the States of
+this Union are exactly alike; that there is no difference between them at
+all; that the Constitution applies to the Territories precisely as it
+does to the States; and that the United States Government, under the
+Constitution, may not do in a State what it may not do in a Territory,
+and what it must do in a State it must do in a Territory. Gentlemen, is
+that a true view of the case? It is necessary for this squatter
+sovereignty, but is it true?
+
+Let us consider. What does it depend upon? It depends altogether upon the
+proposition that the States must, without the interference of the General
+Government, do all those things that pertain exclusively to
+themselves,--that are local in their nature, that have no connection with
+the General Government. After Judge Douglas has established this
+proposition, which nobody disputes or ever has disputed, he proceeds to
+assume, without proving it, that slavery is one of those little,
+unimportant, trivial matters which are of just about as much consequence
+as the question would be to me whether my neighbor should raise horned
+cattle or plant tobacco; that there is no moral question about it, but
+that it is altogether a matter of dollars and cents; that when a new
+Territory is opened for settlement, the first man who goes into it may
+plant there a thing which, like the Canada thistle or some other of those
+pests of the soil, cannot be dug out by the millions of men who will come
+thereafter; that it is one of those little things that is so trivial in
+its nature that it has nor effect upon anybody save the few men who first
+plant upon the soil; that it is not a thing which in any way affects the
+family of communities composing these States, nor any way endangers the
+General Government. Judge Douglas ignores altogether the very well known
+fact that we have never had a serious menace to our political existence,
+except it sprang from this thing, which he chooses to regard as only upon
+a par with onions and potatoes.
+
+Turn it, and contemplate it in another view. He says that, according to
+his popular sovereignty, the General Government may give to the
+Territories governors, judges, marshals, secretaries, and all the other
+chief men to govern them, but they, must not touch upon this other
+question. Why? The question of who shall be governor of a Territory for a
+year or two, and pass away, without his track being left upon the soil,
+or an act which he did for good or for evil being left behind, is a
+question of vast national magnitude; it is so much opposed in its nature
+to locality that the nation itself must decide it: while this other
+matter of planting slavery upon a soil,--a thing which, once planted,
+cannot be eradicated by the succeeding millions who have as much right
+there as the first comers, or, if eradicated, not without infinite
+difficulty and a long struggle, he considers the power to prohibit it as
+one of these little local, trivial things that the nation ought not to
+say a word about; that it affects nobody save the few men who are there.
+
+Take these two things and consider them together, present the question of
+planting a State with the institution of slavery by the side of a
+question who shall be Governor of Kansas for a year or two, and is there
+a man here, is there a man on earth, who would not say the governor
+question is the little one, and the slavery question is the great one? I
+ask any honest Democrat if the small, the local, and the trivial and
+temporary question is not, Who shall be governor? while the durable, the
+important, and the mischievous one is, Shall this soil be planted with
+slavery?
+
+This is an idea, I suppose, which has arisen in Judge Douglas's mind from
+his peculiar structure. I suppose the institution of slavery really looks
+small to him. He is so put up by nature that a lash upon his back would
+hurt him, but a lash upon anybody else's back does not hurt him. That is
+the build of the man, and consequently he looks upon the matter of
+slavery in this unimportant light.
+
+Judge Douglas ought to remember, when he is endeavoring to force this
+policy upon the American people, that while he is put up in that way, a
+good many are not. He ought to remember that there was once in this
+country a man by the name of Thomas Jefferson, supposed to be a
+Democrat,--a man whose principles and policy are not very prevalent
+amongst Democrats to-day, it is true; but that man did not take exactly
+this view of the insignificance of the element of slavery which our
+friend judge Douglas does. In contemplation of this thing, we all know he
+was led to exclaim, "I tremble for my country when I remember that God is
+just!" We know how he looked upon it when he thus expressed himself.
+There was danger to this country,--danger of the avenging justice of God,
+in that little unimportant popular sovereignty question of judge Douglas.
+He supposed there was a question of God's eternal justice wrapped up in
+the enslaving of any race of men, or any man, and that those who did so
+braved the arm of Jehovah; that when a nation thus dared the Almighty,
+every friend of that nation had cause to dread his wrath. Choose ye
+between Jefferson and Douglas as to what is the true view of this element
+among us.
+
+There is another little difficulty about this matter of treating the
+Territories and States alike in all things, to which I ask your
+attention, and I shall leave this branch of the case. If there is no
+difference between them, why not make the Territories States at once?
+What is the reason that Kansas was not fit to come into the Union when it
+was organized into a Territory, in Judge Douglas's view? Can any of you
+tell any reason why it should not have come into the Union at once? They
+are fit, as he thinks, to decide upon the slavery question,--the largest
+and most important with which they could possibly deal: what could they
+do by coming into the Union that they are not fit to do, according to his
+view, by staying out of it? Oh, they are not fit to sit in Congress and
+decide upon the rates of postage, or questions of ad valorem or specific
+duties on foreign goods, or live-oak timber contracts, they are not fit
+to decide these vastly important matters, which are national in their
+import, but they are fit, "from the jump," to decide this little negro
+question. But, gentlemen, the case is too plain; I occupy too much time
+on this head, and I pass on.
+
+Near the close of the copyright essay, the judge, I think, comes very
+near kicking his own fat into the fire. I did not think, when I commenced
+these remarks, that I would read that article, but I now believe I will:
+
+"This exposition of the history of these measures shows conclusively that
+the authors of the Compromise measures of 1850 and of the Kansas-Nebraska
+Act of 1854, as well as the members of the Continental Congress of 1774.,
+and the founders of our system of government subsequent to the
+Revolution, regarded the people of the Territories and Colonies as
+political communities which were entitled to a free and exclusive power
+of legislation in their provisional legislatures, where their
+representation could alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and
+internal polity."
+
+When the judge saw that putting in the word "slavery" would contradict
+his own history, he put in what he knew would pass synonymous with it,
+"internal polity." Whenever we find that in one of his speeches, the
+substitute is used in this manner; and I can tell you the reason. It
+would be too bald a contradiction to say slavery; but "internal polity"
+is a general phrase, which would pass in some quarters, and which he
+hopes will pass with the reading community for the same thing.
+
+"This right pertains to the people collectively, as a law-abiding and
+peaceful community, and not in the isolated individuals who may wander
+upon the public domain in violation of the law. It can only be exercised
+where there are inhabitants sufficient to constitute a government, and
+capable of performing its various functions and duties,--a fact to be
+ascertained and determined by" who do you think? Judge Douglas says "by
+Congress!" "Whether the number shall be fixed at ten, fifteen or twenty
+thousand inhabitants, does not affect the principle."
+
+Now, I have only a few comments to make. Popular sovereignty, by his own
+words, does not pertain to the few persons who wander upon the public
+domain in violation of law. We have his words for that. When it does
+pertain to them, is when they are sufficient to be formed into an
+organized political community, and he fixes the minimum for that at ten
+thousand, and the maximum at twenty thousand. Now, I would like to know
+what is to be done with the nine thousand? Are they all to be treated,
+until they are large enough to be organized into a political community,
+as wanderers upon the public land, in violation of law? And if so treated
+and driven out, at what point of time would there ever be ten thousand?
+If they were not driven out, but remained there as trespassers upon the
+public land in violation of the law, can they establish slavery there?
+No; the judge says popular sovereignty don't pertain to them then. Can
+they exclude it then? No; popular sovereignty don't pertain to them then.
+I would like to know, in the case covered by the essay, what condition
+the people of the Territory are in before they reach the number of ten
+thousand?
+
+But the main point I wish to ask attention to is, that the question as to
+when they shall have reached a sufficient number to be formed into a
+regular organized community is to be decided "by Congress." Judge Douglas
+says so. Well, gentlemen, that is about all we want. No, that is all the
+Southerners want. That is what all those who are for slavery want. They
+do not want Congress to prohibit slavery from coming into the new
+Territories, and they do not want popular sovereignty to hinder it; and
+as Congress is to say when they are ready to be organized, all that the
+South has to do is to get Congress to hold off. Let Congress hold off
+until they are ready to be admitted as a State, and the South has all it
+wants in taking slavery into and planting it in all the Territories that
+we now have or hereafter may have. In a word, the whole thing, at a dash
+of the pen, is at last put in the power of Congress; for if they do not
+have this popular sovereignty until Congress organizes them, I ask if it
+at last does not come from Congress? If, at last, it amounts to anything
+at all, Congress gives it to them. I submit this rather for your
+reflection than for comment. After all that is said, at last, by a dash
+of the pen, everything that has gone before is undone, and he puts the
+whole question under the control of Congress. After fighting through more
+than three hours, if you undertake to read it, he at last places the
+whole matter under the control of that power which he has been contending
+against, and arrives at a result directly contrary to what he had been
+laboring to do. He at last leaves the whole matter to the control of
+Congress.
+
+There are two main objects, as I understand it, of this Harper's Magazine
+essay. One was to show, if possible, that the men of our Revolutionary
+times were in favor of his popular sovereignty, and the other was to show
+that the Dred Scott decision had not entirely squelched out this popular
+sovereignty. I do not propose, in regard to this argument drawn from the
+history of former times, to enter into a detailed examination of the
+historical statements he has made. I have the impression that they are
+inaccurate in a great many instances,--sometimes in positive statement,
+but very much more inaccurate by the suppression of statements that
+really belong to the history. But I do not propose to affirm that this is
+so to any very great extent, or to enter into a very minute examination
+of his historical statements. I avoid doing so upon this principle,--that
+if it were important for me to pass out of this lot in the least period
+of time possible, and I came to that fence, and saw by a calculation of
+my known strength and agility that I could clear it at a bound, it would
+be folly for me to stop and consider whether I could or not crawl through
+a crack. So I say of the whole history contained in his essay where he
+endeavored to link the men of the Revolution to popular sovereignty. It
+only requires an effort to leap out of it, a single bound to be entirely
+successful. If you read it over, you will find that he quotes here and
+there from documents of the Revolutionary times, tending to show that the
+people of the colonies were desirous of regulating their own concerns in
+their own way, that the British Government should not interfere; that at
+one time they struggled with the British Government to be permitted to
+exclude the African slave trade,--if not directly, to be permitted to
+exclude it indirectly, by taxation sufficient to discourage and destroy
+it. From these and many things of this sort, judge Douglas argues that
+they were in favor of the people of our own Territories excluding slavery
+if they wanted to, or planting it there if they wanted to, doing just as
+they pleased from the time they settled upon the Territory. Now, however
+his history may apply and whatever of his argument there may be that is
+sound and accurate or unsound and inaccurate, if we can find out what
+these men did themselves do upon this very question of slavery in the
+Territories, does it not end the whole thing? If, after all this labor
+and effort to show that the men of the Revolution were in favor of his
+popular sovereignty and his mode of dealing with slavery in the
+Territories, we can show that these very men took hold of that subject,
+and dealt with it, we can see for ourselves how they dealt with it. It is
+not a matter of argument or inference, but we know what they thought
+about it.
+
+It is precisely upon that part of the history of the country that one
+important omission is made by Judge Douglas. He selects parts of the
+history of the United States upon the subject of slavery, and treats it
+as the whole, omitting from his historical sketch the legislation of
+Congress in regard to the admission of Missouri, by which the Missouri
+Compromise was established and slavery excluded from a country half as
+large as the present United States. All this is left out of his history,
+and in nowise alluded to by him, so far as I can remember, save once,
+when he makes a remark, that upon his principle the Supreme Court were
+authorized to pronounce a decision that the act called the Missouri
+Compromise was unconstitutional. All that history has been left out. But
+this part of the history of the country was not made by the men of the
+Revolution.
+
+There was another part of our political history, made by the very men who
+were the actors in the Revolution, which has taken the name of the
+Ordinance of '87. Let me bring that history to your attention. In 1784, I
+believe, this same Mr. Jefferson drew up an ordinance for the government
+of the country upon which we now stand, or, rather, a frame or draft of
+an ordinance for the government of this country, here in Ohio, our
+neighbors in Indiana, us who live in Illinois, our neighbors in Wisconsin
+and Michigan. In that ordinance, drawn up not only for the government of
+that Territory, but for the Territories south of the Ohio River, Mr.
+Jefferson expressly provided for the prohibition of slavery. Judge
+Douglas says, and perhaps is right, that that provision was lost from
+that ordinance. I believe that is true. When the vote was taken upon it,
+a majority of all present in the Congress of the Confederation voted for
+it; but there were so many absentees that those voting for it did not
+make the clear majority necessary, and it was lost. But three years after
+that, the Congress of the Confederation were together again, and they
+adopted a new ordinance for the government of this Northwest Territory,
+not contemplating territory south of the river, for the States owning
+that territory had hitherto refrained from giving it to the General
+Government; hence they made the ordinance to apply only to what the
+Government owned. In fact, the provision excluding slavery was inserted
+aside, passed unanimously, or at any rate it passed and became a part of
+the law of the land. Under that ordinance we live. First here in Ohio you
+were a Territory; then an enabling act was passed, authorizing you to
+form a constitution and State Government, provided it was republican and
+not in conflict with the Ordinance of '87. When you framed your
+constitution and presented it for admission, I think you will find the
+legislation upon the subject will show that, whereas you had formed a
+constitution that was republican, and not in conflict with the Ordinance
+of '87, therefore you were admitted upon equal footing with the original
+States. The same process in a few years was gone through with in Indiana,
+and so with Illinois, and the same substantially with Michigan and
+Wisconsin.
+
+Not only did that Ordinance prevail, but it was constantly looked to
+whenever a step was taken by a new Territory to become a State. Congress
+always turned their attention to it, and in all their movements upon this
+subject they traced their course by that Ordinance of '87. When they
+admitted new States, they advertised them of this Ordinance, as a part of
+the legislation of the country. They did so because they had traced the
+Ordinance of '87 throughout the history of this country. Begin with the
+men of the Revolution, and go down for sixty entire years, and until the
+last scrap of that Territory comes into the Union in the form of the
+State of Wisconsin, everything was made to conform with the Ordinance of
+'87, excluding slavery from that vast extent of country.
+
+I omitted to mention in the right place that the Constitution of the
+United States was in process of being framed when that Ordinance was made
+by the Congress of the Confederation; and one of the first Acts of
+Congress itself, under the new Constitution itself, was to give force to
+that Ordinance by putting power to carry it out in the hands of the new
+officers under the Constitution, in the place of the old ones, who had
+been legislated out of existence by the change in the Government from the
+Confederation to the Constitution. Not only so, but I believe Indiana
+once or twice, if not Ohio, petitioned the General Government for the
+privilege of suspending that provision and allowing them to have slaves.
+A report made by Mr. Randolph, of Virginia, himself a slaveholder, was
+directly against it, and the action was to refuse them the privilege of
+violating the Ordinance of '87.
+
+This period of history, which I have run over briefly, is, I presume, as
+familiar to most of this assembly as any other part of the history of our
+country. I suppose that few of my hearers are not as familiar with that
+part of history as I am, and I only mention it to recall your attention
+to it at this time. And hence I ask how extraordinary a thing it is that
+a man who has occupied a position upon the floor of the Senate of the
+United States, who is now in his third term, and who looks to see the
+government of this whole country fall into his own hands, pretending to
+give a truthful and accurate history o the slavery question in this
+country, should so entirely ignore the whole of that portion of our
+history--the most important of all. Is it not a most extraordinary
+spectacle that a man should stand up and ask for any confidence in his
+statements who sets out as he does with portions of history, calling upon
+the people to believe that it is a true and fair representation, when the
+leading part and controlling feature of the whole history is carefully
+suppressed?
+
+But the mere leaving out is not the most remarkable feature of this most
+remarkable essay. His proposition is to establish that the leading men of
+the Revolution were for his great principle of nonintervention by the
+government in the question of slavery in the Territories, while history
+shows that they decided, in the cases actually brought before them, in
+exactly the contrary way, and he knows it. Not only did they so decide at
+that time, but they stuck to it during sixty years, through thick and
+thin, as long as there was one of the Revolutionary heroes upon the stage
+of political action. Through their whole course, from first to last, they
+clung to freedom. And now he asks the community to believe that the men
+of the Revolution were in favor of his great principle, when we have the
+naked history that they themselves dealt with this very subject matter of
+his principle, and utterly repudiated his principle, acting upon a
+precisely contrary ground. It is as impudent and absurd as if a
+prosecuting attorney should stand up before a jury and ask them to
+convict A as the murderer of B, while B was walking alive before them.
+
+I say, again, if judge Douglas asserts that the men of the Revolution
+acted upon principles by which, to be consistent with themselves, they
+ought to have adopted his popular sovereignty, then, upon a consideration
+of his own argument, he had a right to make you believe that they
+understood the principles of government, but misapplied them, that he has
+arisen to enlighten the world as to the just application of this
+principle. He has a right to try to persuade you that he understands
+their principles better than they did, and, therefore, he will apply them
+now, not as they did, but as they ought to have done. He has a right to
+go before the community and try to convince them of this, but he has no
+right to attempt to impose upon any one the belief that these men
+themselves approved of his great principle. There are two ways of
+establishing a proposition. One is by trying to demonstrate it upon
+reason, and the other is, to show that great men in former times have
+thought so and so, and thus to pass it by the weight of pure authority.
+Now, if Judge Douglas will demonstrate somehow that this is popular
+sovereignty,--the right of one man to make a slave of another, without
+any right in that other or any one else to object,--demonstrate it as
+Euclid demonstrated propositions,--there is no objection. But when he
+comes forward, seeking to carry a principle by bringing to it the
+authority of men who themselves utterly repudiate that principle, I ask
+that he shall not be permitted to do it.
+
+I see, in the judge's speech here, a short sentence in these words: "Our
+fathers, when they formed this government under which we live, understood
+this question just as well, and even better than, we do now." That is
+true; I stick to that. I will stand by Judge Douglas in that to the
+bitter end. And now, Judge Douglas, come and stand by me, and truthfully
+show how they acted, understanding it better than we do. All I ask of
+you, Judge Douglas, is to stick to the proposition that the men of the
+Revolution understood this subject better than we do now, and with that
+better understanding they acted better than you are trying to act now.
+
+I wish to say something now in regard to the Dred Scott decision, as
+dealt with by Judge Douglas. In that "memorable debate" between Judge
+Douglas and myself, last year, the judge thought fit to commence a
+process of catechising me, and at Freeport I answered his questions, and
+propounded some to him. Among others propounded to him was one that I
+have here now. The substance, as I remember it, is, "Can the people of a
+United States Territory, under the Dred Scott decision, in any lawful
+way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude
+slavery from its limits, prior to the formation of a State constitution?"
+He answered that they could lawfully exclude slavery from the United
+States Territories, notwithstanding the Dred Scot decision. There was
+something about that answer that has probably been a trouble to the judge
+ever since.
+
+The Dred Scott decision expressly gives every citizen of the United
+States a right to carry his slaves into the United States Territories.
+And now there was some inconsistency in saying that the decision was
+right, and saying, too, that the people of the Territory could lawfully
+drive slavery out again. When all the trash, the words, the collateral
+matter, was cleared away from it, all the chaff was fanned out of it, it
+was a bare absurdity,--no less than that a thing may be lawfully driven
+away from where it has a lawful right to be. Clear it of all the
+verbiage, and that is the naked truth of his proposition,--that a thing
+may be lawfully driven from the place where it has a lawful right to
+stay. Well, it was because the judge could n't help seeing this that he
+has had so much trouble with it; and what I want to ask your especial
+attention to, just now, is to remind you, if you have not noticed the
+fact, that the judge does not any longer say that the people can exclude
+slavery. He does not say so in the copyright essay; he did not say so in
+the speech that he made here; and, so far as I know, since his
+re-election to the Senate he has never said, as he did at Freeport, that
+the people of the Territories can exclude slavery. He desires that you,
+who wish the Territories to remain free, should believe that he stands by
+that position; but he does not say it himself. He escapes to some extent
+the absurd position I have stated, by changing his language entirely.
+What he says now is something different in language, and we will consider
+whether it is not different in sense too. It is now that the Dred Scott
+decision, or rather the Constitution under that decision, does not carry
+slavery into the Territories beyond the power of the people of the
+Territories to control it as other property. He does not say the people
+can drive it out, but they can control it as other property. The language
+is different; we should consider whether the sense is different. Driving
+a horse out of this lot is too plain a proposition to be mistaken about;
+it is putting him on the other side of the fence. Or it might be a sort
+of exclusion of him from the lot if you were to kill him and let the
+worms devour him; but neither of these things is the same as "controlling
+him as other property." That would be to feed him, to pamper him, to ride
+him, to use and abuse him, to make the most money out of him, "as other
+property"; but, please you, what do the men who are in favor of slavery
+want more than this? What do they really want, other than that slavery,
+being in the Territories, shall be controlled as other property? If they
+want anything else, I do not comprehend it. I ask your attention to this,
+first, for the purpose of pointing out the change of ground the judge has
+made; and, in the second place, the importance of the change,--that that
+change is not such as to give you gentlemen who want his popular
+sovereignty the power to exclude the institution or drive it out at all.
+I know the judge sometimes squints at the argument that in controlling it
+as other property by unfriendly legislation they may control it to death;
+as you might, in the case of a horse, perhaps, feed him so lightly and
+ride him so much that he would die. But when you come to legislative
+control, there is something more to be attended to. I have no doubt,
+myself, that if the Territories should undertake to control slave
+property as other property that is, control it in such a way that it
+would be the most valuable as property, and make it bear its just
+proportion in the way of burdens as property, really deal with it as
+property,--the Supreme Court of the United States will say, "God speed
+you, and amen." But I undertake to give the opinion, at least, that if
+the Territories attempt by any direct legislation to drive the man with
+his slave out of the Territory, or to decide that his slave is free
+because of his being taken in there, or to tax him to such an extent that
+he cannot keep him there, the Supreme Court will unhesitatingly decide
+all such legislation unconstitutional, as long as that Supreme Court is
+constructed as the Dred Scott Supreme Court is. The first two things they
+have already decided, except that there is a little quibble among lawyers
+between the words "dicta" and "decision." They have already decided a
+negro cannot be made free by Territorial legislation.
+
+What is the Dred Scott decision? Judge Douglas labors to show that it is
+one thing, while I think it is altogether different. It is a long
+opinion, but it is all embodied in this short statement: "The
+Constitution of the United States forbids Congress to deprive a man of
+his property, without due process of law; the right of property in slaves
+is distinctly and expressly affirmed in that Constitution: therefore, if
+Congress shall undertake to say that a man's slave is no longer his slave
+when he crosses a certain line into a Territory, that is depriving him of
+his property without due process of law, and is unconstitutional." There
+is the whole Dred Scott decision. They add that if Congress cannot do so
+itself, Congress cannot confer any power to do so; and hence any effort
+by the Territorial Legislature to do either of these things is absolutely
+decided against. It is a foregone conclusion by that court.
+
+Now, as to this indirect mode by "unfriendly legislation," all lawyers
+here will readily understand that such a proposition cannot be tolerated
+for a moment, because a legislature cannot indirectly do that which it
+cannot accomplish directly. Then I say any legislation to control this
+property, as property, for its benefit as property, would be hailed by
+this Dred Scott Supreme Court, and fully sustained; but any legislation
+driving slave property out, or destroying it as property, directly or
+indirectly, will most assuredly, by that court, be held unconstitutional.
+
+Judge Douglas says if the Constitution carries slavery into the
+Territories, beyond the power of the people of the Territories to control
+it as other property; then it follows logically that every one who swears
+to support the Constitution of the United States must give that support
+to that property which it needs. And, if the Constitution carries slavery
+into the Territories, beyond the power of the people, to control it as
+other property, then it also carries it into the States, because the
+Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Now, gentlemen, if it were
+not for my excessive modesty, I would say that I told that very thing to
+Judge Douglas quite a year ago. This argument is here in print, and if it
+were not for my modesty, as I said, I might call your attention to it. If
+you read it, you will find that I not only made that argument, but made
+it better than he has made it since.
+
+There is, however, this difference: I say now, and said then, there is no
+sort of question that the Supreme Court has decided that it is the right
+of the slave holder to take his slave and hold him in the Territory; and
+saying this, judge Douglas himself admits the conclusion. He says if that
+is so, this consequence will follow; and because this consequence would
+follow, his argument is, the decision cannot, therefore, be that way,--
+"that would spoil my popular sovereignty; and it cannot be possible that
+this great principle has been squelched out in this extraordinary way. It
+might be, if it were not for the extraordinary consequences of spoiling
+my humbug."
+
+Another feature of the judge's argument about the Dred Scott case is, an
+effort to show that that decision deals altogether in declarations of
+negatives; that the Constitution does not affirm anything as expounded by
+the Dred Scott decision, but it only declares a want of power a total
+absence of power, in reference to the Territories. It seems to be his
+purpose to make the whole of that decision to result in a mere negative
+declaration of a want of power in Congress to do anything in relation to
+this matter in the Territories. I know the opinion of the Judges states
+that there is a total absence of power; but that is, unfortunately; not
+all it states: for the judges add that the right of property in a slave
+is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. It does not
+stop at saying that the right of property in a slave is recognized in the
+Constitution, is declared to exist somewhere in the Constitution, but
+says it is affirmed in the Constitution. Its language is equivalent to
+saying that it is embodied and so woven in that instrument that it cannot
+be detached without breaking the Constitution itself. In a word, it is
+part of the Constitution.
+
+Douglas is singularly unfortunate in his effort to make out that decision
+to be altogether negative, when the express language at the vital part is
+that this is distinctly affirmed in the Constitution. I think myself, and
+I repeat it here, that this decision does not merely carry slavery into
+the Territories, but by its logical conclusion it carries it into the
+States in which we live. One provision of that Constitution is, that it
+shall be the supreme law of the land,--I do not quote the language,--any
+constitution or law of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. This
+Dred Scott decision says that the right of property in a slave is
+affirmed in that Constitution which is the supreme law of the land, any
+State constitution or law notwithstanding. Then I say that to destroy a
+thing which is distinctly affirmed and supported by the supreme law of
+the land, even by a State constitution or law, is a violation of that
+supreme law, and there is no escape from it. In my judgment there is no
+avoiding that result, save that the American people shall see that
+constitutions are better construed than our Constitution is construed in
+that decision. They must take care that it is more faithfully and truly
+carried out than it is there expounded.
+
+I must hasten to a conclusion. Near the beginning of my remarks I said
+that this insidious Douglas popular sovereignty is the measure that now
+threatens the purpose of the Republican party to prevent slavery from
+being nationalized in the United States. I propose to ask your attention
+for a little while to some propositions in affirmance of that statement.
+Take it just as it stands, and apply it as a principle; extend and apply
+that principle elsewhere; and consider where it will lead you. I now put
+this proposition, that Judge Douglas's popular sovereignty applied will
+reopen the African slave trade; and I will demonstrate it by any variety
+of ways in which you can turn the subject or look at it.
+
+The Judge says that the people of the Territories have the right, by his
+principle, to have slaves, if they want them. Then I say that the people
+in Georgia have the right to buy slaves in Africa, if they want them; and
+I defy any man on earth to show any distinction between the two
+things,--to show that the one is either more wicked or more unlawful; to
+show, on original principles, that one is better or worse than the other;
+or to show, by the Constitution, that one differs a whit from the other.
+He will tell me, doubtless, that there is no constitutional provision
+against people taking slaves into the new Territories, and I tell him
+that there is equally no constitutional provision against buying slaves
+in Africa. He will tell you that a people, in the exercise of popular
+sovereignty, ought to do as they please about that thing, and have slaves
+if they want them; and I tell you that the people of Georgia are as much
+entitled to popular sovereignty and to buy slaves in Africa, if they want
+them, as the people of the Territory are to have slaves if they want
+them. I ask any man, dealing honestly with himself, to point out a
+distinction.
+
+I have recently seen a letter of Judge Douglas's in which, without
+stating that to be the object, he doubtless endeavors to make a
+distinction between the two. He says he is unalterably opposed to the
+repeal of the laws against the African slave trade. And why? He then
+seeks to give a reason that would not apply to his popular sovereignty in
+the Territories. What is that reason? "The abolition of the African slave
+trade is a compromise of the Constitution!" I deny it. There is no truth
+in the proposition that the abolition of the African slave trade is a
+compromise of the Constitution. No man can put his finger on anything in
+the Constitution, or on the line of history, which shows it. It is a mere
+barren assertion, made simply for the purpose of getting up a distinction
+between the revival of the African slave trade and his "great principle."
+
+At the time the Constitution of the United States was adopted, it was
+expected that the slave trade would be abolished. I should assert and
+insist upon that, if judge Douglas denied it. But I know that it was
+equally expected that slavery would be excluded from the Territories, and
+I can show by history that in regard to these two things public opinion
+was exactly alike, while in regard to positive action, there was more
+done in the Ordinance of '87 to resist the spread of slavery than was
+ever done to abolish the foreign slave trade. Lest I be misunderstood, I
+say again that at the time of the formation of the Constitution, public
+expectation was that the slave trade would be abolished, but no more so
+than the spread of slavery in the Territories should be restrained. They
+stand alike, except that in the Ordinance of '87 there was a mark left by
+public opinion, showing that it was more committed against the spread of
+slavery in the Territories than against the foreign slave trade.
+
+Compromise! What word of compromise was there about it? Why, the public
+sense was then in favor of the abolition of the slave trade; but there
+was at the time a very great commercial interest involved in it, and
+extensive capital in that branch of trade. There were doubtless the
+incipient stages of improvement in the South in the way of farming,
+dependent on the slave trade, and they made a proposition to Congress to
+abolish the trade after allowing it twenty years,--a sufficient time for
+the capital and commerce engaged in it to be transferred to other
+channel. They made no provision that it should be abolished in twenty
+years; I do not doubt that they expected it would be, but they made no
+bargain about it. The public sentiment left no doubt in the minds of any
+that it would be done away. I repeat, there is nothing in the history of
+those times in favor of that matter being a compromise of the
+constitution. It was the public expectation at the time, manifested in a
+thousand ways, that the spread of slavery should also be restricted.
+
+Then I say, if this principle is established, that there is no wrong in
+slavery, and whoever wants it has a right to have it, is a matter of
+dollars and cents, a sort of question as to how they shall deal with
+brutes, that between us and the negro here there is no sort of question,
+but that at the South the question is between the negro and the
+crocodile, that is all, it is a mere matter of policy, there is a perfect
+right, according to interest, to do just as you please,--when this is
+done, where this doctrine prevails, the miners and sappers will have
+formed public opinion for the slave trade. They will be ready for Jeff.
+Davis and Stephens and other leaders of that company to sound the bugle
+for the revival of the slave trade, for the second Dred Scott decision,
+for the flood of slavery to be poured over the free States, while we
+shall be here tied down and helpless and run over like sheep.
+
+It is to be a part and parcel of this same idea to say to men who want to
+adhere to the Democratic party, who have always belonged to that party,
+and are only looking about for some excuse to stick to it, but
+nevertheless hate slavery, that Douglas's popular sovereignty is as good
+a way as any to oppose slavery. They allow themselves to be persuaded
+easily, in accordance with their previous dispositions, into this belief,
+that it is about as good a way of opposing slavery as any, and we can do
+that without straining our old party ties or breaking up old political
+associations. We can do so without being called negro-worshipers. We can
+do that without being subjected to the jibes and sneers that are so
+readily thrown out in place of argument where no argument can be found.
+So let us stick to this popular sovereignty,--this insidious popular
+sovereignty.
+
+Now let me call your attention to one thing that has really happened,
+which shows this gradual and steady debauching of public opinion, this
+course of preparation for the revival of the slave trade, for the
+Territorial slave code, and the new Dred Scott decision that is to carry
+slavery into the Free States. Did you ever, five years ago, hear of
+anybody in the world saying that the negro had no share in the
+Declaration of National Independence; that it does not mean negroes at
+all; and when "all men" were spoken of, negroes were not included?
+
+I am satisfied that five years ago that proposition was not put upon
+paper by any living being anywhere. I have been unable at any time to
+find a man in an audience who would declare that he had ever known of
+anybody saying so five years ago. But last year there was not a Douglas
+popular sovereign in Illinois who did not say it. Is there one in Ohio
+but declares his firm belief that the Declaration of Independence did not
+mean negroes at all? I do not know how this is; I have not been here
+much; but I presume you are very much alike everywhere. Then I suppose
+that all now express the belief that the Declaration of Independence
+never did mean negroes. I call upon one of them to say that he said it
+five years ago.
+
+If you think that now, and did not think it then, the next thing that
+strikes me is to remark that there has been a change wrought in you,--and
+a very significant change it is, being no less than changing the negro,
+in your estimation, from the rank of a man to that of a brute. They are
+taking him down and placing him, when spoken of, among reptiles and
+crocodiles, as Judge Douglas himself expresses it.
+
+Is not this change wrought in your minds a very important change? Public
+opinion in this country is everything. In a nation like ours, this
+popular sovereignty and squatter sovereignty have already wrought a
+change in the public mind to the extent I have stated. There is no man in
+this crowd who can contradict it.
+
+Now, if you are opposed to slavery honestly, as much as anybody, I ask
+you to note that fact, and the like of which is to follow, to be
+plastered on, layer after layer, until very soon you are prepared to deal
+with the negro every where as with the brute. If public sentiment has not
+been debauched already to this point, a new turn of the screw in that
+direction is all that is wanting; and this is constantly being done by
+the teachers of this insidious popular sovereignty. You need but one or
+two turns further, until your minds, now ripening under these teachings,
+will be ready for all these things, and you will receive and support, or
+submit to, the slave trade, revived with all its horrors, a slave code
+enforced in our Territories, and a new Dred Scott decision to bring
+slavery up into the very heart of the free North. This, I must say, is
+but carrying out those words prophetically spoken by Mr. Clay,--many,
+many years ago,--I believe more than thirty years, when he told an
+audience that if they would repress all tendencies to liberty and
+ultimate emancipation they must go back to the era of our independence,
+and muzzle the cannon which thundered its annual joyous return on the
+Fourth of July; they must blow out the moral lights around us; they must
+penetrate the human soul, and eradicate the love of liberty: but until
+they did these things, and others eloquently enumerated by him, they
+could not repress all tendencies to ultimate emancipation.
+
+I ask attention to the fact that in a pre-eminent degree these popular
+sovereigns are at this work: blowing out the moral lights around us;
+teaching that the negro is no longer a man, but a brute; that the
+Declaration has nothing to do with him; that he ranks with the crocodile
+and the reptile; that man, with body and soul, is a matter of dollars and
+cents. I suggest to this portion of the Ohio Republicans, or Democrats,
+if there be any present, the serious consideration of this fact that
+there is now going on among you a steady process of debauching public
+opinion on this subject. With this, my friends, I bid you adieu.
+
+
+
+
+SPEECH AT CINCINNATI OHIO, SEPTEMBER 17, 1859
+
+My Fellow-Citizens of the State of Ohio: This is the first time in my
+life that I have appeared before an audience in so great a city as this:
+I therefore--though I am no longer a young man--make this appearance
+under some degree of embarrassment. But I have found that when one is
+embarrassed, usually the shortest way to get through with it is to quit
+talking or thinking about it, and go at something else.
+
+I understand that you have had recently with you my very distinguished
+friend Judge Douglas, of Illinois; and I understand, without having had
+an opportunity (not greatly sought, to be sure) of seeing a report of the
+speech that he made here, that he did me the honor to mention my humble
+name. I suppose that he did so for the purpose of making some objection
+to some sentiment at some time expressed by me. I should expect, it is
+true, that judge Douglas had reminded you, or informed you, if you had
+never before heard it, that I had once in my life declared it as my
+opinion that this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and
+half free; that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and, as I
+had expressed it, I did not expect the house to fall, that I did not
+expect the Union to be dissolved, but that I did expect that it would
+cease to be divided, that it would become all one thing, or all the
+other; that either the opponents of slavery would arrest the further
+spread of it, and place it where the public mind would rest in the belief
+that it was in the course of ultimate extinction, or the friends of
+slavery will push it forward until it becomes alike lawful in all the
+States, old or new, free as well as slave. I did, fifteen months ago,
+express that opinion, and upon many occasions Judge Douglas has denounced
+it, and has greatly, intentionally or unintentionally, misrepresented my
+purpose in the expression of that opinion.
+
+I presume, without having seen a report of his speech, that he did so
+here. I presume that he alluded also to that opinion, in different
+language, having been expressed at a subsequent time by Governor Seward
+of New York, and that he took the two in a lump and denounced them; that
+he tried to point out that there was something couched in this opinion
+which led to the making of an entire uniformity of the local institutions
+of the various States of the Union, in utter disregard of the different
+States, which in their nature would seem to require a variety of
+institutions and a variety of laws, conforming to the differences in the
+nature of the different States.
+
+Not only so: I presume he insisted that this was a declaration of war
+between the free and slave States, that it was the sounding to the onset
+of continual war between the different States, the slave and free States.
+
+This charge, in this form, was made by Judge Douglas on, I believe, the
+9th of July, 1858, in Chicago, in my hearing. On the next evening, I made
+some reply to it. I informed him that many of the inferences he drew from
+that expression of mine were altogether foreign to any purpose
+entertained by me, and in so far as he should ascribe these inferences to
+me, as my purpose, he was entirely mistaken; and in so far as he might
+argue that, whatever might be my purpose, actions conforming to my views
+would lead to these results, he might argue and establish if he could;
+but, so far as purposes were concerned, he was totally mistaken as to me.
+
+When I made that reply to him, I told him, on the question of declaring
+war between the different States of the Union, that I had not said that I
+did not expect any peace upon this question until slavery was
+exterminated; that I had only said I expected peace when that institution
+was put where the public mind should rest in the belief that it was in
+course of ultimate extinction; that I believed, from the organization of
+our government until a very recent period of time, the institution had
+been placed and continued upon such a basis; that we had had comparative
+peace upon that question through a portion of that period of time, only
+because the public mind rested in that belief in regard to it, and that
+when we returned to that position in relation to that matter, I supposed
+we should again have peace as we previously had. I assured him, as I now,
+assure you, that I neither then had, nor have, or ever had, any purpose
+in any way of interfering with the institution of slavery, where it
+exists. I believe we have no power, under the Constitution of the United
+States, or rather under the form of government under which we live, to
+interfere with the institution of slavery, or any other of the
+institutions of our sister States, be they free or slave States. I
+declared then, and I now re-declare, that I have as little inclination to
+interfere with the institution of slavery where it now exists, through
+the instrumentality of the General Government, or any other
+instrumentality, as I believe we have no power to do so. I accidentally
+used this expression: I had no purpose of entering into the slave States
+to disturb the institution of slavery. So, upon the first occasion that
+Judge Douglas got an opportunity to reply to me, he passed by the whole
+body of what I had said upon that subject, and seized upon the particular
+expression of mine that I had no purpose of entering into the slave
+States to disturb the institution of slavery. "Oh, no," said he, "he
+[Lincoln] won't enter into the slave States to disturb the institution of
+slavery, he is too prudent a man to do such a thing as that; he only
+means that he will go on to the line between the free and slave States,
+and shoot over at them. This is all he means to do. He means to do them
+all the harm he can, to disturb them all he can, in such a way as to keep
+his own hide in perfect safety."
+
+Well, now, I did not think, at that time, that that was either a very
+dignified or very logical argument but so it was, I had to get along with
+it as well as I could.
+
+It has occurred to-me here to-night that if I ever do shoot over the line
+at the people on the other side of the line into a slave State, and
+purpose to do so, keeping my skin safe, that I have now about the best
+chance I shall ever have. I should not wonder if there are some
+Kentuckians about this audience--we are close to Kentucky; and whether
+that be so or not, we are on elevated ground, and, by speaking
+distinctly, I should not wonder if some of the Kentuckians would hear me
+on the other side of the river. For that reason I propose to address a
+portion of what I have to say to the Kentuckians.
+
+I say, then, in the first place, to the Kentuckians, that I am what they
+call, as I understand it, a "Black Republican." I think slavery is wrong,
+morally and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread
+in--these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually
+terminate in the whole Union. While I say this for myself, I say to you
+Kentuckians that I understand you differ radically with me upon this
+proposition; that you believe slavery is a good thing; that slavery is
+right; that it ought to be extended and perpetuated in this Union. Now,
+there being this broad difference between us, I do not pretend, in
+addressing myself to you Kentuckians, to attempt proselyting you; that
+would be a vain effort. I do not enter upon it. I only propose to try to
+show you that you ought to nominate for the next Presidency, at
+Charleston, my distinguished friend Judge Douglas. In all that there is a
+difference between you and him, I understand he is sincerely for you, and
+more wisely for you than you are for yourselves. I will try to
+demonstrate that proposition. Understand, now, I say that I believe he is
+as sincerely for you, and more wisely for you, than you are for
+yourselves.
+
+What do you want more than anything else to make successful your views of
+slavery,--to advance the outspread of it, and to secure and perpetuate
+the nationality of it? What do you want more than anything else? What--is
+needed absolutely? What is indispensable to you? Why, if I may, be
+allowed to answer the question, it is to retain a hold upon the North, it
+is to retain support and strength from the free States. If you can get
+this support and strength from the free States, you can succeed. If you
+do not get this support and this strength from the free States, you are
+in the minority, and you are beaten at once.
+
+If that proposition be admitted,--and it is undeniable,--then the next
+thing I say to you is, that Douglas, of all the men in this nation, is
+the only man that affords you any hold upon the free States; that no
+other man can give you any strength in the free States. This being so, if
+you doubt the other branch of the proposition, whether he is for
+you--whether he is really for you, as I have expressed it,--I propose
+asking your attention for a while to a few facts.
+
+The issue between you and me, understand, is, that I think slavery is
+wrong, and ought not to be outspread; and you think it is right, and
+ought to be extended and perpetuated. [A voice, "Oh, Lord!"] That is my
+Kentuckian I am talking to now.
+
+I now proceed to try to show you that Douglas is as sincerely for you and
+more wisely for you than you are for yourselves.
+
+In the first place, we know that in a government like this, in a
+government of the people, where the voice of all the men of the country,
+substantially, enters into the execution--or administration, rather--of
+the government, in such a government, what lies at the bottom of all of
+it is public opinion. I lay down the proposition, that Judge Douglas is
+not only the man that promises you in advance a hold upon the North, and
+support in the North, but he constantly moulds public opinion to your
+ends; that in every possible way he can he constantly moulds the public
+opinion of the North to your ends; and if there are a few things in which
+he seems to be against you,--a few things which he says that appear to
+be against you, and a few that he forbears to say which you would like to
+have him say you ought to remember that the saying of the one, or the
+forbearing to say the other, would lose his hold upon the North, and, by
+consequence, would lose his capacity to serve you.
+
+Upon this subject of moulding public opinion I call your attention to the
+fact--for a well established fact it is--that the Judge never says your
+institution of slavery is wrong. There is not a public man in the United
+States, I believe, with the exception of Senator Douglas, who has not, at
+some time in his life, declared his opinion whether the thing is right or
+wrong; but Senator Douglas never declares it is wrong. He leaves himself
+at perfect liberty to do all in your favor which he would be hindered
+from doing if he were to declare the thing to be wrong. On the contrary,
+he takes all the chances that he has for inveigling the sentiment of the
+North, opposed to slavery, into your support, by never saying it is
+right. This you ought to set down to his credit: You ought to give him
+full credit for this much; little though it be, in comparison to the
+whole which he does for you.
+
+Some other, things I will ask your attention to. He said upon the floor
+of the United States Senate, and he has repeated it, as I understand, a
+great many times, that he does not care whether slavery is "voted up or
+voted down." This again shows you, or ought to show you, if you would
+reason upon it, that he does not believe it to be wrong; for a man may
+say when he sees nothing wrong in a thing; that he, dues not care whether
+it be voted up or voted down but no man can logically say that he cares
+not whether a thing goes up or goes down which to him appears to be
+wrong. You therefore have a demonstration in this that to Judge Douglas's
+mind your favorite institution, which you would have spread out and made
+perpetual, is no wrong.
+
+Another thing he tells you, in a speech made at Memphis in Tennessee,
+shortly after the canvass in Illinois, last year. He there distinctly
+told the people that there was a "line drawn by the Almighty across this
+continent, on the one side of which the soil must always be cultivated by
+slaves"; that he did not pretend to know exactly where that line was, but
+that there was such a line. I want to ask your attention to that
+proposition again; that there is one portion of this continent where the
+Almighty has signed the soil shall always be cultivated by slaves; that
+its being cultivated by slaves at that place is right; that it has the
+direct sympathy and authority of the Almighty. Whenever you can get these
+Northern audiences to adopt the opinion that slavery is right on the
+other side of the Ohio, whenever you can get them, in pursuance of
+Douglas's views, to adopt that sentiment, they will very readily make the
+other argument, which is perfectly logical, that that which is right on
+that side of the Ohio cannot be wrong on this, and that if you have that
+property on that side of the Ohio, under the seal and stamp of the
+Almighty, when by any means it escapes over here it is wrong to have
+constitutions and laws "to devil" you about it. So Douglas is moulding
+the public opinion of the North, first to say that the thing is right in
+your State over the Ohio River, and hence to say that that which is right
+there is not wrong here, and that all laws and constitutions here
+recognizing it as being wrong are themselves wrong, and ought to be
+repealed and abrogated. He will tell you, men of Ohio, that if you choose
+here to have laws against slavery, it is in conformity to the idea that
+your climate is not suited to it, that your climate is not suited to
+slave labor, and therefore you have constitutions and laws against it.
+
+Let us attend to that argument for a little while and see if it be sound.
+You do not raise sugar-cane (except the new-fashioned sugar-cane, and you
+won't raise that long), but they do raise it in Louisiana. You don't
+raise it in Ohio, because you can't raise it profitably, because the
+climate don't suit it. They do raise it in Louisiana, because there it is
+profitable. Now, Douglas will tell you that is precisely the slavery
+question: that they do have slaves there because they are profitable, and
+you don't have them here because they are not profitable. If that is so,
+then it leads to dealing with the one precisely as with the other. Is
+there, then, anything in the constitution or laws of Ohio against raising
+sugar-cane? Have you found it necessary to put any such provision in your
+law? Surely not! No man desires to raise sugar-cane in Ohio, but if any
+man did desire to do so, you would say it was a tyrannical law that
+forbids his doing so; and whenever you shall agree with Douglas, whenever
+your minds are brought to adopt his argument, as surely you will have
+reached the conclusion that although it is not profitable in Ohio, if any
+man wants it, is wrong to him not to let him have it.
+
+In this matter Judge Douglas is preparing the public mind for you of
+Kentucky to make perpetual that good thing in your estimation, about
+which you and I differ.
+
+In this connection, let me ask your attention to another thing. I believe
+it is safe to assert that five years ago no living man had expressed the
+opinion that the negro had no share in the Declaration of Independence.
+Let me state that again: five years ago no living man had expressed the
+opinion that the negro had no share in the Declaration of Independence.
+If there is in this large audience any man who ever knew of that opinion
+being put upon paper as much as five years ago, I will be obliged to him
+now or at a subsequent time to show it.
+
+If that be true I wish you then to note the next fact: that within the
+space of five years Senator Douglas, in the argument of this question,
+has got his entire party, so far as I know, without exception, in saying
+that the negro has no share in the Declaration of Independence. If there
+be now in all these United States one Douglas man that does not say this,
+I have been unable upon any occasion to scare him up. Now, if none of you
+said this five years ago, and all of you say it now, that is a matter
+that you Kentuckians ought to note. That is a vast change in the Northern
+public sentiment upon that question.
+
+Of what tendency is that change? The tendency of that change is to bring
+the public mind to the conclusion that when men are spoken of, the negro
+is not meant; that when negroes are spoken of, brutes alone are
+contemplated. That change in public sentiment has already degraded the
+black man in the estimation of Douglas and his followers from the
+condition of a man of some sort, and assigned him to the condition of a
+brute. Now, you Kentuckians ought to give Douglas credit for this. That
+is the largest possible stride that can be made in regard to the
+perpetuation of your thing of slavery.
+
+A voice: Speak to Ohio men, and not to Kentuckians!
+
+Mr. LINCOLN: I beg permission to speak as I please.
+
+In Kentucky perhaps, in many of the slave States certainly, you are
+trying to establish the rightfulness of slavery by reference to the
+Bible. You are trying to show that slavery existed in the Bible times by
+divine ordinance. Now, Douglas is wiser than you, for your own benefit,
+upon that subject. Douglas knows that whenever you establish that slavery
+was--right by the Bible, it will occur that that slavery was the slavery
+of the white man, of men without reference to color; and he knows very
+well that you may entertain that idea in Kentucky as much as you please,
+but you will never win any Northern support upon it. He makes a wiser
+argument for you: he makes the argument that the slavery of the black
+man; the slavery of the man who has a skin of a different color from your
+own, is right. He thereby brings to your support Northern voters who
+could not for a moment be brought by your own argument of the Bible right
+of slavery. Will you give him credit for that? Will you not say that in
+this matter he is more wisely for you than you are for yourselves?
+
+Now, having established with his entire party this doctrine, having been
+entirely successful in that branch of his efforts in your behalf, he is
+ready for another.
+
+At this same meeting at Memphis he declared that in all contests between
+the negro and the white man he was for the white man, but that in all
+questions between the negro and the crocodile he was for the negro. He
+did not make that declaration accidentally at Memphis. He made it a great
+many times in the canvass in Illinois last year (though I don't know that
+it was reported in any of his speeches there, but he frequently made it).
+I believe he repeated it at Columbus, and I should not wonder if he
+repeated it here. It is, then, a deliberate way of expressing himself
+upon that subject. It is a matter of mature deliberation with him thus to
+express himself upon that point of his case. It therefore requires
+deliberate attention.
+
+The first inference seems to be that if you do not enslave the negro, you
+are wronging the white man in some way or other, and that whoever is
+opposed to the negro being enslaved, is, in some way or other, against
+the white man. Is not that a falsehood? If there was a necessary conflict
+between the white man and the negro, I should be for the white man as
+much as Judge Douglas; but I say there is no such necessary conflict. I
+say that there is room enough for us all to be free, and that it not only
+does not wrong the white man that the negro should be free, but it
+positively wrongs the mass of the white men that the negro should be
+enslaved; that the mass of white men are really injured by the effects of
+slave labor in the vicinity of the fields of their own labor.
+
+But I do not desire to dwell upon this branch of the question more than
+to say that this assumption of his is false, and I do hope that that
+fallacy will not long prevail in the minds of intelligent white men. At
+all events, you ought to thank Judge Douglas for it; it is for your
+benefit it is made.
+
+The other branch of it is, that in the struggle between the negro and the
+crocodile; he is for the negro. Well, I don't know that there is any
+struggle between the negro and the crocodile, either. I suppose that if a
+crocodile (or, as we old Ohio River boatmen used to call them,
+alligators) should come across a white man, he would kill him if he
+could; and so he would a negro. But what, at last, is this proposition? I
+believe it is a sort of proposition in proportion, which may be stated
+thus: "As the negro is to the white man, so is the crocodile to the
+negro; and as the negro may rightfully treat the crocodile as a beast or
+reptile, so the white man may rightfully treat the negro as a beast or a
+reptile." That is really the "knip" of all that argument of his.
+
+Now, my brother Kentuckians, who believe in this, you ought to thank
+Judge Douglas for having put that in a much more taking way than any of
+yourselves have done.
+
+Again, Douglas's great principle, "popular sovereignty," as he calls it,
+gives you, by natural consequence, the revival of the slave trade
+whenever you want it. If you question this, listen awhile, consider
+awhile what I shall advance in support of that proposition.
+
+He says that it is the sacred right of the man who goes into the
+Territories to have slavery if he wants it. Grant that for argument's
+sake. Is it not the sacred right of the man who don't go there equally to
+buy slaves in Africa, if he wants them? Can you point out the difference?
+The man who goes into the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, or any
+other new Territory, with the sacred right of taking a slave there which
+belongs to him, would certainly have no more right to take one there than
+I would, who own no slave, but who would desire to buy one and take him
+there. You will not say you, the friends of Judge Douglas but that the
+man who does not own a slave has an equal right to buy one and take him
+to the Territory as the other does.
+
+A voice: I want to ask a question. Don't foreign nations interfere with
+the slave trade?
+
+Mr. LINCOLN: Well! I understand it to be a principle of Democracy to whip
+foreign nations whenever, they interfere with us.
+
+Voice: I only asked for information. I am a Republican myself.
+
+Mr. LINCOLN: You and I will be on the best terms in the world, but I do
+not wish to be diverted from the point I was trying to press.
+
+I say that Douglas's popular sovereignty, establishing his sacred right
+in the people, if you please, if carried to its logical conclusion gives
+equally the sacred right to the people of the States or the Territories
+themselves to buy slaves wherever they can buy them cheapest; and if any
+man can show a distinction, I should like to hear him try it. If any man
+can show how the people of Kansas have a better right to slaves, because
+they want them, than the people of Georgia have to buy them in Africa, I
+want him to do it. I think it cannot be done. If it is "popular
+sovereignty" for the people to have slaves because they want them, it is
+popular sovereignty for them to buy them in Africa because they desire to
+do so.
+
+I know that Douglas has recently made a little effort, not seeming to
+notice that he had a different theory, has made an effort to get rid of
+that. He has written a letter, addressed to somebody, I believe, who
+resides in Iowa, declaring his opposition to the repeal of the laws that
+prohibit the Africa slave trade. He bases his opposition to such repeal
+upon the ground that these laws are themselves one of the compromises of
+the Constitution of the United States. Now, it would be very interesting
+to see Judge Douglas or any of his friends turn, to the Constitution of
+the United States and point out that compromise, to show where there is
+any compromise in the Constitution, or provision in the Constitution;
+express or implied, by which the administrators of that Constitution are
+under any obligation to repeal the African slave trade. I know, or at
+least I think I know, that the framers of that Constitution did expect
+the African slave trade would be abolished at the end of twenty years, to
+which time their prohibition against its being abolished extended there
+is abundant contemporaneous history to show that the framers of the
+Constitution expected it to be abolished. But while they so expected,
+they gave nothing for that expectation, and they put no provision in the
+Constitution requiring it should be so abolished. The migration or
+importation of such persons as the States shall see fit to admit shall
+not be prohibited, but a certain tax might be levied upon such
+importation. But what was to be done after that time? The Constitution is
+as silent about that as it is silent, personally, about myself. There is
+absolutely nothing in it about that subject; there is only the
+expectation of the framers of the Constitution that the slave trade would
+be abolished at the end of that time; and they expected it would be
+abolished, owing to public sentiment, before that time; and the put that
+provision in, in order that it should not be abolished before that time,
+for reasons which I suppose they thought to be sound ones, but which I
+will not now try to enumerate before you.
+
+But while, they expected the slave trade would be abolished at that time,
+they expected that the spread of slavery into the new Territories should
+also be restricted. It is as easy to prove that the framers of the
+Constitution of the United States expected that slavery should be
+prohibited from extending into the new Territories, as it is to prove
+that it was expected that the slave trade should be abolished. Both these
+things were expected. One was no more expected than the other, and one
+was no more a compromise of the Constitution than the other. There was
+nothing said in the Constitution in regard to the spread of slavery into
+the Territory. I grant that; but there was something very important said
+about it by the same generation of men in the adoption of the old
+Ordinance of '87, through the influence of which you here in Ohio, our
+neighbors in Indiana, we in Illinois, our neighbors in Michigan and
+Wisconsin, are happy, prosperous, teeming millions of free men. That
+generation of men, though not to the full extent members of the
+convention that framed the Constitution, were to some extent members of
+that convention, holding seats at the same time in one body and the
+other, so that if there was any compromise on either of these subjects,
+the strong evidence is that that compromise was in favor of the
+restriction of slavery from the new Territories.
+
+But Douglas says that he is unalterably opposed to the repeal of those
+laws because, in his view, it is a compromise of the Constitution. You
+Kentuckians, no doubt, are somewhat offended with that. You ought not to
+be! You ought to be patient! You ought to know that if he said less than
+that, he would lose the power of "lugging" the Northern States to your
+support. Really, what you would push him to do would take from him his
+entire power to serve you. And you ought to remember how long, by
+precedent, Judge Douglas holds himself obliged to stick by compromises.
+You ought to remember that by the time you yourselves think you are ready
+to inaugurate measures for the revival of the African slave trade, that
+sufficient time will have arrived, by precedent, for Judge Douglas to
+break through, that compromise. He says now nothing more strong than he
+said in 1849 when he declared in favor of Missouri Compromise,--and
+precisely four years and a quarter after he declared that Compromise to
+be a sacred thing, which "no ruthless hand would ever daze to touch," he
+himself brought forward the measure ruthlessly to destroy it. By a mere
+calculation of time it will only be four years more until he is ready to
+take back his profession about the sacredness of the Compromise
+abolishing the slave trade. Precisely as soon as you are ready to have
+his services in that direction, by fair calculation, you may be sure of
+having them.
+
+But you remember and set down to Judge Douglas's debt, or discredit, that
+he, last year, said the people of Territories can, in spite of the Dred
+Scott decision, exclude your slaves from those Territories; that he
+declared, by "unfriendly legislation" the extension of your property into
+the new Territories may be cut off, in the teeth of the decision of the
+Supreme Court of the United States.
+
+He assumed that position at Freeport on the 27th of August, 1858. He said
+that the people of the Territories can exclude slavery, in so many words:
+You ought, however, to bear in mind that he has never said it since. You
+may hunt in every speech that he has since made, and he has never used
+that expression once. He has never seemed to notice that he is stating
+his views differently from what he did then; but by some sort of
+accident, he has always really stated it differently. He has always since
+then declared that "the Constitution does not carry slavery into the
+Territories of the United States beyond the power of the people legally
+to control it, as other property." Now, there is a difference in the
+language used upon that former occasion and in this latter day. There may
+or may not be a difference in the meaning, but it is worth while
+considering whether there is not also a difference in meaning.
+
+What is it to exclude? Why, it is to drive it out. It is in some way to
+put it out of the Territory. It is to force it across the line, or change
+its character so that, as property, it is out of existence. But what is
+the controlling of it "as other property"? Is controlling it as other
+property the same thing as destroying it, or driving it away? I should
+think not. I should think the controlling of it as other property would
+be just about what you in Kentucky should want. I understand the
+controlling of property means the controlling of it for the benefit of
+the owner of it. While I have no doubt the Supreme Court of the United
+States would say "God speed" to any of the Territorial Legislatures that
+should thus control slave property, they would sing quite a different
+tune if, by the pretence of controlling it, they were to undertake to
+pass laws which virtually excluded it,--and that upon a very well known
+principle to all lawyers, that what a Legislature cannot directly do, it
+cannot do by indirection; that as the Legislature has not the power to
+drive slaves out, they have no power, by indirection, by tax, or by
+imposing burdens in any way on that property, to effect the same end, and
+that any attempt to do so would be held by the Dred Scott court
+unconstitutional.
+
+Douglas is not willing to stand by his first proposition that they can
+exclude it, because we have seen that that proposition amounts to nothing
+more nor less than the naked absurdity that you may lawfully drive out
+that which has a lawful right to remain. He admitted at first that the
+slave might be lawfully taken into the Territories under the Constitution
+of the United States, and yet asserted that he might be lawfully driven
+out. That being the proposition, it is the absurdity I have stated. He is
+not willing to stand in the face of that direct, naked, and impudent
+absurdity; he has, therefore, modified his language into that of being
+"controlled as other property."
+
+The Kentuckians don't like this in Douglas! I will tell you where it will
+go. He now swears by the court. He was once a leading man in Illinois to
+break down a court, because it had made a decision he did not like. But
+he now not only swears by the court, the courts having got to working for
+you, but he denounces all men that do not swear by the courts, as
+unpatriotic, as bad citizens. When one of these acts of unfriendly
+legislation shall impose such heavy burdens as to, in effect, destroy
+property in slaves in a Territory, and show plainly enough that there can
+be no mistake in the purpose of the Legislature to make them so
+burdensome, this same Supreme Court will decide that law to be
+unconstitutional, and he will be ready to say for your benefit "I swear
+by the court; I give it up"; and while that is going on he has been
+getting all his men to swear by the courts, and to give it up with him.
+In this again he serves you faithfully, and, as I say, more wisely than
+you serve yourselves.
+
+Again: I have alluded in the beginning of these remarks to the fact that
+Judge Douglas has made great complaint of my having expressed the opinion
+that this government "cannot endure permanently, half slave and half
+free." He has complained of Seward for using different language, and
+declaring that there is an "irrepressible conflict" between the
+principles of free and slave labor. [A voice: "He says it is not
+original with Seward. That it is original with Lincoln."] I will attend
+to that immediately, sir. Since that time, Hickman of Pennsylvania
+expressed the same sentiment. He has never denounced Mr. Hickman: why?
+There is a little chance, notwithstanding that opinion in the mouth of
+Hickman, that he may yet be a Douglas man. That is the difference! It is
+not unpatriotic to hold that opinion if a man is a Douglas man.
+
+But neither I, nor Seward, nor Hickman is entitled to the enviable or
+unenviable distinction of having first expressed that idea. That same
+idea was expressed by the Richmond Enquirer, in Virginia, in 1856,--quite
+two years before it was expressed by the first of us. And while Douglas
+was pluming himself that in his conflict with my humble self, last year,
+he had "squelched out" that fatal heresy, as he delighted to call it, and
+had suggested that if he only had had a chance to be in New York and meet
+Seward he would have "squelched" it there also, it never occurred to him
+to breathe a word against Pryor. I don't think that you can discover that
+Douglas ever talked of going to Virginia to "squelch" out that idea
+there. No. More than that. That same Roger A. Pryor was brought to
+Washington City and made the editor of the par excellence Douglas paper,
+after making use of that expression, which, in us, is so unpatriotic and
+heretical. From all this, my Kentucky friends may see that this opinion
+is heretical in his view only when it is expressed by men suspected of a
+desire that the country shall all become free, and not when expressed by
+those fairly known to entertain the desire that the whole country shall
+become slave. When expressed by that class of men, it is in nowise
+offensive to him. In this again, my friends of Kentucky, you have Judge
+Douglas with you.
+
+There is another reason why you Southern people ought to nominate Douglas
+at your convention at Charleston. That reason is the wonderful capacity
+of the man,--the power he has of doing what would seem to be impossible.
+Let me call your attention to one of these apparently impossible things:
+
+Douglas had three or four very distinguished men of the most extreme
+anti-slavery views of any men in the Republican party expressing their
+desire for his re-election to the Senate last year. That would, of
+itself, have seemed to be a little wonderful; but that wonder is
+heightened when we see that Wise of Virginia, a man exactly opposed to
+them, a man who believes in the divine right of slavery, was also
+expressing his desire that Douglas should be reelected; that another man
+that may be said to be kindred to Wise, Mr. Breckinridge, the
+Vice-President, and of your own State, was also agreeing with the
+anti-slavery men in the North that Douglas ought to be re-elected. Still
+to heighten the wonder, a senator from Kentucky, whom I have always loved
+with an affection as tender and endearing as I have ever loved any man,
+who was opposed to the anti-slavery men for reasons which seemed
+sufficient to him, and equally opposed to Wise and Breckinridge, was
+writing letters into Illinois to secure the reelection of Douglas. Now,
+that all these conflicting elements should be brought, while at daggers'
+points with one another, to support him, is a feat that is worthy for you
+to note and consider. It is quite probable that each of these classes of
+men thought, by the re-election of Douglas, their peculiar views would
+gain something: it is probable that the anti-slavery men thought their
+views would gain something; that Wise and Breckinridge thought so too, as
+regards their opinions; that Mr. Crittenden thought that his views would
+gain something, although he was opposed to both these other men. It is
+probable that each and all of them thought that they were using Douglas;
+and it is yet an unsolved problem whether he was not using them all. If
+he was, then it is for you to consider whether that power to perform
+wonders is one for you lightly to throw away.
+
+There is one other thing that I will say to you, in this relation. It is
+but my opinion, I give it to you without a fee. It is my opinion that it
+is for you to take him or be defeated; and that if you do take him you
+may be beaten. You will surely be beaten if you do not take him. We, the
+Republicans and others forming the opposition of the country, intend to
+"stand by our guns," to be patient and firm, and in the long run to beat
+you, whether you take him or not. We know that before we fairly beat you
+we have to beat you both together. We know that you are "all of a
+feather," and that we have to beat you all together, and we expect to do
+it. We don't intend to be very impatient about it. We mean to be as
+deliberate and calm about it as it is possible to be, but as firm and
+resolved as it is possible for men to be. When we do as we say,--beat
+you,--you perhaps want to know what we will do with you.
+
+I will tell you, so far as I am authorized to speak for the opposition,
+what we mean to do with you. We mean to treat you, as near as we possibly
+can, as Washington, Jefferson, and Madison treated you. We mean to leave
+you alone, and in no way interfere with your institution; to abide by all
+and every compromise of the Constitution, and, in a word, coming back to
+the original proposition, to treat you, so far as degenerated men (if we
+have degenerated) may, according to the examples of those noble fathers,
+Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. We mean to remember that you are as
+good as we; that there is no difference between us other than the
+difference of circumstances. We mean to recognize and bear in mind always
+that you have as good hearts in your bosoms as other people, or as we
+claim to have, and treat you accordingly. We mean to marry your girls
+when we have a chance, the white ones I mean; and I have the honor to
+inform you that I once did have a chance in that way.
+
+I have told you what we mean to do. I want to know, now, when that thing
+takes place, what do you mean to do? I often hear it intimated that you
+mean to divide the Union whenever a Republican, or anything like it, is
+elected President of the United States. [A voice: "That is so."] "That is
+so," one of them says; I wonder if he is a Kentuckian? [A voice: "He is a
+Douglas man."] Well, then, I want to know what you are going to do with
+your half of it? Are you going to split the Ohio down through, and push
+your half off a piece? Or are you going to keep it right alongside of us
+outrageous fellows? Or are you going to build up a wall some way between
+your country and ours, by which that movable property of yours can't come
+over here any more, to the danger of your losing it? Do you think you can
+better yourselves, on that subject, by leaving us here under no
+obligation whatever to return those specimens of your movable property
+that come hither? You have divided the Union because we would not do
+right with you, as you think, upon that subject; when we cease to be
+under obligations to do anything for you, how much better off do you
+think you will be? Will you make war upon us and kill us all? Why,
+gentlemen, I think you are as gallant and as brave men as live; that you
+can fight as bravely in a good cause, man for man, as any other people
+living; that you have shown yourselves capable of this upon various
+occasions: but, man for man, you are not better than we are, and there
+are not so many of you as there are of us. You will never make much of a
+hand at whipping us. If we were fewer in numbers than you, I think that
+you could whip us; if we were equal, it would likely be a drawn battle;
+but being inferior in numbers, you will make nothing by attempting to
+master us.
+
+But perhaps I have addressed myself as long, or longer, to the
+Kentuckians than I ought to have done, inasmuch as I have said that
+whatever course you take we intend in the end to beat you. I propose to
+address a few remarks to our friends, by way of discussing with them the
+best means of keeping that promise that I have in good faith made.
+
+It may appear a little episodical for me to mention the topic of which I
+will speak now. It is a favorite position of Douglas's that the
+interference of the General Government, through the Ordinance of '87, or
+through any other act of the General Government never has made or ever
+can make a free State; the Ordinance of '87 did not make free States of
+Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois; that these States are free upon his "great
+principle" of popular sovereignty, because the people of those several
+States have chosen to make them so. At Columbus, and probably here, he
+undertook to compliment the people that they themselves have made the
+State of Ohio free, and that the Ordinance of '87 was not entitled in any
+degree to divide the honor with them. I have no doubt that the people of
+the State of Ohio did make her free according to their own will and
+judgment, but let the facts be remembered.
+
+In 1802, I believe, it was you who made your first constitution, with the
+clause prohibiting slavery, and you did it, I suppose, very nearly
+unanimously; but you should bear in mind that you--speaking of you as one
+people--that you did so unembarrassed by the actual presence of the
+institution amongst you; that you made it a free State not with the
+embarrassment upon you of already having among you many slaves, which if
+they had been here, and you had sought to make a free State, you would
+not know what to do with. If they had been among you, embarrassing
+difficulties, most probably, would have induced you to tolerate a slave
+constitution instead of a free one, as indeed these very difficulties
+have constrained every people on this continent who have adopted slavery.
+
+Pray what was it that made you free? What kept you free? Did you not find
+your country free when you came to decide that Ohio should be a free
+State? It is important to inquire by what reason you found it so. Let us
+take an illustration between the States of Ohio and Kentucky. Kentucky is
+separated by this River Ohio, not a mile wide. A portion of Kentucky, by
+reason of the course of the Ohio, is farther north than this portion of
+Ohio, in which we now stand. Kentucky is entirely covered with slavery;
+Ohio is entirely free from it: What made that difference? Was it climate?
+No. A portion of Kentucky was farther north than this portion of Ohio.
+Was it soil? No. There is nothing in the soil of the one more favorable
+to slave than the other. It was not climate or soil that mused one side
+of the line to be entirely covered with slavery, and the other side free
+of it. What was it? Study over it. Tell us, if you can, in all the range
+of conjecture, if there be anything you can conceive of that made that
+difference, other than that there was no law of any sort keeping it out
+of Kentucky, while the Ordinance of '87 kept it out of Ohio. If there is
+any other reason than this, I confess that it is wholly beyond my power
+to conceive of it. This, then, I offer to combat the idea that that
+Ordinance has never made any State free.
+
+I don't stop at this illustration. I come to the State of Indiana; and
+what I have said as between Kentucky and Ohio, I repeat as between
+Indiana and Kentucky: it is equally applicable. One additional argument
+is applicable also to Indiana. In her Territorial condition she more than
+once petitioned Congress to abrogate the Ordinance entirely, or at least
+so far as to suspend its operation for a time, in order that they should
+exercise the "popular sovereignty" of having slaves if they wanted them.
+The men then controlling the General Government, imitating the men of the
+Revolution, refused Indiana that privilege. And so we have the evidence
+that Indiana supposed she could have slaves, if it were not for that
+Ordinance; that she besought Congress to put that barrier out of the way;
+that Congress refused to do so; and it all ended at last in Indiana being
+a free State. Tell me not then that the Ordinance of '87 had nothing to
+do with making Indiana a free State, when we find some men chafing
+against, and only restrained by, that barrier.
+
+Come down again to our State of Illinois. The great Northwest Territory,
+including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, was acquired
+first, I believe, by the British Government, in part at least, from the
+French. Before the establishment of our independence it became a part of
+Virginia, enabling Virginia afterward to transfer it to the General
+Government. There were French settlements in what is now Illinois, and at
+the same time there were French settlements in what is now Missouri, in
+the tract of country that was not purchased till about 1803. In these
+French settlements negro slavery had existed for many years, perhaps more
+than a hundred; if not as much as two hundred years,--at Kaskaskia, in
+Illinois, and at St. Genevieve, or Cape Girardeau, perhaps, in Missouri.
+The number of slaves was not very great, but there was about the same
+number in each place. They were there when we acquired the Territory.
+There was no effort made to break up the relation of master and slave,
+and even the Ordinance of 1787 was not so enforced as to destroy that
+slavery in Illinois; nor did the Ordinance apply to Missouri at all.
+
+What I want to ask your attention to; at this point, is that Illinois and
+Missouri came into the Union about the same time, Illinois in the latter
+part of 1818, and Missouri, after a struggle, I believe sometime in 1820.
+They had been filling up with American people about the same period of
+time; their progress enabling them to come into the Union about the same
+time. At the end of that ten years, in which they had been so preparing
+(for it was about that period of time), the number of slaves in Illinois
+had actually decreased; while in Missouri, beginning with very few, at
+the end of that ten years there were about ten thousand. This being so,
+and it being remembered that Missouri and Illinois are, to a certain
+extent, in the same parallel of latitude, that the northern half of
+Missouri and the southern half of Illinois are in the same parallel of
+latitude, so that climate would have the same effect upon one as upon the
+other, and that in the soil there is no material difference so far as
+bears upon the question of slavery being settled upon one or the
+other,--there being none of those natural causes to produce a difference
+in filling them, and yet there being a broad difference to their filling
+up, we are led again to inquire what was the cause of that difference.
+
+It is most natural to say that in Missouri there was no law to keep that
+country from filling up with slaves, while in Illinois there was the
+Ordinance of The Ordinance being there, slavery decreased during that ten
+years; the Ordinance not being in the other, it increased from a few to
+ten thousand. Can anybody doubt the reason of the difference?
+
+I think all these facts most abundantly prove that my friend Judge
+Douglas's proposition, that the Ordinance of '87, or the national
+restriction of slavery, never had a tendency to make a free State, is a
+fallacy,--a proposition without the shadow or substance of truth about
+it.
+
+Douglas sometimes says that all the States (and it is part of this same
+proposition I have been discussing) that have become free have become so
+upon his "great principle"; that the State of Illinois itself came into
+the Union as a slave State, and that the people, upon the "great
+principle" of popular sovereignty, have since made it a free State. Allow
+me but a little while to state to you what facts there are to justify him
+in saying that Illinois came into the Union as a slave State.
+
+I have mentioned to you that there were a few old French slaves there.
+They numbered, I think, one or two hundred. Besides that, there had been
+a Territorial law for indenturing black persons. Under that law, in
+violation of the Ordinance of '87, but without any enforcement of the
+Ordinance to overthrow the system, there had been a small number of
+slaves introduced as indentured persons. Owing to this, the clause for
+the prohibition of slavery was slightly modified. Instead of running like
+yours, that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except for crime,
+of which the party shall have been duly convicted, should exist in the
+State, they said that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude should
+thereafter be introduced; and that the children of indentured servants
+should be born free; and nothing was said about the few old French
+slaves. Out of this fact, that the clause for prohibiting slavery was
+modified because of the actual presence of it, Douglas asserts again and
+again that Illinois came into the Union as a slave State. How far the
+facts sustain the conclusion that he draws, it is for intelligent and
+impartial men to decide. I leave it with you, with these remarks, worthy
+of being remembered, that that little thing, those few indentured
+servants being there, was of itself sufficient to modify a constitution
+made by a people ardently desiring to have a free constitution; showing
+the power of the actual presence of the institution of slavery to prevent
+any people, however anxious to make a free State, from making it
+perfectly so.
+
+I have been detaining you longer, perhaps, than I ought to do.
+
+I am in some doubt whether to introduce another topic upon which I could
+talk a while. [Cries of "Go on," and "Give us it."] It is this, then:
+Douglas's Popular sovereignty, as a principle, is simply this: If one man
+chooses to make a slave of another man, neither that man nor anybody else
+has a right to object. Apply it to government, as he seeks to apply it,
+and it is this: If, in a new Territory into which a few people are
+beginning to enter for the purpose of making their homes, they choose to
+either exclude slavery from their limits, or to establish it there,
+however one or the other may affect the persons to be enslaved, or the
+infinitely greater number of persons who are afterward to inhabit that
+Territory, or the other members of the family of communities of which
+they are but an incipient member, or the general head of the family of
+States as parent of all, however their action may affect one or the other
+of these, there is no power or right to interfere. That is Douglas's
+popular sovereignty applied. Now, I think that there is a real popular
+sovereignty in the world. I think the definition of popular sovereignty,
+in the abstract, would be about this: that each man shall do precisely as
+he pleases with himself, and with all those things which exclusively
+concern him. Applied in government, this principle would be that a
+general government shall do all those things which pertain to it, and all
+the local governments shall do precisely as they please in respect to
+those matters which exclusively concern them.
+
+Douglas looks upon slavery as so insignificant that the people must
+decide that question for themselves; and yet they are not fit to decide
+who shall be their governor, judge, or secretary, or who shall be any of
+their officers. These are vast national matters in his estimation; but
+the little matter in his estimation is that of planting slavery there.
+That is purely of local interest, which nobody should be allowed to say a
+word about.
+
+Labor is the great source from which nearly all, if not all, human
+comforts and necessities are drawn. There is a difference in opinion
+about the elements of labor in society. Some men assume that there is
+necessary connection between capital and labor, and that connection draws
+within it the whole of the labor of the community. They assume that
+nobody works unless capital excites them to work. They begin next to
+consider what is the best way. They say there are but two ways: one is to
+hire men, and to allure them to labor by their consent; the other is to
+buy the men, and drive them, to it, and that is slavery. Having assumed
+that, they proceed to discuss the question of whether the laborers
+themselves are better off in the condition of slaves or of hired
+laborers, and they usually decide that they are better off in the
+condition of slaves.
+
+In the first place, I say that the whole thing is a mistake. That there
+is a certain relation between capital and labor, I admit. That it does
+exist, and rightfully exists, I think is true. That men who are
+industrious, and sober, and honest in the pursuit of their own interests
+should after a while accumulate capital, and after that should be allowed
+to enjoy it in peace, and also, if they should choose, when they have
+accumulated it, to use it to save themselves from actual labor, and hire
+other people to labor for them, is right. In doing so they do not wrong
+the man they employ, for they find men who have not of their own land to
+work upon, or shops to work in, and who are benefited by working for
+others, hired laborers, receiving their capital for it. Thus a few men,
+that own capital, hire a few others, and these establish the relation of
+capital and labor rightfully, a relation of which I make no complaint.
+But I insist that that relation, after all, does not embrace more than
+one eighth of the labor of the country.
+
+[The speaker proceeded to argue that the hired laborer, with his ability
+to become an employer, must have every precedence over him who labors
+under the inducement of force. He continued:]
+
+I have taken upon myself in the name of some of you to say that we expect
+upon these principles to ultimately beat them. In order to do so, I think
+we want and must have a national policy in regard to the institution of
+slavery that acknowledges and deals with that institution as being wrong.
+Whoever desires the prevention of the spread of slavery and the
+nationalization of that institution yields all when he yields to any
+policy that either recognizes slavery as being right or as being an
+indifferent thing. Nothing will make you successful but setting up a
+policy which shall treat the thing as being wrong: When I say this, I do
+not mean to say that this General Government is charged with the duty of
+redressing or preventing all the wrongs in the world, but I do think that
+it is charged with preventing and redressing all wrongs which are wrongs
+to itself. This Government is expressly charged with the duty of
+providing for the general welfare. We believe that the spreading out and
+perpetuity of the institution of slavery impairs the general welfare. We
+believe--nay, we know--that that is the only thing that has ever
+threatened the perpetuity of the Union itself. The only thing which has
+ever menaced the destruction of the government under which we live is
+this very thing. To repress this thing, we think, is, Providing for the
+general welfare. Our friends in Kentucky differ from us. We need not make
+our argument for them, but we who think it is wrong in all its relations,
+or in some of them at least, must decide as to our own actions and our
+own course, upon our own judgment.
+
+I say that we must not interfere with the institution of slavery in the
+States where it exists, because the Constitution forbids it, and the
+general welfare does not require us to do so. We must not withhold an
+efficient Fugitive Slave law, because the Constitution requires us, as I
+understand it, not to withhold such a law. But we must prevent the
+outspreading of the institution, because neither the Constitution nor
+general welfare requires us to extend it. We must prevent the revival of
+the African slave trade, and the enacting by Congress of a Territorial
+slave code. We must prevent each of these things being done by either
+Congresses or courts. The people of these United States are the rightful
+masters of both Congresses and courts, not to overthrow the Constitution,
+but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
+
+To do these things we must employ instrumentalities. We must hold
+conventions; we must adopt platforms, if we conform to ordinary custom;
+we must nominate candidates; and we must carry elections. In all these
+things, I think that we ought to keep in view our real purpose, and in
+none do anything that stands adverse to our purpose. If we shall adopt a
+platform that fails to recognize or express our purpose, or elect a man
+that declares himself inimical to our purpose, we not only take nothing
+by our success, but we tacitly admit that we act upon no other principle
+than a desire to have "the loaves and fishes," by which, in the end, our
+apparent success is really an injury to us.
+
+I know that this is very desirable with me, as with everybody else, that
+all the elements of the opposition shall unite in the next Presidential
+election and in all future time. I am anxious that that should be; but
+there are things seriously to be considered in relation to that matter.
+If the terms can be arranged, I am in favor of the union. But suppose we
+shall take up some man, and put him upon one end or the other of the
+ticket, who declares himself against us in regard to the prevention of
+the spread of slavery, who turns up his nose and says he is tired of
+hearing anything more about it, who is more against us than against the
+enemy, what will be the issue? Why, he will get no slave States, after
+all,--he has tried that already until being beat is the rule for him. If
+we nominate him upon that ground, he will not carry a slave State; and
+not only so, but that portion of our men who are high-strung upon the
+principle we really fight for will not go for him, and he won't get a
+single electoral vote anywhere, except, perhaps, in the State of
+Maryland. There is no use in saying to us that we are stubborn and
+obstinate because we won't do some such thing as this. We cannot do it.
+We cannot get our men to vote it. I speak by the card, that we cannot
+give the State of Illinois in such case by fifty thousand. We would be
+flatter down than the "Negro Democracy" themselves have the heart to wish
+to see us.
+
+After saying this much let me say a little on the other side. There are
+plenty of men in the slave States that are altogether good enough for me
+to be either President or Vice-President, provided they will profess
+their sympathy with our purpose, and will place themselves on the ground
+that our men, upon principle, can vote for them. There are scores of
+them, good men in their character for intelligence and talent and
+integrity. If such a one will place himself upon the right ground, I am
+for his occupying one place upon the next Republican or opposition
+ticket. I will heartily go for him. But unless he does so place himself,
+I think it a matter of perfect nonsense to attempt to bring about a union
+upon any other basis; that if a union be made, the elements will scatter
+so that there can be no success for such a ticket, nor anything like
+success. The good old maxims of the Bible axe applicable, and truly
+applicable, to human affairs, and in this, as in other things, we may say
+here that he who is not for us is against us; he who gathereth not with
+us, scattereth. I should be glad to have some of the many good and able
+and noble men of the South to place themselves where we can confer upon
+them the high honor of an election upon one or the other end of our
+ticket. It would do my soul good to do that thing. It would enable us to
+teach them that, inasmuch as we select one of their own number to carry
+out our principles, we are free from the charge that we mean more than we
+say.
+
+But, my friends, I have detained you much longer than I expected to do. I
+believe I may do myself the compliment to say that you have stayed and
+heard me with great patience, for which I return you my most sincere
+thanks.
+
+
+
+
+ON PROTECTIVE TARIFFS
+
+TO EDWARD WALLACE.
+
+CLINTON, October 11, 1859
+
+Dr. EDWARD WALLACE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I am here just now attending court. Yesterday, before I
+left Springfield, your brother, Dr. William S. Wallace, showed me a
+letter of yours, in which you kindly mention my name, inquiring for my
+tariff views, and suggest the propriety of my writing a letter upon the
+subject. I was an old Henry-Clay-Tariff Whig. In old times I made more
+speeches on that subject than any other.
+
+I have not since changed my views. I believe yet, if we could have a
+moderate, carefully adjusted protective tariff, so far acquiesced in as
+not to be a perpetual subject of political strife, squabbles changes, and
+uncertainties, it would be better for us. Still it is my opinion that
+just now the revival of that question will not advance the cause itself,
+or the man who revives it.
+
+I have not thought much on the subject recently, but my general
+impression is that the necessity for a protective tariff will ere long
+force its old opponents to take it up; and then its old friends can join
+in and establish it on a more firm and durable basis. We, the Old Whigs,
+have been entirely beaten out on the tariff question, and we shall not be
+able to re-establish the policy until the absence of it shall have
+demonstrated the necessity for it in the minds of men heretofore opposed
+to it. With this view, I should prefer to not now write a public letter
+on the subject. I therefore wish this to be considered confidential.  I
+shall be very glad to receive a letter from you.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ON MORTGAGES
+
+TO W. DUNGY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, November, 2, 1859.
+
+WM. DUNGY, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of October 27 is received. When a mortgage is given to
+secure two notes, and one of the notes is sold and assigned, if the
+mortgaged premises are only sufficient to pay one note, the one assigned
+will take it all. Also, an execution from a judgment on the assigned note
+may take it all; it being the same thing in substance. There is
+redemption on execution sales from the United States Court just as from
+any other court.
+
+You did not mention the name of the plaintiff or defendant in the suit,
+and so I can tell nothing about it as to sales, bids, etc. Write again.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+FRAGMENT OF SPEECH AT LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS,
+
+DECEMBER, 1859.
+
+............. But you Democrats are for the Union; and you greatly fear
+the success of the Republicans would destroy the Union. Why? Do the
+Republicans declare against the Union? Nothing like it. Your own
+statement of it is that if the Black Republicans elect a President, you
+"won't stand it." You will break up the Union. If we shall
+constitutionally elect a President, it will be our duty to see that you
+submit. Old John Brown has been executed for treason against a State. We
+cannot object, even though he agreed with us in thinking slavery wrong.
+That cannot excuse violence, bloodshed and treason. It could avail him
+nothing that he might think himself right. So, if we constitutionally
+elect a President, and therefore you undertake to destroy the Union, it
+will be our duty to deal with you as old John Brown has been dealt with.
+We shall try to do our duty. We hope and believe that in no section will
+a majority so act as to render such extreme measures necessary.
+
+
+
+
+TO G. W. DOLE, G. S. HUBBARD, AND W. H. BROWN.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, Dec. 14, 1859
+
+MESSRS. DOLE, HUBBARD & BROWN.
+
+GENT.:--Your favor of the 12th is at hand, and it gives me pleasure to be
+able to answer it. It is not my intention to take part in any of the
+rivalries for the gubernatorial nomination; but the fear of being
+misunderstood upon that subject ought not to deter me from doing justice
+to Mr. Judd, and preventing a wrong being done to him by the use of nay
+name in connection with alleged wrongs to me.
+
+In answer to your first question, as to whether Mr. Judd was guilty of
+any unfairness to me at the time of Senator Trumbull's election, I answer
+unhesitatingly in the negative; Mr. Judd owed no political allegiance to
+any party whose candidate I was. He was in the Senate, holding over,
+having been elected by a Democratic Constituency. He never was in any
+caucus of the friends who sought to make me U. S. Senator, never gave me
+any promises or pledges to support me, and subsequent events have greatly
+tended to prove the wisdom, politically, of Mr. Judd's course. The
+election of Judge Trumbull strongly tended to sustain and preserve the
+position of that lion of the Democrats who condemned the repeal of the
+Missouri Compromise, and left them in a position of joining with us in
+forming the Republican party, as was done at the Bloomington convention
+in 1856.
+
+During the canvass of 1858 for the senatorship my belief was, and still
+is, that I had no more sincere and faithful friend than Mr.
+Judd--certainly none whom I trusted more. His position as chairman of the
+State Central Committee led to my greater intercourse with him, and to my
+giving him a larger share of my confidence, than with or to almost any
+other friend; and I have never suspected that that confidence was, to any
+degree, misplaced.
+
+My relations with Mr. Judo since the organization of the Republican
+party, in, our State, in 1856, and especially since the adjournment of
+the Legislature in Feb., 1857, have been so very intimate that I deem it
+an impossibility that he could have been dealing treacherously with me.
+He has also, at all times, appeared equally true and faithful to the
+party. In his position as chairman of the committee, I believe he did all
+that any man could have done. The best of us are liable to commit errors,
+which become apparent by subsequent developments; but I do not know of a
+single error, even, committed by Mr. Judd, since he and I have acted
+together politically.
+
+I, had occasionally heard these insinuations against Mr. Judd, before the
+receipt of your letter; and in no instance have I hesitated to pronounce
+them wholly unjust, to the full extent of my knowledge and belief. I have
+been, and still am, very anxious to take no part between the many
+friends, all good and true, who are mentioned as candidates for a
+Republican gubernatorial nomination; but I can not feel that my own honor
+is quite clear if I remain silent when I hear any one of them assailed
+about matters of which I believe I know more than his assailants.
+
+I take pleasure in adding that, of all the avowed friends I had in the
+canvass of last year, I do not suspect any of having acted treacherously
+to me, or to our cause; and that there is not one of them in whose
+honesty, honor, and integrity I, today, have greater confidence than I
+have in those of Mr. Judd.
+
+I dislike to appear before the public in this matter; but you are at
+liberty to make such use of this letter as you may think justice
+requires.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO G. M. PARSONS AND OTHERS.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, December 19, 1859.
+
+MESSRS. G. M. PARSONS AND OTHERS, CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, ETC.
+
+GENTLEMEN:--Your letter of the 7th instant, accompanied by a similar one
+from the governor-elect, the Republican State officers, and the
+Republican members of the State Board of Equalization of Ohio, both
+requesting of me, for publication in permanent form, copies of the
+political debates between Senator Douglas and myself last year, has been
+received. With my grateful acknowledgments to both you and them for the
+very flattering terms in which the request is communicated, I transmit
+you the copies. The copies I send you are as reported and printed by the
+respective friends of Senator Douglas and myself, at the time--that is,
+his by his friends, and mine by mine. It would be an unwarrantable
+liberty for us to change a word or a letter in his, and the changes I
+have made in mine, you perceive, are verbal only, and very few in number.
+I wish the reprint to be precisely as the copies I send, without any
+comment whatever.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
+
+TO J. W. FELL,
+
+SPRINGFIELD, December 20, 1859.
+
+J. W. FELL, Esq.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Herewith is a little sketch, as you requested. There is not
+much of it, for the reason, I suppose, that there is not much of me. If
+anything be made out of it, I wish it to be modest, and not to go beyond
+the material. If it were thought necessary to incorporate anything from
+any of my speeches I suppose there would be no objection. Of course it
+must not appear to have been written by myself.
+
+Yours very truly, A. LINCOLN
+
+-----------------------
+
+I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were
+both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families--second families,
+perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a
+family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams, and others
+in Macon County, Illinois. My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln,
+emigrated from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky about 1781 or
+1782, where a year or two later he was killed by the Indians, not in
+battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the
+forest. His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks
+County, Pennsylvania. An effort to identify them with the New England
+family of the same name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity
+of Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai,
+Solomon, Abraham, and the like.
+
+My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age, and he
+grew up literally without education. He removed from Kentucky to what is
+now Spencer County, Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our new home
+about the time that State came into the Union. It was a wild region, with
+many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up.
+There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever
+required of a teacher beyond "readin', writin', and cipherin"' to the
+Rule of Three. If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to
+sojourn in the neighborhood he was looked upon as a wizard. There was
+absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I
+came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and
+cipher to the Rule of Three, but that was all. I have not been to school
+since. The little advance I now have upon this store of education I have
+picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity.
+
+I was raised to farm work, which I continued till I was twenty-two. At
+twenty-one I came to Illinois, Macon County. Then I got to New Salem, at
+that time in Sangamon, now in Menard County, where I remained a year as a
+sort of clerk in a store. Then came the Black Hawk war; and I was elected
+a captain of volunteers, a success which gave me more pleasure than any I
+have had since. I went the campaign, was elected, ran for the Legislature
+the same year (1832), and was beaten--the only time I ever have been
+beaten by the people. The next and three succeeding biennial elections I
+was elected to the Legislature. I was not a candidate afterward. During
+this legislative period I had studied law, and removed to Springfield to
+practice it. In 1846 I was once elected to the lower House of Congress.
+Was not a candidate for re-election. From 1849 to 1854, both inclusive,
+practiced law more assiduously than ever before. Always a Whig in
+politics; and generally on the Whig electoral tickets, making active
+canvasses. I was losing interest in politics when the repeal of the
+Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is
+pretty well known.
+
+If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be said I
+am, in height, six feet four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on
+an average one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse
+black hair and gray eyes. No other marks or brands recollected.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ON NOMINATION TO THE NATIONAL TICKET
+
+To N. B. JUDD.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, FEBRUARY 9, 1859
+
+HON. N. B. JUDD.
+
+DEAR Sir:--I am not in a position where it would hurt much for me to not
+be nominated on the national ticket; but I am where it would hurt some
+for me to not get the Illinois delegates. What I expected when I wrote
+the letter to Messrs. Dole and others is now happening. Your discomfited
+assailants are most bitter against me; and they will, for revenge upon
+me, lay to the Bates egg in the South, and to the Seward egg in the
+North, and go far toward squeezing me out in the middle with nothing.
+Can you help me a little in this matter in your end of the vineyard.  I
+mean this to be private.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+
+
+1860
+
+
+SPEECH AT THE COOPER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK FEBRUARY 27, 1860
+
+MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF NEW YORK:--The facts with which I
+shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there
+anything new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall be
+any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and the
+inferences and observations following that presentation.
+
+In his speech last autumn at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New York
+Times, Senator Douglas said:
+
+"Our fathers, when they framed the Government under which we live,
+understood this question just as well, and even better than we do now."
+
+I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I so
+adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed starting-point for
+a discussion between Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed by
+Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry: What was the understanding
+those fathers had of the question mentioned?
+
+What is the frame of Government under which we live?
+
+The answer must be--the Constitution of the United States. That
+Constitution consists of the original, framed in 1787 (and under which
+the present Government first went into operation), and twelve
+subsequently framed amendments, the first ten of which were framed in
+1789.
+
+Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution? I suppose the
+"thirty-nine" who signed the original instrument may be fairly called our
+fathers who framed that part of the present Government. It is almost
+exactly true to say they framed it, and it is altogether true to say they
+fairly represented the opinion and sentiment of the whole nation at that
+time.
+
+Their names, being familiar to nearly all, and accessible to quite all,
+need not now be repeated.
+
+I take these "thirty-nine," for the present, as being our "fathers who
+framed the Government under which we live."
+
+What is the question which, according to the text, those fathers
+understood "just as well, and even better than we do now"?
+
+It is this: Does the proper division of local from Federal authority, or
+anything in the Constitution, forbid our Federal Government to control as
+to slavery in our Federal Territories?
+
+Upon this Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and Republicans the
+negative. This affirmation and denial form an issue, and this issue--this
+question is precisely what the text declares our fathers understood
+"better than we."
+
+Let us now inquire whether the "thirty-nine," or any of them, acted upon
+this question; and if they did, how they acted upon it--how they
+expressed that better understanding.
+
+In 1784, three years before the Constitution--the United States then
+owning the Northwestern Territory, and no other--the Congress of the
+Confederation had before them the question of prohibiting slavery in that
+Territory; and four of the "thirty nine" who afterward framed the
+Constitution were in that Congress and voted on that question. Of these,
+Roger Sherman, Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh Williamson voted for the
+prohibition, thus showing that, in their understanding, no line dividing
+local from Federal authority, nor anything else, properly forbade the
+Federal Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory. The
+other of the four--James McHenry voted against the prohibition, showing
+that, for some cause, he thought it improper to vote for it.
+
+In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the convention was in
+session framing it, and while the Northwestern Territory still was the
+only Territory owned by the United States, the same question of
+prohibiting slavery in the Territory again came before the Congress of
+the Confederation; and two more of the "thirty-nine" who afterward signed
+the Constitution were in that Congress, and voted on the question. They
+were William Blount and William Few; and they both voted for the
+prohibition thus showing that, in their understanding, no line dividing
+local from Federal authority, nor anything else, properly forbade the
+Federal Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory. This
+time the prohibition became a law, being part of what is now well known
+as the Ordinance of '87.
+
+The question of Federal control of slavery in the Territories seems not
+to have been directly before the convention which framed the original
+Constitution; and hence it is not recorded that the "thirty-nine," or any
+of them, while engaged on that instrument, expressed any opinion on that
+precise question.
+
+In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under the Constitution, an act
+was passed to enforce the Ordinance of '87, including the prohibition of
+slavery in the Northwestern Territory. The bill for this act was reported
+by one of the "thirty-nine," Thomas Fitzsimmons, then a member of the
+House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. It went through all its
+stages without a word of opposition, and finally passed both branches
+without yeas and nays, which is equivalent to a unanimous passage. In
+this Congress there were sixteen of the thirty-nine fathers who framed
+the original Constitution. They were John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman, Wm.
+S. Johnnson, Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, Thos. Fitzsimmons, William
+Few, Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William Paterson, George Claimer,
+Richard Bassett, George Read, Pierce Butler, Daniel Carroll, James
+Madison.
+
+This shows that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from
+Federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, properly forbade
+Congress to prohibit slavery in the Federal territory; else both their
+fidelity to correct principles and their oath to support the Constitution
+would have constrained them to oppose the prohibition.
+
+Again: George Washington, another of the "thirty nine," was then
+President of the United States, and, as such, approved and signed the
+bill; thus completing its validity as a law, and thus showing that, in
+his understanding, no line dividing local from Federal authority, nor
+anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control
+as to slavery in Federal territory.
+
+No great while after the adoption of the original Constitution, North
+Carolina ceded to the Federal Government the country now constituting the
+State of Tennessee; and, a few years later, Georgia ceded that which now
+constitutes the States of Mississippi and Alabama. In both deeds of
+cession it was made a condition by the ceding States that the Federal
+Government should not prohibit slavery in the ceded country. Besides
+this, slavery was then actually in the ceded country. Under these
+circumstances, Congress, on taking charge of these countries, did not
+absolutely prohibit slavery within them. But they did interfere with
+it--take control of it--even there, to a certain extent. In 1798,
+Congress organized the Territory of Mississippi: In the act of
+organization they prohibited the bringing of slaves into the Territory
+from any place without the United States, by fine and giving freedom to
+slaves so brought. This act passed both branches of Congress without yeas
+and nays. In that Congress were three of the "thirty-nine" who framed the
+original Constitution. They were John Langdon, George Read, and Abraham
+Baldwin. They all, probably, voted for it. Certainly they would have
+placed their opposition to it upon record, if, in their understanding,
+any line dividing local from Federal authority, or anything in the
+Constitution, properly forbade the Federal Government to control as to
+slavery in Federal territory.
+
+In 1803, the Federal Government purchased the Louisiana country. Our
+former territorial acquisitions came from certain of our own States; but
+this Louisiana country was acquired from a foreign nation. In 1804,
+Congress gave a territorial organization to that part of it which now
+constitutes the State of Lousiana. New Orleans, lying within that part,
+was an old and comparatively large city. There were other considerable
+towns and settlements, and slavery was extensively and thoroughly
+intermingled with the people. Congress did not, in the Territorial Act,
+prohibit slavery; but they did interfere with it take control of it--in a
+more marked and extensive way than they did in the case of Mississippi.
+The substance of the provision therein made in relation to slaves was:
+
+First. That no slave should be imported into the Territory from foreign
+parts.
+
+Second. That no slave should be carried into it who had been imported
+into the United States since the first day of May, 1798.
+
+Third. That no slave should be carried into it except by the owner, and
+for his own use as a settler; the penalty in all the cases being a fine
+upon the violator of the law, and freedom to the slave.
+
+This act also was passed without yeas and nays. In the Congress which
+passed it there were two of the "thirty-nine." They were Abraham Baldwin
+and Jonathan Dayton. As stated in the case of Mississippi, it is probable
+they both voted for it. They would not have allowed it to pass without
+recording their opposition to it, if, in their understanding, it violated
+either the line properly dividing local from Federal authority, or any
+provision of the Constitution.
+
+In 1819-20 came and passed the Missouri question. Many votes were taken,
+by yeas and nays, in both branches of Congress, upon the various phases
+of the general question. Two of the "thirty-nine"--Rufus King and Charles
+Pinckney were members of that Congress. Mr. King steadily voted for
+slavery prohibition and against all compromises, while Mr. Pinckney as
+steadily voted against slavery prohibition, and against all compromises.
+By this, Mr. King showed that, in his understanding, no line dividing
+local from Federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, was
+violated by Congress prohibiting slavery in Federal territory; while Mr.
+Pinckney, by his vote, showed that in his understanding there was some
+sufficient reason for opposing such prohibition in that case.
+
+The cases I have mentioned are the only acts of the "thirty-nine," or of
+any of them, upon the direct issue, which I have been able to discover.
+
+To enumerate the persons who thus acted, as being four in 1784, two in
+1787, seventeen in 1789, three in 1798, two in 1804, and two in
+1819-20--there would be thirty of them. But this would be counting, John
+Langdon, Roger Sherman, William Few, Rufus King, and George Read, each
+twice, and Abraham Baldwin three times. The true number of those of the
+"thirty-nine" whom I have shown to have acted upon the question which, by
+the text, they understood better than we, is twenty-three, leaving
+sixteen not shown to have acted upon it in any way.
+
+Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our thirty-nine fathers "who
+framed the Government under which we live," who have, upon their official
+responsibility and their corporal oaths, acted upon the very question
+which the text affirms they "understood just as well, and even better
+than we do now"; and twenty-one of them--a clear majority of the whole
+"thirty-nine"--so acting upon it as to make them guilty of gross
+political impropriety and wilful perjury, if, in their understanding, any
+proper division between local and Federal authority, or anything in the
+Constitution they had made themselves, and sworn to support, forbade the
+Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories.
+Thus the twenty-one acted; and, as actions speak louder than words, so
+actions under such responsibilities speak still louder.
+
+Two of the twenty-three voted against Congressional prohibition of
+slavery in the Federal Territories, in the instances in which they acted
+upon the question. But for what reasons they so voted is not known. They
+may have done so because they thought a proper division of local from
+Federal authority, or some provision or principle of the Constitution,
+stood in the way; or they may, without any such question, have voted
+against the prohibition on what appeared to them to be sufficient grounds
+of expediency. No one who has sworn to support the Constitution can
+conscientiously vote for what he understands to be an unconstitutional
+measure, however expedient he may think it; but one may and ought to vote
+against a measure which he deems constitutional, if, at the same time, he
+deems it inexpedient. It therefore would be unsafe to set down even the
+two who voted against the prohibition as having done so because, in their
+understanding, any proper division of local from Federal authority, or
+anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control
+as to slavery in Federal territory.
+
+The remaining sixteen of the "thirty-nine," so far as I have discovered,
+have left no record of their understanding upon the direct question of
+Federal control on slavery in the Federal Territories. But there is much
+reason to believe that their understanding upon that question would not
+have appeared different from that of their twenty-three compeers, had it
+been manifested at all.
+
+For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, I have purposely omitted
+whatever understanding may have been manifested by any person, however
+distinguished, other than the thirty-nine fathers who framed the original
+Constitution; and, for the same reason, I have also omitted whatever
+understanding may have been manifested by any of the "thirty tine" even
+on any other phase of the general question of slavery. If we should look
+into their acts and declarations on those other phases, as the foreign
+slave trade, and the morality and policy of slavery generally, it would
+appear to us that on the direct question of Federal control of slavery in
+Federal Territories, the sixteen, if they had acted at all, would
+probably have acted just as the twenty-three did. Among that sixteen were
+several of the most noted anti-slavery men of those times--as Dr.
+Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Gouverneur Morris while there was not
+one now known to have been otherwise, unless it may be John Rutledge, of
+South Carolina.
+
+The sum of the whole is, that of our thirty-nine fathers who framed the
+original Constitution, twenty-one--a clear majority of the
+whole--certainly understood that no proper division of local from Federal
+authority, nor any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal
+Government to control slavery in the Federal Territories; whilst all the
+rest probably had the same understanding. Such, unquestionably, was the
+understanding of our fathers who framed the original Constitution; and
+the text affirms that they understood the question "better than we."
+
+But, so far, I have been considering the understanding of the question
+manifested by the framers of the original Constitution. In and by the
+original instrument, a mode was provided for amending it; and, as I have
+already stated, the present frame of "the Government under which we live"
+consists of that original, and twelve amendatory articles framed and
+adopted since. Those who now insist that Federal control of slavery in
+Federal Territories violates the Constitution, point us to the provisions
+which they suppose it thus violates; and, as I understand, they all fix
+upon provisions in these amendatory articles, and not in the original
+instrument. The Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case, plant themselves
+upon the fifth amendment, which provides that no person shall be deprived
+of "life, liberty, or property without due process of law"; while Senator
+Douglas and his peculiar adherents plant themselves upon the tenth
+amendment, providing that "the powers not delegated to the United States
+by the Constitution" "are reserved to the States respectively, or to the
+people."
+
+Now, it so happens that these amendments were framed by the first
+Congress which sat under the Constitution--the identical Congress which
+passed the act already mentioned, enforcing the prohibition of slavery in
+the Northwestern Territory. Not only was it the same Congress, but they
+were the identical same individual men who, at the same session, and at
+the same time within the session, had under consideration, and in
+progress toward maturity, these Constitutional amendments, and this act
+prohibiting slavery in all the territory the nation then owned. The
+Constitutional amendments were introduced before and passed after the act
+enforcing the Ordinance of '87; so that, during the whole pendency of the
+act to enforce the Ordinance, the Constitutional amendments were also
+pending.
+
+The seventy-six members of that Congress, including sixteen of the
+framers of the original Constitution, as before stated, were
+pre-eminently our fathers who framed that part of "the Government under
+which we live," which is now claimed as forbidding the Federal Government
+to control slavery in the Federal Territories.
+
+Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at this day to affirm that the
+two things which that Congress deliberately framed, and carried to
+maturity at the same time, are absolutely inconsistent with each other?
+And does not such affirmation become impudently absurd when coupled with
+the other affirmation from the same mouth, that those who did the two
+things alleged to be inconsistent understood whether they really were
+inconsistent better than we--better than he who affirms that they are
+inconsistent?
+
+It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine framers of the original
+Constitution, and the seventy-six members of the Congress which framed
+the amendments thereto, taken together, do certainly include those who
+may be fairly called "our fathers who framed the Government under which
+we live." And, so assuming, I defy any man to show that any one of them
+ever, in his whole life, declared that, in his understanding, any proper
+division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the
+Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in
+the Federal Territories. I go a step further. I defy any one to show that
+any living man in the world ever did, prior to the beginning of the
+present century (and I might almost say prior to the beginning of the
+last half of the present century), declare that, in his understanding,
+any proper division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the
+Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in
+the Federal Territories. To those who now so declare, I give not only
+"our fathers who framed the Government under which we live," but with
+them all other living men within the century in which it was framed,
+among whom to search, and they shall not be able to find the evidence of
+a single man agreeing with them.
+
+Now and here let me guard a little against being misunderstood. I do not
+mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers
+did. To do so would be to discard all the lights of current experience to
+reject all progress, all improvement. What I do say is that, if we would
+supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers in any case, we should do
+so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument so clear, that even their
+great authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot stand; and most
+surely not in a case whereof we ourselves declare they understood the
+question better than we.
+
+If any man at this day sincerely believes that proper division of local
+from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbids the
+Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories,
+he is right to say so, and to enforce his position by all truthful
+evidence and fair argument which he can. But he has no right to mislead
+others who have less access to history, and less leisure to study it,
+into the false belief that "our fathers who framed the Government under
+which we live" were of the same opinion thus substituting falsehood and
+deception for truthful evidence and fair argument. If any man at this day
+sincerely believes "our fathers, who framed the Government under which we
+live," used and applied principles, in other cases, which ought to have
+led them to understand that a proper division of local from Federal
+authority, or some part of the Constitution, forbids the Federal
+Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories, he is
+right to say so. But he should, at the same time, brave the
+responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he understands their
+principles better than they did themselves; and especially should he not
+shirk that responsibility by asserting that they "understood the question
+just as well, and even better than we do now."
+
+But enough! Let all who believe that "our fathers, who framed the
+Government under which we live, understood this question just as well,
+and even better than we do now," speak as they spoke, and act as they
+acted upon it. This is all Republicans ask--all Republicans desire--in
+relation to slavery. As those fathers marked it, so let it be again
+marked, as an evil not to be extended, but to be tolerated and protected
+only because of, and so far as, its actual presence among us makes that
+toleration and protection a necessity. Let all the guaranties those
+fathers gave it be not grudgingly, but fully and fairly maintained. For
+this Republicans contend, and with this, so far as I know or believe,
+they will be content.
+
+And now, if they would listen--as I suppose they will not--I would
+address a few words to the Southern people.
+
+I would say to them: You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just
+people; and I consider that in the general qualities of reason and
+justice you are not inferior to any other people. Still, when you speak
+of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles, or, at the
+best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or
+murderers, but nothing like it to "Black Republicans." In all your
+contentions with one another, each of you deems an unconditional
+condemnation of "Black Republicanism" as the first thing to be attended
+to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable
+prerequisite license, so to speak among you, to be admitted or permitted
+to speak at all: Now; can you, or not, be prevailed upon to pause, and to
+consider whether this is quite just to us, or even to yourselves? Bring
+forward your charges and specifications, and then be patient long enough
+to hear us deny or justify.
+
+You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an issue; and the burden
+of proof is upon you. You produce your proof; and what is it? Why, that
+our party has no existence in your section--gets no votes in your
+section. The fact is substantially true; but does it prove the issue? If
+it does, then in case we should, without change of principle, begin to
+get votes in your section, we should thereby cease to be sectional. You
+cannot escape this conclusion; and yet, are you willing to abide by it?
+If you are, you will probably soon find that we have ceased to be
+sectional, for we shall get votes in your section this very year. You
+will then begin to discover, as the truth plainly is, that your proof,
+does not touch the issue. The fact that we get no votes in your section
+is a fact of your making, and not of ours. And if there be fault in that
+fact, that fault is primarily yours, and remains so until you show that
+we repel you by, some wrong principle or practice. If we do repel you by
+any wrong principle or practice, the fault is ours; but this brings you
+to where you ought to have started to a discussion of the right or wrong
+of our principle. If our principle, put in practice, would wrong your
+section for the benefit of ours, or for any other object, then our
+principle, and we with it, are sectional, and are justly opposed and
+denounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of whether our
+principle, put in practice, would wrong your section; and so meet us as
+if it were possible that something may be said on our side. Do you accept
+the challenge? No! Then you really believe that the principle which "our
+fathers who framed the Government under which we live" thought so clearly
+right as to adopt it, and indorse it again and again, upon their official
+oaths, is in fact so clearly wrong as to demand your condemnation without
+a moment's consideration.
+
+Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warning against sectional
+parties given by Washington in his Farewell Address. Less than eight
+years before Washington gave that warning, he had, as President of the
+United States, approved and signed an act of Congress enforcing the
+prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory, which act embodied
+the policy of the Government upon that subject up to, and at, the very
+moment he penned that warning; and about one year after he penned it, he
+wrote La Fayette that he considered that prohibition a wise measure,
+expressing in the same connection his hope that we should at some time
+have a confederacy of free States.
+
+Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has since arisen upon
+this same subject, is that warning a weapon in your hands against us, or
+in our hands against you? Could Washington himself speak, would he cast
+the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who sustain his policy, or upon
+you, who repudiate it? We respect that warning of Washington, and we
+commend it to you, together with his example pointing to the right
+application of it.
+
+But you say you are conservative--eminently conservative--while we are
+revolutionary, destructive, or something, of the sort. What is
+conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against a new and
+untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point
+in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed the
+Government under which we live"; while you with one accord reject, and
+scout, and spit upon that old policy and insist upon substituting
+something new. True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that
+substitute shall be. You are divided on new propositions and plans, but
+you are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the
+fathers. Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a
+Congressional slave code for the Territories; some for Congress
+forbidding the Territories to prohibit slavery within their limits; some
+for maintaining slavery in the Territories through the judiciary; some
+for the "gur-reat pur-rinciple" that "if one man would enslave another,
+no third man should object," fantastically called "popular sovereignty";
+but never a man among you in favor of Federal prohibition of slavery in
+Federal Territories, according to the practice of "our fathers who framed
+the Government under which we live." Not one of all your various plans
+can show a precedent or an advocate in the century within which our
+Government originated. Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism
+for yourselves, and your charge of destructiveness against us, are based
+on the most clear and stable foundations.
+
+Again: You say we have made the slavery question more prominent than it
+formerly was. We deny it. We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny
+that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded the old policy
+of the fathers. We resisted and still resist your innovation; and thence
+comes the greater prominence of the question. Would you have that
+question reduced to its former proportions? Go back to that old policy.
+What has been will be again, under the same conditions. If you would have
+the peace of the old times, readopt the precepts and policy of the old
+times.
+
+You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny it;
+and what is your proof'? Harper's Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was no
+Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single Republican in his
+Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty in that
+matter you know it or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are
+inexcusable for not designating the man and proving the fact. If you do
+not know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it, and especially for
+persisting in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the
+proof. You need not be told that persisting in a charge which one does
+not know to be true is simply malicious slander.
+
+Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or encouraged the
+Harper's Ferry affair, but still insist that our doctrines and
+declarations necessarily lead to such results. We do not believe it. We
+know we hold to no doctrine, and make no declaration, which were not held
+to and made by our fathers who framed the Government under which we live.
+You never dealt fairly by us in relation to this affair. When it
+occurred, some important State elections were near at hand, and you were
+in evident glee with the belief that, by charging the blame upon us, you
+could get an advantage of us in those elections.  The elections came, and
+your expectations were not quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew
+that, as to himself at least, your charge was a slander, and he was not
+much inclined by it to cast his vote in your favor. Republican doctrines
+and declarations are accompanied with a continued protest against any
+interference whatever with your slaves, or with you about your slaves.
+Surely, this does not encourage them to revolt. True, we do, in common
+with "our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live,"
+declare our belief that slavery is wrong; but the slaves do not hear us
+declare even this. For any thing we say or do, the slaves would scarcely
+know there is a Republican party. I believe they would not, in fact,
+generally know it but for your misrepresentations of us in their hearing.
+In your political contests among yourselves, each faction charges the
+other with sympathy with Black Republicanism; and then, to give point to
+the charge, defines Black Republicanism to simply be insurrection, blood,
+and thunder among the slaves.
+
+Slave insurrections are no more common now than they were before the
+Republican party was organized. What induced the Southampton
+insurrection, twenty-eight years ago, in which, at least, three times as
+many lives were lost as at Harper's Ferry? You can scarcely stretch your
+very elastic fancy to the conclusion that Southampton was "got up by
+Black Republicanism." In the present state of things in the United
+States, I do not think a general or even a very extensive slave
+insurrection is possible. The indispensable concert of action cannot be
+attained. The slaves have no means of rapid communication; nor can
+incendiary freemen, black or white, supply it. The explosive materials
+are everywhere in parcels; but there neither are, nor can be supplied the
+indispensable connecting trains.
+
+Much is said by Southern people about the affection of slaves for their
+masters and mistresses; and a part of it, at least, is true. A plot for
+an uprising could scarcely be devised and communicated to twenty
+individuals before some one of them, to save the life of a favorite
+master or mistress, would divulge it. This is the rule; and the slave
+revolution in Hayti was not an exception to it, but a case occurring
+under peculiar circumstances. The gunpowder plot of British history,
+though not connected with slaves, was more in point. In that case, only
+about twenty were admitted to the secret; and yet one of them, in his
+anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the plot to that friend, and, by
+consequence, averted the calamity. Occasional poisonings from the
+kitchen, and open or stealthy assassinations in the field, and local
+revolts, extending to a score or so, will continue to occur as the
+natural results of slavery; but no general insurrection of slaves, as I
+think, can happen in this country for a long time. Whoever much fears or
+much hopes for such an event will be alike disappointed.
+
+In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years ago, "It is still in
+our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation
+peaceably, and in such slow degrees as that the evil will wear off
+insensibly, and their places be, pari passu, filled up by free white
+laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself on, human
+nature must shudder at the prospect held up."
+
+Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the power of
+emancipation is in the Federal Government. He spoke of Virginia; and, as
+to the power of emancipation, I speak of the slave holding States only.
+The Federal Government, however, as we insist, has the power of
+restraining the extension of the institution--the power to insure that a
+slave insurrection shall never occur on any American soil which is now
+free from slavery.
+
+John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection. It was
+an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in which the
+slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd that the slaves,
+with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not succeed. That
+affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with the many attempts related in
+history at the assassination of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods
+over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by
+Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt, which ends in little
+else than his own execution. Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon and John
+Brown's attempt at Harper's Ferry were, in their philosophy, precisely
+the same. The eagerness to cast blame on old England in the one case, and
+on New England in the other, does not disprove the sameness of the two
+things.
+
+And how much would it avail you, if you could, by the use of John Brown,
+Helper's Book, and the like, break up the Republican organization? Human
+action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be
+changed. There is a judgment and a feeling against slavery in this
+nation, which cast at least a million and a half of votes. You cannot
+destroy that judgment and feeling--that sentiment--by breaking up the
+political organization which rallies around it. You can scarcely scatter
+and disperse an army which has been formed into order in the face of your
+heaviest fire; but if you could, how much would you gain by forcing the
+sentiment which created it out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box,
+into some other channel? What would that other channel probably be? Would
+the number of John Browns be lessened or enlarged by the operation?
+
+But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of your
+constitutional rights.
+
+That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be palliated, if not
+fully justified, were we proposing, by the mere force of numbers, to
+deprive you of some right plainly written down in the Constitution. But
+we are proposing no such thing.
+
+When you make these declarations, you have a specific and well-understood
+allusion to an assumed constitutional right of yours to take slaves into
+the Federal Territories, and to hold them there as property. But no such
+right is specifically written in the Constitution. That instrument is
+literally silent about any such right. We, on the contrary, deny that
+such a right has any existence in the Constitution, even by implication.
+
+Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the
+Government unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution
+as you please on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule
+or ruin, in all events.
+
+This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps you will say the Supreme
+Court has decided the disputed constitutional question in your favor. Not
+quite so. But, waiving the lawyer's distinction between dictum and
+decision, the court have decided the question for you in a sort of way.
+The court have substantially said it is your constitutional right to take
+slaves into the Federal Territories, and to hold them there as property.
+When I say, the decision was made in a sort of way, I mean it was made in
+a divided court, by a bare majority of the judges, and they not quite
+agreeing with one another in the reasons for making it; that it is so
+made as that its avowed supporters disagree with one another about its
+meaning, and that it was mainly based upon a mistaken statement of
+fact--the statement in the opinion that "the right of property in a slave
+is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution."
+
+An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of property in
+a slave is not "distinctly and expressly affirmed" in it. Bear in mind,
+the judges do not pledge their judicial opinion that such right is
+impliedly affirmed in the Constitution; but they pledge their veracity
+that it is "distinctly and expressly" affirmed there--"distinctly," that
+is, not mingled with anything else; "expressly," that is, in words
+meaning just that, without the aid of any inference, and susceptible of
+no other meaning.
+
+If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that such right is
+affirmed in the instrument by implication, it would be open to others to
+show that neither the word "slave" nor "slavery" is to be found in the
+Constitution, nor the word "property" even, in any connection with
+language alluding to the things slave or slavery; and that wherever in
+that instrument the slave is alluded to, he is called a "person"; and
+wherever his master's legal right in relation to him is alluded to, it is
+spoken of as "service or labor which may be due," as a debt payable in
+service or labor. Also, it would be open to show, by contemporaneous
+history, that this mode of alluding to slaves and slavery, instead of
+speaking of them, was employed on purpose to exclude from the
+Constitution the idea that there could be property in man.
+
+To show all this, is easy and certain.
+
+When this obvious mistake of the judges shall be brought to their notice,
+is it not reasonable to expect that they will withdraw the mistaken
+statement, and reconsider the conclusion based upon it?
+
+And then it is to be remembered that "our fathers; who framed the
+Government under which we live",--the men who made the Constitution
+--decided this same constitutional question in our favor, long ago;
+decided it without division among themselves, when making the decision,
+without division among themselves about the meaning of it after it was
+made, and, so far as any evidence is left, without basing it upon any
+mistaken statement of facts.
+
+Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to
+break up this Government unless such a court decision as yours is shall
+be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political
+action? But you will not abide the election of a Republican President! In
+that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you
+say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is
+cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his
+teeth, "stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you'll be a
+murderer!"
+
+To be sure, what the robber demanded of me-my money was my own, and I had
+a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my
+own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of
+destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be
+distinguished in principle.
+
+A few words now to Republicans: It is exceedingly desirable that all
+parts of this great confederacy shall be at peace and in harmony one with
+another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it so. Even though much
+provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill temper. Even though
+the Southern people will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly
+consider their demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view of
+our duty, we possibly can. Judging by all they say and do, and by the
+subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us determine, if we
+can, what will satisfy them.
+
+Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally surrendered
+to them? We know they will not. In all their present complaints against
+us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned. Invasions and insurrections
+are the rage now. Will it satisfy them if, in the future, we have nothing
+to do with invasions and, insurrections? We know it will not. We so know
+because we know we never had anything to do with invasions and
+insurrections; and yet this total abstaining does not exempt us from the
+charge and the denunciation.
+
+The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must not
+only let them alone, but we must, somehow, convince them that we do let
+them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We have been so
+trying to convince them from the very beginning of our organization, but
+with no success. In all our platforms and speeches we have constantly
+protested our purpose to let them alone; but this has had no tendency to
+convince them. Alike unavailing to convince them is the fact that they
+have never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them.
+
+These natural and apparently adequate means all failing, what will
+convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join
+them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly--done in acts
+as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated--we must place
+ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas's new sedition law must be
+enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong,
+whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits; or in private. We must
+arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must
+pull down our free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be
+disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will
+cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.
+
+I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely in this way. Most
+of them would probably say to us, "Let us alone, do nothing to us, and
+say what you please about slavery." But we do let them alone have never
+disturbed them--so that after all it is what we say which dissatisfies
+them. They will continue to accuse us of doing, until we cease saying.
+
+I am also aware they have not as yet, in terms, demanded the overthrow of
+our free State constitutions. Yet those constitutions declare the wrong
+of slavery, with more solemn emphasis than do all other sayings against
+it; and when all these other sayings shall have been silenced, the
+overthrow of these constitutions will be demanded, and nothing be left to
+resist the demand. It is nothing to the contrary, that they do not demand
+the whole of this just now. Demanding what they do, and for the reason
+they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this consummation.
+Holding, as they do, that slavery is morally right, and socially
+elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of it,
+as a legal right and a social blessing.
+
+Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground save our conviction
+that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and
+constitutions against it are themselves wrong, and should be silenced and
+swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to its nationality
+its universality; if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its
+extension--its enlargement. All they ask we could readily grant if we
+thought slavery right; all we ask they could as readily grant, if they
+thought it wrong. Their thinking it right and our thinking it wrong is
+the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it
+right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full
+recognition, as being right; but thinking it wrong, as we do, can we
+yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our
+own? In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we
+do this? Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone
+where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its
+actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent
+it, allow it to spread into the national Territories, and to overrun us
+here in these free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us
+stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none
+of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied
+and belabored-contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between
+the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be
+neither a living man nor a dead man-such as a policy of "don't care" on a
+question about which all true men do care--such as Union appeals
+beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine
+rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance--such
+as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington
+said, and undo what Washington did.
+
+Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against
+us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government
+nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT,
+AND IN THAT FAITH LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE
+UNDERSTAND IT.
+
+
+
+
+SPEECH AT NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT, MARCH 6, 1860
+
+MR. PRESIDENT, AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF NEW HAVEN:--If the Republican party
+of this nation shall ever have the national House entrusted to its
+keeping, it will be the duty of that party to attend to all the affairs
+of national housekeeping. Whatever matters of importance may come up,
+whatever difficulties may arise in its way of administration of the
+Government, that party will then have to attend to. It will then be
+compelled to attend to other questions, besides this question which now
+assumes an overwhelming importance--the question of slavery. It is true
+that in the organization of the Republican party this question of slavery
+was more important than any other: indeed, so much more important has it
+become that no more national question can even get a hearing just at
+present. The old question of tariff--a matter that will remain one of the
+chief affairs of national house-keeping to all time; the question of the
+management of financial affairs; the question of the disposition of the
+public domain how shall it be managed for the purpose of getting it well
+settled, and of making there the homes of a free and happy people? these
+will remain open and require attention for a great while yet, and these
+questions will have to be attended to by whatever party has the control
+of the Government. Yet, just now, they cannot even obtain a hearing, and
+I do not propose to detain you upon these topics or what sort of hearing
+they should have when opportunity shall come.
+
+For, whether we will or not, the question of slavery is the question, the
+all-absorbing topic of the day. It is true that all of us--and by that I
+mean, not the Republican party alone, but the whole American people, here
+and elsewhere--all of us wish this question settled, wish it out of the
+way. It stands in the way, and prevents the adjustment, and the giving of
+necessary attention to other questions of national house-keeping. The
+people of the whole nation agree that this question ought to be settled,
+and yet it is not settled. And the reason is that they are not yet agreed
+how it shall be settled. All wish it done, but some wish one way and some
+another, and some a third, or fourth, or fifth; different bodies are
+pulling in different directions, and none of them, having a decided
+majority, are able to accomplish the common object.
+
+In the beginning of the year 1854, a new policy was inaugurated with the
+avowed object and confident promise that it would entirely and forever
+put an end to the slavery agitation. It was again and again declared that
+under this policy, when once successfully established, the country would
+be forever rid of this whole question. Yet under the operation of that
+policy this agitation has not only not ceased, but it has been constantly
+augmented. And this too, although, from the day of its introduction, its
+friends, who promised that it would wholly end all agitation, constantly
+insisted, down to the time that the Lecompton Bill was introduced, that
+it was working admirably, and that its inevitable tendency was to remove
+the question forever from the politics of the country. Can you call to
+mind any Democratic speech, made after the repeal of the Missouri
+Compromise, down to the time of the Lecompton Bill, in which it was not
+predicted that the slavery agitation was just at an end, that "the
+abolition excitement was played out," "the Kansas question was dead,"
+"they have made the most they can out of this question and it is now
+forever settled"? But since the Lecompton Bill no Democrat, within my
+experience, has ever pretended that he could see the end. That cry has
+been dropped. They themselves do not pretend, now, that the agitation of
+this subject has come to an end yet.
+
+The truth is that this question is one of national importance, and we
+cannot help dealing with it; we must do something about it, whether we
+will or not. We cannot avoid it; the subject is one we cannot avoid
+considering; we can no more avoid it than a man can live without eating.
+It is upon us; it attaches to the body politic as much and closely as the
+natural wants attach to our natural bodies. Now I think it important that
+this matter should be taken up in earnest, and really settled: And one
+way to bring about a true settlement of the question is to understand its
+true magnitude.
+
+There have been many efforts made to settle it. Again and again it has
+been fondly hoped that it was settled; but every time it breaks out
+afresh, and more violently than ever. It was settled, our fathers hoped,
+by the Missouri Compromise, but it did not stay settled. Then the
+compromises of 1850 were declared to be a full and final settlement of
+the question. The two great parties, each in national convention, adopted
+resolutions declaring that the settlement made by the Compromise of 1850
+was a finality that it would last forever. Yet how long before it was
+unsettled again? It broke out again in 1854, and blazed higher and raged
+more furiously than ever before, and the agitation has not rested since.
+
+These repeated settlements must have some faults about them. There must
+be some inadequacy in their very nature to the purpose to which they were
+designed. We can only speculate as to where that fault, that inadequacy,
+is, but we may perhaps profit by past experiences.
+
+I think that one of the causes of these repeated failures is that our
+best and greatest men have greatly underestimated the size of this
+question. They have constantly brought forward small cures for great
+sores--plasters too small to cover the wound. That is one reason that all
+settlements have proved temporary--so evanescent.
+
+Look at the magnitude of this subject: One sixth of our population, in
+round numbers--not quite one sixth, and yet more than a seventh,--about
+one sixth of the whole population of the United States are slaves. The
+owners of these slaves consider them property. The effect upon the minds
+of the owners is that of property, and nothing else it induces them to
+insist upon all that will favorably affect its value as property, to
+demand laws and institutions and a public policy that shall increase and
+secure its value, and make it durable, lasting, and universal. The effect
+on the minds of the owners is to persuade them that there is no wrong in
+it. The slaveholder does not like to be considered a mean fellow for
+holding that species of property, and hence, he has to struggle within
+himself and sets about arguing himself into the belief that slavery is
+right. The property influences his mind. The dissenting minister who
+argued some theological point with one of the established church was
+always met with the reply, "I can't see it so." He opened a Bible and
+pointed him a passage, but the orthodox minister replied, "I can't see it
+so." Then he showed him a single word--"Can you see that?" "Yes, I see
+it," was the reply. The dissenter laid a guinea over the word and asked,
+"Do you see it now?" So here. Whether the owners of this species of
+property do really see it as it is, it is not for me to say, but if they
+do, they see it as it is through two thousand millions of dollars, and
+that is a pretty thick coating. Certain it is that they do not see it as
+we see it. Certain it is that this two thousand millions of dollars,
+invested in this species of property, all so concentrated that the mind
+can grasp it at once--this immense pecuniary interest--has its influence
+upon their minds.
+
+But here in Connecticut and at the North slavery does not exist, and we
+see it through no such medium.
+
+To us it appears natural to think that slaves are human beings; men, not
+property; that some of the things, at least, stated about men in the
+Declaration of Independence apply to them as well as to us. I say we
+think, most of us, that this charter of freedom applies to the slaves as
+well as to ourselves; that the class of arguments put forward to batter
+down that idea are also calculated to break down the very idea of a free
+government, even for white men, and to undermine the very foundations of
+free society. We think slavery a great moral wrong, and, while we do not
+claim the right to touch it where it exists, we wish to treat it as a
+wrong in the Territories, where our votes will reach it. We think that a
+respect for ourselves, a regard for future generations and for the God
+that made us, require that we put down this wrong where our votes will
+properly reach it. We think that species of labor an injury to free white
+men--in short, we think slavery a great moral, social, and political
+evil, tolerable only because, and so far as, its actual existence makes
+it necessary to tolerate it, and that beyond that it ought to be treated
+as a wrong.
+
+Now these two ideas, the property idea that slavery is right, and the
+idea that it is wrong, come into collision, and do actually produce that
+irrepressible conflict which Mr. Seward has been so roundly abused for
+mentioning. The two ideas conflict, and must conflict.
+
+Again, in its political aspect, does anything in any way endanger the
+perpetuity of this Union but that single thing, slavery? Many of our
+adversaries are anxious to claim that they are specially devoted to the
+Union, and take pains to charge upon us hostility to the Union. Now we
+claim that we are the only true Union men, and we put to them this one
+proposition: Whatever endangers this Union, save and except slavery? Did
+any other thing ever cause a moment's fear? All men must agree that this
+thing alone has ever endangered the perpetuity of the Union. But if it
+was threatened by any other influence, would not all men say that the
+best thing that could be done, if we could not or ought not to destroy
+it, would be at least to keep it from growing any larger? Can any man
+believe, that the way to save the Union is to extend and increase the
+only thing that threatens the Union, and to suffer it to grow bigger and
+bigger?
+
+Whenever this question shall be settled, it must be settled on some
+philosophical basis. No policy that does not rest upon some philosophical
+opinion can be permanently maintained. And hence there are but two
+policies in regard to slavery that can be at all maintained. The first,
+based on the property view that slavery is right, conforms to that idea
+throughout, and demands that we shall do everything for it that we ought
+to do if it were right. We must sweep away all opposition, for opposition
+to the right is wrong; we must agree that slavery is right, and we must
+adopt the idea that property has persuaded the owner to believe that
+slavery is morally right and socially elevating. This gives a
+philosophical basis for a permanent policy of encouragement.
+
+The other policy is one that squares with the idea that slavery is wrong,
+and it consists in doing everything that we ought to do if it is wrong.
+Now, I don't wish to be misunderstood, nor to leave a gap down to be
+misrepresented, even. I don't mean that we ought to attack it where it
+exists. To me it seems that if we were to form a government anew, in view
+of the actual presence of slavery we should find it necessary to frame
+just such a government as our fathers did--giving to the slaveholder the
+entire control where the system was established, while we possessed the
+power to restrain it from going outside those limits. From the
+necessities of the case we should be compelled to form just such a
+government as our blessed fathers gave us; and, surely, if they have so
+made it, that adds another reason why we should let slavery alone where
+it exists.
+
+If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any man would say I might
+seize the nearest stick and kill it; but if I found that snake in bed
+with my children, that would be another question. I might hurt the
+children more than the snake, and it might bite them. Much more if I
+found it in bed with my neighbor's children, and I had bound myself by a
+solemn compact not to meddle with his children under any circumstances,
+it would become me to let that particular mode of getting rid of the
+gentleman alone. But if there was a bed newly made up, to which the
+children were to be taken, and it was proposed to take a batch of young
+snakes and put them there with them, I take it no man would say there was
+any question how I ought to decide!
+
+That is just the case. The new Territories are the newly made bed to
+which our children are to go, and it lies with the nation to say whether
+they shall have snakes mixed up with them or not. It does not seem as if
+there could be much hesitation what our policy should be!
+
+Now I have spoken of a policy based on the idea that slavery is wrong,
+and a policy based on the idea that it is right. But an effort has been
+made for a policy that shall treat it as neither right nor wrong. It is
+based upon utter indifference. Its leading advocate [Douglas] has said,
+"I don't care whether it be voted up or down." "It is merely a matter of
+dollars and cents." "The Almighty has drawn a line across this continent,
+on one side of which all soil must forever be cultivated by slave labor,
+and on the other by free." "When the struggle is between the white man
+and the negro, I am for the white man; when it is between the negro and
+the crocodile, I am for the negro." Its central idea is indifference.  It
+holds that it makes no more difference to us whether the Territories
+become free or slave States than whether my neighbor stocks his farm with
+horned cattle or puts in tobacco. All recognize this policy, the
+plausible sugar-coated name of which is "popular sovereignty."
+
+This policy chiefly stands in the way of a permanent settlement of the
+question. I believe there is no danger of its becoming the permanent
+policy of the country, for it is based on a public indifference. There is
+nobody that "don't care." All the people do care one way or the other! I
+do not charge that its author, when he says he "don't care," states his
+individual opinion; he only expresses his policy for the government. I
+understand that he has never said as an individual whether he thought
+slavery right or wrong--and he is the only man in the nation that has
+not! Now such a policy may have a temporary run; it may spring up as
+necessary to the political prospects of some gentleman; but it is utterly
+baseless: the people are not indifferent, and it can therefore have no
+durability or permanence.
+
+But suppose it could: Then it could be maintained only by a public
+opinion that shall say, "We don't care." There must be a change in public
+opinion; the public mind must be so far debauched as to square with this
+policy of caring not at all. The people must come to consider this as
+"merely a question of dollars and cents," and to believe that in some
+places the Almighty has made slavery necessarily eternal. This policy can
+be brought to prevail if the people can be brought round to say honestly,
+"We don't care"; if not, it can never be maintained. It is for you to say
+whether that can be done.
+
+You are ready to say it cannot, but be not too fast! Remember what a long
+stride has been taken since the repeal of the Missouri Compromise! Do you
+know of any Democrat, of either branch of the party--do you know one who
+declares that he believes that the Declaration of Independence has any
+application to the negro? Judge Taney declares that it has not, and Judge
+Douglas even vilifies me personally and scolds me roundly for saying that
+the Declaration applies to all men, and that negroes are men.  Is there a
+Democrat here who does not deny that the Declaration applies to the
+negro? Do any of you know of one? Well, I have tried before perhaps fifty
+audiences, some larger and some smaller than this, to find one such
+Democrat, and never yet have I found one who said I did not place him
+right in that. I must assume that Democrats hold that, and now, not one
+of these Democrats can show that he said that five years ago! I venture
+to defy the whole party to produce one man that ever uttered the belief
+that the Declaration did not apply to negroes, before the repeal of the
+Missouri Compromise! Four or five years ago we all thought negroes were
+men, and that when "all men" were named, negroes were included. But the
+whole Democratic party has deliberately taken negroes from the class of
+men and put them in the class of brutes. Turn it as you will it is simply
+the truth! Don't be too hasty, then, in saying that the people cannot be
+brought to this new doctrine, but note that long stride. One more as long
+completes the journey from where negroes are estimated as men to where
+they are estimated as mere brutes--as rightful property!
+
+That saying "In the struggle between white men and the negro," etc.,
+which I know came from the same source as this policy--that saying marks
+another step. There is a falsehood wrapped up in that statement. "In the
+struggle between the white man and the negro" assumes that there is a
+struggle, in which either the white man must enslave the negro or the
+negro must enslave the white. There is no such struggle! It is merely the
+ingenious falsehood to degrade and brutalize the negro. Let each let the
+other alone, and there is no struggle about it. If it was like two
+wrecked seamen on a narrow plank, when each must push the other off or
+drown himself, I would push the negro off or a white man either, but it
+is not; the plank is large enough for both. This good earth is plenty
+broad enough for white man and negro both, and there is no need of either
+pushing the other off.
+
+So that saying, "In the struggle between the negro and the crocodile,"
+etc., is made up from the idea that down where the crocodile inhabits, a
+white man can't labor; it must be nothing else but crocodile or negro; if
+the negro does not the crocodile must possess the earth; in that case he
+declares for the negro. The meaning of the whole is just this: As a white
+man is to a negro, so is a negro to a crocodile; and as the negro may
+rightfully treat the crocodile, so may the white man rightfully treat the
+negro.  This very dear phrase coined by its author, and so dear that he
+deliberately repeats it in many speeches, has a tendency to still further
+brutalize the negro, and to bring public opinion to the point of utter
+indifference whether men so brutalized are enslaved or not. When that
+time shall come, if ever, I think that policy to which I refer may
+prevail. But I hope the good freemen of this country will never allow it
+to come, and until then the policy can never be maintained.
+
+Now consider the effect of this policy. We in the States are not to care
+whether freedom or slavery gets the better, but the people in the
+Territories may care. They are to decide, and they may think what they
+please; it is a matter of dollars and cents! But are not the people of
+the Territories detailed from the States? If this feeling of indifference
+this absence of moral sense about the question prevails in the States,
+will it not be carried into the Territories? Will not every man say, "I
+don't care, it is nothing to me"? If any one comes that wants slavery,
+must they not say, "I don't care whether freedom or slavery be voted up
+or voted down"? It results at last in nationalizing the institution of
+slavery. Even if fairly carried out, that policy is just as certain to
+nationalize slavery as the doctrine of Jeff Davis himself. These are only
+two roads to the same goal, and "popular sovereignty" is just as sure and
+almost as short as the other.
+
+What we want, and all we want, is to have with us the men who think
+slavery wrong. But those who say they hate slavery, and are opposed to
+it, but yet act with the Democratic party--where are they? Let us apply a
+few tests. You say that you think slavery is wrong, but you denounce all
+attempts to restrain it. Is there anything else that you think wrong that
+you are not willing to deal with as wrong? Why are you so careful, so
+tender, of this one wrong and no other? You will not let us do a single
+thing as if it was wrong; there is no place where you will even allow it
+to be called wrong! We must not call it wrong in the free States, because
+it is not there, and we must not call it wrong in the slave States,
+because it is there; we must not call it wrong in politics because that
+is bringing morality into politics, and we must not call it wrong in the
+pulpit because that is bringing politics into religion; we must not bring
+it into the Tract Society or the other societies, because those are such
+unsuitable places--and there is no single place, according to you, where
+this wrong thing can properly be called wrong!
+
+Perhaps you will plead that if the people of the slave States should
+themselves set on foot an effort for emancipation, you would wish them
+success, and bid them God-speed. Let us test that: In 1858 the
+emancipation party of Missouri, with Frank Blair at their head, tried to
+get up a movement for that purpose, and having started a party contested
+the State. Blair was beaten, apparently if not truly, and when the news
+came to Connecticut, you, who knew that Frank Blair was taking hold of
+this thing by the right end, and doing the only thing that you say can
+properly be done to remove this wrong--did you bow your heads in sorrow
+because of that defeat? Do you, any of you, know one single Democrat that
+showed sorrow over that result? Not one! On the contrary every man threw
+up his hat, and hallooed at the top of his lungs, "Hooray for Democracy!"
+
+Now, gentlemen, the Republicans desire to place this great question of
+slavery on the very basis on which our fathers placed it, and no other.
+It is easy to demonstrate that "our fathers, who framed this Government
+under which we live," looked on slavery as wrong, and so framed it and
+everything about it as to square with the idea that it was wrong, so far
+as the necessities arising from its existence permitted. In forming the
+Constitution they found the slave trade existing, capital invested in it,
+fields depending upon it for labor, and the whole system resting upon the
+importation of slave labor. They therefore did not prohibit the slave
+trade at once, but they gave the power to prohibit it after twenty years.
+Why was this? What other foreign trade did they treat in that way? Would
+they have done this if they had not thought slavery wrong?
+
+Another thing was done by some of the same men who framed the
+Constitution, and afterwards adopted as their own the act by the first
+Congress held under that Constitution, of which many of the framers were
+members, that prohibited the spread of slavery into Territories. Thus the
+same men, the framers of the Constitution, cut off the supply and
+prohibited the spread of slavery, and both acts show conclusively that
+they considered that the thing was wrong.
+
+If additional proof is wanted it can be found in the phraseology of the
+Constitution. When men are framing a supreme law and chart of government,
+to secure blessings and prosperity to untold generations yet to come,
+they use language as short and direct and plain as can be found, to
+express their meaning In all matters but this of slavery the framers of
+the Constitution used the very clearest, shortest, and most direct
+language. But the Constitution alludes to slavery three times without
+mentioning it once The language used becomes ambiguous, roundabout, and
+mystical. They speak of the "immigration of persons," and mean the
+importation of slaves, but do not say so. In establishing a basis of
+representation they say "all other persons," when they mean to say
+slaves--why did they not use the shortest phrase? In providing for the
+return of fugitives they say "persons held to service or labor." If they
+had said slaves it would have been plainer, and less liable to
+misconstruction. Why did n't they do it? We cannot doubt that it was done
+on purpose. Only one reason is possible, and that is supplied us by one
+of the framers of the Constitution--and it is not possible for man to
+conceive of any other--they expected and desired that the system would
+come to an end, and meant that when it did, the Constitution should not
+show that there ever had been a slave in this good free country of ours.
+
+I will dwell on that no longer. I see the signs of approaching triumph of
+the Republicans in the bearing of their political adversaries.  A great
+deal of their war with us nowadays is mere bushwhacking. At the battle of
+Waterloo, when Napoleon's cavalry had charged again and again upon the
+unbroken squares of British infantry, at last they were giving up the
+attempt, and going off in disorder, when some of the officers in mere
+vexation and complete despair fired their pistols at those solid squares.
+The Democrats are in that sort of extreme desperation; it is nothing
+else. I will take up a few of these arguments.
+
+There is "the irrepressible conflict." How they rail at Seward for that
+saying! They repeat it constantly; and, although the proof has been
+thrust under their noses again and again that almost every good man since
+the formation of our Government has uttered that same sentiment, from
+General Washington, who "trusted that we should yet have a confederacy of
+free States," with Jefferson, Jay, Monroe, down to the latest days, yet
+they refuse to notice that at all, and persist in railing at Seward for
+saying it. Even Roger A. Pryor, editor of the Richmond Enquirer, uttered
+the same sentiment in almost the same language, and yet so little offence
+did it give the Democrats that he was sent for to Washington to edit the
+States--the Douglas organ there--while Douglas goes into hydrophobia and
+spasms of rage because Seward dared to repeat it. This is what I call
+bushwhacking, a sort of argument that they must know any child can see
+through.
+
+Another is John Brown: "You stir up insurrections, you invade the South;
+John Brown! Harper's Ferry!" Why, John Brown was not a Republican! You
+have never implicated a single Republican in that Harper's Ferry
+enterprise. We tell you that if any member of the Republican party is
+guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it. If you do know
+it, you are inexcusable not to designate the man and prove the fact. If
+you do not know it, you are inexcusable to assert it, and especially to
+persist in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the
+proof. You need not be told that persisting in a charge which one does
+not know to be true is simply malicious slander. Some of you admit that
+no Republican designedly aided or encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair,
+but still insist that our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to
+such results. We do not believe it. We know we hold to no doctrines, and
+make no declarations, which were not held to and made by our fathers who
+framed the Government 'under which we live, and we cannot see how
+declarations that were patriotic when they made them are villainous when
+we make them. You never dealt fairly by us in relation to that
+affair--and I will say frankly that I know of nothing in your character
+that should lead us to suppose that you would. You had just been soundly
+thrashed in elections in several States, and others were soon to come.
+You rejoiced at the occasion, and only were troubled that there were not
+three times as many killed in the affair. You were in evident glee; there
+was no sorrow for the killed nor for the peace of Virginia disturbed; you
+were rejoicing that by charging Republicans with this thing you might get
+an advantage of us in New York, and the other States. You pulled that
+string as tightly as you could, but your very generous and worthy
+expectations were not quite fulfilled. Each Republican knew that the
+charge was a slander as to himself at least, and was not inclined by it
+to cast his vote in your favor. It was mere bushwhacking, because you had
+nothing else to do. You are still on that track, and I say, go on! If you
+think you can slander a woman into loving you or a man into voting for
+you, try it till you are satisfied!
+
+Another specimen of this bushwhacking, that "shoe strike." Now be it
+understood that I do not pretend to know all about the matter. I am
+merely going to speculate a little about some of its phases. And at the
+outset, I am glad to see that a system of labor prevails in New England
+under which laborers can strike when they want to, where they are not
+obliged to work under all circumstances, and are not tied down and
+obliged to labor whether you pay them or not! I like the system which
+lets a man quit when he wants to, and wish it might prevail everywhere.
+One of the reasons why I am opposed to slavery is just here. What is the
+true condition of the laborer? I take it that it is best for all to leave
+each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get
+wealthy. I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it
+would do more harm than good. So, while we do not propose any war upon
+capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich
+with everybody else. When one starts poor, as most do in the race of
+life, free society is such that he knows he can better his condition; he
+knows that there is no fixed condition of labor for his whole life. I am
+not ashamed to confess that twenty-five years ago I was a hired laborer,
+mauling rails, at work on a flatboat--just what might happen to any poor
+man's son! I want every man to have a chance--and I believe a Black man
+is entitled to it--in which he can better his condition; when he may look
+forward and hope to be a hired laborer this year and the next, work for
+himself afterward, and finally to hire men to work for him! That is the
+system. Up here in New England, you have a soil that scarcely sprouts
+black-eyed beans, and yet where will you find wealthy men so wealthy, and
+poverty so rarely in extremity? There is not another such place on earth!
+I desire that if you get too thick here, and find it hard to better your
+condition on this soil, you may have a chance to strike and go somewhere
+else, where you may not be degraded, nor have your families corrupted, by
+forced rivalry with negro slaves. I want you to have a clean bed and no
+snakes in it! Then you can better your condition, and so it may go on and
+on in one endless round so long as man exists on the face of the earth!
+
+Now, to come back to this shoe strike,--if, as the senator from Illinois
+asserts, this is caused by withdrawal of Southern votes, consider briefly
+how you will meet the difficulty. You have done nothing, and have
+protested that you have done nothing, to injure the South. And yet, to
+get back the shoe trade, you must leave off doing something which you are
+now doing. What is it? You must stop thinking slavery wrong! Let your
+institutions be wholly changed; let your State constitutions be
+subverted; glorify slavery, and so you will get back the shoe trade--for
+what? You have brought owned labor with it, to compete with your own
+labor, to underwork you, and to degrade you! Are you ready to get back
+the trade on those terms?
+
+But the statement is not correct. You have not lost that trade; orders
+were never better than now! Senator Mason, a Democrat, comes into the
+Senate in homespun, a proof that the dissolution of the Union has
+actually begun! but orders are the same. Your factories have not struck
+work, neither those where they make anything for coats, nor for pants nor
+for shirts, nor for ladies' dresses. Mr. Mason has not reached the
+manufacturers who ought to have made him a coat and pants! To make his
+proof good for anything he should have come into the Senate barefoot!
+
+Another bushwhacking contrivance; simply that, nothing else! I find a
+good many people who are very much concerned about the loss of Southern
+trade. Now either these people are sincere or they are not. I will
+speculate a little about that.  If they are sincere, and are moved by any
+real danger of the loss of Southern trade, they will simply get their
+names on the white list, and then, instead of persuading Republicans to
+do likewise, they will be glad to keep you away! Don't you see that they
+cut off competition? They would not be whispering around to Republicans
+to come in and share the profits with them. But if they are not sincere,
+and are merely trying to fool Republicans out of their votes, they will
+grow very anxious about your pecuniary prospects; they are afraid you are
+going to get broken up and ruined; they do not care about Democratic
+votes, oh, no, no, no! You must judge which class those belong to whom
+you meet: I leave it to you to determine from the facts.
+
+Let us notice some more of the stale charges against Republicans.
+You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an issue; and the
+burden of proof is upon you. You produce your proof; and what is it?
+Why, that our party has no existence in your section--gets no votes
+in your section. The fact is substantially true; but does it prove
+the issue? If it does, then in case we should, without change of
+principle, begin to get votes in your section, we should thereby
+cease to be sectional. You cannot escape this conclusion; and yet,
+are you willing to abide by it? If you are, you will probably soon
+find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in
+your section this very year. The fact that we get no votes in your
+section is a fact of your making and not of ours. And if there be
+fault in that fact, that fault is primarily yours, and remains so
+until you show that we repel you by some wrong principle or practice.
+ If we do repel you by any wrong principle or practice, the fault is
+ours; but this brings you to where you ought to have started--to a
+discussion of the right or wrong of our principle. If our principle,
+put in practice, would wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or
+for any other object, then our principle, and we with it, are
+sectional, and are justly opposed and denounced as such. Meet us,
+then, on the question of whether our principle put in practice would
+wrong your section; and so meet it as if it were possible that
+something may be said on our side. Do you accept the challenge? No?
+Then you really believe that the principle which our fathers who
+framed the Government under which we live thought so clearly right as
+to adopt it, and indorse it again and again, upon their official
+oaths, is in fact so clearly wrong as to demand our condemnation
+without a moment's consideration. Some of you delight to flaunt in
+our faces the warning against sectional parties given by Washington
+in his Farewell Address. Less than eight years before Washington
+gave that warning, he had, as President of the United States,
+approved and signed an act of Congress enforcing the prohibition of
+slavery in the Northwestern Territory, which act embodied the policy
+of government upon that subject, up to and at the very moment he
+penned that warning; and about one year after he penned it he wrote
+La Fayette that he considered that prohibition a wise measure,
+expressing in the same connection his hope that we should sometime
+have a confederacy of free States.
+
+Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has since arisen upon
+this same subject, is that warning a weapon in your hands against us, or
+in our hands against you? Could Washington himself speak, would he cast
+the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who sustain his policy, or upon
+you, who repudiate it? We respect that warning of Washington, and we
+commend it to you, together with his example pointing to the right
+application of it.
+
+But you say you are conservative--eminently conservative--while we are
+revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is
+conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new
+and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the
+point in controversy which was adopted by our fathers who framed the
+Government under which we live; while you with one accord reject and
+scout and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting
+something new.
+
+True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be.
+You have considerable variety of new propositions and plans, but you are
+unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some
+of you are for reviving the foreign slave-trade; some for a congressional
+slave code for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the
+Territories to prohibit slavery within their limits; some for maintaining
+slavery in the Territories through the judiciary; some for the "gur-reat
+pur-rinciple" that if one man would enslave another, no third man should
+object--fantastically called "popular sovereignty." But never a man among
+you in favor of prohibition of slavery in Federal Territories, according
+to the practice of our fathers who framed the Government under which we
+live. Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an
+advocate in the century within which our Government originated.  And yet
+you draw yourselves up and say, "We are eminently conservative."
+
+It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great confederacy
+shall be at peace, and in harmony one with another. Let us Republicans do
+our part to have it so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing
+through passion and ill-temper. Even though the Southern people will not
+so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield
+to them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can. Judging
+by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of their
+controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will satisfy them.
+
+Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally surrendered
+to them? We know they will not. In all their present complaints against
+us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned. Invasions and insurrections
+are the rage now. Will it satisfy them, in the future, if we have nothing
+to do with invasions and insurrections? We know it will not. We so know
+because we know we never had anything to do with invasions and
+insurrections; and yet this total abstaining does not exempt us from the
+charge and the denunciation.
+
+The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: we must not
+only let them alone, but we must, somehow, convince them that we do let
+them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We have been so
+trying to convince them, from the very beginning of our organization, but
+with no success. In all our platforms and speeches, we have constantly
+protested our purpose to let them alone; but this had no tendency to
+convince them. Alike unavailing to convince them is the fact that they
+have never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them.
+
+These natural and apparently adequate means all failing, what will
+convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join
+them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly--done in acts
+as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated--we must place
+ourselves avowedly with them. Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted
+and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether
+made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private.  We must arrest
+and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down
+our free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected of
+all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe
+that all their troubles proceed from us. So long as we call slavery
+wrong, whenever a slave runs away they will overlook the obvious fact
+that he ran away because he was oppressed, and declare he was stolen off.
+Whenever a master cuts his slaves with a lash, and they cry out under it,
+he will overlook the obvious fact that the negroes cry out because they
+are hurt, and insist that they were put up to it by some rascally
+abolitionist.
+
+I am quite aware that they do not state their case precisely in this way.
+Most of them would probably say to us, "Let us alone, do nothing to us,
+and say what you please about slavery." But we do let them alone--have
+never disturbed them--so that, after all, it is what we say which
+dissatisfies them. They will continue to accuse us of doing, until we
+cease saying.
+
+I am also aware that they have not as yet in terms demanded the overthrow
+of our free-State constitutions. Yet those constitutions declare the
+wrong of slavery with more solemn emphasis than do all other sayings
+against it; and when all these other sayings shall have been silenced,
+the overthrow of these constitutions will be demanded. It is nothing to
+the contrary that they do not demand the whole of this just now.
+Demanding what they do, and for the reason they do, they can voluntarily
+stop nowhere short of this consummation. Holding as they do that slavery
+is morally right, and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a
+full national recognition of it, as a legal right, and a social blessing.
+
+Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground save our conviction
+that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and
+constitutions against it are themselves wrong and should be silenced and
+swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to its
+nationality--its universality: if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist
+upon its extension--its enlargement. All they ask, we could readily
+grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask, they could as readily
+grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right and our thinking
+it wrong is the precise fact on which depends the whole controversy.
+Thinking it right as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full
+recognition, as being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we
+yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our
+own? In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we
+do this?
+
+Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it
+is because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual
+presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow
+it to spread into the national Territories, and to overrun us here in
+these free States?
+
+If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty,
+fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those
+sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and
+belabored--contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between
+the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who would be
+neither a living man nor a dead man--such as a policy of "don't care" on
+a question about which all free men do care--such as Union appeals
+beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine
+rule, and caning, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance--such
+as invocations of Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington did.
+
+Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against
+us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government,
+nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might;
+and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we
+understand it.
+
+[As Mr. Lincoln concluded his address, there was witnessed the wildest
+scene of enthusiasm and excitement that has been in New Haven for years.
+The Palladium editorially says: "We give up most of our space to-day to a
+very full report of the eloquent speech of the HON. Abraham Lincoln, of
+Illinois, delivered last night at Union Hall."]
+
+
+
+
+RESPONSE TO AN ELECTOR'S REQUEST FOR MONEY
+
+TO ________________ March 16, 1860
+
+As to your kind wishes for myself, allow me to say I cannot enter the
+ring on the money basis--first, because in the main it is wrong; and
+secondly, I have not and cannot get the money.
+
+I say, in the main, the use of money is wrong; but for certain objects in
+a political contest, the use of some is both right and indispensable.
+With me, as with yourself, the long struggle has been one of great
+pecuniary loss.
+
+I now distinctly say this--if you shall be appointed a delegate to
+Chicago, I will furnish one hundred dollars to bear the expenses of the
+trip.
+
+Your friend as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+[Extract from a letter to a Kansas delegate.]
+
+
+
+
+TO J. W. SOMERS.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, March 17, 1860
+
+JAMES W. SOMERS, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Reaching home three days ago, I found your letter of February
+26th.  Considering your difficulty of hearing, I think you had better
+settle in Chicago, if, as you say, a good man already in fair practice
+there will take you into partnership. If you had not that difficulty, I
+still should think it an even balance whether you would not better remain
+in Chicago, with such a chance for copartnership.
+
+If I went west, I think I would go to Kansas, to Leavenworth or Atchison.
+Both of them are and will continue to be fine growing places.
+
+I believe I have said all I can, and I have said it with the deepest
+interest for your welfare.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ACCUSATION OF HAVING BEEN PAID FOR A
+POLITICAL SPEECH
+
+TO C. F. McNEIL.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, April 6, 1860
+
+C. F. MCNEIL, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Reaching home yesterday, I found yours of the 23d March,
+inclosing a slip from The Middleport Press. It is not true that I ever
+charged anything for a political speech in my life; but this much is
+true: Last October I was requested by letter to deliver some sort of
+speech in Mr. Beecher's church, in Brooklyn--two hundred dollars being
+offered in the first letter. I wrote that I could do it in February,
+provided they would take a political speech if I could find time to get
+up no other. They agreed; and subsequently I informed them the speech
+would have to be a political one. When I reached New York, I for the
+first time learned that the place was changed to "Cooper Institute." I
+made the speech, and left for New Hampshire, where I have a son at
+school, neither asking for pay nor having any offered me. Three days
+after a check for two hundred dollars was sent to me at New Hampshire;
+and I took it, and did not know it was wrong. My understanding now
+is--though I knew nothing of it at the time--that they did charge for
+admittance to the Cooper Institute, and that they took in more than twice
+two hundred dollars.
+
+I have made this explanation to you as a friend; but I wish no
+explanation made to our enemies. What they want is a squabble and a fuss,
+and that they can have if we explain; and they cannot have it if we
+don't.
+
+When I returned through New York from New England, I was told by the
+gentlemen who sent me the Check that a drunken vagabond in the club,
+having learned something about the two hundred dollars, made the
+exhibition out of which The Herald manufactured the article quoted by The
+Press of your town.
+
+My judgment is, and therefore my request is, that you give no denial and
+no explanation.
+
+Thanking you for your kind interest in the matter, I remain, Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO H. TAYLOR.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., April 21, 1860.
+
+HAWKINS TAYLOR, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 15th is just received. It surprises me that you
+have written twice, without receiving an answer. I have answered all I
+ever received from you; and certainly one since my return from the East.
+
+Opinions here, as to the prospect of Douglas being nominated, are quite
+conflicting--some very confident he will, and others that he will not be.
+I think his nomination possible, but that the chances are against him.
+
+I am glad there is a prospect of your party passing this way to Chicago.
+Wishing to make your visit here as pleasant as we can, we wish you to
+notify us as soon as possible whether you come this way, how many, and
+when you will arrive.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO A MEMBER OF THE ILLINOIS DELEGATION
+
+AT THE CHICAGO CONVENTION. SPRINGFIELD, May 17? 1860.
+
+I authorize no bargains and will be bound by none.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE COMMITTEE SENT BY THE CHICAGO CONVENTION TO INFORM
+
+LINCOLN OF HIS NOMINATION,
+
+MAY 19, 1860.
+
+Mr. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE COMMITTEE:--I tender to you, and
+through you to the Republican National Convention, and all the people
+represented in it, my profoundest thanks for the high honor done me,
+which you now formally announce. Deeply and even painfully sensible of
+the great responsibility which is inseparable from this high honor--a
+responsibility which I could almost wish had fallen upon some one of the
+far more eminent men and experienced statesmen whose distinguished names
+were before the convention--I shall, by your leave, consider more fully
+the resolutions of the convention, denominated their platform, and
+without any unnecessary or unreasonable delay respond to you, Mr.
+Chairman, in writing--not doubting that the platform will be found
+satisfactory, and the nomination gratefully accepted.
+
+And now I will not longer defer the pleasure of taking you, and each of
+you, by the hand.
+
+
+
+
+ACCEPTANCE OF NOMINATION AS REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE
+ FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
+
+TO GEORGE ASHMUN AND OTHERS.
+
+SPRINGFIELD ILLINOIS, May 23, 1860
+
+HON. GEORGE ASHMUN, President of Republican National Convention.
+
+SIR:--I accept the nomination tendered me by the convention over which
+you presided, and of which I am formally apprised in the letter of
+yourself and others, acting as a committee of the convention for that
+purpose.
+
+The declaration of principles and sentiments which accompanies your
+letter meets my approval; and it shall be my care not to violate or
+disregard it in any part.
+
+Imploring the assistance of Divine Providence, and with due regard to the
+views and feelings of all who were represented in the convention, to the
+rights of all the States and Territories and people of the nation, to the
+inviolability of the Constitution, and the perpetual union, harmony, and
+prosperity of all--I am most happy to co-operate for the practical
+success of the principles declared by the convention.
+
+Your obliged friend and fellow-citizen,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+To C. B. SMITH.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., May 26, 1860.
+
+HON. C. B. SMITH.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:-Yours of the 21st was duly received, but have found no time
+until now to say a word in the way of answer. I am indeed much indebted
+to Indiana; and, as my home friends tell me, much to you personally. Your
+saying, you no longer consider it a doubtful State is very gratifying.
+The thing starts well everywhere--too well, I almost fear, to last. But
+we are in, and stick or go through must be the word.
+
+Let me hear from Indiana occasionally.
+
+Your friend, as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+FORM OF REPLY PREPARED BY MR. LINCOLN, WITH WHICH HIS PRIVATE
+
+SECRETARY WAS INSTRUCTED TO ANSWER A NUMEROUS CLASS OF LETTERS IN THE
+CAMPAIGN OF 1860.
+
+(Doctrine.)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, ______, 1860
+
+DEAR SIR:--Your letter to Mr. Lincoln of and by which you seek to obtain
+his opinions on certain political points, has been received by him. He
+has received others of a similar character, but he also has a greater
+number of the exactly opposite character. The latter class beseech him to
+write nothing whatever upon any point of political doctrine. They say his
+positions were well known when he was nominated, and that he must not now
+embarrass the canvass by undertaking to shift or modify them. He regrets
+that he cannot oblige all, but you perceive it is impossible for him to
+do so.
+
+Yours, etc.,
+
+JNO. J. NICOLAY.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. B. WASHBURNE.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, MAY 26, 1860
+HON. E. B. WASHBURNE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I have several letters from you written since the
+nomination, but till now have found no moment to say a word by way of
+answer. Of course I am glad that the nomination is well received by our
+friends, and I sincerely thank you for so informing me. So far as I can
+learn, the nominations start well everywhere; and, if they get no
+back-set, it would seem as if they are going through. I hope you will
+write often; and as you write more rapidly than I do, don't make your
+letters so short as mine.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO S. HAYCRAFT.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., June 4, 1860.
+
+HON. SAMUEL HAYCRAFT.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Like yourself I belonged to the old Whig party from its
+origin to its close. I never belonged to the American party organization,
+nor ever to a party called a Union party; though I hope I neither am or
+ever have been less devoted to the Union than yourself or any other
+patriotic man.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ABRAHAM OR "ABRAM"
+
+TO G. ASHMUN.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL.  June 4, 1860
+HON. GEORGE ASHMUN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--It seems as if the question whether my first name is
+"Abraham" or "Abram" will never be settled. It is "Abraham," and if the
+letter of acceptance is not yet in print, you may, if you think fit, have
+my signature thereto printed "Abraham Lincoln." Exercise your judgment
+about this.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY
+
+TO S. GALLOWAY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., June 19, 1860
+
+HON. SAM'L GALLOWAY.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your very kind letter of the 15th is received. Messrs.
+Follett, Foster, & Co.'s Life of me is not by my authority; and I have
+scarcely been so much astounded by anything, as by their public
+announcement that it is authorized by me. They have fallen into some
+strange misunderstanding. I certainly knew they contemplated publishing a
+biography, and I certainly did not object to their doing so, upon their
+own responsibility. I even took pains to facilitate them. But, at the
+same time, I made myself tiresome, if not hoarse, with repeating to Mr.
+Howard, their only agent seen by me, my protest that I authorized
+nothing--would be responsible for nothing.  How they could so
+misunderstand me, passes comprehension.  As a matter wholly my own, I
+would authorize no biography, without time and opportunity [sic] to
+carefully examine and consider every word of it and, in this case, in the
+nature of things, I can have no such time and Opportunity [sic]. But, in
+my present position, when, by the lessons of the past, and the united
+voice of all discreet friends, I can neither write nor speak a word for
+the public, how dare I to send forth, by my authority, a volume of
+hundreds of pages, for adversaries to make points upon without end? Were
+I to do so, the convention would have a right to re-assemble and
+substitute another name for mine.
+
+For these reasons, I would not look at the proof sheets--I am determined
+to maintain the position of [sic] truly saying I never saw the proof
+sheets, or any part of their work, before its publication.
+
+Now, do not mistake me--I feel great kindness for Messrs. F., F., &
+Co.--do not think they have intentionally done wrong. There may be
+nothing wrong in their proposed book--I sincerely hope there will not. I
+barely suggest that you, or any of the friends there, on the party
+account, look it over, and exclude what you may think would embarrass the
+party bearing in mind, at all times, that I authorize nothing--will be
+responsible for nothing.
+
+Your friend, as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+[The custom then, and it may have been a good one, was for the
+Presidential candidate to do no personal canvassing or speaking--or as we
+have it now "running for election." He stayed at home and kept his mouth
+shut. Ed.]
+
+
+
+
+TO HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, July 18, 1860.
+
+HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN. MY DEAR SIR:--It appears to me that you and I ought
+to be acquainted, and accordingly I write this as a sort of introduction
+of myself to you. You first entered the Senate during the single term I
+was a member of the House of Representatives, but I have no recollection
+that we were introduced. I shall be pleased to receive a line from you.
+
+The prospect of Republican success now appears very flattering, so far as
+I can perceive. Do you see anything to the contrary?
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO A. JONAS.
+
+(Confidential.)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, JULY 21, 1860.
+
+HON. A. JONAS.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 20th is received. I suppose as good or even
+better men than I may have been in American or Know-Nothing lodges; but
+in point of fact, I never was in one at Quincy or elsewhere. I was never
+in Quincy but one day and two nights while Know-Nothing lodges were in
+existence, and you were with me that day and both those nights. I had
+never been there before in my life, and never afterward, till the joint
+debate with Douglas in 1858. It was in 1854 when I spoke in some hall
+there, and after the speaking, you, with others, took me to an
+oyster-saloon, passed an hour there, and you walked with me to, and
+parted with me at, the Quincy House, quite late at night. I left by stage
+for Naples before daylight in the morning, having come in by the same
+route after dark the evening, previous to the speaking, when I found you
+waiting at the Quincy House to meet me. A few days after I was there,
+Richardson, as I understood, started this same story about my having been
+in a Know-Nothing lodge. When I heard of the charge, as I did soon after;
+I taxed my recollection for some incident which could have suggested it;
+and I remembered that on parting with you the last night I went to the
+office of the hotel to take my stage-passage for the morning, was told
+that no stage-office for that line was kept there, and that I must see
+the driver before retiring, to insure his calling for me in the morning;
+and a servant was sent with me to find the driver, who, after taking me a
+square or two, stopped me, and stepped perhaps a dozen steps farther, and
+in my hearing called to some one, who answered him, apparently from the
+upper part of a building, and promised to call with the stage for me at
+the Quincy House. I returned, and went to bed, and before day the stage
+called and took me. This is all.
+
+That I never was in a Know-Nothing lodge in Quincy, I should expect could
+be easily proved by respectable men who were always in the lodges and
+never saw me there. An affidavit of one or two such would put the matter
+at rest.
+
+And now a word of caution. Our adversaries think they can gain a point if
+they could force me to openly deny the charge, by which some degree of
+offence would be given to the Americans. For this reason it must not
+publicly appear that I am paying any attention to the charge.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO JOHN B. FRY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, August 15, 1860.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 9th, inclosing the letter of HON. John Minor
+Botts, was duly received. The latter is herewith returned according to
+your request. It contains one of the many assurances I receive from the
+South, that in no probable event will there be any very formidable effort
+to break up the Union. The people of the South have too much of good
+sense and good temper to attempt the ruin of the government rather than
+see it administered as it was administered by the men who made it. At
+least so I hope and believe. I thank you both for your own letter and a
+sight of that of Mr. Botts.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THURLOW WEED
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL. August 17 1860.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 13th was received this morning. Douglas is
+managing the Bell element with great adroitness. He had his men in
+Kentucky to vote for the Bell candidate, producing a result which has
+badly alarmed and damaged Breckenridge, and at the same time has induced
+the Bell men to suppose that Bell will certainly be President, if they
+can keep a few of the Northern States away from us by throwing them to
+Douglas. But you, better than I, understand all this.
+
+I think there will be the most extraordinary effort ever made to carry
+New York for Douglas. You and all others who write me from your State
+think the effort cannot succeed, and I hope you are right. Still, it will
+require close watching and great efforts on the other side.
+
+Herewith I send you a copy of a letter written at New York, which
+sufficiently explains itself, and which may or may not give you a
+valuable hint. You have seen that Bell tickets have been put on the track
+both here and in Indiana. In both cases the object has been, I think, the
+same as the Hunt movement in New York--to throw States to Douglas. In our
+State, we know the thing is engineered by Douglas men, and we do not
+believe they can make a great deal out of it.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SLOW TO LISTEN TO CRIMINATIONS
+
+TO HON. JOHN ______________
+
+(Private.)
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., Aug. 31, 1860
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 27th is duly received. It consists almost
+exclusively of a historical detail of some local troubles, among some of
+our friends in Pennsylvania; and I suppose its object is to guard me
+against forming a prejudice against Mr. McC__________, I have not heard
+near so much upon that subject as you probably suppose; and I am slow to
+listen to criminations among friends, and never expose their quarrels on
+either side. My sincere wish is that both sides will allow bygones to be
+bygones, and look to the present and future only.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO HANNIBAL HAMLIN
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, September 4, 1860
+
+HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I am annoyed some by a letter from a friend in Chicago, in
+which the following passage occurs: "Hamlin has written Colfax that two
+members of Congress will, he fears, be lost in Maine, the first and sixth
+districts; and that Washburne's majority for governor will not exceed six
+thousand."
+
+I had heard something like this six weeks ago, but had been assured since
+that it was not so. Your secretary of state,--Mr. Smith, I think,--whom
+you introduced to me by letter, gave this assurance; more recently, Mr.
+Fessenden, our candidate for Congress in one of those districts, wrote a
+relative here that his election was sure by at least five thousand, and
+that Washburne's majority would be from 14,000 to 17,000; and still
+later, Mr. Fogg, of New Hampshire, now at New York serving on a national
+committee, wrote me that we were having a desperate fight in Maine, which
+would end in a splendid victory for us.
+
+Such a result as you seem to have predicted in Maine, in your letter to
+Colfax, would, I fear, put us on the down-hill track, lose us the State
+elections in Pennsylvania and Indiana, and probably ruin us on the main
+turn in November.
+
+You must not allow it.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. B. WASHBURNE.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, September 9, 1860
+
+HON. E. B. WASHBURNE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR: Yours of the 5th was received last evening. I was right glad
+to see it. It contains the freshest "posting" which I now have. It
+relieved me some from a little anxiety I had about Maine. Jo Medill, on
+August 30th, wrote me that Colfax had a letter from Mr. Hamlin saying we
+were in great danger of losing two members of Congress in Maine, and that
+your brother would not have exceeding six thousand majority for Governor.
+I addressed you at once, at Galena, asking for your latest information.
+As you are at Washington, that letter you will receive some time after
+the Maine election.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. H. HERNDON.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., OCTOBER 10, 1860
+
+DEAR WILLIAM:--I cannot give you details, but it is entirely certain that
+Pennsylvania and Indiana have gone Republican very largely. Pennsylvania
+25,000, and Indiana 5000 to 10,000. Ohio of course is safe.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO L. M. BOND.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., October 15, 1860
+
+L. MONTGOMERY BOND, Esq.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:   I certainly am in no temper and have no purpose to
+embitter the feelings of the South, but whether I am inclined to such a
+course as would in fact embitter their feelings you can better judge by
+my published speeches than by anything I would say in a short letter if I
+were inclined now, as I am not, to define my position anew.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER SUGGESTING A BEARD
+
+TO MISS GRACE BEDELL, RIPLEY N.Y.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., October 19, 1860
+
+MISS GRACE BEDELL.
+
+MY DEAR LITTLE MISS:--Your very agreeable letter of the 15th is received.
+I regret the necessity of saying I have no daughter. I have three
+sons--one seventeen, one nine, and one seven. They with their mother
+constitute my whole family. As to the whiskers, as I have never worn any,
+do you not think that people would call it a piece of silly affectation
+were I to begin wearing them now?
+
+I am your true friend and sincere well-wisher,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+EARLY INFORMATION ON ARMY DEFECTION IN SOUTH
+
+TO D. HUNTER.
+
+(Private and Confidential.)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, October 26, 1860
+
+MAJOR DAVID HUNTER
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your very kind letter of the 20th was duly received, for
+which please accept my thanks. I have another letter, from a writer
+unknown to me, saying the officers of the army at Fort Kearny have
+determined in case of Republican success at the approaching Presidential
+election, to take themselves, and the arms at that point, south, for the
+purpose of resistance to the government. While I think there are many
+chances to one that this is a humbug, it occurs to me that any real
+movement of this sort in the Army would leak out and become known to you.
+In such case, if it would not be unprofessional or dishonorable (of which
+you are to be judge), I shall be much obliged if you will apprise me of
+it.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO HANNIBAL HAMLIN
+
+(Confidential.)
+SPRINGFIELD. ILLINOIS, November 8, 1860
+
+HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I am anxious for a personal interview with you at as early
+a day as possible. Can you, without much inconvenience, meet me at
+Chicago? If you can, please name as early a day as you conveniently can,
+and telegraph me, unless there be sufficient time before the day named to
+communicate by mail.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO SAMUEL HAYCRAFT.
+
+(Private and Confidential.)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., Nov.13, 1860
+
+HON. SAMUEL HAYCRAFT.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 9th is just received. I can only answer
+briefly. Rest fully assured that the good people of the South who will
+put themselves in the same temper and mood towards me which you do will
+find no cause to complain of me.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REMARKS AT THE MEETING AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS
+TO CELEBRATE LINCOLN'S ELECTION,
+
+NOVEMBER 20, 1860
+
+FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS:--Please excuse me on this occasion from
+making a speech. I thank you in common with all those who have thought
+fit by their votes to indorse the Republican cause. I rejoice with you in
+the success which has thus far attended that cause. Yet in all our
+rejoicings let us neither express nor cherish any hard feelings toward
+any citizen who by his vote has differed with us. Let us at all times
+remember that all American citizens are brothers of a common country, and
+should dwell together in the bonds of fraternal feeling. Let me again beg
+you to accept my thanks, and to excuse me from further speaking at this
+time.
+
+
+
+
+TO ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL. NOV. 30, 1860
+
+HON. A. H. STEPHENS.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I have read in the newspapers your speech recently
+delivered (I think) before the Georgia Legislature, or its assembled
+members. If you have revised it, as is probable, I shall be much obliged
+if you will send me a copy.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO HANNIBAL HAMLIN
+
+(Private)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, December 8, 1860
+
+HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 4th was duly received. The inclosed to Governor
+Seward covers two notes to him, copies of which you find open for your
+inspection. Consult with Judge Trumbull; and if you and he see no reason
+to the contrary, deliver the letter to Governor Seward at once. If you
+see reason to the contrary write me at once.
+
+I have an intimation that Governor Banks would yet accept a place in the
+Cabinet. Please ascertain and write me how this is,
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+BLOCKING "COMPROMISE" ON SLAVERY ISSUE
+
+TO E. B. WASHBURNE
+
+(Private and Confidential.)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., December 13, 1860
+
+HON. E. B. WASHBURNE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your long letter received. Prevent, as far as possible, any
+of our friends from demoralizing themselves and our cause by entertaining
+propositions for compromise of any sort on "slavery extension." There is
+no possible compromise upon it but which puts us under again, and leaves
+all our work to do over again. Whether it be a Missouri line or Eli
+Thayer's popular sovereignty, it is all the same. Let either be done, and
+immediately filibustering and extending slavery recommences. On that
+point hold firm, as with a chain of steel.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+OPINION ON SECESSION
+
+TO THURLOW WEED
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, DECEMBER 17, 1860
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 11th was received two days ago. Should the
+convocation of governors of which you speak seem desirous to know my
+views on the present aspect of things, tell them you judge from my
+speeches that I will be inflexible on the territorial question; but I
+probably think either the Missouri line extended, or Douglas's and Eli
+Thayer's popular sovereignty would lose us everything we gain by the
+election; that filibustering for all south of us and making slave States
+of it would follow in spite of us, in either case; also that I probably
+think all opposition, real and apparent, to the fugitive slave clause of
+the Constitution ought to be withdrawn.
+
+I believe you can pretend to find but little, if anything, in my
+speeches, about secession. But my opinion is that no State can in any way
+lawfully get out of the Union without the consent of the others; and that
+it is the duty of the President and other government functionaries to run
+the machine as it is.
+
+Truly yours,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SOME FORTS SURRENDERED TO THE SOUTH
+
+TO E. B. WASHBURNE
+
+(Confidential)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, December 21, 1860
+
+HON. E. B. WASHBURNE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Last night I received your letter giving an account of your
+interview with General Scott, and for which I thank you. Please present
+my respects to the General, and tell him, confidentially, I shall be
+obliged to him to be as well prepared as he can to either hold or retake
+the forts, as the case may require, at and after the inauguration.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO A. H. STEPHENS.
+
+(For your own eye only)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, DECEMBER 22, 1860
+
+HON. ALEXANDER STEVENS
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your obliging answer to my short note is just received, and
+for which please accept my thanks. I fully appreciate the present peril
+the country is in, and the weight of responsibility on me. Do the people
+of the South really entertain fear that a Republican administration
+would, directly or indirectly, interfere with the slaves, or with them
+about the slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you, as once a friend, and
+still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears. The
+South would be in no more danger in this respect than it was in the days
+of Washington. I suppose, however, this does not meet the case. You think
+slavery is right and ought to be extended, while we think it is wrong and
+ought to be restricted. That, I suppose, is the rub. It certainly is the
+only substantial difference between us.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SUPPORT OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE CLAUSE
+
+MEMORANDUM
+
+December [22?], 1860
+
+Resolved: That the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution ought to be
+enforced by a law of Congress, with efficient provisions for that object,
+not obliging private persons to assist in its execution, but punishing
+all who resist it, and with the usual safeguards to liberty, securing
+free men against being surrendered as slaves.
+
+That all State laws, if there be such, really or apparently in conflict
+with such law of Congress, ought to be repealed; and no opposition to the
+execution of such law of Congress ought to be made.
+
+That the Federal Union must be preserved.
+
+Prepared for the consideration of the Republican members of the Senate
+Committee of Thirteen.
+
+
+
+
+TO D. HUNTER.
+
+(Confidential.)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS December 22, 1860
+
+MAJOR DAVID HUNTER.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I am much obliged by the receipt of yours of the 18th. The
+most we can do now is to watch events, and be as well prepared as
+possible for any turn things may take. If the forts fall, my judgment is
+that they are to be retaken. When I shall determine definitely my time of
+starting to Washington, I will notify you.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO I. N. MORRIS
+
+(Confidential.)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., Dec 24, 1860
+
+HON. I. N. MORRIS.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Without supposing that you and I are any nearer together,
+politically, than heretofore, allow me to tender you my sincere thanks
+for your Union resolution, expressive of views upon which we never were,
+and, I trust, never will be at variance.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ATTEMPT TO FORM A COALITION CABINET
+
+TO HANNIBAL HAMLIN
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, December 14, 1860.
+
+HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I need a man of Democratic antecedents from New England. I
+cannot get a fair share of that element in without. This stands in the
+way of Mr. Adams. I think of Governor Banks, Mr. Welles, and Mr. Tuck.
+Which of them do the New England delegation prefer? Or shall I decide for
+myself?
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+1861
+
+
+TO WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
+
+(Private.)
+SPRINGFIELD. ILL., January 3, 1861.
+
+HON. W. H. SEWARD.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours without signature was received last night. I have been
+considering your suggestions as to my reaching Washington somewhat
+earlier than is usual. It seems to me the inauguration is not the most
+dangerous point for us. Our adversaries have us now clearly at
+disadvantage on the second Wednesday of February, when the votes should
+be officially counted. If the two houses refuse to meet at all, or meet
+without a quorum of each, where shall we be? I do not think that this
+counting is constitutionally essential to the election, but how are we to
+proceed in the absence of it? In view of this, I think it is best for me
+not to attempt appearing in Washington till the result of that ceremony
+is known.
+
+It certainly would be of some advantage if you could know who are to be
+at the heads of the War and Navy departments, but until I can ascertain
+definitely whether I can get any suitable men from the South, and who,
+and how many, I can not well decide. As yet, I have no word from Mr.
+Gilmer in answer to my request for an interview with him. I look for
+something on the subject, through you, before long.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. H. SEWARD.
+
+(Private.)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., January 12, 1861
+
+HON. W. H. SEWARD.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 8th received. I still hope Mr. Gilmer will, on
+a fair understanding with us, consent to take a place in the Cabinet. The
+preference for him over Mr. Hunt or Mr. Gentry is that, up to date--he
+has a living position in the South, while they have not. He is only
+better than Winter Davis in that he is farther south.  I fear, if we
+could get, we could not safely take more than one such man--that is, not
+more than one who opposed us in the election--the danger being to lose
+the confidence of our own friends. Your selection for the State
+Department having become public, I am happy to find scarcely any
+objection to it. I shall have trouble with every other Northern Cabinet
+appointment--so much so that I shall have to defer them as long as
+possible to avoid being teased into insanity, to make changes.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+TO E. D. MORGAN
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL. FEB. 4, 1861
+
+SIR:--Your letter of the 30th ult. inviting me, on behalf of the
+Legislature of New York, to pass through that State on my way to
+Washington, and tendering me the hospitalities of her authorities and
+people, has been duly received. With the feelings of deep gratitude to
+you and them for this testimonial of regard and esteem I beg you to
+notify them that I accept the invitation so kindly tendered.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+P.S.--Please let the ceremonies be only such as to take the least time
+possible.     A. L.
+
+
+
+
+PATRONAGE CLAIMS
+
+TO THURLOW WEED
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., February 4, 1861
+
+DEAR SIR:--I have both your letter to myself and that to Judge Davis, in
+relation to a certain gentleman in your State claiming to dispense
+patronage in my name, and also to be authorized to use my name to advance
+the chances of Mr. Greeley for an election to the United States Senate.
+
+It is very strange that such things should be said by any one. The
+gentleman you mention did speak to me of Mr. Greeley in connection with
+the senatorial election, and I replied in terms of kindness toward Mr.
+Greeley, which I really feel, but always with an expressed protest that
+my name must not be used in the senatorial election in favor of or
+against any one. Any other representation of me is a misrepresentation.
+
+As to the matter of dispensing patronage, it perhaps will surprise you to
+learn that I have information that you claim to have my authority to
+arrange that matter in New York. I do not believe you have so claimed;
+but still so some men say. On that subject you know all I have said to
+you is "justice to all," and I have said nothing more particular to any
+one. I say this to reassure you that I have not changed my position.
+
+In the hope, however, that you will not use my name in the matter, I am,
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+FAREWELL ADDRESS AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS,
+
+FEBRUARY 11, 1861
+
+MY FRIENDS:--One who has never been placed in a like position cannot
+understand my feelings at this hour, nor the oppressive sadness I feel at
+this parting. For more than twenty-five years I have lived among you, and
+during all that time I have received nothing but kindness at your hands.
+Here the most cherished ties of earth were assumed. Here my children were
+born, and here one of them lies buried. To you, my friends, I owe all
+that I have, all that I am. All the strange checkered past seems to crowd
+upon my mind. To-day I leave you. I go to assume a task more difficult
+than that which devolved upon General Washington. Unless the great God
+who assisted him shall be with and aid me I cannot prevail; but if the
+same almighty arm that directed and protected him shall guide and support
+me I shall not fail; I shall succeed. Let us pray that the God of our
+fathers may not forsake us now. To Him I commend you all. Permit me to
+ask that with equal sincerity and faith you will all invoke His wisdom
+and goodness for me.
+
+With these words I must leave you; for how long I know not. Friends, one
+and all, I must now wish you an affectionate farewell.
+
+
+
+
+REMARKS AT TOLONO, ILLINOIS, FEBRUARY 11, 1861
+
+I am leaving you on an errand of national importance, attended, as you
+are aware, with considerable difficulties.  Let us believe, as some poet
+has expressed it, "Behind the cloud the sun is still shining." I bid you
+an affectionate farewell.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO ADDRESS OF WELCOME, INDIANAPOLIS,
+
+INDIANA, FEBRUARY 11, 1861
+
+GOVERNOR MORTON AND FELLOW CITIZENS OF THE STATE OF INDIANA:
+
+Most heartily do I thank you for this magnificent reception, and while I
+cannot take to myself any share of the compliment thus paid, more than
+that which pertains to a mere instrument, an accidental instrument,
+perhaps I should say, of a great cause, I yet must look upon it as a most
+magnificent reception, and as such most heartily do thank you for it. You
+have been pleased to address yourself to me chiefly in behalf of this
+glorious Union in which we live, in all of which you have my hearty
+sympathy, and, as far as may be within my power, will have, one and
+inseparable, my hearty consideration. While I do not expect, upon this
+occasion, or until I get to Washington, to attempt any lengthy speech, I
+will only say to the salvation of the Union there needs but one single
+thing--the hearts of a people like yours.
+
+The people--when they rise in mass in behalf of the Union and the
+liberties of their country, truly may it be said, "The gates of hell
+cannot prevail against them." In all trying positions in which I shall be
+placed--and, doubtless, I shall be placed in many such--my reliance will
+be placed upon you and the people of the United States; and I wish you to
+remember, now and forever, that it is your business, and not mine; that
+if the union of these States and the liberties of this people shall be
+lost, it is but little to any one man of fifty-two years of age, but a
+great deal to the thirty millions of people who inhabit these United
+States, and to their posterity in all coming time. It is your business to
+rise up and preserve the Union and liberty for yourselves, and not for
+me.
+
+I desire they should be constitutionally performed. I, as already
+intimated, am but an accidental instrument, temporary, and to serve but
+for a limited time; and I appeal to you again to constantly bear in mind
+that with you, and not with politicians, not with Presidents, not with
+office-seekers, but with you is the question, Shall the Union and shall
+the liberties of this country be preserved to the latest generations?
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF INDIANA, AT INDIANAPOLIS,
+
+FEBRUARY 12, 1861
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE STATE OF INDIANA:--I am here to thank you much for
+this magnificent welcome, and still more for the generous support given
+by your State to that political cause which I think is the true and just
+cause of the whole country and the whole world.
+
+Solomon says there is "a time to keep silence," and when men wrangle by
+the mouth with no certainty that they mean the same thing while using the
+same word, it perhaps were as well if they would keep silence.
+
+The words "coercion" and "invasion" are much used in these days, and
+often with some temper and hot blood. Let us make sure, if we can, the
+meaning of those who use them. Let us get the exact definitions of these
+words, not from dictionaries, but from the men themselves, who certainly
+deprecate the things they would represent by the use of the words.
+
+What, then, is coercion? What is invasion? Would the marching of an army
+into South Carolina, without the consent of her people, and with hostile
+intent toward them, be invasion? I certainly think it would, and it would
+be coercion also, if the South Carolinians were forced to submit. But if
+the United States should merely hold and retake its own forts and other
+property, and collect the duties on foreign importations, or even
+withhold the mails from places where they were habitually violated, would
+any or all of these things be invasion or coercion? Do our professed
+lovers of the Union, who spitefully resolve that they will resist
+coercion and invasion, understand that such things as these, on the part
+of the United States, would be coercion or invasion of a State? If so,
+their idea of means to preserve the object of their great affection would
+seem to be exceedingly thin and airy. If sick, the little pills of the
+homoeopathist would be much too large for it to swallow. In their view,
+the Union, as a family relation, would seem to be no regular marriage,
+but rather a sort of "free-love" arrangement, to be maintained on
+passional attraction.
+
+By the way, in what consists the special sacredness of a State? I speak
+not of the position assigned to a State in the Union by the Constitution,
+for that is a bond we all recognize. That position, however, a State
+cannot carry out of the Union with it. I speak of that assumed primary
+right of a State to rule all which is less than itself, and to ruin all
+which is larger than itself. If a State and a county, in a given case,
+should be equal in number of inhabitants, in what, as a matter of
+principle, is the State better than the county? Would an exchange of name
+be an exchange of rights? Upon what principle, upon what rightful
+principle, may a State, being no more than one fiftieth part of the
+nation in soil and population, break up the nation, and then coerce a
+proportionably large subdivision of itself in the most arbitrary way?
+What mysterious right to play tyrant is conferred on a district of
+country, with its people, by merely calling it a State? Fellow-citizens,
+I am not asserting anything. I am merely asking questions for you to
+consider. And now allow me to bid you farewell.
+
+
+
+
+INTENTIONS TOWARD THE SOUTH
+
+ADDRESS TO THE MAYOR AND CITIZENS OF
+CINCINNATI, OHIO, FEBRUARY 12, 1861
+
+Mr. MAYOR, AND GENTLEMEN:--Twenty-four hours ago, at the capital of
+Indiana, I said to myself, "I have never seen so many people assembled
+together in winter weather." I am no longer able to say that. But it is
+what might reasonably have been expected--that this great city of
+Cincinnati would thus acquit herself on such an occasion. My friends, I
+am entirely overwhelmed by the magnificence of the reception which has
+been given, I will not say to me, but to the President-elect of the
+United States of America. Most heartily do I thank you, one and all, for
+it.
+
+I have spoken but once before this in Cincinnati. That was a year
+previous to the late Presidential election. On that occasion, in a
+playful manner, but with sincere words, I addressed much of what I said
+to the Kentuckians. I gave my opinion that we, as Republicans, would
+ultimately beat them as Democrats, but that they could postpone that
+result longer by nominating Senator Douglas for the Presidency than they
+could by any other way. They did not, in any true sense of the word,
+nominate Mr. Douglas, and the result has come certainly as soon as ever I
+expected. I also told them how I expected they would be treated after
+they should have been beaten, and I now wish to call their attention to
+what I then said upon that subject. I then said:
+
+"When we do as we say, beat you, you perhaps want to know what we will do
+with you. I will tell you, as far as I am authorized to speak for the
+Opposition, what we mean to do with you. We mean to treat you, as near as
+we possibly can, as Washington, Jefferson, and Madison treated you. We
+mean to leave you alone, and in no way to interfere with your
+institutions; to abide by all and every compromise of the Constitution,
+and, in a word, coming back to the original proposition, to treat you so
+far as degenerate men, if we have degenerated, may, according to the
+example of those noble fathers, Washington, Jefferson, and Madison.
+
+"We mean to remember that you are as good as we; that there is no
+difference between us other than the difference of circumstances. We mean
+to recognize and bear in mind always that you have as good hearts in your
+bosoms as other people, or as we claim to have, and treat you
+accordingly."
+
+Fellow-citizens of Kentucky--friends and brethren, may I call you in my
+new position?--I see no occasion and feel no inclination to retract a
+word of this. If it shall not be made good, be assured the fault shall
+not be mine.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE GERMAN CLUB OF CINCINNATI, OHIO,
+
+FEBRUARY 12, 1861
+
+Mr. CHAIRMAN:--I thank you and those whom you represent for the
+compliment you have paid me by tendering me this address. In so far as
+there is an allusion to our present national difficulties, which
+expresses, as you have said, the views of the gentlemen present, I shall
+have to beg pardon for not entering fully upon the questions which the
+address you have now read suggests.
+
+I deem it my duty--a duty which I owe to my constituents--to you,
+gentlemen, that I should wait until the last moment for a development of
+the present national difficulties before I express myself decidedly as to
+what course I shall pursue. I hope, then, not to be false to anything
+that you have expected of me.
+
+I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, that the working men are the basis of all
+governments, for the plain reason that they are all the more numerous,
+and as you added that those were the sentiments of the gentlemen present,
+representing not only the working class, but citizens of other callings
+than those of the mechanic, I am happy to concur with you in these
+sentiments, not only of the native-born citizens, but also of the Germans
+and foreigners from other countries.
+
+Mr. Chairman, I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve not
+only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating the condition of
+mankind; and therefore, without entering upon the details of the
+question, I will simply say that I am for those means which will give the
+greatest good to the greatest number.
+
+In regard to the Homestead law, I have to say that, in so far as the
+government lands can be disposed of, I am in favor of cutting up the wild
+lands into parcels, so that every poor man may have a home.
+
+In regard to the Germans and foreigners, I esteem them no better than
+other people, nor any worse. It is not my nature, when I see a people
+borne down by the weight of their shackles--the oppression of tyranny--to
+make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but
+rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke than to add anything
+that would tend to crush them.
+
+Inasmuch as our own country is extensive and new, and the countries of
+Europe are densely populated, if there are any abroad who desire to make
+this the land of their adoption, it is not in my heart to throw aught in
+their way to prevent them from coming to the United States.
+
+Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I will bid you an affectionate farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF OHIO AT COLUMBUS
+
+FEBRUARY 13, 1861
+
+Mr. PRESIDENT AND Mr. SPEAKER, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF
+OHIO:--It is true, as has been said by the president of the Senate, that
+very great responsibility rests upon me in the position to which the
+votes of the American people have called me. I am deeply sensible of that
+weighty responsibility. I cannot but know what you all know, that without
+a name, perhaps without a reason why I should have a name, there has
+fallen upon me a task such as did not rest even upon the Father of his
+Country; and so feeling, I can turn and look for that support without
+which it will be impossible for me to perform that great task. I turn,
+then, and look to the American people and to that God who has never
+forsaken them. Allusion has been made to the interest felt in relation to
+the policy of the new administration. In this I have received from some a
+degree of credit for having kept silence, and from others some
+deprecation. I still think that I was right.
+
+In the varying and repeatedly shifting scenes of the present, and without
+a precedent which could enable me to judge by the past, it has seemed
+fitting that before speaking upon the difficulties of the country I
+should have gained a view of the whole field, being at liberty to modify
+and change the course of policy as future events may make a change
+necessary.
+
+I have not maintained silence from any want of real anxiety. It is a good
+thing that there is no more than anxiety, for there is nothing going
+wrong. It is a consoling circumstance that when we look out there is
+nothing that really hurts anybody. We entertain different views upon
+political questions, but nobody is suffering anything. This is a most
+consoling circumstance, and from it we may conclude that all we want is
+time, patience, and a reliance on that God who has never forsaken this
+people.
+
+Fellow-citizens, what I have said I have said altogether
+extemporaneously, and I will now come to a close.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT STEUBENVILLE, OHIO,
+
+FEBRUARY 14, 1861
+
+I fear that the great confidence placed in my ability is unfounded.
+Indeed, I am sure it is. Encompassed by vast difficulties as I am,
+nothing shall be wanting on my part, if sustained by God and the American
+people. I believe the devotion to the Constitution is equally great on
+both sides of the river. It is only the different understanding of that
+instrument that causes difficulty. The only dispute on both sides is,
+"What are their rights?" If the majority should not rule, who would be
+the judge? Where is such a judge to be found? We should all be bound by
+the majority of the American people; if not, then the minority must
+control. Would that be right? Would it be just or generous? Assuredly
+not. I reiterate that the majority should rule. If I adopt a wrong
+policy, the opportunity for condemnation will occur in four years' time.
+Then I can be turned out, and a better man with better views put in my
+place.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
+
+FEBRUARY 15, 1861
+
+I most cordially thank his Honor Mayor Wilson, and the citizens of
+Pittsburg generally, for their flattering reception. I am the more
+grateful because I know that it is not given to me alone, but to the
+cause I represent, which clearly proves to me their good-will, and that
+sincere feeling is at the bottom of it. And here I may remark that in
+every short address I have made to the people, in every crowd through
+which I have passed of late, some allusion has been made to the present
+distracted condition of the country. It is natural to expect that I
+should say something on this subject; but to touch upon it at all would
+involve an elaborate discussion of a great many questions and
+circumstances, requiring more time than I can at present command, and
+would, perhaps, unnecessarily commit me upon matters which have not yet
+fully developed themselves. The condition of the country is an
+extraordinary one, and fills the mind of every patriot with anxiety. It
+is my intention to give this subject all the consideration I possibly can
+before specially deciding in regard to it, so that when I do speak it may
+be as nearly right as possible. When I do speak I hope I may say nothing
+in opposition to the spirit of the Constitution, contrary to the
+integrity of the Union, or which will prove inimical to the liberties of
+the people, or to the peace of the whole country. And furthermore, when
+the time arrives for me to speak on this great subject, I hope I may say
+nothing to disappoint the people generally throughout the country,
+especially if the expectation has been based upon anything which I may
+have heretofore said. Notwithstanding the troubles across the river [the
+speaker pointing southwardly across the Monongahela, and smiling], there
+is no crisis but an artificial one. What is there now to warrant the
+condition of affairs presented by our friends over the river? Take even
+their own view of the questions involved, and there is nothing to justify
+the course they are pursuing. I repeat, then, there is no crisis,
+excepting such a one as may be gotten up at any time by turbulent men
+aided by designing politicians, My advice to them, under such
+circumstances, is to keep cool. If the great American people only keep
+their temper on both sides of the line, the troubles will come to an end,
+and the question which now distracts the country will be settled, just as
+surely as all other difficulties of a like character which have
+originated in this government have been adjusted. Let the people on both
+sides keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds have cleared
+away in due time, so will this great nation continue to prosper as
+heretofore. But, fellow-citizens, I have spoken longer on this subject
+than I intended at the outset.
+
+It is often said that the tariff is the specialty of Pennsylvania.
+Assuming that direct taxation is not to be adopted, the tariff question
+must be as durable as the government itself.  It is a question of
+national housekeeping.  It is to the government what replenishing the
+meal-tub is to the family. Every varying circumstances will require
+frequent modifications as to the amount needed and the sources of supply.
+So far there is little difference of opinion among the people. It is as
+to whether, and how far, duties on imports shall be adjusted to favor
+home production in the home market, that controversy begins. One party
+insists that such adjustment oppresses one class for the advantage of
+another; while the other party argues that, with all its incidents, in
+the long run all classes are benefited. In the Chicago platform there is
+a plank upon this subject which should be a general law to the incoming
+administration. We should do neither more nor less than we gave the
+people reason to believe we would when they gave us their votes. Permit
+me, fellow-citizens, to read the tariff plank of the Chicago platform, or
+rather have it read in your hearing by one who has younger eyes.
+
+[Mr. Lincoln's private secretary then read Section 12 of the Chicago
+platform, as follows:]
+
+"That, while providing revenue for the support of the General Government
+by duties upon imports, sound policy requires such an adjustment of these
+imposts as will encourage the development of the industrial interest of
+the whole country; and we commend that policy of national exchanges which
+secures to working-men liberal wages, to agriculture remunerating prices,
+to mechanics and manufacturers adequate return for their skill, labor,
+and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and
+independence."
+
+As with all general propositions, doubtless, there will be shades of
+difference in construing this. I have by no means a thoroughly matured
+judgment upon this subject, especially as to details; some general ideas
+are about all. I have long thought it would be to our advantage to
+produce any necessary article at home which can be made of as good
+quality and with as little labor at home as abroad, at least by the
+difference of the carrying from abroad. In such case the carrying is
+demonstrably a dead loss of labor. For instance, labor being the true
+standard of value, is it not plain that if equal labor get a bar of
+railroad iron out of a mine in England and another out of a mine in
+Pennsylvania, each can be laid down in a track at home cheaper than they
+could exchange countries, at least by the carriage? If there be a present
+cause why one can be both made and carried cheaper in money price than
+the other can be made without carrying, that cause is an unnatural and
+injurious one, and ought gradually, if not rapidly, to be removed. The
+condition of the treasury at this time would seem to render an early
+revision of the tariff indispensable. The Morrill [tariff] bill, now
+pending before Congress, may or may not become a law. I am not posted as
+to its particular provisions, but if they are generally satisfactory, and
+the bill shall now pass, there will be an end for the present. If,
+however, it shall not pass, I suppose the whole subject will be one of
+the most pressing and important for the next Congress. By the
+Constitution, the executive may recommend measures which he may think
+proper, and he may veto those he thinks improper, and it is supposed that
+he may add to these certain indirect influences to affect the action of
+Congress. My political education strongly inclines me against a very free
+use of any of these means by the executive to control the legislation of
+the country. As a rule, I think it better that Congress should originate
+as well as perfect its measures without external bias. I therefore would
+rather recommend to every gentleman who knows he is to be a member of the
+next Congress to take an enlarged view, and post himself thoroughly, so
+as to contribute his part to such an adjustment of the tariff as shall
+produce a sufficient revenue, and in its other bearings, so far as
+possible, be just and equal to all sections of the country and classes of
+the people.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT CLEVELAND, OHIO,
+
+FEBRUARY 15, 1861
+
+Mr. CHAIRMAN AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF CLEVELAND:--We have been marching
+about two miles through snow, rain, and deep mud.  The large numbers that
+have turned out under these circumstances testify that you are in earnest
+about something or other. But do I think so meanly of you as to suppose
+that that earnestness is about me personally? I would be doing you an
+injustice to suppose you did. You have assembled to testify your respect
+for the Union, the Constitution, and the laws; and here let me say that
+it is with you, the people, to advance the great cause of the Union and
+the Constitution, and not with any one man. It rests with you alone. This
+fact is strongly impressed upon my mind at present. In a community like
+this, whose appearance testifies to their intelligence, I am convinced
+that the cause of liberty and the Union can never be in danger. Frequent
+allusion is made to the excitement at present existing in our national
+politics, and it is as well that I should also allude to it here. I think
+that there is no occasion for any excitement. 'The crisis, as it is
+called, is altogether an artificial crisis. In all parts of the nation
+there are differences of opinion on politics. There are differences of
+opinion even here. You did not all vote for the person who now addresses
+you. What is happening now will not hurt those who are farther away from
+here. Have they not all their rights now as they ever have had? Do they
+not have their fugitive slaves returned now as ever? Have they not the
+same Constitution that they have lived under for seventy-odd years? Have
+they not a position as citizens of this common country, and have we any
+power to change that position? What, then, is the matter with them? Why
+all this excitement? Why all these complaints?
+
+As I said before, this crisis is all artificial! It has no foundation in
+facts. It is not argued up, as the saying is, and cannot, therefore, be
+argued down. Let it alone and it will go down of itself.
+
+[Mr. Lincoln then said that they must be content with a few words from
+him, as he was tired, etc. Having been given to understand that the crowd
+was not all Republican, but consisted of men of all parties, he
+continued:]
+
+This is as it should be. If Judge Douglas had been elected and had been
+here on his way to Washington, as I am to-night, the Republicans should
+have joined his supporters in welcoming him, just as his friends have
+joined with mine tonight. If all do not join now to save the good old
+ship of the Union this voyage, nobody will have a chance to pilot her on
+another voyage.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT BUFFALO, NEW YORK,
+
+FEBRUARY 16, 1861
+
+Mr. MAYOR AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF BUFFALO AND THE STATE OF NEW YORK:--I am
+here to thank you briefly for this grand reception given to me, not
+personally, but as the representative of our great and beloved country.
+Your worthy mayor has been pleased to mention, in his address to me, the
+fortunate and agreeable journey which I have had from home, on my rather
+circuitous route to the Federal capital. I am very happy that he was
+enabled in truth to congratulate myself and company on that fact. It is
+true we have had nothing thus far to mar the pleasure of the trip. We
+have not been met alone by those who assisted in giving the election to
+me--I say not alone by them, but by the whole population of the country
+through which we have passed. This is as it should be. Had the election
+fallen to any other of the distinguished candidates instead of myself,
+under the peculiar circumstances, to say the least, it would have been
+proper for all citizens to have greeted him as you now greet me. It is an
+evidence of the devotion of the whole people to the Constitution, the
+Union, and the perpetuity of the liberties of this country. I am
+unwilling on any occasion that I should be so meanly thought of as to
+have it supposed for a moment that these demonstrations are tendered to
+me personally. They are tendered to the country, to the institutions of
+the country, and to the perpetuity of the liberties of the country, for
+which these institutions were made and created.
+
+Your worthy mayor has thought fit to express the hope that I may be able
+to relieve the country from the present, or, I should say, the threatened
+difficulties. I am sure I bring a heart true to the work. For the ability
+to perform it, I must trust in that Supreme Being who has never forsaken
+this favored land, through the instrumentality of this great and
+intelligent people. Without that assistance I shall surely fail; with it,
+I cannot fail. When we speak of threatened difficulties to the Country,
+it is natural that it should be expected that something should be said by
+myself with regard to particular measures. Upon more mature reflection,
+however, others will agree with me that, when it is considered that these
+difficulties are without precedent, and have never been acted upon by any
+individual situated as I am, it is most proper I should wait and see the
+developments, and get all the light possible, so that when I do speak
+authoritatively, I may be as near right as possible. When I shall speak
+authoritatively, I hope to say nothing inconsistent with the
+Constitution, the Union, the rights of all the States, of each State, and
+of each section of the country, and not to disappoint the reasonable
+expectations of those who have confided to me their votes. In this
+connection allow me to say that you, as a portion of the great American
+people, need only to maintain your composure, stand up to your sober
+convictions of right, to your obligations to the Constitution, and act in
+accordance with those sober convictions, and the clouds now on the
+horizon will be dispelled, and we shall have a bright and glorious
+future; and when this generation has passed away, tens of thousands will
+inhabit this country where only thousands inhabit it now. I do not
+propose to address you at length; I have no voice for it. Allow me again
+to thank you for this magnificent reception, and bid you farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT ROCHESTER, NEW YORK,
+
+FEBRUARY 18, 1861
+
+I confess myself, after having seen many large audiences since leaving
+home, overwhelmed with this vast number of faces at this hour of the
+morning. I am not vain enough to believe that you are here from any wish
+to see me as an individual, but because I am for the time being the
+representative of the American people. I could not, if I would, address
+you at any length. I have not the strength, even if I had the time, for a
+speech at each of these many interviews that are afforded me on my way to
+Washington. I appear merely to see you, and to let you see me, and to bid
+you farewell. I hope it will be understood that it is from no
+disinclination to oblige anybody that I do not address you at greater
+length.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT SYRACUSE, NEW YORK,
+
+FEBRUARY 18, 1861.
+
+LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--I See you have erected a very fine and handsome
+platform here for me, and I presume you expected me to speak from it. If
+I should go upon it, you would imagine that I was about to deliver you a
+much longer speech than I am. I wish you to understand that I mean no
+discourtesy to you by thus declining. I intend discourtesy to no one. But
+I wish you to understand that, though I am unwilling to go upon this
+platform, you are not at liberty to draw inferences concerning any other
+platform with which my name has been or is connected. I wish you long
+life and prosperity individually, and pray that with the perpetuity of
+those institutions under which we have all so long lived and prospered,
+our happiness may be secured, our future made brilliant, and the glorious
+destiny of our country established forever. I bid you a kind farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT UTICA, NEW YORK,
+
+FEBRUARY 18, 1860
+
+LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--I have no speech to make to you; and no time to
+speak in. I appear before you that I may see you, and that you may see
+me; and I am willing to admit that so far as the ladies are concerned I
+have the best of the bargain, though I wish it to be understood that I do
+not make the same acknowledgment concerning the men.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MAYOR OF ALBANY, NEW YORK
+
+FEBRUARY 18, 1861.
+
+MR. MAYOR:--I can hardly appropriate to myself the flattering terms in
+which you communicate the tender of this reception, as personal to
+myself. I most gratefully accept the hospitalities tendered to me, and
+will not detain you or the audience with any extended remarks at this
+time. I presume that in the two or three courses through which I shall
+have to go, I shall have to repeat somewhat, and I will therefore only
+express to you my thanks for this kind reception.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO GOVERNOR MORGAN OF NEW YORK, AT ALBANY,
+
+FEBRUARY 18, 1861.
+
+GOVERNOR MORGAN:--I was pleased to receive an invitation to visit the
+capital of the great Empire State of this nation while on my way to the
+Federal capital. I now thank you, Mr. Governor, and you, the people of
+the capital of the State of New York, for this most hearty and
+magnificent welcome. If I am not at fault, the great Empire State at this
+time contains a larger population than did the whole of the United States
+of America at the time they achieved their national independence, and I
+was proud--to be invited to visit its capital, to meet its citizens, as I
+now have the honor to do. I am notified by your governor that this
+reception is tendered by citizens without distinction of party. Because
+of this I accept it the more gladly. In this country, and in any country
+where freedom of thought is tolerated, citizens attach themselves to
+political parties. It is but an ordinary degree of charity to attribute
+this act to the supposition that, in thus attaching themselves to the
+various parties, each man in his own judgment supposes he thereby best
+advances the interests of the whole country. And when an election is past
+it is altogether befitting a free people, as I suppose, that, until the
+next election, they should be one people. The reception you have extended
+me to-day is not given to me personally,--it should not be so,--but as
+the representative, for the time being, of the majority of the nation. If
+the election had fallen to any of the more distinguished citizens who
+received the support of the people, this same honor should have greeted
+him that greets me this day, in testimony of the universal, unanimous
+devotion of the whole people to the Constitution, the Union, and to the
+perpetual liberties of succeeding generations in this country.
+
+I have neither the voice nor the strength to address you at any greater
+length. I beg you will therefore accept my most grateful thanks for this
+manifest devotion--not to me, but the institutions of this great and
+glorious country.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF NEW YORK, AT ALBANY,
+
+FEBRUARY 18, 1861.
+
+MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF NEW
+YORK:--It is with feelings of great diffidence, and, I may say, with
+feelings of awe, perhaps greater than I have recently experienced, that I
+meet you here in this place. The history of this great State, the renown
+of those great men who have stood here, and have spoken here, and have
+been heard here, all crowd around my fancy, and incline me to shrink from
+any attempt to address you. Yet I have some confidence given me by the
+generous manner in which you have invited me, and by the still more
+generous manner in which you have received me, to speak further. You have
+invited and received me without distinction of party. I cannot for a
+moment suppose that this has been done in any considerable degree with
+reference to my personal services, but that it is done in so far as I am
+regarded, at this time, as the representative of the majesty of this
+great nation. I doubt not this is the truth, and the whole truth of the
+case, and this is as it should be. It is much more gratifying to me that
+this reception has been given to me as the elected representative of a
+free people, than it could possibly be if tendered merely as an evidence
+of devotion to me, or to any one man personally.
+
+And now I think it were more fitting that I should close these hasty
+remarks. It is true that, while I hold myself, without mock modesty, the
+humblest of all individuals that have ever been elevated to the
+Presidency, I have a more difficult task to perform than any one of them.
+
+You have generously tendered me the support--the united support--of the
+great Empire State. For this, in behalf of the nation--in behalf of the
+present and future of the nation--in behalf of civil and religious
+liberty for all time to come, most gratefully do I thank you. I do not
+propose to enter into an explanation of any particular line of policy, as
+to our present difficulties, to be adopted by the incoming
+administration. I deem it just to you, to myself, to all, that I should
+see everything, that I should hear everything, that I should have every
+light that can be brought within my reach, in order that, when I do so
+speak, I shall have enjoyed every opportunity to take correct and true
+ground; and for this reason I do not propose to speak at this time of the
+policy of the Government. But when the time comes, I shall speak, as well
+as I am able, for the good of the present and future of this country for
+the good both of the North and of the South--for the good of the one and
+the other, and of all sections of the country. In the meantime, if we
+have patience, if we restrain ourselves, if we allow ourselves not to run
+off in a passion, I still have confidence that the Almighty, the Maker of
+the universe, will, through the instrumentality of this great and
+intelligent people, bring us through this as He has through all the other
+difficulties of our country. Relying on this, I again thank you for this
+generous reception.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT TROY, NEW YORK,
+
+FEBRUARY 19, 1861
+
+MR. MAYOR AND CITIZENS OF TROY:--I thank you very kindly for this great
+reception. Since I left my home it has not been my fortune to meet an
+assemblage more numerous and more orderly than this. I am the more
+gratified at this mark of your regard since you assure me it is tendered,
+not to the individual but to the high office you have called me to fill.
+I have neither strength nor time to make any extended remarks on this
+occasion, and I can only repeat to you my sincere thanks for the kind
+reception you have thought proper to extend to me.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT POUGHKEEPSIE, NEW YORK,
+
+FEBRUARY 19, 1861
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS:--It is altogether impossible I should make myself heard
+by any considerable portion of this vast assemblage; but, although I
+appear before you mainly for the purpose of seeing you, and to let you
+see rather than hear me, I cannot refrain from saying that I am highly
+gratified--as much here, indeed, under the circumstances, as I have been
+anywhere on my route--to witness this noble demonstration--made, not in
+honor of an individual, but of the man who at this time humbly, but
+earnestly, represents the majesty of the nation.
+
+This reception, like all the others that have been tendered to me,
+doubtless emanates from all the political parties, and not from one
+alone. As such I accept it the more gratefully, since it indicates an
+earnest desire on the part of the whole people, with out regard to
+political differences, to save--not the country, because the country will
+save itself but to save the institutions of the country, those
+institutions under which, in the last three quarters of a century, we
+have grown to a great, and intelligent, and a happy people--the greatest,
+the most intelligent, and the happiest people in the world. These noble
+manifestations indicate, with unerring certainty, that the whole people
+are willing to make common cause for this object; that if, as it ever
+must be, some have been successful in the recent election and some have
+been beaten, if some are satisfied and some are dissatisfied, the
+defeated party are not in favor of sinking the ship, but are desirous of
+running it through the tempest in safety, and willing, if they think the
+people have committed an error in their verdict now, to wait in the hope
+of reversing it and setting it right next time. I do not say that in the
+recent election the people did the wisest thing, that could have been
+done--indeed, I do not think they did; but I do say that in accepting the
+great trust committed to me, which I do with a determination to endeavor
+to prove worthy of it, I must rely upon you, upon the people of the whole
+country, for support; and with their sustaining aid, even I, humble as I
+am, cannot fail to carry the ship of state safely through the storm.
+
+I have now only to thank you warmly for your kind attendance, and bid you
+all an affectionate farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT HUDSON, NEW YORK.
+
+FEBRUARY 19, 1860
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS:--I see that you are providing a platform for me. I shall
+have to decline standing upon it, because the president of the company
+tells me that I shall not have time to wait until it is brought to me. As
+I said yesterday, under similar circumstances at another gathering, you
+must not draw the inference that I have any intention of deserting any
+platform with which I have a legitimate connection because I do not stand
+on yours. Allow me to thank you for this splendid reception, and I now
+bid you farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT PEEKSKILL, NEW YORK,
+
+FEBRUARY 19, 1861
+
+LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--I have but a moment to stand before you to listen
+to and return your kind greeting. I thank you for this reception, and for
+the pleasant manner in which it is tendered to me by our mutual friends.
+I will say in a single sentence, in regard to the difficulties that lie
+before me and our beloved country, that if I can only be as generously
+and unanimously sustained as the demonstrations I have witnessed indicate
+I shall be, I shall not fail; but without your sustaining hands I am sure
+that neither I nor any other man can hope to surmount these difficulties.
+I trust that in the course I shall pursue I shall be sustained not only
+by the party that elected me, but by the patriotic people of the whole
+country.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT FISHKILL LANDING
+
+FEBRUARY 19, 1861
+
+LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--I appear before you not to make a speech. I have
+not sufficient time, if I had the strength, to repeat speeches at every
+station where the people kindly gather to welcome me as we go along. If I
+had the strength, and should take the time, I should not get to
+Washington until after the inauguration, which you must be aware would
+not fit exactly. That such an untoward event might not transpire, I know
+you will readily forego any further remarks; and I close by bidding you
+farewell.
+
+
+
+
+REMARKS AT THE ASTOR HOUSE, NEW YORK CITY, FEBRUARY 19, 1861
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS:--I have stepped before you merely in compliance with
+what appears to be your wish, and not with the purpose of making a
+speech. I do not propose making a speech this afternoon. I could not be
+heard by any but a small fraction of you, at best; but, what is still
+worse than that, I have nothing just now to say that is worthy of your
+hearing. I beg you to believe that I do not now refuse to address you
+from any disposition to disoblige you, but to the contrary. But, at the
+same time, I beg of you to excuse me for the present.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT NEW YORK CITY,
+
+FEBRUARY 19, 1861
+
+Mr. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:--I am rather an old man to avail myself of
+such an excuse as I am now about to do. Yet the truth is so distinct, and
+presses itself so distinctly upon me, that I cannot well avoid it--and
+that is, that I did not understand when I was brought into this room that
+I was to be brought here to make a speech. It was not intimated to me
+that I was brought into the room where Daniel Webster and Henry Clay had
+made speeches, and where one in my position might be expected to do
+something like those men or say something worthy of myself or my
+audience. I therefore beg you to make allowance for the circumstances in
+which I have been by surprise brought before you. Now I have been in the
+habit of thinking and sometimes speaking upon political questions that
+have for some years past agitated the country; and, if I were disposed to
+do so, and we could take up some one of the issues, as the lawyers call
+them, and I were called upon to make an argument about it to the best of
+my ability, I could do so without much preparation. But that is not what
+you desire to have done here to-night.
+
+I have been occupying a position, since the Presidential election, of
+silence--of avoiding public speaking, of avoiding public writing. I have
+been doing so because I thought, upon full consideration, that was the
+proper course for me to take.  I am brought before you now, and required
+to make a speech, when you all approve more than anything else of the
+fact that I have been keeping silence. And now it seems to me that the
+response you give to that remark ought to justify me in closing just
+here. I have not kept silence since the Presidential election from any
+party wantonness, or from any indifference to the anxiety that pervades
+the minds of men about the aspect of the political affairs of this
+country. I have kept silence for the reason that I supposed it was
+peculiarly proper that I should do so until the time came when, according
+to the custom of the country, I could speak officially.
+
+I still suppose that, while the political drama being enacted in this
+country at this time is rapidly shifting its scenes--forbidding an
+anticipation with any degree of certainty to-day of what we shall see
+to-morrow--it is peculiarly fitting that I should see it all, up to the
+last minute, before I should take ground that I might be disposed, by the
+shifting of the scenes afterward, also to shift. I have said several
+times upon this journey, and I now repeat it to you, that when the time
+does come, I shall then take the ground that I think is right--right for
+the North, for the South, for the East, for the West, for the whole
+country. And in doing so I hope to feel no necessity pressing upon me to
+say anything in conflict with the Constitution, in conflict with the
+continued union of these States, in conflict with the perpetuation of the
+liberties of this people, or anything in conflict with anything whatever
+that I have ever given you reason to expect from me. And now, my friends,
+have I said enough? [Loud cries of "No, no!" and, "Three cheers for
+LINCOLN!"] Now, my friends, there appears to be a difference of opinion
+between you and me, and I really feel called upon to decide the question
+myself.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY,
+
+FEBRUARY 20, 1861
+
+Mr. MAYOR:--It is with feelings of deep gratitude that I make my
+acknowledgments for the reception that has been given me in the great
+commercial city of New York. I cannot but remember that it is done by the
+people who do not, by a large majority, agree with me in political
+sentiment. It is the more grateful to me because in this I see that for
+the great principles of our Government the people are pretty nearly or
+quite unanimous. In regard to the difficulties that confront us at this
+time, and of which you have seen fit to speak so becomingly and so
+justly, I can only say I agree with the sentiments expressed. In my
+devotion to the Union I hope I am behind no man in the nation. As to my
+wisdom in conducting affairs so as to tend to the preservation of the
+Union, I fear too great confidence may have been placed in me. I am sure
+I bring a heart devoted to the work. There is nothing that could ever
+bring me to consent--willingly to consent--to the destruction of this
+Union (in which not only the great city of New York, but the whole
+country, has acquired its greatness), unless it would be that thing for
+which the Union itself was made. I understand that the ship is made for
+the carrying and preservation of the cargo; and so long as the ship is
+safe with the cargo, it shall not be abandoned. This Union shall never be
+abandoned, unless the possibility of its existence shall cease to exist
+without the necessity of throwing passengers and cargo overboard. So
+long, then, as it is possible that the prosperity and liberties of this
+people can be preserved within this Union, it shall be my purpose at all
+tunes to preserve it. And now, Mr. Mayor, renewing my thanks for this
+cordial reception, allow me to come to a close.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY
+
+FEBRUARY 21, 1860
+
+MR. DAYTON AND GENTLEMEN OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY:--I shall only thank
+you briefly for this very kind reception given me, not personally, but as
+the temporary representative of the majesty of the nation. To the
+kindness of your hearts, and of the hearts of your brethren in your
+State, I should be very proud to respond, but I shall not have strength
+to address you or other assemblages at length, even if I had the time to
+do so. I appear before you, therefore, for little else than to greet you,
+and to briefly say farewell. You have done me the very high honor to
+present your reception courtesies to me through your great man a man with
+whom it is an honor to be associated anywhere, and in owning whom no
+State can be poor. He has said enough, and by the saying of it suggested
+enough, to require a response of an hour, well considered. I could not in
+an hour make a worthy response to it. I therefore, ladies and gentlemen
+of New Jersey, content myself with saying, most heartily do I indorse all
+the sentiments he has expressed. Allow me, most gratefully, to bid you
+farewell.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MAYOR OF NEWARK, NEW JERSEY,
+
+FEBRUARY 21, 1861.
+
+MR. MAYOR:--I thank you for this reception at the city of Newark. With
+regard to the great work of which you speak, I will say that I bring to
+it a heart filled with love for my country, and an honest desire to do
+what is right. I am sure, however, that I have not the ability to do
+anything unaided of God, and that without His support and that of this
+free, happy, prosperous, and intelligent people, no man can succeed in
+doing that the importance of which we all comprehend. Again thanking you
+for the reception you have given me, I will now bid you farewell, and
+proceed upon my journey.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS IN TRENTON AT THE TRENTON HOUSE,
+
+FEBRUARY 21, 1861
+
+I have been invited by your representatives to the Legislature to visit
+this the capital of your honored State, and in acknowledging their kind
+invitation, compelled to respond to the welcome of the presiding officers
+of each body, and I suppose they intended I should speak to you through
+them, as they are the representatives of all of you; and if I were to
+speak again here, I should only have to repeat in a great measure much
+that I have said, which would be disgusting to my friends around me who
+have met here. I have no speech to make, but merely appear to see you and
+let you look at me; and as to the latter I think I have greatly the best
+of the bargain. My friends, allow me to bid you farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE SENATE OF NEW JERSEY
+
+FEBRUARY 21, 1861
+
+MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY:--I
+am very grateful to you for the honorable reception of which I have been
+the object. I cannot but remember the place that New Jersey holds in our
+early history. In the Revolutionary struggle few of the States among the
+Old Thirteen had more of the battle-fields of the country within their
+limits than New Jersey. May I be pardoned if, upon this occasion, I
+mention that away back in my childhood, the earliest days of my being
+able to read, I got hold of a small book, such a one as few of the
+younger members have ever seen Weems's Life of Washington. I remember all
+the accounts there given of the battle-fields and struggles for the
+liberties of the country; and none fixed themselves upon my imagination
+so deeply as the struggle here at Trenton, New Jersey. The crossing of
+the river, the contest with the Hessians, the great hardships endured at
+that time, all fixed themselves on my memory more than any single
+Revolutionary event; and you all know, for you have all been boys, how
+these early impressions last longer than any others. I recollect thinking
+then, boy even though I was, that there must have been something more
+than common that these men struggled for. I am exceedingly anxious that
+that thing that something even more than national independence, that
+something that held out a great promise to all the people of the world to
+all time to come--I am exceedingly anxious that this Union, the
+Constitution, and the liberties of the people shall be perpetuated in
+accordance with the original idea for which that struggle was made; and I
+shall be most happy indeed if I shall be a humble instrument in the hands
+of the Almighty, and of this his almost chosen people, for perpetuating
+the object of that great struggle. You give me this reception, as I
+understand, without distinction of party. I learn that this body is
+composed of a majority of gentlemen who, in the exercise of their best
+judgment in the choice of a chief magistrate, did not think I was the
+man. I understand, nevertheless, that they come forward here to greet me
+as the constitutionally elected President of the United States--as
+citizens of the United States to meet the man who, for the time being, is
+the representative of the majesty of the nation--united by the single
+purpose to perpetuate the Constitution, the union, and the liberties of
+the people. As such, I accept this reception more gratefully than I could
+do did I believe it were tendered to me as an individual.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE ASSEMBLY OF NEW JERSEY,
+
+FEBRUARY 21, 1861
+
+MR. SPEAKER AND GENTLEMEN: I have just enjoyed the honor of a reception
+by the other branch of this Legislature, and I return to you and them my
+thanks for the reception which the people of New Jersey have given
+through their chosen representatives to me as the representative, for the
+time being, of the majesty of the people of the United States. I
+appropriate to myself very little of the demonstrations of respect with
+which I have been greeted. I think little should be given to any man, but
+that it should be a manifestation of adherence to the Union and the
+Constitution. I understand myself to be received here by the
+representatives of the people of New Jersey, a majority of whom differ in
+opinion from those with whom I have acted. This manifestation is
+therefore to be regarded by me as expressing their devotion to the Union,
+the Constitution, and the liberties of the people.
+
+You, Mr. Speaker, have well said that this is a time when the bravest and
+wisest look with doubt and awe upon the aspect presented by our national
+affairs. Under these circumstances you will readily see why I should not
+speak in detail of the course I shall deem it best to pursue. It is
+proper that I should avail myself of all the information and all the time
+at my command, in order that when the time arrives in which I must speak
+officially, I shall be able to take the ground which I deem best and
+safest, and from which I may have no occasion to swerve. I shall endeavor
+to take the ground I deem most just to the North, the East, the West, the
+South, and the whole country. I shall take it, I hope, in good temper,
+certainly with no malice toward any section. I shall do all that may be
+in my power to promote a peaceful settlement of all our difficulties. The
+man does not live who is more devoted to peace than I am, none who would
+do more to preserve it, but it may be necessary to put the foot down
+firmly. And if I do my duty and do right, you will sustain me, will you
+not? [Loud cheers, and cries of "Yes, yes; we will."] Received as I am by
+the members of a Legislature the majority of whom do not agree with me in
+political sentiments, I trust that I may have their assistance in
+piloting the ship of state through this voyage, surrounded by perils as
+it is; for if it should suffer wreck now, there will be no pilot ever
+needed for another voyage.
+
+Gentlemen, I have already spoken longer than I intended, and must beg
+leave to stop here.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MAYOR OF PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA,
+
+FEBRUARY 21, 1861
+
+MR. MAYOR AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF PHILADELPHIA:--I appear before you to
+make no lengthy speech, but to thank you for this reception. The
+reception you have given me to-night is not to me, the man, the
+individual, but to the man who temporarily represents, or should
+represent, the majesty of the nation. It is true, as your worthy mayor
+has said, that there is great anxiety amongst the citizens of the United
+States at this time. I deem it a happy circumstance that this
+dissatisfied portion of our fellow-citizens does not point us to anything
+in which they are being injured or about to be injured; for which reason
+I have felt all the while justified in concluding that the crisis, the
+panic, the anxiety of the country at this time is artificial. If there be
+those who differ with me upon this subject, they have not pointed out the
+substantial difficulty that exists. I do not mean to say that an
+artificial panic may not do considerable harm; that it has done such I do
+not deny. The hope that has been expressed by your mayor, that I may be
+able to restore peace, harmony, and prosperity to the country, is most
+worthy of him; and most happy, indeed, will I be if I shall be able to
+verify and fulfil that hope. I promise you that I bring to the work a
+sincere heart. Whether I will bring a head equal to that heart will be
+for future times to determine. It were useless for me to speak of details
+of plans now; I shall speak officially next Monday week, if ever. If I
+should not speak then, it were useless for me to do so now. If I do speak
+then, it is useless for me to do so now. When I do speak, I shall take
+such ground as I deem best calculated to restore peace, harmony, and
+prosperity to the country, and tend to the perpetuity of the nation and
+the liberty of these States and these people. Your worthy mayor has
+expressed the wish, in which I join with him, that it were convenient for
+me to remain in your city long enough to consult your merchants and
+manufacturers; or, as it were, to listen to those breathings rising
+within the consecrated walls wherein the Constitution of the United
+States and, I will add, the Declaration of Independence, were originally
+framed and adopted. I assure you and your mayor that I had hoped on this
+occasion, and upon all occasions during my life, that I shall do nothing
+inconsistent with the teachings of these holy and most sacred walls. I
+have never asked anything that does not breathe from those walls. All my
+political warfare has been in favor of the teachings that come forth from
+these sacred walls. May my right hand forget its cunning and my tongue
+cleave to the roof of my mouth if ever I prove false to those teachings.
+Fellow-citizens, I have addressed you longer than I expected to do, and
+now allow me to bid you goodnight.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS IN THE HALL OF INDEPENDENCE, PHILADELPHIA,
+
+FEBRUARY 22, 1861
+
+MR. CUYLER:--I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself standing
+here, in this place, where were collected together the wisdom, the
+devotion to principle, from which sprang the institutions under which we
+live. You have kindly suggested to me that in my hands is the task of
+restoring peace to the present distracted condition of the country. I can
+say in return, sir, that all the political sentiments I entertain have
+been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments
+which originated and were given to the world from this hall. I have never
+had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments
+embodied in the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over
+the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here and framed
+and adopted that Declaration of Independence. I have pondered over the
+toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army who
+achieved that independence. I have often inquired of myself what great
+principle or idea it was that kept the confederacy so long together. It
+was not the mere matter of separation of the colonies from the
+motherland, but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which
+gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to
+the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due
+time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. This is
+the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence. Now, my
+friends, can the country be saved upon that basis? If it can, I will
+consider myself one of the happiest men in the world if I can help to
+save it. If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be truly
+awful. But if this country cannot be saved without giving up that
+principle, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot
+than surrender it. Now, in my view of the present aspect of affairs,
+there need be no bloodshed or war. There is no necessity for it. I am not
+in favor of such a course, and I may say, in advance, that there will be
+no bloodshed unless it is forced upon the Government, and then it will be
+compelled to act in self-defence.
+
+My friends; this is wholly an unexpected speech, and I did not expect to
+be called upon to say a word when I came here. I supposed it was merely
+to do something toward raising the flag. I may, therefore, have said
+something indiscreet. I have said nothing but what I am willing to live
+by and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, die by.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE WILMINGTON DELEGATION,
+
+FEBRUARY 22, 1861
+
+MR. CHAIRMAN:--I feel highly flattered by the encomiums you have seen fit
+to bestow upon me. Soon after the nomination of General Taylor, I
+attended a political meeting in the city of Wilmington, and have since
+carried with me a fond remembrance of the hospitalities of the city on
+that occasion. The programme established provides for my presence in
+Harrisburg in twenty-four hours from this time. I expect to be in
+Washington on Saturday. It is, therefore, an impossibility that I should
+accept your kind invitation. There are no people whom I would more gladly
+accommodate than those of Delaware; but circumstances forbid, gentlemen.
+With many regrets for the character of the reply I am compelled to give
+you, I bid you adieu.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA,
+
+FEBRUARY 22, 1860
+
+LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF OLD LANCASTER:--I appear not to make a speech. I
+have not time to make a speech at length, and not strength to make them
+on every occasion; and, worse than all, I have none to make. There is
+plenty of matter to speak about in these times, but it is well known that
+the more a man speaks the less he is understood--the more he says one
+thing, the more his adversaries contend he meant something else. I shall
+soon have occasion to speak officially, and then I will endeavor to put
+my thoughts just as plain as I can express myself--true to the
+Constitution and Union of all the States, and to the perpetual liberty of
+all the people. Until I so speak, there is no need to enter upon details.
+In conclusion, I greet you most heartily, and bid you an affectionate
+farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF PENNSYLVANIA, AT HARRISBURG,
+
+FEBRUARY 22, 1861
+
+MR. SPEAKER OF THE SENATE, AND ALSO MR. SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF
+REPRESENTATIVES, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF
+PENNSYLVANIA:--I appear before you only for a very few brief remarks in
+response to what has been said to me. I thank you most sincerely for this
+reception, and the generous words in which support has been promised me
+upon this occasion. I thank your great commonwealth for the overwhelming
+support it recently gave, not me personally, but the cause which I think
+a just one, in the late election.
+
+Allusion has been made to the fact--the interesting fact perhaps we
+should say--that I for the first time appear at the capital of the great
+commonwealth of Pennsylvania upon the birthday of the Father of his
+Country. In connection with that beloved anniversary connected with the
+history of this country, I have already gone through one exceedingly
+interesting scene this morning in the ceremonies at Philadelphia. Under
+the kind conduct of gentlemen there, I was for the first time allowed the
+privilege of standing in old Independence Hall to have a few words
+addressed to me there, and opening up to me an opportunity of manifesting
+my deep regret that I had not more time to express something of my own
+feelings excited by the occasion, that had been really the feelings of my
+whole life.
+
+Besides this, our friends there had provided a magnificent flag of the
+country. They had arranged it so that I was given the honor of raising it
+to the head of its staff, and when it went up I was pleased that it went
+to its place by the strength of my own feeble arm. When, according to the
+arrangement, the cord was pulled, and it floated gloriously to the wind,
+without an accident, in the bright, glowing sunshine of the morning, I
+could not help hoping that there was in the entire success of that
+beautiful ceremony at least something of an omen of what is to come. Nor
+could I help feeling then, as I have often felt, that in the whole of
+that proceeding I was a very humbled instrument. I had not provided the
+flag; I had not made the arrangements for elevating it to its place; I
+had applied but a very small portion of even my feeble strength in
+raising it. In the whole transaction I was in the hands of the people who
+had arranged it, and if I can have the same generous co-operation of the
+people of this nation, I think the flag of our country may yet be kept
+flaunting gloriously.
+
+I recur for a moment but to repeat some words uttered at the hotel in
+regard to what has been said about the military support which the General
+Government may expect from the commonwealth of Pennsylvania in a proper
+emergency. To guard against any possible mistake do I recur to this. It
+is not with any pleasure that I contemplate the possibility that a
+necessity may arise in this country for the use of the military arm.
+While I am exceedingly gratified to see the manifestation upon your
+streets of your military force here, and exceedingly gratified at your
+promise to use that force upon a proper emergency--while I make these
+acknowledgments I desire to repeat, in order to preclude any possible
+misconstruction, that I do most sincerely hope that we shall have no use
+for them; that it will never become their duty to shed blood, and most
+especially never to shed fraternal blood. I promise that so far as I may
+have wisdom to direct, if so painful a result shall in any wise be
+brought about, it shall be through no fault of mine.
+
+Allusion has also been made by one of your honored speakers to some
+remarks recently made by myself at Pittsburg in regard to what is
+supposed to be the especial interest of this great commonwealth of
+Pennsylvania. I now wish only to say in regard to that matter, that the
+few remarks which I uttered on that occasion were rather carefully
+worded. I took pains that they should be so. I have seen no occasion
+since to add to them or subtract from them. I leave them precisely as
+they stand, adding only now that I am pleased to have an expression from
+you, gentlemen of Pennsylvania, signifying that they are satisfactory to
+you.
+
+And now, gentlemen of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of
+Pennsylvania, allow me again to return to you my most sincere thanks.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MAYOR OF WASHINGTON, D.C.,
+
+FEBRUARY 27, 1861
+
+Mr. MAYOR:--I thank you, and through you the municipal authorities of
+this city who accompany you, for this welcome. And as it is the first
+time in my life, since the present phase of politics has presented itself
+in this country, that I have said anything publicly within a region of
+country where the institution of slavery exists, I will take this
+occasion to say that I think very much of the ill feeling that has
+existed and still exists between the people in the section from which I
+came and the people here, is dependent upon a misunderstanding of one
+another. I therefore avail myself of this opportunity to assure you, Mr.
+Mayor, and all the gentlemen present, that I have not now, and never have
+had, any other than as kindly feelings toward you as to the people of my
+own section. I have not now, and never have had, any disposition to treat
+you in any respect otherwise than as my own neighbors. I have not now any
+purpose to withhold from you any of the benefits of the Constitution,
+under any circumstances, that I would not feel myself constrained to
+withhold from my own neighbors; and I hope, in a word, that when we shall
+become better acquainted--and I say it with great confidence--we shall
+like each other better. I thank you for the kindness of this reception.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO A SERENADE AT WASHINGTON, D.C.,
+
+FEBRUARY 28, 1861
+
+MY FRIENDS:--I suppose that I may take this as a compliment paid to me,
+and as such please accept my thanks for it. I have reached this city of
+Washington under circumstances considerably differing from those under
+which any other man has ever reached it. I am here for the purpose of
+taking an official position amongst the people, almost all of whom were
+politically opposed to me, and are yet opposed to me, as I suppose.
+
+I propose no lengthy address to you. I only propose to say, as I did on
+yesterday, when your worthy mayor and board of aldermen called upon me,
+that I thought much of the ill feeling that has existed between you and
+the people of your surroundings and that people from among whom I came,
+has depended, and now depends, upon a misunderstanding.
+
+I hope that, if things shall go along as prosperously as I believe we all
+desire they may, I may have it in my power to remove something of this
+misunderstanding; that I may be enabled to convince you, and the people
+of your section of the country, that we regard you as in all things our
+equals, and in all things entitled to the same respect and the same
+treatment that we claim for ourselves; that we are in no wise disposed,
+if it were in our power, to oppress you, to deprive you of any of your
+rights under the Constitution of the United States, or even narrowly to
+split hairs with you in regard to these rights, but are determined to
+give you, as far as lies in our hands, all your rights under the
+Constitution--not grudgingly, but fully and fairly. I hope that, by thus
+dealing with you, we will become better acquainted, and be better
+friends.
+
+And now, my friends, with these few remarks, and again returning my
+thanks for this compliment, and expressing my desire to hear a little
+more of your good music, I bid you good-night.
+
+
+
+
+WASHINGTON, SUNDAY, MARCH 3, 1861
+
+[During the struggle over the appointments of LINCOLN's Cabinet, the
+President-elect spoke as follows:]
+
+Gentlemen, it is evident that some one must take the responsibility of
+these appointments, and I will do it. My Cabinet is completed. The
+positions are not definitely assigned, and will not be until I announce
+them privately to the gentlemen whom I have selected as my Constitutional
+advisers.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS,
+
+MARCH 4, 1861
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES:--In compliance with a custom as old
+as the Government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly, and
+to take in your presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the
+United States to be taken by the President "before he enters on the
+execution of his office."
+
+I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those matters
+of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement.
+
+Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that
+by the accession of a Republican administration their property and their
+peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been
+any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample
+evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their
+inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who
+now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I
+declare that
+
+"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the
+institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no
+lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
+
+Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had
+made this and many similar declarations, and had never recanted them.
+And, more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and
+as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which
+I now read:
+
+"Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States,
+and especially the right of each State to order and control its own
+domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is
+essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance
+of our political fabric depend, and we denounce the lawless invasion by
+armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what
+pretext, as amongst the gravest of crimes."
+
+I now reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing so, I only press upon the
+public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is
+susceptible, that the property, peace, and security of no section are to
+be in any wise endangered by the now incoming administration. I add, too,
+that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the
+laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to all the States when
+lawfully demanded, for whatever cause--as cheerfully to one section as to
+another.
+
+There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from
+service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the
+Constitution as any other of its provisions:
+
+"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof,
+escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation
+therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered
+up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
+
+It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who
+made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the
+intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear their
+support to the whole Constitution--to this provision as much as to any
+other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the
+terms of this clause "shall be delivered up," their oaths are unanimous.
+Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not with
+nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep
+good that unanimous oath?
+
+There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be
+enforced by national or by State authority; but surely that difference is
+not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of
+but little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done.
+And should any one in any case be content that his oath shall go unkept
+on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?
+
+Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of
+liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so
+that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And might it
+not be well at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement of
+that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that "the citizens of
+each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens
+in the several States"?
+
+I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations, and with no
+purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules.
+And, while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as
+proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all,
+both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all
+those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting
+to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional.
+
+It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under
+our national Constitution. During that period fifteen different and
+greatly distinguished citizens have, in succession, administered the
+executive branch of the Government. They have conducted it through many
+perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope of
+precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief constitutional
+term of four years under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of
+the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted.
+
+I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution,
+the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not
+expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe
+to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic
+law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express
+provisions of our national Constitution, and the Union will endure
+forever--it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not
+provided for in the instrument itself.
+
+Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an
+association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it as a
+contract be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it?
+One party to a contract may violate it--break it, so to speak; but does
+it not require all to lawfully rescind it?
+
+Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in
+legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of
+the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was
+formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured
+and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further
+matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted
+and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation
+in 1778. And, finally, in 1787 one of the declared objects for ordaining
+and establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union."
+
+But if the destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the
+States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the
+Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.
+
+It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can
+lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that
+effect are legally void; and that acts of violence, within any State or
+States, against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary
+or revolutionary, according to circumstances.
+
+I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution and the laws, the
+Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as
+the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the
+Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be
+only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it so far as
+practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall
+withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner direct the
+contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the
+declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and
+maintain itself.
+
+In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall
+be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power
+confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and
+places belonging to the Government, and to collect the duties and
+imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will
+be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere.
+Where hostility to the United States, in any interior locality, shall be
+so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from
+holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious
+strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right
+may exist in the government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the
+attempt to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly impracticable
+withal, that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such
+offices.
+
+The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all parts of
+the Union. So far as possible, the people everywhere shall have that
+sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought and
+reflection. The course here indicated will be followed unless current
+events and experience shall show a modification or change to be proper,
+and in every case and exigency my best discretion will be exercised
+according to circumstances actually existing, and with a view and a hope
+of a peaceful solution of the national troubles and the restoration of
+fraternal sympathies and affections.
+
+That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy the
+Union at all events, and are glad of any pretext to do it, I will neither
+affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no word to them. To
+those, however, who really love the Union may I not speak?
+
+Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national
+fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would it not
+be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate
+a step while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you
+fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly
+to are greater than all the real ones you fly from--will you risk the
+commission of so fearful a mistake?
+
+All profess to be content in the Union if all constitutional rights can
+be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right, plainly written in the
+Constitution, has been denied? I think not. Happily the human mind is so
+constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think,
+if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision of
+the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers a
+majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional
+right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution--certainly
+would if such a right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the
+vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to
+them by affirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in the
+Constitution, that controversies never arise concerning them. But no
+organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable
+to every question which may occur in practical administration. No
+foresight can anticipate, nor any document of reasonable length contain,
+express provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor
+be surrendered by national or by State authority? The Constitution does
+not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The
+Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the
+Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say.
+
+From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies,
+and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If the minority
+will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must cease.
+There is no other alternative; for continuing the Government is
+acquiescence on one side or the other.
+
+If a minority in such case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a
+precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them; for a minority of
+their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be
+controlled by such minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a
+new confederacy a year or two hence arbitrarily secede again, precisely
+as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who
+cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper of
+doing this.
+
+Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to compose a
+new Union as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed secession?
+
+Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A
+majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and
+always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and
+sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects
+it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is
+impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly
+inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or
+despotism in some form is all that is left.
+
+I do not forget the position assumed by some, that constitutional
+questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny that such
+decisions must be binding, in any case, upon the parties to a suit, as to
+the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high
+respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments
+of the government. And, while it is obviously possible that such decision
+may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it,
+being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be
+overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be
+borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the
+candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government, upon
+vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by
+decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary
+litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have
+ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned
+the government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in
+this view any assault upon the court or the judges.  It is a duty from
+which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them,
+and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to
+political purposes.
+
+One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be
+extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be
+extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive slave clause
+of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave
+trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a
+community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the
+law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal
+obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think,
+cannot be perfectly cured; and it would be worse in both cases after the
+separation of the sections than before. The foreign slave trade, now
+imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived, without restriction,
+in one section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered,
+would not be surrendered at all by the other.
+
+Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective
+sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A
+husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond
+the reach of each other; but the different parts of our country cannot do
+this. They cannot but remain face to face, and intercourse, either
+amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to
+make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after
+separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can
+make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than
+laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always;
+and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease
+fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are
+again upon you.
+
+This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit
+it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can
+exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their
+revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant of
+the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having
+the national Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of
+amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people over
+the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in
+the instrument itself, and I should, under existing circumstances, favor
+rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act
+upon it. I will venture to add that to me the convention mode seems
+preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people
+themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject
+propositions originated by others not especially chosen for the purpose,
+and which might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept
+or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution which
+amendment, however, I have not seen--has passed Congress, to the effect
+that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic
+institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To
+avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not
+to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a
+provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to
+its being made express and irrevocable.
+
+The chief magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they
+have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the
+States. The people themselves can do this also if they choose; but the
+executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer
+the present government, as it came to his hands, and to transmit it,
+unimpaired by him, to his successors.
+
+Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of
+the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our
+present differences is either party without faith of being in the right?
+If the Almighty Ruler of nations, with his eternal truth and justice, be
+on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that
+justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the
+American people.
+
+By the frame of the government under which we live, this same people have
+wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief; and
+have, with equal wisdom, provided for the return of that little to their
+own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue
+and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly,
+can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four
+years.
+
+My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole
+subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an
+object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never
+take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no
+good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied
+still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point,
+the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration will
+have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were
+admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the
+dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate action.
+Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who
+has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust
+in the best way all our present difficulty.
+
+In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the
+momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can
+have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no
+oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have
+the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend" it.
+
+I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be
+enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds
+of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every
+battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all
+over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again
+touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
+
+
+
+
+REFUSAL OF SEWARD RESIGNATION
+
+TO WM. H. SEWARD.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, March 4, 1861.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your note of the 2d instant, asking to withdraw your
+acceptance of my invitation to take charge of the State Department, was
+duly received. It is the subject of the most painful solicitude with me,
+and I feel constrained to beg that you will countermand the withdrawal.
+The public interest, I think, demands that you should; and my personal
+feelings are deeply enlisted in the same direction. Please consider and
+answer by 9 A.M. to-morrow.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE PENNSYLVANIA DELEGATION,
+
+WASHINGTON, MARCH 5, 1861
+
+Mr. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE PENNSYLVANIAN DELEGATION:--As I have so
+frequently said heretofore, when I have had occasion to address the
+people of the Keystone, in my visits to that State, I can now but repeat
+the assurance of my gratification at the support you gave me at the
+election, and at the promise of a continuation of that support which is
+now tendered to me.
+
+Allusion has been made to the hope that you entertain that you have a
+President and a government. In respect to that I wish to say to you that
+in the position I have assumed I wish to do more than I have ever given
+reason to believe I would do. I do not wish you to believe that I assume
+to be any better than others who have gone before me. I prefer rather to
+have it understood that if we ever have a government on the principles we
+profess, we should remember, while we exercise our opinion, that others
+have also rights to the exercise of their opinions, and that we should
+endeavor to allow these rights, and act in such a manner as to create no
+bad feeling. I hope we have a government and a President. I hope, and
+wish it to be understood, that there may be no allusion to unpleasant
+differences.
+
+We must remember that the people of all the States are entitled to all
+the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the several States. We
+should bear this in mind, and act in such a way as to say nothing
+insulting or irritating. I would inculcate this idea, so that we may not,
+like Pharisees, set ourselves up to be better than other people.
+
+Now, my friends, my public duties are pressing to-day, and will prevent
+my giving more time to you. Indeed, I should not have left them now, but
+I could not well deny myself to so large and respectable a body.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MASSACHUSETTS DELEGATION,
+
+WASHINGTON, MARCH 5, 1861
+
+I am thankful for this renewed assurance of kind feeling and confidence,
+and the support of the old Bay State, in so far as you, Mr. Chairman,
+have expressed, in behalf of those whom you represent, your sanction of
+what I have enunciated in my inaugural address. This is very grateful to
+my feelings. The object was one of great delicacy, in presenting views at
+the opening of an administration under the peculiar circumstances
+attending my entrance upon the official duties connected with the
+Government. I studied all the points with great anxiety, and presented
+them with whatever of ability and sense of justice I could bring to bear.
+If it met the approbation of our good friends in Massachusetts, I shall
+be exceedingly gratified, while I hope it will meet the approbation of
+friends everywhere. I am thankful for the expressions of those who have
+voted with us; and like every other man of you, I like them as certainly
+as I do others. As the President in the administration of the Government,
+I hope to be man enough not to know one citizen of the United States from
+another, nor one section from another. I shall be gratified to have good
+friends of Massachusetts and others who have thus far supported me in
+these national views still to support me in carrying them out.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY SEWARD
+
+EXECUTIVE CHAMBER, MARCH 7, 1861
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Herewith is the diplomatic address and my reply. To whom
+the reply should be addressed--that is, by what title or style--I do not
+quite understand, and therefore I have left it blank.
+
+Will you please bring with you to-day the message from the War
+Department, with General Scott's note upon it, which we had here
+yesterday? I wish to examine the General's opinion, which I have not yet
+done.
+
+Yours very truly
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS
+
+WASHINGTON, THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 1861
+
+Mr. FIGANIERE AND GENTLEMEN OF THE DIPLOMATIC BODY:--Please accept my
+sincere thanks for your kind congratulations. It affords me pleasure to
+confirm the confidence you so generously express in the friendly
+disposition of the United States, through me, towards the sovereigns and
+governments you respectively represent. With equal satisfaction I accept
+the assurance you are pleased to give, that the same disposition is
+reciprocated by your sovereigns, your governments, and yourselves.
+
+Allow me to express the hope that these friendly relations may remain
+undisturbed, and also my fervent wishes for the health and happiness of
+yourselves personally.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY SEWARD
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, MARCH 11,1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF STATE. DEAR SIR:--What think you of sending ministers
+at once as follows: Dayton to England; Fremont to France; Clay to Spain;
+Corwin to Mexico?
+
+We need to have these points guarded as strongly and quickly as possible.
+This is suggestion merely, and not dictation.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO J. COLLAMER
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, MARCH 12, 1861
+
+HON. JACOB COLLAMER. MY DEAR SIR:--God help me. It is said I have
+offended you. I hope you will tell me how.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+March 14, 1861. DEAR SIR:--I am entirely unconscious that you have any
+way offended me. I cherish no sentiment towards you but that of kindness
+and confidence. Your humble servant, J. COLLAMER.
+
+ [Returned with indorsement:]
+
+Very glad to know that I have n't.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, MARCH 13, 1861
+
+HON. P. M. G.
+
+DEAR SIR:--The bearer of this, Mr. C. T. Hempstow, is a Virginian who
+wishes to get, for his son, a small place in your Dept. I think Virginia
+should be heard, in such cases.
+
+LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE ASKING CABINET OPINIONS ON FORT SUMTER.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, MARCH 15, 1861
+
+THE HONORABLE SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Assuming it to be possible to now provision Fort Sumter,
+under all the circumstances is it wise to attempt it? Please give me your
+opinion in writing on this question.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+[Same to other members of the Cabinet.]
+
+
+
+
+ON ROYAL ARBITRATION OF AMERICAN BOUNDARY LINE
+
+TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
+
+The Senate has transmitted to me a copy of the message sent by my
+predecessor to that body on the 21st of February last, proposing to take
+its advice on the subject of a proposition made by the British Government
+through its minister here to refer the matter in controversy between that
+government and the Government of the United States to the arbitrament of
+the King of Sweden and Norway, the King of the Netherlands, or the
+Republic of the Swiss Confederation.
+
+In that message my predecessor stated that he wished to present to the
+Senate the precise questions following, namely:
+
+"Will the Senate approve a treaty referring to either of the sovereign
+powers above named the dispute now existing between the governments of
+the United States and Great Britain concerning the boundary line between
+Vancouver's Island and the American continent? In case the referee shall
+find himself unable to decide where the line is by the description of it
+in the treaty of June 15, 1846, shall he be authorized to establish a
+line according to the treaty as nearly as possible? Which of the three
+powers named by Great Britain as an arbiter shall be chosen by the United
+States?"
+
+I find no reason to disapprove of the course of my predecessor in this
+important matter; but, on the contrary, I not only shall receive the
+advice of the Senate thereon cheerfully, but I respectfully ask the
+Senate for their advice on the three questions before recited.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+WASHINGTON, March 16, 1861
+
+
+
+
+AMBASSADORIAL APPOINTMENTS
+
+TO SECRETARY SEWARD.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, MARCH 18, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF STATE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I believe it is a necessity with us to make the
+appointments I mentioned last night--that is, Charles F. Adams to
+England, William L. Dayton to France, George P. Marsh to Sardinia, and
+Anson Burlingame to Austria. These gentlemen all have my highest esteem,
+but no one of them is originally suggested by me except Mr. Dayton. Mr.
+Adams I take because you suggested him, coupled with his eminent fitness
+for the place. Mr. Marsh and Mr. Burlingame I take because of the intense
+pressure of their respective States, and their fitness also.
+
+The objection to this card is that locally they are so huddled up--three
+being in New England and two from a single State. I have considered this,
+and will not shrink from the responsibility. This, being done, leaves but
+five full missions undisposed of--Rome, China, Brazil, Peru, and Chili.
+And then what about Carl Schurz; or, in other words, what about our
+German friends?
+
+Shall we put the card through, and arrange the rest afterward? What say
+you?
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO G. E. PATTEN.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, March 19, 1861.
+
+TO MASTER GEO. EVANS PATTEN.
+
+WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:--I did see and talk with Master Geo. Evans Patten
+last May at Springfield, Ill.
+
+Respectfully,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+[Written because of a denial that any interview with young Patten, then a
+schoolboy, had ever taken place.]
+
+
+
+
+RESPONSE TO SENATE INQUIRY RE. FORT SUMTER
+
+MESSAGE TO THE SENATE.
+
+TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:--I have received a copy of the
+resolution of the Senate, passed on the 25th instant, requesting me, if
+in my opinion not incompatible with the public interest, to communicate
+to the Senate the despatches of Major Robert Anderson to the War
+Department during the time he has been in command of Fort Sumter. On
+examination of the correspondence thus called for, I have, with the
+highest respect for the Senate, come to the conclusion that at the
+present moment the publication of it would be inexpedient.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+WASHINGTON, MARCH 16, 1861
+
+
+
+
+PREPARATION OF FIRST NAVAL ACTION
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, MARCH 29, 1861
+
+HONORABLE SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+SIR:--I desire that an expedition to move by sea be got ready to sail as
+early as the 6th of April next, the whole according to memorandum
+attached, and that you cooperate with the Secretary of the Navy for that
+object.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+[Inclosure.]
+
+Steamers Pocahontas at Norfolk, Paunee at Washington, Harriet Lane at New
+York, to be under sailing orders for sea, with stores, etc., for one
+month. Three hundred men to be kept ready for departure from on board the
+receiving-ships at New York. Two hundred men to be ready to leave
+Governor's Island in New York. Supplies for twelve months for one hundred
+men to be put in portable shape, ready for instant shipping. A large
+steamer and three tugs conditionally engaged.
+
+
+
+
+TO ______ STUART.
+
+WASHINGTON, March 30, 1861
+
+DEAR STUART:
+
+Cousin Lizzie shows me your letter of the 27th. The question of giving
+her the Springfield post-office troubles me. You see I have already
+appointed William Jayne a Territorial governor and Judge Trumbull's
+brother to a land-office. Will it do for me to go on and justify the
+declaration that Trumbull and I have divided out all the offices among
+our relatives? Dr. Wallace, you know, is needy, and looks to me; and I
+personally owe him much.
+
+I see by the papers, a vote is to be taken as to the post-office. Could
+you not set up Lizzie and beat them all? She, being here, need know
+nothing of it, so therefore there would be no indelicacy on her part.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+
+
+
+TO THE COMMANDANT OF THE NEW YORK NAVY-YARD.
+
+NAVY DEPT., WASHINGTON, April 1, 1861
+
+TO THE COMMANDANT OF THE NAVY-YARD, Brooklyn, N. Y.
+
+Fit out the Powhatan to go to sea at the earnest possible moment under
+sealed orders. Orders by a confidential messenger go forward to-morrow.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO LIEUTENANT D. D. PORTER
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, April 1, 1861
+
+LIEUTENANT D. D. PORTER, United States Navy.
+
+SIR:--You will proceed to New York, and with the least possible delay,
+assuming command of any naval steamer available, proceed to Pensacola
+Harbor, and at any cost or risk prevent any expedition from the mainland
+reaching Fort Pickens or Santa Rosa Island.
+
+You will exhibit this order to any naval officer at Pensacola, if you
+deem it necessary, after you have established yourself within the harbor,
+and will request co-operation by the entrance of at least one other
+steamer.
+
+This order, its object, and your destination will be communicated to no
+person whatever until you reach the harbor of Pensacola.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+Recommended, WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
+
+
+
+
+RELIEF EXPEDITION FOR FORT SUMTER
+
+ORDER TO OFFICERS OF THE ARMY AND NAVY.
+
+WASHINGTON, EXECUTIVE MANSION, April 1, 1861.
+
+All officers of the army and navy to whom this order may be exhibited
+will aid by every means in their power the expedition under the command
+of Colonel Harvey Brown, supplying him with men and material, and
+co-operating with him as he may desire.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER TO CAPTAIN SAMUEL MERCER.
+
+(Confidential.)
+
+WASHINGTON CITY, April 1, 1861
+
+SIR:--Circumstances render it necessary to place in command of your ship
+(and for a special purpose) an officer who is fully informed and
+instructed in relation to the wishes of the Government, and you will
+therefore consider yourself detached. But in taking this step the
+Government does not in the least reflect upon your efficiency or
+patriotism; on the contrary, have the fullest confidence in your ability
+to perform any duty required of you. Hoping soon to be able to give you a
+better command than the one you now enjoy, and trusting that you will
+have full confidence in the disposition of the Government toward you, I
+remain, etc.,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SECRETARY SEWARD'S BID FOR POWER
+
+MEMORANDUM FROM SECRETARY SEWARD, APRIL 1, 1861
+
+Some thoughts for the President's Consideration,
+
+First. We are at the end of a month's administration, and yet without a
+policy either domestic or foreign.
+
+Second. This, however, is not culpable, and it has even been unavoidable.
+The presence of the Senate, with the need to meet applications for
+patronage, have prevented attention to other and more grave matters.
+
+Third. But further delay to adopt and prosecute our policies for both
+domestic and foreign affairs would not only bring scandal on the
+administration, but danger upon the country.
+
+Fourth. To do this we must dismiss the applicants for office. But how? I
+suggest that we make the local appointments forthwith, leaving foreign or
+general ones for ulterior and occasional action.
+
+Fifth. The policy at home. I am aware that my views are singular, and
+perhaps not sufficiently explained. My system is built upon this idea as
+a ruling one, namely, that we must CHANGE THE QUESTION BEFORE THE PUBLIC
+FROM ONE UPON SLAVERY, OR ABOUT SLAVERY, for a question upon UNION OR
+DISUNION: In other words, from what would be regarded as a party
+question, to one of patriotism or union.
+
+The occupation or evacuation of Fort Sumter, although not in fact a
+slavery or a party question, is so regarded. Witness the temper
+manifested by the Republicans in the free States, and even by the Union
+men in the South.
+
+I would therefore terminate it as a safe means for changing the issue. I
+deem it fortunate that the last administration created the necessity.
+
+For the rest, I would simultaneously defend and reinforce all the ports
+in the gulf, and have the navy recalled from foreign stations to be
+prepared for a blockade. Put the island of Key West under martial law.
+
+This will raise distinctly the question of union or disunion. I would
+maintain every fort and possession in the South.
+
+
+FOR FOREIGN NATIONS,
+
+I would demand explanations from Spain and France, categorically, at
+once.
+
+I would seek explanations from Great Britain and Russia, and send agents
+into Canada, Mexico, and Central America to rouse a vigorous continental
+spirit of independence on this continent against European intervention.
+
+And, if satisfactory explanations are not received from Spain and France,
+
+Would convene Congress and declare war against them.
+
+But whatever policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution of
+it.
+
+For this purpose it must be somebody's business to pursue and direct it
+incessantly.
+
+Either the President must do it himself, and be all the while active in
+it, or Devolve it on some member of his Cabinet. Once adopted, debates on
+it must end, and all agree and abide.
+
+It is not in my especial province; But I neither seek to evade nor assume
+responsibility.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO SECRETARY SEWARD'S MEMORANDUM
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, APRIL 1, 1861
+
+HON. W. H. SEWARD.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Since parting with you I have been considering your paper
+dated this day, and entitled "Some Thoughts for the President's
+Consideration." The first proposition in it is, "First, We are at the end
+of a month's administration, and yet without a policy either domestic or
+foreign."
+
+At the beginning of that month, in the inaugural, I said: "The power
+confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and
+places belonging to the Government, and to Collect the duties and
+imposts." This had your distinct approval at the time; and, taken in
+connection with the order I immediately gave General Scott, directing him
+to employ every means in his power to strengthen and hold the forts,
+comprises the exact domestic policy you now urge, with the single
+exception that it does not propose to abandon Fort Sumter.
+
+Again, I do not perceive how the reinforcement of Fort Sumter would be
+done on a slavery or a party issue, while that of Fort Pickens would be
+on a more national and patriotic one.
+
+The news received yesterday in regard to St. Domingo certainly brings a
+new item within the range of our foreign policy; but up to that time we
+have been preparing circulars and instructions to ministers and the like,
+all in perfect harmony, without even a suggestion that we had no foreign
+policy.
+
+Upon your Closing propositions--that,
+
+"Whatever policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution of it.
+
+"For this purpose it must be somebody's business to pursue and direct it
+incessantly.
+
+"Either the President must do it himself, and be all the while active in
+it, or,
+
+"Devolve it on some member of his Cabinet. Once adopted, debates on it
+must end, and all agree and abide"--
+
+I remark that if this must be done, I must do it. When a general line of
+policy is adopted, I apprehend there is no danger of its being changed
+without good reason, or continuing to be a subject of unnecessary debate;
+still, upon points arising in its progress I wish, and suppose I am
+entitled to have, the advice of all the Cabinet.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO A COMMITTEE FROM THE VIRGINIA CONVENTION, APRIL 13, 1861
+
+HON. WILLIAM BALLARD PRESTON, ALEXANDER H. H. STUART, GEORGE W. RANDOLPH,
+Esq.
+
+GENTLEMEN:--As a committee of the Virginia Convention now in Session, you
+present me a preamble and resolution in these words:
+
+"Whereas, in the opinion of this Convention, the uncertainty which
+prevails in the public mind as to the policy which the Federal Executive
+intends to pursue toward the seceded States is extremely injurious to the
+industrial and commercial interests of the country, tends to keep up an
+excitement which is unfavorable to the adjustment of pending
+difficulties, and threatens a disturbance of the public peace: therefore
+
+"Resolved, that a committee of three delegates be appointed by this
+Convention to wait upon the President of the United States, present to
+him this preamble and resolution, and respectfully ask him to communicate
+to this Convention the policy which the Federal Executive intends to
+pursue in regard to the Confederate States.
+
+"Adopted by the Convention of the State of Virginia, Richmond, April 8,
+1861."
+
+In answer I have to say that, having at the beginning of my official term
+expressed my intended policy as plainly as I was able, it is with deep
+regret and some mortification I now learn that there is great and
+injurious uncertainty in the public mind as to what that policy is, and
+what course I intend to pursue. Not having as yet seen occasion to
+change, it is now my purpose to pursue the course marked out in the
+inaugural address.  I commend a careful consideration of the whole
+document as the best expression I can give of my purposes.
+
+As I then and therein said, I now repeat: "The power confided to me will
+be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to
+the Government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what is
+necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force
+against or among the people anywhere." By the words "property and places
+belonging to the Government," I chiefly allude to the military posts and
+property which were in the possession of the Government when it came to
+my hands.
+
+But if, as now appears to be true, in pursuit of a purpose to drive the
+United States authority from these places, an unprovoked assault has been
+made upon Fort Sumter, I shall hold myself at liberty to repossess, if I
+can, like places which had been seized before the Government was devolved
+upon me. And in every event I shall, to the extent of my ability, repel
+force by force. In case it proves true that Fort Sumter has been
+assaulted, as is reported, I shall perhaps cause the United States mails
+to be withdrawn from all the States which claim to have seceded,
+believing that the commencement of actual war against the Government
+justifies and possibly demands this.
+
+I scarcely need to say that I consider the military posts and property
+situated within the States which claim to have seceded as yet belonging
+to the Government of the United States as much as they did before the
+supposed secession.
+
+Whatever else I may do for the purpose, I shall not attempt to collect
+the duties and imposts by any armed invasion of any part of the country;
+not meaning by this, however, that I may not land a force deemed
+necessary to relieve a fort upon a border of the country.
+
+From the fact that I have quoted a part of the inaugural address, it must
+not be inferred that I repudiate any other part, the whole of which I
+reaffirm, except so far as what I now say of the mails may be regarded as
+a modification.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION CALLING FOR 75,000 MILITIA, AND CONVENING CONGRESS IN
+EXTRA SESSION, APRIL 15, 1861.
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas the laws of the United States have been for some time past and
+now are opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, in the States of
+South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and
+Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary
+course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals
+bylaw:
+
+Now, therefore, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, in
+virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and the laws, have
+thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth, the militia of the
+several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of seventy-five
+thousand, in order to suppress said combinations, and to cause the laws
+to be duly executed.
+
+The details for this object will be immediately communicated to the State
+authorities through the War Department.
+
+I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort
+to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National
+Union, and the perpetuity of popular government; and to redress wrongs
+already long enough endured.
+
+I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces
+hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and
+property which have been seized from the Union; and in every event the
+utmost care will be observed, consistently with the objects aforesaid, to
+avoid any devastation, any destruction of or interference with property,
+or any disturbance of peaceful citizens in any part of the country.
+
+And I hereby command the persons composing the combinations aforesaid to
+disperse and retire peacefully to their respective abodes within twenty
+days from date.
+
+Deeming that the present condition of public affairs presents an
+extraordinary occasion, I do hereby, in virtue of the power in me vested
+by the Constitution, convene both Houses of Congress. Senators and
+Representatives are therefore summoned to assemble at their respective
+chambers, at twelve o'clock noon, on Thursday, the fourth day of July
+next, then and there to consider and determine such measures as, in their
+wisdom, the public safety and interest may seem to demand.
+
+In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of
+the United States to be affixed.
+
+Done at the city of Washington, this fifteenth day of April, in the year
+of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of the
+independence of the United States the eighty-fifth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+By the President:
+ WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION OF BLOCKADE, APRIL 19, 1861
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF
+AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas an insurrection against the Government of the United States has
+broken out in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida,
+Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and the laws of the United States for
+the collection of the revenue cannot be effectually executed therein
+conformably to that provision of the Constitution which requires duties
+to be uniform throughout the United States:
+
+And Whereas a combination of persons engaged in such insurrection have
+threatened to grant pretended letters of marque to authorize the bearers
+thereof to commit assaults on the lives, vessels, and property of good
+citizens of the country lawfully engaged in commerce on the high seas,
+and in waters of the United States:
+
+And Whereas an executive proclamation has been already issued requiring
+the persons engaged in these disorderly proceedings to desist therefrom,
+calling out a militia force for the purpose of repressing the same, and
+convening Congress in extraordinary session to deliberate and determine
+thereon:
+
+Now, therefore, I, Abraham LINCOLN, President of the United States, with
+a view to the same purposes before mentioned, and to the protection of
+the public peace, and the lives and property of quiet and orderly
+citizens pursuing their lawful occupations, until Congress shall have
+assembled and deliberated on the said unlawful proceedings, or until the
+same shall have ceased, have further deemed it advisable to set on foot a
+blockade of the ports within the States aforesaid, in pursuance of the
+laws of the United States, and of the law of nations in such case
+provided. For this purpose a competent force will be posted so as to
+prevent entrance and exit of vessels from the ports aforesaid. If,
+therefore, with a view to violate such blockade, a vessel shall approach
+or shall attempt to leave either of the said ports, she will be duly
+warned by the commander of one of the blockading vessels, who will
+indorse on her register the fact and date of such warning, and if the
+same vessel shall again attempt to enter or leave the blockaded port, she
+will be captured and sent to the nearest convenient port, for such
+proceedings against her and her cargo, as prize, as may be deemed
+advisable.
+
+And I hereby proclaim and declare that if any person, under the pretended
+authority of the said States, or under any other pretense, shall molest a
+vessel of the United States, or the persons or cargo on board of her,
+such person will be held amenable to the laws of the United States for
+the prevention and punishment of piracy.
+
+In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
+the United States to be affixed.
+
+Done at the city of Washington, this nineteenth day of April, in the year
+of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of the
+independence of the United States the eighty-fifth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+ WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+TO GOVERNOR HICKS AND MAYOR BROWN.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 20, 1861
+GOVERNOR HICKS AND MAYOR BROWN.
+
+GENTLEMEN:--Your letter by Messrs. Bond, Dobbin, and Brune is received. I
+tender you both my sincere thanks for your efforts to keep the peace in
+the trying situation in which you are placed.
+
+For the future troops must be brought here, but I make no point of
+bringing them through Baltimore. Without any military knowledge myself,
+of course I must leave details to General Scott. He hastily said this
+morning in the presence of these gentlemen, "March them around Baltimore,
+and not through it." I sincerely hope the General, on fuller reflection,
+will consider this practical and proper, and that you will not object to
+it. By this a collision of the people of Baltimore with the troops will
+be avoided, unless they go out of their way to seek it. I hope you will
+exert your influence to prevent this.
+
+Now and ever I shall do all in my power for peace consistently with the
+maintenance of the Government.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GOVERNOR HICKS.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 20, 1861
+GOVERNOR HICKS:
+
+I desire to consult with you and the Mayor of Baltimore relative to
+preserving the peace of Maryland. Please come immediately by special
+train, which you can take at Baltimore; or, if necessary, one can be sent
+from here. Answer forthwith.
+
+LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER TO DEFEND FROM A MARYLAND INSURRECTION
+
+ORDER TO GENERAL SCOTT. WASHINGTON, April 25, 1861
+
+LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SCOTT.
+
+MY DEAR SIR--The Maryland Legislature assembles to-morrow at Annapolis,
+and not improbably will take action to arm the people of that State
+against the United States. The question has been submitted to and
+considered by me whether it would not be justifiable, upon the ground of
+necessary defense, for you, as General in Chief of the United States
+Army, to arrest or disperse the members of that body. I think it would
+not be justifiable nor efficient for the desired object.
+
+First. They have a clearly legal right to assemble, and we cannot know in
+advance that their action will not be lawful and peaceful, and if we wait
+until they shall have acted their arrest or dispersion will not lessen
+the effect of their action.
+
+Secondly. We cannot permanently prevent their action.  If we arrest them,
+we cannot long hold them as prisoners, and when liberated they will
+immediately reassemble and take their action; and precisely the same if
+we simply disperse them--they will immediately reassemble in some other
+place.
+
+I therefore conclude that it is only left to the Commanding General to
+watch and await their action, which, if it shall be to arm their people
+against the United States, he is to adopt the most prompt and efficient
+means to counteract, even, if necessary, to the bombardment of their
+cities and, in the extremist necessity, the suspension of the writ of
+habeas corpus.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION OF BLOCKADE, APRIL 27, 1861
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas, for the reasons assigned in my proclamation of the nineteenth
+instant, a blockade of the ports of the States of South Carolina,
+Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas was ordered
+to be established:
+
+And whereas, since that date, public property of the United States has
+been seized, the collection of the revenue obstructed, and duly
+commissioned officers of the United States, while engaged in executing
+the orders of their superiors, have been arrested and held in custody as
+prisoners, or have been impeded in the discharge of their official
+duties, without due legal process, by persons claiming to act under
+authorities of the States of Virginia and North Carolina:
+
+An efficient blockade of the ports of those States will also be
+established.
+
+In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the
+United States to be affixed.
+
+Done at the city of Washington, this twenty seventh day of April, in the
+year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of the
+independence of the United States the eighty-fifth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REMARKS TO A MILITARY COMPANY, WASHINGTON,
+APRIL 27, 1861
+
+I have desired as sincerely as any man, and I sometimes think more than
+any other man, that our present difficulties might be settled without the
+shedding of blood. I will not say that all hope has yet gone; but if the
+alternative is presented whether the Union is to be broken in fragments
+and the liberties of the people lost, or blood be shed, you will probably
+make the choice with which I shall not be dissatisfied.
+
+
+
+
+LOCALIZED REPEAL OF WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS
+
+TO GENERAL SCOTT.
+
+TO THE COMMANDING GENERAL, ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES.
+
+You are engaged in suppressing an insurrection against the laws of the
+United States. If at any point on or in the vicinity of any military line
+which is now or which shall be used between the City of Philadelphia and
+the city of Washington you find resistance which renders it necessary to
+suspend the writ of habeas corpus for the public safety, you personally,
+or through the officer in command at the point at which resistance
+occurs, are authorized to suspend that writ.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 17, 1861
+
+
+
+
+MILITARY ENROLLMENT OF ST. LOUIS CITIZENS
+
+FROM THE SECRETARY OF WAR WAR DEPARTMENT, April 30, 1861
+
+TO CAPTAIN NATHANIEL LYON.
+
+CAPT. NATHANIEL LYON, Commanding Department of the West.
+
+SIR:--The President of the United States directs that you enroll in the
+military service of the United States the loyal citizens of Saint Louis
+and vicinity, not exceeding, with those heretofore enlisted, ten thousand
+in number, for the purpose of maintaining the authority of the United
+States; for the protection of the peaceful inhabitants of Missouri; and
+you will, if deemed necessary for that purpose by yourself, by Messrs.
+Oliver F. Ferny, John How, James O. Broadhead, Samuel T. Glover, J.
+Wilzie, Francis P. Blair, Jr., proclaim martial law in the city of Saint
+Louis.
+
+The additional force hereby authorized shall be discharged in part or in
+whole, if enlisted. As soon as it appears to you and the gentlemen above
+mentioned that there is no danger of an attempt on the part of the
+enemies of the Government to take military possession of the city of
+Saint Louis, or put the city in control of the combination against the
+Government of the United States; and whilst such additional force remains
+in the service the same shall be governed by the Rules and Articles of
+War, and such special regulations as you may prescribe. I shall like the
+force hereafter directed to be enrolled to be under your command.
+
+The arms and other military stores in the Saint Louis Arsenal not needed
+for the forces of the United States in Missouri must be removed to
+Springfield, or some other safe place of deposit in the State of
+Illinois, as speedily as practicable, by the ordnance officers in charge
+at Saint Louis.
+
+(Indorsement.)
+
+It is revolutionary times, and therefore I do not object to the
+irregularity of this. W. S.
+
+Approved, April 30, 1861.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+Colonel Thomas will make this order.
+SIMON CAMERON, Secretary of War.
+
+
+
+
+CONDOLENCE OVER FAILURE OF FT. SUMTER RELIEF
+
+TO GUSTAVUS V. FOX.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., May 1, 1861
+
+CAPTAIN G. V. Fox.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I sincerely regret that the failure of the late attempt to
+provision Fort Sumter should be the source of any annoyance to you.
+
+The practicability of your plan was not, in fact, brought to a test. By
+reason of a gale, well known in advance to be possible and not
+improbable, the tugs, an essential part of the plan, never reached the
+ground; while, by an accident for which you were in no wise responsible,
+and possibly I to some extent was, you were deprived of a war vessel,
+with her men, which you deemed of great importance to the enterprise.
+
+I most cheerfully and truly declare that the failure of the undertaking
+has not lowered you a particle, while the qualities you developed in the
+effort have greatly heightened you in my estimation.
+
+For a daring and dangerous enterprise of a similar character you would
+to-day be the man of all my acquaintances whom I would select. You and I
+both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by
+making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even if it should fail; and
+it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified
+by the result.
+
+Very truly your friend,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION CALLING FOR 42,034 VOLUNTEERS,
+
+MAY 3, 1861
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
+
+A Proclamation..
+
+Whereas existing exigencies demand immediate and adequate measures for
+the protection of the National Constitution and the preservation of the
+National Union by the suppression of the insurrectionary combinations now
+existing in several States for opposing the laws of the Union and
+obstructing the execution thereof, to which end a military force in
+addition to that called forth by my proclamation of the 15th day of April
+in the present year appears to be indispensably necessary:
+
+Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States and
+Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy thereof and of the militia of the
+several States when called into actual service, do hereby call into the
+service of the United States 42,034 volunteers to serve for the period of
+three years, unless sooner discharged, and to be mustered into service as
+infantry and cavalry. The proportions of each arm and the details of
+enrollment and organization will be made known through the Department of
+War.
+
+And I also direct that the Regular Army of the United States be increased
+by the addition of eight regiments of infantry, one regiment of cavalry,
+and one regiment of artillery, making altogether a maximum aggregate
+increase of 22,714 officers and enlisted men, the details of which
+increase will also be made known through the Department of War.
+
+And I further direct the enlistment for not less than one or more than
+three years of 18,000 seamen, in addition to the present force, for the
+naval service of the United States. The details of the enlistment and
+organization will be made known through the Department of the Navy.
+
+The call for volunteers hereby made and the direction for the increase of
+the Regular Army and for the enlistment of seamen hereby given, together
+with the plan of organization adopted for the volunteer and for the
+regular forces hereby authorized, will be submitted to Congress as soon
+as assembled.
+
+In the meantime I earnestly invoke the co-operation of all good citizens
+in the measures hereby adopted for the effectual suppression of unlawful
+violence, for the impartial enforcement of constitutional laws, and for
+the speediest possible restoration of peace and order, and with these of
+happiness and prosperity, throughout our country.
+
+In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my band and caused the seal of
+the United States to be affixed................
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+ WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+COMMUNICATION WITH VICE-PRESIDENT
+
+TO VICE-PRESIDENT HAMLIN.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., May 6, 1861
+
+HON. H. HAMLIN, New York.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:-Please advise me at the close of each day what troops left
+during the day, where going, and by what route; what remaining at New
+York, and what expected in the next day. Give the numbers, as near as
+convenient, and what corps they are. This information, reaching us daily,
+will be very useful as well as satisfactory.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER TO COLONEL ANDERSON,
+
+MAY 7, 1861
+
+TO ALL WHO SHALL SEE THESE PRESENTS, GREETING:
+
+Know ye that, reposing special trust and confidence in the patriotism,
+valor, fidelity, and ability of Colonel Robert Anderson, U. S. Army, I
+have empowered him, and do hereby empower him, to receive into the army
+of the United States as many regiments of volunteer troops from the State
+of Kentucky and from the western part of the State of Virginia as shall
+be willing to engage in the Service of the United States for the term of
+three years, upon the terms and according to the plan proposed by the
+proclamation of May 3, 1861, and General Orders No.  15, from the War
+Department, of May 4, 1861.
+
+The troops whom he receives shall be on the same footing in every respect
+as those of the like kind called for in the proclamation above cited,
+except that the officers shall be commissioned by the United States. He
+is therefore carefully and diligently to discharge the duty hereby
+devolved upon him by doing and performing all manner of things thereunto
+belonging.
+
+Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, this 7th day of May, A.
+D. 1861, and in the eighty-fifth year of the independence of the United
+States.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+ SIMON CAMERON, Secretary of War,
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION SUSPENDING THE WRIT OF HABEAS
+CORPUS IN FLORIDA, MAY 10, 1861.
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas an insurrection exists in the State of Florida, by which the
+lives, liberty, and property of loyal citizens of the United States are
+endangered:
+
+And whereas it is deemed proper that all needful measures should be taken
+for the protection of such citizens and all officers of the United States
+in the discharge of their public duties in the State aforesaid:
+
+Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham LINCOLN, President of the
+United States, do hereby direct the commander of the forces of the United
+States on the Florida coast to permit no person to exercise any office or
+authority upon the islands of Key West, the Tortugas, and Santa Rosa,
+which may be inconsistent with the laws and Constitution of the United
+States, authorizing him at the same time, if he shall find it necessary,
+to suspend there the writ of habeas corpus, and to remove from the
+vicinity of the United States fortresses all dangerous or suspected
+persons.
+
+In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
+the United States to be affixed.....................
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+ WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY WELLES.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, May 11, 1861
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY.
+
+SIR:-Lieut. D. D. Porter was placed in command of the steamer Powhatan,
+and Captain Samuel Mercer was detached therefrom, by my special order,
+and neither of them is responsible for any apparent or real irregularity
+on their part or in connection with that vessel.
+
+Hereafter Captain Porter is relieved from that special service and placed
+under the direction of the Navy Department, from which he will receive
+instructions and to which he will report.
+
+Very respectfully,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S CORRECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIC DESPATCH WRITTEN BY
+THE SECRETARY OF STATE TO MINISTER ADAMS
+
+NO. 10.
+
+DEPARTMENT OF STATE. WASHINGTON, May 21, 1861
+
+SIR:---Mr. Dallas, in a brief despatch of May 2d (No. 333), tells us that
+Lord John Russell recently requested an interview with him on account of
+the solicitude which his lordship felt concerning the effect of certain
+measures represented as likely to be adopted by the President. In that
+conversation the British secretary told Mr. Dallas that the three
+representatives of the Southern Confederacy were then in London, that
+Lord John Russell had not yet seen them, but that he was not unwilling to
+see them unofficially. He further informed Mr. Dallas that an
+understanding exists between the British and French governments which
+would lead both to take one and the same course as to recognition. His
+lordship then referred to the rumor of a meditated blockade by us of
+Southern ports, and a discontinuance of them as ports of entry. Mr.
+Dallas answered that he knew nothing on those topics, and therefore
+
+   (The President's corrections, both in notes and text, are in
+   caps. All matter between brackets was to be marked out.)
+
+could say nothing. He added that you were expected to arrive in two
+weeks. Upon this statement Lord John Russell acquiesced in the expediency
+of waiting for the full knowledge you were expected to bring.
+
+Mr. Dallas transmitted to us some newspaper reports of ministerial
+explanations made in Parliament.
+
+You will base no proceedings on parliamentary debates further than to
+seek explanations when necessary and communicate them to this department.
+[We intend to have a clear and simple record of whatever issue may arise
+between us and Great Britain.]
+
+The President [is surprised and grieved] regrets that Mr. Dallas did not
+protest against the proposed unofficial intercourse between the British
+Government and the missionaries of the insurgents [as well as against the
+demand for explanations made by the British Government]. It is due,
+however, to Mr. Dallas to say that our instructions had been given only
+to you and not to him, and that his loyalty and fidelity, too rare in
+these times [among our late representatives abroad, are confessed and]
+are appreciated.
+
+Intercourse of any kind with the so-called commissioners is liable to be
+construed as a recognition of the authority which appointed them. Such
+intercourse would be none the less [wrongful] hurtful to us for being
+called unofficial, and it might be even more injurious, because we should
+have no means of knowing what points might be resolved by it. Moreover,
+unofficial intercourse is useless and meaningless if it is not expected
+to ripen into official intercourse and direct recognition. It is left
+doubtful here whether the proposed unofficial intercourse has yet
+actually begun. Your own [present] antecedent instructions are deemed
+explicit enough, and it is hoped that you have not misunderstood them.
+You will in any event desist from all intercourse whatever, unofficial as
+well as official, with the British Government, so long as it shall
+continue intercourse of either kind with the domestic enemies of this
+country [confining yourself to a delivery of a copy of this paper to the
+Secretary of State. After doing this.] When intercourse shall have been
+arrested for this cause, you will communicate with this department and
+receive further directions.
+
+Lord John Russell has informed us of an understanding between the British
+and French governments that they will act together in regard to our
+affairs. This communication, however, loses something of its value from
+the circumstance that the communication was withheld until after
+knowledge of the fact had been acquired by us from other sources. We know
+also another fact that has not yet been officially communicated to
+us--namely, that other European States are apprised by France and England
+of their agreement, and are expected to concur with or follow them in
+whatever measures they adopt on the subject of recognition. The United
+States have been impartial and just in all their conduct toward the
+several nations of Europe. They will not complain, however, of the
+combination now announced by the two leading powers, although they think
+they had a right to expect a more independent, if not a more friendly,
+course from each of them. You will take no notice of that or any other
+alliance. Whenever the European governments shall see fit to communicate
+directly with us, we shall be, as heretofore, frank and explicit in our
+reply.
+
+As to the blockade, you will say that by [the] our own laws [of nature]
+and the laws of nature and the laws of nations, this Government has a
+clear right to suppress insurrection. An exclusion of commerce from
+national ports which have been seized by the insurgents, in the equitable
+form of blockade, is the proper means to that end. You will [admit] not
+insist that our blockade is [not] to be respected if it be not maintained
+by a competent force; but passing by that question as not now a
+practical, or at least an urgent, one, you will add that [it] the
+blockade is now, and it will continue to be so maintained, and therefore
+we expect it to be respected by Great Britain. You will add that we have
+already revoked the exequatur of a Russian consul who had enlisted in the
+military service of the insurgents, and we shall dismiss or demand the
+recall of every foreign agent, consular or diplomatic, who shall either
+disobey the Federal laws or disown the Federal authority.
+
+As to the recognition of the so-called Southern Confederacy, it is not to
+be made a subject of technical definition. It is, of course, [quasi]
+direct recognition to publish an acknowledgment of the sovereignty and
+independence of a new power. It is [quasi] direct recognition to receive
+its ambassadors, ministers, agents, or commissioners officially. A
+concession of belligerent rights is liable to be construed as a
+recognition of them. No one of these proceedings will [be borne] pass
+[unnoticed] unquestioned by the United States in this case.
+
+Hitherto recognition has been moved only on the assumption that the
+so-called Confederate States are de facto a self-sustaining power. Now,
+after long forbearance, designed to soothe discontent and avert the need
+of civil war, the land and naval forces of the United States have been
+put in motion to repress the insurrection. The true character of the
+pretended new State is at once revealed. It is seen to be a power
+existing in pronunciamento only, It has never won a field. It has
+obtained no forts that were not virtually betrayed into its hands or
+seized in breach of trust. It commands not a single port on the coast nor
+any highway out from its pretended capital by land. Under these
+circumstances Great Britain is called upon to intervene and give it body
+and independence by resisting our measures of suppression. British
+recognition would be British intervention to create within our own
+territory a hostile state by overthrowing this republic itself. [When
+this act of intervention is distinctly performed, we from that hour shall
+cease to be friends, and become once more, as we have twice before been
+forced to be, enemies of Great Britain.]
+
+As to the treatment of privateers in the insurgent service, you will say
+that this is a question exclusively our own. We treat them as pirates.
+They are our own citizens, or persons employed by our citizens, preying
+on the commerce of our country. If Great Britain shall choose to
+recognize them as lawful belligerents, and give them shelter from our
+pursuit and punishment, the laws of nations afford an adequate and proper
+remedy [and we shall avail ourselves of it. And while you need not say
+this in advance, be sure that you say nothing inconsistent with it.]
+
+Happily, however, her Britannic Majesty's government can avoid all these
+difficulties. It invited us in 1856 to accede to the declaration of the
+Congress of Paris, of which body Great Britain was herself a member,
+abolishing privateering everywhere in all cases and forever. You already
+have our authority to propose to her our accession to that declaration.
+If she refuse to receive it, it can only be because she is willing to
+become the patron of privateering when aimed at our devastation.
+
+These positions are not elaborately defended now, because to vindicate
+them would imply a possibility of our waiving them.
+
+1 We are not insensible of the grave importance of
+
+1 (Drop all from this line to the end, and in lieu of it write, "This
+paper is for your own guidance only, and not [sic] to be read or shown to
+any one.")
+
+(Secretary Seward, when the despatch was returned to him, added an
+introductory paragraph stating that the document was strictly
+confidential. For this reason these last two paragraphs remained as they
+are here printed.)
+
+this occasion. We see how, upon the result of the debate in which we are
+engaged, a war may ensue between the United States and one, two, or even
+more European nations. War in any case is as exceptionable from the
+habits as it is revolting from the sentiments of the American people. But
+if it come, it will be fully seen that it results from the action of
+Great Britain, not our own; that Great Britain will have decided to
+fraternize with our domestic enemy, either without waiting to hear from
+you our remonstrances and our warnings, or after having heard them. War
+in defense of national life is not immoral, and war in defense of
+independence is an inevitable part of the discipline of nations.
+
+The dispute will be between the European and the American branches of the
+British race. All who belong to that race will especially deprecate it,
+as they ought. It may well be believed that men of every race and kindred
+will deplore it. A war not unlike it between the same parties occurred at
+the close of the last century. Europe atoned by forty years of suffering
+for the error that Great Britain committed in provoking that contest. If
+that nation shall now repeat the same great error, the social convulsions
+which will follow may not be so long, but they will be more general. When
+they shall have ceased, it will, we think, be seen, whatever may have
+been the fortunes of other nations, that it is not the United States that
+will have come out of them with its precious Constitution altered or its
+honestly obtained dominion in any degree abridged. Great Britain has but
+to wait a few months and all her present inconveniences will cease with
+all our own troubles. If she take a different course, she will calculate
+for herself the ultimate as well as the immediate consequences, and will
+consider what position she will hold when she shall have forever lost the
+sympathies and the affections of the only nation on whose sympathies and
+affections she has a natural claim. In making that calculation she will
+do well to remember that in the controversy she proposes to open we shall
+be actuated by neither pride, nor passion, nor cupidity, nor ambition;
+but we shall stand simply on the principle of self-preservation, and that
+our cause will involve the independence of nations and the rights of
+human nature.
+
+I am, Sir, respectfully your obedient servant, W. H. S.
+
+CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Esq., etc,
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR,
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, May 21, 1861.
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR. MY DEAR SIR:--Why cannot Colonel Small's
+Philadelphia regiment be received? I sincerely wish it could. There is
+something strange about it. Give these gentlemen an interview, and take
+their regiment.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GOVERNOR MORGAN.
+
+WASHINGTON, May 12, 1861
+
+GOVERNOR E. D. MORGAN, Albany, N.Y.
+
+I wish to see you face to face to clear these difficulties about
+forwarding troops from New York.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO CAPTAIN DAHLGREEN.
+
+EXECUTIVE, MANSION, May 23, 1863.
+
+CAPT. DAHLGREEN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Allow me to introduce Col. J. A. McLernand, M.C. of my own
+district in Illinois. If he should desire to visit Fortress Monroe,
+please introduce him to the captain of one of the vessels in our service,
+and pass him down and back.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER OF CONDOLENCE TO ONE OF FIRST CASUALTIES
+
+TO COLONEL ELLSWORTH'S PARENTS, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 25, 1861
+
+TO THE FATHER AND MOTHER OF COL. ELMER E. ELLSWORTH.
+
+MY DEAR SIR AND MADAME:--In the untimely loss of your noble son, our
+affliction here is scarcely less than your own. So much of promised
+usefulness to one's country, and of bright hopes for one's self and
+friends, have never been so suddenly dashed as in his fall. In size, in
+years, and in youthful appearance a boy only, his power to command men
+was surpassingly great.  This power, combined with a fine intellectual
+and indomitable energy, and a taste altogether military, constituted in
+him, as seemed to me, the best natural talent in that department I ever
+knew. And yet he was singularly modest and deferential in social
+intercourse. My acquaintance with him began less than two years ago; yet,
+through the latter half of the intervening period, it was as intense as
+the disparity of our ages and my engrossing engagements would permit. To
+me he appeared to have no indulgences or pastimes, and I never heard him
+utter a profane or an intemperate word. What was conclusive of his good
+heart, he never forgot his parents. The honors he labored for so
+laudably, and for which, in the sad end, he so gallantly gave his life,
+he meant for them no less than for himself.
+
+In the hope that it may be no intrusion upon the sacredness of your
+sorrow, I have ventured to address you this tribute to the memory of my
+young friend and your brave and early fallen son.
+
+May God give you the consolation which is beyond all early power.
+
+Sincerely your friend in common affliction,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO COLONEL BARTLETT.
+
+WASHINGTON, May 27, 1861
+
+COL. W. A. BARTLETT, New York.
+
+The Naval Brigade was to go to Fort Monroe without trouble to the
+government, and must so go or not at all.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MEMORANDUM ABOUT INDIANA REGIMENTS.
+
+WASHINGTON, JUNE 11, 1861
+
+ The government has already accepted ten regiments from the State of
+Indiana. I think at least six more ought to be received from that
+State, two to be those of Colonel James W. McMillan and Colonel
+William L. Brown, and the other four to be designated by the Governor
+of the State of Indiana, and to be received into the volunteer
+service of the United States according to the "Plan of Organization"
+in the General Orders of the War Department, No.15. When they report
+to Major-General McClellan in condition to pass muster according to
+that order, and with the approval of the Secretary of War to be
+indorsed hereon, and left in his department, I direct that the whole
+six, or any smaller number of such regiments, be received.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, JUNE 13, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--There is, it seems, a regiment in Massachusetts commanded
+by Fletcher Webster, and which HON. Daniel Webster's old friends very
+much wish to get into the service. If it can be received with the
+approval of your department and the consent of the Governor of
+Massachusetts I shall indeed be much gratified. Give Mr. Ashmun a chance
+to explain fully.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, JUNE 13, 1861
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR--I think it is entirely safe to accept a fifth regiment from
+Michigan, and with your approbation I should say a regiment presented by
+Col. T. B. W. Stockton, ready for service within two weeks from now, will
+be received. Look at Colonel Stockton's testimonials.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 17, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY Of WAR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--With your concurrence, and that of the Governor of Indiana,
+I am in favor of accepting into what we call the three years' service any
+number not exceeding four additional regiments from that State. Probably
+they should come from the triangular region between the Ohio and Wabash
+Rivers, including my own old boyhood home. Please see HON. C. M. Allen,
+Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives, and unless you perceive
+good reason to the contrary, draw up an order for him according to the
+above.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, JUNE 17,1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR. MY DEAR SIR:--With your concurrence, and that of
+the Governor of Ohio, I am in favor of receiving into what we call the
+three years' service any number not exceeding six additional regiments
+from that State, unless you perceive good reasons to the contrary. Please
+see HON. John A. Gurley, who bears this, and make an order corresponding
+with the above.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO N. W. EDWARDS
+
+WASHINGTON, D. C., June 19, 1861
+
+Hon. N. W. EDWARDS MY DEAR SIR: ............. ............. When you
+wrote me some time ago in reference to looking up something in the
+departments here, I thought I would inquire into the thing and write you,
+but the extraordinary pressure upon me diverted me from it, and soon it
+passed out of my mind. The thing you proposed, it seemed to me, I ought
+to understand myself before it was set on foot by my direction or
+permission; and I really had no time to make myself acquainted with it.
+Nor have I yet. And yet I am unwilling, of course, that you should be
+deprived of a chance to make something, if it can be done without
+injustice to the Government, or to any individual. If you choose to come
+here and point out to me how this can be done I shall not only not
+object, but shall be gratified to be able to oblige you.
+
+Your friend as ever
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY CAMERON.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 20, 1861.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Since you spoke to me yesterday about General J. H. Lane,
+of Kansas, I have been reflecting upon the subject, and have concluded
+that we need the service of such a man out there at once; that we had
+better appoint him a brigadier-general of volunteers to-day, and send him
+off with such authority to raise a force (I think two regiments better
+than three, but as to this I am not particular) as you think will get him
+into actual work quickest. Tell him, when he starts, to put it through
+not to be writing or telegraphing back here, but put it through.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+[Indorsement.]
+
+General Lane has been authorized to raise two additional regiments of
+volunteers.
+
+SIMON CAMERON, Secretary o f War.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE KENTUCKY DELEGATION.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 29, 1861.
+GENTLEMEN OF THE KENTUCKY DELEGATION WHO ARE FOR THE UNION:
+
+I somewhat wish to authorize my friend Jesse Bayles to raise a Kentucky
+regiment, but I do not wish to do it without your consent. If you
+consent, please write so at the bottom of this.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+   We consent:
+   R. MALLORY.
+   H. GRIDER.
+   G. W. DUNLAP.
+   J. S. JACKSON.
+   C. A. WICKLIFFE.
+
+
+
+
+August 5, 1861.
+
+I repeat, I would like for Col. Bayles to raise a regiment of cavalry
+whenever the Union men of Kentucky desire or consent to it.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER AUTHORIZING GENERAL SCOTT TO SUSPEND THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS,
+JULY 2, 1861
+
+TO THE COMMANDING GENERAL, ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES:
+
+You are engaged in suppressing an insurrection against the laws of the
+United States. If at any point on or in the vicinity of any military line
+which is now or which shall be used between the city of New York and the
+city of Washington you find resistance which renders it necessary to
+suspend the writ of habeas corpus for the public safety, you personally,
+or through the officer in command at the point where resistance occurs,
+are authorized to suspend that writ.
+
+Given under my hand and the seal of the United States at the city of
+Washington, this second day of July, A.D. 1861, and of the independence
+of the United States the eighty-fifth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+ WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY SEWARD.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, JULY 3, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF STATE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--General Scott had sent me a copy of the despatch of which
+you kindly sent one. Thanks to both him and you. Please assemble the
+Cabinet at twelve to-day to look over the message and reports.
+
+And now, suppose you step over at once and let us see General Scott (and)
+General Cameron about assigning a position to General Fremont.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS IN SPECIAL SESSION,
+
+JULY 4, 1861.
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:--Having been
+convened on an extraordinary occasion, as authorized by the Constitution,
+your attention is not called to any ordinary subject of legislation.
+
+At the beginning of the present Presidential term, four months ago, the
+functions of the Federal Government were found to be generally suspended
+within the several States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
+Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida, excepting only those of the
+Post-Office Department.
+
+Within these States all the forts, arsenals, dockyards, custom-houses,
+and the like, including the movable and stationary property in and about
+them, had been seized, and were held in open hostility to this
+government, excepting only Forts Pickens, Taylor, and Jefferson, on and
+near the Florida coast, and Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, South
+Carolina. The forts thus seized had been put in improved condition, new
+ones had been built, and armed forces had been organized and were
+organizing, all avowedly with the same hostile purpose.
+
+The forts remaining in the possession of the Federal Government in and
+near these States were either besieged or menaced by warlike
+preparations, and especially Fort Sumter was nearly surrounded by
+well-protected hostile batteries, with guns equal in quality to the best
+of its own, and outnumbering the latter as perhaps ten to one. A
+disproportionate share of the Federal muskets and rifles had somehow
+found their way into these States, and had been seized to be used against
+the government. Accumulations of the public revenue lying within them had
+been seized for the same object. The navy was scattered in distant seas,
+leaving but a very small part of it within the immediate reach of the
+government. Officers of the Federal army and navy had resigned in great
+numbers; and of those resigning a large proportion had taken up arms
+against the government. Simultaneously, and in connection with all this,
+the purpose to sever the Federal Union was openly avowed. In accordance
+with this purpose, an ordinance had been adopted in each of these States,
+declaring the States respectively to be separated from the national
+Union. A formula for instituting a combined government of these States
+had been promulgated; and this illegal organization, in the character of
+confederate States, was already invoking recognition, aid, and
+intervention from foreign powers.
+
+Finding this condition of things, and believing it to be an imperative
+duty upon the incoming executive to prevent, if possible, the
+consummation of such attempt to destroy the Federal Union, a choice of
+means to that end became indispensable. This choice was made and was
+declared in the inaugural address. The policy chosen looked to the
+exhaustion of all peaceful measures before a resort to any stronger ones.
+It sought only to hold the public places and property not already wrested
+from the government, and to collect the revenue, relying for the rest on
+time, discussion, and the ballot-box. It promised a continuance of the
+mails, at government expense, to the very people who were resisting the
+government; and it gave repeated pledges against any disturbance to any
+of the people, or any of their rights. Of all that which a President
+might constitutionally and justifiably do in such a case, everything was
+forborne without which it was believed possible to keep the government on
+foot.
+
+On the 5th of March (the present incumbent's first full day in office), a
+letter of Major Anderson, commanding at Fort Sumter, written on the 28th
+of February and received at the War Department on the 4th of March, was
+by that department placed in his hands. This letter expressed the
+professional opinion of the writer that reinforcements could not be
+thrown into that fort within the time for his relief, rendered necessary
+by the limited supply of provisions, and with a view of holding
+possession of the same, with a force of less than twenty thousand good
+and well-disciplined men. This opinion was concurred in by all the
+officers of his command, and their memoranda on the subject were made
+inclosures of Major Anderson's letter. The whole was immediately laid
+before Lieutenant-General Scott, who at once concurred with Major
+Anderson in opinion. On reflection, however, he took full time,
+consulting with other officers, both of the army and the navy, and at the
+end of four days came reluctantly but decidedly to the same conclusion as
+before. He also stated at the same time that no such sufficient force was
+then at the control of the government, or could be raised and brought to
+the ground within the time when the provisions in the fort would be
+exhausted. In a purely military point of view, this reduced the duty of
+the administration in the case to the mere matter of getting the garrison
+safely out of the fort.
+
+It was believed, however, that to so abandon that position, under the
+circumstances, would be utterly ruinous; that the necessity under which
+it was to be done would not be fully understood; that by many it would be
+construed as a part of a voluntary policy; that at home it would
+discourage the friends of the Union, embolden its adversaries, and go far
+to insure to the latter a recognition abroad; that in fact, it would be
+our national destruction consummated. This could not be allowed.
+Starvation was not yet upon the garrison, and ere it would be reached
+Fort Pickens might be reinforced. This last would be a clear indication
+of policy, and would better enable the country to accept the evacuation
+of Fort Sumter as a military necessity. An order was at once directed to
+be sent for the landing of the troops from the steamship Brooklyn into
+Fort Pickens. This order could not go by land, but must take the longer
+and slower route by sea. The first return news from the order was
+received just one week before the fall of Fort Sumter. The news itself
+was that the officer commanding the Sabine, to which vessel the troops
+had been transferred from the Brooklyn, acting upon some quasi armistice
+of the late administration (and of the existence of which the present
+administration, up to the time the order was despatched, had only too
+vague and uncertain rumors to fix attention), had refused to land the
+troops. To now reinforce Fort Pickens before a crisis would be reached at
+Fort Sumter was impossible--rendered so by the near exhaustion of
+provisions in the latter-named fort. In precaution against such a
+conjuncture, the government had, a few days before, commenced preparing
+an expedition as well adapted as might be to relieve Fort Sumter, which
+expedition was intended to be ultimately used, or not, according to
+circumstances. The strongest anticipated case for using it was now
+presented, and it was resolved to send it forward. As had been intended
+in this contingency, it was also resolved to notify the governor of South
+Carolina that he might expect an attempt would be made to provision the
+fort; and that, if the attempt should not be resisted, there would be no
+effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition, without further notice, or
+in case of an attack upon the fort. This notice was accordingly given;
+whereupon the fort was attacked and bombarded to its fall, without even
+awaiting the arrival of the provisioning expedition.
+
+It is thus seen that the assault upon and reduction of Fort Sumter was in
+no sense a matter of self-defense on the part of the assailants. They
+well knew that the garrison in the fort could by no possibility commit
+aggression upon them. They knew--they were expressly notified--that the
+giving of bread to the few brave and hungry men of the garrison was all
+which would on that occasion be attempted, unless themselves, by
+resisting so much, should provoke more. They knew that this government
+desired to keep the garrison in the fort, not to assail them, but merely
+to maintain visible possession, and thus to preserve the Union from
+actual and immediate dissolution--trusting, as hereinbefore stated, to
+time, discussion, and the ballot-box for final adjustment; and they
+assailed and reduced the fort for precisely the reverse object--to drive
+out the visible authority of the Federal Union, and thus force it to
+immediate dissolution. That this was their object the executive well
+understood; and having said to them in the inaugural address, "You can
+have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors," he took pains
+not only to keep this declaration good, but also to keep the case so free
+from the power of ingenious sophistry that the world should not be able
+to misunderstand it. By the affair at Fort Sumter, with its surrounding
+circumstances, that point was reached. Then and thereby the assailants of
+the government began the conflict of arms, without a gun in sight or in
+expectancy to return their fire, save only the few in the fort sent to
+that harbor years before for their own protection, and still ready to
+give that protection in whatever was lawful. In this act, discarding all
+else, they have forced upon the country the distinct issue, "immediate
+dissolution or blood."
+
+And this issue embraces more than the fate of these United States. It
+presents to the whole family of man the question whether a constitutional
+republic or democracy--a government of the people by the same people--can
+or cannot maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic
+foes. It presents the question whether discontented individuals, too few
+in numbers to control administration according to organic law in any
+case, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or on any other
+pretenses, or arbitrarily without any pretense, break up their
+government, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the
+earth. It forces us to ask: Is there in all republics this inherent and
+fatal weakness? Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the
+liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?
+
+So viewing the issue, no choice was left but to call out the war power of
+the government, and so to resist force employed for its destruction by
+force for its preservation.
+
+The call was made, and the response of the country was most gratifying,
+surpassing in unanimity and spirit the most sanguine expectation. Yet
+none of the States commonly called slave States, except Delaware, gave a
+regiment through regular State organization. A few regiments have been
+organized within some others of those States by individual enterprise,
+and received into the government service. Of course the seceded States,
+so called (and to which Texas had been joined about the time of the
+inauguration), gave no troops to the cause of the Union.
+
+The border States, so called, were not uniform in their action, some of
+them being almost for the Union, while in others--as Virginia, North
+Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas--the Union sentiment was nearly
+repressed and silenced. The course taken in Virginia was the most
+remarkable--perhaps the most important. A convention elected by the
+people of that State to consider this very question of disrupting the
+Federal Union was in session at the capital of Virginia when Fort Sumter
+fell. To this body the people had chosen a large majority of professed
+Union men. Almost immediately after the fall of Sumter, many members of
+that majority went over to the original disunion minority, and with them
+adopted an ordinance for withdrawing the State from the Union. Whether
+this change was wrought by their great approval of the assault upon
+Sumter, or their great resentment at the government's resistance to that
+assault, is not definitely known. Although they submitted the ordinance
+for ratification to a vote of the people, to be taken on a day then
+somewhat more than a month distant, the convention and the Legislature
+(which was also in session at the same time and place), with leading men
+of the State not members of either, immediately commenced acting as if
+the State were already out of the Union. They pushed military
+preparations vigorously forward all over the State. They seized the
+United States armory at Harper's Ferry, and the navy-yard at Gosport,
+near Norfolk. They received perhaps invited--into their State large
+bodies of troops, with their warlike appointments, from the so-called
+seceded States. They formally entered into a treaty of temporary alliance
+and co-operation with the so-called "Confederate States," and sent
+members to their congress at Montgomery. And finally, they permitted the
+insurrectionary government to be transferred to their capital at
+Richmond.
+
+The people of Virginia have thus allowed this giant insurrection to make
+its nest within her borders; and this government has no choice left but
+to deal with it where it finds it. And it has the less regret as the
+loyal citizens have, in due form, claimed its protection. Those loyal
+citizens this government is bound to recognize and protect, as being
+Virginia.
+
+In the border States, so called,--in fact, the middle States,--there are
+those who favor a policy which they call "armed neutrality"; that is, an
+arming of those States to prevent the Union forces passing one way, or
+the disunion the other, over their soil. This would be disunion
+completed. Figuratively speaking, it would be the building of an
+impassable wall along the line of separation--and yet not quite an
+impassable one, for under the guise of neutrality it would tie the hands
+of Union men and freely pass supplies from among them to the
+insurrectionists, which it could not do as an open enemy. At a stroke it
+would take all the trouble off the hands of secession, except only what
+proceeds from the external blockade. It would do for the disunionists
+that which, of all things, they most desire--feed them well and give them
+disunion without a struggle of their own. It recognizes no fidelity to
+the Constitution, no obligation to maintain the Union; and while very
+many who have favored it are doubtless loyal citizens, it is,
+nevertheless, very injurious in effect.
+
+Recurring to the action of the government, it may be stated that at first
+a call was made for 75,000 militia; and, rapidly following this, a
+proclamation was issued for closing the ports of the insurrectionary
+districts by proceedings in the nature of blockade. So far all was
+believed to be strictly legal. At this point the insurrectionists
+announced their purpose to enter upon the practice of privateering.
+
+Other calls were made for volunteers to serve for three years, unless
+sooner discharged, and also for large additions to the regular army and
+navy. These measures, whether strictly legal or not, were ventured upon,
+under what appeared to be a popular demand and a public necessity;
+trusting then, as now, that Congress would readily ratify them. It is
+believed that nothing has been done beyond the constitutional competency
+of Congress.
+
+Soon after the first call for militia, it was considered a duty to
+authorize the commanding general in proper cases, according to his
+discretion, to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or, in
+other words, to arrest and detain, without resort to the ordinary
+processes and forms of law, such individuals as he might deem dangerous
+to the public safety. This authority has purposely been exercised but
+very sparingly. Nevertheless, the legality and propriety of what has been
+done under it are questioned, and the attention of the country has been
+called to the proposition that one who has sworn to "take care that the
+laws be faithfully executed" should not himself violate them. Of course
+some consideration was given to the questions of power and propriety
+before this matter was acted upon. The whole of the laws which were
+required to be faithfully executed were being resisted and failing of
+execution in nearly one third of the States. Must they be allowed to
+finally fail of execution, even had it been perfectly clear that by the
+use of the means necessary to their execution some single law, made in
+such extreme tenderness of the citizen's liberty that, practically, it
+relieves more of the guilty than of the innocent, should to a very
+limited extent be violated? To state the question more directly, are all
+the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces
+lest that one be violated? Even in such a case, would not the official
+oath be broken if the government should be overthrown when it was
+believed that disregarding the single law would tend to preserve it? But
+it was not believed that this question was presented. It was not believed
+that any law was violated. The provision of the Constitution that "the
+privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless
+when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require
+it," is equivalent to a provision--is a provision--that such privilege
+may be suspended when, in case of rebellion or invasion, the public
+safety does require it. It was decided that we have a case of rebellion,
+and that the public safety does require the qualified suspension of the
+privilege of the writ which was authorized to be made. Now it is insisted
+that Congress, and not the executive, is vested with this power. But the
+Constitution itself is silent as to which or who is to exercise the
+power; and as the provision was plainly made for a dangerous emergency,
+it cannot be believed the framers of the instrument intended that in
+every case the danger should run its course until Congress could be
+called together, the very assembling of which might be prevented, as was
+intended in this case, by the rebellion.
+
+No more extended argument is now offered, as an opinion at some length
+will probably be presented by the attorney-general. Whether there shall
+be any legislation upon the subject, and if any, what, is submitted
+entirely to the better judgment of Congress.
+
+The forbearance of this government had been so extraordinary and so long
+continued as to lead some foreign nations to shape their action as if
+they supposed the early destruction of our national Union was probable.
+While this, on discovery, gave the executive some concern, he is now
+happy to say that the sovereignty and rights of the United States are now
+everywhere practically respected by foreign powers; and a general
+sympathy with the country is manifested throughout the world.
+
+The reports of the Secretaries of the Treasury, War, and the Navy will
+give the information in detail deemed necessary and convenient for your
+deliberation and action; while the executive and all the departments will
+stand ready to supply omissions, or to communicate new facts considered
+important for you to know.
+
+It is now recommended that you give the legal means for making this
+contest a short and decisive one: that you place at the control of the
+government for the work at least four hundred thousand men and
+$400,000,000. That number of men is about one-tenth of those of proper
+ages within the regions where, apparently, all are willing to engage; and
+the sum is less than a twenty-third part of the money value owned by the
+men who seem ready to devote the whole. A debt of $600,000,000 now is a
+less sum per head than was the debt of our Revolution when we came out of
+that struggle; and the money value in the country now bears even a
+greater proportion to what it was then than does the population. Surely
+each man has as strong a motive now to preserve our liberties as each had
+then to establish them.
+
+A right result at this time will be worth more to the world than ten
+times the men and ten times the money. The evidence reaching us from the
+country leaves no doubt that the material for the work is abundant, and
+that it needs only the hand of legislation to give it legal sanction, and
+the hand of the executive to give it practical shape and efficiency. One
+of the greatest perplexities of the government is to avoid receiving
+troops faster than it can provide for them. In a word, the people will
+save their government if the government itself will do its part only
+indifferently well.
+
+It might seem, at first thought, to be of little difference whether the
+present movement at the South be called "secession" or "rebellion." The
+movers, however, well understand the difference. At the beginning they
+knew they could never raise their treason to any respectable magnitude by
+any name which implies violation of law. They knew their people possessed
+as much of moral sense, as much of devotion to law and order, and as much
+pride in and reverence for the history and government of their common
+country as any other civilized and patriotic people. They knew they could
+make no advancement directly in the teeth of these strong and noble
+sentiments. Accordingly, they commenced by an insidious debauching of the
+public mind. They invented an ingenious sophism which, if conceded, was
+followed by perfectly logical steps, through all the incidents, to the
+complete destruction of the Union. The sophism itself is that any State
+of the Union may consistently with the national Constitution, and
+therefore lawfully and peacefully, withdraw from the Union without the
+consent of the Union or of any other State. The little disguise that the
+supposed right is to be exercised only for just cause, themselves to be
+the sole judges of its justice, is too thin to merit any notice.
+
+With rebellion thus sugar-coated they have been drugging the public mind
+of their section for more than thirty years, and until at length they
+have brought many good men to a willingness to take up arms against the
+government the day after some assemblage of men have enacted the farcical
+pretense of taking their State out of the Union, who could have been
+brought to no such thing the day before.
+
+This sophism derives much, perhaps the whole, of its currency from the
+assumption that there is some omnipotent and sacred supremacy pertaining
+to a State--to each State of our Federal Union. Our States have neither
+more nor less power than that reserved to them in the Union by the
+Constitution--no one of them ever having been a State out of the Union.
+The original ones passed into the Union even before they cast off their
+British colonial dependence; and the new ones each came into the Union
+directly from a condition of dependence, excepting Texas. And even Texas
+in its temporary independence was never designated a State. The new ones
+only took the designation of States on coming into the Union, while that
+name was first adopted for the old ones in and by the Declaration of
+Independence. Therein the "United Colonies" were declared to be "free and
+independent States"; but even then the object plainly was not to declare
+their independence of one another or of the Union, but directly the
+contrary, as their mutual pledge and their mutual action before, at the
+time, and afterward, abundantly show. The express plighting of faith by
+each and all of the original thirteen in the Articles of Confederation,
+two years later, that the Union shall be perpetual, is most conclusive.
+Having never been States either in substance or in name outside of the
+Union, whence this magical omnipotence of "State rights," asserting a
+claim of power to lawfully destroy the Union itself? Much is said about
+the "sovereignty" of the States; but the word even is not in the national
+Constitution, nor, as is believed, in any of the State constitutions.
+What is "sovereignty" in the political sense of the term? Would it be far
+wrong to define it as "a political community without a political
+superior"? Tested by this, no one of our States except Texas ever was a
+sovereignty. And even Texas gave up the character on coming into the
+Union; by which act she acknowledged the Constitution of the United
+States, and the laws and treaties of the United States made in pursuance
+of the Constitution, to be for her the supreme law of the land. The
+States have their status in the Union, and they have no other legal
+status. If they break from this, they can only do so against law and by
+revolution. The Union, and not themselves separately, procured their
+independence and their liberty. By conquest or purchase the Union gave
+each of them whatever of independence or liberty it has. The Union is
+older than any of the States, and, in fact, it created them as States.
+Originally some dependent colonies made the Union, and, in turn, the
+Union threw off their old dependence for them, and made them States, such
+as they are. Not one of them ever had a State constitution independent of
+the Union. Of course, it is not forgotten that all the new States framed
+their constitutions before they entered the Union nevertheless, dependent
+upon and preparatory to coming into the Union.
+
+Unquestionably the States have the powers and rights reserved to them in
+and by the national Constitution; but among these surely are not included
+all conceivable powers, however mischievous or destructive, but, at most,
+such only as were known in the world at the time as governmental powers;
+and certainly a power to destroy the government itself had never been
+known as a governmental, as a merely administrative power. This relative
+matter of national power and State rights, as a principle, is no other
+than the principle of generality and locality. Whatever concerns the
+whole should be confided to the whole--to the General Government; while
+whatever concerns only the State should be left exclusively to the State.
+This is all there is of original principle about it. Whether the national
+Constitution in defining boundaries between the two has applied the
+principle with exact accuracy, is not to be questioned. We are all bound
+by that defining, without question.
+
+What is now combated is the position that secession is consistent with
+the Constitution--is lawful and peaceful. It is not contended that there
+is any express law for it; and nothing should ever be implied as law
+which leads to unjust or absurd consequences. The nation purchased with
+money the countries out of which several of these States were formed. Is
+it just that they shall go off without leave and without refunding? The
+nation paid very large sums (in the aggregate, I believe, nearly a
+hundred millions) to relieve Florida of the aboriginal tribes. Is it just
+that she shall now be off without consent or without making any return?
+The nation is now in debt for money applied to the benefit of these
+so-called seceding States in common with the rest. Is it just either that
+creditors shall go unpaid or the remaining States pay the whole? A part
+of the present national debt was contracted to pay the old debts of
+Texas. Is it just that she shall leave and pay no part of this herself?
+
+Again, if one State may secede, so may another; and when all shall have
+seceded, none is left to pay the debts. Is this quite just for creditors?
+Did we notify them of this sage view of ours when we borrowed their
+money? If we now recognize this doctrine by allowing the seceders to go
+in peace, it is difficult to see what we can do if others choose to go or
+to extort terms upon which they will promise to remain.
+
+The seceders insist that our Constitution admits of secession. They have
+assumed to make a national constitution of their own, in which of
+necessity they have either discarded or retained the right of secession
+as they insist it exists in ours.  If they have discarded it, they
+thereby admit that on principle it ought not to be in ours. If they have
+retained it, by their own construction of ours, they show that to be
+consistent they must secede from one another whenever they shall find it
+the easiest way of settling their debts, or effecting any other selfish
+or unjust object. The principle itself is one of disintegration and upon
+which no government can possibly endure.
+
+If all the States save one should assert the power to drive that one out
+of the Union, it is presumed the whole class of seceder politicians would
+at once deny the power and denounce the act as the greatest outrage upon
+State rights. But suppose that precisely the same act, instead of being
+called "driving the one out," should be called "the seceding of the
+others from that one," it would be exactly what the seceders claim to do,
+unless, indeed, they make the point that the one, because it is a
+minority, may rightfully do what the others, because they are a majority,
+may not rightfully do. These politicians are subtle and profound on the
+rights of minorities. They are not partial to that power which made the
+Constitution and speaks from the preamble calling itself "We, the
+People."
+
+It may well be questioned whether there is to-day a majority of the
+legally qualified voters of any State except perhaps South Carolina in
+favor of disunion. There is much reason to believe that the Union men are
+the majority in many, if not in every other one, of the so-called seceded
+States. The contrary has not been demonstrated in any one of them. It is
+ventured to affirm this even of Virginia and Tennessee; for the result of
+an election held in military camps, where the bayonets are all on one
+side of the question voted upon, can scarcely be considered as
+demonstrating popular sentiment. At such an election, all that large
+class who are at once for the Union and against coercion would be coerced
+to vote against the Union.
+
+It may be affirmed without extravagance that the free institutions we
+enjoy have developed the powers and improved the condition of our whole
+people beyond any example in the world. Of this we now have a striking
+and an impressive illustration. So large an army as the government has
+now on foot was never before known without a soldier in it but who has
+taken his place there of his own free choice. But more than this, there
+are many single regiments whose members, one and another, possess full
+practical knowledge of all the arts, sciences, professions, and whatever
+else, whether useful or elegant, is known in the world; and there is
+scarcely one from which there could not be selected a President, a
+Cabinet, a Congress, and perhaps a court, abundantly competent to
+administer the government itself. Nor do I say this is not true also in
+the army of our late friends, now adversaries in this contest; but if it
+is, so much better the reason why the government which has conferred such
+benefits on both them and us should not be broken up. Whoever in any
+section proposes to abandon such a government would do well to consider
+in deference to what principle it is that he does it; what better he is
+likely to get in its stead; whether the substitute will give, or be
+intended to give, so much of good to the people. There are some
+foreshadowings on this subject. Our adversaries have adopted some
+declarations of independence in which, unlike the good old one, penned by
+Jefferson, they omit the words "all men are created equal." Why? They
+have adopted a temporary national constitution, in the preamble of which,
+unlike our good old one, signed by Washington, they omit "We, the
+People," and substitute, "We, the deputies of the sovereign and
+independent States." Why? Why this deliberate pressing out of view the
+rights of men and the authority of the people?
+
+This is essentially a people's contest. On the side of the Union it is a
+struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of
+government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men to
+lift artificial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of
+laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start, and a fair
+chance in the race of life. Yielding to partial and temporary departures,
+from necessity; this is the leading object of the government for whose
+existence we contend.
+
+I am most happy to believe that the plain people understand and
+appreciate this. It is worthy of note that, while in this the
+government's hour of trial large numbers of those in the army and navy
+who have been favored with the offices have resigned and proved false to
+the hand which had pampered them, not one common soldier or common sailor
+is known to have deserted his flag.
+
+Great honor is due to those officers who remained true, despite the
+example of their treacherous associates; but the greatest honor, and most
+important fact of all, is the unanimous firmness of the common soldiers
+and common sailors. To the last man, so far as known, they have
+successfully resisted the traitorous efforts of those whose commands, but
+an hour before, they obeyed as absolute law. This is the patriotic
+instinct of the plain people. They understand, without an argument, that
+the destroying of the government which was made by Washington means no
+good to them.
+
+Our popular government has often been called an experiment. Two points in
+it our people have already settled--the successful establishing and the
+successful administering of it. One still remains--its successful
+maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. It is
+now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry
+an election can also suppress a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful
+and peaceful successors of bullets; and that when ballots have fairly and
+constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to
+bullets; that there can be no successful appeal, except to ballots
+themselves, at succeeding elections. Such will be a great lesson of
+peace: teaching men that what they cannot take by an election, neither
+can they take it by a war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners
+of a war.
+
+Lest there be some uneasiness in the minds of candid men as to what is to
+be the course of the government toward the Southern States after the
+rebellion shall have been suppressed, the executive deems it proper to
+say it will be his purpose then, as ever, to be guided by the
+Constitution and the laws; and that he probably will have no different
+understanding of the powers and duties of the Federal Government
+relatively to the rights of the States and the people, under the
+Constitution, than that expressed in the inaugural address.
+
+He desires to preserve the government, that it may be administered for
+all as it was administered by the men who made it. Loyal citizens
+everywhere have the right to claim this of their government, and the
+government has no right to withhold or neglect it. It is not perceived
+that in giving it there is any coercion, any conquest, or any
+subjugation, in any just sense of those terms.
+
+The Constitution provides, and all the States have accepted the
+provision, that "the United States shall guarantee to every State in this
+Union a republican form of government." But if a State may lawfully go
+out of the Union, having done so it may also discard the republican form
+of government, so that to prevent its going out is an indispensable means
+to the end of maintaining the guarantee mentioned; and when an end is
+lawful and obligatory, the indispensable means to it are also lawful and
+obligatory.
+
+It was with the deepest regret that the executive found the duty of
+employing the war power in defense of the government forced upon him. He
+could but perform this duty or surrender the existence of the government.
+No compromise by public servants could, in this case, be a cure; not that
+compromises are not often proper, but that no popular government can long
+survive a marked precedent that those who carry an election can only save
+the government from immediate destruction by giving up the main point
+upon which the people gave the election. The people themselves, and not
+their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.
+
+As a private citizen the executive could not have consented that these
+institutions shall perish; much less could he in betrayal of so vast and
+so sacred a trust as these free people had confided to him. He felt that
+he had no moral right to shrink, nor even to count the chances of his own
+life, in what might follow. In full view of his great responsibility he
+has, so far, done what he has deemed his duty. You will now, according to
+your own judgment, perform yours. He sincerely hopes that your views and
+your action may so accord with his as to assure all faithful citizens who
+have been disturbed in their rights of a certain and speedy restoration
+to them, under the Constitution and the laws.
+
+And having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose,
+let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear and with manly
+hearts.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
+
+July 4, 1861
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 6, 1861.
+
+HON. SEC. OF INTERIOR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Please ask the Comr. of Indian Affairs, and of the Gen'l
+Land Office to come with you, and see me at once. I want the assistance
+of all of you in overhauling the list of appointments a little before I
+send them to the Senate.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
+
+TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 9th
+instant, requesting a copy of correspondence upon the subject of the
+incorporation of the Dominican republic with the Spanish monarchy, I
+transmit a report from the Secretary of State; to whom the resolution was
+referred.
+
+WASHINGTON, July 11, 1861.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+I transmit to Congress a copy of correspondence between the Secretary of
+State and her Britannic Majesty's envoy extraordinary and minister
+plenipotentiary accredited to this government, relative to the exhibition
+of the products of industry of all nations, which is to take place at
+London in the course of next year. As citizens of the United States may
+justly pride themselves upon their proficiency in industrial arts, it is
+desirable that they should have proper facilities toward taking part in
+the exhibition. With this view I recommend such legislation by Congress
+at this session as may be necessary for that purpose.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+WASHINGTON, July 16, 1861
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+As the United States have, in common with Great Britain and France, a
+deep interest in the preservation and development of the fisheries
+adjacent to the northeastern coast and islands of this continent, it
+seems proper that we should concert with the governments of those
+countries such measures as may be conducive to those important objects.
+With this view I transmit to Congress a copy of a correspondence between
+the Secretary of State and the British minister here, in which the latter
+proposes, on behalf of his government, the appointment of a joint
+commission to inquire into the matter, in order that such ulterior
+measures may be adopted as may be advisable for the objects proposed.
+Such legislation recommended as may be necessary to enable the executive
+to provide for a commissioner on behalf of the United States:
+
+WASHINGTON, JULY 19, 1861.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE ADJUTANT-GENERAL
+
+WASHINGTON, JULY 19, 1861
+
+ADJUTANT-GENERAL:
+
+I have agreed, and do agree, that the two Indian regiments named within
+shall be accepted if the act of Congress shall admit it. Let there be no
+further question about it.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MEMORANDA OF MILITARY POLICY SUGGESTED BY THE
+BULL RUN DEFEAT.
+JULY 23, 1861
+
+1. Let the plan for making the blockade effective be pushed forward with
+all possible despatch.
+
+2. Let the volunteer forces at Fort Monroe and vicinity under General
+Butler be constantly drilled, disciplined, and instructed without more
+for the present.
+
+3. Let Baltimore be held as now, with a gentle but firm and certain hand.
+
+4. Let the force now under Patterson or Banks be strengthened and made
+secure in its position.
+
+5. Let the forces in Western Virginia act till further orders according
+to instructions or orders from General McClellan.
+
+6. [Let] General Fremont push forward his organization and operations in
+the West as rapidly as possible, giving rather special attention to
+Missouri.
+
+7. Let the forces late before Manassas, except the three-months men, be
+reorganized as rapidly as possible in their camps here and about
+Arlington.
+
+8. Let the three-months forces who decline to enter the longer service be
+discharged as rapidly as circumstances will permit.
+
+9. Let the new volunteer forces be brought forward as fast as possible,
+and especially into the camps on the two sides of the river here.
+
+When the foregoing shall be substantially attended to:
+
+1. Let Manassas Junction (or some point on one or other of the railroads
+near it) and Strasburg be seized, and permanently held, with an open line
+from Washington to Manassas, and an open line from Harper's Ferry to
+Strasburg the military men to find the way of doing these.
+
+2. This done, a joint movement from Cairo on Memphis; and from Cincinnati
+on East Tennessee.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., July 24, 1861
+
+THE GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY.
+
+SIR:--Together with the regiments of three years' volunteers which the
+government already has in service in your State, enough to make eight in
+all, if tendered in a reasonable time, will be accepted, the new
+regiments to be taken, as far as convenient, from the three months' men
+and officers just discharged, and to be organized, equipped, and sent
+forward as fast as single regiments are ready, On the same terms as were
+those already in the service from that State.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+[Indorsement.]
+
+This order is entered in the War Department, and the Governor of New
+Jersey is authorized to furnish the regiments with wagons and horses.
+
+S. CAMERON, Secretary of War.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
+
+TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 22d
+instant; requesting a copy of the correspondence between this, government
+and foreign powers with reference to maritime right, I transmit a report
+from the Secretary of State.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+WASHINGTON, July 25, 1861
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
+
+TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 15th
+instant, requesting a copy of the correspondence between this government
+and foreign powers on the subject of the existing insurrection in the
+United States, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State.
+
+WASHINGTON, July 25, 1861.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY CHASE.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, JULY 16, 1861
+
+MR CHASE:--The bearer, Mr.____, wants ______ in the custom house at
+Baltimore. If his recommendations are satisfactory, and I recollect them
+to have been so, the fact that he is urged by the Methodists should be in
+his favor, as they complain of us some.
+
+LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
+
+TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 24th
+instant, asking the grounds, reasons, and evidence upon which the police
+Commissioners of Baltimore were arrested and are now detained as
+prisoners at Port McHenry, I have to state that it is judged to be
+incompatible with the public interest at this time to furnish the
+information called for by the resolution.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+WASHINGTON, JULY 27, 1861
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE SENATE.
+
+TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 19th instant requesting
+information concerning the quasi armistice alluded to in my message of
+the 4th instant, I transmit a report from the Secretary of the Navy.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+JULY 30, 1861
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE SENATE.
+
+TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 23d instant requesting
+information concerning the imprisonment of Lieutenant John J. Worden
+(John L. Worden) of the United States navy, I transmit a report from the
+Secretary of the Navy.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+July 30, 1861
+
+
+
+
+ORDER TO UNITED STATES MARSHALS.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, D.C., JULY 31, 1861
+
+The Marshals of the United States in the vicinity of forts where
+political prisoners are held will supply decent lodging and sustenance
+for such prisoners unless they shall prefer to provide in those respects
+for themselves, in which case they will be allowed to do so by the
+commanding officer in charge.
+
+Approved, and the Secretary of the State will transmit the order to the
+Marshals, to the Lieutenant-General, and the Secretary of the Interior.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
+
+TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of yesterday,
+requesting information regarding the imprisonment of loyal citizens of
+the United States by the forces now in rebellion against this government,
+I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, and the copy of a
+telegraphic despatch by which it was accompanied.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+WASHINGTON, August 2, 1861.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE SENATE.
+
+TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of your honorable body of date July 31, 1861,
+requesting the President to inform the Senate whether the Hon. James H.
+Lane, a member of that body from Kansas, has been appointed a
+brigadier-general in the army of the United States, and if so, whether he
+has accepted such appointment, I have the honor to transmit herewith
+certain papers, numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, which, taken together,
+explain themselves, and which contain all the information I possess upon
+the questions propounded.
+
+It was my intention, as shown by my letter of June 20, 1861, to appoint
+Hon. James H. Lane, of Kansas, a brigadier-general of United States
+volunteers in anticipation of the act of Congress, since passed, for
+raising such volunteers; and I have no further knowledge upon the
+subject, except as derived from the papers herewith enclosed.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 5, 1861
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY CAMERON.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, AUGUST 7, 1861
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--The within paper, as you see, is by HON. John S. Phelps and
+HON. Frank P. Blair, Jr., both members of the present Congress from
+Missouri. The object is to get up an efficient force of Missourians in
+the southwestern part of the State. It ought to be done, and Mr. Phelps
+ought to have general superintendence of it. I see by a private report to
+me from the department that eighteen regiments are already accepted from
+Missouri. Can it not be arranged that part of them (not yet organized, as
+I understand) may be taken from the locality mentioned and put under the
+control of Mr. Phelps, and let him have discretion to accept them for a
+shorter term than three years--or the war--understanding, however, that
+he will get them for the full term if he can? I hope this can be done,
+because Mr. Phelps is too zealous and efficient and understands his
+ground too well for us to lose his service. Of course provision for
+arming, equipping, etc., must be made. Mr. Phelps is here, and wishes to
+carry home with him authority for this matter.
+
+Yours truly, A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION OF A NATIONAL FAST-DAY,
+AUGUST 12, 1861.
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas a joint committee of both houses of Congress has waited on the
+President of the United States and requested him to "recommend a day of
+public humiliation, prayer, and fasting to be observed by the people of
+the United States with religious solemnities and the offering of fervent
+supplications to Almighty God for the safety and welfare of these States,
+His blessings on their arms, and a speedy restoration of peace"; and
+
+Whereas it is fit and becoming in all people at all times to acknowledge
+and revere the supreme government of God, to bow in humble submission to
+His chastisements, to confess and deplore their sins and transgressions
+in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of
+wisdom, and to pray with all fervency and contrition for the pardon of
+their past offences and for a blessing upon their present and prospective
+action; and
+
+Whereas when our own beloved country, once, by the blessing of God,
+united, prosperous, and happy, is now afflicted with faction and civil
+war, it is peculiarly fit for us to recognize the hand of God in this
+terrible visitation, and in sorrowful remembrance of our own faults and
+crimes as a nation and as individuals to humble ourselves before Him and
+to pray for His mercy-to pray that we may be spared further punishment,
+though most justly deserved, that our arms may be blessed and made
+effectual for the re-establishment of order, law, and peace throughout
+the wide extent of our country, and that the inestimable boon of civil
+and religious liberty, earned under His guidance and blessing by the
+labors and sufferings of our fathers, may be restored in all its original
+excellence.
+
+Therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do appoint
+the last Thursday in September next as a day of humiliation, prayer, and
+fasting for all the people of the nation. And I do earnestly recommend to
+all the people, and especially to all ministers and teachers of religion
+of all denominations and to all heads of families, to observe and keep
+that day according to their several creeds and modes of worship in all
+humility and with all religious solemnity, to the end that the united
+prayer of the nation may ascend to the Throne of Grace and bring down
+plentiful blessings upon our country.
+
+     In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand
+     and caused the seal of the United States to
+[SEAL.]  be affixed, this twelfth day of August, A. D.
+     1861, and of the independence of the United
+     States of America the eighty-sixth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+TO JAMES POLLOCK.
+
+WASHINGTON, AUGUST 15, 1861
+
+HON. JAMES POLLOCK.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--You must make a job for the bearer of this--make a job of
+it with the collector and have it done. You can do it for me and you
+must.
+
+Yours as ever,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GOVERNOR O. P. MORTON.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., AUGUST 15, 1861
+
+GOVERNOR MORTON, Indiana: Start your four regiments to St. Louis at the
+earliest moment possible. Get such harness as may be necessary for your
+rifled gums. Do not delay a single regiment, but hasten everything
+forward as soon as any one regiment is ready. Have your three additional
+regiments organized at once. We shall endeavor to send you the arms this
+week.
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL FREMONT,
+
+WASHINGTON, August 15, 1861
+
+TO MAJOR-GENERAL FREMONT:
+
+Been answering your messages since day before yesterday. Do you receive
+the answers? The War Department has notified all the governors you
+designate to forward all available force. So telegraphed you. Have you
+received these messages? Answer immediately.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION FORBIDDING INTERCOURSE WITH
+REBEL STATES, AUGUST 16, 1861.
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas on the fifteenth day of April, eighteen hundred and sixty-one,
+the President of the United States, in view of an insurrection against
+the laws, Constitution, and government of the United States which had
+broken out within the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
+Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and in pursuance of the
+provisions of the act entitled "An act to provide for calling forth the
+militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and
+repel invasions, and to repeal the act now in force for that purpose,"
+approved February twenty-eighth, seventeen hundred and ninety-five, did
+call forth the militia to suppress said insurrection, and to cause the
+laws of the Union to be duly executed, and the insurgents have failed to
+disperse by the time directed by the President; and whereas such
+insurrection has since broken out and yet exists within the States of
+Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas; and whereas the
+insurgents in all the said States claim to act under the authority
+thereof, and such claim is not disclaimed or repudiated by the persons
+exercising the functions of government in such State or States, or in the
+part or parts thereof in which such combinations exist, nor has such
+insurrection been suppressed by said States:
+
+Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, in
+pursuance of an act of Congress approved July thirteen, eighteen hundred
+and sixty-one, do hereby declare that the inhabitants of the said States
+of Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama,
+Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Florida (except the
+inhabitants of that part of the State of Virginia lying west of the
+Allegheny Mountains, and of such other parts of that State, and the other
+States hereinbefore named, as may maintain a loyal adhesion to the Union
+and the Constitution, or may be time to time occupied and controlled by
+forces of the United States engaged in the dispersion of said
+insurgents), are in a state of insurrection against the United States,
+and that all commercial intercourse between the same and the inhabitants
+thereof, with the exceptions aforesaid, and the citizens of other States
+and other parts of the United States, is unlawful, and will remain
+unlawful until such insurrection shall cease or has been suppressed; that
+all goods and chattels, wares and merchandise, coming from any of said
+States, with the exceptions aforesaid, into other parts of the United
+States, without the special license and permission of the President,
+through the Secretary of the Treasury, or proceeding to any of said
+States, with the exceptions aforesaid, by land or water, together with
+the vessel or vehicle conveying the same, or conveying persons to or from
+said States, with said exceptions, will be forfeited to the United
+States; and that from and after fifteen days from the issuing of this
+proclamation all ships and vessels belonging in whole or in part to any
+citizen or inhabitant of any of said States, with said exceptions, found
+at sea, or in any port of the United States, will be forfeited to the
+United States; and I hereby enjoin upon all district attorneys, marshals,
+and officers of the revenue and of the military and naval forces of the
+United States to be vigilant in the execution of said act, and in the
+enforcement of the penalties and forfeitures imposed or declared by it;
+leaving any party who may think himself aggrieved thereby to his
+application to the Secretary of the Treasury for the remission of any
+penalty or forfeiture, which the said Secretary is authorized by law to
+grant if, in his judgment, the special circumstances of any case shall
+require such remission.
+
+In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand,...................
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of Sate.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY CAMERON.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 17, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Unless there be reason to the contrary, not known to me,
+make out a commission for Simon B. Buckner, of Kentucky, as a
+brigadier-general of volunteers. It is to be put into the hands of
+General Anderson, and delivered to General Buckner or not, at the
+discretion of General Anderson. Of course it is to remain a secret unless
+and until the commission is delivered.
+
+Yours truly, A. LINCOLN
+
+Same day made.
+
+[Indorsement.]
+
+
+
+
+TO GOVERNOR MAGOFFIN,
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., AUGUST 24, 1861
+
+To HIS EXCELLENCY B. MAGOFFIN, Governor of the State of Kentucky.
+
+SIR:--Your letter of the 19th instant, in which you urge the "removal
+from the limits of Kentucky of the military force now organized and in
+camp within that State," is received.
+
+I may not possess full and precisely accurate knowledge upon this
+subject; but I believe it is true that there is a military force in camp
+within Kentucky, acting by authority of the United States, which force is
+not very large, and is not now being augmented.
+
+I also believe that some arms have been furnished to this force by the
+United States.
+
+I also believe this force consists exclusively of Kentuckians, having
+their camp in the immediate vicinity of their own homes, and not
+assailing or menacing any of the good people of Kentucky.
+
+In all I have done in the premises I have acted upon the urgent
+solicitation of many Kentuckians, and in accordance with what I believed,
+and still believe, to be the wish of a majority of all the Union-loving
+people of Kentucky.
+
+While I have conversed on this subject with many eminent men of Kentucky,
+including a large majority of her members of Congress, I do not remember
+that any one of them, or any other person, except your Excellency and the
+bearers of your Excellency's letter, has urged me to remove the military
+force from Kentucky or to disband it. One other very worthy citizen of
+Kentucky did solicit me to have the augmenting of the force suspended for
+a time.
+
+Taking all the means within my reach to form a judgment, I do not believe
+it is the popular wish of Kentucky that this force shall be removed
+beyond her limits; and, with this impression, I must respectfully decline
+to so remove it.
+
+I most cordially sympathize with your Excellency in the wish to preserve
+the peace of my own native State, Kentucky. It is with regret I search,
+and cannot find, in your not very short letter, any declaration or
+intimation that you entertain any desire for the preservation of the
+Federal Union.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL FREMONT.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., SEPTEMBER 2, 1861
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL FREMONT.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Two points in your proclamation of August 30 give me some
+anxiety.
+
+First. Should you shoot a man, according to the proclamation, the
+Confederates would very certainly shoot our best men in their hands in
+retaliation; and so, man for man, indefinitely. It is, therefore, my
+order that you allow no man to be shot under the proclamation without
+first having my approbation or consent.
+
+Second. I think there is great danger that the closing paragraph, in
+relation to the confiscation of property and the liberating slaves of
+traitorous owners, will alarm our Southern Union friends and turn them
+against us; perhaps ruin our rather fair prospect for Kentucky. Allow me,
+therefore, to ask that you will, as of your own motion, modify that
+paragraph so as to conform to the first and fourth sections of the act of
+Congress entitled "An act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary
+purposes," approved August 6, 1861, and a copy of which act I herewith
+send you.
+
+This letter is written in a spirit of caution, and not of censure. I send
+it by special messenger, in order that it may certainly and speedily
+reach you.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GOVERNORS WASHBURN OF MAINE, FAIRBANKS OF VERMONT, BERRY
+OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, ANDREW OF MASSACHUSETTS, BUCKINGHAM OF CONNECTICUT, AND
+SPRAGUE OF RHODE ISLAND.
+
+WAR DEPARTMENT, September 11, 1861.
+
+General Butler proposes raising in New England six regiments, to be
+recruited and commanded by himself, and to go on special service.
+
+I shall be glad if you, as governor of ______, will answer by telegraph
+if you consent.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL FREMONT.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., SEPTEMBER 11, 1861
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN C. FREMONT.
+
+SIR:-Yours of the 8th, in answer to mine of the 2d instant, is just
+received. Assuming that you, upon the ground, could better judge of the
+necessities of your position than I could at this distance, on seeing
+your proclamation of August 30 I perceived no general objection to it.
+The particular clause, however, in relation to the confiscation of
+property and the liberation of slaves appeared to me to be objectionable
+in its nonconformity to the act of Congress passed the 6th of last August
+upon the same subjects; and hence I wrote you, expressing my wish that
+that clause should be modified accordingly. Your answer, just received,
+expresses the preference on your part that I should make an open order
+for the modification, which I very cheerfully do. It is therefore ordered
+that the said clause of said proclamation be so modified, held, and
+construed as to conform to, and not to transcend, the provisions on the
+same subject contained in the act of Congress entitled "An act to
+confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes," approved August
+6, 1861, and that said act be published at length with this order.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO MRS. FREMONT.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., September 12, 1861
+
+Mrs. GENERAL FREMONT.
+
+MY DEAR MADAM:--Your two notes of to-day are before me. I answered the
+letter you bore me from General Fremont on yesterday, and not hearing
+from you during the day, I sent the answer to him by mail. It is not
+exactly correct, as you say you were told by the elder Mr. Blair, to say
+that I sent Postmaster-General Blair to St. Louis to examine into that
+department and report. Postmaster-General Blair did go, with my
+approbation, to see and converse with General Fremont as a friend. I do
+not feel authorized to furnish you with copies of letters in my
+possession without the consent of the writers. No impression has been
+made on my mind against the honor or integrity of General Fremont, and I
+now enter my protest against being understood as acting in any hostility
+toward him.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO JOSEPH HOLT,
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, SEPTEMBER 12, 1861
+
+HON. JOSEPH HOLT.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of this day in relation to the late proclamation of
+General Fremont is received yesterday I addressed a letter to him, by
+mail, on the same subject, and which is to be made public when he
+receives it. I herewith send you a copy of that letter, which perhaps
+shows my position as distinctly as any new one I could write. I will
+thank you not to make it public until General Fremont shall have had time
+to receive the original.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL SCOTT
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., September 16, 1861.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Since conversing with you I have concluded to request you to
+frame an order for recruiting North Carolinians at Fort Hatteras. I
+suggest it to be so framed as for us to accept a smaller force--even a
+company--if we cannot get a regiment or more. What is necessary to now
+say about officers you will judge.  Governor Seward says he has a nephew
+(Clarence A. Seward, I believe) who would be willing to go and play
+colonel and assist in raising the force. Still it is to be considered
+whether the North Carolinians will not prefer officers of their own. I
+should expect they would.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY CAMERON.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, September 18, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR. MY DEAR SIR:--To guard against misunderstanding, I
+think fit to say that the joint expedition of the army and navy agreed
+upon some time since, and in which General T. W. Sherman was and is to
+bear a conspicuous part, is in no wise to be abandoned, but must be ready
+to move by the 1st of, or very early in, October.  Let all preparations
+go forward accordingly.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL FREMONT,
+
+WASHINGTON, SEPTEMBER 12, 1861
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL FREMONT:
+
+Governor Morton telegraphs as follows: "Colonel Lane, just arrived by
+special train, represents Owensborough, forty miles above Evansville, in
+possession of secessionists. Green River is navigable. Owensborough must
+be seized. We want a gunboat sent up from Paducah for that purpose." Send
+up the gunboat if, in your discretion, you think it right. Perhaps you
+had better order those in charge of the Ohio River to guard it vigilantly
+at all points.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+To O. H. BROWNING.
+
+(Private and Confidential)
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON SEPTEMBER 22, 1861
+
+HON. O. H. BROWNING.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 17th is just received; and coming from you, I
+confess it astonishes me. That you should object to my adhering to a law
+which you had assisted in making and presenting to me less than a month
+before is odd enough. But this is a very small part. General Fremont's
+proclamation as to confiscation of property and the liberation of slaves
+is purely political and not within the range of military law or
+necessity. If a commanding general finds a necessity to seize the farm of
+a private owner for a pasture, an encampment, or a fortification, he has
+the right to do so, and to so hold it as long as the necessity lasts; and
+this is within military law, because within military necessity. But to
+say the farm shall no longer belong to the owner, or his heirs forever,
+and this as well when the farm is not needed for military purposes as
+when it is, is purely political, without the savor of military law about
+it. And the same is true of slaves. If the general needs them, he can
+seize them and use them; but when the need is past, it is not for him to
+fix their permanent future condition.  That must be settled according to
+laws made by law-makers, and not by military proclamations. The
+proclamation in the point in question is simply "dictatorship." It
+assumes that the general may do anything he pleases confiscate the lands
+and free the slaves of loyal people, as well as of disloyal ones. And
+going the whole figure, I have no doubt, would be more popular with some
+thoughtless people than that which has been done, But I cannot assume
+this reckless position, nor allow others to assume it on my
+responsibility.
+
+You speak of it as being the only means of saving the government. On the
+contrary, it is itself the surrender of the government. Can it be
+pretended that it is any longer the Government of the United States--any
+government of constitution and laws wherein a general or a president may
+make permanent rules of property by proclamation? I do not say Congress
+might not with propriety pass a law on the point, just such as General
+Fremont proclaimed.
+
+I do not say I might not, as a member of Congress, vote for it. What I
+object to is, that I, as President, shall expressly or impliedly seize
+and exercise the permanent legislative functions of the government.
+
+So much as to principle. Now as to policy. No doubt the thing was popular
+in some quarters, and would have been more so if it had been a general
+declaration of emancipation. The Kentucky Legislature would not budge
+till that proclamation was modified; and General Anderson telegraphed me
+that on the news of General Fremont having actually issued deeds of
+manumission, a whole company of our volunteers threw down their arms and
+disbanded. I was so assured as to think it probable that the very arms we
+had furnished Kentucky would be turned against us. I think to lose
+Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game. Kentucky gone, we
+cannot hold Missouri, nor, as I think, Maryland. These all against us,
+and the job on our hands is too large for us. We would as well consent to
+separation at once, including the surrender of this Capital. On the
+contrary, if you will give up your restlessness for new positions, and
+back me manfully on the grounds upon which you and other kind friends
+gave me the election and have approved in my public documents, we shall
+go through triumphantly. You must not understand I took my course on the
+proclamation because of Kentucky. I took the same ground in a private
+letter to General Fremont before I heard from Kentucky.
+
+You think I am inconsistent because I did not also forbid General Fremont
+to shoot men under the proclamation. I understand that part to be within
+military law, but I also think, and so privately wrote General Fremont,
+that it is impolitic in this, that our adversaries have the power, and
+will certainly exercise it, to shoot as many of our men as we shoot of
+theirs.  I did not say this in the public letter, because it is a subject
+I prefer not to discuss in the hearing of our enemies.
+
+There has been no thought of removing General Fremont on any ground
+connected with his proclamation, and if there has been any wish for his
+removal on any ground, our mutual friend Sam. Glover can probably tell
+you what it was. I hope no real necessity for it exists on any ground.
+
+Your friend, as ever,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MEMORANDUM FOR A PLAN OF CAMPAIGN
+[OCTOBER 1?] 1861
+
+On or about the 5th of October (the exact date to be determined
+hereafter) I wish a movement made to seize and hold a point on the
+railroad connecting Virginia and Tennessee near the mountain-pass called
+Cumberland Gap. That point is now guarded against us by Zollicoffer, with
+6000 or 8000 rebels at Barboursville Ky.,--say twenty-five miles from the
+Gap, toward Lexington.  We have a force of 5000 or 6000 under General
+Thomas, at Camp Dick Robinson, about twenty-five miles from Lexington and
+seventy-five from Zollicoffer's camp, On the road between the two. There
+is not a railroad anywhere between Lexington and the point to be seized,
+and along the whole length of which the Union sentiment among the people
+largely predominates. We have military possession of the railroad from
+Cincinnati to Lexington, and from Louisville to Lexington, and some home
+guards, under General Crittenden, are on the latter line.  We have
+possession of the railroad from Louisville to Nashville, Tenn., so far as
+Muldraugh's Hill, about forty miles, and the rebels have possession of
+that road all south of there. At the Hill we have a force of 8000, under
+General Sherman, and about an equal force of rebels is a very short
+distance south, under General Buckner.
+
+We have a large force at Paducah, and a smaller at Port Holt, both on the
+Kentucky side, with some at Bird's Point, Cairo, Mound City, Evansville,
+and New Albany, all on the other side, and all which, with the gunboats
+on the river, are perhaps sufficient to guard the Ohio from Louisville to
+its mouth.
+
+About supplies of troops, my general idea is that all from Wisconsin,
+Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas, not now elsewhere, be
+left to Fremont. All from Indiana and Michigan, not now elsewhere, be
+sent to Anderson at Louisville. All from Ohio needed in western Virginia
+be sent there, and any remainder be sent to Mitchell at Cincinnati, for
+Anderson. All east of the mountains be appropriated to McClellan and to
+the coast.
+
+As to movements, my idea is that the one for the coast and that on
+Cumberland Gap be simultaneous, and that in the meantime preparation,
+vigilant watching, and the defensive only be acted upon; this, however,
+not to apply to Fremont's operations in northern and middle Missouri.
+That before these movements Thomas and Sherman shall respectively watch
+but not attack Zollicoffer and Buckner. That when the coast and Gap
+movements shall be ready Sherman is merely to stand fast, while all at
+Cincinnati and all at Louisville, with all on the line, concentrate
+rapidly at Lexington, and thence to Thomas's camp, joining him, and the
+whole thence upon the Gap. It is for the military men to decide whether
+they can find a pass through the mountains at or near the Gap which
+cannot be defended by the enemy with a greatly inferior force, and what
+is to be done in regard to this.
+
+The coast and Gap movements made, Generals McClellan and Fremont, in
+their respective departments, will avail themselves of any advantages the
+diversions may present.
+
+[He was entirely unable to get this started, Sherman would have taken an
+active part if given him, the others were too busy getting lines of
+communication guarded--and discovering many "critical" supply items that
+had not been sent them.  Also the commanding general did not like it.
+D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, October 4, 1861
+
+HONORABLE SECRETARY OF STATE.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Please see Mr. Walker, well vouched as a Union man and
+son-in-law of Governor Morehead, and pleading for his release. I
+understand the Kentucky arrests were not made by special direction from
+here, and I am willing if you are that any of the parties may be released
+when James Guthrie and James Speed think they should be.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE VICEROY OF EGYPT.
+
+WASHINGTON, October 11, 1861.
+
+GREAT AND GOOD FRIEND:--I have received from Mr. Thayer, Consul-General
+of the United States at Alexandria, a full account of the liberal,
+enlightened, and energetic proceedings which, on his complaint, you have
+adopted in bringing to speedy and condign punishment the parties,
+subjects of your Highness in Upper Egypt, who were concerned in an act of
+criminal persecution against Faris, an agent of certain Christian
+missionaries in Upper Egypt. I pray your Highness to be assured that
+these proceedings, at once so prompt and so just, will be regarded as a
+new and unmistakable proof equally of your Highness's friendship for the
+United States and of the firmness, integrity and wisdom, with which the
+government of your Highness is conducted. Wishing you great prosperity
+and success, I am your friend,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+HIS HIGHNESS MOHAMMED SAID PACHA, Viceroy of Egypt and its Dependencies,
+etc.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER AUTHORIZING SUSPENSION OF THE WRIT OF
+HABEAS CORPUS.
+
+October 14 1861
+
+LIEUTENANT-GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT:
+
+The military line of the United States for the suppression of the
+insurrection may be extended so far as Bangor, in Maine. You and any
+officer acting under your authority are hereby authorized to suspend the
+writ of habeas corpus in any place between that place and the city of
+Washington.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY OF INTERIOR.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, October 14, 1861
+
+HON. SEC. OF INTERIOR.
+
+DEAR SIR:--How is this? I supposed I was appointing for register of wills
+a citizen of this District. Now the commission comes to me "Moses Kelly,
+of New Hampshire." I do not like this.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TWO SONS WHO WANT TO WORK
+
+TO MAJOR RAMSEY.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, October 17, 1861
+MAJOR RAMSEY.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--The lady bearer of this says she has two sons who want to
+work. Set them at it if possible. Wanting to work is so rare a want that
+it should be encouraged.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL THOMAS W. SHERMAN.
+
+WASHINGTON, October 18, 1861.
+
+GENERAL THOMAS SHERMAN, Annapolis, Md.:
+
+Your despatch of yesterday received and shown to General McClellan. I
+have promised him not to direct his army here without his consent. I do
+not think I shall come to Annapolis.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL CURTIS, WITH INCLOSURES.
+
+WASHINGTON, October 24, 1861
+
+BRIGADIER-GENERAL S. R. CURTIS.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Herewith is a document--half letter, half order--which,
+wishing you to see, but not to make public, I send unsealed. Please read
+it and then inclose it to the officer who may be in command of the
+Department of the West at the time it reaches him. I cannot now know
+whether Fremont or Hunter will then be in command.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+WASHINGTON, October 24, 1861
+
+BRIGADIER-GENERAL S. R. CURTIS.
+
+DEAR SIR:--On receipt of this, with the accompanying inclosures, you will
+take safe, certain, and suitable measures to have the inclosure addressed
+to Major-General Fremont delivered to him with all reasonable despatch,
+subject to these conditions only: that if, when General Fremont shall be
+reached by the messenger--yourself or any one sent by you--he shall then
+have, in personal command, fought and won a battle, or shall then be
+actually in a battle, or shall then be in the immediate presence of the
+enemy in expectation of a battle, it is not to be delivered, but held for
+further orders. After, and not till after, the delivery to General
+Fremont, let the inclosure addressed to General Hunter be delivered to
+him.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+(General Orders No. 18.) HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY,
+
+WASHINGTON, October 24, 1861
+
+Major-General Fremont, of the United States Army, the present commander
+of the Western Department of the same, will, on the receipt of this
+order, call Major-General Hunter, of the United States Volunteers, to
+relieve him temporarily in that command, when he (Major-General Fremont)
+will report to general headquarters by letter for further orders.
+
+WINFIELD SCOTT. By command: E. D. TOWNSEND, Assistant Adjutant-General.
+
+
+
+
+WASHINGTON, October 24, 1861
+
+TO THE COMMANDER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE WEST.
+
+SIR:--The command of the Department of the West having devolved upon you,
+I propose to offer you a few suggestions. Knowing how hazardous it is to
+bind down a distant commander in the field to specific lines and
+operations, as so much always depends on a knowledge of localities and
+passing events, it is intended, therefore, to leave a considerable margin
+for the exercise of your judgment and discretion.
+
+The main rebel army (Price's) west of the Mississippi is believed to have
+passed Dade County in full retreat upon northwestern Arkansas, leaving
+Missouri almost freed from the enemy, excepting in the southeast of the
+State. Assuming this basis of fact, it seems desirable, as you are not
+likely to overtake Price, and are in danger of making too long a line
+from your own base of supplies and reinforcements, that you should give
+up the pursuit, halt your main army, divide it into two corps of
+observation, one occupying Sedalia and the other Rolla, the present
+termini of railroads; then recruit the condition of both corps by
+re-establishing and improving their discipline and instructions,
+perfecting their clothing and equipments, and providing less
+uncomfortable quarters. Of course, both railroads must be guarded and
+kept open, judiciously employing just so much force as is necessary for
+this. From these two points, Sedalia and Rolla, and especially in
+judicious cooperation with Lane on the Kansas border, it would be so easy
+to concentrate and repel any army of the enemy returning on Missouri from
+the southwest, that it is not probable any such attempt will be made
+before or during the approaching cold weather. Before spring the people
+of Missouri will probably be in no favorable mood to renew for next year
+the troubles which have so much afflicted and impoverished them during
+this. If you adopt this line of policy, and if, as I anticipate, you will
+see no enemy in great force approaching, you will have a surplus of force
+which you can withdraw from these points and direct to others as may be
+needed, the railroads furnishing ready means of reinforcing these main
+points if occasion requires. Doubtless local uprisings will for a time
+continue to occur, but these can be met by detachments and local forces
+of our own, and will ere long tire out of themselves.
+
+While, as stated in the beginning of the letter, a large discretion must
+be and is left with yourself, I feel sure that an indefinite pursuit of
+Price or an attempt by this long and circuitous route to reach Memphis
+will be exhaustive beyond endurance, and will end in the loss of the
+whole force engaged in it.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER RETIRING GENERAL SCOTT AND APPOINTING
+
+GENERAL McCLELLAN HIS SUCCESSOR. (General Orders, No.94.)
+
+WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE
+
+WASHINGTON, November 1, 1861
+
+The following order from the President of the United States, announcing
+the retirement from active command of the honored veteran Lieutenant
+general Winfield Scott, will be read by the army with profound regret:
+
+
+
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON.
+
+November 1, 1861
+
+On the 1st day of November, A.D. 1861, upon his own application to the
+President of the United States, Brevet Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott
+is ordered to be placed, and hereby is placed, upon the list of retired
+officers of the army of the United States, without reduction in his
+current pay, subsistence, or allowances.
+
+The American people will hear with sadness and deep emotion that General
+Scott has withdrawn from the active control of the army, while the
+President and a unanimous Cabinet express their own and the nation's
+sympathy in his personal affliction and their profound sense of the
+important public services rendered by him to his country during his long
+and brilliant career, among which will ever be gratefully distinguished
+his faithful devotion to the Constitution, the Union, and the flag when
+assailed by parricidal rebellion.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+
+The President is pleased to direct that Major general George B. McClellan
+assume the command of the army of the United States. The headquarters of
+the army will be established in the city of Washington. All
+communications intended for the commanding general will hereafter be
+addressed direct to the adjutant-general. The duplicate returns, orders,
+and other papers heretofore sent to the assistant adjutant-general,
+headquarters of the army, will be discontinued.
+
+By order of the Secretary of War:
+L. THOMAS, Adjutant General.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER APPROVING THE PLAN OF GOVERNOR GAMBLE
+OF MISSOURI.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
+
+November 5, 1861.
+
+The Governor of the State of Missouri, acting under the direction of the
+convention of that State, proposes to the Government of the United States
+that he will raise a military force to serve within the State as State
+militia during the war there, to cooperate with the troops in the service
+of the United States in repelling the invasion of the State and
+suppressing rebellion therein; the said State militia to be embodied and
+to be held in the camp and in the field, drilled, disciplined, and
+governed according to the Army Regulations and subject to the Articles of
+War; the said State militia not to be ordered out of the State except for
+the immediate defense of the State of Missouri, but to co-operate with
+the troops in the service of the United States in military operations
+within the State or necessary to its defense, and when officers of the
+State militia act with officers in the service of the United States of
+the same grade the officers of the United States service shall command
+the combined force; the State militia to be armed, equipped, clothed,
+subsisted, transported, and paid by the United States during such time as
+they shall be actually engaged as an embodied military force in service
+in accordance with regulations of the United States Army or general
+orders as issued from time to time.
+
+In order that the Treasury of the United States may not be burdened with
+the pay of unnecessary officers, the governor proposes that, although the
+State law requires him to appoint upon the general staff an
+adjutant-general, a commissary-general, an inspector-general, a
+quartermaster-general, a paymaster-general, and a surgeon-general, each
+with the rank of colonel of cavalry, yet he proposes that the Government
+of the United States pay only the adjutant-general, the
+quartermaster-general, and inspector-general, their services being
+necessary in the relations which would exist between the State militia
+and the United States. The governor further proposes that while he is
+allowed by the State law to appoint aides-de-camp to the governor at his
+discretion, with the rank of colonel, three only shall be reported to the
+United States for payment. He also proposes that the State militia shall
+be commanded by a single major-general and by such number of
+brigadier-generals as shall allow one for a brigade of not less than four
+regiments, and that no greater number of staff officers shall be
+appointed for regimental, brigade, and division duties than as provided
+for in the act of Congress of the 22d July, 1861; and that, whatever be
+the rank of such officers as fixed by the law of the State, the
+compensation that they shall receive from the United States shall only be
+that which belongs to the rank given by said act of Congress to officers
+in the United States service performing the same duties.
+
+The field officers of a regiment in the State militia are one colonel,
+one lieutenant-colonel, and one major, and the company officers are a
+captain, a first lieutenant, and a second lieutenant. The governor
+proposes that, as the money to be disbursed is the money of the United
+States, such staff officers in the service of the United States as may be
+necessary to act as disbursing officers for the State militia shall be
+assigned by the War Department for that duty; or, if such cannot be
+spared from their present duty, he will appoint such persons disbursing
+officers for the State militia as the President of the United States may
+designate. Such regulations as may be required, in the judgment of the
+President, to insure regularity of returns and to protect the United
+States from any fraudulent practices shall be observed and obeyed by all
+in office in the State militia.
+
+The above propositions are accepted on the part of the United States, and
+the Secretary of War is directed to make the necessary orders upon the
+Ordnance, Quartermaster's, Commissary, Pay, and Medical departments to
+carry this agreement into effect. He will cause the necessary staff
+officers in the United States service to be detailed for duty in
+connection with the Missouri State militia, and will order them to make
+the necessary provision in their respective offices for fulfilling this
+agreement. All requisitions upon the different officers of the United
+States under this agreement to be made in substance in the same mode for
+the Missouri State militia as similar requisitions are made for troops in
+the service of the United States; and the Secretary of War will cause any
+additional regulations that may be necessary to insure regularity and
+economy in carrying this agreement into effect to be adopted and
+communicated to the Governor of Missouri for the government of the
+Missouri State militia.
+
+[Indorsement.]
+
+November 6, 1861.
+
+This plan approved, with the modification that the governor stipulates
+that when he commissions a major-general of militia it shall be the same
+person at the time in command of the United States Department of the
+West; and in case the United States shall change such commander of the
+department, he (the governor) will revoke the State commission given to
+the person relieved and give one to the person substituted to the United
+States command of said department.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MINISTER FROM SWEDEN.
+
+November 8, 1861.
+
+SIR:--I receive with great pleasure a Minister from Sweden. That pleasure
+is enhanced by the information which preceded your arrival here, that his
+Majesty, your sovereign, had selected you to fill the mission upon the
+grounds of your derivation from an ancestral stock identified with the
+most glorious era of your country's noble history, and your own eminent
+social and political standing in Sweden. This country, sir, maintains,
+and means to maintain, the rights of human nature, and the capacity of
+men for self-government. The history of Sweden proves that this is the
+faith of the people of Sweden, and we know that it is the faith and
+practice of their respected sovereign. Rest assured, therefore, that we
+shall be found always just and paternal in our transactions with your
+government, and that nothing will be omitted on my part to make your
+residence in this capital agreeable to yourself and satisfactory to your
+government.
+
+
+
+
+INDORSEMENT AUTHORIZING MARTIAL LAW IN SAINT LOUIS.
+
+St. Louis, November 20, 1861. (Received Nov. 20th.)
+
+GENERAL McCLELLAN,
+
+For the President of the United States.
+
+No written authority is found here to declare and enforce martial law in
+this department. Please send me such written authority and telegraph me
+that it has been sent by mail.
+
+H. W. HALLECK, Major-General.
+
+[Indorsement.] November 21, 1861.
+
+If General McClellan and General Halleck deem it necessary to declare and
+maintain martial law in Saint Louis, the same is hereby authorized.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+OFFER TO COOPERATE AND GIVE SPECIAL LINE OF INFORMATION
+TO HORACE GREELEY
+
+TO GOVERNOR WALKER.
+
+WASHINGTON, November 21, 1861
+
+DEAR GOVERNOR:--I have thought over the interview which Mr. Gilmore has
+had with Mr. Greeley, and the proposal that Greeley has made to Gilmore,
+namely, that he [Gilmore] shall communicate to him [Greeley] all that he
+learns from you of the inner workings of the administration, in return
+for his [Greeley's] giving such aid as he can to the new magazine, and
+allowing you [Walker] from time to time the use of his [Greeley's]
+columns when it is desirable to feel of, or forestall, public opinion on
+important subjects.  The arrangement meets my unqualified approval, and I
+shall further it to the extent of my ability, by opening to you--as I do
+now--fully the policy of the Government,--its present views and future
+intentions when formed, giving you permission to communicate them to
+Gilmore for Greeley; and in case you go to Europe I will give these
+things direct to Gilmore. But all this must be on the express and
+explicit understanding that the fact of these communications coming from
+me shall be absolutely confidential,--not to be disclosed by Greeley to
+his nearest friend, or any of his subordinates. He will be, in effect, my
+mouthpiece, but I must not be known to be the speaker.
+
+I need not tell you that I have the highest confidence in Mr. Greeley. He
+is a great power. Having him firmly behind me will be as helpful to me as
+an army of one hundred thousand men.
+
+This was to be most severely regretted, when Greeley became a traitor to
+the cause, editorialized for compromise and separation--and promoted
+McClellan as Democratic candidate for the Presidency.
+
+That he has ever kicked the traces has been owing to his not being fully
+informed. Tell Gilmore to say to him that, if he ever objects to my
+policy, I shall be glad to have him state to me his views frankly and
+fully. I shall adopt his if I can. If I cannot, I will at least tell him
+why. He and I should stand together, and let no minor differences come
+between us; for we both seek one end, which is the saving of our country.
+Now, Governor, this is a longer letter than I have written in a
+month,--longer than I would have written for any other man than Horace
+Greeley.
+
+Your friend, truly,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+P. S.--The sooner Gilmore sees Greeley the better, as you may before long
+think it wise to ventilate our policy on the Trent affair.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER AUTHORIZING GENERAL HALLECK TO SUSPEND
+THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS,
+
+DECEMBER 2, 1861.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL H. W. HALLECK, Commanding in the Department of Missouri.
+
+GENERAL:--As an insurrection exists in the United States, and is in arms
+in the State of Missouri, you are hereby authorized and empowered to
+suspend the writ of habeas corpus within the limits of the military
+division under your command, and to exercise martial law as you find it
+necessary in your discretion to secure the public safety and the
+authority of the United States.
+
+In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the
+United States to be affixed at Washington, this second day of December,
+A.D. 1861.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+ANNUAL MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+WASHINGTON, December 3, 1861
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:--In the midst
+of unprecedented political troubles we have cause of great gratitude to
+God for unusual good health and most abundant harvests.
+
+You will not be surprised to learn that in the peculiar exigencies of the
+times our intercourse with foreign nations has been attended with
+profound solicitude, chiefly turning upon our own domestic affairs.
+
+A disloyal portion of the American people have during the whole year been
+engaged in an attempt to divide and destroy the Union. A nation which
+endures factious domestic division is exposed to disrespect abroad, and
+one party, if not both, is sure sooner or later to invoke foreign
+intervention.
+
+Nations thus tempted to interfere are not always able to resist the
+counsels of seeming expediency and ungenerous ambition, although measures
+adopted under such influences seldom fail to be unfortunate and injurious
+to those adopting them.
+
+The disloyal citizens of the United States who have offered the ruin of
+our country in return for the aid and comfort which they have invoked
+abroad have received less patronage and encouragement than they probably
+expected. If it were just to suppose, as the insurgents have seemed to
+assume, that foreign nations in this case, discarding all moral, social,
+and treaty obligations, would act solely and selfishly for the most
+speedy restoration of commerce, including especially the acquisition of
+cotton, those nations appear as yet not to have seen their way to their
+object more directly or clearly through the destruction than through the
+preservation of the Union. If we could dare to believe that foreign
+nations are actuated by no higher principle than this, I am quite sure a
+sound argument could be made to show them that they can reach their aim
+more readily and easily by aiding to crush this rebellion than by giving
+encouragement to it.
+
+The principal lever relied on by the insurgents for exciting foreign
+nations to hostility against us, as already intimated, is the
+embarrassment of commerce. Those nations, however, not improbably saw
+from the first that it was the Union which made as well our foreign as
+our domestic commerce. They can scarcely have failed to perceive that the
+effort for disunion produces the existing difficulty, and that one strong
+nation promises more durable peace and a more extensive, valuable, and
+reliable commerce than can the same nation broken into hostile fragments.
+
+It is not my purpose to review our discussions with foreign states,
+because, whatever might be their wishes or dispositions, the integrity of
+our country and the stability of our government mainly depend not upon
+them, but on the loyalty, virtue, patriotism, and intelligence of the
+American people. The correspondence itself, with the usual reservations,
+is herewith submitted.
+
+I venture to hope it will appear that we have practiced prudence and
+liberality toward foreign powers, averting causes of irritation and with
+firmness maintaining our own rights and honor.
+
+Since, however, it is apparent that here, as in every other state,
+foreign dangers necessarily attend domestic difficulties, I recommend
+that adequate and ample measures be adopted for maintaining the public
+defenses on every side. While under this general recommendation provision
+for defending our seacoast line readily occurs to the mind, I also in the
+same connection ask the attention of Congress to our great lakes and
+rivers. It is believed that some fortifications and depots of arms and
+munitions, with harbor and navigation improvements, all at well-selected
+points upon these, would be of great importance to the national defense
+and preservation I ask attention to the views of the Secretary of War,
+expressed in his report, upon the same general subject.
+
+I deem it of importance that the loyal regions of east Tennessee and
+western North Carolina should be connected with Kentucky and other
+faithful parts of the Union by rail-road.  I therefore recommend, as a
+military measure, that Congress provide for the construction of such
+rail-road as speedily as possible. Kentucky will no doubt co-operate, and
+through her Legislature make the most judicious selection of a line. The
+northern terminus must connect with some existing railroad, and whether
+the route shall be from Lexington or Nicholasville to the Cumberland Gap,
+or from Lebanon to the Tennessee line, in the direction of Knoxville, or
+on some still different line, can easily be determined. Kentucky and the
+General Government co-operating, the work can be completed in a very
+short time, and when done it will be not only of vast present usefulness
+but also a valuable permanent improvement, worth its cost in all the
+future.
+
+Some treaties, designed chiefly for the interests of commerce, and having
+no grave political importance, have been negotiated, and will be
+submitted to the Senate for their consideration.
+
+Although we have failed to induce some of the commercial powers to adopt
+a desirable melioration of the rigor of maritime war, we have removed all
+obstructions from the way of this humane reform except such as are merely
+of temporary and accidental occurrence.
+
+I invite your attention to the correspondence between her Britannic
+Majesty's minister accredited to this government and the Secretary of
+State relative to the detention of the British ship Perthshire in June
+last by the United States steamer Massachusetts for a supposed breach of
+the blockade. As this detention was occasioned by an obvious
+misapprehension of the facts, and as justice requires that we should
+commit no belligerent act not founded in strict right as sanctioned by
+public law, I recommend that an appropriation be made to satisfy the
+reasonable demand of the owners of the vessel for her detention.
+
+I repeat the recommendation of my predecessor in his annual message to
+Congress in December last in regard to the disposition of the surplus
+which will probably remain after satisfying the claims of American
+citizens against China, pursuant to the awards of the commissioners under
+the act of the 3d of March, 1859. If, however, it should not be deemed
+advisable to carry that recommendation into effect, I would suggest that
+authority be given for investing the principal, or the proceeds of the
+surplus referred to, in good securities, with a view to the satisfaction
+of such other just claims of our citizens against China as are not
+unlikely to arise hereafter in the course of our extensive trade with
+that empire.
+
+By the act of the 5th of August last Congress authorized the President to
+instruct the commanders of suitable vessels to defend themselves against
+and to capture pirates. His authority has been exercised in a single
+instance only. For the more effectual protection of our extensive and
+valuable commerce in the Eastern seas especially, it seems to me that it
+would also be advisable to authorize the commanders of sailing vessels to
+recapture any prizes which pirates may make of United States vessels and
+their cargoes, and the consular courts now established by law in Eastern
+countries to adjudicate the cases in the event that this should not be
+objected to by the local authorities.
+
+If any good reason exists why we should persevere longer in withholding
+our recognition of the independence and sovereignty of Haiti and Liberia,
+I am unable to discern it. Unwilling, however, to inaugurate a novel
+policy in regard to them without the approbation of Congress, I submit
+for your consideration the expediency of an appropriation for maintaining
+a charge d'affaires near each of those new States. It does not admit of
+doubt that important commercial advantages might be secured by favorable
+treaties with them.
+
+The operations of the treasury during the period which has elapsed since
+your adjournment have been conducted with signal success. The patriotism
+of the people has placed at the disposal of the government the large
+means demanded by the public exigencies. Much of the national loan has
+been taken by citizens of the industrial classes, whose confidence in
+their country's faith and zeal for their country's deliverance from
+present peril have induced them to contribute to the support of the
+government the whole of their limited acquisitions. This fact imposes
+peculiar obligations to economy in disbursement and energy in action.
+
+The revenue from all sources, including loans, for the financial year
+ending on the 30th of June, 1861, was $86,835,900.27, and the
+expenditures for the same period, including payments on account of the
+public debt, were $84,578,834.47, leaving a balance in the treasury on
+the 1st of July of $2,257,065.80. For the first quarter of the financial
+year ending on the 30th of September, 1861, the receipts from all
+sources, including the balance of the 1st of July, were $102,532,509.27,
+and the expenses $98,239733.09, leaving a balance on the 1st of October,
+1861, of $4,292,776.18.
+
+Estimates for the remaining three quarters of the year and for the
+financial year 1863, together with his views of ways and means for
+meeting the demands contemplated by them, will be submitted to Congress
+by the Secretary of the Treasury. It is gratifying to know that the
+expenditures made necessary by the rebellion are not beyond the resources
+of the loyal people, and to believe that the same patriotism which has
+thus far sustained the government will continue to sustain it till peace
+and union shall again bless the land.
+
+I respectfully refer to the report of the Secretary of War for
+information respecting the numerical strength of the army and for
+recommendations having in view an increase of its efficiency and the
+well-being of the various branches of the service intrusted to his care.
+It is gratifying to know that the patriotism of the people has proved
+equal to the occasion, and that the number of troops tendered greatly
+exceeds the force which Congress authorized me to call into the field.
+
+I refer with pleasure to those portions of his report which make allusion
+to the creditable degree of discipline already attained by our troops and
+to the excellent sanitary condition of the entire army.
+
+The recommendation of the Secretary for an organization of the militia
+upon a uniform basis is a subject of vital importance to the future
+safety of the country, and is commended to the serious attention of
+Congress.
+
+The large addition to the regular army, in connection with the defection
+that has so considerably diminished the number of its officers, gives
+peculiar importance to his recommendation for increasing the corps of
+cadets to the greatest capacity of the Military Academy.
+
+By mere omission, I presume, Congress has failed to provide chaplains for
+hospitals occupied by volunteers. This subject was brought to my notice,
+and I was induced to draw up the form of a letter, one copy of which,
+properly addressed, has been delivered to each of the persons, and at the
+dates respectively named and stated in a schedule, containing also the
+form of the letter, marked A, and herewith transmitted.
+
+These gentlemen, I understand, entered upon the duties designated at the
+times respectively stated in the schedule, and have labored faithfully
+therein ever since. I therefore recommend that they be compensated at the
+same rate as chaplains in the army.  I further suggest that general
+provision be made for chaplains to serve at hospitals, as well as with
+regiments.
+
+The report of the Secretary of the Navy presents in detail the operations
+of that branch of the service, the activity and energy which have
+characterized its administration, and the results of measures to increase
+its efficiency and power such have been the additions, by construction
+and purchase, that it may almost be said a navy has been created and
+brought into service since our difficulties commenced.
+
+Besides blockading our extensive coast, squadrons larger than ever before
+assembled under our flag have been put afloat and performed deeds which
+have increased our naval renown.
+
+I would invite special attention to the recommendation of the Secretary
+for a more perfect organization of the navy by introducing additional
+grades in the service.
+
+The present organization is defective and unsatisfactory, and the
+suggestions submitted by the department will, it is believed, if adopted,
+obviate the difficulties alluded to, promote harmony, and increase the
+efficiency of the navy.
+
+There are three vacancies on the bench of the Supreme Court--two by the
+decease of Justices Daniel and McLean and one by the resignation of
+Justice Campbell. I have so far forborne making nominations to fill these
+vacancies for reasons which I will now state. Two of the outgoing judges
+resided within the States now overrun by revolt, so that if successors
+were appointed in the same localities they could not now serve upon their
+circuits; and many of the most competent men there probably would not
+take the personal hazard of accepting to serve, even here, upon the
+Supreme bench. I have been unwilling to throw all the appointments
+north-ward, thus disabling myself from doing justice to the South on the
+return of peace; although I may remark that to transfer to the North one
+which has heretofore been in the South would not, with reference to
+territory and population, be unjust.
+
+During the long and brilliant judicial career of Judge McLean his circuit
+grew into an empire-altogether too large for any one judge to give the
+courts therein more than a nominal attendance--rising in population from
+1,470,018 in 1830 to 6,151,405 in 1860.
+
+Besides this, the country generally has outgrown our present judicial
+system. If uniformity was at all intended, the system requires that all
+the States shall be accommodated with circuit courts, attended by Supreme
+judges, while, in fact, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Florida,
+Texas, California, and Oregon have never had any such courts. Nor can
+this well be remedied without a change in the system, because the adding
+of judges to the Supreme Court, enough for the accommodation of all parts
+of the country with circuit courts, would create a court altogether too
+numerous for a judicial body of any sort. And the evil, if it be one,
+will increase as new States come into the Union. Circuit courts are
+useful or they are not useful. If useful, no State should be denied them;
+if not useful, no State should have them. Let them be provided for all or
+abolished as to all.
+
+Three modifications occur to me, either of which, I think, would be an
+improvement upon our present system. Let the Supreme Court be of
+convenient number in every event; then, first, let the whole country be
+divided into circuits of convenient size, the Supreme judges to serve in
+a number of them corresponding to their own number, and independent
+circuit judges be provided for all the rest; or, secondly, let the
+Supreme judges be relieved from circuit duties and circuit judges
+provided for all the circuits; or, thirdly, dispense with circuit courts
+altogether, leaving the judicial functions wholly to the district courts
+and an independent Supreme Court.
+
+I respectfully recommend to the consideration of Congress the present
+condition of the statute laws, with the hope that Congress will be able
+to find an easy remedy for many of the inconveniences and evils which
+constantly embarrass those engaged in the practical administration of
+them. Since the Organization of the government, Congress has enacted some
+5000 acts and joint resolutions, which fill more than 6000 closely
+printed pages and are scattered through many volumes. Many of these acts
+have been drawn in haste and without sufficient caution, so that their
+provisions are often obscure in themselves or in conflict with each
+other, or at least so doubtful as to render it very difficult for even
+the best-informed persons to ascertain precisely what the statute law
+really is.
+
+It seems to me very important that the statute laws should be made as
+plain and intelligible as possible, and be reduced to as small a compass
+as may consist with the fullness and precision of the will of the
+Legislature and the perspicuity of its language. This well done would, I
+think, greatly facilitate the labors of those whose duty it is to assist
+in the administration of the laws, and would be a lasting benefit to the
+people, by placing before them in a more accessible and intelligible form
+the laws which so deeply concern their interests and their duties.
+
+I am informed by some whose opinions I respect that all the acts of
+Congress now in force and of a permanent and general nature might be
+revised and rewritten so as to be embraced in one volume (or at most two
+volumes) of ordinary and convenient size; and I respectfully recommend to
+Congress to consider of the subject, and if my suggestion be approved to
+devise such plan as to their wisdom shall seem most proper for the
+attainment of the end proposed.
+
+One of the unavoidable consequences of the present insurrection is the
+entire suppression in many places of all the ordinary means of
+administering civil justice by the officers and in the forms of existing
+law. This is the case, in whole or in part, in all the insurgent States;
+and as our armies advance upon and take possession of parts of those
+States the practical evil becomes more apparent. There are no courts or
+officers to whom the citizens of other States may apply for the
+enforcement of their lawful claims against citizens of the insurgent
+States, and there is a vast amount of debt constituting such claims. Some
+have estimated it as high as $200,000,000, due in large part from
+insurgents in open rebellion to loyal citizens who are even now making
+great sacrifices in the discharge of their patriotic duty to support the
+government.
+
+Under these circumstances I have been urgently solicited to establish, by
+military power, courts to administer summary justice in such cases. I
+have thus far declined to do it, not because I had any doubt that the end
+proposed--the collection of the debts--was just and right in itself, but
+because I have been unwilling to go beyond the pressure of necessity in
+the unusual exercise of power. But the powers of Congress, I suppose, are
+equal to the anomalous occasion, and therefore I refer the whole matter
+to Congress, with the hope that a plan maybe devised for the
+administration of justice in all such parts of the insurgent States and
+Territories as may be under the control of this government, whether by a
+voluntary return to allegiance and order or by the power of our arms;
+this, however, not to be a permanent institution, but a temporary
+substitute, and to cease as soon as the ordinary courts can be
+reestablished in peace.
+
+It is important that some more convenient means should be provided, if
+possible, for the adjustment of claims against the government, especially
+in view of their increased number by reason of the war. It is as much the
+duty of government to render prompt justice against itself in favor of
+citizens as it is to administer the same between private individuals. The
+investigation and adjudication of claims in their nature belong to the
+judicial department. Besides, it is apparent that the attention of
+Congress will be more than usually engaged for some time to come with
+great national questions. It was intended by the organization of the
+Court of Claims mainly to remove this branch of business from the halls
+of Congress; but, while the court has proved to be an effective and
+valuable means of investigation, it in great degree fails to effect the
+object of its creation for want of power to make its judgments final.
+
+Fully aware of the delicacy, not to say the danger of the subject, I
+commend to your careful consideration whether this power of making
+judgments final may not properly be given to the court, reserving the
+right of appeal on questions of law to the Supreme Court, with such other
+provisions as experience may have shown to be necessary.
+
+I ask attention to the report of the Postmaster general, the following
+being a summary statement of the condition of the department:
+
+The revenue from all sources during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1861,
+including the annual permanent appropriation of $700,000 for the
+transportation of "free mail matter," was $9,049,296.40, being about 2
+per cent. less than the revenue for 1860.
+
+The expenditures were $13,606,759.11, showing a decrease of more than 8
+per cent. as compared with those of the previous year and leaving an
+excess of expenditure over the revenue for the last fiscal year of
+$4,557,462.71.
+
+The gross revenue for the year ending June 30, 1863, is estimated at an
+increase of 4 per cent. on that of 1861, making $8,683,000, to which
+should be added the earnings of the department in carrying free matter,
+viz., $700,000, making $9,383,000.
+
+The total expenditures for 1863 are estimated at $12,528,000, leaving an
+estimated deficiency of $3,145,000 to be supplied from the treasury in
+addition to the permanent appropriation.
+
+The present insurrection shows, I think, that the extension of this
+District across the Potomac River at the time of establishing the capital
+here was eminently wise, and consequently that the relinquishment of that
+portion of it which lies within the State of Virginia was unwise and
+dangerous. I submit for your consideration the expediency of regaining
+that part of the District and the restoration of the original boundaries
+thereof through negotiations with the State of Virginia.
+
+The report of the Secretary of the Interior, with the accompanying
+documents, exhibits the condition of the several branches of the public
+business pertaining to that department.  The depressing influences of the
+insurrection have been specially felt in the operations of the Patent and
+General Land Offices. The cash receipts from the sales of public lands
+during the past year have exceeded the expenses of our land system only
+about $200,000. The sales have been entirely suspended in the Southern
+States, while the interruptions to the business of the country and the
+diversion of large numbers of men from labor to military service have
+obstructed settlements in the new States and Territories of the
+Northwest.
+
+The receipts of the Patent Office have declined in nine months about
+$100,000.00 rendering a large reduction of the force employed necessary
+to make it self-sustaining.
+
+The demands upon the Pension Office will be largely increased by the
+insurrection.  Numerous applications for pensions, based upon the
+casualties of the existing war, have already been made. There is reason
+to believe that many who are now upon the pension rolls and in receipt of
+the bounty of the government are in the ranks of the insurgent army or
+giving them aid and comfort. The Secretary of the Interior has directed a
+suspension of the payment of the pensions of such persons upon proof of
+their disloyalty. I recommend that Congress authorize that officer to
+cause the names of such persons to be stricken from the pension rolls.
+
+The relations of the government with the Indian tribes have been greatly
+disturbed by the insurrection, especially in the southern superintendency
+and in that of New Mexico. The Indian country south of Kansas is in the
+possession of insurgents from Texas and Arkansas. The agents of the
+United States appointed since the 4th of March for this superintendency
+have been unable to reach their posts, while the most of those who were
+in office before that time have espoused the insurrectionary cause, and
+assume to exercise the powers of agents by virtue of commissions from the
+insurrectionists. It has been stated in the public press that a portion
+of those Indians have been organized as a military force and are attached
+to the army of the insurgents. Although the government has no official
+information upon this subject, letters have been written to the
+Commissioner of Indian Affairs by several prominent chiefs giving
+assurance of their loyalty to the United States and expressing a wish for
+the presence of Federal troops to protect them. It is believed that upon
+the repossession of the country by the Federal forces the Indians will
+readily cease all hostile demonstrations and resume their former
+relations to the government.
+
+Agriculture, confessedly the largest interest of the nation, has not a
+department nor a bureau, but a clerkship only, assigned to it in the
+government. While it is fortunate that this great interest is so
+independent in its nature as not to have demanded and extorted more from
+the government, I respectfully ask Congress to consider whether something
+more cannot be given voluntarily with general advantage.
+
+Annual reports exhibiting the condition of our agriculture, commerce, and
+manufactures would present a fund of information of great practical value
+to the country. While I make no suggestion as to details, I venture the
+opinion that an agricultural and statistical bureau might profitably be
+organized.
+
+The execution of the laws for the suppression of the African slave trade
+has been confided to the Department of the Interior.  It is a subject of
+gratulation that the efforts which have been made for the suppression of
+this inhuman traffic have been recently attended with unusual success.
+Five vessels being fitted out for the slave trade have been seized and
+condemned. Two mates of vessels engaged in the trade and one person in
+equipping a vessel as a slaver have been convicted and subjected to the
+penalty of fine and imprisonment, and one captain, taken with a cargo of
+Africans on board his vessel, has been convicted of the highest grade of
+offense under our laws, the punishment of which is death.
+
+The Territories of Colorado, Dakota, and Nevada, created by the last
+Congress, have been organized, and civil administration has been
+inaugurated therein under auspices especially gratifying when it is
+considered that the leaven of treason was found existing in some of these
+new countries when the Federal officers arrived there.
+
+The abundant natural resources of these Territories, with the security
+and protection afforded by organized government, will doubtless invite to
+them a large immigration when peace shall restore the business of the
+country to its accustomed channels. I submit the resolutions of the
+Legislature of Colorado, which evidence the patriotic spirit of the
+people of the Territory. So far the authority of the United States has
+been upheld in all the Territories, as it is hoped it will be in the
+future. I commend their interests and defense to the enlightened and
+generous care of Congress.
+
+I recommend to the favorable consideration of Congress the interests of
+the District of Columbia. The insurrection has been the cause of much
+suffering and sacrifice to its inhabitants, and as they have no
+representative in Congress that body should not overlook their just
+claims upon the government.
+
+At your late session a joint resolution was adopted authorizing the
+President to take measures for facilitating a proper representation of
+the industrial interests of the United States at the exhibition of the
+industry of all nations to be holden at London in the year 1862. I regret
+to say I have been unable to give personal attention to this subject--a
+subject at once so interesting in itself and so extensively and
+intimately connected with the material prosperity of the world. Through
+the Secretaries of State and of the Interior a plan or system has been
+devised and partly matured, and which will be laid before you.
+
+Under and by virtue of the act of Congress entitled "An act to confiscate
+property used for insurrectionary purposes," approved August 6, 1861, the
+legal claims of certain persons to the labor and service of certain other
+persons have become forfeited, and numbers of the latter thus liberated
+are already dependent on the United States, and must be provided for in
+some way. Besides this, it is not impossible that some of the States will
+pass similar enactments for their own benefit respectively, and by
+operation of which persons of the same class will be thrown upon them for
+disposal. In such case I recommend that Congress provide for accepting
+such persons from such States, according to some mode of valuation, in
+lieu, pro tanto, of direct taxes, or upon some other plan to be agreed on
+with such States respectively; that such persons, on such acceptance by
+the General Government, be at once deemed free, and that in any event
+steps be taken for colonizing both classes (or the one first mentioned if
+the other shall not be brought into existence) at some place or places in
+a climate congenial to them. It might be well to consider, too, whether
+the free colored people already in the United States could not, so far as
+individuals may desire, be included in such colonization.
+
+To carry out the plan of colonization may involve the acquiring of
+territory, and also the appropriation of money beyond that to be expended
+in the territorial acquisition. Having practised the acquisition of
+territory for nearly sixty years, the question of constitutional power to
+do so is no longer an open one with us. The power was questioned at first
+by Mr. Jefferson, who, however, in the purchase of Louisiana, yielded his
+scruples on the plea of great expediency. If it be said that the only
+legitimate object of acquiring territory is to furnish homes for white
+men, this measure effects that object, for emigration of colored men
+leaves additional room for white men remaining or coming here. Mr.
+Jefferson, however, placed the importance of procuring Louisiana more on
+political and commercial grounds than on providing room for population.
+
+On this whole proposition, including the appropriation of money with the
+acquisition of territory, does not the expediency amount to absolute
+necessity--that without which the government itself cannot be
+perpetuated?
+
+The war continues. In considering the policy to be adopted for
+suppressing the insurrection I have been anxious and careful that the
+inevitable conflict for this purpose shall not degenerate into a violent
+and remorseless revolutionary struggle. I have therefore in every case
+thought it proper to keep the integrity of the Union prominent as the
+primary object of the contest on our part, leaving all questions which
+are not of vital military importance to the more deliberate action of the
+Legislature.
+
+In the exercise of my best discretion I have adhered to the blockade of
+the ports held by the insurgents, instead of putting in force by
+proclamation the law of Congress enacted at the late session for closing
+those ports.
+
+So also, obeying the dictates of prudence, as well as the obligations of
+law, instead of transcending I have adhered to the act of Congress to
+confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes. If a new law upon
+the same subject shall be proposed, its propriety will be duly
+considered. The Union must be preserved, and hence all indispensable
+means must be employed. We should not be in haste to determine that
+radical and extreme measures, which may reach the loyal as well as the
+disloyal, are indispensable.
+
+The inaugural address at the beginning of the Administration and the
+message to Congress at the late special session were both mainly devoted
+to topics domestic controversy out of which the insurrection and
+consequent war have sprung. Nothing now occurs to add or subtract to or
+from the principles or general purposes stated and expressed in those
+documents.
+
+The last ray of hope for preserving the Union peaceably expired at the
+assault upon Fort Sumter, and a general review of what has occurred since
+may not be unprofitable. What was painfully uncertain then is much better
+defined and more distinct now, and the progress of events is plainly in
+the right direction. The insurgents confidently claimed a strong support
+from north of Mason and Dixon's line, and the friends of the Union were
+not free from apprehension on the point. This, however, was soon settled
+definitely, and on the right side. South of the line noble little
+Delaware led off right from the first. Maryland was made to seem against
+the Union. Our soldiers were assaulted, bridges were burned, and
+railroads torn up within her limits, and we were many days at one time
+without the ability to bring a single regiment over her soil to the
+capital. Now her bridges and railroads are repaired and open to the
+government; she already gives seven regiments to the cause of the Union,
+and none to the enemy; and her people, at a regular election, have
+sustained the Union by a larger majority and a larger aggregate vote than
+they ever before gave to any candidate or any question. Kentucky, too,
+for some time in doubt, is now decidedly and, I think, unchangeably
+ranged on the side of the Union. Missouri is comparatively quiet, and, I
+believe, can, not again be overrun by the insurrectionists. These three
+States of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, neither of which would
+promise a single soldier at first, have now an aggregate of not less than
+forty thousand in the field for the Union, while of their citizens
+certainly not more than a third of that number, and they of doubtful
+whereabouts and doubtful existence, are in arms against us. After a
+somewhat bloody struggle of months, winter closes on the Union people of
+western Virginia, leaving them masters of their own country.
+
+An insurgent force of about fifteen hundred, for months dominating the
+narrow peninsular region constituting the counties of Accomac and
+Northampton, and known as Eastern Shore of Virginia, together with some
+contiguous parts of Maryland, have laid down their arms, and the people
+there have renewed their allegiance to and accepted the protection of the
+old flag. This leaves no armed insurrectionist north of the Potomac or
+east of the Chesapeake.
+
+Also we have obtained a footing at each of the isolated points on the
+southern coast of Hatteras, Port Royal, Tybee Island (near Savannah), and
+Ship Island; and we likewise have some general accounts of popular
+movements in behalf of the Union in North Carolina and Tennessee.
+
+These things demonstrate that the cause of the Union is advancing
+steadily and certainly southward.
+
+Since your last adjournment Lieutenant-General Scott has retired from the
+head of the army. During his long life the nation has not been unmindful
+of his merit; yet on calling to mind how faithfully, ably, and
+brilliantly he has served the country, from a time far back in our
+history, when few of the now living had been born, and thenceforward
+continually, I cannot but think we are still his debtors. I submit,
+therefore, for your consideration what further mark of recognition is due
+to him, and to ourselves as a grateful people.
+
+With the retirement of General Scott came the Executive duty of
+appointing in his stead a general-in-chief of the army. It is a fortunate
+circumstance that neither in council nor country was there, so far as I
+know, any difference of opinion as to the proper person to be selected.
+The retiring chief repeatedly expressed his judgment in favor of General
+McClellan for the position, and in this the nation seemed to give a
+unanimous concurrence. The designation of General McClellan is therefore
+in considerable degree the selection of the country as well as of the
+Executive, and hence there is better reason to hope there will be given
+him the confidence and cordial support thus by fair implication promised,
+and without which he cannot with so full efficiency serve the country.
+
+It has been said that one bad general is better than two good ones, and
+the saying is true if taken to mean no more than that an army is better
+directed by a single mind, though inferior, than by two superior ones at
+variance and cross-purposes with each other.
+
+And the same is true in all joint operations wherein those engaged can
+have none but a common end in view and can differ only as to the choice
+of means. In a storm at sea no one on hoard can wish the ship to sink,
+and yet not unfrequently all go down together because too many will
+direct and no single mind can be allowed to control.
+
+It continues to develop that the insurrection is largely, if not
+exclusively, a war upon the first principle of popular government--the
+rights of the people. Conclusive evidence of this is found in the most
+grave and maturely considered public documents, as well as in the general
+tone of the insurgents. In those documents we find the abridgment of the
+existing right of suffrage and the denial to the people of all right to
+participate in the selection of public officers except the legislative
+boldly advocated, with labored arguments to prove that large control of
+the people in government is the source of all political evil. Monarchy
+itself is sometimes hinted at as a possible refuge from the power of the
+people.
+
+In my present position I could scarcely be justified were I to omit
+raising a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism. It
+is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be made in
+favor of popular institutions, but there is one point, with its
+connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief
+attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if
+not above, labor in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor
+is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless
+somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to
+labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that
+capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own
+consent, or buy them and drive them to it without their consent. Having
+proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either
+hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that
+whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.
+
+Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor
+is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the
+condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all
+inferences from them are groundless.
+
+Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit
+of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.
+Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher
+consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection
+as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always
+will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits.
+The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within
+that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid labor
+themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for
+them. A large majority belong to neither class--neither work for others
+nor have others working for them. In most of the Southern States a
+majority of the whole people of all colors are neither slaves nor
+masters, while in the Northern a large majority are neither hirers nor
+hired. Men, with their families--wives, sons, and daughters,--work for
+themselves on their farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking
+the whole product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the
+one hand nor of hired laborers or slaves on the other. It is not
+forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their own labor
+with capital; that is, they labor with their own hands and also buy or
+hire others to labor for them; but this is only a mixed and not a
+distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this
+mixed class.
+
+Again, as has already been said, there is not of necessity any such thing
+as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life. Many
+independent men everywhere in these States a few years back in their
+lives were hired laborers. The prudent, penniless beginner in the world
+labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land
+for himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length
+hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and
+prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and
+consequent energy and progress and improvement of condition to all. No
+men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from
+poverty; none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not
+honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering a political power which
+they already possess, and which if surrendered will surely be used to
+close the door of advancement against such as they and to fix new
+disabilities and burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost.
+
+From the first taking of our national census to the last are seventy
+years, and we find our population at the end of the period eight times as
+great as it was at the beginning. The increase of those other things
+which men deem desirable has been even greater. We thus have at one view
+what the popular principle, applied to government through the machinery
+of the States and the Union, has produced in a given time, and also what
+if firmly maintained it promises for the future. There are already among
+us those who if the Union be preserved will live to see it contain
+200,000,000. The struggle of to-day is not altogether for to-day; it is
+for a vast future also. With a reliance on Providence all the more firm
+and earnest, let us proceed in the great task which events have devolved
+upon us.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+WASHINGTON, December 20, 1861.
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+I transmit to Congress a letter from the secretary of the executive
+committee of the commission appointed to represent the interests of those
+American citizens who may desire to become exhibitors at the industrial
+exhibition to be held in London in 1862, and a memorial of that
+commission, with a report of the executive committee thereof and copies
+of circulars announcing the decisions of Her Majesty's commissioners in
+London, giving directions to be observed in regard to articles intended
+for exhibition, and also of circular forms of application, demands for
+space, approvals, etc., according to the rules prescribed by the British
+commissioners.
+
+As these papers fully set forth the requirements necessary to enable
+those citizens of the United States who may wish to become exhibitors to
+avail themselves of the privileges of the exhibition, I commend them to
+your early consideration, especially in view of the near approach of the
+time when the exhibition will begin.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER OF REPRIMAND TO GENERAL HUNTER
+
+TO GENERAL HUNTER.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
+
+Dec.31, 1861
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL HUNTER.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 23d is received, and I am constrained to say it
+is difficult to answer so ugly a letter in good temper. I am, as you
+intimate, losing much of the great confidence I placed in you, not from
+any act or omission of yours touching the public service, up to the time
+you were sent to Leavenworth, but from the flood of grumbling despatches
+and letters I have seen from you since. I knew you were being ordered to
+Leavenworth at the time it was done; and I aver that with as tender a
+regard for your honor and your sensibilities as I had for my own, it
+never occurred to me that you were being "humiliated, insulted, and
+disgraced"; nor have I, up to this day, heard an intimation that you have
+been wronged, coming from any one but yourself. No one has blamed you for
+the retrograde movement from Springfield, nor for the information you
+gave General Cameron; and this you could readily understand, if it were
+not for your unwarranted assumption that the ordering you to Leavenworth
+must necessarily have been done as a punishment for some fault. I thought
+then, and think yet, the position assigned to you is as responsible, and
+as honorable, as that assigned to Buell--I know that General McClellan
+expected more important results from it. My impression is that at the
+time you were assigned to the new Western Department, it had not been
+determined to replace General Sherman in Kentucky; but of this I am not
+certain, because the idea that a command in Kentucky was very desirable,
+and one in the farther West undesirable, had never occurred to me. You
+constantly speak of being placed in command of only 3000.  Now, tell me,
+is this not mere impatience? Have you not known all the while that you
+are to command four or five times that many.
+
+I have been, and am sincerely your friend; and if, as such, I dare to
+make a suggestion, I would say you are adopting the best possible way to
+ruin yourself. "Act well your part, there all the honor lies." He who
+does something at the head of one regiment, will eclipse him who does
+nothing at the head of a hundred.
+
+Your friend, as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL HALLECK.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., December 31, 1861
+
+GENERAL H. W. HALLECK, St. Louis, Missouri:
+
+General McClellan is sick. Are General Buell and yourself in concert?
+When he moves on Bowling Green, what hinders it being reinforced from
+Columbus? A simultaneous movement by you on Columbus might prevent it.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+[Similar despatch to Buell same date.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+1862
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL D. C. BUELL.
+
+WASHINGTON CITY, January 1, 1862
+
+BRIGADIER-GENERAL BUELL, Louisville:
+
+General McClellan should not yet be disturbed with business. I think you
+better get in concert with General Halleck at once. I write you to-night.
+I also telegraph and write Halleck.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL H. W. HALLECK.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 1, 1862
+
+DEAR GENERAL HALLECK:
+
+General McClellan is not dangerously ill, as I hope, but would better not
+be disturbed with business. I am very anxious that, in case of General
+Buell's moving toward Nashville, the enemy shall not be greatly
+reinforced, and I think there is danger he will be from Columbus. It
+seems to me that a real or feigned attack upon Columbus from up the river
+at the same time would either prevent this or compensate for it by
+throwing Columbus into our hands. I wrote General Buell a letter similar
+to this, meaning that he and you shall communicate and act in concert,
+unless it be your judgment and his that there is no necessity for it. You
+and he will understand much better than I how to do it. Please do not
+lose time in this matter.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE PEOPLE OF MARYLAND,
+
+In view of the recent declaration of the people of Maryland of their
+adhesion to the Union, so distinctly made in their recent election, the
+President directs that all the prisoners who having heretofore been
+arrested in that State are now detained in military custody by the
+President's authority, be released from their imprisonment on the
+following conditions, namely: that if they were holding any civil or
+military offices when arrested, the terms of which have expired, they
+shall not resume or reclaim such office; and secondly, all persons
+availing themselves of this proclamation shall engage by oath or parole
+of honor to maintain the Union and the Constitution of the United States,
+and in no way to aid or abet by arms, counsel, conversation, or
+information of any kind the existing insurrection against the Government
+of the United States.
+
+To guard against misapprehension it is proper to state that this
+proclamation does not apply to prisoners of war.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+WASHINGTON, January 2, 1862
+
+To THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
+
+I transmit to Congress a copy of a letter to the Secretary of State from
+James R. Partridge, secretary to the executive committee to the in
+exhibition to be held in London in the course present year, and a copy of
+the correspond which it refers, relative to a vessel for the of taking
+such articles as persons in this country may wish to exhibit on that
+occasion. As it appears no naval vessel can be spared for the purpose, I
+recommend that authority be given to charter a suitable merchant vessel,
+in order that facilities similar to those afforded by the government
+exhibition of 1851 may also be extended to citizens of the United States
+who may desire to contribute to the exhibition of this year.
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGES OF DISAPPOINTMENT WITH HIS GENERALS
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL D. C. BUELL.
+
+WASHINGTON, January 4, 1862.
+
+GENERAL BUELL:
+
+Have arms gone forward for East Tennessee? Please tell me the progress
+and condition of the movement in that direction. Answer.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL D. C. BUELL.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
+
+January 6, 1862.
+
+BRIGADIER-GENERAL BUELL.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your despatch of yesterday has been received, and it
+disappoints and distresses me. I have shown it to General McClellan, who
+says he will write you to-day. I am not competent to criticize your
+views, and therefore what I offer is in justification of myself. Of the
+two, I would rather have a point on the railroad south of Cumberland Gap
+than Nashville. First, because it cuts a great artery of the enemy's
+communication, which Nashville does not; and secondly, because it is in
+the midst of loyal people who would rally around it, while Nashville is
+not. Again, I cannot see why the movement on East Tennessee would not be
+a diversion in your favor rather than a disadvantage, assuming that a
+movement toward Nashville is the main object. But my distress is that our
+friends in East Tennessee are being hanged and driven to despair, and
+even now, I fear, are thinking of taking rebel arms for the sake of
+personal protection. In this we lose the most valuable stake we have in
+the South. My despatch, to which yours is an answer, was sent with the
+knowledge of Senator Johnson and Representative Maynard of East
+Tennessee, and they will be upon me to know the answer, which I cannot
+safely show them. They would despair, possibly resign to go and save
+their families somehow, or die with them. I do not intend this to be an
+order in any sense, but merely, as intimated before, to show you the
+grounds of my anxiety.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL BUELL.
+
+WASHINGTON, January 7, 1862.
+
+BRIGADIER-GENERAL D.C. BUELL, Louisville:
+
+Please name as early a day as you safely can on or before which you can
+be ready to move southward in concert with Major-General Halleck. Delay
+is ruining us, and it is indispensable for me to have something definite.
+I send a like despatch to Major-General Halleck.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+WASHINGTON, January 10, 1862
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+I transmit to Congress a translation of an instruction to the minister of
+his Majesty the Emperor of Austria accredited to this government, and a
+copy of a note to that minister from the Secretary of State relative to
+the questions involved in the taking from the British steamer Trent of
+certain citizens of the United States by order of Captain Wilkes of the
+United States Navy. This correspondence may be considered as a sequel to
+that previously communicated to Congress relating to the same subject.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+INDORSEMENT ON LETTER FROM GENERAL HALLECK,
+
+JANUARY 10, 1862.
+
+HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI ST. Louis, January 6, 1862.
+
+To His EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT:
+
+In reply to your Excellency's letter of the 1st instant, I have to state
+that on receiving your telegram I immediately communicated with General
+Buell and have since sent him all the information I could obtain of the
+enemy's movements about Columbus and Camp Beauregard. No considerable
+force has been sent from those places to Bowling Green. They have about
+22,000 men at Columbus, and the place is strongly fortified. I have at
+Cairo, Port Holt, and Paducah only about 15,000, which, after leaving
+guards at these places, would give me but little over 10,000 men with
+which to assist General Buell. It would be madness to attempt anything
+serious with such a force, and I cannot at the present time withdraw any
+from Missouri without risking the loss of this State. The troops recently
+raised in other States of this department have, without my knowledge,
+been sent to Kentucky and Kansas.
+
+I am satisfied that the authorities at Washington do not appreciate the
+difficulties with which we have to contend here. The operations of Lane,
+Jennison, and others have so enraged the people of Missouri that it is
+estimated that there is a majority of 80,000 against the government. We
+are virtually in an enemy's country. Price and others have a considerable
+army in the southwest, against which I am operating with all my available
+force.
+
+This city and most of the middle and northern counties are
+insurrectionary,--burning bridges, destroying telegraph lines, etc.,--and
+can be kept down only by the presence of troops. A large portion of the
+foreign troops organized by General Fremont are unreliable; indeed, many
+of them are already mutinous. They have been tampered with by
+politicians, and made to believe that if they get up a mutiny and demand
+Fremont's return the government will be forced to restore him to duty
+here. It is believed that some high officers are in the plot I have
+already been obliged to disarm several of these organizations, and I am
+daily expecting more serious outbreaks. Another grave difficulty is the
+want of proper general officers to command the troops and enforce order
+and discipline, and especially to protect public property from robbery
+and plunder. Some of the brigadier-generals assigned to this department
+are entirely ignorant of their duties and unfit for any command. I assure
+you, Mr. President, it is very difficult to accomplish much with such
+means. I am in the condition of a carpenter who is required to build a
+bridge with a dull axe, a broken saw, and rotten timber. It is true that
+I have some very good green timber, which will answer the purpose as soon
+as I can get it into shape and season it a little.
+
+I know nothing of General Buell's intended operations, never having
+received any information in regard to the general plan of campaign. If it
+be intended that his column shall move on Bowling Green while another
+moves from Cairo or Paducah on Columbus or Camp Beauregard, it will be a
+repetition of the same strategic error which produced the disaster of
+Bull Run. To operate on exterior lines against an enemy occupying a
+central position will fail, as it always has failed, in ninety-nine cases
+out of a hundred. It is condemned by every military authority I have ever
+read.
+
+General Buell's army and the forces at Paducah occupy precisely the same
+position in relation to each other and to the enemy as did the armies of
+McDowell and Patterson before the battle of Bull Run.
+
+Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
+
+H. W. HALLECK, Major-General
+
+[Indorsement]
+
+The within is a copy of a letter just received from General Halleck. It
+is exceedingly discouraging. As everywhere else, nothing can be done.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GOVERNOR ANDREW.
+
+WASHINGTON, D. C., January 11, 1862
+
+GOVERNOR JOHN A. ANDREW, Boston:
+
+I will be greatly obliged if you will arrange; somehow with General
+Butler to officer his two un-officered regiments.
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL D. C. BUELL.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, January 13, 1861
+
+BRIGADIER-GENERAL BUELL.
+
+MY DEAR SIR--Your despatch of yesterday is received, in which you say, "I
+received your letter and General McClellan's, and will at once devote my
+efforts to your views and his." In the midst of my many cares I have not
+seen, nor asked to see, General McClellan's letter to you. For my own
+views, I have not offered and do not now offer them as orders; and while
+I am glad to have them respectfully considered, I would blame you to
+follow them contrary to your own clear judgment, unless I should put them
+in the form of orders. As to General McClellan's views, you understand
+your duty in regard to them better than I do.
+
+With this preliminary I state my general idea of this war to be, that we
+have the greater numbers and the enemy has the greater facility of
+concentrating forces upon points of collision; that we must fail unless
+we can find some way of making our advantage an overmatch for his; and
+that this can only be done by menacing him with superior forces at
+different points at the same time, so that we can safely attack one or
+both if he makes no change; and if he weakens one to strengthen the
+other, forbear to attack the strengthened one, but seize and hold the
+weakened one, gaining so much.
+
+To illustrate: Suppose last summer, when Winchester ran away to reinforce
+Manassas, we had forborne to attack Manassas, but had seized and held
+Winchester. I mention this to illustrate and not to criticise. I did not
+lose confidence in McDowell, and I think less harshly of Patterson than
+some others seem to. . . . Applying the principle to your case, my idea
+is that Halleck shall menace Columbus and "down river" generally, while
+you menace Bowling Green and East Tennessee. If the enemy shall
+concentrate at Bowling Green, do not retire from his front, yet do not
+fight him there either, but seize Columbus and East Tennessee, one or
+both, left exposed by the concentration at Bowling Green. It is a matter
+of no small anxiety to me, and which I am sure you will not overlook,
+that the East Tennessee line is so long and over so bad a road.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+(Indorsement.)
+
+Having to-day written General Buell a letter, it occurs to me to send
+General Halleck a copy of it.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL H. W. HALLECK.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, January 1, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL HALLECK.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--The Germans are true and patriotic and so far as they have
+got cross in Missouri it is upon mistake and misunderstanding. Without a
+knowledge of its contents, Governor Koerner, of Illinois, will hand you
+this letter. He is an educated and talented German gentleman, as true a
+man as lives. With his assistance you can set everything right with the
+Germans. . . . My clear judgment is that, with reference to the German
+element in your command, you should have Governor Koerner with you; and
+if agreeable to you and him, I will make him a brigadier-general, so that
+he can afford to give his time. He does not wish to command in the field,
+though he has more military knowledge than some who do. If he goes into
+the place, he will simply be an efficient, zealous, and unselfish
+assistant to you. I say all this upon intimate personal acquaintance with
+Governor Koerner.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+WASHINGTON, January 17, 1862
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+I transmit to Congress a translation of an instruction to the minister of
+his Majesty the King of Prussia accredited to this government, and a copy
+of a note to that minister from the Secretary of State relating to the
+capture and detention of certain citizens of the United States,
+passengers on board the British steamer Trent, by order of Captain Wilkes
+of the United States Navy.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL McCLELLAN.
+
+DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON.
+
+January 20, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE B. McCLELLAN,
+
+Commanding Armies of the United States:
+
+You or any officer you may designate will in your discretion suspend the
+writ of habeas corpus so far as may relate to Major Chase, lately of the
+Engineer Corps of the Army of the United States, now alleged to be guilty
+of treasonable practices against this government.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
+
+
+
+
+PRESIDENT'S GENERAL WAR ORDER NO. 1
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, January 27, 1862.
+
+Ordered, That the 22d day of February, 1862, be the day for a general
+movement of the land and the naval forces of the United States against
+the insurgent forces.
+
+That especially the army at and about Fortress Monroe, the Army of the
+Potomac, the Army of Western Virginia, the army near Munfordville,
+Kentucky, the army and flotilla at Cairo, and a naval force in the Gulf
+of Mexico, be ready for a movement on that day.
+
+That all other forces, both land and naval, with their respective
+commanders, obey existing orders for the time, and be ready to obey
+additional orders when duly given.
+
+That the heads of departments, and especially the Secretaries of War and
+of the Navy, with all their subordinates, and the General-in-chief, with
+all other commanders and subordinates of land and naval forces, will
+severally be held to their strict and full responsibilities for the
+prompt execution of this order.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY STANTON,
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION WASHINGTON, January 31, 1862
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--It is my wish that the expedition commonly called the
+"Lane Expedition" shall be, as much as has been promised at the
+adjutant-general's office, under the supervision of General McClellan,
+and not any more. I have not intended, and do not now intend, that it
+shall be a great, exhausting affair, but a snug, sober column of 10,000
+or 15,000. General Lane has been told by me many times that he is under
+the command of General Hunter, and assented to it as often as told. It
+was the distinct agreement between him and me, when I appointed him, that
+he was to be under Hunter.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PRESIDENT'S SPECIAL WAR ORDER NO. 1.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, January 31, 1862.
+
+Ordered, That all the disposable force of the Army of the Potomac, after
+providing safely for the defence of Washington, be formed into an
+expedition for the immediate object of seizing and occupying a point upon
+the railroad southwestward of what is known as Manassas Junction, all
+details to be in the discretion of the commander-in-chief, and the
+expedition to move before or on the 22d day of February next.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+OPPOSITION TO McCLELLAN'S PLANS
+
+TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN,
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, February 3, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL MCCLELLAN.
+
+DEAR SIR--You and I have distinct and different plans for a movement of
+the Army of the Potomac--yours to be down the Chesapeake, up the
+Rappahannock to Urbana, and across land to the terminus of the railroad
+on the York River; mine to move directly to a point on the railroad
+southwest of Manassas.
+
+If you will give me satisfactory answers to the following questions, I
+shall gladly yield my plan to yours.
+
+First.  Does not your plan involve a greatly larger expenditure of time
+and money than mine?
+
+Second. Wherein is a victory more certain by your plan than mine?
+
+Third. Wherein is a victory more valuable by your plan than mine?
+
+Fourth. In fact, would it not be less valuable in this, that it would
+break no great line of the enemy's communications, while mine would?
+
+Fifth. In case of disaster, would not a retreat be more difficult by your
+plan than mine?
+
+Yours truly,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+Memorandum accompanying Letter of President Lincoln to General
+
+McClellan, dated February 3,1862.
+
+First. Suppose the enemy should attack us in force before we reach the
+Occoquan, what?
+
+Second. Suppose the enemy in force shall dispute the crossing of the
+Occoquan, what? In view of this, might it not be safest for us to cross
+the Occoquan at Coichester, rather than at the village of Occoquan? This
+would cost the enemy two miles of travel to meet us, but would, on the
+contrary, leave us two miles farther from our ultimate destination.
+
+Third. Suppose we reach Maple Valley without an attack, will we not be
+attacked there in force by the enemy marching by the several roads from
+Manassas; and if so, what?
+
+
+
+
+TO WM. H. HERNDON.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, February 3, 1862.
+
+DEAR WILLIAM:--Yours of January 30th just received. Do just as you say
+about the money matter.
+
+As you well know, I have not time to write a letter of respectable
+length. God bless you, says
+
+Your friend,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+RESPITE FOR NATHANIEL GORDON
+
+February 4, 1862
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
+
+To all to whom these Presents shall come, Greeting:
+
+Whereas it appears that at a term of the Circuit Court of the United
+States of America for the Southern District of New York held in the month
+of November, A.D. 1861, Nathaniel Gordon was indicted and convicted for
+being engaged in the slave trade, and was by the said court sentenced to
+be put to death by hanging by the neck, on Friday the 7th day of
+February, AD. 1862:
+
+And whereas a large number of respectable citizens have earnestly
+besought me to commute the said sentence of the said Nathaniel Gordon to
+a term of imprisonment for life, which application I have felt it to be
+my duty to refuse:
+
+And whereas it has seemed to me probable that the unsuccessful
+application made for the commutation of his sentence may have prevented
+the said Nathaniel Gordon from making the necessary preparation for the
+awful change which awaits him;
+
+Now, therefore, be it known, that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the
+United States of America, have granted and do hereby grant unto him, the
+said Nathaniel Gordon, a respite of the above recited sentence, until
+Friday the twenty-first day of February, A.D. 1862, between the hours of
+twelve o'clock at noon and three o'clock in the afternoon of the said
+day, when the said sentence shall be executed.
+
+In granting this respite, it becomes my painful duty to admonish the
+prisoner that, relinquishing all expectation of pardon by human
+authority, he refer himself alone to the mercy of the common God and
+Father of all men.
+
+In testimony whereof I have hereunto signed my name and caused the seal
+of the United States to be affixed.
+
+Done at the City of Washington, this fourth day of February, A.D. 1862,
+and of the independence of the United States the eighty-sixth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE SENATE.
+
+WASHINGTON CITY, February 4. 1862
+
+To THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:
+
+The third section of the "Act further to promote the efficiency of the
+Navy," approved December 21, 1862, provides:
+
+"That the President of the United States, by and with the advice and
+consent of the Senate, shall have the authority to detail from the
+retired list of the navy for the command of squadrons and single ships
+such officers as he may believe that the good of the service requires to
+be thus placed in command; and such officers may, if upon the
+recommendation of the President of the United States they shall receive a
+vote of thanks of Congress for their services and gallantry in action
+against an enemy, be restored to the active list, and not otherwise."
+
+In conformity with this law, Captain Samuel F. Du Pont, of the navy, was
+nominated to the Senate for continuance as the flag-officer in command of
+the squadron which recently rendered such important service to the Union
+in the expedition to the coast of South Carolina.
+
+Believing that no occasion could arise which would more fully correspond
+with the intention of the law, or be more pregnant with happy influence
+as an example, I cordially recommend that Captain Samuel F. Du Pont
+receive a vote of thanks of Congress for his services and gallantry
+displayed in the capture of Forts Walker and Beauregard, commanding the
+entrance of Port Royal Harbor, on the 7th of November, 1861.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERALS D. HUNTER AND J. H. LANE.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION WASHINGTON, FEBRUARY 4, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL HUNTER AND BRIGADIER-GENERAL LANE, Leavenworth, Kansas:
+
+My wish has been and is to avail the government of the services of both
+General Hunter and General Lane, and, so far as possible, to personally
+oblige both. General Hunter is the senior officer, and must command when
+they serve together; though in so far as he can consistently with the
+public service and his own honor oblige General Lane, he will also oblige
+me. If they cannot come to an amicable understanding, General Lane must
+report to General Hunter for duty, according to the rules, or decline the
+service.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 1, RELATING TO POLITICAL
+PRISONERS.
+
+WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, February 14,1862.
+
+The breaking out of a formidable insurrection based on a conflict of
+political ideas, being an event without precedent in the United States,
+was necessarily attended by great confusion and perplexity of the public
+mind. Disloyalty before unsuspected suddenly became bold, and treason
+astonished the world by bringing at once into the field military forces
+superior in number to the standing army of the United States.
+
+Every department of the government was paralyzed by treason. Defection
+appeared in the Senate, in the House of Representatives, in the Cabinet,
+in the Federal courts; ministers and consuls returned from foreign
+countries to enter the insurrectionary councils of land or naval forces;
+commanding and other officers of the army and in the navy betrayed our
+councils or deserted their posts for commands in the insurgent forces.
+Treason was flagrant in the revenue and in the post-office service, as
+well as in the Territorial governments and in the Indian reserves.
+
+Not only governors, judges, legislators, and ministerial officers in the
+States, but even whole States rushed one after another with apparent
+unanimity into rebellion. The capital was besieged and its connection
+with all the States cut off. Even in the portions of the country which
+were most loyal, political combinations and secret societies were formed
+furthering the work of disunion, while, from motives of disloyalty or
+cupidity or from excited passions or perverted sympathies, individuals
+were found furnishing men, money, and materials of war and supplies to
+the insurgents' military and naval forces. Armies, ships, fortifications,
+navy yards, arsenals, military posts, and garrisons one after another
+were betrayed or abandoned to the insurgents.
+
+Congress had not anticipated, and so had not provided for, the emergency.
+The municipal authorities were powerless and inactive. The judicial
+machinery seemed as if it had been designed, not to sustain the
+government, but to embarrass and betray it.
+
+Foreign intervention, openly invited and industriously instigated by the
+abettors of the insurrection, became imminent, and has only been
+prevented by the practice of strict and impartial justice, with the most
+perfect moderation, in our intercourse with nations.
+
+The public mind was alarmed and apprehensive, though fortunately not
+distracted or disheartened. It seemed to be doubtful whether the Federal
+Government, which one year before had been thought a model worthy of
+universal acceptance, had indeed the ability to defend and maintain
+itself.
+
+Some reverses, which, perhaps, were unavoidable, suffered by newly levied
+and inefficient forces, discouraged the loyal and gave new hopes to the
+insurgents. Voluntary enlistments seemed about to cease and desertions
+commenced. Parties speculated upon the question whether conscription had
+not become necessary to fill up the armies of the United States.
+
+In this emergency the President felt it his duty to employ with energy
+the extraordinary powers which the Constitution confides to him in cases
+of insurrection. He called into the field such military and naval forces,
+unauthorized by the existing laws, as seemed necessary. He directed
+measures to prevent the use of the post-office for treasonable
+correspondence. He subjected passengers to and from foreign countries to
+new passport regulations, and he instituted a blockade, suspended the
+writ of habeas corpus in various places, and caused persons who were
+represented to him as being or about to engage in disloyal and
+treasonable practices to be arrested by special civil as well as military
+agencies and detained in military custody when necessary to prevent them
+and deter others from such practices. Examinations of such cases were
+instituted, and some of the persons so arrested have been discharged from
+time to time under circumstances or upon conditions compatible, as was
+thought, with the public safety.
+
+Meantime a favorable change of public opinion has occurred. The line
+between loyalty and disloyalty is plainly defined. The whole structure of
+the government is firm and stable. Apprehension of public danger and
+facilities for treasonable practices have diminished with the passions
+which prompted heedless persons to adopt them. The insurrection is
+believed to have culminated and to be declining.
+
+The President, in view of these facts, and anxious to favor a return to
+the normal course of the administration as far as regard for the public
+welfare will allow, directs that all political prisoners or state
+prisoners now held in military custody be released on their subscribing
+to a parole engaging them to render no aid or comfort to the enemies in
+hostility to the United States.
+
+The Secretary of War will, however, in his discretion, except from the
+effect of this order any persons detained as spies in the service of the
+insurgents, or others whose release at the present moment may be deemed
+incompatible with the public safety.
+
+To all persons who shall be so released, and who shall keep their parole,
+the President grants an amnesty for any past offences of treason or
+disloyalty which they may have comminuted.
+
+Extraordinary arrests will hereafter be made under the direction of the
+military authorities alone.
+
+By order of the President EDWIN M. STANTON,  Secretary of War.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+WASHINGTON CITY, February 15, 1862
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES:
+
+The third section of the "Act further to promote the efficiency of the
+Navy," approved December 21, 1861, provides
+
+"That the President of the United States, by and with the advice and
+consent of the Senate, shall have the authority to detail from the
+retired list of the navy for the command of squadrons and single ships
+such officers as he may believe that the good of the service requires to
+be thus placed in command; and such officers may, if upon the
+recommendation of the President of the United States they shall receive a
+vote of thanks of Congress for their services and gallantry in action
+against an enemy, be restored to the active list, and not otherwise."
+
+In conformity with this law, Captain Louis M. Goldsborough, of the navy,
+was nominated to the Senate for continuance as the flag-officer in
+command of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, which recently
+rendered such important service to the Union in the expedition to the
+coast of North Carolina.
+
+Believing that no occasion could arise which would more fully correspond
+with the intention of the law or be more pregnant with happy influence as
+an example, I cordially recommend that Captain Louis M. Goldsborough
+receive a vote of thanks of Congress for his services and gallantry
+displayed in the combined attack of the forces commanded by him and
+Brigadier-General Burnside in the capture of Roanoke Island and the
+destruction of rebel gunboats On the 7th, 8th, and 10th of February,
+1862.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST WRITTEN NOTICE OF GRANT
+
+TO GENERAL H. W. HALLECK.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
+
+February 16, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL HALLECK, St. Louis, Missouri:
+
+You have Fort Donelson safe, unless Grant shall be overwhelmed from
+outside; to prevent which latter will, I think, require all the
+vigilance, energy, and skill of yourself and Buell, acting in full
+co-operation. Columbus will not get at Grant, but the force from Bowling
+Green will. They hold the railroad from Bowling Green to within a few
+miles of Fort Donelson, with the bridge at Clarksville undisturbed. It is
+unsafe to rely that they will not dare to expose Nashville to Buell. A
+small part of their force can retire slowly toward Nashville, breaking up
+the railroad as they go, and keep Buell out of that city twenty days.
+Meanwhile Nashville will be abundantly defended by forces from all South
+and perhaps from hers at Manassas. Could not a cavalry force from General
+Thomas on the upper Cumberland dash across, almost unresisted, and cut
+the railroad at or near Knoxville, Tennessee? In the midst of a
+bombardment at Fort Donelson, why could not a gunboat run up and destroy
+the bridge at Clarksville? Our success or failure at Fort Donelson is
+vastly important, and I beg you to put your soul in the effort. I send a
+copy of this to Buell.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 2.--IN RELATION TO STATE PRISONERS.
+
+WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON CITY, FEBRUARY 27, 1862
+
+It is ordered:
+
+First. That a special commission of two persons, one of military rank and
+the other in civil life, be appointed to examine the cases of the state
+prisoners remaining in the military custody of the United States, and to
+determine whether in view of the public Safety and the existing rebellion
+they should be discharged, or remain in military custody, or be remitted
+to the civil tribunals for trial.
+
+Second. That Major-General John A. Dix, commanding in Baltimore, and the
+HON. Edwards Pierrepont, of New York, be, and they are hereby, appointed
+commissioners for the purpose above mentioned; and they are authorized to
+examine, hear, and determine the cases aforesaid ex parte and in a
+summary manner, at such times and places as in their discretion they may
+appoint, and make full report to the War Department.
+
+By order of the President EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER RELATING TO COMMERCIAL INTERCOURSE.
+
+Considering that the existing circumstances of the country allow a
+partial restoration of commercial intercourse between the inhabitants of
+those parts of the United States heretofore declared to be in
+insurrection and the citizens of the loyal States of the Union, and
+exercising the authority and discretion confided to me by the act of
+Congress, approved July 13, 1861, entitled "An act further to provide for
+the collection of duties on imports, and for other purposes," I hereby
+license and permit such commercial intercourse in all cases within the
+rules and regulations which have been or may be prescribed by the
+Secretary of the Treasury for conducting and carrying on the same on the
+inland waters and ways of the United States.
+
+WASHINGTON, February 28, 1862.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SPEECH TO THE PERUVIAN MINISTER,
+
+WASHINGTON, D. C., MARCH 4, 1862
+
+The United States have no enmities, animosities, or rivalries, and no
+interests which conflict with the welfare, safety, and rights or
+interests of any other nation. Their own prosperity, happiness, and
+aggrandizement are sought most safely and advantageously through the
+preservation not only of peace on their own part, but peace among all
+other nations. But while the United States are thus a friend to all other
+nations, they do not seek to conceal the fact that they cherish especial
+sentiments of friendship for, and sympathies with, those who, like
+themselves, have founded their institutions on the principle of the equal
+rights of men; and such nations being more prominently neighbors of the
+United States, the latter are co-operating with them in establishing
+civilization and culture on the American continent. Such being the
+general principles which govern the United States in their foreign
+relations, you may be assured, sir, that in all things this government
+will deal justly, frankly, and, if it be possible, even liberally with
+Peru, whose liberal sentiments toward us you have so kindly expressed.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS RECOMMENDING COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION.
+
+March 6, 1862
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:--I recommend
+the adoption of a joint resolution by your honorable bodies which shall
+be substantially as follows:
+
+"Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with any State
+which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State
+pecuniary aid, to be used by such State, in its discretion, to compensate
+for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of
+system."
+
+If the proposition contained in the resolution does not meet the approval
+of Congress and the country, there is the end; but if it does command
+such approval, I deem it of importance that the States and people
+immediately interested should be at once distinctly notified of the fact,
+so that they may begin to consider whether to accept or reject it. The
+Federal Government would find its highest interest in such a measure, as
+one of the most efficient means of self-preservation. The leaders of the
+existing insurrection entertain the hope that this government will
+ultimately be forced to acknowledge the independence of some part of the
+disaffected region, and that all the slave States north of such part will
+then say, "The Union for which we have struggled being already gone, we
+now choose to go with the Southern section." To deprive them of this hope
+substantially ends the rebellion, and the initiation of emancipation
+completely deprives them of it as to all the States initiating it. The
+point is not that all the States tolerating slavery would very soon, if
+at all, initiate emancipation; but that, while the offer is equally made
+to all, the more northern shall by such initiation make it certain to the
+more southern that in no event will the former ever join the latter in
+their proposed confederacy. I say "initiation" because, in my judgment,
+gradual and not sudden emancipation is better for all. In the mere
+financial or pecuniary view, any member of Congress with the census
+tables and treasury reports before him can readily see for himself how
+very soon the current expenditures of this war would purchase, at fair
+valuation, all the slaves in any named State. Such a proposition on the
+part of the General Government sets up no claim of a right by Federal
+authority to interfere with slavery within State limits, referring, as it
+does, the absolute control of the subject in each case to the State and
+its people immediately interested. It is proposed as a matter of
+perfectly free choice with them.
+
+In the annual message last December, I thought fit to say, "The Union
+must be preserved, and hence all indispensable means must be employed." I
+said this not hastily, but deliberately. War has been made and continues
+to be an indispensable means to this end. A practical reacknowledgment of
+the national authority would render the war unnecessary, and it would at
+once cease. If, however, resistance continues, the war must also
+continue; and it is impossible to foresee all the incidents which may
+attend and all the ruin which may follow it. Such as may seem
+indispensable or may obviously promise great efficiency toward ending the
+struggle must and will come.
+
+The proposition now made (though an offer only), I hope it may be
+esteemed no offense to ask whether the pecuniary consideration tendered
+would not be of more value to the States and private persons concerned
+than are the institution and property in it in the present aspect of
+affairs.
+
+While it is true that the adoption of the proposed resolution would be
+merely initiatory, and not within itself a practical measure, it is
+recommended in the hope that it would soon lead to important practical
+results. In full view of my great responsibility to my God and to my
+country, I earnestly beg the attention of Congress and the people to the
+subject.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+INDORSEMENT ON LETTER FROM GOVERNOR YATES.
+
+STATE OF ILLINOIS, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, SPRINGFIELD, ILL., March 1, 1862
+
+HON. EDWIN M. STANTON, SECRETARY OF WAR, Washington, D. C.
+
+SIR:--The government at my special request a few months since contracted
+for fourteen batteries of the James rifled gun, 6-pounder calibre, and a
+limited quantity of the James projectiles, weighing about fourteen pounds
+each. The reports showing the superiority of this gun and projectile,
+both as regards range, accuracy, and execution, for field service over
+that of all others at the battle of Fort Donelson, leads me to request
+that there be furnished to the State of Illinois in the shortest time
+practicable seven batteries of 12-pounder calibre James rifled guns, with
+carriages, harness, implements, etc., complete and ready for field
+service, together with the following fixed ammunition to each gun, viz.,
+225 shells, 225 canister, and 50 solid projectiles, weighing about 24
+pounds each, and also 200 shells, 100 canister, and 100 solid projectiles
+for each of the guns of the fourteen batteries named above, weighing
+about 14 pounds each, all to be of the James model.
+
+Very respectfully,
+
+RICHARD YATES, Governor of Illinois.
+
+[Indorsement.]
+
+March 8, 1862.
+
+The within is from the Governor of Illinois. I understand the seven
+additional batteries now sought are to be 6-gun batteries, and the object
+is to mix them with the fourteen batteries they already have so as to
+make each battery consist of four 6-pounders and two 12-pounders. I shall
+be very glad to have the requisition filled if it can be without
+detriment to the service.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PRESIDENT'S GENERAL WAR ORDER NO.2.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON
+
+March 8, 1862.
+
+Ordered: 1. That the major-general commanding the Army of the Potomac
+proceed forthwith to organize that part of the said army destined to
+enter upon active operations (including the reserve, but excluding the
+troops to be left in the fortifications about Washington) into four army
+corps, to be commanded according to seniority of rank, as follows:
+
+First Corps to consist of four divisions, and to be commanded by
+Major-General I. McDowell. Second Corps to consist of three divisions,
+and to be commanded by Brigadier-General E. V. Sumner. Third Corps to
+consist of three divisions, and to be commanded by Brigadier-General S.
+P. Heintzelman. Fourth Corps to consist of three divisions, and to be
+commanded by Brigadier-General E. D. Keyes.
+
+2.  That the divisions now commanded by the officers above assigned to
+the commands of army corps shall be embraced in and form part of their
+respective corps.
+
+3.  The forces left for the defense of Washington will be placed in
+command of Brigadier-General James S. Wadsworth, who shall also be
+military governor of the District of Columbia.
+
+4.  That this order be executed with such promptness and dispatch as not
+to delay the commencement of the operations already directed to be
+underwritten by the Army of the Potomac.
+
+5. A fifth army corps, to be commanded by Major general N. P. Banks, will
+be formed from his own and General Shields's (late General Lander's)
+divisions.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PRESIDENT'S GENERAL WAR ORDER NO.3.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, MARCH 8,1862
+
+Ordered: That no change of the base of operations of the Army of the
+Potomac shall be made without leaving in and about Washington such a
+force as in the opinion of the general-in-chief and the commanders of all
+the army corps shall leave said city entirely secure.
+
+That no more than two army corps (about 50,000 troops) of said Army of
+the Potomac shall be moved en route for a new base of operations until
+the navigation of the Potomac from Washington to the Chesapeake Bay shall
+be freed from enemy's batteries and other obstructions, or until the
+President shall hereafter give express permission.
+
+That any movements as aforesaid en route for a new base of operations
+which may be ordered by the general-in-chief, and which may be intended
+to move upon the Chesapeake Bay, shall begin to move upon the bay as
+early as the 18th day of March instant, and the general-in-chief shall be
+responsible that it so move as early as that day.
+
+Ordered, That the army and navy co-operate in an immediate effort to
+capture the enemy's batteries upon the Potomac between Washington and the
+Chesapeake Bay.
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+MEMORANDUM OF AN INTERVIEW BETWEEN THE PRESIDENT AND SOME BORDER
+SLAVE STATE REPRESENTATIVES, BY HON. J. W. CRISFIELD.
+
+"DEAR SIR:--I called, at the request of the President, to ask you to come
+to the White House tomorrow morning, at nine o'clock, and bring such of
+your colleagues as are in town."
+
+WASHINGTON, March 10, 1862.
+
+Yesterday, on my return from church, I found Mr. Postmaster-General Blair
+in my room, writing the above note, which he immediately suspended, and
+verbally communicated the President's invitation, and stated that the
+President's purpose was to have some conversation with the delegations of
+Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware, in explanation of
+his message of the 6th instant.
+
+This morning these delegations, or such of them as were in town,
+assembled at the White House at the appointed time, and after some little
+delay were admitted to an audience. Mr. Leary and myself were the only
+members from Maryland present, and, I think, were the only members of the
+delegation at that time in the city. I know that Mr. Pearoe, of the
+Senate, and Messrs. Webster and Calvert, of the House, were absent.
+
+After the usual salutations, and we were seated, the President said, in
+substance, that he had invited us to meet him to have some conversation
+with us in explanation of his message of the 6th; that since he had sent
+it in several of the gentlemen then present had visited him, but had
+avoided any allusion to the message, and he therefore inferred that the
+import of the message had been misunderstood, and was regarded as
+inimical to the interests we represented; and he had resolved he would
+talk with us, and disabuse our minds of that erroneous opinion.
+
+The President then disclaimed any intent to injure the interests or wound
+the sensibilities of the slave States. On the contrary, his purpose was
+to protect the one and respect the other; that we were engaged in a
+terrible, wasting, and tedious war; immense armies were in the field, and
+must continue in the field as long as the war lasts; that these armies
+must, of necessity, be brought into contact with slaves in the States we
+represented and in other States as they advanced; that slaves would come
+to the camps, and continual irritation was kept up; that he was
+constantly annoyed by conflicting and antagonistic complaints: on the one
+side a certain class complained if the slave was not protected by the
+army; persons were frequently found who, participating in these views,
+acted in a way unfriendly to the slaveholder; on the other hand,
+slaveholders complained that their rights were interfered with, their
+slaves induced to abscond and protected within the lines; these
+complaints were numerous, loud and deep; were a serious annoyance to him
+and embarrassing to the progress of the war; that it kept alive a spirit
+hostile to the government in the States we represented; strengthened the
+hopes of the Confederates that at some day the border States would unite
+with them, and thus tend to prolong the war; and he was of opinion, if
+this resolution should be adopted by Congress and accepted by our States,
+these causes of irritation and these hopes would be removed, and more
+would be accomplished toward shortening the war than could be hoped from
+the greatest victory achieved by Union armies; that he made this
+proposition in good faith, and desired it to be accepted, if at all,
+voluntarily, and in the same patriotic spirit in which it was made; that
+emancipation was a subject exclusively under the control of the States,
+and must be adopted or rejected by each for itself; that he did not claim
+nor had this government any right to coerce them for that purpose; that
+such was no part of his purpose in making this proposition, and he wished
+it to be clearly understood; that he did not expect us there to be
+prepared to give him an answer, but he hoped we would take the subject
+into serious consideration, confer with one another, and then take such
+course as we felt our duty and the interests of our constituents required
+of us.
+
+Mr. Noell, of Missouri, said that in his State slavery was not considered
+a permanent institution; that natural causes were there in operation
+which would at no distant day extinguish it, and he did not think that
+this proposition was necessary for that; and, besides that, he and his
+friends felt solicitous as to the message on account of the different
+constructions which the resolution and message had received. The New York
+Tribune was for it, and understood it to mean that we must accept gradual
+emancipation according to the plan suggested, or get something worse.
+
+The President replied that he must not be expected to quarrel with the
+New York Tribune before the right time; he hoped never to have to do it;
+he would not anticipate events. In respect to emancipation in Missouri,
+he said that what had been observed by Mr. Noell was probably true, but
+the operation of these natural causes had not prevented the irritating
+conduct to which he had referred, or destroyed the hopes of the
+Confederates that Missouri would at some time merge herself alongside of
+them, which, in his judgment, the passage of this resolution by Congress
+and its acceptance by Missouri would accomplish.
+
+Mr. Crisfield, of Maryland, asked what would be the effect of the refusal
+of the State to accept this proposal, and he desired to know if the
+President looked to any policy beyond the acceptance or rejection of this
+scheme.
+
+The President replied that he had no designs beyond the actions of the
+States on this particular subject. He should lament their refusal to
+accept it, but he had no designs beyond their refusal of it.
+
+Mr. Menzies, of Kentucky, inquired if the President thought there was any
+power except in the States themselves to carry out his scheme of
+emancipation.
+
+The President replied that he thought there could not be. He then went
+off into a course of remarks not qualifying the foregoing declaration nor
+material to be repeated to a just understanding of his meaning.
+
+Mr. Crisfield said he did not think the people of Maryland looked upon
+slavery as a permanent institution; and he did not know that they would
+be very reluctant to give it up if provision was made to meet the loss
+and they could be rid of the race; but they did not like to be coerced
+into emancipation, either by the direct action of the government or by
+indirection, as through the emancipation of slaves in this District, or
+the confiscation of Southern property as now threatened; and he thought
+before they would consent to consider this proposition they would require
+to be informed on these points. The President replied that, unless he was
+expelled by the act of God or the Confederate armies he should occupy
+that house for three years; and as long as he remained there Maryland had
+nothing to fear either for her institutions or her interests on the
+points referred to.
+
+Mr. Crisfield immediately added: "Mr. President, if what you now say
+could be heard by the people of Maryland, they would consider your
+proposition with a much better feeling than I fear without it they will
+be inclined to do."
+
+The President: "That [meaning a publication of what he said] will not do;
+it would force me into a quarrel before the proper time "; and, again
+intimating, as he had before done, that a quarrel with the "Greeley
+faction" was impending, he said he did not wish to encounter it before
+the proper time, nor at all if it could be avoided.
+
+[The Greely faction wanted an immediate Emancipation Proclamation. D.W.]
+
+Governor Wickliffe, of Kentucky, then asked him respecting the
+constitutionality of his scheme.
+
+The President replied: "As you may suppose, I have considered that; and
+the proposition now submitted does not encounter any constitutional
+difficulty. It proposes simply to co-operate with any State by giving
+such State pecuniary aid"; and he thought that the resolution, as
+proposed by him, would be considered rather as the expression of a
+sentiment than as involving any constitutional question.
+
+Mr. Hall, of Missouri, thought that if this proposition was adopted at
+all it should be by the votes of the free States, and come as a
+proposition from them to the slave States, affording them an inducement
+to put aside this subject of discord; that it ought not to be expected
+that members representing slaveholding constituencies should declare at
+once, and in advance of any proposition to them, for the emancipation of
+slavery.
+
+The President said he saw and felt the force of the objection; it was a
+fearful responsibility, and every gentleman must do as he thought best;
+that he did not know how this scheme was received by the members from the
+free States; some of them had spoken to him and received it kindly; but
+for the most part they were as reserved and chary as we had been, and he
+could not tell how they would vote. And in reply to some expression of
+Mr. Hall as to his own opinion regarding slavery, he said he did not
+pretend to disguise his anti-slavery feeling; that he thought it was
+wrong, and should continue to think so; but that was not the question we
+had to deal with now. Slavery existed, and that, too, as well by the act
+of the North as of the South; and in any scheme to get rid of it the
+North as well as the South was morally bound to do its full and equal
+share. He thought the institution wrong and ought never to have existed;
+but yet he recognized the rights of property which had grown out of it,
+and would respect those rights as fully as similar rights in any other
+property; that property can exist and does legally exist. He thought such
+a law wrong, but the rights of property resulting must be respected; he
+would get rid of the odious law, not by violating the rights, but by
+encouraging the proposition and offering inducements to give it up.
+
+Here the interview, so far as this subject is concerned, terminated by
+Mr. Crittenden's assuring the President that, whatever might be our final
+action, we all thought him solely moved by a high patriotism and sincere
+devotion to the happiness and glory of his country; and with that
+conviction we should consider respectfully the important suggestions he
+had made.
+
+After some conversation on the current war news, we retired, and I
+immediately proceeded to my room and wrote out this paper.
+J. W. CRISFIELD.
+
+We were present at the interview described in the foregoing paper of Mr.
+Crisfield, and we certify that the substance of what passed on the
+occasion is in this paper faithfully and fully given.
+
+J. W. MENZIES, J. J. CRITTENDEN, R. MALLORY.
+
+March 10, 1862.
+
+
+
+
+PRESIDENT'S SPECIAL WAR ORDER NO.3.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, March 11, 1862.
+
+Major-General McClellan having personally taken the field at the head of
+the Army of the Potomac, until otherwise ordered he is relieved from the
+command of the other military departments, he retaining command of the
+Department of the Potomac.
+
+Ordered further, That the departments now under the respective commands
+of Generals Halleck and Hunter, together with so much of that under
+General Buell as lies west of a north and south line indefinitely drawn
+through Knoxville, Tenn., be consolidated and designated the Department
+of the Mississippi, and that until otherwise ordered Major General
+Halleck have command of said department.
+
+Ordered also, That the country west of the Department of the Potomac and
+east of the Department of the Mississippi be a military department, to be
+called the Mountain Department, and that the same be commanded by
+Major-General Fremont.
+
+That all the commanders of departments, after the receipt of this order
+by them, respectively report severally and directly to the Secretary of
+War, and that prompt, full, and frequent reports will be expected of all
+and each of them.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+FROM SECRETARY STANTON TO GENERAL MCCLELLAN.
+
+WAR DEPARTMENT, March 13, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN:
+
+The President, having considered the plan of operations agreed upon by
+yourself and the commanders of army corps, makes no objection to the same
+but gives the following directions as to its execution:
+
+1.  Leave such force at Manassas Junction as shall make it entirely
+certain that the enemy shall no repossess himself of that position and
+line of communication.
+
+2.  Leave Washington entirely secure.
+
+3.  Move the remainder of the force down the Potomac, choosing a new base
+at Fortress Monroe or anywhere between here and there, or, at all events,
+move such remainder of the army at once in pursuit of the enemy by some
+route.
+
+EDWARD M. STANTON, Secretary of War.
+
+
+
+
+SPEECH TO A PARTY OF MASSACHUSETTS GENTLEMAN
+
+WASHINGTON, MARCH 13, 1862
+
+I thank you, Mr. Train, for your kindness in presenting me with this
+truly elegant and highly creditable specimen of the handiwork of the
+mechanics of your State of Massachusetts, and I beg of you to express my
+hearty thanks to the donors. It displays a perfection of workmanship
+which I really wish I had time to acknowledge in more fitting words, and
+I might then follow your idea that it is suggestive, for it is evidently
+expected that a good deal of whipping is to be done. But as we meet here
+socially let us not think only of whipping rebels, or of those who seem
+to think only of whipping negroes, but of those pleasant days, which it
+is to be hoped are in store for us, when seated behind a good pair of
+horses we can crack our whips and drive through a peaceful, happy, and
+prosperous land. With this idea, gentlemen, I must leave you for my
+business duties. [It was likely a Buggy-Whip D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+WASHINGTON CITY, March 20, 1862.
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+The third section of the "Act further to promote the efficiency of the
+Navy," approved December 21, 1861, provides:
+
+"That the President of the United States, by and with the advice and
+consent of the Senate, shall have the authority to detail from the
+retired list of the navy for the command of squadrons and single ships
+such officers as he may believe the good of the service requires to be
+thus placed in command; and such officers may, if upon the recommendation
+of the President of the United States they shall receive a vote of thanks
+cf Congress for their services and gallantry in action against an enemy,
+be restored to the active list, and not otherwise."
+
+In conformity with this law, Captain Samuel F. Du Pont, of the navy, was
+nominated to the Senate for continuance as the flag-officer in command of
+the squadron which recently rendered such important service to the Union
+in the expedition to the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.
+
+Believing that no occasion could arise which would more fully correspond
+with the intention of the law or be more pregnant with happy influence as
+an example, I cordially recommend that Captain Samuel F. Du Pont receive
+a vote of thanks of Congress for his service and gallantry displayed in
+the capture since the 21st December, 1861, of various ports on the coasts
+of Georgia and Florida, particularly Brunswick, Cumberland Island and
+Sound, Amelia Island, the towns of St. Mary's, St. Augustine, and
+Jacksonville and Fernandina.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, MARCH 31, 1862
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:-This morning I felt constrained to order Blenker's division
+to Fremont, and I write this to assure you I did so with great pain,
+understanding that you would wish it otherwise. If you could know the
+full pressure of the case, I am confident that you would justify it, even
+beyond a mere acknowledgment that the commander-in-chief may order what
+he pleases.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+GIFT OF SOME RABBITS
+
+TO MICHAEL CROCK. 360 N. Fourth St., Philadelphia.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, April 2, 1862.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:-Allow me to thank you in behalf of my little son for your
+present of white rabbits. He is very much pleased with them.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+INSTRUCTION TO SECRETARY STANTON.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, April 3, 1862.
+
+The Secretary of War will order that one or the other of the corps of
+General McDowell and General Sumner remain in front of Washington until
+further orders from the department, to operate at or in the direction of
+Manassas Junction, or otherwise, as occasion may require; that the other
+Corps not so ordered to remain go forward to General McClellan as
+speedily as possible; that General McClellan commence his forward
+movements from his new base at once, and that such incidental
+modifications as the foregoing may render proper be also made. A.
+LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL McCLELLAN.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 6, 1862.
+
+GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN:
+
+Yours of 11 A. M. today received. Secretary of War informs me that the
+forwarding of transportation, ammunition, and Woodbury's brigade, under
+your orders, is not, and will not be, interfered with. You now have over
+one hundred thousand troops with you, independent of General Wool's
+command. I think you better break the enemy's line from Yorktown to
+Warwick River at once. This will probably use time as advantageously as
+you can.
+
+A. LINCOLN, President
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 9, 1862
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR+--Your despatches, complaining that you are not properly
+sustained, while they do not offend me, do pain me very much.
+
+Blenker's division was withdrawn from you before you left here, and you
+knew the pressure under which I did it, and, as I thought, acquiesced in
+it certainly not without reluctance.
+
+After you left I ascertained that less than 20,000 unorganized men,
+without a single field battery, were all you designed to be left for the
+defense of Washington and Manassas Junction, and part of this even to go
+to General Hooker's old position; General Banks's corps, once designed
+for Manassas Junction, was divided and tied up on the line of Winchester
+and Strasburg, and could not leave it without again exposing the upper
+Potomac and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. This presented (or would
+present when McDowell and Sumner should be gone) a great temptation to
+the enemy to turn back from the Rappahannock and sack Washington. My
+explicit order that Washington should, by the judgment of all the
+Commanders of corps, be left entirely secure, had been neglected. It was
+precisely this that drove me to detain McDowell.
+
+I do not forget that I was satisfied with your arrangement to leave Banks
+at Manassas Junction; but when that arrangement was broken up and nothing
+substituted for it, of course I was not satisfied. I was constrained to
+substitute something for it myself.
+
+And now allow me to ask, do you really think I should permit the line
+from Richmond via Manaasas Junction to this city to be entirely open,
+except what resistance could be presented by less than 20,000 unorganized
+troops? This is a question which the country will not allow me to evade.
+
+There is a curious mystery about the number of the troops now with you.
+When I telegraphed you on the 6th, saying you had over 100,000 with you,
+I had just obtained from the Secretary of War a statement, taken as he
+said from your own returns, making 108,000 then with you and en route to
+you. You now say you will have but 85,000 when all enroute to you shall
+have reached you. How can this discrepancy of 23,000 be accounted for?
+
+As to General Wool's command, I understand it is doing for you precisely
+what a like number of your own would have to do if that command was away.
+I suppose the whole force which has gone forward to you is with you by
+this time; and if so, I think it is the precise time for you to strike a
+blow. By delay the enemy will relatively gain upon you--that is, he will
+gain faster by fortifications and reinforcements than you can by
+reinforcements alone.
+
+And once more let me tell you it is indispensable to you that you strike
+a blow. I am powerless to help this. You will do me the justice to
+remember I always insisted that going down the bay in search of a field,
+instead of fighting at or near Manassas, was only shifting and not
+surmounting a difficulty; that we would find the same enemy and the same
+or equal entrenchments at either place. The country will not fail to
+note--is noting now--that the present hesitation to move upon an
+entrenched enemy is but the story of Manassas repeated.
+
+I beg to assure you that I have never written you or spoken to you in
+greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose to
+sustain you, so far as in my most anxious judgment I consistently can;
+but you must act.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL H. W. HALLECK.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, April 9, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL HALLECK, Saint Louis, Mo.: If the rigor of the confinement
+of Magoffin (Governor of Kentucky) at Alton is endangering his life, or
+materially impairing his health, I wish it mitigated as far as it can be
+consistently with his safe detention.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+Please send above, by order of the President. JOHN HAY.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION RECOMMENDING THANKSGIVING FOR VICTORIES,
+
+APRIL 10, 1862.
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation
+
+It has pleased Almighty God to vouchsafe signal victories to the land and
+naval forces engaged in suppressing, an internal rebellion, and at the
+same time to avert from our country the dangers of foreign intervention
+and invasion.
+
+It is therefore recommended to the people of the United States that at
+their next weekly assemblages in their accustomed places of public
+worship which shall occur after notice of this proclamation shall have
+been received, they especially acknowledge and render thanks to our
+Heavenly Father for these inestimable blessings, that they then and there
+implore spiritual consolation in behalf of all who have been brought into
+affliction by the casualties and calamities of sedition and civil war,
+and that they reverently invoke the divine guidance for our national
+counsels, to the end that they may speedily result in the restoration of
+peace, harmony, and unity throughout our borders and hasten the
+establishment of fraternal relations among all the countries of the
+earth.
+
+In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the
+United States to be affixed.
+
+Done at the city of Washington, this tenth day of April, A.D. 1862, and
+of the independence of the United States the eighty-sixth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+ABOLISHING SLAVERY IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS. April 16, 1862.
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: The act
+entitled "An act for the relief of certain persons held to service or
+labor in the District of Columbia" has this day been approved and signed.
+
+I have never doubted the constitutional authority of Congress to abolish
+slavery in this District, and I have ever desired to see the national
+capital freed from the institution in some satisfactory way. Hence there
+has never been in my mind any question on the subject except the one of
+expediency, arising in view of all the circumstances. If there be matters
+within and about this act which might have taken a course or shape more
+satisfactory to my judgment, I do not attempt to specify them. I am
+gratified that the two principles of compensation and colonization are
+both recognized and practically applied in the act.
+
+In the matter of compensation, it is provided that claims may be
+presented within ninety days from the passage of the act, "but not
+thereafter"; and there is no saving for minors, femmes covert, insane or
+absent persons. I presume this is an omission by mere oversight, and I
+recommend that it be supplied by an amendatory or supplemental act.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 21, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN:
+
+Your despatch of the 19th was received that day. Fredericksburg is
+evacuated and the bridges destroyed by the enemy, and a small part of
+McDowell's command occupies this side of the Rappahannock, opposite the
+town. He purposes moving his whole force to that point.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO POSTMASTER-GENERAL
+
+A. LINCOLN. EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, April 24, 1862.
+
+Hon. POSTMASTER-GENERAL.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--The member of Congress from the district including Tiffin,
+O., calls on me about the postmaster at that place. I believe I turned
+over a despatch to you from some persons there, asking a suspension, so
+as for them to be heard, or something of the sort. If nothing, or nothing
+amounting to anything, has been done, I think the suspension might now be
+suspended, and the commission go forward.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 29, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN:
+
+Would it derange or embarrass your operations if I were to appoint
+Captain Charles Griffin a brigadier-general of volunteers? Please answer.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE SENATE, MAY 1, 1862.
+
+TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the Senate [of April 22] in relation to
+Brigadier-General Stone, I have the honor to state that he was arrested
+and imprisoned under my general authority, and upon evidence which
+whether he be guilty or innocent, required, as appears to me, such
+proceedings to be had against him for the public safety.  I deem it
+incompatible with the public interest, as also, perhaps, unjust to
+General Stone, to make a more particular statement of the evidence.
+
+He has not been tried because, in the state of military operations at the
+time of his arrest and since, the officers to constitute a court martial
+and for witnesses could not be withdrawn from duty without serious injury
+to the service. He will be allowed a trial without any unnecessary delay;
+the charges and specifications will be furnished him in due season, and
+every facility for his defense will be afforded him by the War
+Department.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
+
+WASHINGTON, MAY 1, 1862
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL McCLELLAN
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, MAY 1, 1862
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN:
+
+Your call for Parrott guns from Washington alarms me, chiefly because it
+argues indefinite procrastination. Is anything to be done?
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL H. W. HALLECK.
+
+WAR DEPARTMENT, MAY 1, 1862
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL HALLECK, Pittsburgh Landing, Tennessee:
+
+I am pressed by the Missouri members of Congress to give General
+Schofield independent command in Missouri. They insist that for want of
+this their local troubles gradually grow worse. I have forborne, so far,
+for fear of interfering with and embarrassing your operations. Please
+answer telling me whether anything, and what, I can do for them without
+injuriously interfering with you.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+RESPONSE TO EVANGELICAL LUTHERANS, MAY 6, 1862
+
+GENTLEMEN:--I welcome here the representatives of the Evangelical
+Lutherans of the United States. I accept with gratitude their assurances
+of the sympathy and support of that enlightened, influential, and loyal
+class of my fellow citizens in an important crisis which involves, in my
+judgment, not only the civil and religious liberties of our own dear
+land, but in a large degree the civil and religious liberties of mankind
+in many countries and through many ages. You well know, gentlemen, and
+the world knows, how reluctantly I accepted this issue of battle forced
+upon me on my advent to this place by the internal enemies of our
+country. You all know, the world knows, the forces and the resources the
+public agents have brought into employment to sustain a government
+against which there has been brought not one complaint of real injury
+committed against society at home or abroad. You all may recollect that
+in taking up the sword thus forced into our hands this government
+appealed to the prayers of the pious and the good, and declared that it
+placed its whole dependence on the favor of God. I now humbly and
+reverently, in your presence, reiterate the acknowledgment of that
+dependence, not doubting that, if it shall please the Divine Being who
+determines the destinies of nations, this shall remain a united people,
+and that they will, humbly seeking the divine guidance, make their
+prolonged national existence a source of new benefits to themselves and
+their successors, and to all classes and conditions of mankind.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO FLAG-OFFICER L. M. GOLDSBOROUGH.
+
+FORT MONROE, VIRGINIA, MAY 7, 1862
+
+FLAG-OFFICER GOLDSBOROUGH.
+
+SIR:--Major-General McClellan telegraphs that he has ascertained by a
+reconnaissance that the battery at Jamestown has been abandoned, and he
+again requests that gunboats may be sent up the James River.
+
+If you have tolerable confidence that you can successfully contend with
+the Merrimac without the help of the Galena and two accompanying
+gunboats, send the Galena and two gunboats up the James River at once.
+Please report your action on this to me at once. I shall be found either
+at General Wool's headquarters or on board the Miami.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+FURTHER REPRIMAND OF McCLELLAN
+
+TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.
+
+FORT MONROE, VIRGINIA, May 9, 1862
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN:
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I have just assisted the Secretary of War in framing part
+of a despatch to you relating to army corps, which despatch, of course,
+will have reached you long before this will. I wish to say a few words to
+you privately on this subject. I ordered the army corps organization not
+only on the unanimous opinion of the twelve generals whom you had
+selected and assigned as generals of divisions, but also on the unanimous
+opinion of every military man I could get an opinion from, and every
+modern military book, yourself only excepted. Of course, I did not on my
+own judgment pretend to understand the subject. I now think it
+indispensable for you to know how your struggle against it is received in
+quarters which we cannot entirely disregard. It is looked upon as merely
+an effort to pamper one or two pets, and to persecute and degrade their
+supposed rivals. I have had no word from Sumner, Heintzleman, or Keyes
+the commanders of these corps are, of course, the three highest officers
+with you; but I am constantly told that you have no consultation or
+communication with them; that you consult and communicate with nobody but
+General Fitz John Porter, and perhaps General Franklin. I do not say
+these complaints are true or just; but at all events, it is proper you
+should know of their existence. Do the commanders of corps disobey your
+orders in anything?
+
+When you relieved General Hamilton of his command the other day, you
+thereby lost the confidence of at least one of your best friends in the
+Senate. And here let me say, not as applicable to you personally, that
+Senators and Representatives speak of me in their places without
+question, and that officers of the army must cease addressing insulting
+letters to them for taking no greater liberty with them.
+
+But to return. Are you strong enough--are you strong enough even with my
+help--to set your foot upon the necks of Sumner, Heintzelman, and Keyes
+all at once? This is a practical and very serious question to you?
+
+The success of your army and the cause of the country are the same, and,
+of course, I only desire the good of the cause.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO FLAG-OFFICER L. M. GOLDSBOROUGH,
+
+FORT MONROE, VIRGINIA, May 10, 1862
+
+FLAG-OFFICER GOLDSBOROUGH.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I send you this copy of your report of yesterday for the
+purpose of saying to you in writing that you are quite right in supposing
+the movement made by you and therein reported was made in accordance with
+my wishes verbally expressed to you in advance. I avail myself of the
+occasion to thank you for your courtesy and all your conduct, so far as
+known to me, during my brief visit here.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION RAISING THE BLOCKADE OF CERTAIN PORTS.
+
+May 12, 1862.
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas, by my proclamation of the 19th of April, one thousand eight
+hundred and sixty-one, it was declared that the ports of certain States,
+including those of Beaufort, in the State of North Carolina, Port Royal,
+in the State of South Carolina, and New Orleans, in the State of
+Louisiana, were, for reasons therein set forth, intended to be placed
+under blockade; and whereas the said ports of Beaufort, Port Royal, and
+New Orleans have since been blockaded; but as the blockade of the same
+ports may now be safely relaxed with advantage to the interests of
+commerce:
+
+Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the
+United States, pursuant to the authority in me vested by the fifth
+section of the act of Congress approved on the 13th of July last,
+entitled "An act further to provide for the collection of duties on
+imports, and for other purposes," do hereby declare that the blockade of
+the said ports of Beaufort, Port Royal, and New Orleans shall so far
+cease and determine, from and after the first day of June next, that
+commercial intercourse with those ports, except as to persons, things,
+and information contraband of war, may from that time be carried on,
+subject to the laws of the United States, and to the limitations and in
+pursuance of the regulations which are prescribed by the Secretary of the
+Treasury in his order of this date, which is appended to this
+proclamation.
+
+In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
+the United States to be affixed.
+
+Done at the city of Washington, this twelfth day of May, in the year of
+our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the
+independence of the United States the eighty-sixth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Writings of Abraham Lincoln,
+Volume 5, 1858-1862, by Abraham Lincoln
+
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+Project Gutenberg Etext of The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Vol 5
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+Title:  The Writings of Abraham Lincoln
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+Author:  Abraham Lincoln
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+June, 2001  [Etext #2657]
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+
+
+THE WRITINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+VOLUME 5.
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+VERSE TO "LINNIE "
+
+September 30?, 1858.
+
+TO "LINNIE":
+
+A sweet plaintive song did I hear
+And I fancied that she was the singer.
+May emotions as pure as that song set astir
+Be the wont that the future shall bring her.
+
+
+
+
+NEGROES ARE MEN
+
+TO J. U. BROWN.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, OCT 18, 1858
+
+HON. J. U. BROWN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I do not perceive how I can express myself more plainly
+than I have in the fore-going extracts.  In four of them I have
+expressly disclaimed all intention to bring about social and
+political equality between the white and black races and in all the
+rest I have done the same thing by clear implication.
+
+I have made it equally plain that I think the negro is included in
+the word "men" used in the Declaration of Independence.
+
+I believe the declaration that "all men are created equal "is the
+great fundamental principle upon which our free institutions rest;
+that negro slavery is violative of that principle; but that, by our
+frame of government, that principle has not been made one of legal
+obligation; that by our frame of government, States which have
+slavery are to retain it, or surrender it at their own pleasure; and
+that all others--individuals, free States and national Government--
+are constitutionally bound to leave them alone about it.
+
+I believe our Government was thus framed because of the necessity
+springing from the actual presence of slavery, when it was framed.
+
+That such necessity does not exist in the Territories when slavery is
+not present.
+
+In his Mendenhall speech Mr. Clay says: "Now as an abstract principle
+there is no doubt of the truth of that declaration (all men created
+equal), and it is desirable, in the original construction of society,
+to keep it in view as a great fundamental principle."
+
+Again, in the same speech Mr. Clay says: "If a state of nature
+existed and we were about to lay the foundations of society, no man
+would be more strongly opposed than I should to incorporate the
+institution of slavery among its elements."
+
+Exactly so.  In our new free Territories, a state of nature does
+exist.  In them Congress lays the foundations of society; and in
+laying those foundations, I say, with Mr. Clay, it is desirable that
+the declaration of the equality of all men shall be kept in view as a
+great fundamental principle, and that Congress, which lays the
+foundations of society, should, like Mr. Clay, be strongly opposed to
+the incorporation of slavery and its elements.
+
+But it does not follow that social and political equality between
+whites and blacks must be incorporated because slavery must not.  The
+declaration does not so require.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+[Newspaper cuttings of Lincoln's speeches at Peoria, in 1854, at
+Springfield, Ottawa, Chicago, and Charleston, in 1858.  They were
+pasted in a little book in which the above letter was also written.]
+
+
+
+
+TO A. SYMPSON.
+
+BLANDINSVILLE, Oct 26, 1858
+
+A. SYMPSON, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Since parting with you this morning I heard some things
+which make me believe that Edmunds and Morrill will spend this week
+among the National Democrats, trying to induce them to content
+themselves by voting for Jake Davis, and then to vote for the Douglas
+candidates for senator and representative.  Have this headed off, if
+you can.  Call Wagley's attention to it and have him and the National
+Democrat for Rep.  to counteract it as far as they can.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SENATORIAL ELECTION LOST AND OUT OF MONEY
+
+TO N. B. JUDD.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, NOVEMBER 16, 1858
+
+HON. N. B. JUDD
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 15th is just received.  I wrote you the same
+day.  As to the pecuniary matter, I am willing to pay according to my
+ability; but I am the poorest hand living to get others to pay.  I
+have been on expenses so long without earning anything that I am
+absolutely without money now for even household purposes.  Still, if
+you can put in two hundred and fifty dollars for me toward
+discharging the debt of the committee, I will allow it when you and I
+settle the private matter between us.  This, with what I have already
+paid, and with an outstanding note of mine, will exceed my
+subscription of five hundred dollars.  This, too, is exclusive of my
+ordinary expenses during the campaign, all of which, being added to
+my loss of time and business, bears pretty heavily upon one no better
+off in [this] world's goods than I; but as I had the post of honor,
+it is not for me to be over nice.  You are feeling badly,--"And this
+too shall pass away," never fear.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+THE FIGHT MUST GO ON
+
+TO H. ASBURY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, November 19, 1858.
+
+HENRY ASBURY, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 13th was received some days ago.  The fight
+must go on.  The cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at
+the end of one or even one hundred defeats.  Douglas had the
+ingenuity to be supported in the late contest both as the best means
+to break down and to uphold the slave interest.  No ingenuity can
+keep these antagonistic elements in harmony long.  Another explosion
+will soon come.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REALIZATION THAT DEBATES MUST BE SAVED
+
+TO C. H. RAY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, Nov.20, 1858
+
+DR. C. H. RAY
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I wish to preserve a set of the late debates (if they
+may be called so), between Douglas and myself.  To enable me to do
+so, please get two copies of each number of your paper containing the
+whole, and send them to me by express; and I will pay you for the
+papers and for your trouble.  I wish the two sets in order to lay one
+away in the [undecipherable word] and to put the other in a
+scrapbook.  Remember, if part of any debate is on both sides of the
+sheet it will take two sets to make one scrap-book.
+
+I believe, according to a letter of yours to Hatch, you are "feeling
+like h-ll yet." Quit that--you will soon feel better.  Another "blow
+up" is coming; and we shall have fun again.  Douglas managed to be
+supported both as the best instrument to down and to uphold the slave
+power; but no ingenuity can long keep the antagonism in harmony.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+TO H. C. WHITNEY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD,  November 30, 1858
+
+H. C. WHITNEY, ESQ.
+
+MY DEAR SIR :--Being desirous of preserving in some permanent form
+the late joint discussion between Douglas and myself, ten days ago I
+wrote to Dr.  Ray, requesting him to forward to me by express two
+sets of the numbers of the Tribune which contain the reports of those
+discussions.  Up to date I have no word from him on the subject.
+Will you, if in your power, procure them and forward them to me by
+express? If you will, I will pay all charges, and be greatly obliged,
+to boot.  Hoping to visit you before long, I remain
+
+As ever your friend,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO H. D. SHARPE.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, Dec.  8, 1858.
+
+H. D. SHARPE, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Your very kind letter of Nov.  9th was duly received.  I
+do not know that you expected or desired an answer; but glancing over
+the contents of yours again, I am prompted to say that, while I
+desired the result of the late canvass to have been different, I
+still regard it as an exceeding small matter.  I think we have fairly
+entered upon a durable struggle as to whether this nation is to
+ultimately become all slave or all free, and though I fall early in
+the contest, it is nothing if I shall have contributed, in the least
+degree, to the final rightful result.
+
+Respectfully yours,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO A. SYMPSON.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, Dec.12, 1858.
+
+ALEXANDER SYMPSON, Esq.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I expect the result of the election went hard with you.
+So it did with me, too, perhaps not quite so hard as you may have
+supposed.  I have an abiding faith that we shall beat them in the
+long run.  Step by step the objects of the leaders will become too
+plain for the people to stand them.  I write merely to let you know
+that I am neither dead nor dying.  Please give my respects to your
+good family, and all inquiring friends.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ON BANKRUPTCY
+
+NOTES OF AN ARGUMENT.
+
+December [?], 1858.
+
+Legislation and adjudication must follow and conform to the progress
+of society.
+
+The progress of society now begins to produce cases of the transfer
+for debts of the entire property of railroad corporations; and to
+enable transferees to use and enjoy the transferred property,
+1egislation and adjudication begin to be necessary.
+
+Shall this class of legislation just now beginning with us be general
+or special?
+
+Section Ten of our Constitution requires that it should be general,
+if possible.  (Read the section.)
+
+Special legislation always trenches upon the judicial department; and
+in so far violates Section Two of the Constitution.  (Read it.)
+
+Just reasoning--policy--is in favor of general legis1ation--else the
+Legislature will be loaded down with the investigation of smaller
+cases--a work which the courts ought to perform, and can perform much
+more perfectly.  How can the Legislature rightly decide the facts
+between P. & B. and S.C.
+
+It is said that under a general law, whenever a R. R. Co.  gets tired
+of its debts, it may transfer fraudulently to get rid of them.  So
+they may--so may individuals; and which--the Legislature or the
+courts--is best suited to try the question of fraud in either case?
+
+It is said, if a purchaser have acquired legal rights, let him not be
+robbed of them, but if he needs legislation let him submit to just
+terms to obtain it.
+
+Let him, say we, have general law in advance (guarded in every
+possible way against fraud), so that, when he acquires a legal right,
+he will have no occasion to wait for additional legislation; and if
+he has practiced fraud let the courts so decide.
+
+
+
+
+A LEGAL OPINION BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+The 11th Section of the Act of Congress, approved Feb. 11, 1805,
+prescribing rules for the subdivision of sections of land within the
+United States system of surveys, standing unrepealed, in my opinion,
+is binding on the respective purchasers of different parts of the
+same section, and furnishes the true rule for surveyors in
+establishing lines between them.  That law, being in force at the
+time each became a purchaser, becomes a condition of the purchase.
+
+And, by that law, I think the true rule for dividing into quarters
+any interior section or sections, which is not fractional, is to run
+straight lines through the section from the opposite quarter section
+corners, fixing the point where such straight lines cross, or
+intersect each other, as the middle or centre of the section.
+
+Nearly, perhaps quite, all the original surveys are to some extent
+erroneous, and in some of the sections, greatly so. In each of the
+latter, it is obvious that a more equitable mode of division than the
+above might be adopted; but as error is infinitely various perhaps no
+better single rules can be prescribed.
+
+At all events I think the above has been prescribed by the competent
+authority.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, Jany.  6, 1859.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO M. W. DELAHAY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, March 4, 1859.
+
+M. W. DELAHAY, Esq.
+
+MY DEAR SIR: Your second letter in relation to my being with you at
+your Republican convention was duly received.  It is not at hand just
+now, but I have the impression from it that the convention was to be
+at Leavenworth; but day before yesterday a friend handed me a letter
+from Judge M. F. Caraway, in which he also expresses a wish for me to
+come, and he fixes the place at Ossawatomie.  This I believe is off
+of the river, and will require more time and labor to get to it.  It
+will push me hard to get there without injury to my own business; but
+I shall try to do it, though I am not yet quite certain I shall
+succeed.
+
+I should like to know before coming, that while some of you wish me
+to come, there may not be others who would quite as lief I would stay
+away. Write me again.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. M. MORRIS.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, March 28, 1859.
+
+W. M. MORRIS, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Your kind note inviting me to deliver a lecture at
+Galesburg is received. I regret to say I cannot do so now; I must
+stick to the courts awhile. I read a sort of lecture to three
+different audiences during the last month and this; but I did so
+under circumstances which made it a waste of no time whatever.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+
+
+
+TO H. L. PIERCE AND OTHERS.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, April 6, 1859.
+
+GENTLEMEN:--Your kind note inviting me to attend a festival in
+Boston, on the 28th instant, in honor of the birthday of Thomas
+Jefferson, was duly received. My engagements are such that I cannot
+attend.
+
+Bearing in mind that about seventy years ago two great political
+parties were first formed in this country, that Thomas Jefferson was
+the head of one of them and Boston the headquarters of the other, it
+is both curious and interesting that those supposed to descend
+politically from the party opposed to Jefferson should now be
+celebrating his birthday in their own original seat of empire, while
+those claiming political descent from him have nearly ceased to
+breathe his name everywhere.
+
+Remembering, too, that the Jefferson party was formed upon its
+supposed superior devotion to the personal rights of men, holding the
+rights of property to be secondary only, and greatly inferior, and
+assuming that the so-called Democracy of to-day are the Jefferson,
+and their opponents the anti-Jefferson, party, it will be equally
+interesting to note how completely the two have changed hands as to
+the principle upon which they were originally supposed to be divided.
+The Democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely
+nothing, when in conflict with another man's right of property;
+Republicans, on the contrary, are for both the man and the dollar,
+but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.
+
+I remember being once much amused at seeing two partially intoxicated
+men engaged in a fight with their great-coats on, which fight, after
+a long and rather harmless contest, ended in each having fought
+himself out of his own coat and into that of the other.  If the two
+leading parties of this day are really identical with the two in the
+days of Jefferson and Adams, they have performed the same feat as the
+two drunken men.
+
+But soberly, it is now no child's play to save the principles of
+Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation. One would state with
+great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the
+simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but nevertheless he would
+fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms.
+The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free
+society.  And yet they are denied and evaded, with no small show of
+success.  One dashingly calls them "glittering generalities."
+Another bluntly calls them "self-evident lies."  And others
+insidiously argue that they apply to "superior races."  These
+expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and effect--
+the supplanting the principles of free government, and restoring
+those of classification, caste, and legitimacy.  They would delight a
+convocation of crowned heads plotting against the people.  They are
+the vanguard, the miners and sappers, of returning despotism.  We
+must repulse them, or they will subjugate us.  This is a world of
+compensation; and he who would be no slave must consent to have no
+slave.  Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for
+themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.  All honor
+to Jefferson to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle
+for national independence by a single people, had the coolness,
+forecast, and capacity to introduce into a mere revolutionary
+document an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and
+so to embalm it there that to-day and in all coming days it shall be
+a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of reappearing
+tyranny and oppression.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO T. CANISIUS.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, May 17, 1859.
+
+DR. THEODORE CANISIUS.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Your note asking, in behalf of yourself and other German
+citizens, whether I am for or against the constitutional provision in
+regard to naturalized citizens, lately adopted by Massachusetts, and
+whether I am for or against a fusion of the Republicans and other
+opposition elements for the canvass of 1860, is received.
+
+Massachusetts is a sovereign and independent State; and it is no
+privilege of mine to scold her for what she does.  Still, if from
+what she has done an inference is sought to be drawn as to what I
+would do, I may without impropriety speak out.  I say, then, that, as
+I understand the Massachusetts provision, I am against its adoption
+in Illinois, or in any other place where I have a right to oppose it.
+Understanding the spirit of our institutions to aim at the elevation
+of men, I am opposed to whatever tends to degrade them.  I have some
+little notoriety for commiserating the oppressed negro; and I should
+be strangely inconsistent if I could favor any project for curtailing
+the existing rights of white men, even though born in different
+lands, and speaking different languages from myself.  As to the
+matter of fusion, I am for it if it can be had on Republican grounds;
+and I am not for it on any other terms.  A fusion on any other terms
+would be as foolish as unprincipled.  It would lose the whole North,
+while the common enemy would still carry the whole South.  The
+question of men is a different one.  There are good, patriotic men
+and able statesmen in the South whom I would cheerfully support, if
+they would now place themselves on Republican ground, but I am
+against letting down the Republican standard a hairsbreadth.
+
+I have written this hastily, but I believe it answers your questions
+substantially.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE GOVERNOR, AUDITOR, AND TREASURER OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
+
+GENTLEMEN:
+
+In reply to your inquiry; requesting our written opinion as to what
+your duty requires you to do in executing the latter clause of the
+Seventh Section of "An Act in relation to the payment of the
+principal and interest of the State debt," approved Feb'y 22, 1859,
+we reply that said last clause of said section is certainly
+indefinite, general, and ambiguous in its description of the bonds to
+be issued by you; giving no time at which the bonds are to be made
+payable, no place at which either principal or interest are to be
+paid, and no rate of interest which the bonds are to bear; nor any
+other description except that they are to be coupon bonds, which in
+commercial usage means interest-paying bonds with obligations or
+orders attached to them for the payment of annual or semiannual
+interest; there is we suppose no difficulty in ascertaining, if this
+act stood alone, what ought to be the construction of the terms
+"coupon bonds" and that it, would mean bonds bearing interest from
+the time of issuing the same.  And under this act considered by
+itself the creditors would have a right to require such bonds.  But
+your inquiry in regard to a class of bonds on which no interest is to
+be paid or shall begin to run until January 1 , 1860, is whether the
+Act of February 18, 1857, would not authorize you to refuse to give
+bonds with any coupons attached payable before the first day of July,
+1860. We have very maturely considered this question and have arrived
+at the conclusion that you have a right to use such measures as will
+secure the State against the loss of six months' interest on these
+bonds by the indefiniteness of the Act of 1859. While it cannot be
+denied that the letter of the laws favor the construction claimed by
+some of the creditors that interest-bearing bonds were required to be
+issued to them, inasmuch as the restriction that no interest is to
+run on said bonds unti1 1st January, 1860, relates solely to the
+bonds issued under the Act of 1857.  And the Act of 1859 directing
+you to issue new bonds does not contain this restriction, but directs
+you to issue coupon bonds.  Nevertheless the very indefiniteness and
+generality of the Act of 1859, giving no rate of interest, no time
+due, no place of payment, no postponement of the time when interest
+commences, necessarily implies that the Legislature intended to
+invest you with a discretion to impose such terms and restrictions as
+would protect the interest of the State; and we think you have a
+right and that it is your duty to see that the State Bonds are so
+issued that the State shall not lose six months' interest.  Two plans
+present themselves either of which will secure the State.  1st. If in
+literal compliance with the law you issue bonds bearing interest from
+1st July, 1859, you may deduct from the bonds presented three
+thousand from every $100,000 of bonds and issue $97,000 of coupon
+bonds; by this plan $3000 out of $100,000 of principal would be
+extinguished in consideration of paying $2910 interest on the first
+of January, 1860--and the interest on the $3000 would forever cease;
+this would be no doubt most advantageous to the State.  But if the
+Auditor will not consent to this, then,  2nd. Cut off of each bond
+all the coupons payable before 1st July, 1860.
+
+One of these plans would undoubtedly have been prescribed by the
+Legislature if its attention had been directed to this question.
+
+May 28, 1859.
+
+
+
+
+ON LINCOLN'S SCRAP BOOK
+
+TO H. C. WHITNEY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD,  December 25, 1858.
+
+H. C. WHITNEY, ESQ.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I have just received yours of the 23rd inquiring
+whether I received the newspapers you sent me by express.  I did
+receive them, and am very much obliged.  There is some probability
+that my scrap-book will be reprinted, and if it shall, I will save
+you a copy.
+
+Your friend as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+
+1859
+
+
+
+FIRST SUGGESTION OF A PRESIDENTIAL OFFER.
+
+TO S. GALLOWAY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., July 28, 1859.
+
+HON. SAMUEL GALLOWAY.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your very complimentary, not to say flattering, letter
+of the 23d inst. is received.  Dr. Reynolds had induced me to expect
+you here; and I was disappointed not a little by your failure to
+come.  And yet I fear you have formed an estimate of me which can
+scarcely be sustained on a personal acquaintance.
+
+Two things done by the Ohio Republican convention--the repudiation of
+Judge Swan, and the "plank" for a repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law--I
+very much regretted.  These two things are of a piece; and they are
+viewed by many good men, sincerely opposed to slavery, as a struggle
+against, and in disregard of, the Constitution itself.  And it is the
+very thing that will greatly endanger our cause, if it be not kept
+out of our national convention.  There is another thing our friends
+are doing which gives me some uneasiness.  It is their leaning toward
+"popular sovereignty." There are three substantial objections to
+this: First, no party can command respect which sustains this year
+what it opposed last.  Secondly, Douglas (who is the most dangerous
+enemy of liberty, because the most insidious one) would have little
+support in the North, and by consequence, no capital to trade on in
+the South, if it were not for his friends thus magnifying him and his
+humbug.  But lastly, and chiefly, Douglas's popular sovereignty,
+accepted by the public mind as a just principle, nationalizes
+slavery, and revives the African slave trade inevitably.
+
+Taking slaves into new Territories, and buying slaves in Africa, are
+identical things, identical rights or identical wrongs, and the
+argument which establishes one will establish the other.  Try a
+thousand years for a sound reason why Congress shall not hinder the
+people of Kansas from having slaves, and, when you have found it, it
+will be an equally good one why Congress should not hinder the people
+of Georgia from importing slaves from Africa.
+
+As to Governor Chase, I have a kind side for him.  He was one of the
+few distinguished men of the nation who gave us, in Illinois, their
+sympathy last year.  I never saw him, but suppose him to be able and
+right-minded; but still he may not be the most suitable as a
+candidate for the Presidency.
+
+I must say I do not think myself fit for the Presidency.  As you
+propose a correspondence with me, I shall look for your letters
+anxiously.
+
+I have not met Dr. Reynolds since receiving your letter; but when I
+shall, I will present your respects as requested.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+IT IS BAD TO BE POOR.
+
+TO HAWKINS TAYLOR
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL. Sept. 6, 1859.
+
+HAWKINS TAYLOR, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 3d is just received.  There is some mistake
+about my expected attendance of the U.S. Court in your city on the 3d
+Tuesday of this month.  I have had no thought of being there.
+
+It is bad to be poor.  I shall go to the wall for bread and meat if I
+neglect my business this year as well as last.  It would please me
+much to see the city and good people of Keokuk, but for this year it
+is little less than an impossibility.  I am constantly receiving
+invitations which I am compelled to decline.  I was pressingly urged
+to go to Minnesota; and I now have two invitations to go to Ohio.
+These last are prompted by Douglas going there; and I am really
+tempted to make a flying trip to Columbus and Cincinnati.
+
+I do hope you will have no serious trouble in Iowa.  What thinks
+Grimes about it? I have not known him to be mistaken about an
+election in Iowa.  Present my respects to Col.  Carter, and any other
+friends, and believe me
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SPEECH AT COLUMBUS, OHIO.
+
+SEPTEMBER 16, 1859.
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE STATE OF OHIO: I cannot fail to remember that
+I appear for the first time before an audience in this now great
+State,--an audience that is accustomed to hear such speakers as
+Corwin, and Chase, and Wade, and many other renowned men; and,
+remembering this, I feel that it will be well for you, as for me,
+that you should not raise your expectations to that standard to which
+you would have been justified in raising them had one of these
+distinguished men appeared before you.  You would perhaps be only
+preparing a disappointment for yourselves, and, as a consequence of
+your disappointment, mortification to me.  I hope, therefore, that
+you will commence with very moderate expectations; and perhaps, if
+you will give me your attention, I shall be able to interest you to a
+moderate degree.
+
+Appearing here for the first time in my life, I have been somewhat
+embarrassed for a topic by way of introduction to my speech; but I
+have been relieved from that embarrassment by an introduction which
+the Ohio Statesman newspaper gave me this morning.  In this paper I
+have read an article, in which, among other statements, I find the
+following:
+
+"In debating with Senator Douglas during the memorable contest of
+last fall, Mr. Lincoln declared in favor of negro suffrage, and
+attempted to defend that vile conception against the Little Giant."
+
+I mention this now, at the opening of my remarks, for the purpose of
+making three comments upon it.  The first I have already announced,--
+it furnishes me an introductory topic; the second is to show that the
+gentleman is mistaken; thirdly, to give him an opportunity to correct
+it.
+
+In the first place, in regard to this matter being a mistake.  I have
+found that it is not entirely safe, when one is misrepresented under
+his very nose, to allow the misrepresentation to go uncontradicted.
+I therefore propose, here at the outset, not only to say that this is
+a misrepresentation, but to show conclusively that it is so; and you
+will bear with me while I read a couple of extracts from that very
+"memorable" debate with Judge Douglas last year, to which this
+newspaper refers.  In the first pitched battle which Senator Douglas
+and myself had, at the town of Ottawa, I used the language which I
+will now read.  Having been previously reading an extract, I
+continued as follows:
+
+"Now, gentlemen, I don't want to read at any greater length, but this
+is the true complexion of all I have ever said in regard to the
+institution of slavery and the black race.  This is the whole of it;
+and anything that argues me into his idea of perfect social and
+political equality with the negro, is but a specious and fantastic
+arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be
+a chestnut horse.  I will say here, while upon this subject, that I
+have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the
+institution of slavery in the States where it exists.  I believe I
+have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.  I
+have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between
+the white and the black races.  There is a physical difference
+between the two which, in my judgment, will probably forbid their
+ever living together upon the footing of perfect equality; and
+inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference,
+I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I
+belong having the superior position.  I have never said anything to
+the contrary, but I hold that, notwithstanding all this, there is no
+reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural
+rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence,--the right to
+life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  I hold that he is as
+much entitled to these as the white man.  I agree with judge Douglas,
+he is not my equal in many respects,--certainly not in color, perhaps
+not in moral or intellectual endowments.  But in the right to eat the
+bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is
+my equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every
+living man."
+
+Upon a subsequent occasion, when the reason for making a statement
+like this occurred, I said:
+
+"While I was at the hotel to-day an elderly gentleman called upon me
+to know whether I was really in favor of producing perfect equality
+between the negroes and white people.  While I had not proposed to
+myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet, as the
+question was asked me, I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes
+in saying something in regard to it.  I will say, then, that I am
+not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the
+social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am
+not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of
+negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, or intermarry with
+the white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a
+physical difference between the white and black races which I believe
+will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social
+and political equality.  And inasmuch as they can not so live, while
+they do remain together there must be the position of superior and
+inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the
+superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this
+occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the
+superior position, the negro should be denied everything.  I do not
+understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave, I
+must necessarily want her for a wife.  My understanding is that I can
+just let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly
+never have had a black woman for either a slave or a wife.  So it
+seems to me quite possible for us to get along without making either
+slaves or wives of negroes.  I will add to this that I have never
+seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman, or child, who was in favor of
+producing perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and
+white men.  I recollect of but one distinguished instance that I ever
+heard of so frequently as to be satisfied of its correctness, and
+that is the case of Judge Douglas's old friend Colonel Richard M.
+Johnson.  I will also add to the remarks I have made (for I am not
+going to enter at large upon this subject, that I have never had the
+least apprehension that I or my friends would marry negroes, if there
+was no law to keep them from it; but as judge Douglas and his friends
+seem to be in great apprehension that they might, if there were no
+law to keep them from it, I give him the most solemn pledge that I
+will to the very last stand by the law of the State which forbids the
+marrying of white people with negroes."
+
+There, my friends, you have briefly what I have, upon former
+occasions, said upon this subject to which this newspaper, to the
+extent of its ability, has drawn the public attention.  In it you not
+only perceive, as a probability, that in that contest I did not at
+any time say I was in favor of negro suffrage, but the absolute proof
+that twice--once substantially, and once expressly--I declared
+against it.  Having shown you this, there remains but a word of
+comment upon that newspaper article.  It is this, that I presume the
+editor of that paper is an honest and truth-loving man, and that he
+will be greatly obliged to me for furnishing him thus early an
+opportunity to correct the misrepresentation he has made, before it
+has run so long that malicious people can call him a liar.
+
+The Giant himself has been here recently.  I have seen a brief report
+of his speech.  If it were otherwise unpleasant to me to introduce
+the subject of the negro as a topic for discussion, I might be
+somewhat relieved by the fact that he dealt exclusively in that
+subject while he was here.  I shall, therefore, without much
+hesitation or diffidence, enter upon this subject.
+
+The American people, on the first day of January, 1854, found the
+African slave trade prohibited by a law of Congress.  In a majority
+of the States of this Union, they found African slavery, or any other
+sort of slavery, prohibited by State constitutions.  They also found
+a law existing, supposed to be valid, by which slavery was excluded
+from almost all the territory the United States then owned.  This was
+the condition of the country, with reference to the institution of
+slavery, on the first of January, 1854.  A few days after that, a
+bill was introduced into Congress, which ran through its regular
+course in the two branches of the national legislature, and finally
+passed into a law in the month of May, by which the Act of Congress
+prohibiting slavery from going into the Territories of the United
+States was repealed.  In connection with the law itself, and, in
+fact, in the terms of the law, the then existing prohibition was not
+only repealed, but there was a declaration of a purpose on the part
+of Congress never thereafter to exercise any power that they might
+have, real or supposed, to prohibit the extension or spread of
+slavery. This was a very great change; for the law thus repealed was
+of more than thirty years' standing.  Following rapidly upon the
+heels of this action of Congress, a decision of the Supreme Court is
+made, by which it is declared that Congress, if it desires to
+prohibit the spread of slavery into the Territories, has no
+constitutional power to do so.  Not only so, but that decision lays
+down principles which, if pushed to their logical conclusion,--I say
+pushed to their logical conclusion,--would decide that the
+constitutions of free States, forbidding slavery, are themselves
+unconstitutional.  Mark me, I do not say the judges said this, and
+let no man say I affirm the judges used these words; but I only say
+it is my opinion that what they did say, if pressed to its logical
+conclusion, will inevitably result thus.
+
+Looking at these things, the Republican party, as I understand its
+principles and policy, believes that there is great danger of the
+institution of slavery being spread out and extended until it is
+ultimately made alike lawful in all the States of this Union; so
+believing, to prevent that incidental and ultimate consummation is
+the original and chief purpose of the Republican organization. I say
+"chief purpose" of the Republican organization; for it is certainly
+true that if the National House shall fall into the hands of the
+Republicans, they will have to attend to all the other matters of
+national house-keeping, as well as this.  The chief and real purpose
+of the Republican party is eminently conservative.  It proposes
+nothing save and except to restore this government to its original
+tone in regard to this element of slavery, and there to maintain it,
+looking for no further change in reference to it than that which the
+original framers of the Government themselves expected and looked
+forward to.
+
+The chief danger to this purpose of the Republican party is not just
+now the revival of the African slave trade, or the passage of a
+Congressional slave code, or the declaring of a second Dred Scott
+decision, making slavery lawful in all the States.  These are not
+pressing us just now.  They are not quite ready yet.  The authors of
+these measures know that we are too strong for them; but they will be
+upon us in due time, and we will be grappling with them hand to hand,
+if they are not now headed off.  They are not now the chief danger to
+the purpose of the Republican organization; but the most imminent
+danger that now threatens that purpose is that insidious Douglas
+popular sovereignty.  This is the miner and sapper.  While it does
+not propose to revive the African slave trade, nor to pass a slave
+code, nor to make a second Dred Scott decision, it is preparing us
+for the onslaught and charge of these ultimate enemies when they
+shall be ready to come on, and the word of command for them to
+advance shall be given.  I say this "Douglas popular sovereignty";
+for there is a broad distinction, as I now understand it, between
+that article and a genuine popular sovereignty.
+
+I believe there is a genuine popular sovereignty.  I think a
+definition of "genuine popular sovereignty," in the abstract, would
+be about this: That each man shall do precisely as he pleases with
+himself, and with all those things which exclusively concern him.
+Applied to government, this principle would be, that a general
+government shall do all those things which pertain to it, and all the
+local governments shall do precisely as they please in respect to
+those matters which exclusively concern them.  I understand that this
+government of the United States, under which we live, is based upon
+this principle; and I am misunderstood if it is supposed that I have
+any war to make upon that principle.
+
+Now, what is judge Douglas's popular sovereignty?  It is, as a
+principle, no other than that if one man chooses to make a slave of
+another man neither that other man nor anybody else has a right to
+object.  Applied in government, as he seeks to apply it, it is this:
+If, in a new Territory into which a few people are beginning to enter
+for the purpose of making their homes, they choose to either exclude
+slavery from their limits or to establish it there, however one or
+the other may affect the persons to be enslaved, or the infinitely
+greater number of persons who are afterwards to inhabit that
+Territory, or the other members of the families of communities, of
+which they are but an incipient member, or the general head of the
+family of States as parent of all, however their action may affect
+one or the other of these, there is no power or right to interfere.
+That is Douglas's popular sovereignty applied.
+
+He has a good deal of trouble with popular sovereignty.  His
+explanations explanatory of explanations explained are interminable.
+The most lengthy, and, as I suppose, the most maturely considered of
+this long series of explanations is his great essay in Harper's
+Magazine.  I will not attempt to enter on any very thorough
+investigation of his argument as there made and presented.  I will
+nevertheless occupy a good portion of your time here in drawing your
+attention to certain points in it.  Such of you as may have read this
+document will have perceived that the judge early in the document
+quotes from two persons as belonging to the Republican party, without
+naming them, but who can readily be recognized as being Governor
+Seward of New York and myself.  It is true that exactly fifteen
+months ago this day, I believe, I for the first time expressed a
+sentiment upon this subject, and in such a manner that it should get
+into print, that the public might see it beyond the circle of my
+hearers; and my expression of it at that time is the quotation that
+Judge Douglas makes. He has not made the quotation with accuracy, but
+justice to him requires me to say that it is sufficiently accurate
+not to change the sense.
+
+The sense of that quotation condensed is this: that this slavery
+element is a durable element of discord among us, and that we shall
+probably not have perfect peace in this country with it until it
+either masters the free principle in our government, or is so far
+mastered by the free principle as for the public mind to rest in the
+belief that it is going to its end.  This sentiment, which I now
+express in this way, was, at no great distance of time, perhaps in
+different language, and in connection with some collateral ideas,
+expressed by Governor Seward.  Judge Douglas has been so much annoyed
+by the expression of that sentiment that he has constantly, I
+believe, in almost all his speeches since it was uttered, been
+referring to it.  I find he alluded to it in his speech here, as well
+as in the copyright essay.  I do not now enter upon this for the
+purpose of making an elaborate argument to show that we were right in
+the expression of that sentiment.  In other words, I shall not stop
+to say all that might properly be said upon this point, but I only
+ask your attention to it for the purpose of making one or two points
+upon it.
+
+If you will read the copyright essay, you will discover that judge
+Douglas himself says a controversy between the American Colonies and
+the Government of Great Britain began on the slavery question in
+1699, and continued from that time until the Revolution; and, while
+he did not say so, we all know that it has continued with more or
+less violence ever since the Revolution.
+
+Then we need not appeal to history, to the declarations of the
+framers of the government, but we know from judge Douglas himself
+that slavery began to be an element of discord among the white people
+of this country as far back as 1699, or one hundred and sixty years
+ago, or five generations of men,--counting thirty years to a
+generation.  Now, it would seem to me that it might have occurred to
+Judge Douglas, or anybody who had turned his attention to these
+facts, that there was something in the nature of that thing, slavery,
+somewhat durable for mischief and discord.
+
+There is another point I desire to make in regard to this matter,
+before I leave it. From the adoption of the Constitution down to 1820
+is the precise period of our history when we had comparative peace
+upon this question,--the precise period of time when we came nearer
+to having peace about it than any other time of that entire one
+hundred and sixty years in which he says it began, or of the eighty
+years of our own Constitution.  Then it would be worth our while to
+stop and examine into the probable reason of our coming nearer to
+having peace then than at any other time.  This was the precise
+period of time in which our fathers adopted, and during which they
+followed, a policy restricting the spread of slavery, and the whole
+Union was acquiescing in it.  The whole country looked forward to the
+ultimate extinction of the institution.  It was when a policy had
+been adopted, and was prevailing, which led all just and right-minded
+men to suppose that slavery was gradually coming to an end, and that
+they might be quiet about it, watching it as it expired.  I think
+Judge Douglas might have perceived that too; and whether he did or
+not, it is worth the attention of fair-minded men, here and
+elsewhere, to consider whether that is not the truth of the case.  If
+he had looked at these two facts,--that this matter has been an
+element of discord for one hundred and sixty years among this people,
+and that the only comparative peace we have had about it was when
+that policy prevailed in this government which he now wars upon, he
+might then, perhaps, have been brought to a more just appreciation of
+what I said fifteen months ago,--that "a house divided against itself
+cannot stand.  I believe that this government cannot endure
+permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the house to
+fall, I do not expect the Union to dissolve; 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 will rest in the belief that it is
+in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it
+forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as
+well as new, North as well as South."  That was my sentiment at that
+time.  In connection with it, I said: "We are now far into the fifth
+year since a policy was inaugurated with the avowed object and
+confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation.  Under the
+operation of the policy that agitation has not only not ceased, but
+has constantly augmented."  I now say to you here that we are
+advanced still farther into the sixth year since that policy of Judge
+Douglas--that popular sovereignty of his--for quieting the slavery
+question was made the national policy.  Fifteen months more have been
+added since I uttered that sentiment; and I call upon you and all
+other right-minded men to say whether that fifteen months have belied
+or corroborated my words.
+
+While I am here upon this subject, I cannot but express gratitude
+that this true view of this element of discord among us--as I believe
+it is--is attracting more and more attention.  I do not believe that
+Governor Seward uttered that sentiment because I had done so before,
+but because he reflected upon this subject and saw the truth of it.
+Nor do I believe because Governor Seward or I uttered it that Mr.
+Hickman of Pennsylvania, in, different language, since that time, has
+declared his belief in the utter antagonism which exists between the
+principles of liberty and slavery.  You see we are multiplying.  Now,
+while I am speaking of Hickman, let me say, I know but little about
+him.  I have never seen him, and know scarcely anything about the
+man; but I will say this much of him: Of all the anti-Lecompton
+Democracy that have been brought to my notice, he alone has the true,
+genuine ring of the metal.  And now, without indorsing anything else
+he has said, I will ask this audience to give three cheers for
+Hickman. [The audience responded with three rousing cheers for
+Hickman.]
+
+Another point in the copyright essay to which I would ask your
+attention is rather a feature to be extracted from the whole thing,
+than from any express declaration of it at any point.  It is a
+general feature of that document, and, indeed, of all of Judge
+Douglas's discussions of this question, that the Territories of the
+United States and the States of this Union are exactly alike; that
+there is no difference between them at all; that the Constitution
+applies to the Territories precisely as it does to the States; and
+that the United States Government, under the Constitution, may not do
+in a State what it may not do in a Territory, and what it must do in
+a State it must do in a Territory.  Gentlemen, is that a true view of
+the case?  It is necessary for this squatter sovereignty, but is it
+true?
+
+Let us consider.  What does it depend upon?  It depends altogether
+upon the proposition that the States must, without the interference
+of the General Government, do all those things that pertain
+exclusively to themselves,--that are local in their nature, that have
+no connection with the General Government.  After Judge Douglas has
+established this proposition, which nobody disputes or ever has
+disputed, he proceeds to assume, without proving it, that slavery is
+one of those little, unimportant, trivial matters which are of just
+about as much consequence as the question would be to me whether my
+neighbor should raise horned cattle or plant tobacco; that there is
+no moral question about it, but that it is altogether a matter of
+dollars and cents; that when a new Territory is opened for
+settlement, the first man who goes into it may plant there a thing
+which, like the Canada thistle or some other of those pests of the
+soil, cannot be dug out by the millions of men who will come
+thereafter; that it is one of those little things that is so trivial
+in its nature that it has nor effect upon anybody save the few men
+who first plant upon the soil; that it is not a thing which in any
+way affects the family of communities composing these States, nor any
+way endangers the General Government. Judge Douglas ignores
+altogether the very well known fact that we have never had a serious
+menace to our political existence, except it sprang from this thing,
+which he chooses to regard as only upon a par with onions and
+potatoes.
+
+Turn it, and contemplate it in another view.  He says that, according
+to his popular sovereignty, the General Government may give to the
+Territories governors, judges, marshals, secretaries, and all the
+other chief men to govern them, but they, must not touch upon this
+other question.  Why?  The question of who shall be governor of a
+Territory for a year or two, and pass away, without his track being
+left upon the soil, or an act which he did for good or for evil being
+left behind, is a question of vast national magnitude; it is so much
+opposed in its nature to locality that the nation itself must decide
+it: while this other matter of planting slavery upon a soil,--a thing
+which, once planted, cannot be eradicated by the succeeding millions
+who have as much right there as the first comers, or, if eradicated,
+not without infinite difficulty and a long struggle, he considers the
+power to prohibit it as one of these little local, trivial things
+that the nation ought not to say a word about; that it affects nobody
+save the few men who are there.
+
+Take these two things and consider them together, present the
+question of planting a State with the institution of slavery by the
+side of a question who shall be Governor of Kansas for a year or two,
+and is there a man here, is there a man on earth, who would not say
+the governor question is the little one, and the slavery question is
+the great one?  I ask any honest Democrat if the small, the local,
+and the trivial and temporary question is not, Who shall be governor?
+while the durable, the important, and the mischievous one is, Shall
+this soil be planted with slavery?
+
+This is an idea, I suppose, which has arisen in Judge Douglas's mind
+from his peculiar structure.  I suppose the institution of slavery
+really looks small to him.  He is so put up by nature that a lash
+upon his back would hurt him, but a lash upon anybody else's back
+does not hurt him.  That is the build of the man, and consequently he
+looks upon the matter of slavery in this unimportant light.
+
+Judge Douglas ought to remember, when he is endeavoring to force this
+policy upon the American people, that while he is put up in that way,
+a good many are not.  He ought to remember that there was once in
+this country a man by the name of Thomas Jefferson, supposed to be a
+Democrat,--a man whose principles and policy are not very prevalent
+amongst Democrats to-day, it is true; but that man did not take
+exactly this view of the insignificance of the element of slavery
+which our friend judge Douglas does.  In contemplation of this thing,
+we all know he was led to exclaim, "I tremble for my country when I
+remember that God is just!"  We know how he looked upon it when he
+thus expressed himself.  There was danger to this country,--danger of
+the avenging justice of God, in that little unimportant popular
+sovereignty question of judge Douglas.  He supposed there was a
+question of God's eternal justice wrapped up in the enslaving of any
+race of men, or any man, and that those who did so braved the arm of
+Jehovah; that when a nation thus dared the Almighty, every friend of
+that nation had cause to dread his wrath.  Choose ye between
+Jefferson and Douglas as to what is the true view of this element
+among us.
+
+There is another little difficulty about this matter of treating the
+Territories and States alike in all things, to which I ask your
+attention, and I shall leave this branch of the case.  If there is no
+difference between them, why not make the Territories States at once?
+What is the reason that Kansas was not fit to come into the Union
+when it was organized into a Territory, in Judge Douglas's view?  Can
+any of you tell any reason why it should not have come into the Union
+at once?  They are fit, as he thinks, to decide upon the slavery
+question,--the largest and most important with which they could
+possibly deal: what could they do by coming into the Union that they
+are not fit to do, according to his view, by staying out of it?  Oh,
+they are not fit to sit in Congress and decide upon the rates of
+postage, or questions of ad valorem or specific duties on foreign
+goods, or live-oak timber contracts, they are not fit to decide these
+vastly important matters, which are national in their import, but
+they are fit, "from the jump," to decide this little negro question.
+But, gentlemen, the case is too plain; I occupy too much time on this
+head, and I pass on.
+
+Near the close of the copyright essay, the judge, I think, comes very
+near kicking his own fat into the fire. I did not think, when I
+commenced these remarks, that I would read that article, but I now
+believe I will:
+
+"This exposition of the history of these measures shows conclusively
+that the authors of the Compromise measures of 1850 and of the
+Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, as well as the members of the
+Continental Congress of 1774., and the founders of our system of
+government subsequent to the Revolution, regarded the people of the
+Territories and Colonies as political communities which were entitled
+to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their provisional
+legislatures, where their representation could alone be preserved, in
+all cases of taxation and internal polity."
+
+When the judge saw that putting in the word "slavery" would
+contradict his own history, he put in what he knew would pass
+synonymous with it,"internal polity."  Whenever we find that in one
+of his speeches, the substitute is used in this manner; and I can
+tell you the reason.  It would be too bald a contradiction to say
+slavery; but "internal polity" is a general phrase, which would pass
+in some quarters, and which he hopes will pass with the reading
+community for the same thing.
+
+"This right pertains to the people collectively, as a law-abiding and
+peaceful community, and not in the isolated individuals who may
+wander upon the public domain in violation of the law. It can only be
+exercised where there are inhabitants sufficient to constitute a
+government, and capable of performing its various functions and
+duties,--a fact to be ascertained and determined by "who do you
+think?  Judge Douglas says "by Congress!"  "Whether the number shall
+be fixed at ten, fifteen or twenty thousand inhabitants, does not
+affect the principle."
+
+Now, I have only a few comments to make. Popular sovereignty, by his
+own words, does not pertain to the few persons who wander upon the
+public domain in violation of law.  We have his words for that.  When
+it does pertain to them, is when they are sufficient to be formed
+into an organized political community, and he fixes the minimum for
+that at ten thousand, and the maximum at twenty thousand.  Now, I
+would like to know what is to be done with the nine thousand?  Are
+they all to be treated, until they are large enough to be organized
+into a political community, as wanderers upon the public land, in
+violation of law?  And if so treated and driven out, at what point of
+time would there ever be ten thousand?  If they were not driven out,
+but remained there as trespassers upon the public land in violation
+of the law, can they establish slavery there?  No; the judge says
+popular sovereignty don't pertain to them then.  Can they exclude it
+then?  No; popular sovereignty don't pertain to them then.  I would
+like to know, in the case covered by the essay, what condition the
+people of the Territory are in before they reach the number of ten
+thousand?
+
+But the main point I wish to ask attention to is, that the question
+as to when they shall have reached a sufficient number to be formed
+into a regular organized community is to be decided "by Congress."
+Judge Douglas says so.  Well, gentlemen, that is about all we want.
+No, that is all the Southerners want.  That is what all those who are
+for slavery want.  They do not want Congress to prohibit slavery from
+coming into the new Territories, and they do not want popular
+sovereignty to hinder it; and as Congress is to say when they are
+ready to be organized, all that the South has to do is to get
+Congress to hold off.  Let Congress hold off until they are ready to
+be admitted as a State, and the South has all it wants in taking
+slavery into and planting it in all the Territories that we now have
+or hereafter may have.  In a word, the whole thing, at a dash of the
+pen, is at last put in the power of Congress; for if they do not have
+this popular sovereignty until Congress organizes them, I ask if it
+at last does not come from Congress?  If, at last, it amounts to
+anything at all, Congress gives it to them.  I submit this rather for
+your reflection than for comment.  After all that is said, at last,
+by a dash of the pen, everything that has gone before is undone, and
+he puts the whole question under the control of Congress.  After
+fighting through more than three hours, if you undertake to read it,
+he at last places the whole matter under the control of that power
+which he has been contending against, and arrives at a result
+directly contrary to what he had been laboring to do.  He at last
+leaves the whole matter to the control of Congress.
+
+There are two main objects, as I understand it, of this Harper's
+Magazine essay. One was to show, if possible, that the men of our
+Revolutionary times were in favor of his popular sovereignty, and the
+other was to show that the Dred Scott decision had not entirely
+squelched out this popular sovereignty.  I do not propose, in regard
+to this argument drawn from the history of former times, to enter
+into a detailed examination of the historical statements he has made.
+I have the impression that they are inaccurate in a great many
+instances,--sometimes in positive statement, but very much more
+inaccurate by the suppression of statements that really belong to the
+history.  But I do not propose to affirm that this is so to any very
+great extent, or to enter into a very minute examination of his
+historical statements.  I avoid doing so upon this principle,--that
+if it were important for me to pass out of this lot in the least
+period of time possible, and I came to that fence, and saw by a
+calculation of my known strength and agility that I could clear it at
+a bound, it would be folly for me to stop and consider whether I
+could or not crawl through a crack.  So I say of the whole history
+contained in his essay where he endeavored to link the men of the
+Revolution to popular sovereignty.  It only requires an effort to
+leap out of it, a single bound to be entirely successful.  If you
+read it over, you will find that he quotes here and there from
+documents of the Revolutionary times, tending to show that the people
+of the colonies were desirous of regulating their own concerns in
+their own way, that the British Government should not interfere; that
+at one time they struggled with the British Government to be
+permitted to exclude the African slave trade,--if not directly, to be
+permitted to exclude it indirectly, by taxation sufficient to
+discourage and destroy it.  From these and many things of this sort,
+judge Douglas argues that they were in favor of the people of our own
+Territories excluding slavery if they wanted to, or planting it there
+if they wanted to, doing just as they pleased from the time they
+settled upon the Territory.  Now, however his history may apply and
+whatever of his argument there may be that is sound and accurate or
+unsound and inaccurate, if we can find out what these men did
+themselves do upon this very question of slavery in the Territories,
+does it not end the whole thing?  If, after all this labor and effort
+to show that the men of the Revolution were in favor of his popular
+sovereignty and his mode of dealing with slavery in the Territories,
+we can show that these very men took hold of that subject, and dealt
+with it, we can see for ourselves how they dealt with it.  It is not
+a matter of argument or inference, but we know what they thought
+about it.
+
+It is precisely upon that part of the history of the country that one
+important omission is made by Judge Douglas.  He selects parts of the
+history of the United States upon the subject of slavery, and treats
+it as the whole, omitting from his historical sketch the legislation
+of Congress in regard to the admission of Missouri, by which the
+Missouri Compromise was established and slavery excluded from a
+country half as large as the present United States.  All this is left
+out of his history, and in nowise alluded to by him, so far as I can
+remember, save once, when he makes a remark, that upon his principle
+the Supreme Court were authorized to pronounce a decision that the
+act called the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.  All that
+history has been left out.  But this part of the history of the
+country was not made by the men of the Revolution.
+
+There was another part of our political history, made by the very men
+who were the actors in the Revolution, which has taken the name of
+the Ordinance of '87.  Let me bring that history to your attention.
+In 1784, I believe, this same Mr. Jefferson drew up an ordinance for
+the government of the country upon which we now stand, or, rather, a
+frame or draft of an ordinance for the government of this country,
+here in Ohio, our neighbors in Indiana, us who live in Illinois, our
+neighbors in Wisconsin and Michigan.  In that ordinance, drawn up not
+only for the government of that Territory, but for the Territories
+south of the Ohio River, Mr. Jefferson expressly provided for the
+prohibition of slavery.  Judge Douglas says, and perhaps is right,
+that that provision was lost from that ordinance.  I believe that is
+true.  When the vote was taken upon it, a majority of all present in
+the Congress of the Confederation voted for it; but there were so
+many absentees that those voting for it did not make the clear
+majority necessary, and it was lost.  But three years after that, the
+Congress of the Confederation were together again, and they adopted a
+new ordinance for the government of this Northwest Territory, not
+contemplating territory south of the river, for the States owning
+that territory had hitherto refrained from giving it to the General
+Government; hence they made the ordinance to apply only to what the
+Government owned.  In fact, the provision excluding slavery was
+inserted aside, passed unanimously, or at any rate it passed and
+became a part of the law of the land.  Under that ordinance we live.
+First here in Ohio you were a Territory; then an enabling act was
+passed, authorizing you to form a constitution and State Government,
+provided it was republican and not in conflict with the Ordinance of
+'87.  When you framed your constitution and presented it for
+admission, I think you will find the legislation upon the subject
+will show that, whereas you had formed a constitution that was
+republican, and not in conflict with the Ordinance of '87, therefore
+you were admitted upon equal footing with the original States.  The
+same process in a few years was gone through with in Indiana, and so
+with Illinois, and the same substantially with Michigan and
+Wisconsin.
+
+Not only did that Ordinance prevail, but it was constantly looked to
+whenever a step was taken by a new Territory to become a State.
+Congress always turned their attention to it, and in all their
+movements upon this subject they traced their course by that
+Ordinance of '87.  When they admitted new States, they advertised
+them of this Ordinance, as a part of the legislation of the country.
+They did so because they had traced the Ordinance of '87 throughout
+the history of this country.  Begin with the men of the Revolution,
+and go down for sixty entire years, and until the last scrap of that
+Territory comes into the Union in the form of the State of Wisconsin,
+everything was made to conform with the Ordinance of '87, excluding
+slavery from that vast extent of country.
+
+I omitted to mention in the right place that the Constitution of the
+United States was in process of being framed when that Ordinance was
+made by the Congress of the Confederation; and one of the first Acts
+of Congress itself, under the new Constitution itself, was to give
+force to that Ordinance by putting power to carry it out in the hands
+of the new officers under the Constitution, in the place of the old
+ones, who had been legislated out of existence by the change in the
+Government from the Confederation to the Constitution.  Not only so,
+but I believe Indiana once or twice, if not Ohio, petitioned the
+General Government for the privilege of suspending that provision and
+allowing them to have slaves.  A report made by Mr. Randolph, of
+Virginia, himself a slaveholder, was directly against it, and the
+action was to refuse them the privilege of violating the Ordinance of
+'87.
+
+This period of history, which I have run over briefly, is, I presume,
+as familiar to most of this assembly as any other part of the history
+of our country. I suppose that few of my hearers are not as familiar
+with that part of history as I am, and I only mention it to recall
+your attention to it at this time.  And hence I ask how extraordinary
+a thing it is that a man who has occupied a position upon the floor
+of the Senate of the United States, who is now in his third term, and
+who looks to see the government of this whole country fall into his
+own hands, pretending to give a truthful and accurate history o the
+slavery question in this country, should so entirely ignore the whole
+of that portion of our history--the most important of all.  Is it not
+a most extraordinary spectacle that a man should stand up and ask for
+any confidence in his statements who sets out as he does with
+portions of history, calling upon the people to believe that it is a
+true and fair representation, when the leading part and controlling
+feature of the whole history is carefully suppressed?
+
+But the mere leaving out is not the most remarkable feature of this
+most remarkable essay. His proposition is to establish that the
+leading men of the Revolution were for his great principle of
+nonintervention by the government in the question of slavery in the
+Territories, while history shows that they decided, in the cases
+actually brought before them, in exactly the contrary way, and he
+knows it.  Not only did they so decide at that time, but they stuck
+to it during sixty years, through thick and thin, as long as there
+was one of the Revolutionary heroes upon the stage of political
+action.  Through their whole course, from first to last, they clung
+to freedom.  And now he asks the community to believe that the men of
+the Revolution were in favor of his great principle, when we have the
+naked history that they themselves dealt with this very subject
+matter of his principle, and utterly repudiated his principle, acting
+upon a precisely contrary ground.  It is as impudent and absurd as if
+a prosecuting attorney should stand up before a jury and ask them
+to convict A as the murderer of B, while B was walking alive before
+them.
+
+I say, again, if judge Douglas asserts that the men of the Revolution
+acted upon principles by which, to be consistent with themselves,
+they ought to have adopted his popular sovereignty, then, upon a
+consideration of his own argument, he had a right to make ,you
+believe that they understood the principles of government, but
+misapplied them, that he has arisen to enlighten the world as to the
+just application of this principle.  He has a right to try to
+persuade you that he understands their principles better than they
+did, and, therefore, he will apply them now, not as they did, but as
+they ought to have done.  He has a right to go before the community
+and try to convince them of this, but he has no right to attempt to
+impose upon any one the belief that these men themselves approved of
+his great principle.  There are two ways of establishing a
+proposition.  One is by trying to demonstrate it upon reason, and the
+other is, to show that great men in former times have thought so and
+so, and thus to pass it by the weight of pure authority.  Now, if
+Judge Douglas will demonstrate somehow that this is popular
+sovereignty,--the right of one man to make a slave of another,
+without any right in that other or any one else to object,-
+-demonstrate it as Euclid demonstrated propositions,--there is no
+objection.  But when he comes forward, seeking to carry a principle
+by bringing to it the authority of men who themselves utterly
+repudiate that principle, I ask that he shall not be permitted to do
+it.
+
+I see, in the judge's speech here, a short sentence in these words:
+"Our fathers, when they formed this government under which we live,
+understood this question just as well, and even better than, we do
+now."  That is true; I stick to that.  I will stand by Judge Douglas
+in that to the bitter end.  And now, Judge Douglas, come and stand by
+me, and truthfully show how they acted, understanding it better than
+we do.  All I ask of you, Judge Douglas, is to stick to the
+proposition that the men of the Revolution understood this subject
+better than we do now, and with that better understanding they acted
+better than you are trying to act now.
+
+I wish to say something now in regard to the Dred Scott decision, as
+dealt with by Judge Douglas.  In that "memorable debate" between
+Judge Douglas and myself, last year, the judge thought fit to
+commence a process of catechising me, and at Freeport I answered his
+questions, and propounded some to him.  Among others propounded to
+him was one that I have here now.  The substance, as I remember it,
+is, "Can the people of a United States Territory, under the Dred
+Scott decision, in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of
+the United States, exclude slavery from its limits, prior to the
+formation of a State constitution?"  He answered that they could
+lawfully exclude slavery from the United States Territories,
+notwithstanding the Dred Scot decision.  There was something about
+that answer that has probably been a trouble to the judge ever since.
+
+The Dred Scott decision expressly gives every citizen of the United
+States a right to carry his slaves into the United States
+Territories.  And now there was some inconsistency in saying that the
+decision was right, and saying, too, that the people of the Territory
+could lawfully drive slavery out again.  When all the trash, the
+words, the collateral matter, was cleared away from it, all the chaff
+was fanned out of it, it was a bare absurdity,--no less than that a
+thing may be lawfully driven away from where it has a lawful right to
+be.  Clear it of all the verbiage, and that is the naked truth of his
+proposition,--that a thing may be lawfully driven from the place
+where it has a lawful right to stay.  Well, it was because the judge
+could n't help seeing this that he has had so much trouble with it;
+and what I want to ask your especial attention to, just now, is to
+remind you, if you have not noticed the fact, that the judge does not
+any longer say that the people can exclude slavery.  He does not say
+so in the copyright essay; he did not say so in the speech that he
+made here; and, so far as I know, since his re-election to the Senate
+he has never said, as he did at Freeport, that the people of the
+Territories can exclude slavery.  He desires that you, who wish the
+Territories to remain free, should believe that he stands by that
+position; but he does not say it himself.  He escapes to some extent
+the absurd position I have stated, by changing his language entirely.
+What he says now is something different in language, and we will
+consider whether it is not different in sense too.  It is now that
+the Dred Scott decision, or rather the Constitution under that
+decision, does not carry slavery into the Territories beyond the
+power of the people of the Territories to control it as other
+property.  He does not say the people can drive it out, but they can
+control it as other property.  The language is different; we should
+consider whether the sense is different.  Driving a horse out of this
+lot is too plain a proposition to be mistaken about; it is putting
+him on the other side of the fence.  Or it might be a sort of
+exclusion of him from the lot if you were to kill him and let the
+worms devour him; but neither of these things is the same as
+"controlling him as other property."  That would be to feed him, to
+pamper him, to ride him, to use and abuse him, to make the most money
+out of him, "as other property"; but, please you, what do the men who
+are in favor of slavery want more than this?  What do they really
+want, other than that slavery, being in the Territories, shall be
+controlled as other property?  If they want anything else, I do not
+comprehend it.  I ask your attention to this, first, for the purpose
+of pointing out the change of ground the judge has made; and, in the
+second place, the importance of the change,--that that change is not
+such as to give you gentlemen who want his popular sovereignty the
+power to exclude the institution or drive it out at all.  I know the
+judge sometimes squints at the argument that in controlling it as
+other property by unfriendly legislation they may control it to
+death; as you might, in the case of a horse, perhaps, feed him so
+lightly and ride him so much that he would die.  But when you come to
+legislative control, there is something more to be attended to. I
+have no doubt, myself, that if the Territories should undertake to
+control slave property as other property that is, control it in such
+a way that it would be the most valuable as property, and make it
+bear its just proportion in the way of burdens as property, really
+deal with it as property,--the Supreme Court of the United States
+will say, "God speed you, and amen."  But I undertake to give the
+opinion, at least, that if the Territories attempt by any direct
+legislation to drive the man with his slave out of the Territory, or
+to decide that his slave is free because of his being taken in there,
+or to tax him to such an extent that he cannot keep him there, the
+Supreme Court will unhesitatingly decide all such legislation
+unconstitutional, as long as that Supreme Court is constructed as the
+Dred Scott Supreme Court is.  The first two things they have already
+decided, except that there is a little quibble among lawyers between
+the words "dicta" and "decision."  They have already decided a negro
+cannot be made free by Territorial legislation.
+
+What is the Dred Scott decision?  Judge Douglas labors to show that
+it is one thing, while I think it is altogether different.  It is a
+long opinion, but it is all embodied in this short statement: "The
+Constitution of the United States forbids Congress to deprive a man
+of his property, without due process of law; the right of property in
+slaves is distinctly and expressly affirmed in that Constitution:
+therefore, if Congress shall undertake to say that a man's slave is
+no longer his slave when he crosses a certain line into a Territory,
+that is depriving him of his property without due process of law, and
+is unconstitutional."  There is the whole Dred Scott decision.  They
+add that if Congress cannot do so itself, Congress cannot confer any
+power to do so; and hence any effort by the Territorial Legislature
+to do either of these things is absolutely decided against.  It is a
+foregone conclusion by that court.
+
+Now, as to this indirect mode by "unfriendly legislation," all
+lawyers here will readily understand that such a proposition cannot
+be tolerated for a moment, because a legislature cannot indirectly do
+that which it cannot accomplish directly.  Then I say any legislation
+to control this property, as property, for its benefit as property,
+would be hailed by this Dred Scott Supreme Court, and fully
+sustained; but any legislation driving slave property out, or
+destroying it as property, directly or indirectly, will most
+assuredly, by that court, be held unconstitutional.
+
+Judge Douglas says if the Constitution carries slavery into the
+Territories, beyond the power of the people of the Territories to
+control it as other property; then it follows logically that every
+one who swears to support the Constitution of the United States must
+give that support to that property which it needs.  And, if the
+Constitution carries slavery into the Territories, beyond the power
+of the people, to control it as other property, then it also carries
+it into the States, because the Constitution is the supreme law of
+the land.  Now, gentlemen, if it were not for my excessive modesty, I
+would say that I told that very thing to Judge Douglas quite a year
+ago.  This argument is here in print, and if it were not for my
+modesty, as I said, I might call your attention to it.  If you read
+it, you will find that I not only made that argument, but made it
+better than he has made it since.
+
+There is, however, this difference: I say now, and said then, there
+is no sort of question that the Supreme Court has decided that it is
+the right of the slave holder to take his slave and hold him in the
+Territory; and saying this, judge Douglas himself admits the
+conclusion.  He says if that is so, this consequence will follow; and
+because this consequence would follow, his argument is, the decision
+cannot, therefore, be that way,--" that would spoil my popular
+sovereignty; and it cannot be possible that this great principle has
+been squelched out in this extraordinary way.  It might be, if it
+were not for the extraordinary consequences of spoiling my humbug."
+
+Another feature of the judge's argument about the Dred Scott case is,
+an effort to show that that decision deals altogether in declarations
+of negatives; that the Constitution does not affirm anything as
+expounded by the Dred Scott decision, but it only declares a want of
+power a total absence of power, in reference to the Territories.  It
+seems to be his purpose to make the whole of that decision to result
+in a mere negative declaration of a want of power in Congress to do
+anything in relation to this matter in the Territories.  I know the
+opinion of the Judges states that there is a total absence of power;
+but that is, unfortunately; not all it states: for the judges add
+that the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly
+affirmed in the Constitution.  It does not stop at saying that the
+right of property in a slave is recognized in the Constitution, is
+declared to exist somewhere in the Constitution, but says it is
+affirmed in the Constitution.  Its language is equivalent to saying
+that it is embodied and so woven in that instrument that it cannot be
+detached without breaking the Constitution itself.  In a word, it is
+part of the Constitution.
+
+Douglas is singularly unfortunate in his effort to make out that
+decision to be altogether negative, when the express language at the
+vital part is that this is distinctly affirmed in the Constitution.
+I think myself, and I repeat it here, that this decision does not
+merely carry slavery into the Territories, but by its logical
+conclusion it carries it into the States in which we live.  One
+provision of that Constitution is, that it shall be the supreme law
+of the land,--I do not quote the language,--any constitution or law
+of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.  This Dred Scott
+decision says that the right of property in a slave is affirmed in
+that Constitution which is the supreme law of the land, any State
+constitution or law notwithstanding.  Then I say that to destroy a
+thing which is distinctly affirmed and supported by the supreme law
+of the land, even by a State constitution or law, is a violation of
+that supreme law, and there is no escape from it.  In my judgment
+there is no avoiding that result, save that the American people shall
+see that constitutions are better construed than our Constitution is
+construed in that decision.  They must take care that it is more
+faithfully and truly carried out than it is there expounded.
+
+I must hasten to a conclusion. Near the beginning of my remarks I
+said that this insidious Douglas popular sovereignty is the measure
+that now threatens the purpose of the Republican party to prevent
+slavery from being nationalized in the United States.  I propose to
+ask your attention for a little while to some propositions in
+affirmance of that statement.  Take it just as it stands, and apply
+it as a principle; extend and apply that principle elsewhere; and
+consider where it will lead you.  I now put this proposition, that
+Judge Douglas's popular sovereignty applied will reopen the African
+slave trade; and I will demonstrate it by any variety of ways in
+which you can turn the subject or look at it.
+
+The Judge says that the people of the Territories have the right, by
+his principle, to have slaves, if they want them.  Then I say that
+the people in Georgia have the right to buy slaves in Africa, if they
+want them; and I defy any man on earth to show any distinction
+between the two things,--to show that the one is either more wicked
+or more unlawful; to show, on original principles, that one is better
+or worse than the other; or to show, by the Constitution, that one
+differs a whit from the other.  He will tell me, doubtless, that
+there is no constitutional provision against people taking slaves
+into the new Territories, and I tell him that there is equally no
+constitutional provision against buying slaves in Africa.  He will
+tell you that a people, in the exercise of popular sovereignty, ought
+to do as they please about that thing, and have slaves if they want
+them; and I tell you that the people of Georgia are as much entitled
+to popular sovereignty and to buy slaves in Africa, if they want
+them, as the people of the Territory are to have slaves if they want
+them.  I ask any man, dealing honestly with himself, to point out a
+distinction.
+
+I have recently seen a letter of Judge Douglas's in which, without
+stating that to be the object, he doubtless endeavors to make a
+distinction between the two.  He says he is unalterably opposed to
+the repeal of the laws against the African slave trade.  And why?  He
+then seeks to give a reason that would not apply to his popular
+sovereignty in the Territories.  What is that reason?  "The abolition
+of the African slave trade is a compromise of the Constitution!"  I
+deny it.  There is no truth in the proposition that the abolition of
+the African slave trade is a compromise of the Constitution.  No man
+can put his finger on anything in the Constitution, or on the line of
+history, which shows it.  It is a mere barren assertion, made simply
+for the purpose of getting up a distinction between the revival of
+the African slave trade and his "great principle."
+
+At the time the Constitution of the United States was adopted, it was
+expected that the slave trade would be abolished. I should assert and
+insist upon that, if judge Douglas denied it.  But I know that it was
+equally expected that slavery would be excluded from the Territories,
+and I can show by history that in regard to these two things public
+opinion was exactly alike, while in regard to positive action, there
+was more done in the Ordinance of '87 to resist the spread of slavery
+than was ever done to abolish the foreign slave trade.  Lest I be
+misunderstood, I say again that at the time of the formation of the
+Constitution, public expectation was that the slave trade would be
+abolished, but no more so than the spread of slavery in the
+Territories should be restrained.  They stand alike, except that in
+the Ordinance of '87 there was a mark left by public opinion, showing
+that it was more committed against the spread of slavery in the
+Territories than against the foreign slave trade.
+
+Compromise!  What word of compromise was there about it?  Why, the
+public sense was then in favor of the abolition of the slave trade;
+but there was at the time a very great commercial interest involved
+in it, and extensive capital in that branch of trade.  There were
+doubtless the incipient stages of improvement in the South in the way
+of farming, dependent on the slave trade, and they made a proposition
+to Congress to abolish the trade after allowing it twenty years,--a
+sufficient time for the capital and commerce engaged in it to be
+transferred to other channel.  They made no provision that it should
+be abolished in twenty years; I do not doubt that they expected it
+would be, but they made no bargain about it.  The public sentiment
+left no doubt in the minds of any that it would be done away.  I
+repeat, there is nothing in the history of those times in favor of
+that matter being a compromise of the constitution.  It was the
+public expectation at the time, manifested in a thousand ways, that
+the spread of slavery should also be restricted.
+
+Then I say, if this principle is established, that there is no wrong
+in slavery, and whoever wants it has a right to have it, is a matter
+of dollars and cents, a sort of question as to how they shall deal
+with brutes, that between us and the negro here there is no sort of
+question, but that at the South the question is between the negro and
+the crocodile, that is all, it is a mere matter of policy, there is a
+perfect right, according to interest, to do just as you please,--when
+this is done, where this doctrine prevails, the miners and sappers
+will have formed public opinion for the slave trade.  They will be
+ready for Jeff. Davis and Stephens and other leaders of that company
+to sound the bugle for the revival of the slave trade, for the second
+Dred Scott decision, for the flood of slavery to be poured over the
+free States, while we shall be here tied down and helpless and run
+over like sheep.
+
+It is to be a part and parcel of this same idea to say to men who
+want to adhere to the Democratic party, who have always belonged to
+that party, and are only looking about for some excuse to stick to
+it, but nevertheless hate slavery, that Douglas's popular sovereignty
+is as good a way as any to oppose slavery.  They allow themselves to
+be persuaded easily, in accordance with their previous dispositions,
+into this belief, that it is about as good a way of opposing slavery
+as any, and we can do that without straining our old party ties or
+breaking up old political associations.  We can do so without being
+called negro-worshipers.  We can do that without being subjected to
+the jibes and sneers that are so readily thrown out in place of
+argument where no arguement can be found.  So let us stick to this
+popular sovereignty,--this insidious popular sovereignty.
+
+Now let me call your attention to one thing that has really happened,
+which shows this gradual and steady debauching of public opinion,
+this course of preparation for the revival of the slave trade, for
+the Territorial slave code, and the new Dred Scott decision that is
+to carry slavery into the Free States.  Did you ever, five years ago,
+hear of anybody in the world saying that the negro had no share in
+the Declaration of National Independence; that it does not mean
+negroes at all; and when "all men" were spoken of, negroes were not
+included?
+
+I am satisfied that five years ago that proposition was not put upon
+paper by any living being anywhere.  I have been unable at any time
+to find a man in an audience who would declare that he had ever known
+of anybody saying so five years ago.  But last year there was not a
+Douglas popular sovereign in Illinois who did not say it.  Is there
+one in Ohio but declares his firm belief that the Declaration of
+Independence did not mean negroes at all? I do not know how this is;
+I have not been here much; but I presume you are very much alike
+everywhere.  Then I suppose that all now express the belief that the
+Declaration of Independence never did mean negroes.  I call upon one
+of them to say that he said it five years ago.
+
+If you think that now, and did not think it then, the next thing that
+strikes me is to remark that there has been a change wrought in you,-
+-and a very significant change it is, being no less than changing the
+negro, in your estimation, from the rank of a man to that of a brute.
+They are taking him down and placing him, when spoken of, among
+reptiles and crocodiles, as Judge Douglas himself expresses it.
+
+Is not this change wrought in your minds a very important change?
+Public opinion in this country is everything.  In a nation like ours,
+this popular sovereignty and squatter sovereignty have already
+wrought a change in the public mind to the extent I have stated.
+There is no man in this crowd who can contradict it.
+
+Now, if you are opposed to slavery honestly, as much as anybody, I
+ask you to note that fact, and the like of which is to follow, to be
+plastered on, layer after layer, until very soon you are prepared to
+deal with the negro every where as with the brute.  If public
+sentiment has not been debauched already to this point, a new turn of
+the screw in that direction is all that is wanting; and this is
+constantly being done by the teachers of this insidious popular
+sovereignty.  You need but one or two turns further, until your
+minds, now ripening under these teachings, will be ready for all
+these things, and you will receive and support, or submit to, the
+slave trade, revived with all its horrors, a slave code enforced in
+our Territories, and a new Dred Scott decision to bring slavery up
+into the very heart of the free North.  This, I must say, is but
+carrying out those words prophetically spoken by Mr. Clay,--many,
+many years ago,--I believe more than thirty years, when he told an
+audience that if they would repress all tendencies to liberty and
+ultimate emancipation they must go back to the era of our
+independence, and muzzle the cannon which thundered its annual joyous
+return on the Fourth of July; they must blow out the moral lights
+around us; they must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate the love
+of liberty: but until they did these things, and others eloquently
+enumerated by him, they could not repress all tendencies to ultimate
+emancipation.
+
+I ask attention to the fact that in a pre-eminent degree these
+popular sovereigns are at this work: blowing out the moral lights
+around us; teaching that the negro is no longer a man, but a brute;
+that the Declaration has nothing to do with him; that he ranks with
+the crocodile and the reptile; that man, with body and soul, is a
+matter of dollars and cents.  I suggest to this portion of the Ohio
+Republicans, or Democrats, if there be any present, the serious
+consideration of this fact that there is now going on among you a
+steady process of debauching public opinion on this subject.  With
+this, my friends, I bid you adieu.
+
+
+
+
+SPEECH AT CINCINNATI OHIO, SEPTEMBER 17, 1859
+
+My Fellow-Citizens of the State of Ohio:  This is the first time in
+my life that I have appeared before an audience in so great a city as
+this: I therefore--though I am no longer a young man--make this
+appearance under some degree of embarrassment.  But I have found that
+when one is embarrassed, usually the shortest way to get through with
+it is to quit talking or thinking about it, and go at something else.
+
+I understand that you have had recently with you my very
+distinguished friend Judge Douglas, of Illinois; and I understand,
+without having had an opportunity (not greatly sought, to be sure) of
+seeing a report of the speech that he made here, that he did me the
+honor to mention my humble name.  I suppose that he did so for the
+purpose of making some objection to some sentiment at some time
+expressed by me.  I should expect, it is true, that judge Douglas had
+reminded you, or informed you, if you had never before heard it, that
+I had once in my life declared it as my opinion that this government
+cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free; that a house
+divided against itself cannot stand, and, as I had expressed it, I
+did not expect the house to fall, that I did not expect the Union to
+be dissolved, but that I did expect that it would cease to be
+divided, that it would become all one thing, or all the other; that
+either the opponents of slavery would arrest the further spread of
+it, and place it where the public mind would rest in the belief that
+it was in the course of ultimate extinction, or the friends of
+slavery will push it forward until it becomes alike lawful in all the
+States, old or new, free as well as slave. I did, fifteen months ago,
+express that opinion, and upon many occasions Judge Douglas has
+denounced it, and has greatly, intentionally or unintentionally,
+misrepresented my purpose in the expression of that opinion.
+
+I presume, without having seen a report of his speech, that he did so
+here.  I presume that he alluded also to that opinion, in different
+language, having been expressed at a subsequent time by Governor
+Seward of New York, and that he took the two in a lump and denounced
+them; that he tried to point out that there was something couched in
+this opinion which led to the making of an entire uniformity of the
+local institutions of the various States of the Union, in utter
+disregard of the different States, which in their nature would seem
+to require a variety of institutions and a variety of laws,
+conforming to the differences in the nature of the different States.
+
+Not only so: I presume he insisted that this was a declaration of war
+between the free and slave States, that it was the sounding to the
+onset of continual war between the different States, the slave and
+free States.
+
+This charge, in this form, was made by Judge Douglas on, I believe,
+the 9th of July, 1858, in Chicago, in my hearing.  On the next
+evening, I made some reply to it.  I informed him that many of the
+inferences he drew from that expression of mine were altogether
+foreign to any purpose entertained by me, and in so far as he should
+ascribe these inferences to me, as my purpose, he was entirely
+mistaken; and in so far as he might argue that, whatever might be my
+purpose, actions conforming to my views would lead to these results,
+he might argue and establish if he could; but, so far as purposes
+were concerned, he was totally mistaken as to me.
+
+When I made that reply to him, I told him, on the question of
+declaring war between the different States of the Union, that I had
+not said that I did not expect any peace upon this question until
+slavery was exterminated; that I had only said I expected peace when
+that institution was put where the public mind should rest in the
+belief that it was in course of ultimate extinction; that I believed,
+from the organization of our government until a very recent period of
+time, the institution had been placed and continued upon such a
+basis; that we had had comparative peace upon that question through a
+portion of that period of time, only because the public mind rested
+in that belief in regard to it, and that when we returned to that
+position in relation to that matter, I supposed we should again have
+peace as we previously had. I assured him, as I now, assure you, that
+I neither then had, nor have, or ever had, any purpose in any way of
+interfering with the institution of slavery, where it exists.  I
+believe we have no power, under the Constitution of the United
+States, or rather under the form of government under which we live,
+to interfere with the institution of slavery, or any other of the
+institutions of our sister States, be they free or slave States.  I
+declared then, and I now re-declare, that I have as little
+inclination to interfere with the institution of slavery where it now
+exists, through the instrumentality of the General Government, or any
+other instrumentality, as I believe we have no power to do so.  I
+accidentally used this expression:  I had no purpose of entering into
+the slave States to disturb the institution of slavery.  So, upon the
+first occasion that Judge Douglas got an opportunity to reply to me,
+he passed by the whole body of what I had said upon that subject, and
+seized upon the particular expression of mine that I had no purpose
+of entering into the slave States to disturb the institution of
+slavery.  "Oh, no," said he, "he [Lincoln] won't enter into the slave
+States to disturb the institution of slavery, he is too prudent a man
+to do such a thing as that; he only means that he will go on to the
+line between the free and slave States, and shoot over at them.  This
+is all he means to do.  He means to do them all the harm he can, to
+disturb them all he can, in such a way as to keep his own hide in
+perfect safety."
+
+Well, now, I did not think, at that time, that that was either a very
+dignified or very logical argument but so it was, I had to get along
+with it as well as I could.
+
+It has occurred to-me here to-night that if I ever do shoot over the
+line at the people on the other side of the line into a slave State,
+and purpose to do so, keeping my skin safe, that I have now about the
+best chance I shall ever have. I should not wonder if there are some
+Kentuckians about this audience--we are close to Kentucky; and
+whether that be so or not, we are on elevated ground, and, by
+speaking distinctly, I should not wonder if some of the Kentuckians
+would hear me on the other side of the river. For that reason I
+propose to address a portion of what I have to say to the
+Kentuckians.
+
+I say, then, in the first place, to the Kentuckians, that I am what
+they call, as I understand it, a "Black Republican." I think slavery
+is wrong, morally and politically.  I desire that it should be no
+further spread in--these United States, and I should not object if it
+should gradually terminate in the whole Union.  While I say this for
+myself, I say to you Kentuckians that I understand you differ
+radically with me upon this proposition; that you believe slavery is
+a good thing; that slavery is right; that it ought to be extended and
+perpetuated in this Union.  Now, there being this broad difference
+between us, I do not pretend, in addressing myself to you
+Kentuckians, to attempt proselyting you; that would be a vain effort.
+I do not enter upon it.  I only propose to try to show you that you
+ought to nominate for the next Presidency, at Charleston, my
+distinguished friend Judge Douglas.  In all that there is a
+difference between you and him, I understand he is sincerely for you,
+and more wisely for you than you are for yourselves.  I will try to
+demonstrate that proposition.  Understand, now, I say that I believe
+he is as sincerely for you, and more wisely for you, than you are for
+yourselves.
+
+What do you want more than anything else to make successful your
+views of slavery,--to advance the outspread of it, and to secure and
+perpetuate the nationality of it?  What do you want more than
+anything else?  What--is needed absolutely?  What is indispensable to
+you?  Why, if I may, be allowed to answer the question, it is to
+retain a hold upon the North, it is to retain support and strength
+from the free States.  If you can get this support and strength from
+the free States, you can succeed.  If you do not get this support and
+this strength from the free States, you are in the minority, and you
+are beaten at once.
+
+If that proposition be admitted,--and it is undeniable,--then the
+next thing I say to you is, that Douglas, of all the men in this
+nation, is the only man that affords you any hold upon the free
+States; that no other man can give you any strength in the free
+States.  This being so, if you doubt the other branch of the
+proposition, whether he is for you--whether he is really for you, as
+I have expressed it,--I propose asking your attention for a while to
+a few facts.
+
+The issue between you and me, understand, is, that I think slavery is
+wrong, and ought not to be outspread; and you think it is right, and
+ought to be extended and perpetuated. [A voice, "Oh, Lord!"]  That is
+my Kentuckian I am talking to now.
+
+I now proceed to try to show you that Douglas is as sincerely for you
+and more wisely for you than you are for yourselves.
+
+In the first place, we know that in a government like this, in a
+government of the people, where the voice of all the men of the
+country, substantially, enters into the execution--or administration,
+rather--of the government, in such a government, what lies at the
+bottom of all of it is public opinion.  I lay down the proposition,
+that Judge Douglas is not only the man that promises you in advance a
+hold upon the North, and support in the North, but he constantly
+moulds public opinion to your ends; that in every possible way he can
+he constantly moulds the public opinion of the North to your ends;
+and if there are a few things in which he seems to be against you,-
+-a, few things which he says that appear to be against you, and a few
+that he forbears to say which you would like to have him say you
+ought to remember that the saying of the one, or the forbearing to
+say the other, would lose his hold upon the North, and, by
+consequence, would lose his capacity to serve you.
+
+Upon this subject of moulding public opinion I call your attention to
+the fact--for a well established fact it is--that the Judge never
+says your institution of slavery is wrong.  There is not a public man
+in the United States, I believe, with the exception of Senator
+Douglas, who has not, at some time in his life, declared his opinion
+whether the thing is right or wrong; but Senator Douglas never
+declares it is wrong.  He leaves himself at perfect liberty to do all
+in your favor which he would be hindered from doing if he were to
+declare the thing to be wrong.  On the contrary, he takes all the
+chances that he has for inveigling the sentiment of the North,
+opposed to slavery, into your support, by never saying it is right.
+This you ought to set down to his credit: You ought to give him full
+credit for this much; little though it be, in comparison to the whole
+which he does for you.
+
+Some other, things I will ask your attention to. He said upon the
+floor of the United States Senate, and he has repeated it, as I
+understand, a great many times, that he does not care whether slavery
+is "voted up or voted down."  This again shows you, or ought to show
+you, if you would reason upon it, that he does not believe it to be
+wrong; for a man may say when he sees nothing wrong in a thing; that
+he, dues not care whether it be voted up or voted down but no man can
+logically say that he cares not whether a thing goes up or goes down
+which to him appears to be wrong. You therefore have a demonstration
+in this that to Judge Douglas's mind your favorite institution, which
+you would have spread out and made perpetual, is no wrong.
+
+Another thing he tells you, in a speech made at Memphis in Tennessee,
+shortly after the canvass in Illinois, last year.  He there
+distinctly told the people that there was a "line drawn by the
+Almighty across this continent, on the one side of which the soil
+must always be cultivated by slaves"; that he did not pretend to know
+exactly where that line was, but that there was such a line.  I want
+to ask your attention to that proposition again; that there is one
+portion of this continent where the Almighty has signed the soil
+shall always be cultivated by slaves; that its being cultivated by
+slaves at that place is right; that it has the direct sympathy and
+authority of the Almighty.  Whenever you can get these Northern
+audiences to adopt the opinion that slavery is right on the other
+side of the Ohio, whenever you can get them, in pursuance of
+Douglas's views, to adopt that sentiment, they will very readily make
+the other argument, which is perfectly logical, that that which is
+right on that side of the Ohio cannot be wrong on this, and that if
+you have that property on that side of the Ohio, under the seal and
+stamp of the Almighty, when by any means it escapes over here it is
+wrong to have constitutions and laws "to devil" you about it. So
+Douglas is moulding the public opinion of the North, first to say
+that the thing is right in your State over the Ohio River, and hence
+to say that that which is right there is not wrong here, and that all
+laws and constitutions here recognizing it as being wrong are
+themselves wrong, and ought to be repealed and abrogated.  He will
+tell you, men of Ohio, that if you choose here to have laws against
+slavery, it is in conformity to the idea that your climate is not
+suited to it, that your climate is not suited to slave labor, and
+therefore you have constitutions and laws against it.
+
+Let us attend to that argument for a little while and see if it be
+sound.  You do not raise sugar-cane (except the new-fashioned
+sugar-cane, and you won't raise that long), but they do raise it in
+Louisiana.  You don't raise it in Ohio, because you can't raise it
+profitably, because the climate don't suit it.  They do raise it in
+Louisiana, because there it is profitable.  Now, Douglas will tell
+you that is precisely the slavery question: that they do have slaves
+there because they are profitable, and you don't have them here
+because they are not profitable.  If that is so, then it leads to
+dealing with the one precisely as with the other.  Is there, then,
+anything in the constitution or laws of Ohio against raising
+sugar-cane?  Have you found it necessary to put any such provision in
+your law?  Surely not!  No man desires to raise sugar-cane in Ohio,
+but if any man did desire to do so, you would say it was a tyrannical
+law that forbids his doing so; and whenever you shall agree with
+Douglas, whenever your minds are brought to adopt his argument, as
+surely you will have reached the conclusion that although it is not
+profitable in Ohio, if any man wants it, is wrong to him not to let
+him have it.
+
+In this matter Judge Douglas is preparing the public mind for you of
+Kentucky to make perpetual that good thing in your estimation, about
+which you and I differ.
+
+In this connection, let me ask your attention to another thing.  I
+believe it is safe to assert that five years ago no living man had
+expressed the opinion that the negro had no share in the Declaration
+of Independence.  Let me state that again: five years ago no living
+man had expressed the opinion that the negro had no share in the
+Declaration of Independence.  If there is in this large audience any
+man who ever knew of that opinion being put upon paper as much as
+five years ago, I will be obliged to him now or at a subsequent time
+to show it.
+
+If that be true I wish you then to note the next fact: that within
+the space of five years Senator Douglas, in the argument of this
+question, has got his entire party, so far as I know, without
+exception, in saying that the negro has no share in the Declaration
+of Independence.  If there be now in all these United States one
+Douglas man that does not say this, I have been unable upon any
+occasion to scare him up.  Now, if none of you said this five years
+ago, and all of you say it now, that is a matter that you Kentuckians
+ought to note.  That is a vast change in the Northern public
+sentiment upon that question.
+
+Of what tendency is that change?  The tendency of that change is to
+bring the public mind to the conclusion that when men are spoken of,
+the negro is not meant; that when negroes are spoken of, brutes alone
+are contemplated.  That change in public sentiment has already
+degraded the black man in the estimation of Douglas and his followers
+from the condition of a man of some sort, and assigned him to the
+condition of a brute.  Now, you Kentuckians ought to give Douglas
+credit for this.  That is the largest possible stride that can be
+made in regard to the perpetuation of your thing of slavery.
+
+A voice:  Speak to Ohio men, and not to Kentuckians!
+
+Mr. LINCOLN: I beg permission to speak as I please.
+
+In Kentucky perhaps, in many of the slave States certainly, you are
+trying to establish the rightfulness of slavery by reference to the
+Bible.  You are trying to show that slavery existed in the Bible
+times by divine ordinance.  Now, Douglas is wiser than you, for your
+own benefit, upon that subject.  Douglas knows that whenever you
+establish that slavery was--right by the Bible, it will occur that
+that slavery was the slavery of the white man, of men without
+reference to color; and he knows very well that you may entertain
+that idea in Kentucky as much as you please, but you will never win
+any Northern support upon it.  He makes a wiser argument for you: he
+makes the argument that the slavery of the black man; the slavery of
+the man who has a skin of a different color from your own, is right.
+He thereby brings to your support Northern voters who could not for a
+moment be brought by your own argument of the Bible right of slavery.
+Will you give him credit for that?  Will you not say that in this
+matter he is more wisely for you than you are for yourselves?
+
+Now, having established with his entire party this doctrine, having
+been entirely successful in that branch of his efforts in your
+behalf, he is ready for another.
+
+At this same meeting at Memphis he declared that in all contests
+between the negro and the white man he was for the white man, but
+that in all questions between the negro and the crocodile he was for
+the negro.  He did not make that declaration accidentally at Memphis.
+He made it a great many times in the canvass in Illinois last year
+(though I don't know that it was reported in any of his speeches
+there, but he frequently made it).  I believe he repeated it at
+Columbus, and I should not wonder if be repeated it here.  It is,
+then, a deliberate way of expressing himself upon that subject.  It
+is a matter of mature deliberation with him thus to express himself
+upon that point of his case.  It therefore requires deliberate
+attention.
+
+The first inference seems to be that if you do not enslave the negro,
+you are wronging the white man in some way or other, and that whoever
+is opposed to the negro being enslaved, is, in some way or other,
+against the white man.  Is not that a falsehood?  If there was a
+necessary conflict between the white man and the negro, I should be
+for the white man as much as Judge Douglas; but I say there is no
+such necessary conflict.  I say that there is room enough for us all
+to be free, and that it not only does not wrong the white man that
+the negro should be free, but it positively wrongs the mass of the
+white men that the negro should be enslaved; that the mass of white
+men are really injured by the effects of slave labor in the vicinity
+of the fields of their own labor.
+
+But I do not desire to dwell upon this branch of the question more
+than to say that this assumption of his is false, and I do hope that
+that fallacy will not long prevail in the minds of intelligent white
+men.  At all events, you ought to thank Judge Douglas for it; it is
+for your benefit it is made.
+
+The other branch of it is, that in the struggle between the negro and
+the crocodile; he is for the negro.  Well, I don't know that there is
+any struggle between the negro and the crocodile, either.  I suppose
+that if a crocodile (or, as we old Ohio River boatmen used to call
+them, alligators) should come across a white man, he would kill him
+if he could; and so he would a negro.  But what, at last, is this
+proposition?  I believe it is a sort of proposition in proportion,
+which may be stated thus: "As the negro is to the white man, so is
+the crocodile to the negro; and as the negro may rightfully treat the
+crocodile as a beast or reptile, so the white man may rightfully
+treat the negro as a beast or a reptile."  That is really the "knip"
+of all that argument of his.
+
+Now, my brother Kentuckians, who believe in this, you ought to thank
+Judge Douglas for having put that in a much more taking way than any
+of yourselves have done.
+
+Again, Douglas's great principle, "popular sovereignty," as he calls
+it, gives you, by natural consequence, the revival of the slave trade
+whenever you want it.  If you question this, listen awhile, consider
+awhile what I shall advance in support of that proposition.
+
+He says that it is the sacred right of the man who goes into the
+Territories to have slavery if he wants it.  Grant that for
+argument's sake.  Is it not the sacred right of the man who don't go
+there equally to buy slaves in Africa, if he wants them?  Can you
+point out the difference?  The man who goes into the Territories of
+Kansas and Nebraska, or any other new Territory, with the sacred
+right of taking a slave there which belongs to him, would certainly
+have no more right to take one there than I would, who own no slave,
+but who would desire to buy one and take him there.  You will not say
+you, the friends of Judge Douglas but that the man who does not own a
+slave has an equal right to buy one and take him to the Territory as
+the other does.
+
+A voice: I want to ask a question. Don't foreign nations interfere
+with the slave trade?
+
+Mr. LINCOLN:  Well! I understand it to be a principle of Democracy to
+whip foreign nations whenever, they interfere with us.
+
+Voice: I only asked for information.  I am a Republican myself.
+
+Mr. LINCOLN: You and I will be on the best terms in the world, but
+I do not wish to be diverted from the point I was trying to press.
+
+I say that Douglas's popular sovereignty, establishing his sacred
+right in the people, if you please, if carried to its logical
+conclusion gives equally the sacred right to the people of the States
+or the Territories themselves to buy slaves wherever they can buy
+them cheapest; and if any man can show a distinction, I should like
+to hear him try it.  If any man can show how the people of Kansas
+have a better right to slaves, because they want them, than the
+people of Georgia have to buy them in Africa, I want him to do it.
+I think it cannot be done. If it is "popular sovereignty" for the
+people to have slaves because they want them, it is popular
+sovereignty for them to buy them in Africa because they desire to do
+so.
+
+I know that Douglas has recently made a little effort, not seeming to
+notice that he had a different theory, has made an effort to get rid
+of that.  He has written a letter, addressed to somebody, I believe,
+who resides in Iowa, declaring his opposition to the repeal of the
+laws that prohibit the Africa slave trade.  He bases his opposition
+to such repeal upon the ground that these laws are themselves one of
+the compromises of the Constitution of the United States.  Now, it
+would be very interesting to see Judge Douglas or any of his friends
+turn, to the Constitution of the United States and point out that
+compromise, to show where there is any compromise in the
+Constitution, or provision in the Constitution; express or implied,
+by which the administrators of that Constitution are under any
+obligation to repeal the African slave trade.  I know, or at least I
+think I know, that the framers of that Constitution did expect the
+African slave trade would be abolished at the end of twenty years, to
+which time their prohibition against its being abolished extended.
+there is abundant contemporaneous history to show that the framers of
+the Constitution expected it to be abolished. But while they so
+expected, they gave nothing for that expectation, and they put no
+provision in the Constitution requiring it should be so abolished.
+The migration or importation of such persons as the States shall see
+fit to admit shall not be prohibited, but a certain tax might be
+levied upon such importation.  But what was to be done after that
+time?  The Constitution is as silent about that as it is silent,
+personally, about myself.  There is absolutely nothing in it about
+that subject; there is only the expectation of the framers of the
+Constitution that the slave trade would be abolished at the end of
+that time; and they expected it would be abolished, owing to public
+sentiment, before that time; and the put that provision in, in order
+that it should not be abolished before that time, for reasons which I
+suppose they thought to be sound ones, but which I will not now try
+to enumerate before you.
+
+But while, they expected the slave trade would be abolished at that
+time, they expected that the spread of slavery into the new
+Territories should also be restricted.  It is as easy to prove that
+the framers of the Constitution of the United States expected that
+slavery should be prohibited from extending into the new Territories,
+as it is to prove that it was expected that the slave trade should be
+abolished.  Both these things were expected.  One was no more
+expected than the other, and one was no more a compromise of the
+Constitution than the other.  There was nothing said in the
+Constitution in regard to the spread of slavery into the Territory.
+I grant that; but there was something very important said about it by
+the same generation of men in the adoption of the old Ordinance of
+'87, through the influence of which you here in Ohio, our neighbors
+in Indiana, we in Illinois, our neighbors in Michigan and Wisconsin,
+are happy, prosperous, teeming millions of free men.  That generation
+of men, though not to the full extent members of the convention that
+framed the Constitution, were to some extent members of that
+convention, holding seats at the same time in one body and the other,
+so that if there was any compromise on either of these subjects, the
+strong evidence is that that compromise was in favor of the
+restriction of slavery from the new Territories.
+
+But Douglas says that he is unalterably opposed to the repeal of
+those laws because, in his view, it is a compromise of the
+Constitution.  You Kentuckians, no doubt, are somewhat offended with
+that.  You ought not to be!  You ought to be patient!  You ought to
+know that if he said less than that, he would lose the power of
+"lugging" the Northern States to your support.  Really, what you
+would push him to do would take from him his entire power to serve
+you.  And you ought to remember how long, by precedent, Judge Douglas
+holds himself obliged to stick by compromises.  You ought to remember
+that by the time you yourselves think you are ready to inaugurate
+measures for the revival of the African slave trade, that sufficient
+time will have arrived, by precedent, for Judge Douglas to break
+through, that compromise.  He says now nothing more strong than he
+said in 1849 when he declared in favor of Missouri Compromise,--and
+precisely four years and a quarter after he declared that Compromise
+to be a sacred thing, which "no ruthless hand would ever daze to
+touch," he himself brought forward the measure ruthlessly to destroy
+it.  By a mere calculation of time it will only be four years more
+until he is ready to take back his profession about the sacredness of
+the Compromise abolishing the slave trade.  Precisely as soon as you
+are ready to have his services in that direction, by fair
+calculation, you may be sure of having them.
+
+But you remember and set down to Judge Douglas's debt, or discredit,
+that he, last year, said the people of Territories can, in spite of
+the Dred Scott decision, exclude your slaves from those Territories;
+that he declared, by "unfriendly legislation" the extension of your
+property into the new Territories may be cut off, in the teeth of the
+decision of the Supreme Court of the United States.
+
+He assumed that position at Freeport on the 27th of August, 1858.  He
+said that the people of the Territories can exclude slavery, in so
+many words: You ought, however, to bear in mind that he has never
+said it since.  You may hunt in every speech that he has since made,
+and he has never used that expression once.  He has never seemed to
+notice that he is stating his views differently from what he did
+then; but by some sort of accident, he has always really stated it
+differently.  He has always since then declared that "the
+Constitution does not carry slavery into the Territories of the
+United States beyond the power of the people legally to control it,
+as other property."  Now, there is a difference in the language used
+upon that former occasion and in this latter day.  There may or may
+not be a difference in the meaning, but it is worth while considering
+whether there is not also a difference in meaning.
+
+What is it to exclude?  Why, it is to drive it out.  It is in some
+way to put it out of the Territory.  It is to force it across the
+line, or change its character so that, as property, it is out of
+existence.  But what is the controlling of it "as other property"?
+Is controlling it as other property the same thing as destroying it,
+or driving it away?  I should think not.  I should think the
+controlling of it as other property would be just about what you in
+Kentucky should want.  I understand the controlling of property means
+the controlling of it for the benefit of the owner of it.  While I
+have no doubt the Supreme Court of the United States would say "God
+speed" to any of the Territorial Legislatures that should thus
+control slave property, they would sing quite a different tune if, by
+the pretence of controlling it, they were to undertake to pass laws
+which virtually excluded it,--and that upon a very well known
+principle to all lawyers, that what a Legislature cannot directly do,
+it cannot do by indirection; that as the Legislature has not the
+power to drive slaves out, they have no power, by indirection, by
+tax, or by imposing burdens in any way on that property, to effect
+the same end, and that any attempt to do so would be held by the Dred
+Scott court unconstitutional.
+
+Douglas is not willing to stand by his first proposition that they
+can exclude it, because we have seen that that proposition amounts to
+nothing more nor less than the naked absurdity that you may lawfully
+drive out that which has a lawful right to remain. He admitted at
+first that the slave might be lawfully taken into the Territories
+under the Constitution of the United States, and yet asserted that he
+might be lawfully driven out.  That being the proposition, it is the
+absurdity I have stated.  He is not willing to stand in the face of
+that direct, naked, and impudent absurdity; he has, therefore,
+modified his language into that of being "controlled as other
+property."
+
+The Kentuckians don't like this in Douglas! I will tell you where it
+will go. He now swears by the court.  He was once a leading man in
+Illinois to break down a court, because it had made a decision he did
+not like. But he now not only swears by the court, the courts having
+got to working for you, but he denounces all men that do not swear by
+the courts, as unpatriotic, as bad citizens.  When one of these acts
+of unfriendly legislation shall impose such heavy burdens as to, in
+effect, destroy property in slaves in a Territory, and show plainly
+enough that there can be no mistake in the purpose of the Legislature
+to make them so burdensome, this same Supreme Court will decide that
+law to be unconstitutional, and he will be ready to say for your
+benefit "I swear by the court; I give it up"; and while that is going
+on he has been getting all his men to swear by the courts, and to
+give it up with him. In this again he serves you faithfully, and, as
+I say, more wisely than you serve yourselves.
+
+Again: I have alluded in the beginning of these remarks to the fact
+that Judge Douglas has made great complaint of my having expressed
+the opinion that this government "cannot endure permanently, half
+slave and half free."  He has complained of Seward for using
+different language, and declaring that there is an "irrepressible
+conflict" between the principles of free and slave labor.  [A voice:
+" He says it is not original with Seward.  That it is original with
+Lincoln."]  I will attend to that immediately, sir. Since that time,
+Hickman of Pennsylvania expressed the same sentiment. He has never
+denounced Mr. Hickman: why?  There is a little chance,
+notwithstanding that opinion in the mouth of Hickman, that he may yet
+be a Douglas man.  That is the difference!  It is not unpatriotic to
+hold that opinion if a man is a Douglas man.
+
+But neither I, nor Seward, nor Hickman is entitled to the enviable or
+unenviable distinction of having first expressed that idea.  That
+same idea was expressed by the Richmond Enquirer, in Virginia, in
+1856,--quite two years before it was expressed by the first of us.
+And while Douglas was pluming himself that in his conflict with my
+humble self, last year, he had "squelched out" that fatal heresy, as
+he delighted to call it, and had suggested that if he only had had a
+chance to be in New York and meet Seward he would have "squelched" it
+there also, it never occurred to him to breathe a word against Pryor.
+I don't think that you can discover that Douglas ever talked of going
+to Virginia to "squelch" out that idea there.  No.  More than that.
+That same Roger A. Pryor was brought to Washington City and made the
+editor of the par excellence Douglas paper, after making use of that
+expression, which, in us, is so unpatriotic and heretical.  From all
+this, my Kentucky friends may see that this opinion is heretical in
+his view only when it is expressed by men suspected of a desire that
+the country shall all become free, and not when expressed by those
+fairly known to entertain the desire that the whole country shall
+become slave. When expressed by that class of men, it is in nowise
+offensive to him. In this again, my friends of Kentucky, you have
+Judge Douglas with you.
+
+There is another reason why you Southern people ought to nominate
+Douglas at your convention at Charleston.  That reason is the
+wonderful capaciity of the man,--the power he has of doing what would
+seem to be impossible. Let me call your attention to one of these
+apparently impossible things:
+
+Douglas had three or four very distinguished men of the most extreme
+anti-slavery views of any men in the Republican party expressing
+their desire for his re-election to the Senate last year.  That
+would, of itself, have seemed to be a little wonderful; but that
+wonder is heightened when we see that Wise of Virginia, a man exactly
+opposed to them, a man who believes in the divine right of slavery,
+was also expressing his desire that Douglas should be reelected; that
+another man that may be said to be kindred to Wise, Mr. Breckinridge,
+the Vice-President, and of your own State, was also agreeing with the
+anti-slavery men in the North that Douglas ought to be re-elected.
+Still to heighten the wonder, a senator from Kentucky, whom I have
+always loved with an affection as tender and endearing as I have ever
+loved any man, who was opposed to the anti-slavery men for reasons
+which seemed sufficient to him, and equally opposed to Wise and
+Breckinridge, was writing letters into Illinois to secure the
+reelection of Douglas.  Now, that all these conflicting elements
+should be brought, while at daggers' points with one another, to
+support him, is a feat that is worthy for you to note and consider.
+It is quite probable that each of these classes of men thought, by
+the re-election of Douglas, their peculiar views would gain
+something: it is probable that the anti-slavery men thought their
+views would gain something; that Wise and Breckinridge thought so
+too, as regards their opinions; that Mr. Crittenden thought that his
+views would gain something, although he was opposed to both these
+other men.  It is probable that each and all of them thought that
+they were using Douglas; and it is yet an unsolved problem whether he
+was not using them all.  If he was, then it is for you to consider
+whether that power to perform wonders is one for you lightly to throw
+away.
+
+There is one other thing that I will say to you, in this relation. It
+is but my opinion, I give it to you without a fee.  It is my opinion
+that it is for you to take him or be defeated; and that if you do
+take him you may be beaten.  You will surely be beaten if you do not
+take him.  We, the Republicans and others forming the opposition of
+the country, intend to "stand by our guns," to be patient and firm,
+and in the long run to beat you, whether you take him or not.  We
+know that before we fairly beat you we have to beat you both
+together.  We know that you are "all of a feather," and that we have
+to beat you all together, and we expect to do it.  We don't intend to
+be very impatient about it.  We mean to be as deliberate and calm
+about it as it is possible to be, but as firm and resolved as it is
+possible for men to be.  When we do as we say,--beat you,--you
+perhaps want to know what we will do with you.
+
+I will tell you, so far as I am authorized to speak for the
+opposition, what we mean to do with you. We mean to treat you, as
+near as we possibly can, as Washington, Jefferson, and Madison
+treated you.  We mean to leave you alone, and in no way interfere
+with your institution; to abide by all and every compromise of the
+Constitution, and, in a word, coming back to the original
+proposition, to treat you, so far as degenerated men (if we have
+degenerated) may, according to the examples of those noble fathers,
+Washington, Jefferson, and Madison.  We mean to remember that you are
+as good as we; that there is no difference between us other than the
+difference of circumstances.  We mean to recognize and bear in mind
+always that you have as good hearts in your bosoms as other people,
+or as we claim to have, and treat you accordingly.  We mean to marry
+your girls when we have a chance, the white ones I mean; and I have
+the honor to inform you that I once did have a chance in that way.
+
+I have told you what we mean to do. I want to know, now, when that
+thing takes place, what do you mean to do?  I often hear it intimated
+that you mean to divide the Union whenever a Republican, or anything
+like it, is elected President of the United States.  [A voice: "That
+is so."]  "That is so," one of them says; I wonder if he is a
+Kentuckian?  [A voice: "He is a Douglas man."]  Well, then, I want to
+know what you are going to do with your half of it?  Are you going to
+split the Ohio down through, and push your half off a piece?  Or are
+you going to keep it right alongside of us outrageous fellows?  Or
+are you going to build up a wall some way between your country and
+ours, by which that movable property of yours can't come over here
+any more, to the danger of your losing it?  Do you think you can
+better yourselves, on that subject, by leaving us here under no
+obligation whatever to return those specimens of your movable
+property that come hither?  You have divided the Union because we
+would not do right with you, as you think, upon that subject; when we
+cease to be under obligations to do anything for you, how much better
+off do you think you will be?  Will you make war upon us and kill us
+all?  Why, gentlemen, I think you are as gallant and as brave men as
+live; that you can fight as bravely in a good cause, man for man, as
+any other people living; that you have shown yourselves capable of
+this upon various occasions: but, man for man, you are not better
+than we are, and there are not so many of you as there are of us. You
+will never make much of a hand at whipping us.  If we were fewer in
+numbers than you, I think that you could whip us; if we were equal,
+it would likely be a drawn battle; but being inferior in numbers, you
+will make nothing by attempting to master us.
+
+But perhaps I have addressed myself as long, or longer, to the
+Kentuckians than I ought to have done, inasmuch as I have said that
+whatever course you take we intend in the end to beat you.  I propose
+to address a few remarks to our friends, by way of discussing with
+them the best means of keeping that promise that I have in good faith
+made.
+
+It may appear a little episodical for me to mention the topic of
+which I will speak now. It is a favorite position of Douglas's that
+the interference of the General Government, through the Ordinance of
+'87, or through any other act of the General Government never has
+made or ever can make a free State; the Ordinance of '87 did not make
+free States of Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois; that these States are free
+upon his "great principle" of popular sovereignty, because the people
+of those several States have chosen to make them so.  At Columbus,
+and probably here, he undertook to compliment the people that they
+themselves have made the State of Ohio free, and that the Ordinance
+of '87 was not entitled in any degree to divide the honor with them.
+I have no doubt that the people of the State of Ohio did make her
+free according to their own will and judgment, but let the facts be
+remembered.
+
+In 1802, I believe, it was you who made your first constitution, with
+the clause prohibiting slavery, and you did it, I suppose, very
+nearly unanimously; but you should bear in mind that you--speaking of
+you as one people--that you did so unembarrassed by the actual
+presence of the, institution amongst you; that you made it a free
+State not with the embarrassment upon you of already having among you
+many slaves, which if they had been here, and you had sought to make
+a free State, you would not know what to do with.  If they had been
+among you, embarrassing difficulties, most probably, would have
+induced you to tolerate a slave constitution instead of a free one,
+as indeed these very difficulties have constrained every people on
+this continent who have adopted slavery.
+
+Pray what was it that made you free?  What kept you free?  Did you
+not find your country free when you came to decide that Ohio should
+be a free State?  It is important to inquire by what reason you found
+it so.  Let us take an illustration between the States of Ohio and
+Kentucky.  Kentucky is separated by this River Ohio, not a mile wide.
+A portion of Kentucky, by reason of the course of the Ohio, is
+farther north than this portion of Ohio, in which we now stand.
+Kentucky is entirely covered with slavery; Ohio is entirely free from
+it: What made that difference?  Was it climate?  No.  A portion of
+Kentucky was farther north than this portion of Ohio.  Was it soil?
+No.  There is nothing in the soil of the one more favorable to slave
+than the other. It was not climate or soil that mused one side of the
+line to be entirely covered with slavery, and the other side free of
+it.  What was it?  Study over it.  Tell us, if you can, in all the
+range of conjecture, if there be anything you can conceive of that
+made that difference, other than that there was no law of any sort
+keeping it out of Kentucky, while the Ordinance of '87 kept it out of
+Ohio.  If there is any other reason than this, I confess that it is
+wholly beyond my power to conceive of it.  This, then, I offer to
+combat the idea that that Ordinance has never made any State free.
+
+I don't stop at this illustration. I come to the State of Indiana;
+and what I have said as between Kentucky and Ohio, I repeat as
+between Indiana and Kentucky: it is equally applicable. One
+additional argument is applicable also to Indiana.  In her
+Territorial condition she more than once petitioned Congress to
+abrogate the Ordinance entirely, or at least so far as to suspend its
+operation for a, time, in order that they should exercise the
+"popular sovereignty" of having slaves if they wanted them. The men
+then controlling the General Government, imitating the men of the
+Revolution, refused Indiana that privilege.  And so we have the
+evidence that Indiana supposed she could have slaves, if it were not
+for that Ordinance; that she besought Congress to put that barrier
+out of the way; that Congress refused to do so; and it all ended at
+last in Indiana being a free State.  Tell me not then that the
+Ordinance of '87 had nothing to do with making Indiana a free State,
+when we find some men chafing against, and only restrained by, that
+barrier.
+
+Come down again to our State of Illinois.  The great Northwest
+Territory, including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and
+Wisconsin, was acquired first, I believe, by the British Government,
+in part at least, from the French.  Before the establishment of our
+independence it became a part of Virginia, enabling Virginia
+afterward to transfer it to the General Government.  There were
+French settlements in what is now Illinois, and at the same time
+there were French settlements in what is now Missouri, in the tract
+of country that was not purchased till about 1803.  In these French
+settlements negro slavery had existed for many years, perhaps more
+than a hundred; if not as much as two hundred years,--at Kaskaskia,
+in Illinois, and at St. Genevieve, or Cape Girardeau, perhaps, in
+Missouri.  The number of slaves was not very great, but there was
+about the same number in each place.  They were there when we
+acquired the Territory.  There was no effort made to break up the
+relation of master and slave, and even the Ordinance of 1787 was not
+so enforced as to destroy that slavery in Illinois; nor did the
+Ordinance apply to Missouri at all.
+
+What I want to ask your attention to; at this point, is that Illinois
+and Missouri came into the Union about the same time, Illinois in the
+latter part of 1818, and Missouri, after a struggle, I believe
+sometime in 1820.  They had been filling up with American people
+about the same period of time; their progress enabling them to come
+into the Union about the same time.  At the end of that ten years, in
+which they had been so preparing (for it was about that period of
+time), the number of slaves in Illinois had actually decreased; while
+in Missouri, beginning with very few, at the end of that ten years
+there were about ten thousand.  This being so, and it being
+remembered that Missouri and Illinois are, to a certain extent, in
+the same parallel of latitude, that the northern half of Missouri and
+the southern half of Illinois are in the same parallel of latitude,
+so that climate would have the same effect upon one as upon the
+other, and that in the soil there is no material difference so far as
+bears upon the question of slavery being settled upon one or the
+other,--there being none of those natural causes to produce a
+difference in filling them, and yet there being a broad difference to
+their filling up, we are led again to inquire what was the cause of
+that difference.
+
+It is most natural to say that in Missouri there was no law to keep
+that country from filling up with slaves, while in Illinois there was
+the Ordinance of The Ordinance being there, slavery decreased during
+that ten years; the Ordinance not being in the other, it increased
+from a few to ten thousand. Can anybody doubt the reason of the
+difference?
+
+I think all these facts most abundantly prove that my friend Judge
+Douglas's proposition, that the Ordinance of '87, or the national
+restriction of slavery, never had a tendency to make a free State, is
+a fallacy,--a proposition without the shadow or substance of truth
+about it.
+
+Douglas sometimes says that all the States (and it is part of this
+same proposition I have been discussing) that have become free have
+become so upon his "great principle"; that the State of Illinois
+itself came into the Union as a slave State, and that the people,
+upon the "great principle" of popular sovereignty, have since made it
+a free State.  Allow me but a little while to state to you what facts
+there are to justify him in saying that Illinois came into the Union
+as a slave State.
+
+I have mentioned to you that there were a few old French slaves
+there.  They numbered, I think, one or two hundred.  Besides that,
+there had been a Territorial law for indenturing black persons.
+Under that law, in violation of the Ordinance of '87, but without any
+enforcement of the Ordinance to overthrow the system, there had been
+a small number of slaves introduced as indentured persons.  Owing to
+this, the clause for the prohibition of slavery was slightly
+modified.  Instead of running like yours, that neither slavery nor
+involuntary servitude, except for crime, of which the party shall
+have been duly convicted, should exist in the State, they said that
+neither slavery nor involuntary servitude should thereafter be
+introduced; and that the children of indentured servants should be
+born free; and nothing was said about the few old French slaves.  Out
+of this fact, that the clause for prohibiting slavery was modified
+because of the actual presence of it, Douglas asserts again and again
+that Illinois came into the Union as a slave State.  How far the
+facts sustain the conclusion that he draws, it is for intelligent and
+impartial men to decide.  I leave it with you, with these remarks,
+worthy of being remembered, that that little thing, those few
+indentured servants being there, was of itself sufficient to modify a
+constitution made by a people ardently desiring to have a free
+constitution; showing the power of the actual presence of the
+institution of slavery to prevent any people, however anxious to make
+a free State, from making it perfectly so.
+
+I have been detaining you longer, perhaps, than I ought to do.
+
+I am in some doubt whether to introduce another topic upon which I
+could talk a while. [Cries of "Go on," and "Give us it."] It is this,
+then: Douglas's  Popular sovereignty, as a principle, is simply this:
+If one man chooses to make a slave of another man, neither that man
+nor anybody else has a right to object.  Apply it to government, as
+he seeks to apply it, and it is this: If, in a new Territory into
+which a few people are beginning to enter for the purpose of making
+their homes, they choose to either exclude slavery from their limits,
+or to establish it there, however one or the other may affect the
+persons to be enslaved, or the infinitely greater number of persons
+who are afterward to inhabit that Territory, or the other members of
+the family of communities of which they are but an incipient member,
+or the general head of the family of States as parent of all, however
+their action may affect one or the other of these, there is no power
+or right to interfere.  That is Douglas's popular sovereignty
+applied.  Now, I think that there is a real popular sovereignty in
+the world.  I think the definition of popular sovereignty, in the
+abstract, would be about this: that each man shall do precisely as he
+pleases with himself, and with all those things which exclusively
+concern him.  Applied in government, this principle would be that a
+general government shall do all those things which pertain to it, and
+all the local governments shall do precisely as they please in
+respect to those matters which exclusively concern them.
+
+Douglas looks upon slavery as so insignificant that the people must
+decide that question for themselves; and yet they are not fit to
+decide who shall be their governor, judge, or secretary, or who shall
+be any of their officers.  These are vast national matters in his
+estimation; but the little matter in his estimation is that of
+planting slavery there.  That is purely of local interest, which
+nobody should be allowed to say a word about.
+
+Labor is the great source from which nearly all, if not all, human
+comforts and necessities are drawn. There is a difference in opinion
+about the elements of labor in society.  Some men assume that there
+is necessary connection between capital and labor, and that
+connection draws within it the whole of the labor of the community.
+They assume that nobody works unless capital excites them to work.
+They begin next to consider what is the best way.  They say there are
+but two ways: one is to hire men, and to allure them to labor by
+their consent; the other is to buy the men, and drive them, to it,
+and that is slavery.  Having assumed that, they proceed to discuss
+the question of whether the laborers themselves are better off in the
+condition of slaves or of hired laborers, and they usually decide
+that they are better off in the condition of slaves.
+
+In the first place, I say that the whole thing is a mistake.  That
+there is a certain relation between capital and labor, I admit.  That
+it does exist, and rightfully exists, I think is true.  That men who
+are industrious, and sober, and honest in the pursuit of their own
+interests should after a while accumulate capital, and after that
+should be allowed to enjoy it in peace, and also, if they should
+choose, when they have accumulated it, to use it to save themselves
+from actual labor, and hire other people to labor for them, is right.
+In doing so they do not wrong the man they employ, for they find men
+who have not of their own land to work upon, or shops to work in, and
+who are benefited by working for others, hired laborers, receiving
+their capital for it.  Thus a few men, that own capital, hire a few
+others, and these establish the relation of capital and labor
+rightfully, a relation of which I make no complaint. But I insist
+that that relation, after all, does not embrace more than one eighth
+of the labor of the country.
+
+[The speaker proceeded to argue that the hired laborer, with his
+ability to become an employer, must have every precedence over him
+who labors under the inducement of force. He continued:]
+
+I have taken upon myself in the name of some of you to say that we
+expect upon these principles to ultimately beat them. In order to do
+so, I think we want and must have a national policy in regard to the
+institution of slavery that acknowledges and deals with that
+institution as being wrong.  Whoever desires the prevention of the
+spread of slavery and the nationalization of that institution yields
+all when he yields to any policy that either recognizes slavery as
+being right or as being an indifferent thing.  Nothing will make you
+successful but setting up a policy which shall treat the thing as
+being wrong: When I say this, I do not mean to say that this General
+Government is charged with the duty of redressing or preventing all
+the wrongs in the world, but I do think that it is charged with
+preventing and redressing all wrongs which are wrongs to itself.
+This Government is expressly charged with the duty of providing for
+the general welfare.  We believe that the spreading out and
+perpetuity of the institution of slavery impairs the general welfare.
+We believe--nay, we know--that that is the only thing that has ever
+threatened the perpetuity of the Union itself.  The only thing which
+has ever menaced the destruction of the government under which we
+live is this very thing. To repress this thing, we think, is,
+Providing for the general welfare. Our friends in Kentucky differ
+from us.  We need not make our argument for them, but we who think it
+is wrong in all its relations, or in some of them at least, must
+decide as to our own actions and our own course, upon our own
+judgment.
+
+I say that we must not interfere with the institution of slavery in
+the States where it exists, because the Constitution forbids it, and
+the general welfare does not require us to do so.  We must not
+withhold an efficient Fugitive Slave law, because the Constitution
+requires us, as I understand it, not to withhold such a law.  But we
+must prevent the outspreading of the institution, because neither the
+Constitution nor general welfare requires us to extend it.  We must
+prevent the revival of the African slave trade, and the enacting by
+Congress of a Territorial slave code.  We must prevent each of these
+things being done by either Congresses or courts.  The people of
+these United States are the rightful masters of both Congresses and
+courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men
+who pervert the Constitution.
+
+To do these things we must employ instrumentalities.  We must hold
+conventions; we must adopt platforms, if we conform to ordinary
+custom; we must nominate candidates; and we must carry elections.  In
+all these things, I think that we ought to keep in view our real
+purpose, and in none do anything that stands adverse to our purpose.
+If we shall adopt a platform that fails to recognize or express our
+purpose, or elect a man that declares himself inimical to our
+purpose, we not only take nothing by our success, but we tacitly
+admit that we act upon no other principle than a desire to have "the
+loaves and fishes," by which, in the end, our apparent success is
+really an injury to us.
+
+I know that this is very desirable with me, as with everybody else,
+that all the elements of the opposition shall unite in the next
+Presidential election and in all future time. I am anxious that that
+should be; but there are things seriously to be considered in
+relation to that matter.  If the terms can be arranged, I am in favor
+of the union.  But suppose we shall take up some man, and put him
+upon one end or the other of the ticket, who declares himself against
+us in regard to the prevention of the spread of slavery, who turns up
+his nose and says he is tired of hearing anything more about it, who
+is more against us than against the enemy, what will be the issue?
+Why, he will get no slave States, after all,--he has tried that
+already until being beat is the rule for him.  If we nominate him
+upon that ground, he will not carry a slave State; and not only so,
+but that portion of our men who are high-strung upon the principle we
+really fight for will not go for him, and he won't get a single
+electoral vote anywhere, except, perhaps, in the State of Maryland.
+There is no use in saying to us that we are stubborn and obstinate
+because we won't do some such thing as this.  We cannot do it.  We
+cannot get our men to vote it.  I speak by the card, that we cannot
+give the State of Illinois in such case by fifty thousand.  We would
+be flatter down than the "Negro Democracy" themselves have the heart
+to wish to see us.
+
+After saying this much let me say a little on the other side. There
+are plenty of men in the slave States that are altogether good enough
+for me to be either President or Vice-President, provided they will
+profess their sympathy with our purpose, and will place themselves on
+the ground that our men, upon principle, can vote for them.  There
+are scores of them, good men in their character for intelligence and
+talent and integrity.  If such a one will place himself upon the
+right ground, I am for his occupying one place upon the next
+Republican or opposition ticket.  I will heartily go for him.  But
+unless he does so place himself, I think it a matter of perfect
+nonsense to attempt to bring about a union upon any other basis; that
+if a union be made, the elements will scatter so that there can be no
+success for such a ticket, nor anything like success.  The good old
+maxims of the Bible axe applicable, and truly applicable, to human
+affairs, and in this, as in other things, we may say here that he who
+is not for us is against us; he who gathereth not with us,
+scattereth.  I should be glad to have some of the many good and able
+and noble men of the South to place themselves where we can confer
+upon them the high honor of an election upon one or the other end of
+our ticket.  It would do my soul good to do that thing.  It would
+enable us to teach them that, inasmuch as we select one of their own
+number to carry out our principles, we are free from the charge that
+we mean more than we say.
+
+But, my friends, I have detained you much longer than I expected to
+do.  I believe I may do myself the compliment to say that you have
+stayed and heard me with great patience, for which I return you my
+most sincere thanks.
+
+
+
+
+ON PROTECTIVE TARIFFS
+
+TO EDWARD WALLACE.
+
+CLINTON, October 11, 1859
+
+Dr. EDWARD WALLACE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I am here just now attending court.  Yesterday, before
+I left Springfield, your brother, Dr. William S. Wallace, showed me a
+letter of yours, in which you kindly mention my name, inquiring for
+my tariff views, and suggest the propriety of my writing a letter
+upon the subject.  I was an old Henry-Clay-Tariff Whig.  In old times
+I made more speeches on that subject than any other.
+
+I have not since changed my views.  I believe yet, if we could have a
+moderate, carefully adjusted protective tariff, so far acquiesced in
+as not to be a perpetual subject of political strife, squabbles
+changes, and uncertainties, it would be better for us.  Still it is
+my opinion that just now the revival of that question will not
+advance the cause itself, or the man who revives it.
+
+I have not thought much on the subject recently, but my general
+impression is that the necessity for a protective tariff will ere
+long force its old opponents to take it up; and then its old friends
+can join in and establish it on a more firm and durable basis.  We,
+the Old Whigs, have been entirely beaten out on the tariff question,
+and we shall not be able to re-establish the policy until the absence
+of it shall have demonstrated the necessity for it in the minds of
+men heretofore opposed to it.  With this view, I should prefer to not
+now write a public letter on the subject.  I therefore wish this to
+be considered confidential.   I shall be very glad to receive a
+letter from you.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ON MORTGAGES
+
+TO W. DUNGY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, November, 2, 1859.
+
+WM. DUNGY, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of October 27 is received.  When a mortgage is given
+to secure two notes, and one of the notes is sold and assigned, if
+the mortgaged premises are only sufficient to pay one note, the one
+assigned will take it all.  Also, an execution from a judgment on the
+assigned note may take it all; it being the same thing in substance.
+There is redemption on execution sales from the United States Court
+just as from any other court.
+
+You did not mention the name of the plaintiff or defendant in the
+suit, and so I can tell nothing about it as to sales, bids, etc.
+Write again.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+FRAGMENT OF SPEECH AT LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS,
+DECEMBER, 1859.
+
+.............  But you Democrats are for the Union; and you greatly
+fear the success of the Republicans would destroy the Union.  Why? Do
+the Republicans declare against the Union? Nothing like it.  Your own
+statement of it is that if the Black Republicans elect a President,
+you "won't stand it." You will break up the Union.  If we shall
+constitutionally elect a President, it will be our duty to see that
+you submit.  Old John Brown has been executed for treason against a
+State.  We cannot object, even though he agreed with us in thinking
+slavery wrong.  That cannot excuse violence, bloodshed and treason.
+It could avail him nothing that he might think himself right.  So, if
+we constitutionally elect a President, and therefore you undertake to
+destroy the Union, it will be our duty to deal with you as old John
+Brown has been dealt with.  We shall try to do our duty.  We hope and
+believe that in no section will a majority so act as to render such
+extreme measures necessary.
+
+
+
+
+TO G. W. DOLE, G. S. HUBBARD, AND W. H. BROWN.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, Dec. 14, 1859
+
+MESSRS. DOLE, HUBBARD & BROWN.
+
+GENT.:--Your favor of the 12th is at hand, and it gives me pleasure
+to be able to answer it.  It is not my intention to take part in any
+of the rivalries for the gubernatorial nomination; but the fear of
+being misunderstood upon that subject ought not to deter me from
+doing justice to Mr. Judd, and preventing a wrong being done to him
+by the use of nay name in connection with alleged wrongs to me.
+
+In answer to your first question, as to whether Mr. Judd was guilty
+of any unfairness to me at the time of Senator Trumbull's election, I
+answer unhesitatingly in the negative; Mr. Judd owed no political
+allegiance to any party whose candidate I was.  He was in the Senate,
+holding over, having been elected by a Democratic Constituency.  He
+never was in any caucus of the friends who sought to make me U. S.
+Senator, never gave me any promises or pledges to support me, and
+subsequent events have greatly tended to prove the wisdom,
+politically, of Mr. Judd's course.  The election of Judge Trumbull
+strongly tended to sustain and preserve the position of that lion of
+the Democrats who condemned the repeal of the Missouri Compromise,
+and left them in a position of joining with us in forming the
+Republican party, as was done at the Bloomington convention in 1856.
+
+During the canvass of 1858 for the senatorship my belief was, and
+still is, that I had no more sincere and faithful friend than Mr.
+Judd--certainly none whom I trusted more.  His position as chairman
+of the State Central Committee led to my greater intercourse with
+him, and to my giving him a larger share of my confidence, than with
+or to almost any other friend; and I have never suspected that that
+confidence was, to any degree, misplaced.
+
+My relations with Mr. Judo since the organization of the Republican
+party, in, our State, in 1856, and especially since the adjournment
+of the Legislature in Feb., 1857, have been so very intimate that I
+deem it an impossibility that he could have been dealing
+treacherously with me. He has also, at all times, appeared equally
+true and faithful to the party. In his position as chairman of the
+committee, I believe he did all that any man could have done. The
+best of us are liable to commit errors, which become apparent by
+subsequent developments; but I do not know of a single error, even,
+committed by Mr. Judd, since he and I have acted together
+politically.
+
+I, had occasionally heard these insinuations against Mr. Judd, before
+the receipt of your letter; and in no instance have I hesitated to
+pronounce them wholly unjust, to the full extent of my knowledge and
+belief. I have been, and still am, very anxious to take no part
+between the many friends, all good and true, who are mentioned as
+candidates for a Republican gubernatorial nomination; but I can not
+feel that my own honor is quite clear if I remain silent when I hear
+any one of them assailed about matters of which I believe I know more
+than his assailants.
+
+I take pleasure in adding that, of all the avowed friends I had in
+the canvass of last year, I do not suspect any of having acted
+treacherously to me, or to our cause; and that there is not one of
+them in whose honesty, honor, and integrity I, today, have greater
+confidence than I have in those of Mr. Judd.
+
+I dislike to appear before the public in this matter; but you are at
+liberty to make such use of this letter as you may think justice
+requires.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO G. M. PARSONS AND OTHERS.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, December 19, 1859.
+
+MESSRS. G. M. PARSONS AND OTHERS, CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, ETC.
+
+GENTLEMEN:--Your letter of the 7th instant, accompanied by a similar
+one from the governor-elect, the Republican State officers, and the
+Republican members of the State Board of Equalization of Ohio, both
+requesting of me, for publication in permanent form, copies of the
+political debates between Senator Douglas and myself last year, has
+been received.  With my grateful acknowledgments to both you and them
+for the very flattering terms in which the request is communicated, I
+transmit you the copies.  The copies I send you are as reported and
+printed by the respective friends of Senator Douglas and myself, at
+the time--that is, his by his friends, and mine by mine.  It would be
+an unwarrantable liberty for us to change a word or a letter in his,
+and the changes I have made in mine, you perceive, are verbal only,
+and very few in number.  I wish the reprint to be precisely as the
+copies I send, without any comment whatever.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
+
+TO J. W. FELL,
+
+SPRINGFIELD, December 20, 1859.
+
+J. W. FELL, Esq.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Herewith is a little sketch, as you requested.  There
+is not much of it, for the reason, I suppose, that there is not much
+of me.  If anything be made out of it, I wish it to be modest, and
+not to go beyond the material.  If it were thought necessary to
+incorporate anything from any of my speeches I suppose there would be
+no objection.  Of course it must not appear to have been written by
+myself.
+
+Yours very truly,
+A. LINCOLN
+
+-----------------------
+
+I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky.  My parents
+were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families--second
+families, perhaps I should say.  My mother, who died in my tenth
+year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside
+in Adams, and others in Macon County, Illinois.  My paternal
+grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham County,
+Virginia, to Kentucky about 1781 or 1782, where a year or two later
+he was killed by the Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he
+was laboring to open a farm in the forest.  His ancestors, who were
+Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County, Pennsylvania.  An effort
+to identify them with the New England family of the same name ended
+in nothing more definite than a similarity of Christian names in both
+families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and the
+like.
+
+My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age, and
+he grew up literally without education.  He removed from Kentucky to
+what is now Spencer County, Indiana, in my eighth year.  We reached
+our new home about the time that State came into the Union.  It was a
+wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the
+woods.  There I grew up.  There were some schools, so called, but no
+qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond "readin',
+writin', and cipherin"' to the Rule of Three.  If a straggler
+supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood
+he was looked upon as a wizard.  There was absolutely nothing to
+excite ambition for education.  Of course, when I came of age I did
+not know much.  Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to
+the Rule of Three, but that was all.  I have not been to school
+since.  The little advance I now have upon this store of education I
+have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity.
+
+I was raised to farm work, which I continued till I was twenty-two.
+At twenty-one I came to Illinois, Macon County.  Then I got to New
+Salem, at that time in Sangamon, now in Menard County, where I
+remained a year as a sort of clerk in a store.  Then came the Black
+Hawk war; and I was elected a captain of volunteers, a success which
+gave me more pleasure than any I have had since.  I went the
+campaign, was elected, ran for the Legislature the same year (1832),
+and was beaten--the only time I ever have been beaten by the people.
+The next and three succeeding biennial elections I was elected to the
+Legislature.  I was not a candidate afterward.  During this
+legislative period I had studied law, and removed to Springfield to
+practice it.  In 1846 I was once elected to the lower House of
+Congress.  Was not a candidate for re-election.  From 1849 to 1854,
+both inclusive, practiced law more assiduously than ever before.
+Always a Whig in politics; and generally on the Whig electoral
+tickets, making active canvasses.  I was losing interest in politics
+when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again.  What I
+have done since then is pretty well known.
+
+If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be
+said I am, in height, six feet four inches, nearly; lean in flesh,
+weighing on an average one hundred and eighty pounds; dark
+complexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes.  No other marks or
+brands recollected.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ON NOMINATION TO THE NATIONAL TICKET
+
+To N. B. JUDD.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, FEBRUARY 9, 1859
+
+HON. N. B. JUDD.
+
+DEAR Sir:--I am not in a position where it would hurt much for me to
+not be nominated on the national ticket; but I am where it would hurt
+some for me to not get the Illinois delegates.  What I expected when
+I wrote the letter to Messrs.  Dole and others is now happening.
+Your discomfited assailants are most bitter against me; and they
+will, for revenge upon me, lay to the Bates egg in the South, and to
+the Seward egg in the North, and go far toward squeezing me out in
+the middle with nothing.   Can you help me a little in this matter in
+your end of the vineyard.   I mean this to be private.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+
+1860
+
+
+SPEECH AT THE COOPER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK
+FEBRUARY 27, 1860
+
+
+MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF NEW YORK:--The facts with which
+I shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there
+anything new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall
+be any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and
+the inferences and observations following that presentation.
+
+In his speech last autumn at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New
+York Times, Senator Douglas said:
+
+"Our fathers, when they framed the Government under which we live,
+understood this question just as well, and even better than we do
+now."
+
+I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse.
+I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed starting-
+point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of the
+Democracy headed by Senator Douglas.  It simply leaves the inquiry:
+What was the understanding those fathers had of the question
+mentioned?
+
+What is the frame of Government under which we live?
+
+The answer must be--the Constitution of the United States.  That
+Constitution consists of the original, framed in 1787 (and under
+which the present Government first went into operation), and twelve
+subsequently framed amendments, the first ten of which were framed in
+1789.
+
+Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution?  I suppose the
+"thirty-nine" who signed the original instrument may be fairly called
+our fathers who framed that part of the present Government.  It is
+almost exactly true to say they framed it, and it is altogether true
+to say they fairly represented the opinion and sentiment of the whole
+nation at that time.
+
+Their names, being familiar to nearly all, and accessible to quite
+all, need not now be repeated.
+
+I take these "thirty-nine," for the present, as being our "fathers
+who framed the Government under which we live."
+
+What is the question which, according to the text, those fathers
+understood "just as well, and even better than we do now"?
+
+It is this: Does the proper division of local from Federal authority,
+or anything in the Constitution, forbid our Federal Government to
+control as to slavery in our Federal Territories?
+
+Upon this Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and Republicans the
+negative.  This affirmation and denial form an issue, and this issue-
+-this question is precisely what the text declares our fathers
+understood "better than we."
+
+Let us now inquire whether the "thirty-nine," or any of them, acted
+upon this question; and if they did, how they acted upon it -how they
+expressed that better understanding.
+
+In 1784, three years before the Constitution--the United States then
+owning the Northwestern Territory, and no other--the Congress of the
+Confederation had before them the question of prohibiting slavery in
+that Territory; and four of the "thirty nine" who afterward framed
+the Constitution were in that Congress and voted on that question.
+Of these, Roger Sherman, Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh Williamson voted
+for the prohibition, thus showing that, in their understanding, no
+line dividing local from Federal authority, nor anything else,
+properly forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in
+Federal territory.  The other of the four--James McHenry voted
+against the prohibition, showing that, for some cause, he thought it
+improper to vote for it.
+
+In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the convention was
+in session framing it, and while the Northwestern Territory still was
+the only Territory owned by the United States, the same question of
+prohibiting slavery in the Territory again came before the Congress
+of the Confederation; and two more of the "thirty-nine" who afterward
+signed the Constitution were in that Congress, and voted on the
+question. They were William Blount and William Few; and they both
+voted for the prohibition thus showing that, in their understanding,
+no line dividing local from Federal authority, nor anything else,
+properly forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in
+Federal territory. This time the prohibition became a law, being part
+of what is now well known as the Ordinance of '87.
+
+The question of Federal control of slavery in the Territories seems
+not to have been directly before the convention which framed the
+original Constitution; and hence it is not recorded that the
+"thirty-nine," or any of them, while engaged on that instrument,
+expressed any opinion on that precise question.
+
+In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under the Constitution, an
+act was passed to enforce the Ordinance of '87, including the
+prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory.  The bill for
+this act was reported by one of the "thirty-nine," Thomas
+Fitzsimmons, then a member of the House of Representatives from
+Pennsylvania.  It went through all its stages without a word of
+opposition, and finally passed both branches without yeas and nays,
+which is equivalent to a unanimous passage.  In this Congress there
+were sixteen of the thirty-nine fathers who framed the original
+Constitution.  They were John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman, Wm. S.
+Johnnson, Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, Thos. Fitzsimmons, William
+Few, Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William Paterson, George Claimer,
+Richard Bassett, George Read, Pierce Butler, Daniel Carroll, James
+Madison.
+
+This shows that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from
+Federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, properly forbade
+Congress to prohibit slavery in the Federal territory; else both
+their fidelity to correct principles and their oath to support the
+Constitution would have constrained them to oppose the prohibition.
+
+Again: George Washington, another of the "thirty nine," was then
+President of the United States, and, as such, approved and signed the
+bill; thus completing its validity as a law, and thus showing that,
+in his understanding, no line dividing local from Federal authority,
+nor anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to
+control as to slavery in Federal territory.
+
+No great while after the adoption of the original Constitution, North
+Carolina ceded to the Federal Government the country now constituting
+the State of Tennessee; and, a few years later, Georgia ceded that
+which now constitutes the States of Mississippi and Alabama.  In both
+deeds of cession it was made a condition by the ceding States that
+the Federal Government should not prohibit slavery in the ceded
+country.  Besides this, slavery was then actually in the ceded
+country.  Under these circumstances, Congress, on taking charge of
+these countries, did not absolutely prohibit slavery within them.
+But they did interfere with it--take control of it--even there, to a
+certain extent.  In 1798, Congress organized the Territory of
+Mississippi: In the act of organization they prohibited the bringing
+of slaves into the Territory from any place without the United
+States, by fine and giving freedom to slaves so brought.  This act
+passed both branches of Congress without yeas and nays.  In that
+Congress were three of the "thirty-nine" who framed the original
+Constitution. They were John Langdon, George Read, and Abraham
+Baldwin.  They all, probably, voted for it. Certainly they would have
+placed their opposition to it upon record, if, in their
+understanding, any line dividing local from Federal authority, or
+anything in the Constitution, properly forbade the Federal Government
+to control as to slavery in Federal territory.
+
+In 1803, the Federal Government purchased the Louisiana country.  Our
+former territorial acquisitions came from certain of our own States;
+but this Louisiana country was acquired from a foreign nation.  In
+1804, Congress gave a territorial organization to that part of it
+which now constitutes the State of Lousiana.  New Orleans, lying
+within that part, was an old and comparatively large city.  There
+were other considerable towns and settlements, and slavery was
+extensively and thoroughly intermingled with the people.  Congress
+did not, in the Territorial Act, prohibit slavery; but they did
+interfere with it take control of it--in a more marked and extensive
+way than they did in the case of Mississippi.  The substance of the
+provision therein made in relation to slaves was:
+
+First. That no slave should be imported into the Territory from
+foreign parts.
+
+Second. That no slave should be carried into it who had been imported
+into the United States since the first day of May, 1798.
+
+Third. That no slave should be carried into it except by the owner,
+and for his own use as a settler; the penalty in all the cases being
+a fine upon the violator of the law, and freedom to the slave.
+
+This act also was passed without yeas and nays. In the Congress which
+passed it there were two of the "thirty-nine."  They were Abraham
+Baldwin and Jonathan Dayton.  As stated in the case of Mississippi,
+it is probable they both voted for it. They would not have allowed it
+to pass without recording their opposition to it, if, in their
+understanding, it violated either the line properly dividing local
+from Federal authority, or any provision of the Constitution.
+
+In 1819-20 came and passed the Missouri question.  Many votes were
+taken, by yeas and nays, in both branches of Congress, upon the
+various phases of the general question. Two of the "thirty-nine"-
+-Rufus King and Charles Pinckney were members of that Congress.  Mr.
+King steadily voted for slavery prohibition and against all
+compromises, while Mr. Pinckney as steadily voted against slavery
+prohibition, and against all compromises.  By this, Mr. King showed
+that, in his understanding, no line dividing local from Federal
+authority, nor anything in the Constitution, was violated by Congress
+prohibiting slavery in Federal territory; while Mr. Pinckney, by his
+vote, showed that in his understanding there was some sufficient
+reason for opposing such prohibition in that case.
+
+The cases I have mentioned are the only acts of the "thirty-nine," or
+of any of them, upon the direct issue, which I have been able to
+discover.
+
+To enumerate the persons who thus acted, as being four in 1784, two
+in 1787, seventeen in 1789, three in 1798, two in 1804, and two in
+1819-20--there would be thirty of them.  But this would be counting,
+John Langdon, Roger Sherman, William Few, Rufus King, and George
+Read, each twice, and Abraham Baldwin three times.  The true number
+of those of the "thirty-nine" whom I have shown to have acted upon
+the question which, by the text, they understood better than we, is
+twenty-three, leaving sixteen not shown to have acted upon it in any
+way.
+
+Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our thirty-nine fathers "who
+framed the Government under which we live," who have, upon their
+official responsibility and their corporal oaths, acted upon the very
+question which the text affirms they "understood just as well, and
+even better than we do now"; and twenty-one of them--a clear majority
+of the whole "thirty-nine"--so acting upon it as to make them guilty
+of gross political impropriety and wilful perjury, if, in their
+understanding, any proper division between local and Federal.
+authority, or anything in the Constitution they had made themselves,
+and sworn to support, forbade the Federal Government to control as to
+slavery in the Federal Territories.  Thus the twenty-one acted; and,
+as actions speak louder than words, so actions under such
+responsibilities speak still louder.
+
+Two of the twenty-three voted against Congressional prohibition of
+slavery in the Federal Territories, in the instances in which they
+acted upon the question. But for what reasons they so voted is not
+known.  They may have done so because they thought a proper division
+of local from Federal authority, or some provision or principle of
+the Constitution, stood in the way; or they may, without any such
+question, have voted against the prohibition on what appeared to them
+to be sufficient grounds of expediency.  No one who has sworn to
+support the Constitution can conscientiously vote for what he
+understands to be an unconstitutional measure, however expedient he
+may think it; but one may and ought to vote against a measure which
+he deems constitutional, if, at the same time, he deems it
+inexpedient.  It therefore would be unsafe to set down even the two
+who voted against the prohibition as having done so because, in their
+understanding, any proper division of local from Federal authority,
+or anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to
+control as to slavery in Federal territory.
+
+The remaining sixteen of the "thirty-nine," so far as I have
+discovered, have left no record of their understanding upon the
+direct question of Federal control on slavery in the Federal
+Territories. But there is much reason to believe that their
+understanding upon that question would not have appeared different
+from that of their twenty-three compeers, had it been manifested at
+all.
+
+For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, I have purposely
+omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested by any
+person, however distinguished, other than the thirty-nine fathers who
+framed the original Constitution; and, for the same reason, I have
+also omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested by any
+of the "thirty tine" even on any other phase of the general question
+of slavery.  If we should look into their acts and declarations on
+those other phases, as the foreign slave trade, and the morality and
+policy of slavery generally, it would appear to us that on the direct
+question of Federal control of slavery in Federal Territories, the
+sixteen, if they had acted at all, would probably have acted just as
+the twenty-three did. Among that sixteen were several of the most
+noted anti-slavery men of those times--as Dr. Franklin, Alexander
+Hamilton, and Gouverneur Morris while there was not one now known to
+have been otherwise, unless it may be John Rutledge, of South
+Carolina.
+
+The sum of the whole is, that of our thirty-nine fathers who framed
+the original Constitution, twenty-one--a clear majority of the
+whole--certainly understood that no proper division of local from
+Federal authority, nor any part of the Constitution, forbade the
+Federal Government to control slavery in the Federal Territories;
+whilst all the rest probably had the same understanding.  Such,
+unquestionably, was the understanding of our fathers who framed the
+original Constitution; and the text affirms that they understood the
+question "better than we."
+
+But, so far, I have been considering the understanding of the
+question manifested by the framers of the original Constitution.  In
+and by the original instrument, a mode was provided for amending it;
+and, as I have already stated, the present frame of "the Government
+under which we live" consists of that original, and twelve amendatory
+articles framed and adopted since. Those who now insist that Federal
+control of slavery in Federal Territories violates the Constitution,
+point us to the provisions which they suppose it thus violates; and,
+as I understand, they all fix upon provisions in these amendatory
+articles, and not in the original instrument.  The Supreme Court, in
+the Dred Scott case, plant themselves upon the fifth amendment, which
+provides that no person shall be deprived of "life, liberty, or
+property without due process of law"; while Senator Douglas and his
+peculiar adherents plant themselves upon the tenth amendment,
+providing that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the
+Constitution"  "are reserved to the States respectively, or to the
+people."
+
+Now, it so happens that these amendments were framed by the first
+Congress which sat under the Constitution--the identical Congress
+which passed the act already mentioned, enforcing the prohibition of
+slavery in the Northwestern Territory.  Not only was it the same
+Congress, but they were the identical same individual men who, at the
+same session, and at the same time within the session, had under
+consideration, and in progress toward maturity, these Constitutional
+amendments, and this act prohibiting slavery in all the territory the
+nation then owned.  The Constitutional amendments were introduced
+before and passed after the act enforcing the Ordinance of '87; so
+that, during the whole pendency of the act to enforce the Ordinance,
+the Constitutional amendments were also pending.
+
+The seventy-six members of that Congress, including sixteen of the
+framers of the original Constitution, as before stated, were
+pre-eminently our fathers who framed that part of "the Government
+under which we live," which is now claimed as forbidding the Federal
+Government to control slavery in the Federal Territories.
+
+Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at this day to affirm that
+the two things which that Congress deliberately framed, and carried
+to maturity at the same time, are absolutely inconsistent with each
+other?  And does not such affirmation become impudently absurd when
+coupled with the other affirmation from the same mouth, that those
+who did the two things alleged to be inconsistent understood whether
+they really were inconsistent better than we--better than he who
+affirms that they are inconsistent?
+
+It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine framers of the
+original Constitution, and the seventy-six members of the Congress
+which framed the amendments thereto, taken together, do certainly
+include those who may be fairly called "our fathers who framed the
+Government under which we live."  And, so assuming, I defy any man to
+show that any one of them ever, in his whole life, declared that, in
+his understanding, any proper division of local from Federal
+authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal
+Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories.  I go
+a step further.  I defy any one to show that any living man in the
+world ever did, prior to the beginning of the present century (and I
+might almost say prior to the beginning of the last half of the
+present century), declare that, in his understanding, any proper
+division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the
+Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery
+in the Federal Territories.  To those who now so declare, I give not
+only "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live," but
+with them all other living men within the century in which it was
+framed, among whom to search, and they shall not be able to find the
+evidence of a single man agreeing with them.
+
+Now and here let me guard a little against being misunderstood. I do
+not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our
+fathers did.  To do so would be to discard all the lights of current
+experience to reject all progress, all improvement.  What I do say is
+that, if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers in
+any case, we should do so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument
+so clear, that even their great authority, fairly considered and
+weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case whereof we
+ourselves declare they understood the question better than we.
+
+If any man at this day sincerely believes that proper division of
+local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution,
+forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the
+Federal Territories, he is right to say so, and to enforce his
+position by all truthful evidence and fair argument which he can.
+But he has no right to mislead others who have less access to
+history, and less leisure to study it, into the false belief that
+"our fathers who framed the Government under which we live" were of
+the same opinion thus substituting falsehood and deception for
+truthful evidence and fair argument.  If any man at this day
+sincerely believes "our fathers, who framed the Government under
+which we live," used and applied principles, in other cases, which
+ought to have led them to understand that a proper division of local
+from Federal authority, or some part of the Constitution, forbids the
+Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal
+Territories, he is right to say so.  But he should, at the same time,
+brave the responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he
+understands their principles better than they did themselves; and
+especially should he not shirk that responsibility by asserting that
+they "understood the question just as well, and even better than we
+do now."
+
+But enough!  Let all who believe that "our fathers, who framed the
+Government under which we live, understood this question just as
+well, and even better than we do now," speak as they spoke, and act
+as they acted upon it.  This is all Republicans ask--all Republicans
+desire--in relation to slavery.  As those fathers marked it, so let
+it be again marked, as an evil not to be extended, but to be
+tolerated and protected only because of, and so far as, its actual
+presence among us makes that toleration and protection a necessity.
+Let all the guaranties those fathers gave it be not grudgingly, but
+fully and fairly maintained. For this Republicans contend, and with
+this, so far as I know or believe, they will be content.
+
+And now, if they would listen--as I suppose they will not--I would
+address a few words to the Southern people.
+
+I would say to them: You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just
+people; and I consider that in the general qualities of reason and
+justice you are not inferior to any other people.  Still, when you
+speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles,
+or, at the best, as no better than outlaws.  You will grant a hearing
+to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to "Black Republicans."
+In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an
+unconditional condemnation of "Black Republicanism" as the first
+thing to be attended to.  Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be
+an indispensable prerequisite license, so to speak among you, to be
+admitted or permitted to speak at all: Now; can you, or not, be
+prevailed upon to pause, and to consider whether this is quite just
+to us, or even to yourselves?  Bring forward your charges and
+specifications, and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or
+justify.
+
+You say we are sectional.  We deny it.  That makes an issue; and the
+burden of proof is upon you.  You produce your proof; and what is it?
+Why, that our party has no existence in your section--gets no votes
+in your section.  The fact is substantially true; but does it prove
+the issue?  If it does, then in case we should, without change of
+principle, begin to get votes in your section, we should thereby
+cease to be sectional.  You cannot escape this conclusion; and yet,
+are you willing to abide by it?  If you are, you will probably soon
+find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in
+your section this very year.  You will then begin to discover, as the
+truth plainly is, that your proof, does not touch the issue. The fact
+that we get no votes in your section is a fact of your making, and
+not of ours.  And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is
+primarily yours, and remains so until you show that we repel you by,
+some wrong principle or practice.  If we do repel you by any wrong
+principle or practice, the fault is ours; but this brings you to
+where you ought to have started to a discussion of the right or wrong
+of our principle.  If our principle, put in practice, would wrong
+your section for the benefit of ours, or for any other object, then
+our principle, and we with it, are sectional, and are justly opposed
+and denounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of whether our
+principle, put in practice, would wrong your section; and so meet us
+as if it were possible that something may be said on our side.  Do
+you accept the challenge?  No!  Then you really believe that the
+principle which "our fathers who framed the Government under which we
+live" thought so clearly right as to adopt it, and indorse it again
+and again, upon their official oaths, is in fact so clearly wrong as
+to demand your condemnation without a moment's consideration.
+
+Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warning against
+sectional parties given by Washington in his Farewell Address.  Less
+than eight years before Washington gave that warning, he had, as
+President of the United States, approved and signed an act of
+Congress enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern
+Territory, which act embodied the policy of the Government upon that
+subject up to, and at, the very moment he penned that warning; and
+about one year after he penned it, he wrote La Fayette that he
+considered that prohibition a wise measure, expressing in the same
+connection his hope that we should at some time have a confederacy of
+free States.
+
+Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has since arisen
+upon this same subject, is that warning a weapon in your hands
+against us, or in our hands against you?  Could Washington himself
+speak, would he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who
+sustain his policy, or upon you, who repudiate it?  We respect that
+warning of Washington, and we commend it to you, together with his
+example pointing to the right application of it.
+
+But you say you are conservative--eminently conservative--while we
+are revolutionary, destructive, or something, of the sort.  What is
+conservatism?  Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against a
+new and untried?  We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy
+on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who
+framed the Government under which we live"; while you with one accord
+reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy and insist upon
+substituting something new.  True, you disagree among yourselves as
+to what that substitute shall be.  You are divided on new
+propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and
+denouncing the old policy of the fathers.  Some of you are for
+reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congressional slave code
+for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the Territories to
+prohibit slavery within their limits; some for maintaining slavery in
+the Territories through the judiciary; some for the "gur-reat
+pur-rinciple" that "if one man would enslave another, no third man
+should object," fantastically called "popular sovereignty"; but never
+a man among you in favor of Federal prohibition of slavery in Federal
+Territories, according to the practice of "our fathers who framed the
+Government under which we live."  Not one of all your various plans
+can show a precedent or an advocate in the century within which our
+Government originated.  Consider, then, whether your claim of
+conservatism for yourselves, and your charge of destructiveness
+against us, are based on the most clear and stable foundations.
+
+Again: You say we have made the slavery question more prominent than
+it formerly was.  We deny it.  We admit that it is more prominent,
+but we deny that we made it so.  It was not we, but you, who
+discarded the old policy of the fathers.  We resisted and still
+resist your innovation; and thence comes the greater prominence of
+the question.  Would you have that question reduced to its former
+proportions?  Go back to that old policy.  What has been will be
+again, under the same conditions.  If you would have the peace of the
+old times, readopt the precepts and policy of the old times.
+
+You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves.  We deny
+it; and what is your proof'?  Harper's Ferry!  John Brown!!  John
+Brown was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single
+Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise.  If any member of our
+party is guilty in that matter you know it or you do not know it.  If
+you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man and
+proving the fact.  If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for
+asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after
+you have tried and failed to make the proof.  You need not be told
+that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true is
+simply malicious slander.
+
+Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or encouraged
+the Harper's Ferry affair, but still insist that our doctrines and
+declarations necessarily lead to such results.  We do not believe it.
+We know we hold to no doctrine, and make no declaration, which were
+not held to and made by our fathers who framed the Government under
+which we live" You never dealt fairly by us in relation to this
+affair.  When it occurred, some important State elections were near
+at hand, and you were in evident glee with the belief that, by
+charging the blame upon us, you could get an advantage of us in those
+elections.   The elections came, and your expectations were not quite
+fulfilled.  Every Republican man knew that, as to himself at least,
+your charge was a slander, and he was not much inclined by it to cast
+his vote in your favor.  Republican doctrines and declarations are
+accompanied with a continued protest against any interference
+whatever with your slaves, or with you about your slaves.  Surely,
+this does not encourage them to revolt.  True, we do, in common with
+"our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live," declare
+our belief that slavery is wrong; but the slaves do not hear us
+declare even this.  For any thing we say or do, the slaves would
+scarcely know there is a Republican party.  I believe they would not,
+in fact, generally know it but for your misrepresentations of us in
+their hearing.  In your political contests among yourselves, each
+faction charges the other with sympathy with Black Republicanism; and
+then, to give point to the charge, defines Black Republicanism to
+simply be insurrection, blood, and thunder among the slaves.
+
+Slave insurrections are no more common now than they were before the
+Republican party was organized.  What induced the Southampton
+insurrection, twenty-eight years ago, in which, at least, three times
+as many lives were lost as at Harper's Ferry? You can scarcely
+stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclusion that Southampton
+was "got up by Black Republicanism." In the present state of things
+in the United States, I do not think a general or even a very
+extensive slave insurrection is possible.  The indispensable concert
+of action cannot be attained.  The slaves have no means of rapid
+communication; nor can incendiary freemen, black or white, supply it.
+The explosive materials are everywhere in parcels; but there neither
+are, nor can be supplied the indispensable connecting trains.
+
+Much is said by Southern people about the affection of slaves for
+their masters and mistresses; and a part of it, at least, is true.  A
+plot for an uprising could scarcely be devised and communicated to
+twenty individuals before some one of them, to save the life of a
+favorite master or mistress, would divulge it.  This is the rule; and
+the slave revolution in Hayti was not an exception to it, but a case
+occurring under peculiar circumstances.  The gunpowder plot of
+British history, though not connected with slaves, was more in point.
+In that case, only about twenty were admitted to the secret; and yet
+one of them, in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the plot to
+that friend, and, by consequence, averted the calamity.  Occasional
+poisonings from the kitchen, and open or stealthy assassinations in
+the field, and local revolts, extending to a score or so, will
+continue to occur as the natural results of slavery; but no general
+insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in this country for a
+long time.  Whoever much fears or much hopes for such an event will
+be alike disappointed.
+
+In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years ago, "It is
+still in our power to direct the process of emancipation and
+deportation peaceably, and in such slow degrees as that the evil will
+wear off insensibly, and their places be, pari passu, filled up by
+free white laborers.  If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself
+on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up."
+
+Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the power of
+emancipation is in the Federal Government.  He spoke of Virginia;
+and, as to the power of emancipation, I speak of the slave holding
+States only.  The Federal Government, however, as we insist, has the
+power of restraining the extension of the institution--the power to
+insure that a slave insurrection shall never occur on any American
+soil which is now free from slavery.
+
+John Brown's effort was peculiar.  It was not a slave insurrection.
+It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in
+which the slaves refused to participate.  In fact, it was so absurd
+that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it
+could not succeed.  That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with
+the many attempts related in history at the assassination of kings
+and emperors.  An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people
+till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them.  He
+ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own
+execution.  Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon and John Brown's
+attempt at Harper's Ferry were, in their philosophy, precisely the
+same.  The eagerness to cast blame on old England in the one case,
+and on New England in the other, does not disprove the sameness of
+the two things.
+
+And how much would it avail you, if you could, by the use of John
+Brown, Helper's Book, and the like, break up the Republican
+organization? Human action can be modified to some extent, but human
+nature cannot be changed.  There is a judgment and a feeling against
+slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a half of
+votes.  You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling--that sentiment-
+-by breaking up the political organization which rallies around it.
+You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which has been formed
+into order in the face of your heaviest fire; but if you could, how
+much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which created it out of
+the peaceful channel of the ballot-box, into some other channel?
+What would that other channel probably be?  Would the number of John
+Browns be lessened or enlarged by the operation?
+
+But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of
+your constitutional rights.
+
+That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be palliated, if not
+fully justified, were we proposing, by the mere force of numbers, to
+deprive you of some right plainly written down in the Constitution.
+But we are proposing no such thing.
+
+When you make these declarations, you have a specific and well-
+understood allusion to an assumed constitutional right of yours to
+take slaves into the Federal Territories, and to hold them there as
+property.  But no such right is specifically written in the
+Constitution.  That instrument is literally silent about any such
+right.  We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any existence
+in the Constitution, even by implication.
+
+Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the
+Government unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the
+Constitution as you please on all points in dispute between you and
+us.  You will rule or ruin, in all events.
+
+This, plainly stated, is your language.  Perhaps you will say the
+Supreme Court has decided the disputed constitutional question in
+your favor.  Not quite so.  But, waiving the lawyer's distinction
+between dictum and decision, the court have decided the question for
+you in a sort of way.  The court have substantially said it is your
+constitutional right to take slaves into the Federal Territories, and
+to hold them there as property.  When I say, the decision was made in
+a sort of way, I mean it was made in a divided court, by a bare
+majority of the judges, and they not quite agreeing with one another
+in the reasons for making it; that it is so made as that its avowed
+supporters disagree with one another about its meaning, and that it
+was mainly based upon a mistaken statement of fact--the statement in
+the opinion that "the right of property in a slave is distinctly and
+expressly affirmed in the Constitution."
+
+An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of
+property in a slave is not "distinctly and expressly affirmed" in it.
+Bear in mind, the judges do not pledge their judicial opinion that
+such right is impliedly affirmed in the Constitution; but they pledge
+their veracity that it is "distinctly and expressly" affirmed there-
+-"distinctly," that is, not mingled with anything else; "expressly,"
+that is, in words meaning just that, without the aid of any
+inference, and susceptible of no other meaning.
+
+If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that such right is
+affirmed in the instrument by implication, it would be open to others
+to show that neither the word "slave" nor "slavery" is to be found in
+the Constitution, nor the word "property" even, in any connection
+with language alluding to the things slave or slavery; and that
+wherever in that instrument the slave is alluded to, he is called a
+"person"; and wherever his master's legal right in relation to him is
+alluded to, it is spoken of as "service or labor which may be due,"
+as a debt payable in service or labor.  Also, it would be open to
+show, by contemporaneous history, that this mode of alluding to
+slaves and slavery, instead of speaking of them, was employed on
+purpose to exclude from the Constitution the idea that there could be
+property in man.
+
+To show all this, is easy and certain.
+
+When this obvious mistake of the judges shall be brought to their
+notice, is it not reasonable to expect that they will withdraw the
+mistaken statement, and reconsider the conclusion based upon it?
+
+And then it is to be remembered that "our fathers; who framed the
+Government under which we live",--the men who made the Constitution--
+decided this same constitutional question in our favor, long ago;
+decided it without division among themselves, when making the
+decision, without division among themselves about the meaning of it
+after it was made, and, so far as any evidence is left, without
+basing it upon any mistaken statement of facts.
+
+Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves
+justified to break up this Government unless such a court decision as
+yours is shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule
+of political action?  But you will not abide the election of a
+Republican President!  In that supposed event, you say, you will
+destroy the Union;, and then, you say, the great crime of having
+destroyed it will be upon us!  That is cool.  A highwayman holds a
+pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "stand and deliver,
+or I shall kill you, and then you'll be a murderer!"
+
+To be sure, what the robber demanded of me-my money was my own, and I
+had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote
+is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the
+threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely
+be distinguished in principle.
+
+A few words now to Republicans: It is exceedingly desirable that all
+parts of this great confederacy shall be at peace and in harmony one
+with another.  Let us Republicans do our part to have it so.  Even
+though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill
+temper.  Even though the Southern people will not so much as listen
+to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to them if, in
+our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can.  Judging by all
+they say and do, and by the subject and nature of their controversy
+with us, let us determine, if we can, what will satisfy them.
+
+Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally
+surrendered to them?  We know they will not.  In all their present
+complaints against us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned.
+Invasions and insurrections are the rage now.  Will it satisfy them
+if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and,
+insurrections?  We know it will not.  We so know because we know we
+never had anything to do with invasions and insurrections; and yet
+this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the
+denunciation.
+
+The question recurs, what will satisfy them?  Simply this: We must
+not only let them alone, but we must, somehow, convince them that we
+do let them alone.  This, we know by experience, is no easy task.
+We have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of
+our organization, but with no success.  In all our platforms and
+speeches we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone;
+but this has had no tendency to convince them.  Alike unavailing to
+convince them is the fact that they have never detected a man of us
+in any attempt to disturb them.
+
+These natural and apparently adequate means all failing, what will
+convince them?  This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and
+join them in calling it right.  And this must be done thoroughly--
+done in acts as well as in words.  Silence will not be tolerated--we
+must place ourselves avowedly with them.  Senator Douglas's new
+sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all
+declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in
+presses, in pulpits; or in private.  We must arrest and return their
+fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure.  We must pull down our free
+State constitutions.  The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from
+all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe
+that all their troubles proceed from us.
+
+I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely in this way.
+Most of them would probably say to us, "Let us alone, do nothing to
+us, and say what you please about slavery."  But we do let them alone
+have never disturbed them--so that after all it is what we say which
+dissatisfies them.  They will continue to accuse us of doing, until
+we cease saying.
+
+I am also aware they have not as yet, in terms, demanded the
+overthrow of our free State constitutions.  Yet those constitutions
+declare the wrong of slavery, with more solemn emphasis than do all
+other sayings against it; and when all these other sayings shall have
+been silenced, the overthrow of these constitutions will be demanded,
+and nothing be left to resist the demand.  It is nothing to the
+contrary, that they do not demand the whole of this just now.
+Demanding what they do, and for the reason they do, they can
+voluntarily stop nowhere short of this consummation.  Holding, as
+they do, that slavery is morally right, and socially elevating, they
+cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of it, as a legal
+right and a social blessing.
+
+Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground save our
+conviction that slavery is wrong.  If slavery is right, all words,
+acts, laws, and constitutions against it are themselves wrong, and
+should be silenced and swept away.  If it is right, we cannot justly
+object to its nationality its universality; if it is wrong, they
+cannot justly insist upon its extension--its enlargement.  All they
+ask we could readily grant if we thought slavery right; all we ask
+they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong.  Their
+thinking it right and our thinking it wrong is the precise fact upon
+which depends the whole controversy.  Thinking it right, as they do,
+they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as being
+right; but thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them?  Can we
+cast our votes with their view, and against our own?  In view of our
+moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this?  Wrong
+as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it
+is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual
+presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it,
+allow it to spread into the national Territories, and to overrun us
+here in these free States?  If our sense of duty forbids this, then
+let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively.  Let us be
+diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are
+so industriously plied and belabored-contrivances such as groping for
+some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the
+search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead
+man-such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about which all
+true men do care--such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to
+yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not
+the sinners, but the righteous to repentance--such as invocations to
+Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo
+what Washington did.
+
+Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations
+against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the
+Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT
+MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR
+DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.
+
+
+
+
+SPEECH AT NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT, MARCH 6, 1860
+
+MR. PRESIDENT, AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF NEW HAVEN:--If the Republican
+party of this nation shall ever have the national House entrusted to
+its keeping, it will be the duty of that party to attend to all the
+affairs of national housekeeping.  Whatever matters of importance may
+come up, whatever difficulties may arise in its way of administration
+of the Government, that party will then have to attend to.  It will
+then be compelled to attend to other questions, besides this question
+which now assumes an overwhelming importance--the question of
+slavery.  It is true that in the organization of the Republican party
+this question of slavery was more important than any other: indeed,
+so much more important has it become that no more national question
+can even get a hearing just at present.  The old question of tariff-
+-a matter that will remain one of the chief affairs of national
+house-keeping to all time; the question of the management of
+financial affairs; the question of the disposition of the public
+domain how shall it be managed for the purpose of getting it well
+settled, and of making there the homes of a free and happy people?
+these will remain open and require attention for a great while yet,
+and these questions will have to be attended to by whatever party has
+the control of the Government.  Yet, just now, they cannot even
+obtain a hearing, and I do not propose to detain you upon these
+topics or what sort of hearing they should have when opportunity
+shall come.
+
+For, whether we will or not, the question of slavery is the question,
+the all-absorbing topic of the day. It is true that all of us--and by
+that I mean, not the Republican party alone, but the whole American
+people, here and elsewhere--all of us wish this question settled,
+wish it out of the way. It stands in the way, and prevents the
+adjustment, and the giving of necessary attention to other questions
+of national house-keeping. The people of the whole nation agree that
+this question ought to be settled, and yet it is not settled.  And
+the reason is that they are not yet agreed how it shall be settled.
+All wish it done, but some wish one way and some another, and some a
+third, or fourth, or fifth; different bodies are pulling in different
+directions, and none of them, having a decided majority, are able to
+accomplish the common object.
+
+In the beginning of the year 1854, a new policy was inaugurated with
+the avowed object and confident promise that it would entirely and
+forever put an end to the slavery agitation.  It was again and again
+declared that under this policy, when once successfully established,
+the country would be forever rid of this whole question.  Yet under
+the operation of that policy this agitation has not only not ceased,
+but it has been constantly augmented.  And this too, although, from
+the day of its introduction, its friends, who promised that it would
+wholly end all agitation, constantly insisted, down to the time that
+the Lecompton Bill was introduced, that it was working admirably, and
+that its inevitable tendency was to remove the question forever from
+the politics of the country.  Can you call to mind any Democratic
+speech, made after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, down to the
+time of the Lecompton Bill, in which it was not predicted that the
+slavery agitation was just at an end, that "the abolition excitement
+was played out," "the Kansas question was dead," "they have made the
+most they can out of this question and it is now forever settled"?
+But since the Lecompton Bill no Democrat, within my experience, has
+ever pretended that he could see the end. That cry has been dropped.
+They themselves do not pretend, now, that the agitation of this
+subject has come to an end yet.
+
+The truth is that this question is one of national importance, and we
+cannot help dealing with it; we must do something about it, whether
+we will or not.  We cannot avoid it; the subject is one we cannot
+avoid considering; we can no more avoid it than a man can live
+without eating.  It is upon us; it attaches to the body politic as
+much and closely as the natural wants attach to our natural bodies.
+Now I think it important that this matter should be taken up in
+earnest, and really settled: And one way to bring about a true
+settlement of the question is to understand its true magnitude.
+
+There have been many efforts made to settle it.  Again and again it
+has been fondly hoped that it was settled; but every time it breaks
+out afresh, and more violently than ever.  It was settled, our
+fathers hoped, by the Missouri Compromise, but it did not stay
+settled.  Then the compromises of 1850 were declared to be a full and
+final settlement of the question.  The two great parties, each in
+national convention, adopted resolutions declaring that the
+settlement made by the Compromise of 1850 was a finality that it
+would last forever.  Yet how long before it was unsettled again?
+It broke out again in 1854, and blazed higher and raged more
+furiously than ever before, and the agitation has not rested since.
+
+These repeated settlements must have some faults about them.  There
+must be some inadequacy in their very nature to the purpose to which
+they were designed.  We can only speculate as to where that fault,
+that inadequacy, is, but we may perhaps profit by past experiences.
+
+I think that one of the causes of these repeated failures is that our
+best and greatest men have greatly underestimated the size of this
+question.  They have constantly brought forward small cures for great
+sores--plasters too small to cover the wound.  That is one reason
+that all settlements have proved temporary--so evanescent.
+
+Look at the magnitude of this subject: One sixth of our population,
+in round numbers--not quite one sixth, and yet more than a seventh,--
+about one sixth of the whole population of the United States are
+slaves.  The owners of these slaves consider them property.  The
+effect upon the minds of the owners is that of property, and nothing
+else it induces them to insist upon all that will favorably affect
+its value as property, to demand laws and institutions and a public
+policy that shall increase and secure its value, and make it durable,
+lasting, and universal.  The effect on the minds of the owners is to
+persuade them that there is no wrong in it.  The slaveholder does not
+like to be considered a mean fellow for holding that species of
+property, and hence, he has to struggle within himself and sets about
+arguing himself into the belief that slavery is right.  The property
+influences his mind.  The dissenting minister who argued some
+theological point with one of the established church was always met
+with the reply, "I can't see it so."  He opened a Bible and pointed
+him a passage, but the orthodox minister replied, "I can't see it
+so."  Then he showed him a single word --"Can you see that?" "Yes, I
+see it," was the reply.  The dissenter laid a guinea over the word
+and asked, "Do you see it now?" So here.  Whether the owners of this
+species of property do really see it as it is, it is not for me to
+say, but if they do, they see it as it is through two thousand
+millions of dollars, and that is a pretty thick coating.  Certain it
+is that they do not see it as we see it.  Certain it is that this two
+thousand millions of dollars, invested in this species of property,
+all so concentrated that the mind can grasp it at once--this immense
+pecuniary interest--has its influence upon their minds.
+
+But here in Connecticut and at the North slavery does not exist, and
+we see it through no such medium.
+
+To us it appears natural to think that slaves are human beings; men,
+not property; that some of the things, at least, stated about men in
+the Declaration of Independence apply to them as well as to us.
+I say we think, most of us, that this charter of freedom applies to
+the slaves as well as to ourselves; that the class of arguments put
+forward to batter down that idea are also calculated to break down
+the very idea of a free government, even for white men, and to
+undermine the very foundations of free society.  We think slavery a
+great moral wrong, and, while we do not claim the right to touch it
+where it exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the Territories,
+where our votes will reach it.  We think that a respect for
+ourselves, a regard for future generations and for the God that made
+us, require that we put down this wrong where our votes will properly
+reach it.  We think that species of labor an injury to free white men
+--in short, we think slavery a great moral, social, and political
+evil, tolerable only because, and so far as, its actual existence
+makes it necessary to tolerate it, and that beyond that it ought to
+be treated as a wrong.
+
+Now these two ideas, the property idea that slavery is right, and the
+idea that it is wrong, come into collision, and do actually produce
+that irrepressible conflict which Mr. Seward has been so roundly
+abused for mentioning.  The two ideas conflict, and must conflict.
+
+Again, in its political aspect, does anything in any way endanger the
+perpetuity of this Union but that single thing, slavery?  Many of our
+adversaries are anxious to claim that they are specially devoted to
+the Union, and take pains to charge upon us hostility to the Union.
+Now we claim that we are the only true Union men, and we put to them
+this one proposition: Whatever endangers this Union, save and except
+slavery?  Did any other thing ever cause a moment's fear?  All men
+must agree that this thing alone has ever endangered the perpetuity
+of the Union.  But if it was threatened by any other influence, would
+not all men say that the best thing that could be done, if we could
+not or ought not to destroy it, would be at least to keep it from
+growing any larger?  Can any man believe, that the way to save the
+Union is to extend and increase the only thing that threatens the
+Union, and to suffer it to grow bigger and bigger?
+
+Whenever this question shall be settled, it must be settled on some
+philosophical basis. No policy that does not rest upon some
+philosophical opinion can be permanently maintained.  And hence there
+are but two policies in regard to slavery that can be at all
+maintained.  The first, based on the property view that slavery is
+right, conforms to that idea throughout, and demands that we shall do
+everything for it that we ought to do if it were right.  We must
+sweep away all opposition, for opposition to the right is wrong; we
+must agree that slavery is right, and we must adopt the idea that
+property has persuaded the owner to believe that slavery is morally
+right and socially elevating.  This gives a philosophical basis for a
+permanent policy of encouragement.
+
+The other policy is one that squares with the idea that slavery is
+wrong, and it consists in doing everything that we ought to do if it
+is wrong.  Now, I don't wish to be misunderstood, nor to leave a gap
+down to be misrepresented, even.  I don't mean that we ought to
+attack it where it exists.  To me it seems that if we were to form a
+government anew, in view of the actual presence of slavery we should
+find it necessary to frame just such a government as our fathers did-
+-giving to the slaveholder the entire control where the system was
+established, while we possessed the power to restrain it from going
+outside those limits.  From the necessities of the case we should be
+compelled to form just such a government as our blessed fathers gave
+us; and, surely, if they have so made it, that adds another reason
+why we should let slavery alone where it exists.
+
+If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any man would say I
+might seize the nearest stick and kill it; but if I found that snake
+in bed with my children, that would be another question.  I might
+hurt the children more than the snake, and it might bite them.  Much
+more if I found it in bed with my neighbor's children, and I had
+bound myself by a solemn compact not to meddle with his children
+under any circumstances, it would become me to let that particular
+mode of getting rid of the gentleman alone.  But if there was a bed
+newly made up, to which the children were to be taken, and it was
+proposed to take a batch of young snakes and put them there with
+them, I take it no man would say there was any question how I ought
+to decide!
+
+That is just the case.  The new Territories are the newly made bed to
+which our children are to go, and it lies with the nation to say
+whether they shall have snakes mixed up with them or not.  It does
+not seem as if there could be much hesitation what our policy should
+be!
+
+Now I have spoken of a policy based on the idea that slavery is
+wrong, and a policy based on the idea that it is right.  But an
+effort has been made for a policy that shall treat it as neither
+right nor wrong.  It is based upon utter indifference.  Its leading
+advocate [Douglas] has said, "I don't care whether it be voted up or
+down." "It is merely a matter of dollars and cents." "The Almighty
+has drawn a line across this continent, on one side of which all soil
+must forever be cultivated by slave labor, and on the other by free."
+"When the struggle is between the white man and the negro, I am for
+the white man; when it is between the negro and the crocodile, I am
+for the negro." Its central idea is indifference.   It holds that it
+makes no more difference to us whether the Territories become free or
+slave States than whether my neighbor stocks his farm with horned
+cattle or puts in tobacco.  All recognize this policy, the plausible
+sugar-coated name of which is "popular sovereignty."
+
+This policy chiefly stands in the way of a permanent settlement of
+the question.  I believe there is no danger of its becoming the
+permanent policy of the country, for it is based on a public
+indifference.  There is nobody that "don't care." All the people do
+care one way or the other!  I do not charge that its author, when he
+says he "don't care," states his individual opinion; he only
+expresses his policy for the government.  I understand that he has
+never said as an individual whether he thought slavery right or
+wrong--and he is the only man in the nation that has not! Now such a
+policy may have a temporary run; it may spring up as necessary to the
+political prospects of some gentleman; but it is utterly baseless:
+the people are not indifferent, and it can therefore have no
+durability or permanence.
+
+But suppose it could: Then it could be maintained only by a public
+opinion that shall say, "We don't care." There must be a change in
+public opinion; the public mind must be so far debauched as to square
+with this policy of caring not at all.  The people must come to
+consider this as "merely a question of dollars and cents," and to
+believe that in some places the Almighty has made slavery necessarily
+eternal.  This policy can be brought to prevail if the people can be
+brought round to say honestly, "We don't care"; if not, it can never
+be maintained.  It is for you to say whether that can be done.
+
+You are ready to say it cannot, but be not too fast! Remember what a
+long stride has been taken since the repeal of the Missouri
+Compromise! Do you know of any Democrat, of either branch of the
+party--do you know one who declares that he believes that the
+Declaration of Independence has any application to the negro? Judge
+Taney declares that it has not, and Judge Douglas even vilifies me
+personally and scolds me roundly for saying that the Declaration
+applies to all men, and that negroes are men.   Is there a Democrat
+here who does not deny that the Declaration applies to the negro? Do
+any of you know of one? Well, I have tried before perhaps fifty
+audiences, some larger and some smaller than this, to find one such
+Democrat, and never yet have I found one who said I did not place him
+right in that.  I must assume that Democrats hold that, and now, not
+one of these Democrats can show that he said that five years ago! I
+venture to defy the whole party to produce one man that ever uttered
+the belief that the Declaration did not apply to negroes, before the
+repeal of the Missouri Compromise! Four or five years ago we all
+thought negroes were men, and that when "all men" were named, negroes
+were included.  But the whole Democratic party has deliberately taken
+negroes from the class of men and put them in the class of brutes.
+Turn it as you will it is simply the truth! Don't be too hasty, then,
+in saying that the people cannot be brought to this new doctrine, but
+note that long stride.  One more as long completes the journey from
+where negroes are estimated as men to where they are estimated as
+mere brutes--as rightful property!
+
+That saying "In the struggle between white men and the negro," etc.,
+which I know came from the same source as this policy--that saying
+marks another step.  There is a falsehood wrapped up in that
+statement.  "In the struggle between the white man and the negro"
+assumes that there is a struggle, in which either the white man must
+enslave the negro or the negro must enslave the white.  There is no
+such struggle! It is merely the ingenious falsehood to degrade and
+brutalize the negro.  Let each let the other alone, and there is no
+struggle about it.  If it was like two wrecked seamen on a narrow
+plank, when each must push the other off or drown himself, I would
+push the negro off or a white man either, but it is not; the plank is
+large enough for both.  This good earth is plenty broad enough for
+white man and negro both, and there is no need of either pushing the
+other off.
+
+So that saying, "In the struggle between the negro and the
+crocodile," etc., is made up from the idea that down where the
+crocodile inhabits, a white man can't labor; it must be nothing else
+but crocodile or negro; if the negro does not the crocodile must
+possess the earth; in that case he declares for the negro.  The
+meaning of the whole is just this: As a white man is to a negro, so
+is a negro to a crocodile; and as the negro may rightfully treat the
+crocodile, so may the white man rightfully treat the negro.   This
+very dear phrase coined by its author, and so dear that he
+deliberately repeats it in many speeches, has a tendency to still
+further brutalize the negro, and to bring public opinion to the point
+of utter indifference whether men so brutalized are enslaved or not.
+When that time shall come, if ever, I think that policy to which I
+refer may prevail.  But I hope the good freemen of this country will
+never allow it to come, and until then the policy can never be
+maintained.
+
+Now consider the effect of this policy.  We in the States are not to
+care whether freedom or slavery gets the better, but the people in
+the Territories may care.  They are to decide, and they may think
+what they please; it is a matter of dollars and cents! But are not
+the people of the Territories detailed from the States? If this
+feeling of indifference this absence of moral sense about the
+question prevails in the States, will it not be carried into the
+Territories? Will not every man say, "I don't care, it is nothing to
+me"? If any one comes that wants slavery, must they not say, "I don't
+care whether freedom or slavery be voted up or voted down"? It
+results at last in nationalizing the institution of slavery.  Even if
+fairly carried out, that policy is just as certain to nationalize
+slavery as the doctrine of Jeff Davis himself.  These are only two
+roads to the same goal, and "popular sovereignty" is just as sure and
+almost as short as the other.
+
+What we want, and all we want, is to have with us the men who think
+slavery wrong.  But those who say they hate slavery, and are opposed
+to it, but yet act with the Democratic party--where are they? Let us
+apply a few tests.  You say that you think slavery is wrong, but you
+denounce all attempts to restrain it.  Is there anything else that
+you think wrong that you are not willing to deal with as wrong? Why
+are you so careful, so tender, of this one wrong and no other? You
+will not let us do a single thing as if it was wrong; there is no
+place where you will even allow it to be called wrong! We must not
+call it wrong in the free States, because it is not there, and we
+must not call it wrong in the slave States, because it is there; we
+must not call it wrong in politics because that is bringing morality
+into politics, and we must not call it wrong in the pulpit because
+that is bringing politics into religion; we must not bring it into
+the Tract Society or the other societies, because those are such
+unsuitable places--and there is no single place, according to you,
+where this wrong thing can properly be called wrong!
+
+Perhaps you will plead that if the people of the slave States should
+themselves set on foot an effort for emancipation, you would wish
+them success, and bid them God-speed.  Let us test that: In 1858 the
+emancipation party of Missouri, with Frank Blair at their head, tried
+to get up a movement for that purpose, and having started a party
+contested the State.  Blair was beaten, apparently if not truly, and
+when the news came to Connecticut, you, who knew that Frank Blair was
+taking hold of this thing by the right end, and doing the only thing
+that you say can properly be done to remove this wrong--did you bow
+your heads in sorrow because of that defeat? Do you, any of you, know
+one single Democrat that showed sorrow over that result? Not one! On
+the contrary every man threw up his hat, and hallooed at the top of
+his lungs, "Hooray for Democracy!"
+
+Now, gentlemen, the Republicans desire to place this great question
+of slavery on the very basis on which our fathers placed it, and no
+other.  It is easy to demonstrate that "our fathers, who framed this
+Government under which we live," looked on slavery as wrong, and so
+framed it and everything about it as to square with the idea that it
+was wrong, so far as the necessities arising from its existence
+permitted.  In forming the Constitution they found the slave trade
+existing, capital invested in it, fields depending upon it for labor,
+and the whole system resting upon the importation of slave labor.
+They therefore did not prohibit the slave trade at once, but they
+gave the power to prohibit it after twenty years.  Why was this? What
+other foreign trade did they treat in that way? Would they have done
+this if they had not thought slavery wrong?
+
+Another thing was done by some of the same men who framed the
+Constitution, and afterwards adopted as their own the act by the
+first Congress held under that Constitution, of which many of the
+framers were members, that prohibited the spread of slavery into
+Territories.  Thus the same men, the framers of the Constitution, cut
+off the supply and prohibited the spread of slavery, and both acts
+show conclusively that they considered that the thing was wrong.
+
+If additional proof is wanted it can be found in the phraseology of
+the Constitution.  When men are framing a supreme law and chart of
+government, to secure blessings and prosperity to untold generations
+yet to come, they use language as short and direct and plain as can
+be found, to express their meaning  In all matters but this of
+slavery the framers of the Constitution used the very clearest,
+shortest, and most direct language.  But the Constitution alludes to
+slavery three times without mentioning it once  The language used
+becomes ambiguous, roundabout, and mystical.  They speak of the
+"immigration of persons," and mean the importation of slaves, but do
+not say so.  In establishing a basis of representation they say "all
+other persons," when they mean to say slaves--why did they not use
+the shortest phrase? In providing for the return of fugitives they
+say "persons held to service or labor." If they had said slaves it
+would have been plainer, and less liable to misconstruction.  Why did
+n't they do it? We cannot doubt that it was done on purpose.  Only
+one reason is possible, and that is supplied us by one of the framers
+of the Constitution--and it is not possible for man to conceive of
+any other--they expected and desired that the system would come to an
+end, and meant that when it did, the Constitution should not show
+that there ever had been a slave in this good free country of ours.
+
+I will dwell on that no longer.  I see the signs of approaching
+triumph of the Republicans in the bearing of their political
+adversaries.   A great deal of their war with us nowadays is mere
+bushwhacking.  At the battle of Waterloo, when Napoleon's cavalry had
+charged again and again upon the unbroken squares of British
+infantry, at last they were giving up the attempt, and going off in
+disorder, when some of the officers in mere vexation and complete
+despair fired their pistols at those solid squares.  The Democrats
+are in that sort of extreme desperation; it is nothing else.  I will
+take up a few of these arguments.
+
+There is "the irrepressible conflict."  How they rail at Seward for
+that saying! They repeat it constantly; and, although the proof has
+been thrust under their noses again and again that almost every good
+man since the formation of our Government has uttered that same
+sentiment, from General Washington, who "trusted that we should yet
+have a confederacy of free States," with Jefferson, Jay, Monroe, down
+to the latest days, yet they refuse to notice that at all, and
+persist in railing at Seward for saying it.  Even Roger A. Pryor,
+editor of the Richmond Enquirer, uttered the same sentiment in almost
+the same language, and yet so little offence did it give the
+Democrats that he was sent for to Washington to edit the States--the
+Douglas organ there--while Douglas goes into hydrophobia and spasms
+of rage because Seward dared to repeat it.  This is what I call
+bushwhacking, a sort of argument that they must know any child can
+see through.
+
+Another is John Brown: "You stir up insurrections, you invade the
+South; John Brown! Harper's Ferry!"  Why, John Brown was not a
+Republican!  You have never implicated a single Republican in that
+Harper's Ferry enterprise.  We tell you that if any member of the
+Republican party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not
+know it.  If you do know it, you are inexcusable not to designate the
+man and prove the fact.  If you do not know it, you are inexcusable
+to assert it, and especially to persist in the assertion after you
+have tried and failed to make the proof.  You need not be told that
+persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true is simply
+malicious slander.  Some of you admit that no Republican designedly
+aided or encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair, but still insist that
+our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to such results.  We
+do not believe it.  We know we hold to no doctrines, and make no
+declarations, which were not held to and made by our fathers who
+framed the Government 'under which we live, and we cannot see how
+declarations that were patriotic when they made them are villainous
+when we make them.  You never dealt fairly by us in relation to that
+affair--and I will say frankly that I know of nothing in your
+character that should lead us to suppose that you would.  You had
+just been soundly thrashed in elections in several States, and others
+were soon to come.  You rejoiced at the occasion, and only were
+troubled that there were not three times as many killed in the
+affair.  You were in evident glee; there was no sorrow for the killed
+nor for the peace of Virginia disturbed; you were rejoicing that by
+charging Republicans with this thing you might get an advantage of us
+in New York, and the other States.  You pulled that string as tightly
+as you could, but your very generous and worthy expectations were not
+quite fulfilled.  Each Republican knew that the charge was a slander
+as to himself at least, and was not inclined by it to cast his vote
+in your favor.  It was mere bushwhacking, because you had nothing
+else to do.  You are still on that track, and I say, go on! If you
+think you can slander a woman into loving you or a man into voting
+for you, try it till you are satisfied!
+
+Another specimen of this bushwhacking, that "shoe strike." Now be it
+understood that I do not pretend to know all about the matter.  I am
+merely going to speculate a little about some of its phases.  And at
+the outset, I am glad to see that a system of labor prevails in New
+England under which laborers can strike when they want to, where they
+are not obliged to work under all circumstances, and are not tied
+down and obliged to labor whether you pay them or not! I like the
+system which lets a man quit when he wants to, and wish it might
+prevail everywhere.  One of the reasons why I am opposed to slavery
+is just here.  What is the true condition of the laborer? I take it
+that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as
+fast as he can.  Some will get wealthy.  I don't believe in a law to
+prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good.
+So, while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow
+the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else.
+When one starts poor, as most do in the race of life, free society is
+such that he knows he can better his condition; he knows that there
+is no fixed condition of labor for his whole life.  I am not ashamed
+to confess that twenty-five years ago I was a hired laborer, mauling
+rails, at work on a flatboat--just what might happen to any poor
+man's son! I want every man to have a chance--and I believe a Black
+man is entitled to it--in which he can better his condition; when he
+may look forward and hope to be a hired laborer this year and the
+next, work for himself afterward, and finally to hire men to work for
+him!  That is the system.  Up here in New England, you have a soil
+that scarcely sprouts black-eyed beans, and yet where will you find
+wealthy men so wealthy, and poverty so rarely in extremity? There is
+not another such place on earth! I desire that if you get too thick
+here, and find it hard to better your condition on this soil, you may
+have a chance to strike and go somewhere else, where you may not be
+degraded, nor have your families corrupted, by forced rivalry with
+negro slaves.  I want you to have a clean bed and no snakes in it!
+Then you can better your condition, and so it may go on and on in one
+endless round so long as man exists on the face of the earth!
+
+Now, to come back to this shoe strike,--if, as the senator from
+Illinois asserts, this is caused by withdrawal of Southern votes,
+consider briefly how you will meet the difficulty.  You have done
+nothing, and have protested that you have done nothing, to injure the
+South.  And yet, to get back the shoe trade, you must leave off doing
+something which you are now doing.  What is it? You must stop
+thinking slavery wrong! Let your institutions be wholly changed; let
+your State constitutions be subverted; glorify slavery, and so you
+will get back the shoe trade--for what? You have brought owned labor
+with it, to compete with your own labor, to underwork you, and to
+degrade you! Are you ready to get back the trade on those terms?
+
+But the statement is not correct.  You have not lost that trade;
+orders were never better than now! Senator Mason, a Democrat, comes
+into the Senate in homespun, a proof that the dissolution of the
+Union has actually begun! but orders are the same.  Your factories
+have not struck work, neither those where they make anything for
+coats, nor for pants nor for shirts, nor for ladies' dresses.  Mr.
+Mason has not reached the manufacturers who ought to have made him a
+coat and pants! To make his proof good for anything he should have
+come into the Senate barefoot!
+
+Another bushwhacking contrivance; simply that, nothing else! I find a
+good many people who are very much concerned about the loss of
+Southern trade.  Now either these people are sincere or they are not.
+I will speculate a little about that.   If they are sincere, and are
+moved by any real danger of the loss of Southern trade, they will
+simply get their names on the white list, and then, instead of
+persuading Republicans to do likewise, they will be glad to keep you
+away! Don't you see that they cut off competition? They would not be
+whispering around to Republicans to come in and share the profits
+with them.  But if they are not sincere, and are merely trying to
+fool Republicans out of their votes, they will grow very anxious
+about your pecuniary prospects; they are afraid you are going to get
+broken up and ruined; they do not care about Democratic votes, oh,
+no, no, no! You must judge which class those belong to whom you meet:
+I leave it to you to determine from the facts.
+
+Let us notice some more of the stale charges against Republicans.
+You say we are sectional.  We deny it.  That makes an issue; and the
+burden of proof is upon you.  You produce your proof; and what is it?
+Why, that our party has no existence in your section--gets no votes
+in your section.  The fact is substantially true; but does it prove
+the issue? If it does, then in case we should, without change of
+principle, begin to get votes in your section, we should thereby
+cease to be sectional.  You cannot escape this conclusion; and yet,
+are you willing to abide by it? If you are, you will probably soon
+find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in
+your section this very year.  The fact that we get no votes in your
+section is a fact of your making and not of ours.  And if there be
+fault in that fact, that fault is primarily yours, and remains so
+until you show that we repel you by some wrong principle or practice.
+ If we do repel you by any wrong principle or practice, the fault is
+ours; but this brings you to where you ought to have started--to a
+discussion of the right or wrong of our principle.  If our principle,
+put in practice, would wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or
+for any other object, then our principle, and we with it, are
+sectional, and are justly opposed and denounced as such.  Meet us,
+then, on the question of whether our principle put in practice would
+wrong your section; and so meet it as if it were possible that
+something may be said on our side.  Do you accept the challenge? No?
+Then you really believe that the principle which our fathers who
+framed the Government under which we live thought so clearly right as
+to adopt it, and indorse it again and again, upon their official
+oaths, is in fact so clearly wrong as to demand our condemnation
+without a moment's consideration.  Some of you delight to flaunt in
+our faces the warning against sectional parties given by Washington
+in his Farewell Address.  Less than eight years before Washington
+gave that warning, he had, as President of the United States,
+approved and signed an act of Congress enforcing the prohibition of
+slavery in the Northwestern Territory, which act embodied the policy
+of government upon that subject, up to and at the very moment he
+penned that warning; and about one year after he penned it he wrote
+La Fayette that he considered that prohibition a wise measure,
+expressing in the same connection his hope that we should sometime
+have a confederacy of free States.
+
+Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has since arisen
+upon this same subject, is that warning a weapon in your hands
+against us, or in our hands against you?  Could Washington himself
+speak, would he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who
+sustain his policy, or upon you, who repudiate it? We respect that
+warning of Washington, and we commend it to you, together with his
+example pointing to the right application of it.
+
+But you say you are conservative--eminently conservative--while we
+are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort.  What is
+conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the
+new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy
+on the point in controversy which was adopted by our fathers who
+framed the Government under which we live; while you with one accord
+reject and scout and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon
+substituting something new.
+
+True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall
+be.  You have considerable variety of new propositions and plans, but
+you are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the
+fathers.  Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave-trade; some
+for a congressional slave code for the Territories; some for Congress
+forbidding the Territories to prohibit slavery within their limits;
+some for maintaining slavery in the Territories through the
+judiciary; some for the "gur-reat pur-rinciple" that if one man would
+enslave another, no third man should object--fantastically called
+"popular sovereignty." But never a man among you in favor of
+prohibition of slavery in Federal Territories, according to the
+practice of our fathers who framed the Government under which we
+live.  Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an
+advocate in the century within which our Government originated.   And
+yet you draw yourselves up and say, "We are eminently conservative."
+
+It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great confederacy
+shall be at peace, and in harmony one with another.  Let us
+Republicans do our part to have it so.  Even though much provoked,
+let us do nothing through passion and ill-temper.  Even though the
+Southern people will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly
+consider their demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view
+of our duty, we possibly can.  Judging by all they say and do, and by
+the subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us
+determine, if we can, what will satisfy them.
+
+Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally
+surrendered to them? We know they will not.  In all their present
+complaints against us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned.
+Invasions and insurrections are the rage now.  Will it satisfy them,
+in the future, if we have nothing to do with invasions and
+insurrections? We know it will not.  We so know because we know we
+never had anything to do with invasions and insurrections; and yet
+this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the
+denunciation.
+
+The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: we must not
+only let them alone, but we must, somehow, convince them that we do
+let them alone.  This, we know by experience, is no easy task.  We
+have been so trying to convince them, from the very beginning of our
+organization, but with no success.  In all our platforms and
+speeches, we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone;
+but this had no tendency to convince them.  Alike unavailing to
+convince them is the fact that they have never detected a man of us
+in any attempt to disturb them.
+
+These natural and apparently adequate means all failing, what will
+convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and
+join them in calling it right.  And this must be done thoroughly--
+done in acts as well as in words.  Silence will not be tolerated--we
+must place ourselves avowedly with them.  Douglas's new sedition law
+must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that
+slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits,
+or in private.   We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with
+greedy pleasure.  We must pull down our free State constitutions.
+The whole atmosphere must be disinfected of all taint of opposition
+to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles
+proceed from us.  So long as we call slavery wrong, whenever a slave
+runs away they will overlook the obvious fact that be ran away
+because he was oppressed, and declare he was stolen off.  Whenever a
+master cuts his slaves with a lash, and they cry out under it, he
+will overlook the obvious fact that the negroes cry out because they
+are hurt, and insist that they were put up to it by some rascally
+abolitionist.
+
+I am quite aware that they do not state their case precisely in this
+way.  Most of them would probably say to us, "Let us alone, do
+nothing to us, and say what you please about slavery." But we do let
+them alone--have never disturbed them--so that, after all, it is what
+we say which dissatisfies them.  They will continue to accuse us of
+doing, until we cease saying.
+
+I am also aware that they have not as yet in terms demanded the
+overthrow of our free-State constitutions.  Yet those constitutions
+declare the wrong of slavery with more solemn emphasis than do all
+other sayings against it; and when all these other sayings shall have
+been silenced, the overthrow of these constitutions will be demanded.
+It is nothing to the contrary that they do not demand the whole of
+this just now.  Demanding what they do, and for the reason they do,
+they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this consummation.
+Holding as they do that slavery is morally right, and socially
+elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of
+it, as a legal right, and a social blessing.
+
+Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground save our
+conviction that slavery is wrong.  If slavery is right, all words,
+acts, laws, and constitutions against it are themselves wrong and
+should be silenced and swept away.  If it is right, we cannot justly
+object to its nationality--its universality: if it is wrong, they
+cannot justly insist upon its extension--its enlargement.  All they
+ask, we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask,
+they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong.  Their
+thinking it right and our thinking it wrong is the precise fact on
+which depends the whole controversy.  Thinking it right as they do,
+they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as being
+right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we
+cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view of our
+moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this?
+
+Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where
+it is because that much is due to the necessity arising from its
+actual presence m the nation; but can we, while our votes will
+prevent it, allow it to spread into the national Territories, and to
+overrun us here in these free States?
+
+If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty,
+fearlessly and effectively.  Let us be diverted by none of those
+sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and
+belabored--contrivances such as groping for some middle ground
+between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who
+would be neither a living man nor a dead man--such as a policy of
+"don't care" on a question about which all free men do care--such as
+Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists,
+reversing the divine rule, and caning, not the sinners, but the
+righteous to repentance--such as invocations of Washington, imploring
+men to unsay what Washington did.
+
+Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations
+against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the
+Government, nor of dungeons to ourselves.  Let us have faith that
+right makes might; and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do
+our duty as we understand it.
+
+[As Mr. Lincoln concluded his address, there was witnessed the
+wildest scene of enthusiasm and excitement that has been in New Haven
+for years.  The Palladium editorially says: "We give up most of our
+space to-day to a very full report of the eloquent speech of the HON.
+Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, delivered last night at Union Hall."]
+
+
+
+
+RESPONSE TO AN ELECTOR'S REQUEST FOR MONEY
+
+TO ________________
+March 16, 1860
+
+As to your kind wishes for myself, allow me to say I cannot enter the
+ring on the money basis--first, because in the main it is wrong; and
+secondly, I have not and cannot get the money.
+
+I say, in the main, the use of money is wrong; but for certain
+objects in a political contest, the use of some is both right and
+indispensable.  With me, as with yourself, the long struggle has been
+one of great pecuniary loss.
+
+I now distinctly say this--if you shall be appointed a delegate to
+Chicago, I will furnish one hundred dollars to bear the expenses of
+the trip.
+
+Your friend as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+[Extract from a letter to a Kansas delegate.]
+
+
+
+
+TO J. W. SOMERS.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, March 17, 1860
+
+JAMES W. SOMERS, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Reaching home three days ago, I found your letter of
+February 26th.   Considering your difficulty of hearing, I think you
+had better settle in Chicago, if, as you say, a good man already in
+fair practice there will take you into partnership.  If you had not
+that difficulty, I still should think it an even balance whether you
+would not better remain in Chicago, with such a chance for
+copartnership.
+
+If I went west, I think I would go to Kansas, to Leavenworth or
+Atchison.  Both of them are and will continue to be fine growing
+places.
+
+I believe I have said all I can, and I have said it with the deepest
+interest for your welfare.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ACCUSATION OF HAVING BEEN PAID FOR A
+POLITICAL SPEECH
+
+TO C. F. McNEIL.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, April 6, 1860
+
+C. F. MCNEIL, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Reaching home yesterday, I found yours of the 23d March,
+inclosing a slip from The Middleport Press.  It is not true that I
+ever charged anything for a political speech in my life; but this
+much is true: Last October I was requested by letter to deliver some
+sort of speech in Mr. Beecher's church, in Brooklyn--two hundred
+dollars being offered in the first letter.  I wrote that I could do
+it in February, provided they would take a political speech if I
+could find time to get up no other.  They agreed; and subsequently I
+informed them the speech would have to be a political one.  When I
+reached New York, I for the first time learned that the place was
+changed to "Cooper Institute." I made the speech, and left for New
+Hampshire, where I have a son at school, neither asking for pay nor
+having any offered me.  Three days after a check for two hundred
+dollars was sent to me at New Hampshire; and I took it, and did not
+know it was wrong.  My understanding now is--though I knew nothing of
+it at the time--that they did charge for admittance to the Cooper
+Institute, and that they took in more than twice two hundred dollars.
+
+I have made this explanation to you as a friend; but I wish no
+explanation made to our enemies.  What they want is a squabble and a
+fuss, and that they can have if we explain; and they cannot have it
+if we don't.
+
+When I returned through New York from New England, I was told by the
+gentlemen who sent me the Check that a drunken vagabond in the club,
+having learned something about the two hundred dollars, made the
+exhibition out of which The Herald manufactured the article quoted by
+The Press of your town.
+
+My judgment is, and therefore my request is, that you give no denial
+and no explanation.
+
+Thanking you for your kind interest in the matter, I remain,
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO H. TAYLOR.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., April 21, 1860.
+
+HAWKINS TAYLOR, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 15th is just received.  It surprises me that
+you have written twice, without receiving an answer.  I have answered
+all I ever received from you; and certainly one since my return from
+the East.
+
+Opinions here, as to the prospect of Douglas being nominated, are
+quite conflicting--some very confident he will, and others that he
+will not be.  I think his nomination possible, but that the chances
+are against him.
+
+I am glad there is a prospect of your party passing this way to
+Chicago.  Wishing to make your visit here as pleasant as we can, we
+wish you to notify us as soon as possible whether you come this way,
+how many, and when you will arrive.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO A MEMBER OF THE ILLINOIS DELEGATION
+AT THE CHICAGO CONVENTION.
+SPRINGFIELD, May 17? 1860.
+
+I authorize no bargains and will be bound by none.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE COMMITTEE SENT BY THE CHICAGO CONVENTION TO INFORM
+LINCOLN OF HIS
+NOMINATION,
+
+MAY 19, 1860.
+
+
+Mr. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE COMMITTEE:--I tender to you, and
+through you to the Republican National Convention, and all the people
+represented in it, my profoundest thanks for the high honor done me,
+which you now formally announce.  Deeply and even painfully sensible
+of the great responsibility which is inseparable from this high
+honor--a responsibility which I could almost wish had fallen upon
+some one of the far more eminent men and experienced statesmen whose
+distinguished names were before the convention--I shall, by your
+leave, consider more fully the resolutions of the convention,
+denominated their platform, and without any unnecessary or
+unreasonable delay respond to you, Mr. Chairman, in writing--not
+doubting that the platform will be found satisfactory, and the
+nomination gratefully accepted.
+
+And now I will not longer defer the pleasure of taking you, and each
+of you, by the hand.
+
+
+
+
+ACCEPTANCE OF NOMINATION AS REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE
+ FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
+
+TO GEORGE ASHMUN AND OTHERS.
+
+SPRINGFIELD  ILLINOIS, May 23, 1860
+
+HON. GEORGE ASHMUN,
+President of Republican National Convention.
+
+SIR:--I accept the nomination tendered me by the convention over
+which you presided, and of which I am formally apprised in the letter
+of yourself and others, acting as a committee of the convention for
+that purpose.
+
+The declaration of principles and sentiments which accompanies your
+letter meets my approval; and it shall be my care not to violate or
+disregard it in any part.
+
+Imploring the assistance of Divine Providence, and with due regard to
+the views and feelings of all who were represented in the convention,
+to the rights of all the States and Territories and people of the
+nation, to the inviolability of the Constitution, and the perpetual
+union, harmony, and prosperity of all--I am most happy to co-operate
+for the practical success of the principles declared by the
+convention.
+
+Your obliged friend and fellow-citizen,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+To C. B. SMITH.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., May 26, 1860.
+
+HON. C. B. SMITH.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:-Yours of the 21st was duly received, but have found no
+time until now to say a word in the way of answer.  I am indeed much
+indebted to Indiana; and, as my home friends tell me, much to you
+personally.  Your saying, you no longer consider Ia. a doubtful State
+is very gratifying.  The thing starts well everywhere--too well, I
+almost fear, to last.  But we are in, and stick or go through must be
+the word.
+
+Let me hear from Indiana occasionally.
+
+Your friend, as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+FORM OF REPLY PREPARED BY MR. LINCOLN, WITH WHICH HIS PRIVATE
+SECRETARY WAS INSTRUCTED TO ANSWER A NUMEROUS CLASS OF LETTERS IN
+THE CAMPAIGN OF 1860.
+
+(Doctrine.)
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, _______, 1860
+
+DEAR SIR:--Your letter to Mr. Lincoln of and by which you seek to
+obtain his opinions on certain political points, has been received by
+him.  He has received others of a similar character, but he also has
+a greater number of the exactly opposite character.  The latter class
+beseech him to write nothing whatever upon any point of political
+doctrine.  They say his positions were well known when he was
+nominated, and that he must not now embarrass the canvass by
+undertaking to shift or modify them.  He regrets that he cannot
+oblige all, but you perceive it is impossible for him to do so.
+
+Yours, etc.,
+
+JNO. J. NICOLAY.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. B. WASHBURNE.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS,
+MAY 26, 1860
+
+HON. E. B. WASHBURNE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I have several letters from you written since the
+nomination, but till now have found no moment to say a word by way of
+answer.  Of course I am glad that the nomination is well received by
+our friends, and I sincerely thank you for so informing me.  So far
+as I can learn, the nominations start well everywhere; and, if they
+get no back-set, it would seem as if they are going through.  I hope
+you will write often; and as you write more rapidly than I do, don't
+make your letters so short as mine.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO S. HAYCRAFT.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., June 4, 1860.
+
+HON. SAMUEL HAYCRAFT.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Like yourself I belonged to the old Whig party from its
+origin to its close.  I never belonged to the American party
+organization, nor ever to a party called a Union party; though I hope
+I neither am or ever have been less devoted to the Union than
+yourself or any other patriotic man.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ABRAHAM OR "ABRAM"
+
+TO G. ASHMUN.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL.   June 4, 1860
+
+HON. GEORGE ASHMUN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--It seems as if the question whether my first name is
+"Abraham" or "Abram" will never be settled.  It is "Abraham," and if
+the letter of acceptance is not yet in print, you may, if you think
+fit, have my signature thereto printed "Abraham Lincoln." Exercise
+your judgment about this.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY
+
+TO S. GALLOWAY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., June 19, 1860
+
+HON. SAM'L GALLOWAY.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your very kind letter of the 15th is received.  Messrs.
+Follett, Foster, & Co.'s Life of me is not by my authority; and I
+have scarcely been so much astounded by anything, as by their public
+announcement that it is authorized by me.  They have fallen into some
+strange misunderstanding.  I certainly knew they contemplated
+publishing a biography, and I certainly did not object to their doing
+so, upon their own responsibility.  I even took pains to facilitate
+them.  But, at the same time, I made myself tiresome, if not hoarse,
+with repeating to Mr. Howard, their only agent seen by me, my protest
+that I authorized nothing--would be responsible for nothing.   How
+they could so misunderstand me, passes comprehension.   As a matter
+wholly my own, I would authorize no biography, without time and
+opportunity [sic] to carefully examine and consider every word of it
+and, in this case, in the nature of things, I can have no such time
+and Opportunity [sic].  But, in my present position, when, by the
+lessons of the past, and the united voice of all discreet friends, I
+can neither write nor speak a word for the public, how dare I to send
+forth, by my authority, a volume of hundreds of pages, for
+adversaries to make points upon without end? Were I to do so, the
+convention would have a right to re-assemble and substitute another
+name for mine.
+
+For these reasons, I would not look at the proof sheets--I am
+determined to maintain the position of [sic] truly saying I never saw
+the proof sheets, or any part of their work, before its publication.
+
+Now, do not mistake me--I feel great kindness for Messrs.  F., F., &
+Co.--do not think they have intentionally done wrong.  There may be
+nothing wrong in their proposed book--I sincerely hope there will
+not.  I barely suggest that you, or any of the friends there, on the
+party account, look it over, and exclude what you may think would
+embarrass the party bearing in mind, at all times, that I authorize
+nothing--will be responsible for nothing.
+
+Your friend, as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+[The custom then, and it may be a good one, was for the Presidential
+candidate to do no personal canvassing or speaking--or as we have it
+now "running for election."  He stayed at home and kept his mouth
+shut.  D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+TO HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, July 18, 1860.
+
+HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
+MY DEAR SIR:--It appears to me that you and I ought to be acquainted,
+and accordingly I write this as a sort of introduction of myself to
+you.  You first entered the Senate during the single term I was a
+member of the House of Representatives, but I have no recollection
+that we were introduced.  I shall be pleased to receive a line from
+you.
+
+The prospect of Republican success now appears very flattering, so
+far as I can perceive.  Do you see anything to the contrary?
+
+Yours truly,    A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO A. JONAS.
+
+(Confidential.)
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, JULY 21, 1860.
+
+HON. A. JONAS.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 20th is received. I suppose as good or
+even better men than I may have been in American or Know-Nothing
+lodges; but in point of fact, I never was in one at Quincy or
+elsewhere.  I was never in Quincy but one day and two nights while
+Know-Nothing lodges were in existence, and you were with me that day
+and both those nights.  I had never been there before in my life, and
+never afterward, till the joint debate with Douglas in 1858.  It was
+in 1854 when I spoke in some hall there, and after the speaking, you,
+with others, took me to an oyster-saloon, passed an hour there, and
+you walked with me to, and parted with me at, the Quincy House, quite
+late at night.  I left by stage for Naples before daylight in the
+morning, having come in by the same route after dark the evening,
+previous to the speaking, when I found you waiting at the Quincy
+House to meet me.  A few days after I was there, Richardson, as I
+understood, started this same story about my having been in a
+Know-Nothing lodge.  When I heard of the charge, as I did soon after;
+I taxed my recollection for some incident which could have suggested
+it; and I remembered that on parting with you the last night I went
+to the office of the hotel to take my stage-passage for the morning,
+was told that no stage-office for that line was kept there, and that
+I must see the driver before retiring, to insure his calling for me
+in the morning; and a servant was sent with me to find the driver,
+who, after taking me a square or two, stopped me, and stepped perhaps
+a dozen steps farther, and in my hearing called to some one, who
+answered him, apparently from the upper part of a building, and
+promised to call with the stage for me at the Quincy House.
+I returned, and went to bed, and before day the stage called and took
+me. This is all.
+
+That I never was in a Know-Nothing lodge in Quincy, I should expect
+could be easily proved by respectable men who were always in the
+lodges and never saw me there.  An affidavit of one or two such would
+put the matter at rest.
+
+And now a word of caution. Our adversaries think they can gain a
+point if they could force me to openly deny the charge, by which some
+degree of offence would be given to the Americans.  For this reason
+it must not publicly appear that I am paying any attention to the
+charge.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO JOHN B. FRY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, August 15, 1860.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 9th, inclosing the letter of HON. John
+Minor Botts, was duly received.  The latter is herewith returned
+according to your request.  It contains one of the many assurances I
+receive from the South, that in no probable event will there be any
+very formidable effort to break up the Union.  The people of the
+South have too much of good sense and good temper to attempt the ruin
+of the government rather than see it administered as it was
+administered by the men who made it.  At least so I hope and believe.
+I thank you both for your own letter and a sight of that of Mr.
+Botts.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THURLOW WEED
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL. August 17 1860.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 13th was received this morning.  Douglas
+is managing the Bell element with great adroitness.  He had his men
+in Kentucky to vote for the Bell candidate, producing a result which
+has badly alarmed and damaged Breckenridge, and at the same time has
+induced the Bell men to suppose that Bell will certainly be
+President, if they can keep a few of the Northern States away from us
+by throwing them to Douglas.  But you, better than I, understand all
+this.
+
+I think there will be the most extraordinary effort ever made to
+carry New York for Douglas.  You and all others who write me from
+your State think the effort cannot succeed, and I hope you are right.
+Still, it will require close watching and great efforts on the other
+side.
+
+Herewith I send you a copy of a letter written at New York, which
+sufficiently explains itself, and which may or may not give you a
+valuable hint.  You have seen that Bell tickets have been put on the
+track both here and in Indiana.  In both cases the object has been, I
+think, the same as the Hunt movement in New York--to throw States to
+Douglas.  In our State, we know the thing is engineered by Douglas
+men, and we do not believe they can make a great deal out of it.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SLOW TO LISTEN TO CRIMINATIONS
+
+TO HON. JOHN ______________
+
+(Private.)
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., Aug.  31, 1860
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 27th is duly received.  It consists almost
+exclusively of a historical detail of some local troubles, among some
+of our friends in Pennsylvania; and I suppose its object is to guard
+me against forming a prejudice against Mr. McC___________, I have not
+heard near so much upon that subject as you probably suppose; and I
+am slow to listen to criminations among friends, and never expose
+their quarrels on either side.  My sincere wish is that both sides
+will allow bygones to be bygones, and look to the present and future
+only.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO HANNIBAL HAMLIN
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, September 4, 1860
+
+HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I am annoyed some by a letter from a friend in Chicago,
+in which the following passage occurs: "Hamlin has written Colfax
+that two members of Congress will, he fears, be lost in Maine, the
+first and sixth districts; and that Washburne's majority for governor
+will not exceed six thousand."
+
+I had heard something like this six weeks ago, but had been assured
+since that it was not so.  Your secretary of state,--Mr. Smith, I
+think,--whom you introduced to me by letter, gave this assurance;
+more recently, Mr. Fessenden, our candidate for Congress in one of
+those districts, wrote a relative here that his election was sure by
+at least five thousand, and that Washburne's majority would be from
+14,000 to 17,000; and still later, Mr. Fogg, of New Hampshire, now at
+New York serving on a national committee, wrote me that we were
+having a desperate fight in Maine, which would end in a splendid
+victory for us.
+
+Such a result as you seem to have predicted in Maine, in your letter
+to Colfax, would, I fear, put us on the down-hill track, lose us the
+State elections in Pennsylvania and Indiana, and probably ruin us on
+the main turn in November.
+
+You must not allow it.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. B. WASHBURNE.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS,
+September 9, 1860
+
+HON. E. B. WASHBURNE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR: Yours of the 5th was received last evening.  I was right
+glad to see it.  It contains the freshest "posting" which I now have.
+It relieved me some from a little anxiety I had about Maine.  Jo
+Medill, on August 3oth, wrote me that Colfax had a letter from Mr.
+Hamlin saying we were in great danger of losing two members of
+Congress in Maine, and that your brother would not have exceeding six
+thousand majority for Governor.  I addressed you at once, at Galena,
+asking for your latest information.  As you are at Washington, that
+letter you will receive some time after the Maine election.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. H. HERNDON.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., OCTOBER 10, 1860
+
+DEAR WILLIAM:--I cannot give you details, but it is entirely certain
+that Pennsylvania and Indiana have gone Republican very largely.
+Pennsylvania 25,000, and Indiana 5000 to 10,000.  Ohio of course is
+safe.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO L. M. BOND.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., October 15, 1860
+
+L. MONTGOMERY BOND, Esq.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:     I certainly am in no temper and have no purpose to
+embitter the feelings of the South, but whether I am inclined to such
+a course as would in fact embitter their feelings you can better
+judge by my published speeches than by anything I would say in a
+short letter if I were inclined now, as I am not, to define my
+position anew.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER SUGGESTING A BEARD
+
+TO MISS GRACE BEDELL, RIPLEY N.Y.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., October 19, 1860
+
+MISS GRACE BEDELL.
+
+MY DEAR LITTLE MISS:--Your very agreeable letter of the 15th is
+received.  I regret the necessity of saying I have no daughter.  I
+have three sons--one seventeen, one nine, and one seven.  They with
+their mother constitute my whole family.  As to the whiskers, as I
+have never worn any, do you not think that people would call it a
+piece of silly affectation were I to begin wearing them now?
+
+I am your true friend and sincere well-wisher,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+EARLY INFORMATION ON ARMY DEFECTION IN SOUTH
+
+TO D. HUNTER.
+
+(Private and Confidential.)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, October 26, 1860
+
+MAJOR DAVID HUNTER
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your very kind letter of the 20th was duly received,
+for which please accept my thanks.  I have another letter, from a
+writer unknown to me, saying the officers of the army at Fort Kearny
+have determined in case of Republican success at the approaching
+Presidential election, to take themselves, and the arms at that
+point, south, for the purpose of resistance to the government.  While
+I think there are many chances to one that this is a humbug, it
+occurs to me that any real movement of this sort in the Army would
+leak out and become known to you.  In such case, if it would not be
+unprofessional or dishonorable (of which you are to be judge), I
+shall be much obliged if you will apprise me of it.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO HANNIBAL HAMLIN
+
+(Confidential.)
+SPRINGFIELD. ILLINOIS, November 8, 1860
+
+HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I am anxious for a personal interview with you at as
+early a day as possible.  Can you, without much inconvenience, meet
+me at Chicago? If you can, please name as early a day as you
+conveniently can, and telegraph me, unless there be sufficient time
+before the day named to communicate by mail.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO SAMUEL HAYCRAFT.
+
+(Private and Confidential.)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., Nov.13, 1860
+
+HON. SAMUEL HAYCRAFT.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 9th is just received.  I can only answer
+briefly.  Rest fully assured that the good people of the South who
+will put themselves in the same temper and mood towards me which you
+do will find no cause to complain of me.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REMARKS AT THE MEETING AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS
+TO CELEBRATE LINCOLN'S ELECTION,
+
+NOVEMBER 20, 1860
+
+FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS:--Please excuse me on this occasion from
+making a speech.  I thank you in common with all those who have
+thought fit by their votes to indorse the Republican cause.  I
+rejoice with you in the success which has thus far attended that
+cause.  Yet in all our rejoicings let us neither express nor cherish
+any hard feelings toward any citizen who by his vote has differed
+with us.  Let us at all times remember that all American citizens are
+brothers of a common country, and should dwell together in the bonds
+of fraternal feeling.  Let me again beg you to accept my thanks, and
+to excuse me from further speaking at this time.
+
+
+
+
+TO ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL.  NOV. 30, 1860
+
+HON. A. H. STEPHENS.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I have read in the newspapers your speech recently
+delivered (I think) before the Georgia Legislature, or its assembled
+members.  If you have revised it, as is probable, I shall be much
+obliged if you will send me a copy.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO HANNIBAL HAMLIN
+
+(Private)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, December 8, 1860
+
+HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 4th was duly received.  The inclosed to
+Governor Seward covers two notes to him, copies of which you find
+open for your inspection.  Consult with Judge Trumbull; and if you
+and he see no reason to the contrary, deliver the letter to Governor
+Seward at once.  If you see reason to the contrary write me at once.
+
+I have an intimation that Governor Banks would yet accept a place in
+the Cabinet.  Please ascertain and write me how this is,
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+BLOCKING "COMPROMISE" ON SLAVERY ISSUE
+
+TO E. B. WASHBURNE
+
+(Private and Confidential.)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., December 13, 1860
+
+HON. E. B. WASHBURNE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your long letter received.  Prevent, as far as
+possible, any of our friends from demoralizing themselves and our
+cause by entertaining propositions for compromise of any sort on
+"slavery extension." There is no possible compromise upon it but
+which puts us under again, and leaves all our work to do over again.
+Whether it be a Missouri line or Eli Thayer's popular sovereignty, it
+is all the same.  Let either be done, and immediately filibustering
+and extending slavery recommences.  On that point hold firm, as with
+a chain of steel.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+OPINION ON SECESSION
+
+TO THURLOW WEED
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, DECEMBER 17, 1860
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 11th was received two days ago.  Should
+the convocation of governors of which you speak seem desirous to know
+my views on the present aspect of things, tell them you judge from my
+speeches that I will be inflexible on the territorial question; but I
+probably think either the Missouri line extended, or Douglas's and
+Eli Thayer's popular sovereignty would lose us everything we gain by
+the election; that filibustering for all south of us and making slave
+States of it would follow in spite of us, in either case; also that I
+probably think all opposition, real and apparent, to the fugitive
+slave clause of the Constitution ought to be withdrawn.
+
+I believe you can pretend to find but little, if anything, in my
+speeches, about secession.  But my opinion is that no State can in
+any way lawfully get out of the Union without the consent of the
+others; and that it is the duty of the President and other government
+functionaries to run the machine as it is.
+
+Truly yours,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SOME FORTS SURRENDERED TO THE SOUTH
+
+TO E. B. WASHBURNE
+
+(Confidential)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, December 21, 1860
+
+HON. E. B. WASHBURNE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Last night I received your letter giving an account of
+your interview with General Scott, and for which I thank you.  Please
+present my respects to the General, and tell him, confidentially, I
+shall be obliged to him to be as well prepared as he can to either
+hold or retake the forts, as the case may require, at and after the
+inauguration.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO A. H. STEPHENS.
+
+(For your own eye only)
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, DECEMBER 22, 1860
+
+HON. ALEXANDER STEVENS
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your obliging answer to my short note is just received,
+and for which please accept my thanks.  I fully appreciate the
+present peril the country is in, and the weight of responsibility on
+me.  Do the people of the South really entertain fear that a
+Republican administration would, directly or indirectly, interfere
+with the slaves, or with them about the slaves? If they do, I wish to
+assure you, as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that
+there is no cause for such fears.  The South would be in no more
+danger in this respect than it was in the days of Washington.  I
+suppose, however, this does not meet the case.  You think slavery is
+right and ought to be extended, while we think it is wrong and ought
+to be restricted.  That, I suppose, is the rub.  It certainly is the
+only substantial difference between us.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SUPPORT OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE CLAUSE
+
+MEMORANDUM
+
+December [22?], 1860
+
+Resolved:
+That the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution ought to be
+enforced by a law of Congress, with efficient provisions for that
+object, not obliging private persons to assist in its execution, but
+punishing all who resist it, and with the usual safeguards to
+liberty, securing free men against being surrendered as slaves.
+
+That all State laws, if there be such, really or apparently in
+conflict with such law of Congress, ought to be repealed; and no
+opposition to the execution of such law of Congress ought to be made.
+
+That the Federal Union must be preserved.
+
+
+Prepared for the consideration of the Republican members of the
+Senate Committee of Thirteen.
+
+
+
+
+TO D. HUNTER.
+
+(Confidential.)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS December 22, 1860
+
+MAJOR DAVID HUNTER.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I am much obliged by the receipt of yours of the 18th.
+The most we can do now is to watch events, and be as well prepared as
+possible for any turn things may take.  If the forts fall, my
+judgment is that they are to be retaken.  When I shall determine
+definitely my time of starting to Washington, I will notify you.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO I. N. MORRIS
+
+(Confidential.)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., Dec 24, 1860
+
+HON. I. N. MORRIS.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Without supposing that you and I are any nearer
+together, politically, than heretofore, allow me to tender you my
+sincere thanks for your Union resolution, expressive of views upon
+which we never were, and, I trust, never will be at variance.
+
+Yours very truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ATTEMPT TO FORM A COALITION CABINET
+
+TO HANNIBAL HAMLIN
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, December 14, 1860.
+
+HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I need a man of Democratic antecedents from New
+England.  I cannot get a fair share of that element in without.  This
+stands in the way of Mr. Adams.  I think of Governor Banks, Mr.
+Welles, and Mr. Tuck.  Which of them do the New England delegation
+prefer?  Or shall I decide for myself?
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+1861
+
+
+TO WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
+
+(Private.)
+SPRINGFIELD. ILL., January 3, 1861.
+
+HON. W. H. SEWARD.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours without signature was received last night.  I have
+been considering your suggestions as to my reaching Washington
+somewhat earlier than is usual.  It seems to me the inauguration is
+not the most dangerous point for us.  Our adversaries have us now
+clearly at disadvantage on the second Wednesday of February, when the
+votes should be officially counted.  If the two houses refuse to meet
+at all, or meet without a quorum of each, where shall we be?  I do
+not think that this counting is constitutionally essential to the
+election, but how are we to proceed in the absence of it? In view of
+this, I think it is best for me not to attempt appearing in
+Washington till the result of that ceremony is known.
+
+It certainly would be of some advantage if you could know who are to
+be at the heads of the War and Navy departments, but until I can
+ascertain definitely whether I can get any suitable men from the
+South, and who, and how many, I can not well decide.  As yet, I have
+no word from Mr. Gilmer in answer to my request for an interview with
+him.  I look for something on the subject, through you, before long.
+Yours very truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. H. SEWARD.
+(Private.)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., January 12, 1861
+
+HON. W. H. SEWARD.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 8th received.  I still hope Mr. Gilmer
+will, on a fair understanding with us, consent to take a place in the
+Cabinet.  The preference for him over Mr. Hunt or Mr. Gentry is that,
+up to date--he has a living position in the South, while they have
+not.  He is only better than Winter Davis in that he is farther
+south.   I fear, if we could get, we could not safely take more than
+one such man--that is, not more than one who opposed us in the
+election--the danger being to lose the confidence of our own friends.
+Your selection for the State Department having become public, I am
+happy to find scarcely any objection to it.  I shall have trouble
+with every other Northern Cabinet appointment--so much so that I
+shall have to defer them as long as possible to avoid being teased
+into insanity, to make changes.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+TO E. D. MORGAN
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL. FEB. 4, 1861
+
+SIR:--Your letter of the 30th ult. inviting me, on behalf of the
+Legislature of New York, to pass through that State on my way to
+Washington, and tendering me the hospitalities of her authorities and
+people, has been duly received.  With the feelings of deep gratitude
+to you and them for this testimonial of regard and esteem I beg you
+to notify them that I accept the invitation so kindly tendered.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+P.S.--Please let the ceremonies be only such as to take the least
+time possible.          A. L.
+
+
+
+
+PATRONAGE CLAIMS
+
+TO THURLOW WEED
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., February 4, 1861
+
+DEAR SIR:--I have both your letter to myself and that to Judge Davis,
+in relation to a certain gentleman in your State claiming to dispense
+patronage in my name, and also to be authorized to use my name to
+advance the chances of Mr. Greeley for an election to the United
+States Senate.
+
+It is very strange that such things should be said by any one.  The
+gentleman you mention did speak to me of Mr. Greeley in connection
+with the senatorial election, and I replied in terms of kindness
+toward Mr. Greeley, which I really feel, but always with an expressed
+protest that my name must not be used in the senatorial election in
+favor of or against any one.  Any other representation of me is a
+misrepresentation.
+
+As to the matter of dispensing patronage, it perhaps will surprise
+you to learn that I have information that you claim to have my
+authority to arrange that matter in New York.  I do not believe you
+have so claimed; but still so some men say.  On that subject you know
+all I have said to you is "justice to all," and I have said nothing
+more particular to any one.  I say this to reassure you that I have
+not changed my position.
+
+In the hope, however, that you will not use my name in the matter, I
+am,
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+FAREWELL ADDRESS AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS,
+FEBRUARY 11, 1861
+
+MY FRIENDS:--One who has never been placed in a like position cannot
+understand my feelings at this hour, nor the oppressive sadness I
+feel at this parting.  For more than twenty-five years I have lived
+among you, and during all that time I have received nothing but
+kindness at your hands.  Here the most cherished ties of earth were
+assumed.  Here my children were born, and here one of them lies
+buried.  To you, my friends, I owe all that I have, all that I am.
+All the strange checkered past seems to crowd upon my mind.  To-day I
+leave you.  I go to assume a task more difficult than that which
+devolved upon General Washington.  Unless the great God who assisted
+him shall be with and aid me I cannot prevail; but if the same
+almighty arm that directed and protected him shall guide and support
+me I shall not fail; I shall succeed.  Let us pray that the God of
+our fathers may not forsake us now.  To Him I commend you all.
+Permit me to ask that with equal sincerity and faith you will all
+invoke His wisdom and goodness for me.
+
+With these words I must leave you; for how long I know not.  Friends,
+one and all, I must now wish you an affectionate farewell.
+
+
+
+
+REMARKS AT TOLONO, ILLINOIS, FEBRUARY 11, 1861
+
+I am leaving you on an errand of national importance, attended, as
+you are aware, with considerable difficulties.   Let us believe, as
+some poet has expressed it, "Behind the cloud the sun is still
+shining." I bid you an affectionate farewell.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO ADDRESS OF WELCOME, INDIANAPOLIS,
+
+INDIANA, FEBRUARY 11, 1861
+
+GOVERNOR MORTON AND FELLOW CITIZENS
+OF THE STATE OF INDIANA:
+
+Most heartily do I thank you for this magnificent reception, and
+while I cannot take to myself any share of the compliment thus paid,
+more than that which pertains to a mere instrument, an accidental
+instrument, perhaps I should say, of a great cause, I yet must look
+upon it as a most magnificent reception, and as such most heartily do
+thank you for it.  You have been pleased to address yourself to me
+chiefly in behalf of this glorious Union in which we live, in all of
+which you have my hearty sympathy, and, as far as may be within my
+power, will have, one and inseparable, my hearty consideration.
+While I do not expect, upon this occasion, or until I get to
+Washington, to attempt any lengthy speech, I will only say to the
+salvation of the Union there needs but one single thing--the hearts
+of a people like yours.
+
+The people--when they rise in mass in behalf of the Union and the
+liberties of their country, truly may it be said, "The gates of hell
+cannot prevail against them." In all trying positions in which I
+shall be
+placed--and, doubtless, I shall be placed in many such--my reliance
+will be placed upon you and the people of the United States; and I
+wish you to remember, now and forever, that it is your business, and
+not mine; that if the union of these States and the liberties of this
+people shall be lost, it is but little to any one man of fifty-two
+years of age, but a great deal to the thirty millions of people who
+inhabit these United States, and to their posterity in all coming
+time.  It is your business to rise up and preserve the Union and
+liberty for yourselves, and not for me.
+
+I desire they should be constitutionally performed.  I, as already
+intimated, am but an accidental instrument, temporary, and to serve
+but for a limited time; and I appeal to you again to constantly bear
+in mind that with you, and not with politicians, not with Presidents,
+not with office-seekers, but with you is the question, Shall the
+Union and shall the liberties of this country be preserved to the
+latest generations?
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF INDIANA, AT INDIANAPOLIS,
+
+FEBRUARY 12, 1861
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE STATE OF INDIANA:--I am here to thank you much
+for this magnificent welcome, and still more for the generous support
+given by your State to that political cause which I think is the true
+and just cause of the whole country and the whole world.
+
+Solomon says there is "a time to keep silence," and when men wrangle
+by the mouth with no certainty that they mean the same thing while
+using the same word, it perhaps were as well if they would keep
+silence.
+
+The words "coercion" and "invasion" are much used in these days, and
+often with some temper and hot blood.  Let us make sure, if we can,
+the meaning of those who use them.  Let us get the exact definitions
+of these words, not from dictionaries, but from the men themselves,
+who certainly deprecate the things they would represent by the use of
+the words.
+
+What, then, is coercion? What is invasion? Would the marching of an
+army into South Carolina, without the consent of her people, and with
+hostile intent toward them, be invasion? I certainly think it would,
+and it would be coercion also, if the South Carolinians were forced
+to submit.  But if the United States should merely hold and retake
+its own forts and other property, and collect the duties on foreign
+importations, or even withhold the mails from places where they were
+habitually violated, would any or all of these things be invasion or
+coercion? Do our professed lovers of the Union, who spitefully
+resolve that they will resist coercion and invasion, understand that
+such things as these, on the part of the United States, would be
+coercion or invasion of a State? If so, their idea of means to
+preserve the object of their great affection would seem to be
+exceedingly thin and airy.  If sick, the little pills of the
+homoeopathist would be much too large for it to swallow.  In their
+view, the Union, as a family relation, would seem to be no regular
+marriage, but rather a sort of "free-love" arrangement, to be
+maintained on passional attraction.
+
+By the way, in what consists the special sacredness of a State? I
+speak not of the position assigned to a State in the Union by the
+Constitution, for that is a bond we all recognize.  That position,
+however, a State cannot carry out of the Union with it.  I speak of
+that assumed primary right of a State to rule all which is less than
+itself, and to ruin all which is larger than itself.  If a State and
+a county, in a given case, should be equal in number of inhabitants,
+in what, as a matter of principle, is the State better than the
+county? Would an exchange of name be an exchange of rights? Upon what
+principle, upon what rightful principle, may a State, being no more
+than one fiftieth part of the nation in soil and population, break up
+the nation, and then coerce a proportionably large subdivision of
+itself in the most arbitrary way? What mysterious right to play
+tyrant is conferred on a district of country, with its people, by
+merely calling it a State? Fellow-citizens, I am not asserting
+anything.  I am merely asking questions for you to consider.  And now
+allow me to bid you farewell.
+
+
+
+
+INTENTIONS TOWARD THE SOUTH
+
+ADDRESS TO THE MAYOR AND CITIZENS OF
+
+CINCINNATI, OHIO, FEBRUARY 12, 1861
+
+Mr. MAYOR, AND GENTLEMEN:--Twenty-four hours ago, at the capital of
+Indiana, I said to myself, "I have never seen so many people
+assembled together in winter weather." I am no longer able to say
+that.  But it is what might reasonably have been expected--that this
+great city of Cincinnati would thus acquit herself on such an
+occasion.  My friends, I am entirely overwhelmed by the magnificence
+of the reception which has been given, I will not say to me, but to
+the President-elect of the United States of America.  Most heartily
+do I thank you, one and all, for it.
+
+I have spoken but once before this in Cincinnati.  That was a year
+previous to the late Presidential election.  On that occasion, in a
+playful manner, but with sincere words, I addressed much of what I
+said to the Kentuckians.  I gave my opinion that we, as Republicans,
+would ultimately beat them as Democrats, but that they could postpone
+that result longer by nominating Senator Douglas for the Presidency
+than they could by any other way.  They did not, in any true sense of
+the word, nominate Mr. Douglas, and the result has come certainly as
+soon as ever I expected.  I also told them how I expected they would
+be treated after they should have been beaten, and I now wish to call
+their attention to what I then said upon that subject.  I then said:
+
+"When we do as we say, beat you, you perhaps want to know what we
+will do with you.  I will tell you, as far as I am authorized to
+speak for the Opposition, what we mean to do with you.  We mean to
+treat you, as near as we possibly can, as Washington, Jefferson, and
+Madison treated you.  We mean to leave you alone, and in no way to
+interfere with your institutions; to abide by all and every
+compromise of the Constitution, and, in a word, coming back to the
+original proposition, to treat you so far as degenerate men, if we
+have degenerated, may, according to the example of those noble
+fathers, Washington, Jefferson, and Madison.
+
+"We mean to remember that you are as good as we; that there is no
+difference between us other than the difference of circumstances.  We
+mean to recognize and bear in mind always that you have as good
+hearts in your bosoms as other people, or as we claim to have, and
+treat you accordingly."
+
+Fellow-citizens of Kentucky--friends and brethren, may I call you in
+my new position?--I see no occasion and feel no inclination to
+retract a word of this.  If it shall not be made good, be assured the
+fault shall not be mine.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE GERMAN CLUB OF CINCINNATI, OHIO,
+
+FEBRUARY 12, 1861
+
+
+Mr. CHAIRMAN:--I thank you and those whom you represent for the
+compliment you have paid me by tendering me this address.  In so far
+as there is an allusion to our present national difficulties, which
+expresses, as you have said, the views of the gentlemen present, I
+shall have to beg pardon for not entering fully upon the questions
+which the address you have now read suggests.
+
+I deem it my duty--a duty which I owe to my constituents--to you,
+gentlemen, that I should wait until the last moment for a development
+of the present national difficulties before I express myself
+decidedly as to what course I shall pursue.  I hope, then, not to be
+false to anything that you have expected of me.
+
+I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, that the working men are the basis of
+all governments, for the plain reason that they are all the more
+numerous, and as you added that those were the sentiments of the
+gentlemen present, representing not only the working class, but
+citizens of other callings than those of the mechanic, I am happy to
+concur with you in these sentiments, not only of the native-born
+citizens, but also of the Germans and foreigners from other
+countries.
+
+Mr. Chairman, I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve
+not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating the
+condition of mankind; and therefore, without entering upon the
+details of the question, I will simply say that I am for those means
+which will give the greatest good to the greatest number.
+
+In regard to the Homestead law, I have to say that, in so far as the
+government lands can be disposed of, I am in favor of cutting up the
+wild lands into parcels, so that every poor man may have a home.
+
+In regard to the Germans and foreigners, I esteem them no better than
+other people, nor any worse.  It is not my nature, when I see a
+people borne down by the weight of their shackles--the oppression of
+tyranny--to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater
+burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke than
+to add anything that would tend to crush them.
+
+Inasmuch as our own country is extensive and new, and the countries
+of Europe are densely populated, if there are any abroad who desire
+to make this the land of their adoption, it is not in my heart to
+throw aught in their way to prevent them from coming to the United
+States.
+
+Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I will bid you an affectionate farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF OHIO AT COLUMBUS
+FEBRUARY 13, 1861
+
+Mr. PRESIDENT AND Mr. SPEAKER, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY
+OF OHIO:--It is true, as has been said by the president of the
+Senate, that very great responsibility rests upon me in the position
+to which the votes of the American people have called me.  I am
+deeply sensible of that weighty responsibility.  I cannot but know
+what you all know, that without a name, perhaps without a reason why
+I should have a name, there has fallen upon me a task such as did not
+rest even upon the Father of his Country; and so feeling, I can turn
+and look for that support without which it will be impossible for me
+to perform that great task.  I turn, then, and look to the American
+people and to that God who has never forsaken them.  Allusion has
+been made to the interest felt in relation to the policy of the new
+administration.  In this I have received from some a degree of credit
+for having kept silence, and from others some deprecation.  I still
+think that I was right.
+
+In the varying and repeatedly shifting scenes of the present, and
+without a precedent which could enable me to judge by the past, it
+has seemed fitting that before speaking upon the difficulties of the
+country I should have gained a view of the whole field, being at
+liberty to modify and change the course of policy as future events
+may make a change necessary.
+
+I have not maintained silence from any want of real anxiety.  It is a
+good thing that there is no more than anxiety, for there is nothing
+going wrong.  It is a consoling circumstance that when we look out
+there is nothing that really hurts anybody.  We entertain different
+views upon political questions, but nobody is suffering anything.
+This is a most consoling circumstance, and from it we may conclude
+that all we want is time, patience, and a reliance on that God who
+has never forsaken this people.
+
+Fellow-citizens, what I have said I have said altogether
+extemporaneously, and I will now come to a close.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT STEUBENVILLE, OHIO,
+
+FEBRUARY 14, 1861
+
+I fear that the great confidence placed in my ability is unfounded.
+Indeed, I am sure it is.  Encompassed by vast difficulties as I am,
+nothing shall be wanting on my part, if sustained by God and the
+American people.  I believe the devotion to the Constitution is
+equally great on both sides of the river.  It is only the different
+understanding of that instrument that causes difficulty.  The only
+dispute on both sides is, 'What are their rights?" If the majority
+should not rule, who would be the judge? Where is such a judge to be
+found? We should all be bound by the majority of the American people;
+if not, then the minority must control.  Would that be right? Would
+it be just or generous? Assuredly not.  I reiterate that the majority
+should rule.  If I adopt a wrong policy, the opportunity for
+condemnation will occur in four years' time.  Then I can be turned
+out, and a better man with better views put in my place.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
+FEBRUARY 15, 1861
+
+I most cordially thank his Honor Mayor Wilson, and the citizens of
+Pittsburg generally, for their flattering reception.  I am the more
+grateful because I know that it is not given to me alone, but to the
+cause I represent, which clearly proves to me their good-will, and
+that sincere feeling is at the bottom of it.  And here I may remark
+that in every short address I have made to the people, in every crowd
+through which I have passed of late, some allusion has been made to
+the present distracted condition of the country.  It is natural to
+expect that I should say something on this subject; but to touch upon
+it at all would involve an elaborate discussion of a great many
+questions and circumstances, requiring more time than I can at
+present command, and would, perhaps, unnecessarily commit me upon
+matters which have not yet fully developed themselves.  The condition
+of the country is an extraordinary one, and fills the mind of every
+patriot with anxiety.  It is my intention to give this subject all
+the consideration I possibly can before specially deciding in regard
+to it, so that when I do speak it may be as nearly right as possible.
+When I do speak I hope I may say nothing in opposition to the spirit
+of the Constitution, contrary to the integrity of the Union, or which
+will prove inimical to the liberties of the people, or to the peace
+of the whole country.  And furthermore, when the time arrives for me
+to speak on this great subject, I hope I may say nothing to
+disappoint the people generally throughout the country, especially if
+the expectation has been based upon anything which I may have
+heretofore said.  Notwithstanding the troubles across the river [the
+speaker pointing southwardly across the Monongahela, and smiling],
+there is no crisis but an artificial one.  What is there now to
+warrant the condition of affairs presented by our friends over the
+river? Take even their own view of the questions involved, and there
+is nothing to justify the course they are pursuing.  I repeat, then,
+there is no crisis, excepting such a one as may be gotten up at any
+time by turbulent men aided by designing politicians, My advice to
+them, under such circumstances, is to keep cool.  If the great
+American people only keep their temper on both sides of the line, the
+troubles will come to an end, and the question which now distracts
+the country will be settled, just as surely as all other difficulties
+of a like character which have originated in this government have
+been adjusted.  Let the people on both sides keep their
+self-possession, and just as other clouds have cleared away in due
+time, so will this great nation continue to prosper as heretofore.
+But, fellow-citizens, I have spoken longer on this subject than I
+intended at the outset.
+
+It is often said that the tariff is the specialty of Pennsylvania.
+Assuming that direct taxation is not to be adopted, the tariff
+question must be as durable as the government itself.   It is a
+question of national housekeeping.   It is to the government what
+replenishing the meal-tub is to the family.  Every varying
+circumstances will require frequent modifications as to the amount
+needed and the sources of supply.  So far there is little difference
+of opinion among the people.  It is as to whether, and how far,
+duties on imports shall be adjusted to favor home production in the
+home market, that controversy begins.  One party insists that such
+adjustment oppresses one class for the advantage of another; while
+the other party argues that, with all its incidents, in the long run
+all classes are benefited.  In the Chicago platform there is a plank
+upon this subject which should be a general law to the incoming
+administration.  We should do neither more nor less than we gave the
+people reason to believe we would when they gave us their votes.
+Permit me, fellow-citizens, to read the tariff plank of the Chicago
+platform, or rather have it read in your hearing by one who has
+younger eyes.
+[Mr. Lincoln's private secretary then read Section 12 of the Chicago
+platform, as follows:
+
+"That, while providing revenue for the support of the General
+Government by duties upon imports, sound policy requires such an
+adjustment of these imposts as will encourage the development of the
+industrial interest of the whole country; and we commend that policy
+of national exchanges which secures to working-men liberal wages, to
+agriculture remunerating prices, to mechanics and manufacturers
+adequate return for their skill, labor, and enterprise, and to the
+nation commercial prosperity and independence."
+
+As with all general propositions, doubtless, there will be shades of
+difference in construing this.  I have by no means a thoroughly
+matured judgment upon this subject, especially as to details; some
+general ideas are about all.  I have long thought it would be to our
+advantage to produce any necessary article at home which can be made
+of as good quality and with as little labor at home as abroad, at
+least by the difference of the carrying from abroad.  In such case
+the carrying is demonstrably a dead loss of labor.  For instance,
+labor being the true standard of value, is it not plain that if equal
+labor get a bar of railroad iron out of a mine in England and another
+out of a mine in Pennsylvania, each can be laid down in a track at
+home cheaper than they could exchange countries, at least by the
+carriage? If there be a present cause why one can be both made and
+carried cheaper in money price than the other can be made without
+carrying, that cause is an unnatural and injurious one, and ought
+gradually, if not rapidly, to be removed.  The condition of the
+treasury at this time would seem to render an early revision of the
+tariff indispensable.  The Morrill [tariff] bill, now pending before
+Congress, may or may not become a law.  I am not posted as to its
+particular provisions, but if they are generally satisfactory, and
+the bill shall now pass, there will be an end for the present.  If,
+however, it shall not pass, I suppose the whole subject will be one
+of the most pressing and important for the next Congress.  By the
+Constitution, the executive may recommend measures which he may think
+proper, and he may veto those he thinks improper, and it is supposed
+that he may add to these certain indirect influences to affect the
+action of Congress.  My political education strongly inclines me
+against a very free use of any of these means by the executive to
+control the legislation of the country.  As a rule, I think it better
+that Congress should originate as well as perfect its measures
+without external bias.  I therefore would rather recommend to every
+gentleman who knows he is to be a member of the next Congress to take
+an enlarged view, and post himself thoroughly, so as to contribute
+his part to such an adjustment of the tariff as shall produce a
+sufficient revenue, and in its other bearings, so far as possible, be
+just and equal to all sections of the country and classes of the
+people.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT CLEVELAND, OHIO,
+
+FEBRUARY 15, 1861
+
+Mr. CHAIRMAN AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF CLEVELAND:--We have been marching
+about two miles through snow, rain, and deep mud.   The large numbers
+that have turned out under these circumstances testify that you are
+in earnest about something or other.  But do I think so meanly of you
+as to suppose that that earnestness is about me personally? I would
+be doing you an injustice to suppose you did.  You have assembled to
+testify your respect for the Union, the Constitution, and the laws;
+and here let me say that it is with you, the people, to advance the
+great cause of the Union and the Constitution, and not with any one
+man.  It rests with you alone.  This fact is strongly impressed upon
+my mind at present.  In a community like this, whose appearance
+testifies to their intelligence, I am convinced that the cause of
+liberty and the Union can never be in danger.  Frequent allusion is
+made to the excitement at present existing in our national politics,
+and it is as well that I should also allude to it here.  I think that
+there is no occasion for any excitement.  'The crisis, as it is
+called, is altogether an artificial crisis.  In all parts of the
+nation there are differences of opinion on politics.  There are
+differences of opinion even here.  You did not all vote for the
+person who now addresses you.  What is happening now will not hurt
+those who are farther away from here.  Have they not all their rights
+now as they ever have had? Do they not have their fugitive slaves
+returned now as ever? Have they not the same Constitution that they
+have lived under for seventy-odd years? Have they not a position as
+citizens of this common country, and have we any power to change that
+position? What, then, is the matter with them? Why all this
+excitement? Why all these complaints?
+
+As I said before, this crisis is all artificial! It has no foundation
+in facts.  It is not argued up, as the saying is, and cannot,
+therefore, be argued down.  Let it alone and it will go down of
+itself.
+
+[Mr. Lincoln then said that they must be content with a few words
+from him, as he was tired, etc.  Having been given to understand that
+the crowd was not all Republican, but consisted of men of all
+parties, he continued:]
+
+This is as it should be.  If Judge Douglas had been elected and had
+been here on his way to Washington, as I am to-night, the Republicans
+should have joined his supporters in welcoming him, just as his
+friends have joined with mine tonight.  If all do not join now to
+save the good old ship of the Union this voyage, nobody will have a
+chance to pilot her on another voyage.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT BUFFALO, NEW YORK,
+FEBRUARY 16, 1861
+
+Mr. MAYOR AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF BUFFALO AND THE STATE OF NEW YORK:--
+I am here to thank you briefly for this grand reception given to me,
+not personally, but as the representative of our great and beloved
+country.  Your worthy mayor has been pleased to mention, in his
+address to me, the fortunate and agreeable journey which I have had
+from home, on my rather circuitous route to the Federal capital.  I
+am very happy that he was enabled in truth to congratulate myself and
+company on that fact.  It is true we have had nothing thus far.  to
+mar the pleasure of the trip.  We have not been met alone by those
+who assisted in giving the election to me--I say not alone by them,
+but by the whole population of the country through which we have
+passed.  This is as it should be.  Had the election fallen to any
+other of the distinguished candidates instead of myself, under the
+peculiar circumstances, to say the least, it would have been proper
+for all citizens to have greeted him as you now greet me.  It is an
+evidence of the devotion of the whole people to the Constitution, the
+Union, and the perpetuity of the liberties of this country.  I am
+unwilling on any occasion that I should be so meanly thought of as to
+have it supposed for a moment that these demonstrations are tendered
+to me personally.  They are tendered to the country, to the
+institutions of the country, and to the perpetuity of the liberties
+of the country, for which these institutions were made and created.
+
+Your worthy mayor has thought fit to express the hope that I may be
+able to relieve the country from the present, or, I should say, the
+threatened difficulties.  I am sure I bring a heart true to the work.
+For the ability to perform it, I must trust in that Supreme Being who
+has never forsaken this favored land, through the instrumentality of
+this great and intelligent people.  Without that assistance I shall
+surely fail; with it, I cannot fail.  When we speak of threatened
+difficulties to the Country, it is natural that it should be expected
+that something should be said by myself with regard to particular
+measures.  Upon more mature reflection, however, others will agree
+with me that, when it is considered that these difficulties are
+without precedent, and have never been acted upon by any individual
+situated as I am, it is most proper I should wait and see the
+developments, and get all the light possible, so that when I do speak
+authoritatively, I may be as near right as possible.  When I shall
+speak authoritatively, I hope to say nothing inconsistent with the
+Constitution, the Union, the rights of all the States, of each State,
+and of each section of the country, and not to disappoint the
+reasonable expectations of those who have confided to me their votes.
+In this connection allow me to say that you, as a portion of the
+great American people, need only to maintain your composure, stand up
+to your sober convictions of right, to your obligations to the
+Constitution, and act in accordance with those sober convictions, and
+the clouds now on the horizon will be dispelled, and we shall have a
+bright and glorious future; and when this generation has passed away,
+tens of thousands will inhabit this country where only thousands
+inhabit it now.  I do not propose to address you at length; I have no
+voice for it.  Allow me again to thank you for this magnificent
+reception, and bid you farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT ROCHESTER, NEW YORK,
+
+FEBRUARY 18, 1861
+
+I confess myself, after having seen many large audiences since
+leaving home, overwhelmed with this vast number of faces at this hour
+of the morning.  I am not vain enough to believe that you are here
+from any wish to see me as an individual, but because I am for the
+time being the representative of the American people.  I could not,
+if I would, address you at any length.  I have not the strength, even
+if I had the time, for a speech at each of these many interviews that
+are afforded me on my way to Washington.  I appear merely to see you,
+and to let you see me, and to bid you. farewell.  I hope it will be
+understood that it is from no disinclination to oblige anybody that I
+do not address you at greater length.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT SYRACUSE, NEW YORK,
+
+FEBRUARY 18, 1861.
+
+LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--I See you have erected a very fine and
+handsome platform here for me, and I presume you expected me to speak
+from it.  If I should go upon it, you would imagine that I was about
+to deliver you a much longer speech than I am.  I wish you to
+understand that I mean no discourtesy to you by thus declining.  I
+intend discourtesy to no one.  But I wish you to understand that,
+though I am unwilling to go upon this platform, you are not at
+liberty to draw inferences concerning any other platform with which
+my name has been or is connected.  I wish you long life and
+prosperity individually, and pray that with the perpetuity of those
+institutions under which we have all so long lived and prospered, our
+happiness may be secured, our future made brilliant, and the glorious
+destiny of our country established forever.  I bid you a kind
+farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT UTICA, NEW YORK,
+
+FEBRUARY 18, 1860
+
+LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--I have no speech to make to you; and no time
+to speak in.  I appear before you that I may see you, and that you
+may see me; and I am willing to admit that so far as the ladies are
+concerned I have the best of the bargain, though I wish it to be
+understood that I do not make the same acknowledgment concerning the
+men.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MAYOR OF ALBANY, NEW YORK
+
+FEBRUARY 18, 1861.
+
+MR. MAYOR:--I can hardly appropriate to myself the flattering terms
+in which you communicate the tender of this reception, as personal to
+myself.  I most gratefully accept the hospitalities tendered to me,
+and will not detain you or the audience with any extended remarks at
+this time.  I presume that in the two or three courses through which
+I shall have to go, I shall have to repeat somewhat, and I will
+therefore only express to you my thanks for this kind reception.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO GOVERNOR MORGAN OF NEW YORK, AT ALBANY,
+
+FEBRUARY 18, 1861.
+
+GOVERNOR MORGAN:--I was pleased to receive an invitation to visit the
+capital of the great Empire State of this nation while on my way to
+the Federal capital.  I now thank you, Mr. Governor, and you, the
+people of the capital of the State of New York, for this most hearty
+and magnificent welcome.  If I am not at fault, the great Empire
+State at this time contains a larger population than did the whole of
+the United States of America at the time they achieved their national
+independence, and I was proud--to be invited to visit its capital, to
+meet its citizens, as I now have the honor to do. I am notified by
+your governor that this reception is tendered by citizens without
+distinction of party.  Because of this I accept it the more gladly.
+In this country, and in any country where freedom of thought is
+tolerated, citizens attach themselves to political parties.  It is
+but an ordinary degree of charity to attribute this act to the
+supposition that, in thus attaching themselves to the various
+parties, each man in his own judgment supposes he thereby best
+advances the interests of the whole country.  And when an election is
+past it is altogether befitting a free people, as I suppose, that,
+until the next election, they should be one people.  The reception
+you have extended me to-day is not given to me personally,--it should
+not be so,--but as the representative, for the time being, of the
+majority of the nation.  If the election had fallen to any of the
+more distinguished citizens who received the support of the people,
+this same honor should have greeted him that greets me this day, in
+testimony of the universal, unanimous devotion of the whole people to
+the Constitution, the Union, and to the perpetual liberties of
+succeeding generations in this country.
+
+I have neither the voice nor the strength to address you at any
+greater length.  I beg you will therefore accept my most grateful
+thanks for this manifest devotion--not to me, but the institutions of
+this great and glorious country.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF NEW YORK, AT ALBANY,
+
+FEBRUARY 18, 1861.
+
+MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF
+NEW YORK:--It is with feelings of great diffidence, and, I may say,
+with feelings of awe, perhaps greater than I have recently
+experienced, that I meet you here in this place.  The history of this
+great State, the renown of those great men who have stood here, and
+have spoken here, and have been heard here, all crowd around my
+fancy, and incline me to shrink from any attempt to address you.  Yet
+I have some confidence given me by the generous manner in which you
+have invited me, and by the still more generous manner in which you
+have received me, to speak further.  You have invited and received me
+without distinction of party.  I cannot for a moment suppose that
+this has been done in any considerable degree with reference to my
+personal services, but that it is done in so far as I am regarded, at
+this time, as the representative of the majesty of this great nation.
+I doubt not this is the truth, and the whole truth of the case, and
+this is as it should be.  It is much more gratifying to me that this
+reception has been given to me as the elected representative of a
+free people, than it could possibly be if tendered merely as an
+evidence of devotion to me, or to any one man personally.
+
+And now I think it were more fitting that I should close these hasty
+remarks.  It is true that, while I hold myself, without mock modesty,
+the humblest of all individuals that have ever been elevated to the
+Presidency, I have a more difficult task to perform than any one of
+them.
+
+You have generously tendered me the support--the united support--of
+the great Empire State.  For this, in behalf of the nation--in behalf
+of the present and future of the nation--in behalf of civil and
+religious liberty for all time to come, most gratefully do I thank
+you.  I do not propose to enter into an explanation of any particular
+line of policy, as to our present difficulties, to be adopted by the
+incoming administration.  I deem it just to you, to myself, to all,
+that I should see everything, that I should hear everything, that I
+should have every light that can be brought within my reach, in order
+that, when I do so speak, I shall have enjoyed every opportunity to
+take correct and true ground; and for this reason I do not propose to
+speak at this time of the policy of the Government.  But when the
+time comes, I shall speak, as well as I am able, for the good of the
+present and future of this country for the good both of the North and
+of the South--for the good of the one and the other, and of all
+sections of the country.  In the meantime, if we have patience, if we
+restrain ourselves, if we allow ourselves not to run off in a
+passion, I still have confidence that the Almighty, the Maker of the
+universe, will, through the instrumentality of this great and
+intelligent people, bring us through this as He has through all the
+other difficulties of our country. Relying on this, I again thank you
+for this generous reception.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT TROY, NEW YORK,
+
+FEBRUARY 19, 1861
+
+MR. MAYOR AND CITIZENS OF TROY:--I thank you very kindly for this
+great reception.  Since I left my home it has not been my fortune to
+meet an assemblage more numerous and more orderly than this.  I am
+the more gratified at this mark of your regard since you assure me it
+is tendered, not to the individual but to the high office you have
+called me to fill.  I have neither strength nor time to make any
+extended remarks on this occasion, and I can only repeat to you my
+sincere thanks for the kind reception you have thought proper to
+extend to me.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT POUGHKEEPSIE, NEW YORK,
+
+FEBRUARY 19, 1861
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS:--It is altogether impossible I should make myself
+heard by any considerable portion of this vast assemblage; but,
+although I appear before you mainly for the purpose of seeing you,
+and to let you see rather than hear me, I cannot refrain from saying
+that I am highly gratified--as much here, indeed, under the
+circumstances, as I have been anywhere on my route--to witness this
+noble demonstration--made, not in honor of an individual, but of the
+man who at this time humbly, but earnestly, represents the majesty of
+the nation.
+
+This reception, like all the others that have been tendered to me,
+doubtless emanates from all the political parties, and not from one
+alone.  As such I accept it the more gratefully, since it indicates
+an earnest desire on the part of the whole people, with out regard to
+political differences, to save--not the country, because the country
+will save itself but to save the institutions of the country, those
+institutions under which, in the last three quarters of a century, we
+have grown to a great, and intelligent, and a happy people--the
+greatest, the most intelligent, and the happiest people in the world.
+These noble manifestations indicate, with unerring certainty, that
+the whole people are willing to make common cause for this object;
+that if, as it ever must be, some have been successful in the recent
+election and some have been beaten, if some are satisfied and some
+are dissatisfied, the defeated party are not in favor of sinking the
+ship, but are desirous of running it through the tempest in safety,
+and willing, if they think the people have committed an error in
+their verdict now, to wait in the hope of reversing it and setting it
+right next time.  I do not say that in the recent election the people
+did the wisest thing, that could have been done--indeed, I do not
+think they did; but I do say that in accepting the great trust
+committed to me, which I do with a determination to endeavor to prove
+worthy of it, I must rely upon you, upon the people of the whole
+country, for support; and with their sustaining aid, even I, humble
+as I am, cannot fail to carry the ship of state safely through the
+storm.
+
+I have now only to thank you warmly for your kind attendance, and bid
+you all an affectionate farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT HUDSON, NEW YORK,.
+
+FEBRUARY 19, 1860
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS:--I see that you are providing a platform for me.  I
+shall have to decline standing upon it, because the president of the
+company tells me that I shall not have time to wait until it is
+brought to me.  As I said yesterday, under similar circumstances at
+another gathering, you must not draw the inference that I have any
+intention of deserting any platform with which I have a legitimate
+connection because I do not stand on yours.  Allow me to thank you
+for this splendid reception, and I now bid you farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT PEEKSKILL, NEW YORK,
+FEBRUARY 19, 1861
+
+LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--I have but a moment to stand before you to
+listen to and return your kind greeting. I thank you for this
+reception, and for the pleasant manner in which it is tendered to me
+by our mutual friends. I will say in a single sentence, in regard to
+the difficulties that lie before me and our beloved country, that if
+I can only be as generously and unanimously sustained as the
+demonstrations I have witnessed indicate I shall be, I shall not
+fail; but without your sustaining hands I am sure that neither I nor
+any other man can hope to surmount these difficulties.  I trust that
+in the course I shall pursue I shall be sustained not only by the
+party that elected me, but by the patriotic people of the whole
+country.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT FISHKILL LANDING
+
+FEBRUARY 19, 1861
+
+LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--I appear before you not to make a speech.  I
+have not sufficient time, if I had the strength, to repeat speeches
+at every station where the people kindly gather to welcome me as we
+go along.  If I had the strength, and should take the time, I should
+not get to Washington until after the inauguration, which you must be
+aware would not fit exactly.  That such an untoward event might not
+transpire, I know you will readily forego any further remarks; and I
+close by bidding you farewell.
+
+
+
+
+REMARKS AT THE ASTOR HOUSE, NEW YORK CITY, FEBRUARY 19, 1861
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS:--I have stepped before you merely in compliance with
+what appears to be your wish, and not with the purpose of making a
+speech.  I do not propose making a speech this afternoon.  I could
+not be heard by any but a small fraction of you, at best; but, what
+is still worse than that, I have nothing just now to say that is
+worthy of your hearing.  I beg you to believe that I do not now
+refuse to address you from any disposition to disoblige you, but to
+the contrary.  But, at the same time, I beg of you to excuse me for
+the present.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT NEW YORK CITY,
+
+FEBRUARY 19, 1861
+
+Mr. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:--I am rather an old man to avail myself
+of such an excuse as I am now about to do.  Yet the truth is so
+distinct, and presses itself so distinctly upon me, that I cannot
+well avoid it--and that is, that I did not understand when I was
+brought into this room that I was to be brought here to make a
+speech.  It was not intimated to me that I was brought into the room
+where Daniel Webster and Henry Clay had made speeches, and where one
+in my position might be expected to do something like those men or
+say something worthy of myself or my audience.  I therefore beg you
+to make allowance for the circumstances in which I have been by
+surprise brought before you.  Now I have been in the habit of
+thinking and sometimes speaking upon political questions that have
+for some years past agitated the country; and, if I were disposed to
+do so, and we could take up some one of the issues, as the lawyers
+call them, and I were called upon to make an argument about it to the
+best of my ability, I could do so without much preparation.  But that
+is not what you desire to have done here to-night.
+
+I have been occupying a position, since the Presidential election, of
+silence--of avoiding public speaking, of avoiding public writing.  I
+have been doing so because I thought, upon full consideration, that
+was the proper course for me to take.   I am brought before you now,
+and required to make a speech, when you all approve more than
+anything else of the fact that I have been keeping silence.  And now
+it seems to me that the response you give to that remark ought to
+justify me in closing just here.  I have not kept silence since the
+Presidential election from any party wantonness, or from any
+indifference to the anxiety that pervades the minds of men about the
+aspect of the political affairs of this country.  I have kept silence
+for the reason that I supposed it was peculiarly proper that I should
+do so until the time came when, according to the custom of the
+country, I could speak officially.
+
+I still suppose that, while the political drama being enacted in this
+country at this time is rapidly shifting its scenes--forbidding an
+anticipation with any degree of certainty to-day of what we shall see
+to-morrow--it is peculiarly fitting that I should see it all, up to
+the last minute, before I should take ground that I might be
+disposed, by the shifting of the scenes afterward, also to shift.  I
+have said several times upon this journey, and I now repeat it to
+you, that when the time does come, I shall then take the ground that
+I think is right--right for the North, for the South, for the East,
+for the West, for the whole country.  And in doing so I hope to feel
+no necessity pressing upon me to say anything in conflict with the
+Constitution, in conflict with the continued union of these States,
+in conflict with the perpetuation of the liberties of this people, or
+anything in conflict with anything whatever that I have ever given
+you reason to expect from me.  And now, my friends, have I said
+enough? [Loud cries of "No, no !" and' Three cheers for LINCOLN!"]
+Now, my friends, there appears to be a difference of opinion between
+you and me, and I really feel called upon to decide the question
+myself.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY,
+FEBRUARY 20, 1861
+
+Mr. MAYOR:--It is with feelings of deep gratitude that I make my
+acknowledgments for the reception that has been given me in the great
+commercial city of New York.  I cannot but remember that it is done
+by the people who do not, by a large majority, agree with me in
+political sentiment.  It is the more grateful to me because in this I
+see that for the great principles of our Government the people are
+pretty nearly or quite unanimous.  In regard to the difficulties that
+confront us at this time, and of which you have seen fit to speak so
+becomingly and so justly, I can only say I agree with the sentiments
+expressed.  In my devotion to the Union I hope I am behind no man in
+the nation.  As to my wisdom in conducting affairs so as to tend to
+the preservation of the Union, I fear too great confidence may have
+been placed in me.  I am sure I bring a heart devoted to the work.
+There is nothing that could ever bring me to consent--willingly to
+consent--to the destruction of this Union (in which not only the
+great city of New York, but the whole country, has acquired its
+greatness), unless it would be that thing for which the Union itself
+was made.  I understand that the ship is made for the carrying and
+preservation of the cargo; and so long as the ship is safe with the
+cargo, it shall not be abandoned.  This Union shall never be
+abandoned, unless the possibility of its existence shall cease to
+exist without the necessity of throwing passengers and cargo
+overboard.  So long, then, as it is possible that the prosperity and
+liberties of this people can be preserved within this Union, it shall
+be my purpose at all tunes to preserve it.  And now, Mr. Mayor,
+renewing my thanks for this cordial reception, allow me to come to a
+close.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY
+
+FEBRUARY 21, 1860
+
+MR. DAYTON AND GENTLEMEN OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY:--I shall only
+thank you briefly for this very kind reception given me, not
+personally, but as the temporary representative of the majesty of the
+nation.  To the kindness of your hearts, and of the hearts of your
+brethren in your State, I should be very proud to respond, but I
+shall not have strength to address you or other assemblages at
+length, even if I had the time to do so.  I appear before you,
+therefore, for little else than to greet you, and to briefly say
+farewell. You have done me the very high honor to present your
+reception courtesies to me through your great man a man with whom it
+is an honor to be associated anywhere, and in owning whom no State
+can be poor.  He has said enough, and by the saying of it suggested
+enough, to require a response of an hour, well considered.  I could
+not in an hour make a worthy response to it.  I therefore, ladies and
+gentlemen of New Jersey, content myself with saying, most heartily do
+I indorse all the sentiments he has expressed.  Allow me, most
+gratefully, to bid you farewell.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MAYOR OF NEWARK, NEW JERSEY,
+
+FEBRUARY 21, 1861.
+
+MR. MAYOR:--I thank you for this reception at the city of Newark.
+With regard to the great work of which you speak, I will say that I
+bring to it a heart filled with love for my country, and an honest
+desire to do what is right.  I am sure, however, that I have not the
+ability to do anything unaided of God, and that without His support
+and that of this free, happy, prosperous, and intelligent people, no
+man can succeed in doing that the importance of which we all
+comprehend.  Again thanking you for the reception you have given me,
+I will now bid you farewell, and proceed upon my journey.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS IN TRENTON AT THE TRENTON HOUSE,
+
+FEBRUARY 21, 1861
+
+I have been invited by your representatives to the Legislature to
+visit this the capital of your honored State, and in acknowledging
+their kind invitation, compelled to respond to the welcome of the
+presiding officers of each body, and I suppose they intended I should
+speak to you through them, as they are the representatives of all of
+you; and if I were to speak again here, I should only have to repeat
+in a great measure much that I have said, which would be disgusting
+to my friends around me who have met here.  I have no speech to make,
+but merely appear to see you and let you look at me; and as to the
+latter I think I have greatly the best of the bargain.  My friends,
+allow me to bid you farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE SENATE OF NEW JERSEY
+
+FEBRUARY 21, 1861
+
+MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF NEW
+JERSEY:--I am very grateful to you for the honorable reception of
+which I have been the object.  I cannot but remember the place that
+New Jersey holds in our early history.  In the Revolutionary struggle
+few of the States among the Old Thirteen had more of the battle-
+fields of the country within their limits than New Jersey. May I be
+pardoned if, upon this occasion, I mention that away back in my
+childhood, the earliest days of my being able to read, I got hold of
+a small book, such a one as few of the younger members have ever seen
+Weems's Life of Washington.  I remember all the accounts there given
+of the battle-fields and struggles for the liberties of the country;
+and none fixed themselves upon my imagination so deeply as the
+struggle here at Trenton, New Jersey.  The crossing of the river, the
+contest with the Hessians, the great hardships endured at that time,
+all fixed themselves on my memory more than any single Revolutionary
+event; and you all know, for you have all been boys, how these early
+impressions last longer than any others.  I recollect thinking then,
+boy even though I was, that there must have been something more than
+common that these men struggled for.  I am exceedingly anxious that
+that thing that something even more than national independence, that
+something that held out a great promise to all the people of the
+world to all time to come--I am exceedingly anxious that this Union,
+the Constitution, and the liberties of the people shall be
+perpetuated in accordance with the original idea for which that
+struggle was made; and I shall be most happy indeed if I shall be a
+humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, and of this his
+almost chosen people, for perpetuating the object of that great
+struggle.  You give me this reception, as I understand, without
+distinction of party.  I learn that this body is composed of a
+majority of gentlemen who, in the exercise of their best judgment in
+the choice of a chief magistrate, did not think I was the man.  I
+understand, nevertheless, that they come forward here to greet me as
+the constitutionally elected President of the United States--as
+citizens of the United States to meet the man who, for the time
+being, is the representative of the majesty of the nation--united by
+the single purpose to perpetuate the Constitution, the union, and the
+liberties of the people.  As such, I accept this reception more
+gratefully than I could do did I believe it were tendered to me as an
+individual.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE ASSEMBLY OF NEW JERSEY,
+
+FEBRUARY 21, 1861
+
+MR. SPEAKER AND GENTLEMEN: I have just enjoyed the honor of a
+reception by the other branch of this Legislature, and I return to
+you and them my thanks for the reception which the people of New
+Jersey have given through their chosen representatives to me as the
+representative, for the time being, of the majesty of the people of
+the United States.  I appropriate to myself very little of the
+demonstrations of respect with which I have been greeted.  I think
+little should be given to any man, but that it should be a
+manifestation of adherence to the Union and the Constitution.
+I understand myself to be received here by the representatives of the
+people of New Jersey, a majority of whom differ in opinion from those
+with whom I have acted.  This manifestation is therefore to be
+regarded by me as expressing their devotion to the Union, the
+Constitution, and the liberties of the people.
+
+You, Mr. Speaker, have well said that this is a time when the bravest
+and wisest look with doubt and awe upon the aspect presented by our
+national affairs.  Under these circumstances you will readily see why
+I should not speak in detail of the course I shall deem it best to
+pursue.  It is proper that I should avail myself of all the
+information and all the time at my command, in order that when the
+time arrives in which I must speak officially, I shall be able to
+take the ground which I deem best and safest, and from which I may
+have no occasion to swerve.  I shall endeavor to take the ground I
+deem most just to the North, the East, the West, the South, and the
+whole country.  I shall take it, I hope, in good temper, certainly
+with no malice toward, any section.  I shall do all that may be in my
+power to promote a peaceful settlement of all our difficulties.  The
+man does not live who is more devoted to peace than I am, none who
+would do more to preserve it, but it may be necessary to put the foot
+down firmly.  And if I do my duty and do right, you will sustain me,
+will you not?  [Loud cheers, and cries of "Yes, yes; we will."]
+Received as I am by the members of a Legislature the majority of whom
+do not agree with me in political sentiments, I trust that I may have
+their assistance in piloting the ship of state through this voyage,
+surrounded by perils as it is; for if it should suffer wreck now,
+there will be no pilot ever needed for another voyage.
+
+Gentlemen, I have already spoken longer than I intended, and must beg
+leave to stop here.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MAYOR OF PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA,
+FEBRUARY 21, 1861
+
+MR. MAYOR AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF PHILADELPHIA:--I appear before you
+to make no lengthy speech, but to thank you for this reception. The
+reception you have given me to-night is not to me, the man, the
+individual, but to the man who temporarily represents, or should
+represent, the majesty of the nation.  It is true, as your worthy
+mayor has said, that there is great anxiety amongst the citizens of
+the United States at this time.  I deem it a happy circumstance that
+this dissatisfied portion of our fellow-citizens does not point us to
+anything in which they are being injured or about to be injured; for
+which reason I have felt all the while justified in concluding that
+the crisis, the panic, the anxiety of the country at this time is
+artificial.  If there be those who differ with me upon this subject,
+they have not pointed out the substantial difficulty that exists.
+I do not mean to say that an artificial panic may not do considerable
+harm; that it has done such I do not deny.  The hope that has been
+expressed by your mayor, that I may be able to restore peace,
+harmony, and prosperity to the country, is most worthy of him; and
+most happy, indeed, will I be if I shall be able to verify and fulfil
+that hope.  I promise you that I bring to the work a sincere heart.
+Whether I will bring a head equal to that heart will be for future
+times to determine.  It were useless for me to speak of details of
+plans now; I shall speak officially next Monday week, if ever. If I
+should not speak then, it were useless for me to do so now.  If I do
+speak then, it is useless for me to do so now.  When I do speak, I
+shall take such ground as I deem best calculated to restore peace,
+harmony, and prosperity to the country, and tend to the perpetuity of
+the nation and the liberty of these States and these people.  Your
+worthy mayor has expressed the wish, in which I join with him, that
+it were convenient for me to remain in your city long enough to
+consult your merchants and manufacturers; or, as it were, to listen
+to those breathings rising within the consecrated walls wherein the
+Constitution of the United States and, I will add, the Declaration of
+Independence, were originally framed and adopted.  I assure you and
+your mayor that I had hoped on this occasion, and upon all occasions
+during my life, that I shall do nothing inconsistent with the
+teachings of these holy and most sacred walls.  I have never asked
+anything that does not breathe from those walls.  All my political
+warfare has been in favor of the teachings that come forth from these
+sacred walls.  May my right hand forget its cunning and my tongue
+cleave to the roof of my mouth if ever I prove false to those
+teachings.  Fellow-citizens, I have addressed you longer than I
+expected to do, and now allow me to bid you goodnight.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS IN THE HALL OF INDEPENDENCE, PHILADELPHIA,
+
+FEBRUARY 22, 1861
+
+MR. CUYLER:--I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself standing
+here, in this place, where were collected together the wisdom, the
+devotion to principle, from which sprang the institutions under which
+we live. You have kindly suggested to me that in my hands is the task
+of restoring peace to the present distracted condition of the
+country. I can say in return, sir, that all the political sentiments
+I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them,
+from the sentiments which originated and were given to the world from
+this hall.  I have never had a feeling politically that did not
+spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of
+Independence.  I have often pondered over the dangers which were
+incurred by the men who assembled here and framed and adopted that
+Declaration of Independence.  I have pondered over the toils that
+were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army who achieved
+that independence.  I have often inquired of myself what great
+principle or idea it was that kept the confederacy so long together.
+It was not the mere matter of separation of the colonies from the
+motherland, but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence
+which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I
+hope, to the world for all future time.  It was that which gave
+promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the
+shoulders of all men.  This is the sentiment embodied in the
+Declaration of Independence.  Now, my friends, can the country be
+saved upon that basis?  If it can, I will consider myself one of the
+happiest men in the world if I can help to save it.  If it cannot be
+saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful.  But if this
+country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about
+to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it.
+Now, in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there need be no
+bloodshed or war.  There is no necessity for it.  I am not in favor
+of such a course, and I may say, in advance, that there will be no
+bloodshed unless it is forced upon the Government, and then it will
+be compelled to act in self-defence.
+
+My friends; this is wholly an unexpected speech, and I did not expect
+to be called upon to say a word when I came here.  I supposed it was
+merely to do something toward raising the flag.  I may, therefore,
+have said something indiscreet.  I have said nothing but what I am
+willing to live by and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, die
+by.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE WILMINGTON DELEGATION,
+
+FEBRUARY 22, 1861
+
+MR. CHAIRMAN:--I feel highly flattered by the encomiums you have seen
+fit to bestow upon me.  Soon after the nomination of General Taylor,
+I attended a political meeting in the city of Wilmington, and have
+since carried with me a fond remembrance of the hospitalities of the
+city on that occasion.  The programme established provides for my
+presence in Harrisburg in twenty-four hours from this time.  I expect
+to be in Washington on Saturday.  It is, therefore, an impossibility
+that I should accept your kind invitation.  There are no people whom
+I would more gladly accommodate than those of Delaware; but
+circumstances forbid, gentlemen.  With many regrets for the character
+of the reply I am compelled to give you, I bid you adieu.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA,
+
+FEBRUARY 22, 1860
+
+LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF OLD LANCASTER:--I appear not to make a
+speech. I have not time to make a speech at length, and not strength
+to make them on every occasion; and, worse than all, I have none to
+make.  There is plenty of matter to speak about in these times, but
+it is well known that the more a man speaks the less he is
+understood--the more he says one thing, the more his adversaries
+contend he meant something else. I shall soon have occasion to speak
+officially, and then I will endeavor to put my thoughts just as plain
+as I can express myself--true to the Constitution and Union of all
+the States, and to the perpetual liberty of all the people.  Until I
+so speak, there is no need to enter upon details.  In conclusion, I
+greet you most heartily, and bid you an affectionate farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF PENNSYLVANIA, AT HARRISBURG,
+
+FEBRUARY 22, 1861
+
+MR. SPEAKER OF THE SENATE, AND ALSO MR. SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF
+REPRESENTATIVES, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE
+OF PENNSYLVANIA:--I appear before you only for a very few brief
+remarks in response to what has been said to me.  I thank you most
+sincerely for this reception, and the generous words in which support
+has been promised me upon this occasion.  I thank your great
+commonwealth for the overwhelming support it recently gave, not me
+personally, but the cause which I think a just one, in the late
+election.
+
+Allusion has been made to the fact--the interesting fact perhaps we
+should say--that I for the first time appear at the capital of the
+great commonwealth of Pennsylvania upon the birthday of the Father of
+his Country.  In connection with that beloved anniversary connected
+with the history of this country, I have already gone through one
+exceedingly interesting scene this morning in the ceremonies at
+Philadelphia.  Under the kind conduct of gentlemen there, I was for
+the first time allowed the privilege of standing in old Independence
+Hall to have a few words addressed to me there, and opening up to me
+an opportunity of manifesting my deep regret that I had not more time
+to express something of my own feelings excited by the occasion, that
+had been really the feelings of my whole life.
+
+Besides this, our friends there had provided a magnificent flag of
+the country.  They had arranged it so that I was given the honor of
+raising it to the head of its staff, and when it went up I was
+pleased that it went to its place by the strength of my own feeble
+arm.  When, according to the arrangement, the cord was pulled, and it
+floated gloriously to the wind, without an accident, in the bright,
+glowing sunshine of the morning, I could not help hoping that there
+was in the entire success of that beautiful ceremony at least
+something of an omen of what is to come.  Nor could I help feeling
+then, as I have often felt, that in the whole of that proceeding I
+was a very humbled instrument.  I had not provided the flag; I had
+not made the arrangements for elevating it to its place; I had
+applied but a very small portion of even my feeble strength in
+raising it.  In the whole transaction I was in the hands of the
+people who had arranged it, and if I can have the same generous
+co-operation of the people of this nation, I think the flag of our
+country may yet be kept flaunting gloriously.
+
+I recur for a moment but to repeat some words uttered at the hotel in
+regard to what has been said about the military support which the
+General Government may expect from the commonwealth of Pennsylvania
+in a proper emergency.  To guard against any possible mistake do I
+recur to this.  It is not with any pleasure that I contemplate the
+possibility that a necessity may arise in this country for the use of
+the military arm.  While I am exceedingly gratified to see the
+manifestation upon your streets of your military force here, and
+exceedingly gratified at your promise to use that force upon a proper
+emergency--while I make these acknowledgments I desire to repeat, in
+order to preclude any possible misconstruction, that I do most
+sincerely hope that we shall have no use for them; that it will never
+become their duty to shed blood, and most especially never to shed
+fraternal blood.  I promise that so far as I may have wisdom to
+direct, if so painful a result shall in any wise be brought about, it
+shall he through no fault of mine.
+
+Allusion has also been made by one of your honored speakers to some
+remarks recently made by myself at Pittsburg in regard to what is
+supposed to be the especial interest of this great commonwealth of
+Pennsylvania.  I now wish only to say in regard to that matter, that
+the few remarks which I uttered on that occasion were rather
+carefully worded.  I took pains that they should be so.  I have seen
+no occasion since to add to them or subtract from them.  I leave them
+precisely as they stand, adding only now that I am pleased to have an
+expression from you, gentlemen of Pennsylvania, signifying that they
+are satisfactory to you.
+
+And now, gentlemen of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of
+Pennsylvania, allow me again to return to you my most sincere thanks.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MAYOR OF WASHINGTON, D.C.,
+
+FEBRUARY 27, 1861
+
+Mr. MAYOR:--I thank you, and through you the municipal authorities of
+this city who accompany you, for this welcome.  And as it is the
+first time in my life, since the present phase of politics has
+presented itself in this country, that I have said anything publicly
+within a region of country where the institution of slavery exists, I
+will take this occasion to say that I think very much of the ill
+feeling that has existed and still exists between the people in the
+section from which I came and the people here, is dependent upon a
+misunderstanding of one another.  I therefore avail myself of this
+opportunity to assure you, Mr. Mayor, and all the gentlemen present,
+that I have not now, and never have had, any other than as kindly
+feelings toward you as to the people of my own section.  I have not
+now, and never have had, any disposition to treat you in any respect
+otherwise than as my own neighbors.  I have not now any purpose to
+withhold from you any of the benefits of the Constitution, under any
+circumstances, that I would not feel myself constrained to withhold
+from my own neighbors; and I hope, in a word, that when we shall
+become better acquainted--and I say it with great confidence--we
+shall like each other better.  I thank you for the kindness of this
+reception.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO A SERENADE AT WASHINGTON, D.C.,
+FEBRUARY 28, 1861
+
+MY FRIENDS:--I suppose that I may take this as a compliment paid to
+me, and as such please accept my thanks for it.  I have reached this
+city of Washington under circumstances considerably differing from
+those under which any other man has ever reached it.  I am here for
+the purpose of taking an official position amongst the people, almost
+all of whom were politically opposed to me, and are yet opposed to
+me, as I suppose.
+
+I propose no lengthy address to you.  I only propose to say, as I did
+on yesterday, when your worthy mayor and board of aldermen called
+upon me, that I thought much of the ill feeling that has existed
+between you and the people of your surroundings and that people from
+among whom I came, has depended, and now depends, upon a
+misunderstanding.
+
+I hope that, if things shall go along as prosperously as I believe we
+all desire they may, I may have it in my power to remove something of
+this misunderstanding; that I may be enabled to convince you, and the
+people of your section of the country, that we regard you as in all
+things our equals, and in all things entitled to the same respect and
+the same treatment that we claim for ourselves; that we are in no
+wise disposed, if it were in our power, to oppress you, to deprive
+you of any of your rights under the Constitution of the United
+States, or even narrowly to split hairs with you in regard to these
+rights, but are determined to give you, as far as lies in our hands,
+all your rights under the Constitution--not grudgingly, but fully and
+fairly.  I hope that, by thus dealing with you, we will become better
+acquainted, and be better friends.
+
+And now, my friends, with these few remarks, and again returning my
+thanks for this compliment, and expressing my desire to hear a little
+more of your good music, I bid you good-night.
+
+
+
+
+WASHINGTON, SUNDAY, MARCH 3, 1861
+
+[During the struggle over the appointments of LINCOLN's Cabinet, the
+President-elect spoke as follows:]
+
+Gentlemen, it is evident that some one must take the responsibility
+of these appointments, and I will do it.  My Cabinet is completed.
+The positions are not definitely assigned, and will not be until I
+announce them privately to the gentlemen whom I have selected as my
+Constitutional advisers.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS,
+MARCH 4, 1861
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES:--In compliance with a custom as
+old as the Government itself, I appear before you to address you
+briefly, and to take in your presence the oath prescribed by the
+Constitution of the United States to be taken by the President
+"before he enters on the execution of his office."
+
+I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those
+matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or
+excitement.
+
+Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States
+that by the accession of a Republican administration their property
+and their peace and personal security are to be endangered.  There
+has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension.  Indeed,
+the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and
+been open to their inspection.  It is found in near1y all the
+published speeches of him who now addresses you.  I do but quote from
+one of those speeches when I declare that
+
+"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the
+institution of slavery in the States where it exists.  I believe I
+have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
+
+Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I
+had made this and many similar declarations, and had never recanted
+them.  And, more than this, they placed in the platform for my
+acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and
+emphatic resolution which I now read:
+
+"Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the
+States, and especially the right of each State to order and control
+its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment
+exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the
+perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend, and we
+denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State
+or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as amongst the gravest of
+crimes."
+
+I now reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing so, I only press upon
+the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case
+is susceptible, that the property, peace, and security of no section
+are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming administration.
+I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with the
+Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to
+all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause--as
+cheerfully to one section as to another.
+
+There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from
+service or labor.  The clause I now read is as plainly written in the
+Constitution as any other of its provisions:
+
+"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws
+thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or
+regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but
+shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or
+labor may be due."
+
+It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those
+who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and
+the intention of the lawgiver is the law.  All members of Congress
+swear their support to the whole Constitution--to this provision as
+much as to any other.  To the proposition, then, that slaves whose
+cases come within the terms of this clause "shall be delivered up,"
+their oaths are unanimous.  Now, if they would make the effort in
+good temper, could they not with nearly equal unanimity frame and
+pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?
+
+There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be
+enforced by national or by State authority; but surely that
+difference is not a very material one.  If the slave is to be
+surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others
+by which authority it is done.  And should any one in any case be
+content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial
+controversy as to how it shall be kept?
+
+Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of
+liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced,
+so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And
+might it not be well at the same time to provide by law for the
+enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that
+
+"the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and
+immunities of citizens in the several States"?
+
+I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations, and with
+no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical
+rules.  And, while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of
+Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much
+safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to
+and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate
+any of them, trusting to find impunity in having them held to be
+unconstitutional.
+
+It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President
+under our national Constitution.  During that period fifteen
+different and greatly distinguished citizens have, in succession,
+administered the executive branch of the Government.  They have
+conducted it through many perils, and generally with great success.
+Yet, with all this scope of precedent, I now enter upon the same task
+for the brief constitutional term of four years under great and
+peculiar difficulty.  A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore
+only menaced, is now formidably attempted.
+
+I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of the
+Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual.  Perpetuity is
+implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national
+governments.  It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had
+a provision in its organic law for its own termination.  Continue to
+execute all the express provisions of our national Constitution, and
+the Union will endure forever--it being impossible to destroy it
+except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.
+
+Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an
+association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it as a
+contract be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made
+it? One party to a contract may violate it--break it, so to speak;
+but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?
+
+Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition
+that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the
+history of the Union itself.  The Union is much older than the
+Constitution.  It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association
+in 1774.  It was matured and continued by the Declaration of
+Independence in 1776.  It was further matured, and the faith of all
+the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it
+should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778.  And,
+finally, in 1787 one of the declared objects for ordaining and
+establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union."
+
+But if the destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the
+States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before
+the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.
+
+It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion
+can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to
+that effect are legally void; and that acts of violence, within any
+State or States, against the authority of the United States, are
+insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.
+
+I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution and the laws,
+the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability I shall take
+care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the
+laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States.  Doing
+this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform
+it so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American
+people, shall withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative
+manner direct the contrary.  I trust this will not be regarded as a
+menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will
+constitutionally defend and maintain itself.
+
+In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there
+shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority.  The
+power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the
+property and places belonging to the Government, and to collect the
+duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these
+objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or
+among the people anywhere.  Where hostility to the United States, in
+any interior locality, shall be so great and universal as to prevent
+competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there
+will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for
+that object.  While the strict legal right may exist in the
+government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to
+do so would be so irritating, and so nearly impracticable withal,
+that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such
+offices.
+
+The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all
+parts of the Union.  So far as possible, the people everywhere shall
+have that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm
+thought and reflection.  The course here indicated will be followed
+unless current events and experience shall show a modification or
+change to be proper, and in every case and exigency my best
+discretion will be exercised according to circumstances actually
+existing, and with a view and a hope of a peaceful solution of the
+national troubles and the restoration of fraternal sympathies and
+affections.
+
+That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy
+the Union at all events, and are glad of any pretext to do it, I will
+neither affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no word
+to them.  To those, however, who really love the Union may I not
+speak?
+
+Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our
+national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes,
+would it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you
+hazard so desperate a step while there is any possibility that any
+portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you,
+while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones
+you fly from--will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake?
+
+All profess to be content in the Union if all constitutional rights
+can be maintained.  Is it true, then, that any right, plainly written
+in the Constitution, has been denied? I think not.  Happily the human
+mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of
+doing this.  Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a
+plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied.
+If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority
+of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral
+point of view, justify revolution--certainly would if such a right
+were a vital one.  But such is not our case.  All the vital rights of
+minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by
+affirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in the
+Constitution, that controversies never arise concerning them.  But no
+organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically
+applicable to every question which may occur in practical
+administration.  No foresight can anticipate, nor any document of
+reasonable length contain, express provisions for all possible
+questions.  Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or
+by State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say.  May
+Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does
+not expressly say.  Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories?
+The Constitution does not expressly say.
+
+>From questions of this class spring all our constitutional
+controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and
+minorities.  If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must,
+or the Government must cease.   There is no other alternative; for
+continuing the Government is acquiescence on one side or the other.
+
+If a minority in such case will secede rather than acquiesce, they
+make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them; for a
+minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority
+refuses to be controlled by such minority.  For instance, why may not
+any portion of a new confederacy a year or two hence arbitrarily
+secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to
+secede from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments are now being
+educated to the exact temper of doing this.
+
+Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to
+compose a new Union as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed
+secession?
+
+Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy.  A
+majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations,
+and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular
+opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people.
+Whoever rejects it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to
+despotism.  Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a
+permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the
+majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is
+left.
+
+I do not forget the position assumed by some, that constitutional
+questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny that
+such decisions must be binding, in any case, upon the parties to a
+suit, as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to
+very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all
+other departments of the government.  And, while it is obviously
+possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still
+the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case,
+with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent
+for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a
+different practice.  At the same time, the candid citizen must
+confess that if the policy of the government, upon vital questions
+affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions
+of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary
+litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have
+ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically
+resigned the government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.  Nor
+is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges.   It
+is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly
+brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to
+turn their decisions to political purposes.
+
+One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be
+extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be
+extended.  This is the only substantial dispute.  The fugitive slave
+clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the
+foreign slave trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law
+can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people
+imperfectly supports the law itself.  The great body of the people
+abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over
+in each.  This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured; and it would be
+worse in both cases after the separation of the sections than before.
+The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be
+ultimately revived, without restriction, in one section, while
+fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be
+surrendered at all by the other.
+
+Physically speaking, we cannot separate.  We cannot remove our
+respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall
+between them.  A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the
+presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts
+of our country cannot do this.  They cannot but remain face to face,
+and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between
+them.  Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more
+advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can
+aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties
+be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among
+friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when,
+after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease
+fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are
+again upon you.
+
+This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who
+inhabit it.  Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing
+government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending
+it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.  I
+cannot be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic
+citizens are desirous of having the national Constitution amended.
+While I make no recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize the
+rightful authority of the people over the whole subject, to be
+exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself,
+and I should, under existing circumstances, favor rather than oppose
+a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it.  I will
+venture to add that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in
+that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves,
+instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions
+originated by others not especially chosen for the purpose, and which
+might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or
+refuse.  I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution which
+amendment, however, I have not seen--has passed Congress, to the
+effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the
+domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held
+to service.  To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart
+from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to
+say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional
+law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.
+
+The chief magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and
+they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of
+the States.  The people themselves can do this also if they choose;
+but the executive, as such, has nothing to do with it.  His duty is
+to administer the present government, as it came to his hands, and to
+transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his successors.
+
+Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice
+of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our
+present differences is either party without faith of being in the
+right? If the Almighty Ruler of nations, with his eternal truth and
+justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that
+truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this
+great tribunal of the American people.
+
+By the frame of the government under which we live, this same people
+have wisely given their public servants but little power for
+mischief; and have, with equal wisdom, provided for the return of
+that little to their own hands at very short intervals.  While the
+people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any
+extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the
+government in the short space of four years.
+
+My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole
+subject.  Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.  If there be
+an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would
+never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking
+time; but no good object can be frustrated by it.  Such of you as are
+now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on
+the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the
+new administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to
+change either.  If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied
+hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good
+reason for precipitate action.  Intelligence, patriotism,
+Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken
+this favored land, are still competent to adjust in the best way all
+our present difficulty.
+
+In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is
+the momentous issue of civil war.  The government will not assail
+you.  You can have no conflict without being yourselves the
+aggressors.  You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the
+government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve,
+protect, and defend" it.
+
+I am loath to close.  We are not enemies, but friends.  We must not
+be enemies.  Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our
+bonds of affection.  The mystic chords of memory, stretching from
+every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and
+hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of
+the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better
+angels of our nature.
+
+
+
+
+REFUSAL OF SEWARD RESIGNATION
+
+TO WM. H. SEWARD.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, March 4, 1861.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your note of the 2d instant, asking to withdraw your
+acceptance of my invitation to take charge of the State Department,
+was duly received.  It is the subject of the most painful solicitude
+with me, and I feel constrained to beg that you will countermand the
+withdrawal.  The public interest, I think, demands that you should;
+and my personal feelings are deeply enlisted in the same direction.
+Please consider and answer by 9 A.M. to-morrow.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE PENNSYLVANIA DELEGATION,
+
+WASHINGTON, MARCH 5, 1861
+
+Mr. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE PENNSYLVANIAN  DELEGATION:--As I
+have so frequently said heretofore, when I have had occasion to
+address the people of the Keystone, in my visits to that State, I can
+now but repeat the assurance of my gratification at the support you
+gave me at the election, and at the promise of a continuation of that
+support which is now tendered to me.
+
+Allusion has been made to the hope that you entertain that you have a
+President and a government.  In respect to that I wish to say to you
+that in the position I have assumed I wish to do more than I have
+ever given reason to believe I would do.  I do not wish you to
+believe that I assume to be any better than others who have gone
+before me.  I prefer rather to have it understood that if we ever
+have a government on the principles we profess, we should remember,
+while we exercise our opinion, that others have also rights to the
+exercise of their opinions, and that we should endeavor to allow
+these rights, and act in such a manner as to create no bad feeling.
+I hope we have a government and a President.  I hope, and wish it to
+be understood, that there may he no allusion to unpleasant
+differences.
+
+We must remember that the people of all the States are entitled to
+all the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the several
+States.  We should bear this in mind, and act in such a way as to say
+nothing insulting or irritating.  I would inculcate this idea, so
+that we may not, like Pharisees, set ourselves up to be better than
+other people.
+
+Now, my friends, my public duties are pressing to-day, and will
+prevent my giving more time to you.  Indeed, I should not have left
+them now, but I could not well deny myself to so large and
+respectable a body.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MASSACHUSETTS DELEGATION,
+
+WASHINGTON, MARCH 5, 1861
+
+I am thankful for this renewed assurance of kind feeling and
+confidence, and the support of the old Bay State, in so far as you,
+Mr. Chairman, have expressed, in behalf of those whom you represent,
+your sanction of what I have enunciated in my inaugural address.
+This is very grateful to my feelings.  The object was one of great
+delicacy, in presenting views at the opening of an administration
+under the peculiar circumstances attending my entrance upon the
+official duties connected with the Government.  I studied all the
+points with great anxiety, and presented them with whatever of
+ability and sense of justice I could bring to bear.  If it met the
+approbation of our good friends in Massachusetts, I shall be
+exceedingly gratified, while I hope it will meet the approbation of
+friends everywhere.  I am thankful for the expressions of those who
+have voted with us; and like every other man of you, I like them as
+certainly as I do others.  As the President in the administration of
+the Government, I hope to be man enough not to know one citizen of
+the United States from another, nor one section from another.  I
+shall be gratified to have good friends of Massachusetts and others
+who have thus far supported me in these national views still to
+support me in carrying them out.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY SEWARD
+
+EXECUTIVE CHAMBER, MARCH 7, 1861
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Herewith is the diplomatic address and my reply.  To
+whom the reply should be addressed--that is, by what title or style--
+I do not quite understand, and therefore I have left it blank.
+
+Will you please bring with you to-day the message from the War
+Department, with General Scott's note upon it, which we had here
+yesterday? I wish to examine the General's opinion, which I have not
+yet done.
+
+Yours very truly
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS
+
+WASHINGTON, THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 1861
+
+Mr. FIGANIERE AND GENTLEMEN OF THE DIPLOMATIC BODY:--Please accept my
+sincere thanks for your kind congratulations.  It affords me pleasure
+to confirm the confidence you so generously express in the friendly
+disposition of the United States, through me, towards the sovereigns
+and governments you respectively represent.  With equal satisfaction
+I accept the assurance you are pleased to give, that the same
+disposition is reciprocated by your sovereigns, your governments, and
+yourselves.
+
+Allow me to express the hope that these friendly relations may remain
+undisturbed, arid also my fervent wishes for the health and happiness
+of yourselves personally.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY SEWARD
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, MARCH 11,1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF STATE.
+DEAR SIR:--What think you of sending ministers at once as follows:
+Dayton to England; Fremont to France; Clay to Spain; Corwin to
+Mexico?
+
+We need to have these points guarded as strongly and quickly as
+possible.  This is suggestion merely, and not dictation.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO J. COLLAMER
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, MARCH 12, 1861
+
+HON. JACOB COLLAMER.
+MY DEAR SIR:--God help me.  It is said I have offended you.  I hope
+you will tell me how.
+
+Yours very truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+March 14, 1861.
+DEAR SIR:--I am entirely unconscious that you have any way offended
+me.  I cherish no sentiment towards you but that of kindness and
+confidence.
+Your humble servant,
+J. COLLAMER
+
+ [Returned with indorsement:]
+
+Very glad to know that I have n't.
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, MARCH 13, 1861
+
+HON. P. M. G.
+
+DEAR SIR:--The bearer of this, Mr. C. T. Hempstow, is a Virginian who
+wishes to get, for his son, a small place in your Dept.  I think
+Virginia should be heard, in such cases.
+
+LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE ASKING CABINET OPINIONS ON FORT SUMTER.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, MARCH 15, 1861
+
+THE HONORABLE SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Assuming it to be possible to now provision Fort
+Sumter, under all the circumstances is it wise to attempt it?  Please
+give me your opinion in writing on this question.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+[Same to other members of the Cabinet.]
+
+
+
+
+ON ROYAL ARBITRATION OF AMERICAN BOUNDARY LINE
+
+TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
+
+The Senate has transmitted to me a copy of the message sent by my
+predecessor to that body on the 21st of February last, proposing to
+take its advice on the subject of a proposition made by the British
+Government through its minister here to refer the matter in
+controversy between that government and the Government of the United
+States to the arbitrament of the King of Sweden and Norway, the King
+of the Netherlands, or the Republic of the Swiss Confederation.
+
+In that message my predecessor stated that he wished to present to
+the Senate the precise questions following, namely:
+
+"Will the Senate approve a treaty referring to either of the
+sovereign powers above named the dispute now existing between the
+governments of the United States and Great Britain concerning the
+boundary line between Vancouver's Island and the American continent?
+In case the referee shall find himself unable to decide where the
+line is by the description of it in the treaty of June 15, 1846,
+shall he be authorized to establish a line according to the treaty as
+nearly as possible? Which of the three powers named by Great Britain
+as an arbiter shall be chosen by the United States?"
+
+I find no reason to disapprove of the course of my predecessor in
+this important matter; but, on the contrary, I not only shall receive
+the advice of the Senate thereon cheerfully, but I respectfully ask
+the Senate for their advice on the three questions before recited
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+WASHINGTON, March 16, 1861
+
+
+
+
+AMBASSADORIAL APPOINTMENTS
+
+TO SECRETARY SEWARD.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, MARCH 18, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF STATE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I believe it is a necessity with us to make the
+appointments I mentioned last night--that is, Charles F. Adams to
+England, William L. Dayton to France, George P. Marsh to Sardinia,
+and Anson Burlingame to Austria.  These gentlemen all have my highest
+esteem, but no one of them is originally suggested by me except Mr.
+Dayton.  Mr. Adams I take because you suggested him, coupled with his
+eminent fitness for the place.  Mr. Marsh and Mr. Burlingame I take
+because of the intense pressure of their respective States, and their
+fitness also.
+
+The objection to this card is that locally they are so huddled up--
+three being in New England and two from a single State.  I have
+considered this, and will not shrink from the responsibility.  This,
+being done, leaves but five full missions undisposed of--Rome, China,
+Brazil, Peru, and Chili.  And then what about Carl Schurz; or, in
+other words, what about our German friends?
+
+Shall we put the card through, and arrange the rest afterward? What
+say you?
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO G. E. PATTEN.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, March 19, 1861.
+
+TO MASTER GEO. EVANS PATTEN.
+
+WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:--I did see and talk with Master Geo. Evans
+Patten last May at Springfield, Ill.
+
+Respectfully,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+[Written because of a denial that any interview with young Patten,
+then a schoolboy, had ever taken place.]
+
+
+
+
+RESPONSE TO SENATE INQUIRY RE. FORT SUMTER
+
+MESSAGE TO THE SENATE.
+
+TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:--I have received a copy of the
+resolution of the Senate, passed on the 25th instant, requesting me,
+if in my opinion not incompatible with the public interest, to
+communicate to the Senate the despatches of Major Robert Anderson to
+the War Department during the time he has been in command of Fort
+Sumter.  On examination of the correspondence thus called for, I
+have, with the highest respect for the Senate, come to the conclusion
+that at the present moment the publication of it would be
+inexpedient.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+WASHINGTON, MARCH 16, 1861
+
+
+
+
+PREPARATION OF FIRST NAVAL ACTION
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, MARCH 29, 1861
+
+HONORABLE SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+SIR:--I desire that an expedition to move by sea be got ready to sail
+as early as the 6th of April next, the whole according to memorandum
+attached, and that you cooperate with the Secretary of the Navy for
+that object.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+[Inclosure.]
+
+Steamers Pocahontas at Norfolk, Paunee at Washington, Harriet Lane at
+New York, to be under sailing orders for sea, with stores, etc., for
+one month.  Three hundred men to be kept ready for departure from on
+board the receiving-ships at New York. Two hundred men to be ready to
+leave Governor's Island in New York. Supplies for twelve months for
+one hundred men to be put in portable shape, ready for instant
+shipping. A large steamer and three tugs conditionally engaged.
+
+
+
+
+TO ______ STUART.
+
+WASHINGTON, March 30, 1861
+
+DEAR STUART:
+
+Cousin Lizzie shows me your letter of the 27th.  The question of
+giving her the Springfield post-office troubles me.  You see I have
+already appointed William Jayne a Territorial governor and Judge
+Trumbull's brother to a land-office.  Will it do for me to go on and
+justify the declaration that Trumbull and I have divided out all the
+offices among our relatives?  Dr. Wallace, you know, is needy, and
+looks to me; and I personally owe him much.
+
+I see by the papers, a vote is to be taken as to the post-office.
+Could you not set up Lizzie and beat them all?  She, being here, need
+know nothing of it, so therefore there would be no indelicacy on her
+part. Yours as ever,
+
+
+
+
+TO THE COMMANDANT OF THE NEW YORK NAVY-YARD.
+
+NAVY DEPT., WASHINGTON, April 1, 1861
+
+TO THE COMMANDANT OF THE NAVY-YARD,
+Brooklyn, N. Y.
+
+Fit out the Powhatan to go to sea at the earnest possible moment
+under sealed orders.  Orders by a confidential messenger go forward
+to-morrow.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO LIEUTENANT D. D. PORTER
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, April 1, 1861
+
+LIEUTENANT D. D. PORTER, United States Navy.
+
+
+SIR:--You will proceed to New York, and with the least possible
+delay, assuming command of any naval steamer available, proceed to
+Pensacola Harbor, and at any cost or risk prevent any expedition from
+the mainland reaching Fort Pickens or Santa Rosa Island.
+
+You will exhibit this order to any naval officer at Pensacola, if you
+deem it necessary, after you have established yourself within the
+harbor, and will request co-operation by the entrance of at least one
+other steamer.
+
+This order, its object, and your destination will be communicated to
+no person whatever until you reach the harbor of Pensacola.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+Recommended, WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
+
+
+
+
+RELIEF EXPEDITION FOR FORT SUMTER
+
+ORDER TO OFFICERS OF THE ARMY AND NAVY.
+
+WASHINGTON, EXECUTIVE MANSION, April 1, 1861.
+
+All officers of the army and navy to whom this order may be exhibited
+will aid by every means in their power the expedition under the
+command of Colonel Harvey Brown, supplying him with men and material,
+and co-operating with him as he may desire.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER TO CAPTAIN SAMUEL MERCER.
+(Confidential.)
+
+WASHINGTON CITY,
+April 1, 1861
+
+SIR:--Circumstances render it necessary to place in command of your
+ship (and for a special purpose) an officer who is fully informed and
+instructed in relation to the wishes of the Government, and you will
+therefore consider yourself detached.  But in taking this step the
+Government does not in the least reflect upon your efficiency or
+patriotism; on the contrary, have the fullest confidence in your
+ability to perform any duty required of you.  Hoping soon to be able
+to give you a better command than the one you now enjoy, and trusting
+that you will have full confidence in the disposition of the
+Government toward you,
+I remain, etc.,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SECRETARY SEWARD'S BID FOR POWER
+
+MEMORANDUM FROM SECRETARY SEWARD,
+APRIL 1, 1861
+
+Some thoughts for the President's Consideration,
+
+First.  We are at the end of a month's administration, and yet
+without a policy either domestic or foreign.
+
+Second.  This, however, is not culpable, and it has even been
+unavoidable.  The presence of the Senate, with the need to meet
+applications for patronage, have prevented attention to other and
+more grave matters.
+
+Third.  But further delay to adopt and prosecute our policies for
+both domestic and foreign affairs would not only bring scandal on the
+administration, but danger upon the country.
+
+Fourth.  To do this we must dismiss the applicants for office.  But
+how? I suggest that we make the local appointments forthwith, leaving
+foreign or general ones for ulterior and occasional action.
+
+Fifth.  The policy at home.  I am aware that my views are singular,
+and perhaps not sufficiently explained.  My system is built upon this
+idea as a ruling one, namely, that we must
+CHANGE THE QUESTION BEFORE THE PUBLIC FROM ONE UPON SLAVERY, OR ABOUT
+SLAVERY, for a question upon UNION OR DISUNION:
+In other words, from what would be regarded as a party question, to
+one of patriotism or union.
+
+The occupation or evacuation of Fort Sumter, although not in fact a
+slavery or a party question, is so regarded.  Witness the temper
+manifested by the Republicans in the free States, and even by the
+Union men in the South.
+
+I would therefore terminate it as a safe means for changing the
+issue.  I deem it fortunate that the last administration created the
+necessity.
+
+For the rest, I would simultaneously defend and reinforce all the
+ports in the gulf, and have the navy recalled from foreign stations
+to be prepared for a blockade.  Put the island of Key West under
+martial law.
+
+This will raise distinctly the question of union or disunion.  I
+would maintain every fort and possession in the South.
+
+
+FOR FOREIGN NATIONS,
+
+I would demand explanations from Spain and France, categorically, at
+once.
+
+I would seek explanations from Great Britain and Russia, and send
+agents into Canada, Mexico, and Central America to rouse a vigorous
+continental spirit of independence on this continent against European
+intervention.
+
+And, if satisfactory explanations are not received from Spain and
+France,
+
+Would convene Congress and declare war against them.
+
+But whatever policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution
+of it.
+
+For this purpose it must be somebody's business to pursue and direct
+it incessantly.
+
+Either the President must do it himself, and be all the while active
+in it, or Devolve it on some member of his Cabinet.  Once adopted,
+debates on it must end, and all agree and abide.
+
+It is not in my especial province; But I neither seek to evade nor
+assume responsibility.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO SECRETARY SEWARD'S MEMORANDUM
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, APRIL 1, 1861
+
+HON. W. H. SEWARD.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Since parting with you I have been considering your
+paper dated this day, and entitled "Some Thoughts for the President's
+Consideration."  The first proposition in it is, "First, We are at
+the end of a month's administration, and yet without a policy either
+domestic or foreign."
+
+At the beginning of that month, in the inaugural, I said: "The power
+confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property
+and places belonging to the Government, and to Collect the duties and
+imposts." This had your distinct approval at the time; and, taken in
+connection with the order I immediately gave General Scott, directing
+him to employ every means in his power to strengthen and hold the
+forts, comprises the exact domestic policy you now urge, with the
+single exception that it does not propose to abandon Fort Sumter.
+
+Again, I do not perceive how the reinforcement of Fort Sumter would
+be done on a slavery or a party issue, while that of Fort Pickens
+would be on a more national and patriotic one.
+
+The news received yesterday in regard to St. Domingo certainly brings
+a new item within the range of our foreign policy; but up to that
+time we have been preparing circulars and instructions to ministers
+and the like, all in perfect harmony, without even a suggestion that
+we had no foreign policy.
+
+Upon your Closing propositions--that,
+
+"Whatever policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution of
+it.
+
+"For this purpose it must be somebody's business to pursue and direct
+it incessantly.
+
+"Either the President must do it himself, and be all the while active
+in it, or,
+
+"Devolve it on some member of his Cabinet.  Once adopted, debates on
+it must end, and all agree and abide"--
+
+I remark that if this must be done, I must do it.  When a general
+line of policy is adopted, I apprehend there is no danger of its
+being changed without good reason, or continuing to be a subject of
+unnecessary debate; still, upon points arising in its progress I
+wish, and suppose I am entitled to have, the advice of all the
+Cabinet.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO A COMMITTEE FROM THE VIRGINIA CONVENTION, APRIL 13, 1861
+
+HON. WILLIAM BALLARD PRESTON, ALEXANDER H.
+H. STUART, GEORGE W. RANDOLPH, Esq.
+
+GENTLEMEN:--As a committee of the Virginia Convention now in Session,
+you present me a preamble and resolution in these words:
+
+"Whereas, in the opinion of this Convention, the uncertainty which
+prevails in the public mind as to the policy which the Federal
+Executive intends to pursue toward the seceded States is extremely
+injurious to the industrial and commercial interests of the country,
+tends to keep up an excitement which is unfavorable to the adjustment
+of pending difficulties, and threatens a disturbance of the public
+peace: therefore
+
+Resolved, that a committee of three delegates be appointed by this
+Convention to wait upon the President of the United States, present
+to him this preamble and resolution, and respectfully ask him to
+communicate to this Convention the policy which the Federal Executive
+intends to pursue in regard to the Confederate States.
+
+"Adopted by the Convention of the State of Virginia, Richmond, April
+8, 1861."
+
+In answer I have to say that, having at the beginning of my official
+term expressed my intended policy as plainly as I was able, it is
+with deep regret and some mortification I now learn that there is
+great and injurious uncertainty in the public mind as to what that
+policy is, and what course I intend to pursue.  Not having as yet
+seen occasion to change, it is now my purpose to pursue the course
+marked out in the inaugural address.   I commend a careful
+consideration of the whole document as the best expression I can give
+of my purposes.
+
+As I then and therein said, I now repeat: "The power confided to me
+will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places
+belonging to the Government, and to collect the duties and imposts;
+but beyond what is necessary for these objects, there will be no
+invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere." By
+the words "property and places belonging to the Government," I
+chiefly allude to the military posts and property which were in the
+possession of the Government when it came to my hands.
+
+But if, as now appears to be true, in pursuit of a purpose to drive
+the United States authority from these places, an unprovoked assault
+has been made upon Fort Sumter, I shall hold myself at liberty to
+repossess, if I can, like places which had been seized before the
+Government was devolved upon me.  And in every event I shall, to the
+extent of my ability, repel force by force.  In case it proves true
+that Fort Sumter has been assaulted, as is reported, I shall perhaps
+cause the United States mails to be withdrawn from all the States
+which claim to have seceded, believing that the commencement of
+actual war against the Government justifies and possibly demands
+this.
+
+I scarcely need to say that I consider the military posts and
+property situated within the States which claim to have seceded as
+yet belonging to the Government of the United States as much as they
+did before the supposed secession.
+
+Whatever else I may do for the purpose, I shall not attempt to
+collect the duties and imposts by any armed invasion of any part of
+the country; not meaning by this, however, that I may not land a
+force deemed necessary to relieve a fort upon a border of the
+country.
+
+>From the fact that I have quoted a part of the inaugural address, it
+must not be inferred that I repudiate any other part, the whole of
+which I reaffirm, except so far as what I now say of the mails may be
+regarded as a modification.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION CALLING FOR 75,000 MILITIA, AND CONVENING CONGRESS IN
+EXTRA SESSION,  APRIL 15, 1861.
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF
+AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas the laws of the United States have been for some time past
+and now are opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, in the
+States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi,
+Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed
+by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers
+vested in the marshals bylaw:
+
+Now, therefore, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States,
+in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and the laws,
+have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth, the militia
+of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of
+seventy-five thousand, in order to suppress said combinations, and to
+cause the laws to be duly executed.
+
+The details for this object will be immediately communicated to the
+State authorities through the War Department.
+
+I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this
+effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our
+National Union, and the perpetuity of popular government; and to
+redress wrongs already long enough endured.
+
+I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces
+hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places,
+and property which have been seized from the Union; and in every
+event the utmost care will be observed, consistently with the objects
+aforesaid, to avoid any devastation, any destruction of or
+interference with property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens
+in any part of the country.
+
+And I hereby command the persons composing the combinations aforesaid
+to disperse and retire peacefully to their respective abodes within
+twenty days from date.
+
+Deeming that the present condition of public affairs presents an
+extraordinary occasion, I do hereby, in virtue of the power in me
+vested by the Constitution, convene both Houses of Congress.
+Senators and Representatives are therefore summoned to assemble at
+their respective chambers, at twelve o'clock noon, on Thursday, the
+fourth day of July next, then and there to consider and determine
+such measures as, in their wisdom, the public safety and interest may
+seem to demand.
+
+In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal
+of the United States to be affixed.
+
+Done at the city of Washington, this fifteenth day of April, in the
+year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of the
+independence of the United States the eighty-fifth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
+Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION OF BLOCKADE, APRIL 19, 1861
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF
+
+AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas an insurrection against the Government of the United States
+has broken out in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
+Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and the laws of the
+United States for the collection of the revenue cannot be effectually
+executed therein conformably to that provision of the Constitution
+which requires duties to be uniform throughout the United States:
+
+And Whereas a combination of persons engaged in such insurrection
+have threatened to grant pretended letters of marque to authorize the
+bearers thereof to commit assaults on the lives, vessels, and
+property of good citizens of the country lawfully engaged in commerce
+on the high seas, and in waters of the United States:
+
+And Whereas an executive proclamation has been already issued
+requiring the persons engaged in these disorderly proceedings to
+desist therefrom, calling out a militia force for the purpose of
+repressing the same, and convening Congress in extraordinary session
+to deliberate and determine thereon:
+
+Now, therefore, I, Abraham LINCOLN, President of the United States,
+with a view to the same purposes before mentioned, and to the
+protection of the public peace, and the lives and property of quiet
+and orderly citizens pursuing their lawful occupations, until
+Congress shall have assembled and deliberated on the said unlawful
+proceedings, or until the same shall have ceased, have further deemed
+it advisable to set on foot a blockade of the ports within the States
+aforesaid, in pursuance of the laws of the United States, and of the
+law of nations in such case provided.  For this purpose a competent
+force will be posted so as to prevent entrance and exit of vessels
+from the ports aforesaid.  If, therefore, with a view to violate such
+blockade, a vessel shall approach or shall attempt to leave either of
+the said ports, she will be duly warned by the commander of one of
+the blockading vessels, who will indorse on her register the fact and
+date of such warning, and if the same vessel shall again attempt to
+enter or leave the blockaded port, she will be captured and sent to
+the nearest convenient port, for such proceedings against her and her
+cargo, as prize, as may be deemed advisable.
+
+And I hereby proclaim and declare that if any person, under the
+pretended authority of the said States, or under any other pretense,
+shall molest a vessel of the United States, or the persons or cargo
+on board of her, such person will be held amenable to the laws of the
+United States for the prevention and punishment of piracy.
+
+In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
+of the United States to be affixed.
+
+Done at the city of Washington, this nineteenth day of April, in the
+year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of the
+independence of the United States the eighty-fifth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
+Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+TO GOVERNOR HICKS AND MAYOR BROWN.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 20, 1861
+
+GOVERNOR HICKS AND MAYOR BROWN.
+
+GENTLEMEN:--Your letter by Messrs.  Bond, Dobbin, and Brune is
+received.  I tender you both my sincere thanks for your efforts to
+keep the peace in the trying situation in which you are placed.
+
+For the future troops must be brought here, but I make no point of
+bringing them through Baltimore.  Without any military knowledge
+myself, of course I must leave details to General Scott.  He hastily
+said this morning in the presence of these gentlemen, "March them
+around Baltimore, and not through it." I sincerely hope the General,
+on fuller reflection, will consider this practical and proper, and
+that you will not object to it.  By this a collision of the people of
+Baltimore with the troops will be avoided, unless they go out of
+their way to seek it.  I hope you will exert your influence to
+prevent this.
+
+Now and ever I shall do all in my power for peace consistently with
+the maintenance of the Government.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GOVERNOR HICKS.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 20, 1861
+
+GOVERNOR HICKS:
+
+I desire to consult with you and the Mayor of Baltimore relative to
+preserving the peace of Maryland.  Please come immediately by special
+train, which you can take at Baltimore; or, if necessary, one can be
+sent from here.  Answer forthwith.
+
+LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER TO DEFEND FROM A MARYLAND INSURRECTION
+
+ORDER TO GENERAL SCOTT.
+WASHINGTON, April 25, 1861
+
+LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SCOTT.
+
+MY DEAR SIR -The Maryland Legislature assembles to-morrow at
+Annapolis, and not improbably will take action to arm the people of
+that State against the United States.  The question has been
+submitted to and considered by me whether it would not be
+justifiable, upon the ground of necessary defense, for you, as
+General in Chief of the United States Army, to arrest or disperse the
+members of that body.  I think it would not be justifiable nor
+efficient for the desired object.
+
+First.  They have a clearly legal right to assemble, and we cannot
+know in advance that their action will not be lawful and peaceful,
+and if we wait until they shall have acted their arrest or dispersion
+will not lessen the effect of their action.
+
+Secondly.  We cannot permanently prevent their action.   If we arrest
+them, we cannot long hold them as prisoners, and when liberated they
+will immediately reassemble and take their action; and precisely the
+same if we simply disperse them--they will immediately reassemble in
+some other place.
+
+I therefore conclude that it is only left to the Commanding General
+to watch and await their action, which, if it shall be to arm their
+people against the United States, he is to adopt the most prompt and
+efficient means to counteract, even, if necessary, to the bombardment
+of their cities and, in the extremist necessity, the suspension of
+the writ of habeas corpus.
+
+Your obedient servant,   ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION OF BLOCKADE, APRIL 27, 1861
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas, for the reasons assigned in my proclamation of the
+nineteenth instant, a blockade of the ports of the States of South
+Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and
+Texas was ordered to be established:
+
+And whereas, since that date, public property of the United States
+has been seized, the collection of the revenue obstructed, and duly
+commissioned officers of the United States, while engaged in
+executing the orders of their superiors, have been arrested and held
+in custody as prisoners, or have been impeded in the discharge of
+their official duties, without due legal process, by persons claiming
+to act under authorities of the States of Virginia and North
+Carolina:
+
+An efficient blockade of the ports of those States will also be
+established
+
+In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
+the United States to be affixed.
+
+Done at the city of Washington, this twenty  seventh day of April, in
+the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of
+the independence of the United States the eighty-fifth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REMARKS TO A MILITARY COMPANY, WASHINGTON,
+APRIL 27, 1861
+
+I have desired as sincerely as any man, and I sometimes think more
+than any other man, that our present difficulties might be settled
+without the shedding of blood.  I will not say that all hope has yet
+gone; but if the alternative is presented whether the Union is to be
+broken in fragments and the liberties of the people lost, or blood be
+shed, you will probably make the choice with which I shall not be
+dissatisfied.
+
+
+
+
+LOCALIZED REPEAL OF WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS
+
+TO GENERAL SCOTT.
+
+TO THE COMMANDING GENERAL,
+ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES.
+
+You are engaged in suppressing an insurrection against the laws of
+the United States.  If at any point on or in the vicinity of any
+military line which is now or which shall be used between the City of
+Philadelphia and the city of Washington you find resistance which
+renders it necessary to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for the
+public safety, you personally, or through the officer in command at
+the point at which resistance occurs, are authorized to suspend that
+writ.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 17, 1861
+
+
+
+
+MILITARY ENROLLMENT OF ST. LOUIS CITIZENS
+
+FROM THE SECRETARY OF WAR
+WAR DEPARTMENT, April 30, 1861
+
+TO CAPTAIN NATHANIEL LYON.
+
+CAPT. NATHANIEL LYON,
+Commanding Department of the West.
+
+SIR:--The President of the United States directs that you enroll in
+the military service of the United States the loyal citizens of Saint
+Louis and vicinity, not exceeding, with those heretofore enlisted,
+ten thousand in number, for the purpose of maintaining the authority
+of the United States; for the protection of the peaceful inhabitants
+of Missouri; and you will, if deemed necessary for that purpose by
+yourself, by Messrs.  Oliver F. Ferny, John How, James O. Broadhead,
+Samuel T. Glover, J. Wilzie, Francis P. Blair, Jr., proclaim martial
+law in the city of Saint Louis.
+
+The additional force hereby authorized shall be discharged in part or
+in whole, if enlisted.  As soon as it appears to you and the
+gentlemen above mentioned that there is no danger of an attempt on
+the part of the enemies of the Government to take military possession
+of the city of Saint Louis, or put the city in control of the
+combination against the Government of the United States; and whilst
+such additional force remains in the service the same shall be
+governed by the Rules and Articles of War, and such special
+regulations as you may prescribe.  I shall like the force hereafter
+directed to be enrolled to be under your command.
+
+The arms and other military stores in the Saint Louis Arsenal not
+needed for the forces of the United States in Missouri must be
+removed to Springfield, or some other safe place of deposit in the
+State of Illinois, as speedily as practicable, by the ordnance
+officers in charge at Saint Louis.
+
+(Indorsement.)
+
+It is revolutionary times, and therefore I do not object to the
+irregularity of this.  W. S.
+
+Approved, April 30, 1861.  A. LINCOLN.
+
+Colonel Thomas will make this order.
+SIMON CAMERON, Secretary of War.
+
+
+
+
+CONDOLENCE OVER FAILURE OF FT. SUMTER RELIEF
+
+TO GUSTAVUS V. FOX.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., May 1, 1861
+
+CAPTAIN G. V. Fox.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I sincerely regret that the failure of the late attempt
+to provision Fort Sumter should be the source of any annoyance to
+you.
+
+The practicability of your plan was not, in fact, brought to a test.
+By reason of a gale, well known in advance to be possible and not
+improbable, the tugs, an essential part of the plan, never reached
+the ground; while, by an accident for which you were in no wise
+responsible, and possibly I to some extent was, you were deprived of
+a war vessel, with her men, which you deemed of great importance to
+the enterprise.
+
+I most cheerfully and truly declare that the failure of the
+undertaking has not lowered you a particle, while the qualities you
+developed in the effort have greatly heightened you in my estimation.
+
+For a daring and dangerous enterprise of a similar character you
+would to-day be the man of all my acquaintances whom I would select.
+You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be
+advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even if it
+should fail; and it is no small consolation now to feel that our
+anticipation is justified by the result.
+
+Very truly your friend,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION CALLING FOR 42,034 VOLUNTEERS,
+
+MAY 3, 1861
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
+
+A Proclamation..
+
+Whereas existing exigencies demand immediate and adequate measures
+for the protection of the National Constitution and the preservation
+of the National Union by the suppression of the insurrectionary
+combinations now existing in several States for opposing the laws of
+the Union and obstructing the execution thereof, to which end a
+military force in addition to that called forth by my proclamation of
+the 15th day of April in the present year appears to be indispensably
+necessary:
+
+Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States
+and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy thereof and of the
+militia of the several States when called into actual service, do
+hereby call into the service of the United States 42,034 volunteers
+to serve for the period of three years, unless sooner discharged, and
+to be mustered into service as infantry and cavalry.  The proportions
+of each arm and the details of enrollment and organization will be
+made known through the Department of War.
+
+And I also direct that the Regular Army of the United States be
+increased by the addition of eight regiments of infantry, one
+regiment of cavalry, and one regiment of artillery, making altogether
+a maximum aggregate increase of 22,714 officers and enlisted men, the
+details of which increase will also be made known through the
+Department of War.
+
+And I further direct the enlistment for not less than one or more
+than three years of 18,000 seamen, in addition to the present force,
+for the naval service of the United States.  The details of the
+enlistment and organization will be made known through the Department
+of the Navy.
+
+The call for volunteers hereby made and the direction for the
+increase of the Regular Army and for the enlistment of seamen hereby
+given, together with the plan of organization adopted for the
+volunteer and for the regular forces hereby authorized, will be
+submitted to Congress as soon as assembled.
+
+In the meantime I earnestly invoke the co-operation of all good
+citizens in the measures hereby adopted for the effectual suppression
+of unlawful violence, for the impartial enforcement of constitutional
+laws, and for the speediest possible restoration of peace and order,
+and with these of happiness and prosperity, throughout our country.
+
+In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my band and caused the seal
+of the United States to be affixed................
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+COMMUNICATION WITH VICE-PRESIDENT
+
+TO VICE-PRESIDENT HAMLIN.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., May 6, 1861
+
+HON. H. HAMLIN, New York.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:-Please advise me at the close of each day what troops
+left during the day, where going, and by what route; what remaining
+at New York, and what expected in the next day.  Give the numbers, as
+near as convenient, and what corps they are.  This information,
+reaching us daily, will be very useful as well as satisfactory.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER TO COLONEL ANDERSON,
+MAY 7, 1861
+
+TO ALL WHO SHALL SEE THESE PRESENTS, GREETING:
+
+Know ye that, reposing special trust and confidence in the
+patriotism, valor, fidelity, and ability of Colonel Robert Anderson,
+U. S. Army, I have empowered him, and do hereby empower him, to
+receive into the army of the United States as many regiments of
+volunteer troops from the State of Kentucky and from the western part
+of the State of Virginia as shall be willing to engage in the Service
+of the United States for the term of three years, upon the terms and
+according to the plan proposed by the proclamation of May 3, 1861,
+and General Orders No.   15, from the War Department, of May 4, 1861.
+
+The troops whom he receives shall be on the same footing in every
+respect as those of the like kind called for in the proclamation
+above cited, except that the officers shall be commissioned by the
+United States.  He is therefore carefully and diligently to discharge
+the duty hereby devolved upon him by doing and performing all manner
+of things thereunto belonging.
+
+Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, this 7th day of May,
+A. D. 1861, and in the eighty-fifth year of the independence of the
+United States.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+SIMON CAMERON, Secretary of War,
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION SUSPENDING THE WRIT OF HABEAS
+CORPUS IN FLORIDA, MAY 10, 1861.
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas an insurrection exists in the State of Florida, by which the
+lives, liberty, and property of loyal citizens of the United States
+are endangered:
+
+And whereas it is deemed proper that all needful measures should be
+taken for the protection of such citizens and all officers of the
+United States in the discharge of their public duties in the State
+aforesaid:
+
+Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham LINCOLN, President of the
+United States, do hereby direct the commander of the forces of the
+United States on the Florida coast to permit no person to exercise
+any office or authority upon the islands of Key West, the Tortugas,
+and Santa Rosa, which may be inconsistent with the laws and
+Constitution of the United States, authorizing him at the same time,
+if he shall find it necessary, to suspend there the writ of habeas
+corpus, and to remove from the vicinity of the United States
+fortresses all dangerous or suspected persons.
+
+In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
+of the United States to be affixed.....................
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY WELLES.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, May 11, 1861
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY.
+
+SIR:-Lieut.  D. D. Porter was placed in command of the steamer
+Powhatan, and Captain Samuel Mercer was detached therefrom, by my
+special order, and neither of them is responsible for any apparent or
+real irregularity on their part or in connection with that vessel.
+
+Hereafter Captain Porter is relieved from that special service and
+placed under the direction of the Navy Department, from which he will
+receive instructions and to which he will report.
+
+Very respectfully,
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S CORRECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIC DESPATCH WRITTEN BY
+THE SECRETARY OF STATE TO MINISTER ADAMS
+
+NO. 10.
+
+DEPARTMENT OF STATE.
+WASHINGTON, May 21, 1861
+
+SIR:---Mr. Dallas, in a brief despatch of May 2d (No. 333), tells us
+that Lord John Russell recently requested an interview with him on
+account of the solicitude which his lordship felt concerning the
+effect of certain measures represented as likely to be adopted by the
+President.  In that conversation the British secretary told Mr.
+Dallas that the three representatives of the Southern Confederacy
+were then in London, that Lord John Russell had not yet seen them,
+but that he was not unwilling to see them unofficially.  He further
+informed Mr. Dallas that an understanding exists between the British
+and French governments which would lead both to take one and the same
+course as to recognition.  His lordship then referred to the rumor of
+a meditated blockade by us of Southern ports, and a discontinuance of
+them as ports of entry.  Mr. Dallas answered that he knew nothing on
+those topics, and therefore
+
+     (The President's corrections, both in notes and text, are in
+     caps. All matter between brackets was to be marked out.)
+
+could say nothing.  He added that you were expected to arrive in two
+weeks.  Upon this statement Lord John Russell acquiesced in the
+expediency of waiting for the full knowledge you were expected to
+bring.
+
+Mr. Dallas transmitted to us some newspaper reports of ministerial
+explanations made in Parliament.
+
+You will base no proceedings on parliamentary debates further than to
+seek explanations when necessary and communicate them to this
+department. [We intend to have a clear and simple record of whatever
+issue may arise between us and Great Britain.]
+
+The President [is surprised and grieved] regrets that Mr. Dallas did
+not protest against the proposed unofficial intercourse between the
+British Government and the missionaries of the insurgents [as well as
+against the demand for explanations made by the British Government].
+It is due, however, to Mr. Dallas to say that our instructions had
+been given only to you and not to him, and that his loyalty and
+fidelity, too rare in these times [among our late representatives
+abroad, are confessed and]  are appreciated.
+
+Intercourse of any kind with the so-called commissioners is liable to
+be construed as a recognition of the authority which appointed them.
+Such intercourse would be none the less [wrongful] hurtful to us for
+being called unofficial, and it might be even more injurious, because
+we should have no means of knowing what points might be resolved by
+it.  Moreover, unofficial intercourse is useless and meaningless if
+it is not expected to ripen into official intercourse and direct
+recognition.  It is left doubtful here whether the proposed
+unofficial intercourse has yet actually begun. Your own [present]
+antecedent instructions are deemed explicit enough, and it is hoped
+that you have not misunderstood them.  You will in any event desist
+from all intercourse whatever, unofficial as well as official, with
+the British Government, so long as it shall continue intercourse of
+either kind with the domestic enemies of this country [confining
+yourself to a delivery of a copy of this paper to the Secretary of
+State. After doing this.]  When intercourse shall have been arrested
+for this cause, you will communicate with this department and receive
+further directions.
+
+Lord John Russell has informed us of an understanding between the
+British and French governments that they will act together in regard
+to our affairs.  This communication, however, loses something of its
+value from the circumstance that the communication was withheld until
+after knowledge of the fact had been acquired by us from other
+sources.  We know also another fact that has not yet been officially
+communicated to us--namely, that other European States are apprised
+by France and England of their agreement, and are expected to concur
+with or follow them in whatever measures they adopt on the subject of
+recognition. The United States have been impartial and just in all
+their conduct toward the several nations of Europe.  They will not
+complain, however, of the combination now announced by the two
+leading powers, although they think they had a right to expect a more
+independent, if not a more friendly, course from each of them.  You
+will take no notice of that or any other alliance.  Whenever the
+European governments shall see fit to communicate directly with us,
+we shall be, as heretofore, frank and explicit in our reply.
+
+As to the blockade, you will say that by [the] our own laws [of
+nature] and the laws of nature and the laws of nations, this
+Government has a clear right to suppress insurrection.  An exclusion
+of commerce from national ports which have been seized by the
+insurgents, in the equitable form of blockade, is the proper means to
+that end.  You will [admit] not insist that our blockade is [not] to
+be respected if it be not maintained by a competent force; but
+passing by that question as not now a practical, or at least an
+urgent, one, you will add that [it] the blockade is now, and it will
+continue to be so maintained, and therefore we expect it to be
+respected by Great Britain.  You will add that we have already
+revoked the exequatur of a Russian consul who had enlisted in the
+military service of the insurgents, and we shall dismiss or demand
+the recall of every foreign agent, consular or diplomatic, who shall
+either disobey the Federal laws or disown the Federal authority.
+
+As to the recognition of the so-called Southern Confederacy, it is
+not to be made a subject of technical definition.  It is, of course,
+[quasi direct recognition to publish an acknowledgment of the
+sovereignty and independence of a new power. It is [quasi] direct
+recognition to receive its ambassadors, ministers, agents, or
+commissioners officially.  A concession of belligerent rights is
+liable to be construed as a recognition of them.  No one of these
+proceedings will [be borne] pass [unnoticed] unquestioned by the
+United States in this case.
+
+Hitherto recognition has been moved only on the assumption that the
+so-called Confederate States are de facto a self-sustaining power.
+Now, after long forbearance, designed to soothe discontent and avert
+the need of civil war, the land and naval forces of the United States
+have been put in motion to repress the insurrection.  The true
+character of the pretended new State is at once revealed.  It is seen
+to be a power existing in pronunciamento only, It has never won a
+field.  It has obtained no forts that were not virtually betrayed
+into its hands or seized in breach of trust.  It commands not a
+single port on the coast nor any highway out from its pretended
+capital by land.  Under these circumstances Great Britain is called
+upon to intervene and give it body and independence by resisting our
+measures of suppression.  British recognition would be British
+intervention to create within our own territory a hostile state by
+overthrowing this republic itself.  [When this act of intervention is
+distinctly performed, we from that hour shall cease to be friends,
+and become once more, as we have twice before been forced to be,
+enemies of Great Britain.]
+
+As to the treatment of privateers in the insurgent service, you will
+say that this is a question exclusively our own.  We treat them as
+pirates.  They are our own citizens, or persons employed by our
+citizens, preying on the commerce of our country.  If Great Britain
+shall choose to recognize them as lawful belligerents, and give them
+shelter from our pursuit and punishment, the laws of nations afford
+an adequate and proper remedy [and we shall avail ourselves of it.
+And while you need not say this in advance, be sure that you say
+nothing inconsistent with it.]
+
+Happily, however, her Britannic Majesty's government can avoid all
+these difficulties.  It invited us in 1856 to accede to the
+declaration of the Congress of Paris, of which body Great Britain was
+herself a member, abolishing privateering everywhere in all cases and
+forever.  You already have our authority to propose to her our
+accession to that declaration.  If she refuse to receive it, it can
+only be because she is willing to become the patron of privateering
+when aimed at our devastation.
+
+These positions are not elaborately defended now, because to
+vindicate them would imply a possibility of our waiving them.
+
+
+1 We are not insensible of the grave importance of
+
+1(Drop all from this line to the end, and in lieu of it write, "This
+paper is for your own guidance only, and not [sic] to be read or
+shown to any one.)
+
+(Secretary Seward, when the despatch was returned to him, added an
+introductory paragraph stating that the document was strictly
+confidential. For this reason these last two paragraphs remained as
+they are here printed.)
+
+this occasion. We see how, upon the result of the debate in which we
+are engaged, a war may ensue between the United States and one, two,
+or even more European nations.  War in any case is as exceptionable
+from the habits as it is revolting from the sentiments of the
+American people. But if it come, it will be fully seen that it
+results from the action of Great Britain, not our own; that Great
+Britain will have decided to fraternize with our domestic enemy,
+either without waiting to hear from you our remonstrances and our
+warnings, or after having heard them.  War in defense of national
+life is not immoral, and war in defense of independence is an
+inevitable part of the discipline of nations.
+
+The dispute will be between the European and the American branches of
+the British race.  All who belong to that race will especially
+deprecate it, as they ought.  It may well be believed that men of
+every race and kindred will deplore it.  A war not unlike it between
+the same parties occurred at the close of the last century.  Europe
+atoned by forty years of suffering for the error that Great Britain
+committed in provoking that contest.  If that nation shall now repeat
+the same great error, the social convulsions which will follow may
+not be so long, but they will be more general.  When they shall have
+ceased, it will, we think, be seen, whatever may have been the
+fortunes of other nations, that it is not the United States that will
+have come out of them with its precious Constitution altered or its
+honestly obtained dominion in any degree abridged.  Great Britain has
+but to wait a few months and all her present inconveniences will
+cease with all our own troubles.  If she take a different course, she
+will calculate for herself the ultimate as well as the immediate
+consequences, and will consider what position she will hold when she
+shall have forever lost the sympathies and the affections of the only
+nation on whose sympathies and affections she has a natural claim.
+In making that calculation she will do well to remember that in the
+controversy she proposes to open we shall be actuated by neither
+pride, nor passion, nor cupidity, nor ambition; but we shall stand
+simply on the principle of self-preservation, and that our cause will
+involve the independence of nations and the rights of human nature.
+
+I am, Sir, respectfully your obedient servant,
+W. H. S.
+
+CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Esq., etc,
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR,
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, May 21, 1861.
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+MY DEAR SIR:--Why cannot Colonel Small's Philadelphia regiment be
+received?  I sincerely wish it could.  There is something strange
+about it.  Give these gentlemen an interview, and take their
+regiment.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GOVERNOR MORGAN.
+
+WASHINGTON, May 12, 1861
+
+GOVERNOR E. D. MORGAN, Albany, N.Y.
+
+I wish to see you face to face to clear these difficulties about
+forwarding troops from New York.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO CAPTAIN DAHLGREEN.
+
+EXECUTIVE, MANSION, May 23, 1863.
+
+CAPT. DAHLGREEN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Allow me to introduce Col. J. A. McLernand, M.C. of my
+own district in Illinois.  If he should desire to visit Fortress
+Monroe, please introduce him to the captain of one of the vessels in
+our service, and pass him down and back.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER OF CONDOLENCE TO ONE OF FIRST CASUALTIES
+
+TO COLONEL ELLSWORTH'S PARENTS,
+WASHINGTON, D.C., May 25, 1861
+
+TO THE FATHER AND MOTHER
+OF COL. ELMER E. ELLSWORTH.
+
+MY DEAR SIR AND MADAME:--In the untimely loss of your noble son, our
+affliction here is scarcely less than your own.  So much of promised
+usefulness to one's country, and of bright hopes for one's self and
+friends, have never been so suddenly dashed as in his fall.  In size,
+in years, and in youthful appearance a boy only, his power to command
+men was surpassingly great.   This power, combined with a fine
+intellectual and indomitable energy, and a taste altogether military,
+constituted in him, as seemed to me, the best natural talent in that
+department I ever knew.  And yet he was singularly modest and
+deferential in social intercourse.  My acquaintance with him began
+less than two years ago; yet, through the latter half of the
+intervening period, it was as intense as the disparity of our ages
+and my engrossing engagements would permit.  To me he appeared to
+have no indulgences or pastimes, and I never heard him utter a
+profane or an intemperate word.  What was conclusive of his good
+heart, he never forgot his parents.  The honors he labored for so
+laudably, and for which, in the sad end, he so gallantly gave his
+life, he meant for them no less than for himself.
+
+In the hope that it may be no intrusion upon the sacredness of your
+sorrow, I have ventured to address you this tribute to the memory of
+my young friend and your brave and early fallen son.
+
+May God give you the consolation which is beyond all early power.
+
+
+Sincerely your friend in common affliction,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO COLONEL BARTLETT.
+
+WASHINGTON, May 27, 1861
+
+COL. W. A. BARTLETT, New York.
+
+The Naval Brigade was to go to Fort Monroe without trouble to the
+government, and must so go or not at all.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MEMORANDUM ABOUT INDIANA REGIMENTS.
+
+WASHINGTON, JUNE 11, 1861
+
+ The government has already accepted ten regiments from the State of
+Indiana.  I think at least six more ought to be received from that
+State, two to be those of Colonel James W. McMillan and Colonel
+William L. Brown, and the other four to be designated by the Governor
+of the State of Indiana, and to be received into the volunteer
+service of the United States according to the "Plan of Organization"
+in the General Orders of the War Department, No.15.  When they report
+to Major-General McClellan in condition to pass muster according to
+that order, and with the approval of the Secretary of War to be
+indorsed hereon, and left in his department, I direct that the whole
+six, or any smaller number of such regiments, be received.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, JUNE 13, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--There is, it seems, a regiment in Massachusetts
+commanded by Fletcher Webster, and which HON. Daniel Webster's old
+friends very much wish to get into the service.  If it can be
+received with the approval of your department and the consent of the
+Governor of Massachusetts I shall indeed be much gratified.  Give Mr.
+Ashmun a chance to explain fully.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, JUNE 13, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR -I think it is entirely safe to accept a fifth regiment
+from Michigan, and with your approbation I should say a regiment
+presented by Col.  T. B. W. Stockton, ready for service within two
+weeks from now, will be received.  Look at Colonel Stockton's
+testimonials.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 17, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY Of WAR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--With your concurrence, and that of the Governor of
+Indiana, I am in favor of accepting into what we call the three
+years' service any number not exceeding four additional regiments
+from that State.  Probably they should come from the triangular
+region between the Ohio and Wabash Rivers, including my own old
+boyhood home.  Please see HON. C. M. Allen, Speaker of the Indiana
+House of Representatives, and unless you perceive good reason to the
+contrary, draw up an order for him according to the above.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, JUNE 17,1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+MY DEAR SIR:--With your concurrence, and that of the Governor of
+Ohio, I am in favor of receiving into what we call the three years'
+service any number not exceeding six additional regiments from that
+State, unless you perceive good reasons to the contrary.  Please see
+HON. John A. Gurley, who bears this, and make an order corresponding
+with the above.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO N. W. EDWARDS
+
+WASHINGTON, D. C., June 19, 1861
+
+Hon. N. W. EDWARDS
+MY DEAR SIR:
+.............
+.............
+When you wrote me some time ago in reference to looking up something
+in the departments here, I thought I would inquire into the thing and
+write you, but the extraordinary pressure upon me diverted me from
+it, and soon it passed out of my mind.  The thing you proposed, it
+seemed to me, I ought to understand myself before it was set on foot
+by my direction or permission; and I really had no time to make
+myself acquainted with it.  Nor have I yet.  And yet I am unwilling,
+of course, that you should be deprived of a chance to make something,
+if it can be done without injustice to the Government, or to any
+individual.  If you choose to come here and point out to me how this
+can be done I shall not only not object, but shall be gratified to be
+able to oblige you.
+
+Your friend as ever
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY CAMERON.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 20, 1861.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Since you spoke to me yesterday about General J. H.
+Lane, of Kansas, I have been reflecting upon the subject, and have
+concluded that we need the service of such a man out there at once;
+that we had better appoint him a brigadier-general of volunteers
+to-day, and send him off with such authority to raise a force (I
+think two regiments better than three, but as to this I am not
+particular) as you think will get him into actual work quickest.
+Tell him, when he starts, to put it through not to be writing or
+telegraphing back here, but put it through.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+[Indorsement.]
+
+General Lane has been authorized to raise two additional regiments of
+volunteers.
+
+SIMON CAMERON, Secretary o f War.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE KENTUCKY DELEGATION.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 29, 1861.
+
+GENTLEMEN OF THE KENTUCKY DELEGATION WHO ARE FOR THE UNION:
+
+I somewhat wish to authorize my friend Jesse Bayles to raise a
+Kentucky regiment, but I do not wish to do it without your consent.
+If you consent, please write so at the bottom of this.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+We consent:
+R. MALLORY.
+H. GRIDER.
+G. W. DUNLAP.
+J. S. JACKSON.
+C. A. WICKLIFFE.
+
+
+
+
+August 5, 1861.
+
+I repeat, I would like for Col. Bayles to raise a regiment of cavalry
+whenever the Union men of Kentucky desire or consent to it.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER AUTHORIZING GENERAL SCOTT TO SUSPEND THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS,
+JULY 2, 1861
+
+TO THE COMMANDING GENERAL,
+ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES:
+
+You are engaged in suppressing an insurrection against the laws of
+the United States.  If at any point on or in the vicinity of any
+military line which is now or which shall be used between the city of
+New York and the city of Washington you find resistance which renders
+it necessary to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for the public
+safety, you personally, or through the officer in command at the
+point where resistance occurs, are authorized to suspend that writ.
+
+Given under my hand and the seal of the United States at the city of
+Washington, this second day of July, A.D. 1861, and of the
+independence of the United States the eighty-fifth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY SEWARD.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, JULY 3, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF STATE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--General Scott had sent me a copy of the despatch of
+which you kindly sent one.  Thanks to both him and you.  Please
+assemble the Cabinet at twelve to-day to look over the message and
+reports.
+
+And now, suppose you step over at once and let us see General Scott
+(and) General Cameron about assigning a position to General Fremont.
+
+Yours as ever,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS IN SPECIAL SESSION,
+JULY 4, 1861.
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:--Having
+been convened on an extraordinary occasion, as authorized by the
+Constitution, your attention is not called to any ordinary subject of
+legislation.
+
+At the beginning of the present Presidential term, four months ago,
+the functions of the Federal Government were found to be generally
+suspended within the several States of South Carolina, Georgia,
+Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida, excepting only those of
+the Post-Office Department.
+
+Within these States all the forts, arsenals, dockyards,
+custom-houses, and the like, including the movable and stationary
+property in and about them, had been seized, and were held in open
+hostility to this government, excepting only Forts Pickens, Taylor,
+and Jefferson, on and near the Florida coast, and Fort Sumter, in
+Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.  The forts thus seized had been
+put in improved condition, new ones had been built, and armed forces
+had been organized and were organizing, all avowedly with the same
+hostile purpose.
+
+The forts remaining in the possession of the Federal Government in
+and near these States were either besieged or menaced by warlike
+preparations, and especially Fort Sumter was nearly surrounded by
+well-protected hostile batteries, with guns equal in quality to the
+best of its own, and outnumbering the latter as perhaps ten to one.
+A disproportionate share of the Federal muskets and rifles had
+somehow found their way into these States, and had been seized to be
+used against the government.  Accumulations of the public revenue
+lying within them had been seized for the same object.  The navy was
+scattered in distant seas, leaving but a very small part of it within
+the immediate reach of the government.  Officers of the Federal army
+and navy had resigned in great numbers; and of those resigning a
+large proportion had taken up arms against the government.
+Simultaneously, and in connection with all this, the purpose to sever
+the Federal Union was openly avowed.  In accordance with this
+purpose, an ordinance had been adopted in each of these States,
+declaring the States respectively to be separated from the national
+Union.  A formula for instituting a combined government of these
+States had been promulgated; and this illegal organization, in the
+character of confederate States, was already invoking recognition,
+aid, and intervention from foreign powers.
+
+Finding this condition of things, and believing it to be an
+imperative duty upon the incoming executive to prevent, if possible,
+the consummation of such attempt to destroy the Federal Union, a
+choice of means to that end became indispensable.  This choice was
+made and was declared in the inaugural address.  The policy chosen
+looked to the exhaustion of all peaceful measures before a resort to
+any stronger ones.  It sought only to hold the public places and
+property not already wrested from the government, and to collect the
+revenue, relying for the rest on time, discussion, and the
+ballot-box.  It promised a continuance of the mails, at government
+expense, to the very people who were resisting the government; and it
+gave repeated pledges against any disturbance to any of the people,
+or any of their rights.  Of all that which a President might
+constitutionally and justifiably do in such a case, everything was
+forborne without which it was believed possible to keep the
+government on foot.
+
+On the 5th of March (the present incumbent's first full day in
+office), a letter of Major Anderson, commanding at Fort Sumter,
+written on the 28th of February and received at the War Department on
+the 4th of March, was by that department placed in his hands.  This
+letter expressed the professional opinion of the writer that
+reinforcements could not be thrown into that fort within the time for
+his relief, rendered necessary by the limited supply of provisions,
+and with a view of holding possession of the same, with a force of
+less than twenty thousand good and well-disciplined men.  This
+opinion was concurred in by all the officers of his command, and
+their memoranda on the subject were made inclosures of Major
+Anderson's letter.  The whole was immediately laid before
+Lieutenant-General Scott, who at once concurred with Major Anderson
+in opinion.  On reflection, however, he took full time, consulting
+with other officers, both of the army and the navy, and at the end of
+four days came reluctantly but decidedly to the same conclusion as
+before.  He also stated at the same time that no such sufficient
+force was then at the control of the government, or could be raised
+and brought to the ground within the time when the provisions in the
+fort would be exhausted.  In a purely military point of view, this
+reduced the duty of the administration in the case to the mere matter
+of getting the garrison safely out of the fort.
+
+It was believed, however, that to so abandon that position, under the
+circumstances, would be utterly ruinous; that the necessity under
+which it was to be done would not be fully understood; that by many
+it would be construed as a part of a voluntary policy; that at home
+it would discourage the friends of the Union, embolden its
+adversaries, and go far to insure to the latter a recognition abroad;
+that in fact, it would be our national destruction consummated.  This
+could not be allowed.  Starvation was not yet upon the garrison, and
+ere it would be reached Fort Pickens might be reinforced.  This last
+would be a clear indication of policy, and would better enable the
+country to accept the evacuation of Fort Sumter as a military
+necessity.  An order was at once directed to be sent for the landing
+of the troops from the steamship Brooklyn into Fort Pickens.  This
+order could not go by land, but must take the longer and slower route
+by sea.  The first return news from the order was received just one
+week before the fall of Fort Sumter.  The news itself was that the
+officer commanding the Sabine, to which vessel the troops had been
+transferred from the Brooklyn, acting upon some quasi armistice of
+the late administration (and of the existence of which the present
+administration, up to the time the order was despatched, had only too
+vague and uncertain rumors to fix attention), had refused to land the
+troops.  To now reinforce Fort Pickens before a crisis would be
+reached at Fort Sumter was impossible--rendered so by the near
+exhaustion of provisions in the latter-named fort.  In precaution
+against such a conjuncture, the government had, a few days before,
+commenced preparing an expedition as well adapted as might be to
+relieve Fort Sumter, which expedition was intended to be ultimately
+used, or not, according to circumstances.  The strongest anticipated
+case for using it was now presented, and it was resolved to send it
+forward.  As had been intended in this contingency, it was also
+resolved to notify the governor of South Carolina that he might
+expect an attempt would be made to provision the fort; and that, if
+the attempt should not be resisted, there would be no effort to throw
+in men, arms, or ammunition, without further notice, or in case of an
+attack upon the fort.  This notice was accordingly given; whereupon
+the fort was attacked and bombarded to its fall, without even
+awaiting the arrival of the provisioning expedition.
+
+It is thus seen that the assault upon and reduction of Fort Sumter
+was in no sense a matter of self-defense on the part of the
+assailants.  They well knew that the garrison in the fort could by no
+possibility commit aggression upon them.  They knew--they were
+expressly notified--that the giving of bread to the few brave and
+hungry men of the garrison was all which would on that occasion be
+attempted, unless themselves, by resisting so much, should provoke
+more.  They knew that this government desired to keep the garrison in
+the fort, not to assail them, but merely to maintain visible
+possession, and thus to preserve the Union from actual and immediate
+dissolution--trusting, as hereinbefore stated, to time, discussion,
+and the ballot-box for final adjustment; and they assailed and
+reduced the fort for precisely the reverse object--to drive out the
+visible authority of the Federal Union, and thus force it to
+immediate dissolution.  That this was their object the executive well
+understood; and having said to them in the inaugural address, "You
+can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors," he
+took pains not only to keep this declaration good, but also to keep
+the case so free from the power of ingenious sophistry that the world
+should not be able to misunderstand it.  By the affair at Fort
+Sumter, with its surrounding circumstances, that point was reached.
+Then and thereby the assailants of the government began the conflict
+of arms, without a gun in sight or in expectancy to return their
+fire, save only the few in the fort sent to that harbor years before
+for their own protection, and still ready to give that protection in
+whatever was lawful.  In this act, discarding all else, they have
+forced upon the country the distinct issue, "immediate dissolution or
+blood."
+
+And this issue embraces more than the fate of these United States.
+It presents to the whole family of man the question whether a
+constitutional republic or democracy--a government of the people by
+the same people--can or cannot maintain its territorial integrity
+against its own domestic foes.  It presents the question whether
+discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control
+administration according to organic law in any case, can always, upon
+the pretenses made in this case, or on any other pretenses, or
+arbitrarily without any pretense, break up their government, and thus
+practically put an end to free government upon the earth.  It forces
+us to ask: Is there in all republics this inherent and fatal
+weakness?  Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the
+liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own
+existence?
+
+So viewing the issue, no choice was left but to call out the war
+power of the government, and so to resist force employed for its
+destruction by force for its preservation.
+
+The call was made, and the response of the country was most
+gratifying, surpassing in unanimity and spirit the most sanguine
+expectation.  Yet none of the States commonly called slave States,
+except Delaware, gave a regiment through regular State organization.
+A few regiments have been organized within some others of those
+States by individual enterprise, and received into the government
+service.  Of course the seceded States, so called (and to which Texas
+had been joined about the time of the inauguration), gave no troops
+to the cause of the Union.
+
+The border States, so called, were not uniform in their action, some
+of them being almost for the Union, while in others--as Virginia,
+North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas--the Union sentiment was
+nearly repressed and silenced.  The course taken in Virginia was the
+most remarkable--perhaps the most important.  A convention elected by
+the people of that State to consider this very question of disrupting
+the Federal Union was in session at the capital of Virginia when Fort
+Sumter fell.  To this body the people had chosen a large majority of
+professed Union men.  Almost immediately after the fall of Sumter,
+many members of that majority went over to the original disunion
+minority, and with them adopted an ordinance for withdrawing the
+State from the Union.  Whether this change was wrought by their great
+approval of the assault upon Sumter, or their great resentment at the
+government's resistance to that assault, is not definitely known.
+Although they submitted the ordinance for ratification to a vote of
+the people, to be taken on a day then somewhat more than a month
+distant, the convention and the Legislature (which was also in
+session at the same time and place), with leading men of the State
+not members of either, immediately commenced acting as if the State
+were already out of the Union.  They pushed military preparations
+vigorously forward all over the State.  They seized the United States
+armory at Harper's Ferry, and the navy-yard at Gosport, near Norfolk.
+They received perhaps invited--into their State large bodies of
+troops, with their warlike appointments, from the so-called seceded
+States.  They formally entered into a treaty of temporary alliance
+and co-operation with the so-called "Confederate States," and sent
+members to their congress at Montgomery.  And finally, they permitted
+the insurrectionary government to be transferred to their capital at
+Richmond.
+
+The people of Virginia have thus allowed this giant insurrection to
+make its nest within her borders; and this government has no choice
+left but to deal with it where it finds it.  And it has the less
+regret as the loyal citizens have, in due form, claimed its
+protection.  Those loyal citizens this government is bound to
+recognize and protect, as being Virginia.
+
+In the border States, so called,--in fact, the middle States,--there
+are those who favor a policy which they call "armed neutrality"; that
+is, an arming of those States to prevent the Union forces passing one
+way, or the disunion the other, over their soil.  This would be
+disunion completed.  Figuratively speaking, it would be the building
+of an impassable wall along the line of separation--and yet not quite
+an impassable one, for under the guise of neutrality it would tie the
+hands of Union men and freely pass supplies from among them to the
+insurrectionists, which it could not do as an open enemy.  At a
+stroke it would take all the trouble off the hands of secession,
+except only what proceeds from the external blockade.  It would do
+for the disunionists that which, of all things, they most desire--
+feed them well and give them disunion without a struggle of their
+own.  It recognizes no fidelity to the Constitution, no obligation to
+maintain the Union; and while very many who have favored it are
+doubtless loyal citizens, it is, nevertheless, very injurious in
+effect.
+
+Recurring to the action of the government, it may be stated that at
+first a call was made for 75,000 militia; and, rapidly following
+this, a proclamation was issued for closing the ports of the
+insurrectionary districts by proceedings in the nature of blockade.
+So far all was believed to be strictly legal.  At this point the
+insurrectionists announced their purpose to enter upon the practice
+of privateering.
+
+Other calls were made for volunteers to serve for three years, unless
+sooner discharged, and also for large additions to the regular army
+and navy.  These measures, whether strictly legal or not, were
+ventured upon, under what appeared to be a popular demand and a
+public necessity; trusting then, as now, that Congress would readily
+ratify them.  It is believed that nothing has been done beyond the
+constitutional competency of Congress.
+
+Soon after the first call for militia, it was considered a duty to
+authorize the commanding general in proper cases, according to his
+discretion, to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus,
+or, in other words, to arrest and detain, without resort to the
+ordinary processes and forms of law, such individuals as he might
+deem dangerous to the public safety.  This authority has purposely
+been exercised but very sparingly.  Nevertheless, the legality and
+propriety of what has been done under it are questioned, and the
+attention of the country has been called to the proposition that one
+who has sworn to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed"
+should not himself violate them.  Of course some consideration was
+given to the questions of power and propriety before this matter was
+acted upon.  The whole of the laws which were required to be
+faithfully executed were being resisted and failing of execution in
+nearly one third of the States.  Must they be allowed to finally fail
+of execution, even had it been perfectly clear that by the use of the
+means necessary to their execution some single law, made in such
+extreme tenderness of the citizen's liberty that, practically, it
+relieves more of the guilty than of the innocent, should to a very
+limited extent be violated? To state the question more directly, are
+all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the government itself go
+to pieces lest that one be violated? Even in such a case, would not
+the official oath be broken if the government should be overthrown
+when it was believed that disregarding the single law would tend to
+preserve it? But it was not believed that this question was
+presented.  It was not believed that any law was violated.  The
+provision of the Constitution that "the privilege of the writ of
+habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when, in cases of
+rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it," is
+equivalent to a provision--is a provision--that such privilege may be
+suspended when, in case of rebellion or invasion, the public safety
+does require it.  It was decided that we have a case of rebellion,
+and that the public safety does require the qualified suspension of
+the privilege of the writ which was authorized to be made.  Now it is
+insisted that Congress, and not the executive, is vested with this
+power.  But the Constitution itself is silent as to which or who is
+to exercise the power; and as the provision was plainly made for a
+dangerous emergency, it cannot be believed the framers of the
+instrument intended that in every case the danger should run its
+course until Congress could be called together, the very assembling
+of which might be prevented, as was intended in this case, by the
+rebellion.
+
+No more extended argument is now offered, as an opinion at some
+length will probably be presented by the attorney-general.  Whether
+there shall be any legislation upon the subject, and if any, what, is
+submitted entirely to the better judgment of Congress.
+
+The forbearance of this government had been so extraordinary and so
+long continued as to lead some foreign nations to shape their action
+as if they supposed the early destruction of our national Union was
+probable.  While this, on discovery, gave the executive some concern,
+he is now happy to say that the sovereignty and rights of the United
+States are now everywhere practically respected by foreign powers;
+and a general sympathy with the country is manifested throughout the
+world.
+
+The reports of the Secretaries of the Treasury, War, and the Navy
+will give the information in detail deemed necessary and convenient
+for your deliberation and action; while the executive and all the
+departments will stand ready to supply omissions, or to communicate
+new facts considered important for you to know.
+
+It is now recommended that you give the legal means for making this
+contest a short and decisive one: that you place at the control of
+the government for the work at least four hundred thousand men and
+$400,000,000.  That number of men is about one-tenth of those of
+proper ages within the regions where, apparently, all are willing to
+engage; and the sum is less than a twenty-third part of the money
+value owned by the men who seem ready to devote the whole.  A debt of
+$6oo,ooo,ooo now is a less sum per head than was the debt of our
+Revolution when we came out of that struggle; and the money value in
+the country now bears even a greater proportion to what it was then
+than does the population.  Surely each man has as strong a motive now
+to preserve our liberties as each had then to establish them.
+
+A right result at this time will be worth more to the world than ten
+times the men and ten times the money.  The evidence reaching us from
+the country leaves no doubt that the material for the work is
+abundant, and that it needs only the hand of legislation to give it
+legal sanction, and the hand of the executive to give it practical
+shape and efficiency.  One of the greatest perplexities of the
+government is to avoid receiving troops faster than it can provide
+for them.  In a word, the people will save their government if the
+government itself will do its part only indifferently well.
+
+It might seem, at first thought, to be of little difference whether
+the present movement at the South be called "secession" or
+"rebellion." The movers, however, well understand the difference.  At
+the beginning they knew they could never raise their treason to any
+respectable magnitude by any name which implies violation of law.
+They knew their people possessed as much of moral sense, as much of
+devotion to law and order, and as much pride in and reverence for the
+history and government of their common country as any other civilized
+and patriotic people.  They knew they could make no advancement
+directly in the teeth of these strong and noble sentiments.
+Accordingly, they commenced by an insidious debauching of the public
+mind.  They invented an ingenious sophism which, if conceded, was
+followed by perfectly logical steps, through all the incidents, to
+the complete destruction of the Union.  The sophism itself is that
+any State of the Union may consistently with the national
+Constitution, and therefore lawfully and peacefully, withdraw from
+the Union without the consent of the Union or of any other State.
+The little disguise that the supposed right is to be exercised only
+for just cause, themselves to be the sole judges of its justice, is
+too thin to merit any notice.
+
+With rebellion thus sugar-coated they have been drugging the public
+mind of their section for more than thirty years, and until at length
+they have brought many good men to a willingness to take up arms
+against the government the day after some assemblage of men have
+enacted the farcical pretense of taking their State out of the Union,
+who could have been brought to no such thing the day before.
+
+This sophism derives much, perhaps the whole, of its currency from
+the assumption that there is some omnipotent and sacred supremacy
+pertaining to a State--to each State of our Federal Union.  Our
+States have neither more nor less power than that reserved to them in
+the Union by the Constitution--no one of them ever having been a
+State out of the Union.  The original ones passed into the Union even
+before they cast off their British colonial dependence; and the new
+ones each came into the Union directly from a condition of
+dependence, excepting Texas.  And even Texas in its temporary
+independence was never designated a State.  The new ones only took
+the designation of States on coming into the Union, while that name
+was first adopted for the old ones in and by the Declaration of
+Independence.  Therein the "United Colonies" were declared to be
+"free and independent States"; but even then the object plainly was
+not to declare their independence of one another or of the Union, but
+directly the contrary, as their mutual pledge and their mutual action
+before, at the time, and afterward, abundantly show.  The express
+plighting of faith by each and all of the original thirteen in the
+Articles of Confederation, two years later, that the Union shall be
+perpetual, is most conclusive.  Having never been States either in
+substance or in name outside of the Union, whence this magical
+omnipotence of " State rights," asserting a claim of power to
+lawfully destroy the Union itself? Much is said about the
+"sovereignty" of the States; but the word even is not in the national
+Constitution, nor, as is believed, in any of the State constitutions.
+What is "sovereignty" in the political sense of the term? Would it be
+far wrong to define it as "a political community without a political
+superior"? Tested by this, no one of our States except Texas ever was
+a sovereignty.  And even Texas gave up the character on coming into
+the Union; by which act she acknowledged the Constitution of the
+United States, and the laws and treaties of the United States made in
+pursuance of the Constitution, to be for her the supreme law of the
+land.  The States have their status in the Union, and they have no
+other legal status.  If they break from this, they can only do so
+against law and by revolution.  The Union, and not themselves
+separately, procured their independence and their liberty.  By
+conquest or purchase the Union gave each of them whatever of
+independence or liberty it has.  The Union is older than any of the
+States, and, in fact, it created them as States.  Originally some
+dependent colonies made the Union, and, in turn, the Union threw off
+their old dependence for them, and made them States, such as they
+are.  Not one of them ever had a State constitution independent of
+the Union.  Of course, it is not forgotten that all the new States
+framed their constitutions before they entered the Union
+nevertheless, dependent upon and preparatory to coming into the
+Union.
+
+Unquestionably the States have the powers and rights reserved to them
+in and by the national Constitution; but among these surely are not
+included all conceivable powers, however mischievous or destructive,
+but, at most, such only as were known in the world at the time as
+governmental powers; and certainly a power to destroy the government
+itself had never been known as a governmental, as a merely
+administrative power.  This relative matter of national power and
+State rights, as a principle, is no other than the principle of
+generality and locality.  Whatever concerns the whole should be
+confided to the whole--to the General Government; while whatever
+concerns only the State should be left exclusively to the State.
+This is all there is of original principle about it.  Whether the
+national Constitution in defining boundaries between the two has
+applied the principle with exact accuracy, is not to be questioned.
+We are all bound by that defining, without question.
+
+What is now combated is the position that secession is consistent
+with the Constitution--is lawful and peaceful.  It is not contended
+that there is any express law for it; and nothing should ever be
+implied as law which leads to unjust or absurd consequences.  The
+nation purchased with money the countries out of which several of
+these States were formed.  Is it just that they shall go off without
+leave and without refunding? The nation paid very large sums (in the
+aggregate, I believe, nearly a hundred millions) to relieve Florida
+of the aboriginal tribes.  Is it just that she shall now be off
+without consent or without making any return? The nation is now in
+debt for money applied to the benefit of these so-called seceding
+States in common with the rest.  Is it just either that creditors
+shall go unpaid or the remaining States pay the whole? A part of the
+present national debt was contracted to pay the old debts of Texas.
+Is it just that she shall leave and pay no part of this herself?
+
+Again, if one State may secede, so may another; and when all shall
+have seceded, none is left to pay the debts.  Is this quite just for
+creditors? Did we notify them of this sage view of ours when we
+borrowed their money? If we now recognize this doctrine by allowing
+the seceders to go in peace, it is difficult to see what we can do if
+others choose to go or to extort terms upon which they will promise
+to remain.
+
+The seceders insist that our Constitution admits of secession.  They
+have assumed to make a national constitution of their own, in which
+of necessity they have either discarded or retained the right of
+secession as they insist it exists in ours.   If they have discarded
+it, they thereby admit that on principle it ought not to be in ours.
+If they have retained it, by their own construction of ours, they
+show that to be consistent they must secede from one another whenever
+they shall find it the easiest way of settling their debts, or
+effecting any other selfish or unjust object.  The principle itself
+is one of disintegration and upon which no government can possibly
+endure.
+
+If all the States save one should assert the power to drive that one
+out of the Union, it is presumed the whole class of seceder
+politicians would at once deny the power and denounce the act as the
+greatest outrage upon State rights.  But suppose that precisely the
+same act, instead of being called "driving the one out," should be
+called "the seceding of the others from that one," it would be
+exactly what the seceders claim to do, unless, indeed, they make the
+point that the one, because it is a minority, may rightfully do what
+the others, because they are a majority, may not rightfully do.
+These politicians are subtle and profound on the rights of
+minorities.  They are not partial to that power which made the
+Constitution and speaks from the preamble calling itself "We, the
+People."
+
+It may well be questioned whether there is to-day a majority of the
+legally qualified voters of any State except perhaps South Carolina
+in favor of disunion.  There is much reason to believe that the Union
+men are the majority in many, if not in every other one, of the so-
+called seceded States.  The contrary has not been demonstrated in any
+one of them.  It is ventured to affirm this even of Virginia and
+Tennessee; for the result of an election held in military camps,
+where the bayonets are all on one side of the question voted upon,
+can scarcely be considered as demonstrating popular sentiment.  At
+such an election, all that large class who are at once for the Union
+and against coercion would be coerced to vote against the Union.
+
+It may be affirmed without extravagance that the free institutions we
+enjoy have developed the powers and improved the condition of our
+whole people beyond any example in the world.  Of this we now have a
+striking and an impressive illustration.  So large an army as the
+government has now on foot was never before known without a soldier
+in it but who has taken his place there of his own free choice.  But
+more than this, there are many single regiments whose members, one
+and another, possess full practical knowledge of all the arts,
+sciences, professions, and whatever else, whether useful or elegant,
+is known in the world; and there is scarcely one from which there
+could not be selected a President, a Cabinet, a Congress, and perhaps
+a court, abundantly competent to administer the government itself.
+Nor do I say this is not true also in the army of our late friends,
+now adversaries in this contest; but if it is, so much better the
+reason why the government which has conferred such benefits on both
+them and us should not be broken up.  Whoever in any section proposes
+to abandon such a government would do well to consider in deference
+to what principle it is that he does it; what better he is likely to
+get in its stead; whether the substitute will give, or be intended to
+give, so much of good to the people.  There are some foreshadowings
+on this subject.  Our adversaries have adopted some declarations of
+independence in which, unlike the good old one, penned by Jefferson,
+they omit the words "all men are created equal." Why? They have
+adopted a temporary national constitution, in the preamble of which,
+unlike our good old one, signed by Washington, they omit "We, the
+People," and substitute, "We, the deputies of the sovereign and
+independent States." Why? Why this deliberate pressing out of view
+the rights of men and the authority of the people?
+
+This is essentially a people's contest.  On the side of the Union it
+is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of
+government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men to
+lift artificial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of
+laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start, and a
+fair chance in the race of life.  Yielding to partial and temporary
+departures, from necessity; this is the leading object of the
+government for whose existence we contend.
+
+I am most happy to believe that the plain people understand and
+appreciate this.  It is worthy of note that, while in this the
+government's hour of trial large numbers of those in the army and
+navy who have been favored with the offices have resigned and proved
+false to the hand which had pampered them, not one common soldier or
+common sailor is known to have deserted his flag.
+
+Great honor is due to those officers who remained true, despite the
+example of their treacherous associates; but the greatest honor, and
+most important fact of all, is the unanimous firmness of the common
+soldiers and common sailors.  To the last man, so far as known, they
+have successfully resisted the traitorous efforts of those whose
+commands, but an hour before, they obeyed as absolute law.  This is
+the patriotic instinct of the plain people.  They understand, without
+an argument, that the destroying of the government which was made by
+Washington means no good to them.
+
+Our popular government has often been called an experiment.  Two
+points in it our people have already settled--the successful
+establishing and the successful administering of it.  One still
+remains--its successful maintenance against a formidable internal
+attempt to overthrow it.  It is now for them to demonstrate to the
+world that those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a
+rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of
+bullets; and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally
+decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets; that
+there can be no successful appeal, except to ballots themselves, at
+succeeding elections.  Such will be a great lesson of peace:
+teaching men that what they cannot take by an election, neither can
+they take it by a war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners
+of a war.
+
+Lest there be some uneasiness in the minds of candid men as to what
+is to be the course of the government toward the Southern States
+after the rebellion shall have been suppressed, the executive deems
+it proper to say it will be his purpose then, as ever, to be guided
+by the Constitution and the laws; and that he probably will have no
+different understanding of the powers and duties of the Federal
+Government relatively to the rights of the States and the people,
+under the Constitution, than that expressed in the inaugural address.
+
+He desires to preserve the government, that it may be administered
+for all as it was administered by the men who made it.  Loyal
+citizens everywhere have the right to claim this of their government,
+and the government has no right to withhold or neglect it.  It is not
+perceived that in giving it there is any coercion, any conquest, or
+any subjugation, in any just sense of those terms.
+
+The Constitution provides, and all the States have accepted the
+provision, that "the United States shall guarantee to every State in
+this Union a republican form of government."  But if a State may
+lawfully go out of the Union, having done so it may also discard the
+republican form of government, so that to prevent its going out is an
+indispensable means to the end of maintaining the guarantee
+mentioned; and when an end is lawful and obligatory, the
+indispensable means to it are also lawful and obligatory.
+
+It was with the deepest regret that the executive found the duty of
+employing the war power in defense of the government forced upon him.
+He could but perform this duty or surrender the existence of the
+government.  No compromise by public servants could, in this case, be
+a cure; not that compromises are not often proper, but that no
+popular government can long survive a marked precedent that those who
+carry an election can only save the government from immediate
+destruction by giving up the main point upon which the people gave
+the election.  The people themselves, and not their servants, can
+safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.
+
+As a private citizen the executive could not have consented that
+these institutions shall perish; much less could he in betrayal of so
+vast and so sacred a trust as these free people had confided to him.
+He felt that he had no moral right to shrink, nor even to count the
+chances of his own life, in what might follow.  In full view of his
+great responsibility he has, so far, done what he has deemed his
+duty.  You will now, according to your own judgment, perform yours.
+He sincerely hopes that your views and your action may so accord with
+his as to assure all faithful citizens who have been disturbed in
+their rights of a certain and speedy restoration to them, under the
+Constitution and the laws.
+
+And having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure
+purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear
+and with manly hearts.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN,   July 4, 1861
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 6, 1861.
+
+HON. SEC. OF INTERIOR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Please ask the Comr. of Indian Affairs, and of the
+Gen'1 Land Office to come with you, and see me at once. I want the
+assistance of all of you in overhauling the list of appointments a
+little before I send them to the Senate.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
+
+TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
+9th instant, requesting a copy of correspondence upon the subject of
+the incorporation of the Dominican republic with the Spanish
+monarchy, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State; to whom
+the resolution was referred.
+
+WASHINGTON, July 11, 1861.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+I transmit to Congress a copy of correspondence between the Secretary
+of State and her Britannic Majesty's envoy extraordinary and minister
+plenipotentiary accredited to this government, relative to the
+exhibition of the products of industry of all nations, which is to
+take place at London in the course of next year.  As citizens of the
+United States may justly pride themselves upon their proficiency in
+industrial arts, it is desirable that they should have proper
+facilities toward taking part in the exhibition.  With this view I
+recommend such legislation by Congress at this session as may be
+necessary for that purpose.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+WASHINGTON, July 16, 1861
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+As the United States have, in common with Great Britain and France, a
+deep interest in the preservation and development of the fisheries
+adjacent to the northeastern coast and islands of this continent, it
+seems proper that we should concert with the governments of those
+countries such measures as may be conducive to those important
+objects.  With this view I transmit to Congress a copy of a
+correspondence between the Secretary of State and the British
+minister here, in which the latter proposes, on behalf of his
+government, the appointment of a joint commission to inquire into the
+matter, in order that such ulterior measures may be adopted as may be
+advisable for the objects proposed. Such legislation recommended as
+may be necessary to enable th executive to provide for a commissioner
+on behalf of the United States:
+
+WASHINGTON, JULY 19, 1861.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE ADJUTANT-GENERAL
+
+WASHINGTON, JULY 19, 1861
+
+ADJUTANT-GENERAL:
+
+I have agreed, and do agree, that the two Indian regiments named
+within shall be accepted if the act of Congress shall admit it.  Let
+there be no further question about it.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MEMORANDA OF MILITARY POLICY SUGGESTED BY THE
+BULL RUN DEFEAT.
+
+JULY 23, 1861
+
+1. Let the plan for making the blockade effective be pushed forward
+with all possible despatch.
+
+2. Let the volunteer forces at Fort Monroe and vicinity under
+General Butler be constantly drilled, disciplined, and instructed
+without more for the present.
+
+3. Let Baltimore be held as now, with a gentle but firm and certain
+hand.
+
+4. Let the force now under Patterson or Banks be strengthened and made
+secure in its position.
+
+5. Let the forces in Western Virginia act till further orders
+according to instructions or orders from General McClellan.
+
+6. [Let] General Fremont push forward his organization and operations
+in the West as rapidly as possible, giving rather special attention
+to Missouri.
+
+7. Let the forces late before Manassas, except the three-months men,
+be reorganized as rapidly as possible in their camps here and about
+Arlington.
+
+8. Let the three-months forces who decline to enter the longer service
+be discharged as rapidly as circumstances will permit.
+
+9. Let the new volunteer forces be brought forward as fast as
+possible, and especially into the camps on the two sides of the river
+here.
+
+When the foregoing shall be substantially attended to:
+
+1. Let Manassas Junction (or some point on one or other of the
+railroads near it) and Strasburg be seized, and permanently held,
+with an open line from Washington to Manassas, and an open line from
+Harper's Ferry to Strasburg the military men to find the way of doing
+these.
+
+2. This done, a joint movement from Cairo on Memphis; and from
+Cincinnati on East Tennessee.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., July 24, 1861
+
+THE GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY.
+
+SIR:--Together with the regiments of three years' volunteers which
+the government already has in service in your State, enough to make
+eight in all, if tendered in a reasonable time, will be accepted, the
+new regiments to be taken, as far as convenient, from the three
+months' men and officers just discharged, and to be organized,
+equipped, and sent forward as fast as single regiments are ready, On
+the same terms as were those already in the service from that State.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+[Indorsement.]
+
+This order is entered in the War Department, and the Governor of New
+Jersey is authorized to furnish the regiments with wagons and horses.
+
+S.  CAMERON, Secretary of War.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
+
+TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
+22d instant; requesting a copy of the correspondence between this,
+government and foreign powers with reference to maritime right , I
+transmit a report from the Secretary of State.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+WASHINGTON, July 25, 1861
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
+
+TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
+15th instant, requesting a copy of the correspondence between this
+government and foreign powers on the subject of the existing
+insurrection in the United States, I transmit a report from the
+Secretary of State.
+
+WASHINGTON, July 25, 1861.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY CHASE.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, JULY 16, 1861
+
+MR CHASE:--The bearer, Mr._____   , wants ________in the custom house
+at Baltimore.  If his recommendations are satisfactory, and I
+recollect them to have been so, the fact that he is urged by the
+Methodists should be in his favor, as they complain of us some.
+
+LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
+
+TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
+24th instant, asking the grounds, reasons, and evidence upon which
+the police Commissioners of Baltimore were arrested and are now
+detained as prisoners at Port McHenry, I have to state that it is
+judged to be incompatible with the public interest at this time to
+furnish the information called for by the resolution.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+WASHINGTON, JULY 27, 1861
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE SENATE.
+
+TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 19th instant
+requesting information concerning the quasi armistice alluded to in
+my message of the 4th instant, I transmit a report from the Secretary
+of the Navy.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+JULY 30, 1861
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE SENATE.
+
+TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 23d instant
+requesting information concerning the imprisonment of Lieutenant John
+J. Worden (John L. Worden) of the United States navy, I transmit a
+report from the Secretary of the Navy.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+July 30, 1861
+
+
+
+
+ORDER TO UNITED STATES MARSHALS.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, D.C.,
+JULY 31, 1861
+
+The Marshals of the United States in the vicinity of forts where
+political prisoners are held will supply decent lodging and
+sustenance for such prisoners unless they shall prefer to provide in
+those respects for themselves, in which case they will be allowed to
+do so by the commanding officer in charge.
+
+Approved, and the Secretary of the State will transmit the order to
+the Marshals, to the Lieutenant-General, and the Secretary of the
+Interior.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
+
+TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of
+yesterday, requesting information regarding the imprisonment of loyal
+citizens of the United States by the forces now in rebellion against
+this government, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, and
+the copy of a telegraphic despatch by which it was accompanied.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+WASHINGTON, August 2, 1861.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE SENATE.
+
+TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of your honorable body of date July 31,
+1861, requesting the President to inform the Senate whether the Hon.
+James H. Lane, a member of that body from Kansas, has been appointed
+a brigadier-general in the army of the United States, and if so,
+whether he has accepted such appointment, I have the honor to
+transmit herewith certain papers, numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7,
+which, taken together, explain themselves, and which contain all the
+information I possess upon the questions propounded.
+
+It was my intention, as shown by my letter of June 20, 1861, to
+appoint Hon. James H. Lane, of Kansas, a brigadier-general of United
+States volunteers in anticipation of the act of Congress, since
+passed, for raising such volunteers; and I have no further knowledge
+upon the subject, except as derived from the papers herewith
+enclosed.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 5, 1861
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY CAMERON.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, AUGUST 7, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--The within paper, as you see, is by HON. John S. Phelps
+and HON. Frank P. Blair, Jr., both members of the present Congress
+from Missouri.  The object is to get up an efficient force of
+Missourians in the southwestern part of the State.  It ought to be
+done, and Mr. Phelps ought to have general superintendence of it.
+I see by a private report to me from the department that eighteen
+regiments are already accepted from Missouri.  Can it not be arranged
+that part of them (not yet organized, as I understand) may be taken
+from the locality mentioned and put under the control of Mr. Phelps,
+and let him have discretion to accept them for a shorter term than
+three years--or the war--understanding, however, that he will get
+them for the full term if he can? I hope this can be done, because
+Mr. Phelps is too zealous and efficient and understands his ground
+too well for us to lose his service.  Of course provision for arming,
+equipping, etc., must be made.  Mr. Phelps is here, and wishes to
+carry home with him authority for this matter.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION OF A NATIONAL FAST-DAY,
+AUGUST 12, 1861.
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
+OF AMERICA
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas a joint committee of both houses of Congress has waited on
+the President of the United States and requested him to "recommend a
+day of public humiliation, prayer, and fasting to be observed by the
+people of the United States with religious solemnities and the
+offering of fervent supplications to Almighty God for the safety and
+welfare of these States, His blessings on their arms, and a speedy
+restoration of peace"; and
+
+Whereas it is fit and becoming in all people at all times to
+acknowledge and revere the supreme government of God, to bow in
+humble submission to His chastisements, to confess and deplore their
+sins and transgressions in the full conviction that the fear of the
+Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and to pray with all fervency and
+contrition for the pardon of their past offences and for a blessing
+upon their present and prospective action; and
+
+Whereas when our own beloved country, once, by the blessing of God,
+united, prosperous, and happy, is now afflicted with faction and
+civil war, it is peculiarly fit for us to recognize the hand of God
+in this terrible visitation, and in sorrowful remembrance of our own
+faults and crimes as a nation and as individuals to humble ourselves
+before Him and to pray for His mercy-to pray that we may be spared
+further punishment, though most justly deserved, that our arms may be
+blessed and made effectual for the re-establishment of order, law,
+and peace throughout the wide extent of our country, and that the
+inestimable boon of civil and religious liberty, earned under His
+guidance and blessing by the labors and sufferings of our fathers,
+may be restored in all its original excellence
+
+Therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do
+appoint the last Thursday in September next as a day of humiliation,
+prayer, and fasting for all the people of the nation.  And I do
+earnestly recommend to all the people, and especially to all
+ministers and teachers of religion of all denominations and to all
+heads of families, to observe and keep that day according to their
+several creeds and modes of worship in all humility and with all
+religious solemnity, to the end that the united prayer of the nation
+may ascend to the Throne of Grace and bring down plentiful blessings
+upon our country.
+
+          In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand
+          and caused the seal of the United States to
+[SEAL.]   be affixed, this twelfth day of August, A. D.
+          1861, and of the independence of the United
+          States of America the eighty-sixth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President
+
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary o f State.
+
+
+
+
+TO JAMES POLLOCK.
+
+WASHINGTON, AUGUST 15, 1861
+
+HON. JAMES POLLOCK.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--You must make a job for the bearer of this--make a job
+of it with the collector and have it done.  You can do it for me and
+you must.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GOVERNOR O. P. MORTON.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C. , AUGUST 15, 1861
+
+GOVERNOR MORTON, Indiana:
+Start your four regiments to St.  Louis at the earliest moment
+possible.  Get such harness as may be necessary for your rifled gums.
+Do not delay a single regiment, but hasten everything forward as soon
+as any one regiment is ready.  Have your three additional regiments
+organized at once.  We shall endeavor to send you the arms this week.
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL FREMONT,
+
+WASHINGTON, August 15, 1861
+
+TO MAJOR-GENERAL FREMONT:
+
+Been answering your messages since day before yesterday.  Do you
+receive the answers?  The War Department has notified all the
+governors you designate to forward all available force.  So
+telegraphed you.  Have you received these messages? Answer
+immediately.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION FORBIDDING INTERCOURSE WITH
+REBEL STATES, AUGUST 16, 1861.
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
+OF AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas on the fifteenth day of April, eighteen hundred and sixty-
+one, the President of the United States, in view of an insurrection
+against the laws, Constitution, and government of the United States
+which had broken out within the States of South Carolina, Georgia,
+Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and in pursuance
+of the provisions of the act entitled "An act to provide for calling
+forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress
+insurrections, and repel invasions, and to repeal the act now in
+force for that purpose," approved February twenty-eighth, seventeen
+hundred and ninety-five, did call forth the militia to suppress said
+insurrection, and to cause the laws of the Union to be duly executed,
+and the insurgents have failed to disperse by the time directed by
+the President; and whereas such insurrection has since broken out and
+yet exists within the States of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee,
+and Arkansas; and whereas the insurgents in all the said States claim
+to act under the authority thereof, and such claim is not disclaimed
+or repudiated by the persons exercising the functions of government
+in such State or States, or in the part or parts thereof in which
+such combinations exist, nor has such insurrection been suppressed by
+said States:
+
+Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States,
+in pursuance of an act of Congress approved July thirteen, eighteen
+hundred and sixty-one, do hereby declare that the inhabitants of the
+said States of Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina,
+Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, and
+Florida (except the inhabitants of that part of the State of Virginia
+lying west of the Allegheny Mountains, and of such other parts of
+that State, and the other States hereinbefore named, as may maintain
+a loyal adhesion to the Union and the Constitution, or may be time to
+time occupied and controlled by forces of the United States engaged
+in the dispersion of said insurgents), are in a state of insurrection
+against the United States, and that all commercial intercourse
+between the same and the inhabitants thereof, with the exceptions
+aforesaid, and the citizens of other States and other parts of the
+United States, is unlawful, and will remain unlawful until such
+insurrection shall cease or has been suppressed; that all goods and
+chattels, wares and merchandise, coming from any of said States, with
+the exceptions aforesaid, into other parts of the United States,
+without the special license and permission of the President, through
+the Secretary of the Treasury, or proceeding to any of said States,
+with the exceptions aforesaid, by land or water, together with the
+vessel or vehicle conveying the same, or conveying persons to or from
+said States, with said exceptions, will be forfeited to the United
+States; and that from and after fifteen days from the issuing of this
+proclamation all ships and vessels belonging in whole or in part to
+any citizen or inhabitant of any of said States, with said
+exceptions, found at sea, or in any port of the United States, will
+be forfeited to the United States; and I hereby enjoin upon all
+district attorneys, marshals, and officers of the revenue and of the
+military and naval forces of the United States to be vigilant in the
+execution of said act, and in the enforcement of the penalties and
+forfeitures imposed or declared by it; leaving any party who may
+think himself aggrieved thereby to his application to the Secretary
+of the Treasury for the remission of any penalty or forfeiture, which
+the said Secretary is authorized by law to grant if, in his judgment,
+the special circumstances of any case shall require such remission.
+
+In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand,...................
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of Sate.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY CAMERON.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 17, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Unless there be reason to the contrary, not known to
+me, make out a commission for Simon B. Buckner, of Kentucky, as a
+brigadier-general of volunteers. It is to be put into the hands of
+General Anderson, and delivered to General Buckner or not, at the
+discretion of General Anderson.  Of course it is to remain a secret
+unless and until the commission is delivered.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN
+
+Same day made.
+
+[Indorsement.]
+
+
+
+
+TO GOVERNOR MAGOFFIN,
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., AUGUST 24, 1861
+
+To HIS EXCELLENCY B. MAGOFFIN,
+Governor of the State of Kentucky.
+
+SIR:--Your letter of the 19th instant, in which you urge the removal
+from the limits of Kentucky of the military force now organized and
+in camp within that State," is received.
+
+I may not possess full and precisely accurate knowledge upon this
+subject; but I believe it is true that there is a military force in
+camp within Kentucky, acting by authority of the United States, which
+force is not very large, and is not now being augmented.
+
+I also believe that some arms have been furnished to this force by
+the United States.
+
+I also believe this force consists exclusively of Kentuckians, having
+their camp in the immediate vicinity of their own homes, and not
+assailing or menacing any of the good people of Kentucky.
+
+In all I have done in the premises I have acted upon the urgent
+solicitation of many Kentuckians, and in accordance with what I
+believed, and still believe, to be the wish of a majority of all the
+Union-loving people of Kentucky.
+
+While I have conversed on this subject with many eminent men of
+Kentucky, including a large majority of her members of Congress, I do
+not remember that any one of them, or any other person, except your
+Excellency and the bearers of your Excellency's letter, has urged me
+to remove the military force from Kentucky or to disband it.  One
+other very worthy citizen of Kentucky did solicit me to have the
+augmenting of the force suspended for a time.
+
+Taking all the means within my reach to form a judgment, I do not
+believe it is the popular wish of Kentucky that this force shall be
+removed beyond her limits; and, with this impression, I must
+respectfully decline to so remove it.
+
+I most cordially sympathize with your Excellency in the wish to
+preserve the peace of my own native State, Kentucky.  It is with
+regret I search, and cannot find, in your not very short letter, any
+declaration or intimation that you entertain any desire for the
+preservation of the Federal Union.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL FREMONT.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., SEPTEMBER 2, 1861
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL FREMONT.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Two points in your proclamation of August 30 give me
+some anxiety.
+
+First.  Should you shoot a man, according to the proclamation, the
+Confederates would very certainly shoot our best men in their hands
+in retaliation; and so, man for man, indefinitely.  It is, therefore,
+my order that you allow no man to be shot under the proclamation
+without first having my approbation or consent.
+
+Second.  I think there is great danger that the closing paragraph, in
+relation to the confiscation of property and the liberating slaves of
+traitorous owners, will alarm our Southern Union friends and turn
+them against us; perhaps ruin our rather fair prospect for Kentucky.
+Allow me, therefore, to ask that you will, as of your own motion,
+modify that paragraph so as to conform to the first and fourth
+sections of the act of Congress entitled "An act to confiscate
+property used for insurrectionary purposes," approved August 6, 1861,
+and a copy of which act I herewith send you.
+
+This letter is written in a spirit of caution, and not of censure.  I
+send it by special messenger, in order that it may certainly and
+speedily reach you.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GOVERNORS WASHBURN OF MAINE, FAIRBANKS OF VERMONT, BERRY
+OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, ANDREW OF MASSACHUSETTS, BUCKINGHAM OF CONNECTICUT,
+AND SPRAGUE OF RHODE ISLAND.
+
+WAR DEPARTMENT, September 11, 1861.
+
+General Butler proposes raising in New England six regiments, to be
+recruited and commanded by himself, and to go on special service.
+
+I shall be glad if you, as governor of ______, will answer by
+telegraph if you consent.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL FREMONT.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., SEPTEMBER 11, 1861
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN C. FREMONT.
+
+SIR:-Yours of the 8th, in answer to mine of the 2d instant, is just
+received.  Assuming that you, upon the ground, could better judge of
+the necessities of your position than I could at this distance, on
+seeing your proclamation of August30 I perceived no general objection
+to it.  The particular clause, however, in relation to the
+confiscation of property and the liberation of slaves appeared to me
+to be objectionable in its nonconformity to the act of Congress
+passed the 6th of last August upon the same subjects; and hence I
+wrote you, expressing my wish that that clause should be modified
+accordingly.  Your answer, just received, expresses the preference on
+your part that I should make an open order for the modification,
+which I very cheerfully do.  It is therefore ordered that the said
+clause of said proclamation be so modified, held, and construed as to
+conform to, and not to transcend, the provisions on the same subject
+contained in the act of Congress entitled "An act to confiscate
+property used for insurrectionary purposes," approved August 6, 1861,
+and that said act be published at length with this order.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO MRS. FREMONT.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C.,
+September 12, 1861
+
+Mrs. GENERAL FREMONT.
+
+MY DEAR MADAM:--Your two notes of to-day are before me.  I answered
+the letter you bore me from General Fremont on yesterday, and not
+hearing from you during the day, I sent the answer to him by mail.
+It is not exactly correct, as you say you were told by the elder Mr.
+Blair, to say that I sent Postmaster-General Blair to St.  Louis to
+examine into that department and report.  Postmaster-General Blair
+did go, with my approbation, to see and converse with General Fremont
+as a friend.  I do not feel authorized to furnish you with copies of
+letters in my possession without the consent of the writers.  No
+impression has been made on my mind against the honor or integrity of
+General Fremont, and I now enter my protest against being understood
+as acting in any hostility toward him.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO JOSEPH HOLT,
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, SEPTEMBER 12, 1861
+
+HON. JOSEPH HOLT.
+
+DEAR SIR:-Yours of this day in relation to the late proclamation of
+General Fremont is received yesterday I addressed a letter to him, by
+mail, on the same subject, and which is to be made public when he
+receives it.  I herewith send you a copy of that letter, which
+perhaps shows my position as distinctly as any new one I could write.
+I will thank you not to make it public until General Fremont shall
+have had time to receive the original.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL SCOTT
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., September 16, 1861.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Since conversing with you I have concluded to request you
+to frame an order for recruiting North Carolinians at Fort Hatteras.
+I suggest it to be so framed as for us to accept a smaller force--
+even a company--if we cannot get a regiment or more.  What is
+necessary to now say about officers you will judge.   Governor Seward
+says he has a nephew (Clarence A. Seward, I believe) who would be
+willing to go and play colonel and assist in raising the force.
+Still it is to be considered whether the North Carolinians will not
+prefer officers of their own.  I should expect they would.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY CAMERON.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, September 18, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+MY DEAR SIR:--To guard against misunderstanding, I think fit to say
+that the joint expedition of the army and navy agreed upon some time
+since, and in which General T. W. Sherman was and is to bear a
+conspicuous part, is in no wise to be abandoned, but must be ready to
+move by the 1st of, or very early in, October.   Let all preparations
+go forward accordingly.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL FREMONT,
+
+WASHINGTON, SEPTEMBER 12, 1861
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL FREMONT:
+
+Governor Morton telegraphs as follows: "Colonel Lane, just arrived by
+special train, represents Owensborough, forty miles above Evansville,
+in possession of secessionists.  Green River is navigable.
+Owensborough must be seized.  We want a gunboat sent up from Paducah
+for that purpose." Send up the gunboat if, in your discretion, you
+think it right.  Perhaps you had better order those in charge of the
+Ohio River to guard it vigilantly at all points.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+To O. H. BROWNING.
+
+(Private and Confidential)
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON
+SEPTEMBER 22, 1861
+
+HON. O. H. BROWNING.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 17th is just received; and coming from you,
+I confess it astonishes me.  That you should object to my adhering to
+a law which you had assisted in making and presenting to me less than
+a month before is odd enough.  But this is a very small part.
+General Fremont's proclamation as to confiscation of property and the
+liberation of slaves is purely political and not within the range of
+military law or necessity.  If a commanding general finds a necessity
+to seize the farm of a private owner for a pasture, an encampment, or
+a fortification, he has the right to do so, and to so hold it as long
+as the necessity lasts; and this is within military law, because
+within military necessity.  But to say the farm shall no longer
+belong to the owner, or his heirs forever, and this as well when the
+farm is not needed for military purposes as when it is, is purely
+political, without the savor of military law about it.  And the same
+is true of slaves.  If the general needs them, he can seize them and
+use them; but when the need is past, it is not for him to fix their
+permanent future condition.   That must be settled according to laws
+made by law-makers, and not by military proclamations.  The
+proclamation in the point in question is simply "dictatorship." It
+assumes that the general may do anything he pleases confiscate the
+lands and free the slaves of loyal people, as well as of disloyal
+ones.  And going the whole figure, I have no doubt, would be more
+popular with some thoughtless people than that which has been done,
+But I cannot assume this reckless position, nor allow others to
+assume it on my responsibility.
+
+You speak of it as being the only means of saving the government.  On
+the contrary, it is itself the surrender of the government.  Can it
+be pretended that it is any longer the Government of the United
+States--any government of constitution and laws wherein a general or
+a president may make permanent rules of property by proclamation? I
+do not say Congress might not with propriety pass a law on the point,
+just such as General Fremont proclaimed.
+
+I do not say I might not, as a member of Congress, vote for it.  What
+I object to is, that I, as President, shall expressly or impliedly
+seize and exercise the permanent legislative functions of the
+government.
+
+So much as to principle.  Now as to policy.  No doubt the thing was
+popular in some quarters, and would have been more so if it had been
+a general declaration of emancipation.  The Kentucky Legislature
+would not budge till that proclamation was modified; and General
+Anderson telegraphed me that on the news of General Fremont having
+actually issued deeds of manumission, a whole company of our
+volunteers threw down their arms and disbanded.  I was so assured as
+to think it probable that the very arms we had furnished Kentucky
+would be turned against us.  I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the
+same as to lose the whole game.  Kentucky gone, we cannot hold
+Missouri, nor, as I think, Maryland.  These all against us, and the
+job on our hands is too large for us.  We would as well consent to
+separation at once, including the surrender of this Capital.  On the
+contrary, if you will give up your restlessness for new positions,
+and back me manfully on the grounds upon which you and other kind
+friends gave me the election and have approved in my public
+documents, we shall go through triumphantly.  You must not understand
+I took my course on the proclamation because of Kentucky.  I took the
+same ground in a private letter to General Fremont before I heard
+from Kentucky.
+
+You think I am inconsistent because I did not also forbid General
+Fremont to shoot men under the proclamation.  I understand that part
+to be within military law, but I also think, and so privately wrote
+General Fremont, that it is impolitic in this, that our adversaries
+have the power, and will certainly exercise it, to shoot as many of
+our men as we shoot of theirs.   I did not say this in the public
+letter, because it is a subject I prefer not to discuss in the
+hearing of our enemies.
+
+There has been no thought of removing General Fremont on any ground
+connected with his proclamation, and if there has been any wish for
+his removal on any ground, our mutual friend Sam.  Glover can
+probably tell you what it was.  I hope no real necessity for it
+exists on any ground.
+
+Your friend, as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+MEMORANDUM FOR A PLAN OF CAMPAIGN
+[OCTOBER 1?] 1861
+
+On or about the 5th of October (the exact date to be determined
+hereafter) I wish a movement made to seize and hold a point on the
+railroad connecting Virginia and Tennessee near the mountain-pass
+called Cumberland Gap.  That point is now guarded against us by
+Zollicoffer, with 6000 or 8000 rebels at Barboursville Ky.,--say
+twenty-five miles from the Gap, toward Lexington.   We have a force
+of 5000 or 6000 under General Thomas, at Camp Dick Robinson, about
+twenty-five miles from Lexington and seventy-five from Zollicoffer's
+camp, On the road between the two.  There is not a railroad anywhere
+between Lexington and the point to be seized, and along the whole
+length of which the Union sentiment among the people largely
+predominates.  We have military possession of the railroad from
+Cincinnati to Lexington, and from Louisville to Lexington, and some
+home guards, under General Crittenden, are on the latter line.   We
+have possession of the railroad from Louisville to Nashville, Tenn.,
+so far as Muldraugh's Hill, about forty miles, and the rebels have
+possession of that road all south of there.  At the Hill we have a
+force of 8000, under General Sherman, and about an equal force of
+rebels is a very short distance south, under General Buckner.
+
+We have a large force at Paducah, and a smaller at Port Holt, both on
+the Kentucky side, with some at Bird's Point, Cairo, Mound City,
+Evansville, and New Albany, all on the other side, and all which,
+with the gunboats on the river, are perhaps sufficient to guard the
+Ohio from Louisville to its mouth.
+
+About supplies of troops, my general idea is that all from Wisconsin,
+Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas, not now elsewhere,
+be left to Fremont.  All from Indiana and Michigan, not now
+elsewhere, be sent to Anderson at Louisville.  All from Ohio needed
+in western Virginia be sent there, and any remainder be sent to
+Mitchell at Cincinnati, for Anderson.  All east of the mountains be
+appropriated to McClellan and to the coast.
+
+As to movements, my idea is that the one for the coast and that on
+Cumberland Gap be simultaneous, and that in the meantime preparation,
+vigilant watching, and the defensive only be acted upon; this,
+however, not to apply to Fremont's operations in northern and middle
+Missouri.  That before these movements Thomas and Sherman shall
+respectively watch but not attack Zollicoffer and Buckner.  That when
+the coast and Gap movements shall be ready Sherman is merely to stand
+fast, while all at Cincinnati and all at Louisville, with all on the
+line, concentrate rapidly at Lexington, and thence to Thomas's camp,
+joining him, and the whole thence upon the Gap.  It is for the
+military men to decide whether they can find a pass through the
+mountains at or near the Gap which cannot be defended by the enemy
+with a greatly inferior force, and what is to be done in regard to
+this.
+
+The coast and Gap movements made, Generals McClellan and Fremont, in
+their respective departments, will avail themselves of any advantages
+the diversions may present.
+
+[He was entirely unable to get this started, Sherman would have taken
+an active part if given him, the others were too busy getting lines
+of communication guarded--and discovering many "critical" supply
+items that had not been sent them.   Also the commanding general did
+not like it.   D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE.
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, October 4, 1861
+
+HONORABLE SECRETARY OF STATE.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Please see Mr. Walker, well vouched as a Union man and
+son-in-law of Governor Morehead, and pleading for his release.  I
+understand the Kentucky arrests were not made by special direction
+from here, and I am willing if you are that any of the parties may be
+released when James Guthrie and James Speed think they should be.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE VICEROY OF EGYPT.
+
+WASHINGTON, October 11, 1861.
+
+GREAT AND GOOD FRIEND:--I have received from Mr. Thayer, Consul-
+General of the United States at Alexandria, a full account of the
+liberal, enlightened, and energetic proceedings which, on his
+complaint, you have adopted in bringing to speedy and condign
+punishment the parties, subjects of your Highness in Upper Egypt, who
+were concerned in an act of criminal persecution against Faris, an
+agent of certain Christian missionaries in Upper Egypt.  I pray your
+Highness to be assured that these proceedings, at once so prompt and
+so just, will be regarded as a new and unmistakable proof equally of
+your Highness's friendship for the United States and of the firmness,
+integrity and wisdom, with which the government of your Highness is
+conducted.  Wishing you great prosperity and success, I am your
+friend,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+HIS HIGHNESS MOHAMMED SAID PACHA,
+Viceroy of Egypt and its Dependencies, etc.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER AUTHORIZING SUSPENSION OF THE WRIT OF
+HABEAS CORPUS.
+
+October 14 1861
+
+LIEUTENANT-GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT:
+
+The military line of the United States for the suppression of the
+insurrection may be extended so far as Bangor, in Maine.  You and any
+officer acting under your authority are hereby authorized to suspend
+the writ of habeas corpus in any place between that place and the
+city of Washington.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY OF INTERIOR.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, October 14, 1861
+
+HON. SEC. OF INTERIOR.
+
+DEAR SIR:--How is this? I supposed I was appointing for register of
+wills a citizen of this District.  Now the commission comes to me
+"Moses Kelly, of New Hampshire."  I do not like this.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TWO SONS WHO WANT TO WORK
+
+TO MAJOR RAMSEY.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, October 17, 1861
+
+MAJOR RAMSEY.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--The lady bearer of this says she has two sons who want
+to work.  Set them at it if possible.  Wanting to work is so rare a
+want that it should be encouraged.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL THOMAS W. SHERMAN.
+
+WASHINGTON, October 18, 1861.
+
+GENERAL THOMAS SHERMAN, Annapolis, Md.:
+
+Your despatch of yesterday received and shown to General McClellan.
+I have promised him not to direct his army here without his consent.
+I do not think I shall come to Annapolis.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL CURTIS, WITH INCLOSURES.
+
+WASHINGTON, October 24, 1861
+
+BRIGADIER-GENERAL S. R. CURTIS.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Herewith is a document--half letter, half order--which,
+wishing you to see, but not to make public, I send unsealed.  Please
+read it and then inclose it to the officer who may be in command of
+the Department of the West at the time it reaches him.  I cannot now
+know whether Fremont or Hunter will then be in command.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+WASHINGTON, October 24, 1861
+
+BRIGADIER-GENERAL S. R. CURTIS.
+
+DEAR SIR:--On receipt of this, with the accompanying inclosures, you
+will take safe, certain, and suitable measures to have the inclosure
+addressed to Major-General Fremont delivered to him with all
+reasonable despatch, subject to these conditions only:  that if, when
+General Fremont shall be reached by the messenger--yourself or any
+one sent by you--he shall then have, in personal command, fought and
+won a battle, or shall then be actually in a battle, or shall then be
+in the immediate presence of the enemy in expectation of a battle, it
+is not to be delivered, but held for further orders.  After, and not
+till after, the delivery to General Fremont, let the inclosure
+addressed to General Hunter be delivered to him.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+(General Orders No.  18.)
+HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY,
+
+WASHINGTON, October 24, 1861
+
+Major-General Fremont, of the United States Army, the present
+commander of the Western Department of the same, will, on the receipt
+of this order, call Major-General Hunter, of the United States
+Volunteers, to relieve him temporarily in that command, when he
+(Major-General Fremont) will report to general headquarters by letter
+for further orders.
+
+WINFIELD SCOTT.
+By command: E. D. TOWNSEND, Assistant Adjutant-General.
+
+
+
+
+WASHINGTON, October 24, 1861
+
+TO THE COMMANDER OF THE
+DEPARTMENT OF THE WEST.
+
+SIR:--The command of the Department of the West having devolved upon
+you, I propose to offer you a few suggestions.  Knowing how hazardous
+it is to bind down a distant commander in the field to specific lines
+and operations, as so much always depends on a knowledge of
+localities and passing events, it is intended, therefore, to leave a
+considerable margin for the exercise of your judgment and discretion.
+
+The main rebel army (Price's) west of the Mississippi is believed to
+have passed Dade County in full retreat upon northwestern Arkansas,
+leaving Missouri almost freed from the enemy, excepting in the
+southeast of the State.  Assuming this basis of fact, it seems
+desirable, as you are not likely to overtake Price, and are in danger
+of making too long a line from your own base of supplies and
+reinforcements, that you should give up the pursuit, halt your main
+army, divide it into two corps of observation, one occupying Sedalia
+and the other Rolla, the present termini of railroads; then recruit
+the condition of both corps by re-establishing and improving their
+discipline and instructions, perfecting their clothing and
+equipments, and providing less uncomfortable quarters.  Of course,
+both railroads must be guarded and kept open, judiciously employing
+just so much force as is necessary for this.  From these two points,
+Sedalia and Rolla, and especially in judicious cooperation with Lane
+on the Kansas border, it would be so easy to concentrate and repel
+any army of the enemy returning on Missouri from the southwest, that
+it is not probable any such attempt will be made before or during the
+approaching cold weather.  Before spring the people of Missouri will
+probably be in no favorable mood to renew for next year the troubles
+which have so much afflicted and impoverished them during this.  If
+you adopt this line of policy, and if, as I anticipate, you will see
+no enemy in great force approaching, you will have a surplus of force
+which you can withdraw from these points and direct to others as may
+be needed, the railroads furnishing ready means of reinforcing these
+main points if occasion requires.  Doubtless local uprisings will for
+a time continue to occur, but these can be met by detachments and
+local forces of our own, and will ere long tire out of themselves.
+
+While, as stated in the beginning of the letter, a large discretion
+must be and is left with yourself, I feel sure that an indefinite
+pursuit of Price or an attempt by this long and circuitous route to
+reach Memphis will be exhaustive beyond endurance, and will end in
+the loss of the whole force engaged in it.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER RETIRING GENERAL SCOTT AND APPOINTING
+GENERAL McCLELLAN HIS SUCCESSOR.
+(General Orders, No.94.)
+
+WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE
+
+WASHINGTON, November 1, 1861
+
+The following order from the President of the United States,
+announcing the retirement from active command of the honored veteran
+Lieutenant general Winfield Scott, will be read by the army with
+profound regret:
+
+
+
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON.
+
+November 1, 1861
+
+On the 1st day of November, A.D. 1861, upon his own application to
+the President of the United States, Brevet Lieutenant-General
+Winfield Scott is ordered to be placed, and hereby is placed, upon
+the list of retired officers of the army of the United States,
+without reduction in his current pay, subsistence, or allowances.
+
+The American people will hear with sadness and deep emotion that
+General Scott has withdrawn from the active control of the army,
+while the President and a unanimous Cabinet express their own and the
+nation's sympathy in his personal affliction and their profound sense
+of the important public services rendered by him to his country
+during his long and brilliant career, among which will ever be
+gratefully distinguished his faithful devotion to the Constitution,
+the Union, and the flag when assailed by parricidal rebellion.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+
+
+The President is pleased to direct that Major general George B.
+McClellan assume the command of the army of the United States.  The
+headquarters of the army will be established in the city of
+Washington.  All communications intended for the commanding general
+will hereafter be addressed direct to the adjutant-general.  The
+duplicate returns, orders, and other papers heretofore sent to the
+assistant adjutant-general, headquarters of the army, will be
+discontinued.
+
+By order of the Secretary of War:
+L. THOMAS, Adjutant General.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER APPROVING THE PLAN OF GOVERNOR GAMBLE
+OF MISSOURI.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
+
+November 5, 1861.
+
+The Governor of the State of Missouri, acting under the direction of
+the convention of that State, proposes to the Government of the
+United States that he will raise a military force to serve within the
+State as State militia during the war there, to cooperate with the
+troops in the service of the United States in repelling the invasion
+of the State and suppressing rebellion therein; the said State
+militia to be embodied and to be held in the camp and in the field,
+drilled, disciplined, and governed according to the Army Regulations
+and subject to the Articles of War; the said State militia not to be
+ordered out of the State except for the immediate defense of the
+State of Missouri, but to co-operate with the troops in the service
+of the United States in military operations within the State or
+necessary to its defense, and when officers of the State militia act
+with officers in the service of the United States of the same grade
+the officers of the United States service shall command the combined
+force; the State militia to be armed, equipped, clothed, subsisted,
+transported, and paid by the United States during such time as they
+shall be actually engaged as an embodied military force in service in
+accordance with regulations of the United States Army or general
+orders as issued from time to time.
+
+In order that the Treasury of the United States may not be burdened
+with the pay of unnecessary officers, the governor proposes that,
+although the State law requires him to appoint upon the general staff
+an adjutant-general, a commissary-general, an inspector-general, a
+quartermaster-general, a paymaster-general, and a surgeon-general,
+each with the rank of colonel of cavalry, yet he proposes that the
+Government of the United States pay only the adjutant-general, the
+quartermaster-general, and inspector-general, their services being
+necessary in the relations which would exist between the State
+militia and the United States.  The governor further proposes that
+while he is allowed by the State law to appoint aides-de-camp to the
+governor at his discretion, with the rank of colonel, three only
+shall be reported to the United States for payment.  He also proposes
+that the State militia shall be commanded by a single major-general
+and by such number of brigadier-generals as shall allow one for a
+brigade of not less than four regiments, and that no greater number
+of staff officers shall be appointed for regimental, brigade, and
+division duties than as provided for in the act of Congress of the
+22d July, 1861; and that, whatever be the rank of such officers as
+fixed by the law of the State, the compensation that they shall
+receive from the United States shall only be that which belongs to
+the rank given by said act of Congress to officers in the United
+States service performing the same duties.
+
+The field officers of a regiment in the State militia are one
+colonel, one lieutenant-colonel, and one major, and the company
+officers are a captain, a first lieutenant, and a second lieutenant.
+The governor proposes that, as the money to be disbursed is the money
+of the United States, such staff officers in the service of the
+United States as may be necessary to act as disbursing officers for
+the State militia shall be assigned by the War Department for that
+duty; or, if such cannot be spared from their present duty, he will
+appoint such persons disbursing officers for the State militia as the
+President of the United States may designate.  Such regulations as
+may be required, in the judgment of the President, to insure
+regularity of returns and to protect the United States from any
+fraudulent practices shall be observed and obeyed by all in office in
+the State militia.
+
+The above propositions are accepted on the part of the United States,
+and the Secretary of War is directed to make the necessary orders
+upon the Ordnance, Quartermaster's, Commissary, Pay, and Medical
+departments to carry this agreement into effect.  He will cause the
+necessary staff officers in the United States service to be detailed
+for duty in connection with the Missouri State militia, and will
+order them to make the necessary provision in their respective
+offices for fulfilling this agreement.  All requisitions upon the
+different officers of the United States under this agreement to be
+made in substance in the same mode for the Missouri State militia as
+similar requisitions are made for troops in the service of the United
+States; and the Secretary of War will cause any additional
+regulations that may be necessary to insure regularity and economy in
+carrying this agreement into effect to be adopted and communicated to
+the Governor of Missouri for the government of the Missouri State
+militia.
+
+[Indorsement.]
+
+November 6, 1861.
+
+This plan approved, with the modification that the governor
+stipulates that when he commissions a major-general of militia it
+shall be the same person at the time in command of the United States
+Department of the West; and in case the United States shall change
+such commander of the department, he (the governor) will revoke the
+State commission given to the person relieved and give one to the
+person substituted to the United States command of said department.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MINISTER FROM SWEDEN.
+
+November 8, 1861.
+
+SIR:--I receive with great pleasure a Minister from Sweden.  That
+pleasure is enhanced by the information which preceded your arrival
+here, that his Majesty, your sovereign, had selected you to fill the
+mission upon the grounds of your derivation from an ancestral stock
+identified with the most glorious era of your country's noble
+history, and your own eminent social and political standing in
+Sweden.  This country, sir, maintains, and means to maintain, the
+rights of human nature, and the capacity of men for self-government.
+The history of Sweden proves that this is the faith of the people of
+Sweden, and we know that it is the faith and practice of their
+respected sovereign.  Rest assured, therefore, that we shall be found
+always just and paternal in our transactions with your government,
+and that nothing will be omitted on my part to make your residence in
+this capital agreeable to yourself and satisfactory to your
+government.
+
+
+
+
+INDORSEMENT AUTHORIZING MARTIAL LAW IN SAINT LOUIS.
+
+St. Louis, November 20, 1861.
+(Received Nov. 20th.)
+
+GENERAL McCLELLAN,
+
+For the President of the United States.
+
+No written authority is found here to declare and enforce martial law
+in this department. Please send me such written authority and
+telegraph me that it has been sent by mail.
+
+H. W. HALLECK,
+Major-General.
+
+
+[Indorsement.]
+November 21, 1861.
+
+If General McClellan and General Halleck deem it necessary to declare
+and maintain martial law in Saint Louis, the same is hereby
+authorized.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+OFFER TO COOPERATE AND GIVE SPECIAL LINE OF INFORMATION TO HORACE
+GREELEY
+
+TO GOVERNOR WALKER.
+
+WASHINGTON, November 21, 1861
+
+DEAR GOVERNOR:--I have thought over the interview which Mr. Gilmore
+has had with Mr. Greeley, and the proposal that Greeley has made to
+Gilmore, namely, that he [Gilmore] shall communicate to him [Greeley]
+all that he learns from you of the inner workings of the
+administration, in return for his [Greeley's] giving such aid as he
+can to the new magazine, and allowing you [Walker] from time to time
+the use of his [Greeley's] columns when it is desirable to feel of,
+or forestall, public opinion on important subjects.   The arrangement
+meets my unqualified approval, and I shall further it to the extent
+of my ability, by opening to you--as I do now--fully the policy of
+the Government,--its present views and future intentions when formed,
+giving you permission to communicate them to Gilmore for Greeley; and
+in case you go to Europe I will give these things direct to Gilmore.
+But all this must be on the express and explicit understanding that
+the fact of these communications coming from me shall be absolutely
+confidential,--not to be disclosed by Greeley to his nearest friend,
+or any of his subordinates.  He will be, in effect, my mouthpiece,
+but I must not be known to be the speaker.
+
+I need not tell you that I have the highest confidence in Mr.
+Greeley.  He is a great power.  Having him firmly behind me will be
+as helpful to me as an army of one hundred thousand men.
+
+This was to be most severely regretted, when Greeley became a traitor
+to the cause, editorialized for compromise and separation--and
+promoted McClellan as Democratic candidate for the Presidency.
+
+That he has ever kicked the traces has been owing to his not being
+fully informed.  Tell Gilmore to say to him that, if he ever objects
+to my policy, I shall be glad to have him state to me his views
+frankly and fully.  I shall adopt his if I can.  If I cannot, I will
+at least tell him why.  He and I should stand together, and let no
+minor differences come between us; for we both seek one end, which is
+the saving of our country.  Now, Governor, this is a longer letter
+than I have written in a month,--longer than I would have written for
+any other man than Horace Greeley.
+
+Your friend, truly,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+P. S.--The sooner Gilmore sees Greeley the better, as you may before
+long think it wise to ventilate our policy on the Trent affair.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER AUTHORIZING GENERAL HALLECK TO SUSPEND
+THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS,
+
+DECEMBER 2, 1861.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL H. W. HALLECK,
+Commanding in the Department of Missouri.
+
+GENERAL:--As an insurrection exists in the United States, and is in
+arms in the State of Missouri, you are hereby authorized and
+empowered to suspend the writ of habeas corpus within the limits of
+the military division under your command, and to exercise martial law
+as you find it necessary in your discretion to secure the public
+safety and the authority of the United States.
+
+In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the
+seal of the United States to be affixed at Washington, this second
+day of December, A.D. 1861.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+ANNUAL MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+WASHINGTON,  December 3, 1861
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:--In the
+midst of unprecedented political troubles we have cause of great
+gratitude to God for unusual good health and most abundant harvests.
+
+You will not be surprised to learn that in the peculiar exigencies of
+the times our intercourse with foreign nations has been attended with
+profound solicitude, chiefly turning upon our own domestic affairs.
+
+A disloyal portion of the American people have during the whole year
+been engaged in an attempt to divide and destroy the Union.  A nation
+which endures factious domestic division is exposed to disrespect
+abroad, and one party, if not both, is sure sooner or later to invoke
+foreign intervention.
+
+Nations thus tempted to interfere are not always able to resist the
+counsels of seeming expediency and ungenerous ambition, although
+measures adopted under such influences seldom fail to be unfortunate
+and injurious to those adopting them.
+
+The disloyal citizens of the United States who have offered the ruin
+of our country in return for the aid and comfort which they have
+invoked abroad have received less patronage and encouragement than
+they probably expected.  If it were just to suppose, as the
+insurgents have seemed to assume, that foreign nations in this case,
+discarding all moral, social, and treaty obligations, would act
+solely and selfishly for the most speedy restoration of commerce,
+including especially the acquisition of cotton, those nations appear
+as yet not to have seen their way to their object more directly or
+clearly through the destruction than through the preservation of the
+Union.  If we could dare to believe that foreign nations are actuated
+by no higher principle than this, I am quite sure a sound argument
+could be made to show them that they can reach their aim more readily
+and easily by aiding to crush this rebellion than by giving
+encouragement to it.
+
+The principal lever relied on by the insurgents for exciting foreign
+nations to hostility against us, as already intimated, is the
+embarrassment of commerce.  Those nations, however, not improbably
+saw from the first that it was the Union which made as well our
+foreign as our domestic commerce.  They can scarcely have failed to
+perceive that the effort for disunion produces the existing
+difficulty, and that one strong nation promises more durable peace
+and a more extensive, valuable, and reliable commerce than can the
+same nation broken into hostile fragments.
+
+It is not my purpose to review our discussions with foreign states,
+because, whatever might be their wishes or dispositions, the
+integrity of our country and the stability of our government mainly
+depend not upon them, but on the loyalty, virtue, patriotism, and
+intelligence of the American people.  The correspondence itself, with
+the usual reservations, is herewith submitted.
+
+I venture to hope it will appear that we have practiced prudence and
+liberality toward foreign powers, averting causes of irritation and
+with firmness maintaining our own rights and honor.
+
+Since, however, it is apparent that here, as in every other state,
+foreign dangers necessarily attend domestic difficulties, I recommend
+that adequate and ample measures be adopted for maintaining the
+public defenses on every side.  While under this general
+recommendation provision for defending our seacoast line readily
+occurs to the mind, I also in the same connection ask the attention
+of Congress to our great lakes and rivers.  It is believed that some
+fortifications and depots of arms and munitions, with harbor and
+navigation improvements, all at well-selected points upon these,
+would be of great importance to the national defense and preservation
+I ask attention to the views of the Secretary of War, expressed in
+his report, upon the same general subject.
+
+I deem it of importance that the loyal regions of east Tennessee and
+western North Carolina should be connected with Kentucky and other
+faithful parts of the Union by rail-road.   I therefore recommend, as
+a military measure, that Congress provide for the construction of
+such rail-road as speedily as possible.  Kentucky will no doubt
+co-operate, and through her Legislature make the most judicious
+selection of a line.  The northern terminus must connect with some
+existing railroad, and whether the route shall be from Lexington or
+Nicholasville to the Cumberland Gap, or from Lebanon to the Tennessee
+line, in the direction of Knoxville, or on some still different line,
+can easily be determined.  Kentucky and the General Government
+co-operating, the work can be completed in a very short time, and
+when done it will be not only of vast present usefulness but also a
+valuable permanent improvement, worth its cost in all the future.
+
+Some treaties, designed chiefly for the interests of commerce, and
+having no grave political importance, have been negotiated, and will
+be submitted to the Senate for their consideration.
+
+Although we have failed to induce some of the commercial powers to
+adopt a desirable melioration of the rigor of maritime war, we have
+removed all obstructions from the way of this humane reform except
+such as are merely of temporary and accidental occurrence.
+
+I invite your attention to the correspondence between her Britannic
+Majesty's minister accredited to this government and the Secretary of
+State relative to the detention of the British ship Perthshire in
+June last by the United States steamer Massachusetts for a supposed
+breach of the blockade.  As this detention was occasioned by an
+obvious misapprehension of the facts, and as justice requires that we
+should commit no belligerent act not founded in strict right as
+sanctioned by public law, I recommend that an appropriation be made
+to satisfy the reasonable demand of the owners of the vessel for her
+detention.
+
+I repeat the recommendation of my predecessor in his annual message
+to Congress in December last in regard to the disposition of the
+surplus which will probably remain after satisfying the claims of
+American citizens against China, pursuant to the awards of the
+commissioners under the act of the 3d of March, 1859.  If, however,
+it should not be deemed advisable to carry that recommendation into
+effect, I would suggest that authority be given for investing the
+principal, or the proceeds of the surplus referred to, in good
+securities, with a view to the satisfaction of such other just claims
+of our citizens against China as are not unlikely to arise hereafter
+in the course of our extensive trade with that empire.
+
+By the act of the 5th of August last Congress authorized the
+President to instruct the commanders of suitable vessels to defend
+themselves against and to capture pirates.  His authority has been
+exercised in a single instance only.  For the more effectual
+protection of our extensive and valuable commerce in the Eastern seas
+especially, it seems to me that it would also be advisable to
+authorize the commanders of sailing vessels to recapture any prizes
+which pirates may make of United States vessels and their cargoes,
+and the consular courts now established by law in Eastern countries
+to adjudicate the cases in the event that this should not be objected
+to by the local authorities.
+
+If any good reason exists why we should persevere longer in
+withholding our recognition of the independence and sovereignty of
+Haiti and Liberia, I am unable to discern it.  Unwilling, however, to
+inaugurate a novel policy in regard to them without the approbation
+of Congress, I submit for your consideration the expediency of an
+appropriation for maintaining a charge d'affaires near each of those
+new States.  It does not admit of doubt that important commercial
+advantages might be secured by favorable treaties with them.
+
+The operations of the treasury during the period which has elapsed
+since your adjournment have been conducted with signal success.  The
+patriotism of the people has placed at the disposal of the government
+the large means demanded by the public exigencies.  Much of the
+national loan has been taken by citizens of the industrial classes,
+whose confidence in their country's faith and zeal for their
+country's deliverance from present peril have induced them to
+contribute to the support of the government the whole of their
+limited acquisitions.  This fact imposes peculiar obligations to
+economy in disbursement and energy in action.
+
+The revenue from all sources, including loans, for the financial year
+ending on the 30th of June, 1861, was $86,835,900.27, and the
+expenditures for the same period, including payments on account of
+the public debt, were $84,578,834.47, leaving a balance in the
+treasury on the 1st of July of $2,257,065.80.  For the first quarter
+of the financial year ending on the 3oth of September, 1861, the
+receipts from all sources, including the balance of the 1st of July,
+were $102,532,509.27, and the expenses $98,239733.09, leaving a
+balance on the 1st of October, 1861, of $4,292,776.18.
+
+Estimates for the remaining three quarters of the year and for the
+financial year 1863, together with his views of ways and means for
+meeting the demands contemplated by them, will be submitted to
+Congress by the Secretary of the Treasury.  It is gratifying to know
+that the expenditures made necessary by the rebellion are not beyond
+the resources of the loyal people, and to believe that the same
+patriotism which has thus far sustained the government will continue
+to sustain it till peace and union shall again bless the land.
+
+I respectfully refer to the report of the Secretary of War for
+information respecting the numerical strength of the army and for
+recommendations having in view an increase of its efficiency and the
+well-being of the various branches of the service intrusted to his
+care.  It is gratifying to know that the patriotism of the people has
+proved equal to the occasion, and that the number of troops tendered
+greatly exceeds the force which Congress authorized me to call into
+the field.
+
+I refer with pleasure to those portions of his report which make
+allusion to the creditable degree of discipline already attained by
+our troops and to the excellent sanitary condition of the entire
+army.
+
+The recommendation of the Secretary for an organization of the
+militia upon a uniform basis is a subject of vital importance to the
+future safety of the country, and is commended to the serious
+attention of Congress.
+
+The large addition to the regular army, in connection with the
+defection that has so considerably diminished the number of its
+officers, gives peculiar importance to his recommendation for
+increasing the corps of cadets to the greatest capacity of the
+Military Academy.
+
+By mere omission, I presume, Congress has failed to provide chaplains
+for hospitals occupied by volunteers.  This subject was brought to my
+notice, and I was induced to draw up the form of a letter, one copy
+of which, properly addressed, has been delivered to each of the
+persons, and at the dates respectively named and stated in a
+schedule, containing also the form of the letter, marked A, and
+herewith transmitted.
+
+These gentlemen, I understand, entered upon the duties designated at
+the times respectively stated in the schedule, and have labored
+faithfully therein ever since.  I therefore recommend that they be
+compensated at the same rate as chaplains in the army.   I further
+suggest that general provision be made for chaplains to serve at
+hospitals, as well as with regiments.
+
+The report of the Secretary of the Navy presents in detail the
+operations of that branch of the service, the activity and energy
+which have characterized its administration, and the results of
+measures to increase its efficiency and power such have been the
+additions, by construction and purchase, that it may almost be said a
+navy has been created and brought into service since our difficulties
+commenced.
+
+Besides blockading our extensive coast, squadrons larger than ever
+before assembled under our flag have been put afloat and performed
+deeds which have increased our naval renown.
+
+I would invite special attention to the recommendation of the
+Secretary for a more perfect organization of the navy by introducing
+additional grades in the service.
+
+The present organization is defective and unsatisfactory, and the
+suggestions submitted by the department will, it is believed, if
+adopted, obviate the difficulties alluded to, promote harmony, and
+increase the efficiency of the navy.
+
+There are three vacancies on the bench of the Supreme Court--two by
+the decease of Justices Daniel and McLean and one by the resignation
+of Justice Campbell.  I have so far forborne making nominations to
+fill these vacancies for reasons which I will now state.  Two of the
+outgoing judges resided within the States now overrun by revolt, so
+that if successors were appointed in the same localities they could
+not now serve upon their circuits; and many of the most competent men
+there probably would not take the personal hazard of accepting to
+serve, even here, upon the Supreme bench.  I have been unwilling to
+throw all the appointments north-ward, thus disabling myself from
+doing justice to the South on the return of peace; although I may
+remark that to transfer to the North one which has heretofore been in
+the South would not, with reference to territory and population, be
+unjust.
+
+During the long and brilliant judicial career of Judge McLean his
+circuit grew into an empire-altogether too large for any one judge to
+give the courts therein more than a nominal attendance--rising in
+population from 1,470,018 in 1830 to 6,151,405 in 1860.
+
+Besides this, the country generally has outgrown our present judicial
+system.  If uniformity was at all intended, the system requires that
+all the States shall be accommodated with circuit courts, attended by
+Supreme judges, while, in fact, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas,
+Florida, Texas, California, and Oregon have never had any such
+courts.  Nor can this well be remedied without a change in the
+system, because the adding of judges to the Supreme Court, enough for
+the accommodation of all parts of the country with circuit courts,
+would create a court altogether too numerous for a judicial body of
+any sort.  And the evil, if it be one, will increase as new States
+come into the Union.  Circuit courts are useful or they are not
+useful.  If useful, no State should be denied them; if not useful, no
+State should have them.  Let them be provided for all or abolished as
+to all.
+
+Three modifications occur to me, either of which, I think, would be
+an improvement upon our present system.  Let the Supreme Court be of
+convenient number in every event; then, first, let the whole country
+be divided into circuits of convenient size, the Supreme judges to
+serve in a number of them corresponding to their own number, and
+independent circuit judges be provided for all the rest; or,
+secondly, let the Supreme judges be relieved from circuit duties and
+circuit judges provided for all the circuits; or, thirdly, dispense
+with circuit courts altogether, leaving the judicial functions wholly
+to the district courts and an independent Supreme Court.
+
+I respectfully recommend to the consideration of Congress the present
+condition of the statute laws, with the hope that Congress will be
+able to find an easy remedy for many of the inconveniences and evils
+which constantly embarrass those engaged in the practical
+administration of them.  Since the Organization of the government,
+Congress has enacted some 5000 acts and joint resolutions, which fill
+more than 6000 closely printed pages and are scattered through many
+volumes.  Many of these acts have been drawn in haste and without
+sufficient caution, so that their provisions are often obscure in
+themselves or in conflict with each other, or at least so doubtful as
+to render it very difficult for even the best-informed persons to
+ascertain precisely what the statute law really is.
+
+It seems to me very important that the statute laws should be made as
+plain and intelligible as possible, and be reduced to as small a
+compass as may consist with the fullness and precision of the will of
+the Legislature and the perspicuity of its language.  This well done
+would, I think, greatly facilitate the labors of those whose duty it
+is to assist in the administration of the laws, and would be a
+lasting benefit to the people, by placing before them in a more
+accessible and intelligible form the laws which so deeply concern
+their interests arid their duties.
+
+I am informed by some whose opinions I respect that all the acts of
+Congress now in force and of a permanent and general nature might be
+revised and rewritten so as to be embraced in one volume (or at most
+two volumes) of ordinary and convenient size; and I respectfully
+recommend to Congress to consider of the subject, and if my
+suggestion be approved to devise such plan as to their wisdom shall
+seem most proper for the attainment of the end proposed.
+
+One of the unavoidable consequences of the present insurrection is
+the entire suppression in many places of all the ordinary means of
+administering civil justice by the officers and in the forms of
+existing law.  This is the case, in whole or in part, in all the
+insurgent States; and as our armies advance upon and take possession
+of parts of those States the practical evil becomes more apparent.
+There are no courts or officers to whom the citizens of other States
+may apply for the enforcement of their lawful claims against citizens
+of the insurgent States, and there is a vast amount of debt
+constituting such claims.  Some have estimated it as high as
+$200,000,000, due in large part from insurgents in open rebellion to
+loyal citizens who are even now making great sacrifices in the
+discharge of their patriotic duty to support the government.
+
+
+Under these circumstances I have been urgently solicited to
+establish, by military power, courts to administer summary justice in
+such cases.  I have thus far declined to do it, not because I had any
+doubt that the end proposed--the collection of the debts--was just
+and right in itself, but because I have been unwilling to go beyond
+the pressure of necessity in the unusual exercise of power.  But the
+powers of Congress, I suppose, are equal to the anomalous occasion,
+and therefore I refer the whole matter to Congress, with the hope
+that a plan maybe devised for the administration of justice in all
+such parts of the insurgent States and Territories as may be under
+the control of this government, whether by a voluntary return to
+allegiance and order or by the power of our arms; this, however, not
+to be a permanent institution, but a temporary substitute, and to
+cease as soon as the ordinary courts can be reestablished in peace.
+
+It is important that some more convenient means should be provided,
+if possible, for the adjustment of claims against the government,
+especially in view of their increased number by reason of the war.
+It is as much the duty of government to render prompt justice against
+itself in favor of citizens as it is to administer the same between
+private individuals.  The investigation and adjudication of claims in
+their nature belong to the judicial department.  Besides, it is
+apparent that the attention of Congress will be more than usually
+engaged for some time to come with great national questions.  It was
+intended by the organization of the Court of Claims mainly to remove
+this branch of business from the halls of Congress; but, while the
+court has proved to be an effective and valuable means of
+investigation, it in great degree fails to effect the object of its
+creation for want of power to make its judgments final.
+
+Fully aware of the delicacy, not to say the danger of the subject, I
+commend to your careful consideration whether this power of making
+judgments final may not properly be given to the court, reserving the
+right of appeal on questions of law to the Supreme Court, with such
+other provisions as experience may have shown to be necessary.
+
+I ask attention to the report of the Postmaster general, the
+following being a summary statement of the condition of the
+department:
+
+The revenue from all sources during the fiscal year ending June 30,
+1861, including the annual permanent appropriation of $700,000 for
+the transportation of "free mail matter," was $9,049,296.40, being
+about 2 per cent. less than the revenue for 1860.
+
+The expenditures were $13,606,759.11, showing a decrease of more than
+8 per cent. as compared with those of the previous year and leaving
+an excess of expenditure over the revenue for the last fiscal year
+of $4,557,462.71.
+
+The gross revenue for the year ending June 30, 1863, is estimated at
+an increase of 4 per cent. on that of 1861, making $8,683,000, to
+which should be added the earnings of the department in carrying free
+matter, viz., $700,000, making $9,383,000.
+
+The total expenditures for 1863 are estimated at $12,528,000, leaving
+an estimated deficiency of $3,145,000 to be supplied from the
+treasury in addition to the permanent appropriation.
+
+The present insurrection shows, I think, that the extension of this
+District across the Potomac River at the time of establishing the
+capital here was eminently wise, and consequently that the
+relinquishment of that portion of it which lies within the State of
+Virginia was unwise and dangerous.  I submit for your consideration
+the expediency of regaining that part of the District and the
+restoration of the original boundaries thereof through negotiations
+with the State of Virginia.
+
+The report of the Secretary of the Interior, with the accompanying
+documents, exhibits the condition of the several branches of the
+public business pertaining to that department.   The depressing
+influences of the insurrection have been specially felt in the
+operations of the Patent and General Land Offices.  The cash receipts
+from the sales of public lands during the past year have exceeded the
+expenses of our land system only about $200,000.  The sales have been
+entirely suspended in the Southern States, while the interruptions to
+the business of the country and the diversion of large numbers of men
+from labor to military service have obstructed settlements in the new
+States and Territories of the Northwest.
+
+The receipts of the Patent Office have declined in nine months about
+$100,000.00 rendering a large reduction of the force employed
+necessary to make it self-sustaining.
+
+The demands upon the Pension Office will be largely increased by the
+insurrection.   Numerous applications for pensions, based upon the
+casualties of the existing war, have already been made.  There is
+reason to believe that many who are now upon the pension rolls and in
+receipt of the bounty of the government are in the ranks of the
+insurgent army or giving them aid and comfort.  The Secretary of the
+Interior has directed a suspension of the payment of the pensions of
+such persons upon proof of their disloyalty.  I recommend that
+Congress authorize that officer to cause the names of such persons to
+be stricken from the pension rolls.
+
+The relations of the government with the Indian tribes have been
+greatly disturbed by the insurrection, especially in the southern
+superintendency and in that of New Mexico.  The Indian country south
+of Kansas is in the possession of insurgents from Texas and Arkansas.
+The agents of the United States appointed since the 4th of March for
+this superintendency have been unable to reach their posts, while the
+most of those who were in office before that time have espoused the
+insurrectionary cause, and assume to exercise the powers of agents by
+virtue of commissions from the insurrectionists.  It has been stated
+in the public press that a portion of those Indians have been
+organized as a military force and are attached to the army of the
+insurgents.  Although the government has no official information upon
+this subject, letters have been written to the Commissioner of Indian
+Affairs by several prominent chiefs giving assurance of their loyalty
+to the United States and expressing a wish for the presence of
+Federal troops to protect them.  It is believed that upon the
+repossession of the country by the Federal forces the Indians will
+readily cease all hostile demonstrations and resume their former
+relations to the government.
+
+Agriculture, confessedly the largest interest of the nation, has not
+a department nor a bureau, but a clerkship only, assigned to it in
+the government.  While it is fortunate that this great interest is so
+independent in its nature as not to have demanded and extorted more
+from the government, I respectfully ask Congress to consider whether
+something more cannot be given voluntarily with general advantage.
+
+Annual reports exhibiting the condition of our agriculture, commerce,
+and manufactures would present a fund of information of great
+practical value to the country.  While I make no suggestion as to
+details, I venture the opinion that an agricultural and statistical
+bureau might profitably be organized.
+
+The execution of the laws for the suppression of  the African slave
+trade has been confided to the Department of the Interior.   It is a
+subject of gratulation that the efforts which have been made for the
+suppression of this inhuman traffic have been recently attended with
+unusual success.  Five vessels being fitted out for the slave trade
+have been seized and condemned.  Two mates of vessels engaged in the
+trade and one person in equipping a vessel as a slaver have been
+convicted and subjected to the penalty of fine and imprisonment, and
+one captain, taken with a cargo of Africans on board his vessel, has
+been convicted of the highest grade of offense under our laws, the
+punishment of which is death.
+
+The Territories of Colorado, Dakota, and Nevada, created by the last
+Congress, have been organized, and civil administration has been
+inaugurated therein under auspices especially gratifying when it is
+considered that the leaven of treason was found existing in some of
+these new countries when the Federal officers arrived there.
+
+The abundant natural resources of these Territories, with the
+security and protection afforded by organized government, will
+doubtless invite to them a large immigration when peace shall restore
+the business of the country to its accustomed channels.  I submit the
+resolutions of the Legislature of Colorado, which evidence the
+patriotic spirit of the people of the Territory.  So far the
+authority of the United States has been upheld in all the
+Territories, as it is hoped it will be in the future.  I commend
+their interests and defense to the enlightened and generous care of
+Congress.
+
+I recommend to the favorable consideration of Congress the interests
+of the District of Columbia.  The insurrection has been the cause of
+much suffering and sacrifice to its inhabitants, and as they have no
+representative in Congress that body should not overlook their just
+claims upon the government.
+
+At your late session a joint resolution was adopted authorizing the
+President to take measures for facilitating a proper representation
+of the industrial interests of the United States at the exhibition of
+the industry of all nations to be holden at London in the year 1862.
+I regret to say I have been unable to give personal attention to this
+subject--a subject at once so interesting in itself and so
+extensively and intimately connected with the material prosperity of
+the world.  Through the Secretaries of State and of the Interior a
+plan or system has been devised and partly matured, and which will be
+laid before you.
+
+Under and by virtue of the act of Congress entitled "An act to
+confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes," approved
+August 6, 1861, the legal claims of certain persons to the labor and
+service of certain other persons have become forfeited, and numbers
+of the latter thus liberated are already dependent on the United
+States, and must be provided for in some way.  Besides this, it is
+not impossible that some of the States will pass similar enactments
+for their own benefit respectively, and by operation of which persons
+of the same class will be thrown upon them for disposal.  In such
+case I recommend that Congress provide for accepting such persons
+from such States, according to some mode of valuation, in lieu, pro
+tanto, of direct taxes, or upon some other plan to be agreed on with
+such States respectively; that such persons, on such acceptance by
+the General Government, be at once deemed free, and that in any event
+steps be taken for colonizing both classes (or the one first
+mentioned if the other shall not be brought into existence) at some
+place or places in a climate congenial to them.  It might be well to
+consider, too, whether the free colored people already in the United
+States could not, so far as individuals may desire, be included in
+such colonization.
+
+To carry out the plan of colonization may involve the acquiring of
+territory, and also the appropriation of money beyond that to be
+expended in the territorial acquisition.  Having practised the
+acquisition of territory for nearly sixty years, the question of
+constitutional power to do so is no longer an open one with us.  The
+power was questioned at first by Mr. Jefferson, who, however, in the
+purchase of Louisiana, yielded his scruples on the plea of great
+expediency.  If it be said that the only legitimate object of
+acquiring territory is to furnish homes for white men, this measure
+effects that object, for emigration of colored men leaves additional
+room for white men remaining or coming here.  Mr. Jefferson, however,
+placed the importance of procuring Louisiana more on political and
+commercial grounds than on providing room for population.
+
+On this whole proposition, including the appropriation of money with
+the acquisition of territory, does not the expediency amount to
+absolute necessity--that without which the government itself cannot
+be perpetuated?
+
+The war continues.  In considering the policy to be adopted for
+suppressing the insurrection I have been anxious and careful that the
+inevitable conflict for this purpose shall not degenerate into a
+violent and remorseless revolutionary struggle.  I have therefore in
+every case thought it proper to keep the integrity of the Union
+prominent as the primary object of the contest on our part, leaving
+all questions which are not of vital military importance to the more
+deliberate action of the Legislature.
+
+In the exercise of my best discretion I have adhered to the blockade
+of the ports held by the insurgents, instead of putting in force by
+proclamation the law of Congress enacted at the late session for
+closing those ports.
+
+So also, obeying the dictates of prudence, as well as the obligations
+of law, instead of transcending I have adhered to the act of Congress
+to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes.  If a new
+law upon the same subject shall be proposed, its propriety will be
+duly considered.  The Union must be preserved, and hence all
+indispensable means must be employed.  We should not be in haste to
+determine that radical and extreme measures, which may reach the
+loyal as well as the disloyal, are indispensable.
+
+The inaugural address at the beginning of the Administration and the
+message to Congress at the late special session were both mainly
+devoted to topics domestic controversy out of which the insurrection
+and consequent war have sprung.  Nothing now occurs to add or
+subtract to or from the principles or general purposes stated and
+expressed in those documents.
+
+The last ray of hope for preserving the Union peaceably expired at
+the assault upon Fort Sumter, and a general review of what has
+occurred since may not be unprofitable.  What was painfully uncertain
+then is much better defined and more distinct now, and the progress
+of events is plainly in the right direction.  The insurgents
+confidently claimed a strong support from north of Mason and Dixon's
+line, and the friends of the Union were not free from apprehension on
+the point.  This, however, was soon settled definitely, and on the
+right side.  South of the line noble little Delaware led off right
+from the first.  Maryland was made to seem against the Union.  Our
+soldiers were assaulted, bridges were burned, and railroads torn up
+within her limits, and we were many days at one time without the
+ability to bring a single regiment over her soil to the capital.  Now
+her bridges and railroads are repaired and open to the government;
+she already gives seven regiments to the cause of the Union, and none
+to the enemy; and her people, at a regular election, have sustained
+the Union by a larger majority and a larger aggregate vote than they
+ever before gave to any candidate or any question.  Kentucky, too,
+for some time in doubt, is now decidedly and, I think, unchangeably
+ranged on the side of the Union.  Missouri is comparatively quiet,
+and, I believe, can, not again be overrun by the insurrectionists.
+These three States of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, neither of
+which would promise a single soldier at first, have now an aggregate
+of not less than forty thousand in the field for the Union, while of
+their citizens certainly not more than a third of that number, and
+they of doubtful whereabouts and doubtful existence, are in arms
+against us.  After a somewhat bloody struggle of months, winter
+closes on the Union people of western Virginia, leaving them masters
+of their own country.
+
+An insurgent force of about fifteen hundred, for months dominating
+the narrow peninsular region constituting the counties of Accomac and
+Northampton, and known as Eastern Shore of Virginia, together with
+some contiguous parts of Maryland, have laid down their arms, and the
+people there have renewed their allegiance to and accepted the
+protection of the old flag.  This leaves no armed insurrectionist
+north of the Potomac or east of the Chesapeake.
+
+Also we have obtained a footing at each of the isolated points on the
+southern coast of Hatteras, Port Royal, Tybee Island (near Savannah),
+and Ship Island; and we likewise have some general accounts of
+popular movements in behalf of the Union in North Carolina and
+Tennessee.
+
+These things demonstrate that the cause of the Union is advancing
+steadily and certainly southward.
+
+Since your last adjournment Lieutenant-General Scott has retired from
+the head of the army.  During his long life the nation has not been
+unmindful of his merit; yet on calling to mind how faithfully, ably,
+and brilliantly he has served the country, from a time far back in
+our history, when few of the now living had been born, and
+thenceforward continually, I cannot but think we are still his
+debtors.  I submit, therefore, for your consideration what further
+mark of recognition is due to him, and to ourselves as a grateful
+people.
+
+With the retirement of General Scott came the Executive duty of
+appointing in his stead a general-in-chief of the army.  It is a
+fortunate circumstance that neither in council nor country was there,
+so far as I know, any difference of opinion as to the proper person
+to be selected.  The retiring chief repeatedly expressed his judgment
+in favor of General McClellan for the position, and in this the
+nation seemed to give a unanimous concurrence.  The designation of
+General McClellan is therefore in considerable degree the selection
+of the country as well as of the Executive, and hence there is better
+reason to hope there will be given him the confidence and cordial
+support thus by fair implication promised, and without which he
+cannot with so full efficiency serve the country.
+
+It has been said that one bad general is better than two good ones,
+and the saying is true if taken to mean no more than that an army is
+better directed by a single mind, though inferior, than by two
+superior ones at variance and cross-purposes with each other.
+
+And the same is true in all joint operations wherein those engaged
+can have none but a common end in view and can differ only as to the
+choice of means.  In a storm at sea no one on hoard can wish the ship
+to sink, and yet not unfrequently all go down together because too
+many will direct and no single mind can be allowed to control.
+
+It continues to develop that the insurrection is largely, if not
+exclusively, a war upon the first principle of popular government--
+the rights of the people.  Conclusive evidence of this is found in
+the most grave and maturely considered public documents, as well as
+in the general tone of the insurgents.  In those documents we find
+the abridgment of the existing right of suffrage and the denial to
+the people of all right to participate in the selection of public
+officers except the legislative boldly advocated, with labored
+arguments to prove that large control of the people in government is
+the source of all political evil.  Monarchy itself is sometimes
+hinted at as a possible refuge from the power of the people.
+
+In my present position I could scarcely be justified were I to omit
+raising a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism.
+It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be
+made in favor of popular institutions, but there is one point, with
+its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a
+brief attention.  It is the effort to place capital on an equal
+footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government.  It
+is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital;
+that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by
+the use of it induces him to labor.  This assumed, it is next
+considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and
+thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive
+them to it without their consent.  Having proceeded so far, it is
+naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or
+what we call slaves.  And further, it is assumed that whoever is once
+a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.
+
+Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed,
+nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the
+condition of a hired laborer.  Both these assumptions are false, and
+all inferences from them are groundless.
+
+Labor is prior to and independent of capital.  Capital is only the
+fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first
+existed.  Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the
+higher consideration.  Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of
+protection as any other rights.  Nor is it denied that there is, and
+probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital
+producing mutual benefits.  The error is in assuming that the whole
+labor of community exists within that relation.  A few men own
+capital, and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital
+hire or buy another few to labor for them.  A large majority belong
+to neither class--neither work for others nor have others working for
+them.  In most of the Southern States a majority of the whole people
+of all colors are neither slaves nor masters, while in the Northern a
+large majority are neither hirers nor hired.  Men, with their
+families--wives, sons, and daughters,--work for themselves on their
+farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product
+to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand nor of
+hired laborers or slaves on the other.  It is not forgotten that a
+considerable number of persons mingle their own labor with capital;
+that is, they labor with their own hands and also buy or hire others
+to labor for them; but this is only a mixed and not a distinct class.
+No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed
+class.
+
+Again, as has already been said, there is not of necessity any such
+thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for
+life.  Many independent men everywhere in these States a few years
+back in their lives were hired laborers.  The prudent, penniless
+beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with
+which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own
+account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to
+help him.  This is the just and generous and prosperous system which
+opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy and
+progress and improvement of condition to all.  No men living are more
+worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty; none less
+inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned.
+Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already
+possess, and which if surrendered will surely be used to close the
+door of advancement against such as they and to fix new disabilities
+and burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost.
+
+>From the first taking of our national census to the last are seventy
+years, and we find our population at the end of the period eight
+times as great as it was at the beginning.  The increase of those
+other things which men deem desirable has been even greater.  We thus
+have at one view what the popular principle, applied to government
+through the machinery of the States and the Union, has produced in a
+given time, and also what if firmly maintained it promises for the
+future.  There are already among us those who if the Union be
+preserved will live to see it contain 200,000,000.  The struggle of
+to-day is not altogether for to-day; it is for a vast future also.
+With a reliance on Providence all the more firm and earnest, let us
+proceed in the great task which events have devolved upon us.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+WASHINGTON, December 20, 1861.
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+I transmit to Congress a letter from the secretary of the executive
+committee of the commission appointed to represent the interests of
+those American citizens who may desire to become exhibitors at the
+industrial exhibition to be held in London in 1862, and a memorial of
+that commission, with a report of the executive committee thereof and
+copies of circulars announcing the decisions of Her Majesty's
+commissioners in London, giving directions to be observed in regard
+to articles intended for exhibition, and also of circular forms of
+application, demands for space, approvals, etc., according to the
+rules prescribed by the British commissioners.
+
+As these papers fully set forth the requirements necessary to enable
+those citizens of the United States who may wish to become exhibitors
+to avail themselves of the privileges of the exhibition, I commend
+them to your early consideration, especially in view of the near
+approach of the time when the exhibition will begin.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER OF REPRIMAND TO GENERAL HUNTER
+
+TO GENERAL HUNTER.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
+
+Dec.31, 1861
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL HUNTER.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 23d is received, and I am constrained to say
+it is difficult to answer so ugly a letter in good temper.  I am, as
+you intimate, losing much of the great confidence I placed in you,
+not from any act or omission of yours touching the public service, up
+to the time you were sent to Leavenworth, but from the flood of
+grumbling despatches and letters I have seen from you since.  I knew
+you were being ordered to Leavenworth at the time it was done; and I
+aver that with as tender a regard for your honor and your
+sensibilities as I had for my own, it never occurred to me that you
+were being "humiliated, insulted, and disgraced"; nor have I, up to
+this day, heard an intimation that you have been wronged, coming from
+any one but yourself.  No one has blamed you for the retrograde
+movement from Springfield, nor for the information you gave General
+Cameron; and this you could readily understand, if it were not for
+your unwarranted assumption that the ordering you to Leavenworth must
+necessarily have been done as a punishment for some fault.  I thought
+then, and think yet, the position assigned to you is as responsible,
+and as honorable, as that assigned to Buell--I know that General
+McClellan expected more important results from it.  My impression is
+that at the time you were assigned to the new Western Department, it
+had not been determined to replace General Sherman in Kentucky; but
+of this I am not certain, because the idea that a command in Kentucky
+was very desirable, and one in the farther West undesirable, had
+never occurred to me.  You constantly speak of being placed in
+command of only 3000.   Now, tell me, is this not mere impatience?
+Have you not known all the while that you are to command four or five
+times that many.
+
+I have been, and am sincerely your friend; and if, as such, I dare to
+make a suggestion, I would say you are adopting the best possible way
+to ruin yourself.  "Act well your part, there all the honor lies." He
+who does something at the head of one regiment, will eclipse him who
+does nothing at the head of a hundred.
+
+Your friend, as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL HALLECK.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., December 31, 1861
+
+GENERAL H. W. HALLECK, St.  Louis, Missouri:
+
+General McClellan is sick.  Are General Buell and yourself in
+concert? When he moves on Bowling Green, what hinders it being
+reinforced from Columbus? A simultaneous movement by you on Columbus
+might prevent it.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+[Similar despatch to Buell same date.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+1862
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL D. C. BUELL.
+
+WASHINGTON CITY, January 1, 1862
+
+BRIGADIER-GENERAL BUELL, Louisville:
+
+General McClellan should not yet be disturbed with business.  I think
+you better get in concert with General Halleck at once.  I write you
+to-night.  I also telegraph and write Halleck.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL H. W. HALLECK.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 1, 1862
+
+DEAR GENERAL HALLECK:
+
+General McClellan is not dangerously ill, as I hope, but would better
+not be disturbed with business.  I am very anxious that, in case of
+General Buell's moving toward Nashville, the enemy shall not be
+greatly reinforced, and I think there is danger he will be from
+Columbus.  It seems to me that a real or feigned attack upon Columbus
+from up the river at the same time would either prevent this or
+compensate for it by throwing Columbus into our hands.  I wrote
+General Buell a letter similar to this, meaning that he and you shall
+communicate and act in concert, unless it be your judgment and his
+that there is no necessity for it.  You and he will understand much
+better than I how to do it.  Please do not lose time in this matter.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE PEOPLE OF MARYLAND,
+
+In view of the recent declaration of the people of Maryland of their
+adhesion to the Union, so distinctly made in their recent election,
+the President directs that all the prisoners who having heretofore
+been arrested in that State are now detained in military custody by
+the President's authority, be released from their imprisonment on the
+following conditions, namely: that if they were holding any civil or
+military offices when arrested, the terms of which have expired, they
+shall not resume or reclaim such office; and secondly, all persons
+availing themselves of this proclamation shall engage by oath or
+parole of honor to maintain the Union and the Constitution of the
+United States, and in no way to aid or abet by arms, counsel,
+conversation, or information of any kind the existing insurrection
+against the Government of the United States.
+
+To guard against misapprehension it is proper to state that this
+proclamation does not apply to prisoners of war.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+WASHINGTON, January 2, 1862
+
+To THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
+
+I transmit to Congress a copy of a letter to the Secretary of State
+from James R. Partridge, secretary to the executive committee to the
+in exhibition to be held in London in the course present year, and a
+copy of the correspond which it refers, relative to a vessel for the
+of taking such articles as persons in this country may wish to
+exhibit on that occasion. As it appears no naval vessel can be spared
+for the purpose, I recommend that authority be given to charter a
+suitable merchant vessel, in order that facilities similar to those
+afforded by the government exhibition of 1851 may also be extended to
+citizens of the United States who may desire to contribute to the
+exhibition of this year.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGES OF DISAPPOINTMENT WITH HIS GENERALS
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL D. C. BUELL.
+
+WASHINGTON, January 4, 1862.
+
+GENERAL BUELL:
+
+Have arms gone forward for East Tennessee?  Please tell me the
+progress and condition of the movement in that direction.  Answer.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL D. C. BUELL.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
+
+January 6, 1862.
+
+BRIGADIER-GENERAL BUELL.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your despatch of yesterday has been received, and it
+disappoints and distresses me.  I have shown it to General McClellan,
+who says he will write you to-day.  I am not competent to criticize
+your views, and therefore what I offer is in justification of myself.
+Of the two, I would rather have a point on the railroad south of
+Cumberland Gap than Nashville.  First, because it cuts a great artery
+of the enemy's communication, which Nashville does not; and secondly,
+because it is in the midst of loyal people who would rally around it,
+while Nashville is not.  Again, I cannot see why the movement on East
+Tennessee would not be a diversion in your favor rather than a
+disadvantage, assuming that a movement toward Nashville is the main
+object.  But my distress is that our friends in East Tennessee are
+being hanged and driven to despair, and even now, I fear, are
+thinking of taking rebel arms for the sake of personal protection.
+In this we lose the most valuable stake we have in the South.  My
+despatch, to which yours is an answer, was sent with the knowledge of
+Senator Johnson and Representative Maynard of East Tennessee, and
+they will be upon me to know the answer, which I cannot safely show
+them.  They would despair, possibly resign to go and save their
+families somehow, or die with them.  I do not intend this to be an
+order in any sense, but merely, as intimated before, to show you the
+grounds of my anxiety.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+ A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL BUELL.
+
+WASHINGTON, January 7, 1862.
+
+BRIGADIER-GENERAL D.C. BUELL, Louisville:
+
+Please name as early a day as you safely can on or before which you
+can be ready to move southward in concert with Major-General Halleck.
+Delay is ruining us, and it is indispensable for me to have something
+definite.  I send a like despatch to Major-General Halleck.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+WASHINGTON, January 10, 1862
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+I transmit to Congress a translation of an instruction to the
+minister of his Majesty the Emperor of Austria accredited to this
+government, and a copy of a note to that minister from the Secretary
+of State relative to the questions involved in the taking from the
+British steamer Trent of certain citizens of the United States by
+order of Captain Wilkes of the United States Navy.  This
+correspondence may be considered as a sequel to that previously
+communicated to Congress relating to the same subject.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+INDORSEMENT ON LETTER FROM GENERAL HALLECK,
+JANUARY 10, 1862.
+
+HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI
+ST. Louis, January 6, 1862.
+
+To His EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT:
+
+In reply to your Excellency's letter of the 1st instant, I have to
+state that on receiving your telegram I immediately communicated with
+General Buell and have since sent him all the information I could
+obtain of the enemy's movements about Columbus and Camp Beauregard.
+No considerable force has been sent from those places to Bowling
+Green.  They have about 22,000 men at Columbus, and the place is
+strongly fortified.  I have at Cairo, Port Holt, and Paducah only
+about 15,000, which, after leaving guards at these places, would give
+me but little over 10,000 men with which to assist General Buell.  It
+would be madness to attempt anything serious with such a force, and I
+cannot at the present time withdraw any from Missouri without risking
+the loss of this State.  The troops recently raised in other States
+of this department have, without my knowledge, been sent to Kentucky
+and Kansas.
+
+I am satisfied that the authorities at Washington do not appreciate
+the difficulties with which we have to contend here.  The operations
+of Lane, Jennison, and others have so enraged the people of Missouri
+that it is estimated that there is a majority of 8o,ooo against the
+government.  We are virtually in an enemy's country.  Price and
+others have a considerable army in the southwest, against which I am
+operating with all my available force.
+
+This city and most of the middle and northern counties are
+insurrectionary,--burning bridges, destroying telegraph lines, etc.,-
+-and can be kept down only by the presence of troops.  A large
+portion of the foreign troops organized by General Fremont are
+unreliable; indeed, many of them are already mutinous.  They have
+been tampered with by politicians, and made to believe that if they
+get up a mutiny and demand Fremont's return the government will be
+forced to restore him to duty here.  It is believed that some high
+officers are in the plot I have already been obliged to disarm
+several of these organizations, and I am daily expecting more serious
+outbreaks.  Another grave difficulty is the want of proper general
+officers to command the troops and enforce order and discipline, and
+especially to protect public property from robbery and plunder.  Some
+of the brigadier-generals assigned to this department are entirely
+ignorant of their duties and unfit for any command.  I assure you,
+Mr. President, it is very difficult to accomplish much with such
+means.  I am in the condition of a carpenter who is required to build
+a bridge with a dull axe, a broken saw, and rotten timber.  It is
+true that I have some very good green timber, which will answer the
+purpose as soon as I can get it into shape and season it a little.
+
+I know nothing of General Buell's intended operations, never having
+received any information in regard to the general plan of campaign.
+If it be intended that his column shall move on Bowling Green while
+another moves from Cairo or Paducah on Columbus or Camp Beauregard,
+it will be a repetition of the same strategic error which produced
+the disaster of Bull Run.  To operate on exterior lines against an
+enemy occupying a central position will fail, as it always has
+failed, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred.  It is condemned by
+every military authority I have ever read.
+
+General Buell's army and the forces at Paducah occupy precisely the
+same position in relation to each other and to the enemy as did the
+armies of McDowell and Patterson before the battle of Bull Run.
+
+Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
+
+H. W. HALLECK, Major-General
+
+
+[Indorsement]
+
+The within is a copy of a letter just received from General Halleck.
+It is exceedingly discouraging.  As everywhere else, nothing can be
+done.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GOVERNOR ANDREW.
+
+WASHINGTON, D. C.,
+January 11, 1862
+
+GOVERNOR JOHN A. ANDREW, Boston:
+
+I will be greatly obliged if you will arrange; somehow with General
+Butler to officer his two un-officered regiments.
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL D. C. BUELL.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, January 13, 1861
+
+BRIGADIER-GENERAL BUELL.
+
+MY DEAR SIR -Your despatch of yesterday is received, in which you
+say, "I received your letter and General McClellan's, and will at
+once devote my efforts to your views and his."  In the midst of my
+many cares I have not seen, nor asked to see, General McClellan's
+letter to you.  For my own views, I have not offered and do not now
+offer them as orders; and while I am glad to have them respectfully
+considered, I would blame you to follow them contrary to your own
+clear judgment, unless I should put them in the form of orders.  As
+to General McClellan's views, you understand your duty in regard to
+them better than I do.
+
+With this preliminary I state my general idea of this war to be, that
+we have the greater numbers and the enemy has the greater facility of
+concentrating forces upon points of collision; that we must fail
+unless we can find some way of making our advantage an overmatch for
+his; and that this can only be done by menacing him with superior
+forces at different points at the same time, so that we can safely
+attack one or both if he makes no change; and if he weakens one to
+strengthen the other, forbear to attack the strengthened one, but
+seize and hold the weakened one, gaining so much.
+
+To illustrate: Suppose last summer, when Winchester ran away to
+reinforce Manassas, we had forborne to attack Manassas, but had
+seized and held Winchester.  I mention this to illustrate and not to
+criticise.  I did not lose confidence in McDowell, and I think less
+harshly of Patterson than some others seem to.  .  .  .  Applying the
+principle to your case, my idea is that Halleck shall menace Columbus
+and "down river" generally, while you menace Bowling Green and East
+Tennessee.  If the enemy shall concentrate at Bowling Green, do not
+retire from his front, yet do not fight him there either, but seize
+Columbus and East Tennessee, one or both, left exposed by the
+concentration at Bowling Green.  It is a matter of no small anxiety
+to me, and which I am sure you will not overlook, that the East
+Tennessee line is so long and over so bad a road.
+
+Yours very truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+(Indorsement.)
+
+Having to-day written General Buell a letter, it occurs to me to send
+General Halleck a copy of it.
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL H. W. HALLECK.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, January 1 , 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL HALLECK.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--The Germans are true and patriotic and so far as they
+have got cross in Missouri it is upon mistake and misunderstanding.
+Without a knowledge of its contents, Governor Koerner, of Illinois,
+will hand you this letter.  He is an educated and talented German
+gentleman, as true a man as lives.  With his assistance you can set
+everything right with the Germans.  .  .  .  My clear judgment is
+that, with reference to the German element in your command, you
+should have Governor Koerner with you; and if agreeable to you and
+him, I will make him a brigadier-general, so that he can afford to
+give his time.  He does not wish to command in the field, though he
+has more military knowledge than some who do.  If he goes into the
+place, he will simply be an efficient, zealous, and unselfish
+assistant to you.  I say all this upon intimate personal acquaintance
+with Governor Koerner.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+WASHINGTON, January 17, 1862
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+I transmit to Congress a translation of an instruction to the
+minister of his Majesty the King of Prussia accredited to this
+government, and a copy of a note to that minister from the Secretary
+of State relating to the capture and detention of certain citizens of
+the United States, passengers on board the British steamer Trent, by
+order of Captain Wilkes of the United States Navy.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL McCLELLAN.
+
+DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON.
+
+January 20, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE B. McCLELLAN,
+
+Commanding Armies of the United States:
+
+You or any officer you may designate will in your discretion suspend
+the writ of habeas corpus so far as may relate to Major Chase, lately
+of the Engineer Corps of the Army of the United States, now alleged
+to be guilty of treasonable practices against this government.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
+
+
+
+
+PRESIDENT'S GENERAL WAR ORDER NO. 1
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON , January 27, 1862.
+
+Ordered, That the 22d day of February, 1862, be the day for a general
+movement of the land and the naval forces of the United States
+against the insurgent forces.
+
+That especially the army at and about Fortress Monroe, the Army of
+the Potomac, the Army of Western Virginia, the army near
+Munfordville, Kentucky, the army and flotilla at Cairo, and a naval
+force in the Gulf of Mexico, be ready for a movement on that day.
+
+That all other forces, both land and naval, with their respective
+commanders, obey existing orders for the time, and be ready to obey
+additional orders when duly given.
+
+That the heads of departments, and especially the Secretaries of War
+and of the Navy, with all their subordinates, and the
+General-in-chief, with all other commanders and subordinates of land
+and naval forces, will severally be held to their strict and full
+responsibilities for the prompt execution of this order.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY STANTON,
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION WASHINGTON, January 31, 1862
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--It is my wish that the expedition commonly called the
+"Lane Expedition" shall be, as much as has been promised at the
+adjutant-general's office, under the supervision of General
+McClellan, and not any more.  I have not intended, and do not now
+intend, that it shall be a great, exhausting affair, but a snug,
+sober column of 10,000 or 15,000.  General Lane has been told by me
+many times that he is under the command of General Hunter, and
+assented to it as often as told.  It was the distinct agreement
+between him and me, when I appointed him, that he was to be under
+Hunter.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PRESIDENT'S SPECIAL WAR ORDER NO. 1.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, January 31, 1862.
+
+Ordered, That all the disposable force of the Army of the Potomac,
+after providing safely for the defence of Washington, be formed into
+an expedition for the immediate object of seizing and occupying a
+point upon the railroad southwestward of what is known as Manassas
+Junction, all details to be in the discretion of the
+commander-in-chief, and the expedition to move before or on the 22d
+day of February next.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+OPPOSITION TO McCLELLAN'S PLANS
+
+TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN,
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, February 3, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL MCCLELLAN.
+
+DEAR SIR -You and I have distinct and different plans for a movement
+of the Army of the Potomac--yours to be down the Chesapeake, up the
+Rappahannock to Urbana, and across land to the terminus of the
+railroad on the York River; mine to move directly to a point on the
+railroad southwest of Manassas.
+
+If you will give me satisfactory answers to the following questions,
+I shall gladly yield my plan to yours.
+
+First.   Does not your plan involve a greatly larger expenditure of
+time and money than mine?
+
+Second.  Wherein is a victory more certain by your plan than mine?
+
+Third.  Wherein is a victory more valuable by your plan than mine?
+
+Fourth.  In fact, would it not be less valuable in this, that it
+would break no great line of the enemy's communications, while mine
+would?
+
+Fifth.  In case of disaster, would not a retreat be more difficult by
+your plan than mine?
+
+Yours truly,
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+Memorandum accompanying Letter of President Lincoln to General
+McClellan, dated February 3,1862.
+
+First.  Suppose the enemy should attack us in force before we reach
+the Occoquan, what?
+
+Second.  Suppose the enemy in force shall dispute the crossing of the
+Occoquan, what? In view of this, might it not be safest for us to
+cross the Occoquan at Coichester, rather than at the village of
+Occoquan? This would cost the enemy two miles of travel to meet us,
+but would, on the contrary, leave us two miles farther from our
+ultimate
+destination.
+
+Third.  Suppose we reach Maple Valley without an attack, will we not
+be attacked there in force by the enemy marching by the several roads
+from Manassas; and if so, what?
+
+
+
+
+TO WM. H. HERNDON.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
+February 3, 1862.
+
+DEAR WILLIAM:--Yours of January 30th just received. Do just as you
+say about the money matter.
+
+As you well know, I have not time to write a letter of respectable
+length. God bless you, says
+
+Your friend,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+RESPITE FOR NATHANIEL GORDON
+
+February 4, 1862
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
+PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
+To all to whom these Presents shall come, Greeting:
+
+Whereas it appears that at a term of the Circuit Court of the United
+States of America for the Southern District of New York held in the
+month of November, A.D. 1861, Nathaniel Gordon was indicted and
+convicted for being engaged in the slave trade, and was by the said
+court sentenced to be put to death by hanging by the neck, on Friday
+the 7th day of February, AD. 1862:
+
+And whereas a large number of respectable citizens have earnestly
+besought me to commute the said sentence of the said Nathaniel Gordon
+to a term of imprisonment for life, which application I have felt it
+to be my duty to refuse:
+
+And whereas it has seemed to me probable that the unsuccessful
+application made for the commutation of his sentence may have
+prevented the said Nathaniel Gordon from making the necessary
+preparation for the awful change which awaits him;
+
+Now, therefore, be it known, that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of
+the United States of America, have granted and do hereby grant unto
+him, the said Nathaniel Gordon, a respite of the above recited
+sentence, until Friday the twenty-first day of February, A.D. 1862,
+between the hours of twelve o'clock at noon and three o'clock in the
+afternoon of the said day, when the said sentence shall be executed.
+
+In granting this respite, it becomes my painful duty to admonish the
+prisoner that, relinquishing all expectation of pardon by human
+authority, he refer himself alone to the mercy of the common God and
+Father of all men.
+
+In testimony whereof  I have hereunto signed my name and caused the
+seal of the United States to be affixed.
+
+Done at the City of Washington, this fourth day of February, A.D.
+1862, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-sixth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD,  Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE SENATE.
+
+WASHINGTON CITY, February 4.  1862
+
+To THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:
+
+The third section of the "Act further to promote the efficiency of
+the Navy," approved December 21, 1862, provides:
+
+"That the President of the United States, by and with the advice and
+consent of the Senate, shall have the authority to detail from the
+retired list of the navy for the command of squadrons and single
+ships such officers as he may believe that the good of the service
+requires to be thus placed in command; and such officers may, if upon
+the recommendation of the President of the United States they shall
+receive a vote of thanks of Congress for their services and gallantry
+in action against an enemy, be restored to the active list, and not
+otherwise."
+
+In conformity with this law, Captain Samuel F. Du Pont, of the navy,
+was nominated to the Senate for continuance as the flag-officer in
+command of the squadron which recently rendered such important
+service to the Union in the expedition to the coast of South
+Carolina.
+
+Believing that no occasion could arise which would more fully
+correspond with the intention of the law, or be more pregnant with
+happy influence as an example, I cordially recommend that Captain
+Samuel F. Du Pont receive a vote of thanks of Congress for his
+services and gallantry displayed in the capture of Forts Walker and
+Beauregard, commanding the entrance of Port Royal Harbor, on the 7th
+of November, 1861.
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERALS D. HUNTER AND J. H. LANE.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION WASHINGTON, FEBRUARY 4, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL HUNTER AND BRIGADIER-GENERAL LANE,
+Leavenworth, Kansas:
+
+My wish has been and is to avail the government of the services of
+both General Hunter and General Lane, and, so far as possible, to
+personally oblige both.  General Hunter is the senior officer, and
+must command when they serve together; though in so far as he can
+consistently with the public service and his own honor oblige General
+Lane, he will also oblige me.  If they cannot come to an amicable
+understanding, General Lane must report to General Hunter for duty,
+according to the rules, or decline the service.
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 1, RELATING TO POLITICAL
+PRISONERS.
+
+WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON,
+February 14,1862.
+
+The breaking out of a formidable insurrection based on a conflict of
+political ideas, being an event without precedent in the United
+States, was necessarily attended by great confusion and perplexity of
+the public mind.  Disloyalty before unsuspected suddenly became bold,
+and treason astonished the world by bringing at once into the field
+military forces superior in number to the standing army of the United
+States.
+
+Every department of the government was paralyzed by treason.
+Defection appeared in the Senate, in the House of Representatives, in
+the Cabinet, in the Federal courts; ministers and consuls returned
+from foreign countries to enter the insurrectionary councils of land
+or naval forces; commanding and other officers of the army and in the
+navy betrayed our councils or deserted their posts for commands in
+the insurgent forces.  Treason was flagrant in the revenue and in the
+post-office service, as well as in the Territorial governments and in
+the Indian reserves.
+
+Not only governors, judges, legislators, and ministerial officers in
+the States, but even whole States rushed one after another with
+apparent unanimity into rebellion.  The capital was besieged and its
+connection with all the States cut off.  Even in the portions of the
+country which were most loyal, political combinations and secret
+societies were formed furthering tile work of disunion, while, from
+motives of disloyalty or cupidity or from excited passions or
+perverted sympathies, individuals were found furnishing men, money,
+and materials of war and supplies to the insurgents' military and
+naval forces.  Armies, ships, fortifications, navy yards, arsenals,
+military posts, and garrisons one after another were betrayed or
+abandoned to the insurgents.
+
+Congress had not anticipated, and so had not provided for, the
+emergency.  The municipal authorities were powerless and inactive.
+The judicial machinery seemed as if it had been designed, not to
+sustain the government, but to embarrass and betray it.
+
+Foreign intervention, openly invited and industriously instigated by
+the abettors of the insurrection, became imminent, and has only been
+prevented by the practice of strict and impartial justice, with the
+most perfect moderation, in our intercourse with nations.
+
+The public mind was alarmed and apprehensive, though fortunately not
+distracted or disheartened.  It seemed to be doubtful whether the
+Federal Government, which one year before had been thought a model
+worthy of universal acceptance, had indeed the ability to defend and
+maintain itself.
+
+Some reverses, which, perhaps, were unavoidable, suffered by newly
+levied and inefficient forces, discouraged the loyal and gave new
+hopes to the insurgents.  Voluntary enlistments seemed about to cease
+and desertions commenced.  Parties speculated upon the question
+whether conscription had not become necessary to fill up the armies
+of the United States.
+
+In this emergency the President felt it his duty to employ with
+energy the extraordinary powers which the Constitution confides to
+him in cases of insurrection.  He called into the field such military
+and naval forces, unauthorized by the existing laws, as seemed
+necessary.  He directed measures to prevent the use of the post-
+office for treasonable correspondence.  He subjected passengers to
+and from foreign countries to new passport regulations, and he
+instituted a blockade, suspended the writ of habeas corpus in various
+places, and caused persons who were represented to him as being or
+about to engage in disloyal and treasonable practices to be arrested
+by special civil as well as military agencies and detained in
+military custody when necessary to prevent them and deter others from
+such practices.  Examinations of such cases were instituted, and some
+of the persons so arrested have been discharged from time to time
+under circumstances or upon conditions compatible, as was thought,
+with the public safety.
+
+Meantime a favorable change of public opinion has occurred.  The line
+between loyalty and disloyalty is plainly defined.  The whole
+structure of the government is firm and stable.  Apprehension of
+public danger and facilities for treasonable practices have
+diminished with the passions which prompted heedless persons to adopt
+them.  The insurrection is believed to have culminated and to be
+declining.
+
+The President, in view of these facts, and anxious to favor a return
+to the normal course of the administration as far as regard for the
+public welfare will allow, directs that all political prisoners or
+state prisoners now held in military custody be released on their
+subscribing to a parole engaging them to render no aid or comfort to
+the enemies in hostility to the United States.
+
+The Secretary of War will, however, in his discretion, except from
+the effect of this order any persons detained as spies in the service
+of the insurgents, or others whose release at the present moment may
+be deemed incompatible with the public safety.
+
+To all persons who shall be so released, and who shall keep their
+parole, the President grants an amnesty for any past offences of
+treason or disloyalty which they may have comminuted.
+
+Extraordinary arrests will hereafter be made under the direction of
+the military authorities alone.
+
+By order of the President
+EDWIN M. STANTON,   Secretary of War.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+WASHINGTON CITY, February 15, 1862
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES:
+The third section of the "Act further to promote the efficiency of
+the Navy," approved December 21, 1861, provides
+
+"That the President of the United States, by and with the advice and
+consent of the Senate, shall have the authority to detail from the
+retired list of the navy for the command of squadrons and single
+ships such officers as he may believe that the good of the service
+requires to be thus placed in command; and such officers may, if upon
+the recommendation of the President of the United States they shall
+receive a vote of thanks of Congress for their services and gallantry
+in action against an enemy, be restored to the active list, and not
+otherwise."
+
+In conformity with this law, Captain Louis M. Goldsborough, of the
+navy, was nominated to the Senate for continuance as the flag-officer
+in command of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, which recently
+rendered such important service to the Union in the expedition to the
+coast of North Carolina.
+
+Believing that no occasion could arise which would more fully
+correspond with the intention of the law or be more pregnant with
+happy influence as an example, I cordially recommend that Captain
+Louis M. Goldsborough receive a vote of thanks of Congress for his
+services and gallantry displayed in the combined attack of the forces
+commanded by him and Brigadier-General Burnside in the capture of
+Roanoke Island and the destruction of rebel gunboats On the 7th, 8th,
+and 10th of February, 1862.
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST WRITTEN NOTICE OF GRANT
+
+TO GENERAL H. W. HALLECK.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
+
+February 16, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL HALLECK, St.  Louis, Missouri:
+
+You have Fort Donelson safe, unless Grant shall be overwhelmed from
+outside; to prevent which latter will, I think, require all the
+vigilance, energy, and skill of yourself and Buell, acting in full
+co-operation.  Columbus will not get at Grant, but the force from
+Bowling Green will.  They hold the railroad from Bowling Green to
+within a few miles of Fort Donelson, with the bridge at Clarksville
+undisturbed.  It is unsafe to rely that they will not dare to expose
+Nashville to Buell.  A small part of their force can retire slowly
+toward Nashville, breaking up the railroad as they go, and keep Buell
+out of that city twenty days.  Meanwhile Nashville will be abundantly
+defended by forces from all South and perhaps from hers at Manassas.
+Could not a cavalry force from General Thomas on the upper Cumberland
+dash across, almost unresisted, and cut the railroad at or near
+Knoxville, Tennessee?  In the midst 6f a bombardment at Fort
+Donelson, why could not a gunboat run up and destroy the bridge at
+Clarksville? Our success or failure at Fort Donelson is vastly
+important, and I beg you to put your soul in the effort.  I send a
+copy of this to Buell.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 2.--IN RELATION TO STATE PRISONERS.
+
+WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON CITY,
+FEBRUARY 27, 1862
+
+It is ordered:
+
+First.  That a special commission of two persons, one of military
+rank and the other in civil life, be appointed to examine the cases
+of the state prisoners remaining in the military custody of the
+United States, and to determine whether in view of the public Safety
+and the existing rebellion they should be discharged, or remain in
+military custody, or be remitted to the civil tribunals for trial.
+
+Second.  That Major-General John A. Dix, commanding in Baltimore, and
+the HON. Edwards Pierrepont, of New York, be, and they are hereby,
+appointed commissioners for the purpose above mentioned; and they are
+authorized to examine, hear, and determine the cases aforesaid ex
+parte and in a summary manner, at such times and places as in their
+discretion they may appoint, and make full report to the War
+Department.
+
+By order of the President
+EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER RELATING TO COMMERCIAL INTERCOURSE.
+
+Considering that the existing circumstances of the country allow a
+partial restoration of commercial intercourse between the inhabitants
+of those parts of the United States heretofore declared to be in
+insurrection and the citizens of the loyal States of the Union, and
+exercising the authority and discretion confided to me by the act of
+Congress, approved July 13, 1861, entitled "An act further to provide
+for the collection of duties on imports, and for other purposes," I
+hereby license and permit such commercial intercourse in all cases
+within the rules and regulations which have been or may be prescribed
+by the Secretary of the Treasury for conducting and carrying on the
+same on the inland waters arid ways of the United States.
+
+WASHINGTON, February 28, 1862.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SPEECH TO THE PERUVIAN MINISTER,
+
+WASHINGTON, D. C.,
+MARCH 4, 1862
+
+The United States have no enmities, animosities, or rivalries, and no
+interests which conflict with the welfare, safety, and rights or
+interests of any other nation.  Their own prosperity, happiness, and
+aggrandizement are sought most safely and advantageously through the
+preservation not only of peace on their own part, but peace among all
+other nations.  But while the United States are thus a friend to all
+other nations, they do not seek to conceal the fact that they cherish
+especial sentiments of friendship for, and sympathies with, those
+who, like themselves, have founded their institutions on the
+principle of the equal rights of men; and such nations being more
+prominently neighbors of the United States, the latter are
+co-operating with them in establishing civilization and culture on
+the American continent. Such being the general principles which
+govern the United States in their foreign relations, you may be
+assured, sir, that in all things this government will deal justly,
+frankly, and, if it be possible, even liberally with Peru, whose
+liberal sentiments toward us you have so kindly expressed.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS RECOMMENDING COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION.
+
+March 6, 1862
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:--
+I recommend the adoption of a joint resolution by your honorable
+bodies which shall be substantially as follows:
+
+"Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with any State
+which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State
+pecuniary aid, to be used by such State, in its discretion, to
+compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by
+such change of system."
+
+If the proposition contained in the resolution does not meet the
+approval of Congress and the country, there is the end; but if it
+does command such approval, I deem it of importance that the States
+and people immediately interested should be at once distinctly
+notified of the fact, so that they may begin to consider whether to
+accept or reject it.  The Federal Government would find its highest
+interest in such a measure, as one of the most efficient means of
+self-preservation.  The leaders of the existing insurrection
+entertain the hope that this government will ultimately be forced to
+acknowledge the independence of some part of the disaffected region,
+and that all the slave States north of such part will then say, "The
+Union for which we have struggled being already gone, we now choose
+to go with the Southern section." To deprive them of this hope
+substantially ends the rebellion, and the initiation of emancipation
+completely deprives them of it as to all the States initiating it.
+The point is not that all the States tolerating slavery would very
+soon, if at all, initiate emancipation; but that, while the offer is
+equally made to all, the more northern shall by such initiation make
+it certain to the more southern that in no event will the former ever
+join the latter in their proposed confederacy.  I say "initiation"
+because, in my judgment, gradual and not sudden emancipation is
+better for all.  In the mere financial or pecuniary view, any member
+of Congress with the census tables and treasury reports before him
+can readily see for himself how very soon the current expenditures of
+this war would purchase, at fair valuation, all the slaves in any
+named State.  Such a proposition on the part of the General
+Government sets up no claim of a right by Federal authority to
+interfere with slavery within State limits, referring, as it does,
+the absolute control of the subject in each case to the State and its
+people immediately interested.  It is proposed as a matter of
+perfectly free choice with them.
+
+In the annual message last December, I thought fit to say, "The Union
+must be preserved, and hence all indispensable means must be
+employed." I said this not hastily, but deliberately.  War has been
+made and continues to be an indispensable means to this end.  A
+practical reacknowledgment of the national authority would render the
+war unnecessary, and it would at once cease.  If, however, resistance
+continues, the war must also continue; and it is impossible to
+foresee all the incidents which may attend and all the ruin which may
+follow it.  Such as may seem indispensable or may obviously promise
+great efficiency toward ending the struggle must and will come.
+
+The proposition now made (though an offer only), I hope it may be
+esteemed no offense to ask whether the pecuniary consideration
+tendered would not be of more value to the States and private persons
+concerned than are the institution and property in it in the present
+aspect of affairs.
+
+While it is true that the adoption of the proposed resolution would
+be merely initiatory, and not within itself a practical measure, it
+is recommended in the hope that it would soon lead to important
+practical results.  In full view of my great responsibility to my God
+and to my country, I earnestly beg the attention of Congress and the
+people to the subject.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+INDORSEMENT ON LETTER FROM GOVERNOR YATES.
+
+STATE OF ILLINOIS, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., March 1, 1862
+
+HON. EDWIN M. STANTON,
+SECRETARY OF WAR, Washington, D. C.
+
+SIR:--The government at my special request a few months since
+contracted for fourteen batteries of the James rifled gun, 6-pounder
+calibre, and a limited quantity of the James projectiles, weighing
+about fourteen pounds each. The reports showing the superiority of
+this gun and projectile, both as regards range, accuracy, and
+execution, for field service over that of all others at the battle of
+Fort Donelson, leads me to request that there be furnished to the
+State of Illinois in the shortest time practicable seven batteries of
+12-pounder calibre James rifled guns, with carriages, harness,
+implements, etc., complete and ready for field service, together with
+the following fixed ammunition to each gun, viz., 225 shells, 225
+canister, and 50 solid projectiles, weighing about 24 pounds each,
+and also 200 shells, 100 canister, and 100 solid projectiles for each
+of the guns of the fourteen batteries named above, weighing about
+14 pounds each, all to be of the James model.
+
+Very respectfully,
+
+RICHARD YATES,
+Governor of Illinois.
+
+[Indorsement.]
+
+March 8, 1862.
+
+The within is from the Governor of Illinois. I understand the seven
+additional batteries now sought are to be 6-gun batteries, and the
+object is to mix them with the fourteen batteries they already have
+so as to make each battery consist of four 6-pounders and two
+12-pounders. I shall be very glad to have the requisition filled if
+it can be without detriment to the service.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PRESIDENT'S GENERAL WAR ORDER NO.2.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON
+
+March 8, 1862.
+
+Ordered:
+1.  That the major-general commanding the Army of the Potomac proceed
+forthwith to organize that part of the said army destined to enter
+upon active operations (including the reserve, but excluding the
+troops to be left in the fortifications about Washington) into four
+army corps, to be commanded according to seniority of rank, as
+follows:
+
+First Corps to consist of four divisions, and to be commanded by
+Major-General I. McDowell.
+Second Corps to consist of three divisions, and to be commanded by
+Brigadier-General E. V. Sumner.
+Third Corps to consist of three divisions, and to be commanded by
+Brigadier-General S. P. Heintzelman.
+Fourth Corps to consist of three divisions, and to be commanded by
+Brigadier-General E. D. Keyes.
+
+2.   That the divisions now commanded by the officers above assigned
+to the commands of army corps shall be embraced in and form part of
+their respective corps.
+
+3.   The forces left for the defense of Washington will be placed in
+command of Brigadier-General James S. Wadsworth, who shall also be
+military governor of the District of Columbia.
+
+4.   That this order be executed with such promptness and dispatch as
+not to delay the commencement of the operations already directed to
+be underwritten by the Army of the Potomac.
+
+5.  A fifth army corps, to be commanded by Major general N. P. Banks,
+will be formed from his own and General Shields's (late General
+Lander's) divisions.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PRESIDENT'S GENERAL WAR ORDER NO.3.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, MARCH 8,1862
+
+Ordered: That no change of the base of operations of the Army of the
+Potomac shall be made without leaving in and about Washington such a
+force as in the opinion of the general-in-chief and the commanders of
+all the army corps shall leave said city entirely secure.
+
+That no more than two army corps (about 50,000 troops) of said Army
+of the Potomac shall be moved en route for a new base of operations
+until the navigation of the Potomac from Washington to the Chesapeake
+Bay shall be freed from enemy's batteries and other obstructions, or
+until the President shall hereafter give express permission.
+
+That any movements as aforesaid en route for a new base of operations
+which may be ordered by the general-in-chief, and which may be
+intended to move upon the Chesapeake Bay, shall begin to move upon
+the bay as early as the 18th day of March instant, and the
+general-in-chief shall be responsible that it so move as early as
+that day.
+
+Ordered, That the army and navy co-operate in an immediate effort to
+capture the enemy's batteries upon the Potomac between Washington and
+the Chesapeake Bay.
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+MEMORANDUM OF AN INTERVIEW BETWEEN THE PRESIDENT AND SOME BORDER
+SLAVE STATE REPRESENTATIVES, BY HON. J. W. CRISFIELD.
+
+"DEAR SIR:--I called, at the request of the President, to ask you to
+come to the White House tomorrow morning, at nine o'clock, and bring
+such of your colleagues as are in town."
+
+WASHINGTON, March 10, 1862.
+
+Yesterday, on my return from church, I found Mr. Postmaster-General
+Blair in my room, writing the above note, which he immediately
+suspended, and verbally communicated the President's invitation, and
+stated that the President's purpose was to have some conversation
+with the delegations of Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Virginia, and
+Delaware, in explanation of his message of the 6th instant.
+
+This morning these delegations, or such of them as were in town,
+assembled at the White House at the appointed time, and after some
+little delay were admitted to an audience.  Mr. Leary and myself were
+the only members from Maryland present, and, I think, were the only
+members of the delegation at that time in the city.  I know that Mr.
+Pearoe, of the Senate, and Messrs.  Webster and Calvert, of the
+House, were absent.
+
+After the usual salutations, and we were seated, the President said,
+in substance, that he had invited us to meet him to have some
+conversation with us in explanation of his message of the 6th; that
+since he had sent it in several of the gentlemen then present had
+visited him, but had avoided any allusion to the message, and he
+therefore inferred that the import of the message had been
+misunderstood, and was regarded as inimical to the interests we
+represented; and he had resolved he would talk with us, and disabuse
+our minds of that erroneous opinion.
+
+The President then disclaimed any intent to injure the interests or
+wound the sensibilities of the slave States.  On the contrary, his
+purpose was to protect the one and respect the other; that we were
+engaged in a terrible, wasting, and tedious war; immense armies were
+in the field, and must continue in the field as long as the war
+lasts; that these armies must, of necessity, be brought into contact
+with slaves in the States we represented and in other States as they
+advanced; that slaves would come to the camps, and continual
+irritation was kept up; that he was constantly annoyed by conflicting
+and antagonistic complaints: on the one side a certain class
+complained if the slave was not protected by the army; persons were
+frequently found who, participating in these views, acted in a way
+unfriendly to the slaveholder; on the other hand, slaveholders
+complained that their rights were interfered with, their slaves
+induced to abscond and protected within the lines; these complaints
+were numerous, loud and deep; were a serious annoyance to him and
+embarrassing to the progress of the war; that it kept alive a spirit
+hostile to the government in the States we represented; strengthened
+the hopes of the Confederates that at some day the border States
+would unite with them, and thus tend to prolong the war; and he was
+of opinion, if this resolution should be adopted by Congress and
+accepted by our States, these causes of irritation and these hopes
+would be removed, and more would be accomplished toward shortening
+the war than could be hoped from the greatest victory achieved by
+Union armies; that he made this proposition in good faith, and
+desired it to be accepted, if at all, voluntarily, and in the same
+patriotic spirit in which it was made; that emancipation was a
+subject exclusively under the control of the States, and must be
+adopted or rejected by each for itself; that he did not claim nor had
+this government any right to coerce them for that purpose; that such
+was no part of his purpose in making this proposition, and he wished
+it to be clearly understood; that he did not expect us there to be
+prepared to give him an answer, but he hoped we would take the
+subject into serious consideration, confer with one another, and then
+take such course as we felt our duty and the interests of our
+constituents required of us.
+
+Mr. Noell, of Missouri, said that in his State slavery was not
+considered a permanent institution; that natural causes were there in
+operation which would at no distant day extinguish it, and he did not
+think that this proposition was necessary for that; and, besides
+that, he and his friends felt solicitous as to the message on account
+of the different constructions which the resolution and message had
+received.  The New York Tribune was for it, and understood it to mean
+that we must accept gradual emancipation according to the plan
+suggested, or get something worse.
+
+The President replied that he must not be expected to quarrel with
+the New York Tribune before the right time; he hoped never to have to
+do it; he would not anticipate events.  In respect to emancipation in
+Missouri, he said that what had been observed by Mr. Noell was
+probably true, but the operation of these natural causes had not
+prevented the irritating conduct to which he had referred, or
+destroyed the hopes of the Confederates that Missouri would at some
+time merge herself alongside of them, which, in his judgment, the
+passage of this resolution by Congress and its acceptance by Missouri
+would accomplish.
+
+Mr. Crisfield, of Maryland, asked what would be the effect of the
+refusal of the State to accept this proposal, and he desired to know
+if the President looked to any policy beyond the acceptance or
+rejection of this scheme.
+
+The President replied that he had no designs beyond the actions of
+the States on this particular subject.  He should lament their
+refusal to accept it, but he had no designs beyond their refusal of
+it.
+
+Mr. Menzies, of Kentucky, inquired if the President thought there was
+any power except in the States themselves to carry out his scheme of
+emancipation.
+
+The President replied that he thought there could not be.  He then
+went off into a course of remarks not qualifying the foregoing
+declaration nor material to be repeated to a just understanding of
+his meaning.
+
+Mr. Crisfield said he did not think the people of Maryland looked
+upon slavery as a permanent institution; and he did not know that
+they would be very reluctant to give it up if provision was made to
+meet the loss and they could be rid of the race; but they did not
+like to be coerced into emancipation, either by the direct action of
+the government or by indirection, as through the emancipation of
+slaves in this District, or the confiscation of Southern property as
+now threatened; and he thought before they would consent to consider
+this proposition they would require to be informed on these points.
+The President replied that, unless he was expelled by the act of God
+or the Confederate armies he should occupy that house for three
+years; and as long as he remained there Maryland had nothing to fear
+either for her institutions or her interests on the points referred
+to.
+
+Mr. Crisfield immediately added: "Mr. President, if what you now say
+could be heard by the people of Maryland, they would consider your
+proposition with a much better feeling than I fear without it they
+will be inclined to do."
+
+The President: "That [meaning a publication of what he said] will not
+do; it would force me into a quarrel before the proper time "; and,
+again intimating, as he had before done, that a quarrel with the
+"Greeley faction" was impending, he said he did not wish to encounter
+it before the proper time, nor at all if it could be avoided.
+
+[The Greely faction wanted an immediate Emancipation Proclamation.
+D.W.]
+
+Governor Wickliffe, of Kentucky, then asked him respecting the
+constitutionality of his scheme.
+
+The President replied: "As you may suppose, I have considered that;
+and the proposition now submitted does not encounter any
+constitutional difficulty.  It proposes simply to co-operate with any
+State by giving such State pecuniary aid"; and he thought that the
+resolution, as proposed by him, would be considered rather as the
+expression of a sentiment than as involving any constitutional
+question.
+
+Mr. Hall, of Missouri, thought that if this proposition was adopted
+at all it should be by the votes of the free States, and come as a
+proposition from them to the slave States, affording them an
+inducement to put aside this subject of discord; that it ought not to
+be expected that members representing slaveholding constituencies
+should declare at once, and in advance of any proposition to them,
+for the emancipation of slavery.
+
+The President said he saw and felt the force of the objection; it was
+a fearful responsibility, and every gentleman must do as he thought
+best; that he did not know how this scheme was received by the
+members from the free States; some of them had spoken to him and
+received it kindly; but for the most part they were as reserved and
+chary as we had been, and he could not tell how they would vote.  And
+in reply to some expression of Mr. Hall as to his own opinion
+regarding slavery, he said he did not pretend to disguise his anti-
+slavery feeling; that he thought it was wrong, and should continue to
+think so; but that was not the question we had to deal with now.
+Slavery existed, and that, too, as well by the act of the North as of
+the South; and in any scheme to get rid of it the North as well as
+the South was morally bound to do its full and equal share.  He
+thought the institution wrong and ought never to have existed; but
+yet he recognized the rights of property which had grown out of it,
+and would respect those rights as fully as similar rights in any
+other property; that property can exist and does legally exist.  He
+thought such a law wrong, but the rights of property resulting must
+be respected; he would get rid of the odious law, not by violating
+the rights, but by encouraging the proposition and offering
+inducements to give it up.
+
+Here the interview, so far as this subject is concerned, terminated
+by Mr. Crittenden's assuring the President that, whatever might be
+our final action, we all thought him solely moved by a high
+patriotism and sincere devotion to the happiness and glory of his
+country; and with that conviction we should consider respectfully the
+important suggestions he had made.
+
+After some conversation on the current war news, we retired, and I
+immediately proceeded to my room and wrote out this paper.
+
+J. W. CRISFIELD.
+
+
+We were present at the interview described in the foregoing paper of
+Mr. Crisfield, and we certify that the substance of what passed on
+the occasion is in this paper faithfully and fully given.
+
+J. W. MENZIES,
+J. J. CRITTENDEN,
+R. MALLORY.
+
+March 10, 1862.
+
+
+
+
+PRESIDENT'S SPECIAL WAR ORDER NO.3.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, March 11, 1862.
+
+Major-General McClellan having personally taken the field at the head
+of the Army of the Potomac, until otherwise ordered he is relieved
+from the command of the other military departments, he retaining
+command of the Department of the Potomac.
+
+Ordered further, That the departments now under the respective
+commands of Generals Halleck and Hunter, together with so much of
+that under General Buell as lies west of a north and south line
+indefinitely drawn through Knoxville, Tenn., be consolidated and
+designated the Department of the Mississippi, and that until
+otherwise ordered Major General Halleck have command of said
+department.
+
+Ordered also, That the country west of the Department of the Potomac
+and east of the Department of the Mississippi be a military
+department, to be called the Mountain Department, and that the same
+be commanded by Major-General Fremont.
+
+That all the commanders of departments, after the receipt of this
+order by them, respectively report severally and directly to the
+Secretary of War, and that prompt, full, and frequent reports will be
+expected of all and each of them.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+FROM SECRETARY STANTON TO GENERAL MCCLELLAN.
+WAR DEPARTMENT, March 13, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN:
+
+The President, having considered the plan of operations agreed upon
+by yourself and the commanders of army corps, makes no objection to
+the same but gives the following directions as to its execution:
+
+1.   Leave such force at Manassas Junction as shall make it entirely
+certain that the enemy shall no repossess himself of that position
+and line of communication.
+
+2.   Leave Washington entirely secure.
+
+3.   Move the remainder of the force down the Potomac, choosing a new
+base at Fortress Monroe or anywhere between here and there, or, at
+all events, move such remainder of the army at once in pursuit of the
+enemy by some route.
+
+EDWARD M. STANTON,
+Secretary of War.
+
+
+
+
+SPEECH TO A PARTY OF MASSACHUSETTS GENTLEMAN
+
+WASHINGTON, MARCH 13, 1862
+
+I thank you, Mr. Train, for your kindness in presenting me with this
+truly elegant and highly creditable specimen of the handiwork of the
+mechanics of your State of Massachusetts, and I beg of you to express
+my hearty thanks to the donors.  It displays a perfection of
+workmanship which I really wish I had time to acknowledge in more
+fitting words, and I might then follow your idea that it is
+suggestive, for it is evidently expected that a good deal of whipping
+is to be done.  But as we meet here socially let us not think only of
+whipping rebels, or of those who seem to think only of whipping
+negroes, but of those pleasant days, which it is to be hoped are in
+store for us, when seated behind a good pair of horses we can crack
+our whips and drive through a peaceful, happy, and prosperous land.
+With this idea, gentlemen, I must leave you for my business duties.
+[It was likely a Buggy-Whip D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+WASHINGTON CITY, March 20, 1862.
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+The third section of the "Act further to promote the efficiency of
+the Navy, " approved December21, 1861, provides:
+
+"That the President of the United States, by and with the advice and
+consent of the Senate, shall have the authority to detail from the
+retired list of the navy for the command of squadrons and single
+ships such officers as he may believe the good of the service
+requires to be thus placed in command; and such officers may, if upon
+the recommendation of the President of the United States they shall
+receive a vote of thanks cf Congress for their services and gallantry
+in action against an enemy, be restored to the active list, and not
+otherwise."
+
+In conformity with this law, Captain Samuel F. Du Pont, of the navy,
+was nominated to the Senate for continuance as the flag-officer in
+command of the squadron which recently rendered such important
+service to the Union in the expedition to the coasts of South
+Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.
+
+Believing that no occasion could arise which would more fully
+correspond with the intention of the law or be more pregnant with
+happy influence as an example, I cordially recommend that Captain
+Samuel F. Du Pont receive a vote of thanks of Congress for his
+service and gallantry displayed in the capture since the 21st
+December, 1861, of various ports on the coasts of Georgia and
+Florida, particularly Brunswick, Cumberland Island and Sound, Amelia
+Island, the towns of St. Mary's, St. Augustine, and Jacksonville and
+Fernandina.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, MARCH 31, 1862
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:-This morning I felt constrained to order Blenker's
+division to Fremont, and I write this to assure you I did so with
+great pain, understanding that you would wish it otherwise.  If you
+could know the full pressure of the case, I am confident that you
+would justify it, even beyond a mere acknowledgment that the
+commander-in-chief may order what he pleases.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+GIFT OF SOME RABBITS
+
+TO MICHAEL CROCK.
+360 N. Fourth St., Philadelphia.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
+April 2, 1862.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:-Allow me to thank you in behalf of my little son for
+your present of white rabbits.  He is very much pleased with them.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+INSTRUCTION TO SECRETARY STANTON.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, April 3, 1862.
+
+The Secretary of War will order that one or the other of the corps of
+General McDowell and General Sumner remain in front of Washington
+until further orders from the department, to operate at or in the
+direction of Manassas Junction, or otherwise, as occasion may
+require; that the other Corps not so ordered to remain go forward to
+General McClellan as speedily as possible; that General McClellan
+commence his forward movements from his new base at once, and that
+such incidental modifications as the foregoing may render proper be
+also made.
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL McCLELLAN.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 6, 1862.
+
+GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN:
+
+Yours of 11 A. M. today received.  Secretary of War informs me that
+the forwarding of transportation, ammunition, and Woodbury's brigade,
+under your orders, is not, and will not be, interfered with.  You now
+have over one hundred thousand troops with you, independent of
+General Wool's command.  I think you better break the enemy's line
+from Yorktown to Warwick River at once.  This will probably use time
+as advantageously as you can.
+
+A. LINCOLN, President
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 9, 1862
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR+--Your despatches, complaining that you are not properly
+sustained, while they do not offend me, do pain me very much.
+
+Blenker's division was withdrawn from you before you left here, and
+you knew the pressure under which I did it, and, as I thought,
+acquiesced in it certainly not without reluctance.
+
+After you left I ascertained that less than 20,000 unorganized men,
+without a single field battery, were all you designed to be left for
+the defense of Washington and Manassas Junction, and part of this
+even to go to General Hooker's old position; General Banks's corps,
+once designed for Manassas Junction, was divided and tied up on the
+line of Winchester and Strasburg, and could not leave it without
+again exposing the upper Potomac and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
+This presented (or would present when McDowell and Sumner should be
+gone) a great temptation to the enemy to turn back from the
+Rappahannock and sack Washington.  My explicit order that Washington
+should, by the judgment of all the Commanders of corps, be left
+entirely secure, had been neglected.  It was precisely this that
+drove me to detain McDowell.
+
+I do not forget that I was satisfied with your arrangement to leave
+Banks at Manassas Junction; but when that arrangement was broken up
+and nothing substituted for it, of course I was not satisfied.  I was
+constrained to substitute something for it myself.
+
+And now allow me to ask, do you really think I should permit the line
+from Richmond via Manaasas Junction to this city to be entirely open,
+except what resistance could be presented by less than 20,000
+unorganized troops?  This is a question which the country will not
+allow me to evade.
+
+There is a curious mystery about the number of the troops now with
+you.  When I telegraphed you on the 6th, saying you had over 100,000
+with you, I had just obtained from the Secretary of War a statement,
+taken as he said from your own returns, making 108,000 then with you
+and en route to you.  You now say you will have but 85,000 when all
+enroute to you shall have reached you.  How can this discrepancy of
+23,000 be accounted for?
+
+As to General Wool's command, I understand it is doing for you
+precisely what a like number of your own would have to do if that
+command was away.  I suppose the whole force which has gone forward
+to you is with you by this time; and if so, I think it is the precise
+time for you to strike a blow.  By delay the enemy will relatively
+gain upon you--that is, he will gain faster by fortifications and
+reinforcements than you can by reinforcements alone.
+
+And once more let me tell you it is indispensable to you that you
+strike a blow.  I am powerless to help this.  You will do me the
+justice to remember I always insisted that going down the bay in
+search of a field, instead of fighting at or near Manassas, was only
+shifting and not surmounting a difficulty; that we would find the
+same enemy and the same or equal entrenchments at either place.  The
+country will not fail to note--is noting now--that the present
+hesitation to move upon an entrenched enemy is but the story of
+Manassas repeated.
+
+I beg to assure you that I have never written you or spoken to you in
+greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose to
+sustain you, so far as in my most anxious judgment I consistently
+can; but you must act.
+
+Yours very truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL H. W. HALLECK.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
+April 9, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL HALLECK, Saint Louis, Mo.:
+If the rigor of the confinement of Magoffin (Governor of Kentucky) at
+Alton is endangering his life, or materially impairing his health, I
+wish it mitigated as far as it can be consistently with his safe
+detention.
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+Please send above, by order of the President.
+JOHN HAY.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION RECOMMENDING THANKSGIVING FOR VICTORIES,
+
+APRIL 10, 1862.
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation
+
+It has pleased Almighty God to vouchsafe signal victories to the land
+and naval forces engaged in suppressing, an internal rebellion, and
+at the same time to avert from our country the dangers of foreign
+intervention and invasion.
+
+It is therefore recommended to the people of the United States that
+at their next weekly assemblages in their accustomed places of public
+worship which shall occur after notice of this proclamation shall
+have been received, they especially acknowledge and render thanks to
+our Heavenly Father for these inestimable blessings, that they then
+and there implore spiritual consolation in behalf of all who have
+been brought into affliction by the casualties and calamities of
+sedition and civil war, and that they reverently invoke the divine
+guidance for our national counsels, to the end that they may speedily
+result in the restoration of peace, harmony, and unity throughout our
+borders and hasten the establishment of fraternal relations among all
+the countries of the earth.
+
+In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
+the United States to be affixed.
+
+Done at the city of Washington, this tenth day of April, A.D. 1862,
+and of the independence of the United States the eighty-sixth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+ABOLISHING SLAVERY IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+April 16, 1862.
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+The act entitled "An act for the relief of certain persons held to
+service or labor in the District of Columbia" has this day been
+approved and signed.
+
+I have never doubted the constitutional authority of Congress to
+abolish slavery in this District, and I have ever desired to see the
+national capital freed from the institution in some satisfactory way.
+Hence there has never been in my mind any question on the subject
+except the one of expediency, arising in view of all the
+circumstances.  If there be matters within and about this act which
+might have taken a course or shape more satisfactory to my judgment,
+I do not attempt to specify them.  I am gratified that the two
+principles of compensation and colonization are both recognized and
+practically applied in the act.
+
+In the matter of compensation, it is provided that claims may be
+presented within ninety days from the passage of the act, "but not
+thereafter"; and there is no saving for minors, femmes covert, insane
+or absent persons.  I presume this is an omission by mere oversight,
+and I recommend that it be supplied by an amendatory or supplemental
+act.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 21, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN:
+
+Your despatch of the 19th was received that day.  Fredericksburg is
+evacuated and the bridges destroyed by the enemy, and a small part of
+McDowell's command occupies this side of the Rappahannock, opposite
+the town.  He purposes moving his whole force to that point.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO POSTMASTER-GENERAL
+
+A. LINCOLN. EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
+April 24, 1862.
+
+Hon. POSTMASTER-GENERAL.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--The member of Congress from the district including
+Tiffin, O., calls on me about the postmaster at that place.
+I believe I turned over a despatch to you from some persons there,
+asking a suspension, so as for them to be heard, or something of the
+sort.  If nothing, or nothing amounting to anything, has been done, I
+think the suspension might now be suspended, and the commission go
+forward.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 29, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN:
+
+Would it derange or embarrass your operations if I were to appoint
+Captain Charles Griffin a brigadier-general of volunteers?  Please
+answer.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE SENATE, MAY 1, 1862.
+
+TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the Senate [of April 22] in relation
+to Brigadier-General Stone, I have the honor to state that he was
+arrested and imprisoned under my general authority, and upon evidence
+which whether he be guilty or innocent, required, as appears to me,
+such proceedings to be had against him for the public safety.   I
+deem it incompatible with the public interest, as also, perhaps,
+unjust to General Stone, to make a more particular statement of the
+evidence.
+
+He has not been tried because, in the state of military operations at
+the time of his arrest and since, the officers to constitute a court
+martial and for witnesses could not be withdrawn from duty without
+serious injury to the service.  He will be allowed a trial without
+any unnecessary delay; the charges and specifications will be
+furnished him in due season, and every facility for his defense will
+be afforded him by the War Department.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
+WASHINGTON, MAY 1, 1862
+
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL McCLELLAN
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, MAY 1, 1862
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN:
+
+Your call for Parrott guns from Washington alarms me, chiefly because
+it argues indefinite procrastination.  Is anything to be done?
+
+A LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL H. W. HALLECK.
+
+WAR DEPARTMENT, MAY 1, 1862
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL HALLECK, Pittsburgh Landing, Tennessee:
+
+I am pressed by the Missouri members of Congress to give General
+Schofield independent command in Missouri.  They insist that for want
+of this their local troubles gradually grow worse.  I have forborne,
+so far, for fear of interfering with and embarrassing your
+operations.  Please answer telling me whether anything, and what, I
+can do for them without injuriously interfering with you.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+RESPONSE TO EVANGELICAL LUTHERANS, MAY 6, 1862
+
+GENTLEMEN:--I welcome here the representatives of the Evangelical
+Lutherans of the United States.  I accept with gratitude their
+assurances of the sympathy and support of that enlightened,
+influential, and loyal class of my fellow citizens in an important
+crisis which involves, in my judgment, not only the civil and
+religious liberties of our own dear land, but in a large degree the
+civil and religious liberties of mankind in many countries and
+through many ages.  You well know, gentlemen, and the world knows,
+how reluctantly I accepted this issue of battle forced upon me on my
+advent to this place by the internal enemies of our country.  You all
+know, the world knows, the forces and the resources the public agents
+have brought into employment to sustain a government against which
+there has been brought not one complaint of real injury committed
+against society at home or abroad.  You all may recollect that in
+taking up the sword thus forced into our hands this government
+appealed to the prayers of the pious and the good, and declared that
+it placed its whole dependence on the favor of God.  I now humbly and
+reverently, in your presence, reiterate the acknowledgment of that
+dependence, not doubting that, if it shall please the Divine Being
+who determines the destinies of nations, this shall remain a united
+people, and that they will, humbly seeking the divine guidance, make
+their prolonged national existence a source of new benefits to
+themselves and their successors, and to all classes and conditions of
+mankind.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO FLAG-OFFICER L. M. GOLDSBOROUGH.
+
+FORT MONROE, VIRGINIA, MAY 7, 1862
+
+FLAG-OFFICER GOLDSBOROUGH.
+
+SIR:--Major-General McClellan telegraphs that he has ascertained by a
+reconnaissance that the battery at Jamestown has been abandoned, and
+he again requests that gunboats may be sent up the James River.
+
+If you have tolerable confidence that you can successfully contend
+with the Merrimac without the help of the Galena and two accompanying
+gunboats, send the Galena and two gunboats up the James River at
+once.  Please report your action on this to me at once.  I shall be
+found either at General Wool's headquarters or on board the Miami.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+FURTHER REPRIMAND OF McCLELLAN
+
+TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.
+
+FORT MONROE, VIRGINIA, May 9, 1862
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN:
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I have just assisted the Secretary of War in framing
+part of a despatch to you relating to army corps, which despatch, of
+course, will have reached you long before this will.  I wish to say a
+few words to you privately on this subject.  I ordered the army corps
+organization not only on the unanimous opinion of the twelve generals
+whom you had selected and assigned as generals of divisions, but also
+on the unanimous opinion of every military man I could get an opinion
+from, and every modern military book, yourself only excepted.  Of
+course, I did not on my own judgment pretend to understand the
+subject.  I now think it indispensable for you to know how your
+struggle against it is received in quarters which we cannot entirely
+disregard.  It is looked upon as merely an effort to pamper one or
+two pets, and to persecute and degrade their supposed rivals.  I have
+had no word from Sumner, Heintzleman, or Keyes the commanders of
+these corps are, of course, the three highest officers with you; but
+I am constantly told that you have no consultation or communication
+with them; that you consult and communicate with nobody but General
+Fitz John Porter, and perhaps General Franklin.  I do not say these
+complaints are true or just; but at all events, it is proper you
+should know of their existence.  Do the commanders of corps disobey
+your orders in anything?
+
+When you relieved General Hamilton of his command the other day, you
+thereby lost the confidence of at least one of your best friends in
+the Senate.  And here let me say, not as applicable to you
+personally, that Senators and Representatives speak of me in their
+places without question, and that officers of the army must cease
+addressing insulting letters to them for taking no greater liberty
+with them.
+
+But to return.  Are you strong enough--are you strong enough even
+with my help--to set your foot upon the necks of Sumner, Heintzelman,
+and Keyes all at once? This is a practical and very serious question
+to you?
+
+The success of your army and the cause of the country are the same,
+and, of course, I only desire the good of the cause.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO FLAG-OFFICER L. M. GOLDSBOROUGH,
+
+FORT MONROE, VIRGINIA, May 10, 1862
+
+FLAG-OFFICER GOLDSBOROUGH.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I send you this copy of your report of yesterday for
+the purpose of saying to you in writing that you are quite right in
+supposing the movement made by you and therein reported was made in
+accordance with my wishes verbally expressed to you in advance.  I
+avail myself of the occasion to thank you for your courtesy and all
+your conduct, so far as known to me, during my brief visit here.
+
+Yours very truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION RAISING THE BLOCKADE OF CERTAIN
+PORTS., May 12, 1862.
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas, by my proclamation of the 19th of April, one thousand eight
+hundred and sixty-one, it was declared that the ports of certain
+States, including those of Beaufort, in the State of North Carolina,
+Port Royal, in the State of South Carolina, and New Orleans, in the
+State of Louisiana, were, for reasons therein set forth, intended to
+be placed under blockade; and whereas the said ports of Beaufort,
+Port Royal, and New Orleans have since been blockaded; but as the
+blockade of the same ports may now be safely relaxed with advantage
+to the interests of commerce:
+
+Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the
+United States, pursuant to the authority in me vested by the fifth
+section of the act of Congress approved on the 13th of July last,
+entitled "An act further to provide for the collection of duties on
+imports, and for other purposes," do hereby declare that the blockade
+of the said ports of Beaufort, Port Royal, and New Orleans shall so
+far cease and determine, from and after the first day of June next,
+that commercial intercourse with those ports, except as to persons,
+things, and information contraband of war, may from that time be
+carried on, subject to the laws of the United States, and to the
+limitations and in pursuance of the regulations which are prescribed
+by the Secretary of the Treasury in his order of this date, which is
+appended to this proclamation.
+
+In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
+of the United States to be affixed.
+
+Done at the city of Washington, this twelfth day of May, in the year
+of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the
+independence of the United States the eighty-sixth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+END OF VOLUME V.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext of The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Vol 1
+
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, v5
+#5 in our series of the Writings of Abraham Lincoln
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
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+Title: The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, v5
+
+Author: Abraham Lincoln
+
+Release Date: May, 2001 [Etext #2657]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[Most recently updated: December 4, 2001]
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+Edition: 11
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Writings of Abraham Lincoln, v5
+*******This file should be named 5linc11.txt or 5linc11.zip*******
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+
+THE WRITINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Volume Five
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+VERSE TO "LINNIE "
+
+September 30,? 1858.
+
+TO "LINNIE":
+
+A sweet plaintive song did I hear
+And I fancied that she was the singer.
+May emotions as pure as that song set astir
+Be the wont that the future shall bring her.
+
+
+
+
+NEGROES ARE MEN
+
+TO J. U. BROWN.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, OCT 18, 1858
+
+HON. J. U. BROWN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I do not perceive how I can express myself more plainly
+than I have in the fore-going extracts.  In four of them I have
+expressly disclaimed all intention to bring about social and
+political equality between the white and black races and in all the
+rest I have done the same thing by clear implication.
+
+I have made it equally plain that I think the negro is included in
+the word "men" used in the Declaration of Independence.
+
+I believe the declaration that "all men are created equal "is the
+great fundamental principle upon which our free institutions rest;
+that negro slavery is violative of that principle; but that, by our
+frame of government, that principle has not been made one of legal
+obligation; that by our frame of government, States which have
+slavery are to retain it, or surrender it at their own pleasure; and
+that all others--individuals, free States and national Government--
+are constitutionally bound to leave them alone about it.
+
+I believe our Government was thus framed because of the necessity
+springing from the actual presence of slavery, when it was framed.
+
+That such necessity does not exist in the Territories when slavery is
+not present.
+
+In his Mendenhall speech Mr. Clay says: "Now as an abstract principle
+there is no doubt of the truth of that declaration (all men created
+equal), and it is desirable, in the original construction of society,
+to keep it in view as a great fundamental principle."
+
+Again, in the same speech Mr. Clay says: "If a state of nature
+existed and we were about to lay the foundations of society, no man
+would be more strongly opposed than I should to incorporate the
+institution of slavery among its elements."
+
+Exactly so.  In our new free Territories, a state of nature does
+exist.  In them Congress lays the foundations of society; and in
+laying those foundations, I say, with Mr. Clay, it is desirable that
+the declaration of the equality of all men shall be kept in view as a
+great fundamental principle, and that Congress, which lays the
+foundations of society, should, like Mr. Clay, be strongly opposed to
+the incorporation of slavery and its elements.
+
+But it does not follow that social and political equality between
+whites and blacks must be incorporated because slavery must not.  The
+declaration does not so require.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+[Newspaper cuttings of Lincoln's speeches at Peoria, in 1854, at
+Springfield, Ottawa, Chicago, and Charleston, in 1858.  They were
+pasted in a little book in which the above letter was also written.]
+
+
+
+
+TO A. SYMPSON.
+
+BLANDINSVILLE, Oct 26, 1858
+
+A. SYMPSON, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Since parting with you this morning I heard some things
+which make me believe that Edmunds and Morrill will spend this week
+among the National Democrats, trying to induce them to content
+themselves by voting for Jake Davis, and then to vote for the Douglas
+candidates for senator and representative.  Have this headed off, if
+you can.  Call Wagley's attention to it and have him and the National
+Democrat for Rep.  to counteract it as far as they can.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SENATORIAL ELECTION LOST AND OUT OF MONEY
+
+TO N. B. JUDD.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, NOVEMBER 16, 1858
+
+HON. N. B. JUDD
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 15th is just received.  I wrote you the same
+day.  As to the pecuniary matter, I am willing to pay according to my
+ability; but I am the poorest hand living to get others to pay.  I
+have been on expenses so long without earning anything that I am
+absolutely without money now for even household purposes.  Still, if
+you can put in two hundred and fifty dollars for me toward
+discharging the debt of the committee, I will allow it when you and I
+settle the private matter between us.  This, with what I have already
+paid, and with an outstanding note of mine, will exceed my
+subscription of five hundred dollars.  This, too, is exclusive of my
+ordinary expenses during the campaign, all of which, being added to
+my loss of time and business, bears pretty heavily upon one no better
+off in [this] world's goods than I; but as I had the post of honor,
+it is not for me to be over nice.  You are feeling badly,--"And this
+too shall pass away," never fear.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+THE FIGHT MUST GO ON
+
+TO H. ASBURY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, November 19, 1858.
+
+HENRY ASBURY, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 13th was received some days ago.  The fight
+must go on.  The cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at
+the end of one or even one hundred defeats.  Douglas had the
+ingenuity to be supported in the late contest both as the best means
+to break down and to uphold the slave interest.  No ingenuity can
+keep these antagonistic elements in harmony long.  Another explosion
+will soon come.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REALIZATION THAT DEBATES MUST BE SAVED
+
+TO C. H. RAY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, Nov.20, 1858
+
+DR. C. H. RAY
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I wish to preserve a set of the late debates (if they
+may be called so), between Douglas and myself.  To enable me to do
+so, please get two copies of each number of your paper containing the
+whole, and send them to me by express; and I will pay you for the
+papers and for your trouble.  I wish the two sets in order to lay one
+away in the [undecipherable word] and to put the other in a
+scrapbook.  Remember, if part of any debate is on both sides of the
+sheet it will take two sets to make one scrap-book.
+
+I believe, according to a letter of yours to Hatch, you are "feeling
+like h-ll yet."  Quit that--you will soon feel better.  Another "blow
+up" is coming; and we shall have fun again.  Douglas managed to be
+supported both as the best instrument to down and to uphold the slave
+power; but no ingenuity can long keep the antagonism in harmony.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+TO H. C. WHITNEY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD,  November 30, 1858
+
+H. C. WHITNEY, ESQ.
+
+MY DEAR SIR :--Being desirous of preserving in some permanent form
+the late joint discussion between Douglas and myself, ten days ago I
+wrote to Dr.  Ray, requesting him to forward to me by express two
+sets of the numbers of the Tribune which contain the reports of those
+discussions.  Up to date I have no word from him on the subject.
+Will you, if in your power, procure them and forward them to me by
+express? If you will, I will pay all charges, and be greatly obliged,
+to boot.  Hoping to visit you before long, I remain
+
+As ever your friend,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO H. D. SHARPE.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, Dec.  8, 1858.
+
+H. D. SHARPE, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Your very kind letter of Nov.  9th was duly received.  I
+do not know that you expected or desired an answer; but glancing over
+the contents of yours again, I am prompted to say that, while I
+desired the result of the late canvass to have been different, I
+still regard it as an exceeding small matter.  I think we have fairly
+entered upon a durable struggle as to whether this nation is to
+ultimately become all slave or all free, and though I fall early in
+the contest, it is nothing if I shall have contributed, in the least
+degree, to the final rightful result.
+
+Respectfully yours,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO A. SYMPSON.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, Dec.12, 1858.
+
+ALEXANDER SYMPSON, Esq.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I expect the result of the election went hard with you.
+So it did with me, too, perhaps not quite so hard as you may have
+supposed.  I have an abiding faith that we shall beat them in the
+long run.  Step by step the objects of the leaders will become too
+plain for the people to stand them.  I write merely to let you know
+that I am neither dead nor dying.  Please give my respects to your
+good family, and all inquiring friends.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ON BANKRUPTCY
+
+NOTES OF AN ARGUMENT.
+
+December [?], 1858.
+
+Legislation and adjudication must follow and conform to the progress
+of society.
+
+The progress of society now begins to produce cases of the transfer
+for debts of the entire property of railroad corporations; and to
+enable transferees to use and enjoy the transferred property,
+legislation and adjudication begin to be necessary.
+
+Shall this class of legislation just now beginning with us be general
+or special?
+
+Section Ten of our Constitution requires that it should be general,
+if possible.  (Read the section.)
+
+Special legislation always trenches upon the judicial department; and
+in so far violates Section Two of the Constitution.  (Read it.)
+
+Just reasoning--policy--is in favor of general legislation--else the
+Legislature will be loaded down with the investigation of smaller
+cases--a work which the courts ought to perform, and can perform much
+more perfectly.  How can the Legislature rightly decide the facts
+between P. & B. and S.C.
+
+It is said that under a general law, whenever a R. R. Co.  gets tired
+of its debts, it may transfer fraudulently to get rid of them.  So
+they may--so may individuals; and which--the Legislature or the
+courts--is best suited to try the question of fraud in either case?
+
+It is said, if a purchaser have acquired legal rights, let him not be
+robbed of them, but if he needs legislation let him submit to just
+terms to obtain it.
+
+Let him, say we, have general law in advance (guarded in every
+possible way against fraud), so that, when he acquires a legal right,
+he will have no occasion to wait for additional legislation; and if
+he has practiced fraud let the courts so decide.
+
+
+
+
+A LEGAL OPINION BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+The 11th Section of the Act of Congress, approved Feb. 11, 1805,
+prescribing rules for the subdivision of sections of land within the
+United States system of surveys, standing unrepealed, in my opinion,
+is binding on the respective purchasers of different parts of the
+same section, and furnishes the true rule for surveyors in
+establishing lines between them.  That law, being in force at the
+time each became a purchaser, becomes a condition of the purchase.
+
+And, by that law, I think the true rule for dividing into quarters
+any interior section or sections, which is not fractional, is to run
+straight lines through the section from the opposite quarter section
+corners, fixing the point where such straight lines cross, or
+intersect each other, as the middle or centre of the section.
+
+Nearly, perhaps quite, all the original surveys are to some extent
+erroneous, and in some of the sections, greatly so. In each of the
+latter, it is obvious that a more equitable mode of division than the
+above might be adopted; but as error is infinitely various perhaps no
+better single rules can be prescribed.
+
+At all events I think the above has been prescribed by the competent
+authority.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, Jany.  6, 1859.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO M. W. DELAHAY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, March 4, 1859.
+
+M. W. DELAHAY, Esq.
+
+MY DEAR SIR: Your second letter in relation to my being with you at
+your Republican convention was duly received.  It is not at hand just
+now, but I have the impression from it that the convention was to be
+at Leavenworth; but day before yesterday a friend handed me a letter
+from Judge M. F. Caraway, in which he also expresses a wish for me to
+come, and he fixes the place at Ossawatomie.  This I believe is off
+of the river, and will require more time and labor to get to it.  It
+will push me hard to get there without injury to my own business; but
+I shall try to do it, though I am not yet quite certain I shall
+succeed.
+
+I should like to know before coming, that while some of you wish me
+to come, there may not be others who would quite as lief I would stay
+away. Write me again.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. M. MORRIS.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, March 28, 1859.
+
+W. M. MORRIS, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Your kind note inviting me to deliver a lecture at
+Galesburg is received. I regret to say I cannot do so now; I must
+stick to the courts awhile. I read a sort of lecture to three
+different audiences during the last month and this; but I did so
+under circumstances which made it a waste of no time whatever.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+
+
+
+TO H. L. PIERCE AND OTHERS.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, April 6, 1859.
+
+GENTLEMEN:--Your kind note inviting me to attend a festival in
+Boston, on the 28th instant, in honor of the birthday of Thomas
+Jefferson, was duly received. My engagements are such that I cannot
+attend.
+
+Bearing in mind that about seventy years ago two great political
+parties were first formed in this country, that Thomas Jefferson was
+the head of one of them and Boston the headquarters of the other, it
+is both curious and interesting that those supposed to descend
+politically from the party opposed to Jefferson should now be
+celebrating his birthday in their own original seat of empire, while
+those claiming political descent from him have nearly ceased to
+breathe his name everywhere.
+
+Remembering, too, that the Jefferson party was formed upon its
+supposed superior devotion to the personal rights of men, holding the
+rights of property to be secondary only, and greatly inferior, and
+assuming that the so-called Democracy of to-day are the Jefferson,
+and their opponents the anti-Jefferson, party, it will be equally
+interesting to note how completely the two have changed hands as to
+the principle upon which they were originally supposed to be divided.
+The Democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely
+nothing, when in conflict with another man's right of property;
+Republicans, on the contrary, are for both the man and the dollar,
+but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.
+
+I remember being once much amused at seeing two partially intoxicated
+men engaged in a fight with their great-coats on, which fight, after
+a long and rather harmless contest, ended in each having fought
+himself out of his own coat and into that of the other.  If the two
+leading parties of this day are really identical with the two in the
+days of Jefferson and Adams, they have performed the same feat as the
+two drunken men.
+
+But soberly, it is now no child's play to save the principles of
+Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation. One would state with
+great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the
+simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but nevertheless he would
+fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms.
+The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free
+society.  And yet they are denied and evaded, with no small show of
+success.  One dashingly calls them "glittering generalities."
+Another bluntly calls them "self-evident lies."  And others
+insidiously argue that they apply to "superior races."  These
+expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and effect--
+the supplanting the principles of free government, and restoring
+those of classification, caste, and legitimacy.  They would delight a
+convocation of crowned heads plotting against the people.  They are
+the vanguard, the miners and sappers, of returning despotism.  We
+must repulse them, or they will subjugate us.  This is a world of
+compensation; and he who would be no slave must consent to have no
+slave.  Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for
+themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.  All honor
+to Jefferson to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle
+for national independence by a single people, had the coolness,
+forecast, and capacity to introduce into a mere revolutionary
+document an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and
+so to embalm it there that to-day and in all coming days it shall be
+a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of reappearing
+tyranny and oppression.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO T. CANISIUS.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, May 17, 1859.
+
+DR. THEODORE CANISIUS.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Your note asking, in behalf of yourself and other German
+citizens, whether I am for or against the constitutional provision in
+regard to naturalized citizens, lately adopted by Massachusetts, and
+whether I am for or against a fusion of the Republicans and other
+opposition elements for the canvass of 1860, is received.
+
+Massachusetts is a sovereign and independent State; and it is no
+privilege of mine to scold her for what she does.  Still, if from
+what she has done an inference is sought to be drawn as to what I
+would do, I may without impropriety speak out.  I say, then, that, as
+I understand the Massachusetts provision, I am against its adoption
+in Illinois, or in any other place where I have a right to oppose it.
+Understanding the spirit of our institutions to aim at the elevation
+of men, I am opposed to whatever tends to degrade them.  I have some
+little notoriety for commiserating the oppressed negro; and I should
+be strangely inconsistent if I could favor any project for curtailing
+the existing rights of white men, even though born in different
+lands, and speaking different languages from myself.  As to the
+matter of fusion, I am for it if it can be had on Republican grounds;
+and I am not for it on any other terms.  A fusion on any other terms
+would be as foolish as unprincipled.  It would lose the whole North,
+while the common enemy would still carry the whole South.  The
+question of men is a different one.  There are good, patriotic men
+and able statesmen in the South whom I would cheerfully support, if
+they would now place themselves on Republican ground, but I am
+against letting down the Republican standard a hairsbreadth.
+
+I have written this hastily, but I believe it answers your questions
+substantially.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE GOVERNOR, AUDITOR, AND TREASURER OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
+
+GENTLEMEN:
+
+In reply to your inquiry; requesting our written opinion as to what
+your duty requires you to do in executing the latter clause of the
+Seventh Section of "An Act in relation to the payment of the
+principal and interest of the State debt," approved Feb'y 22, 1859,
+we reply that said last clause of said section is certainly
+indefinite, general, and ambiguous in its description of the bonds to
+be issued by you; giving no time at which the bonds are to be made
+payable, no place at which either principal or interest are to be
+paid, and no rate of interest which the bonds are to bear; nor any
+other description except that they are to be coupon bonds, which in
+commercial usage means interest-paying bonds with obligations or
+orders attached to them for the payment of annual or semiannual
+interest; there is we suppose no difficulty in ascertaining, if this
+act stood alone, what ought to be the construction of the terms
+"coupon bonds" and that it, would mean bonds bearing interest from
+the time of issuing the same.  And under this act considered by
+itself the creditors would have a right to require such bonds.  But
+your inquiry in regard to a class of bonds on which no interest is to
+be paid or shall begin to run until January 1, 1860, is whether the
+Act of February 18, 1857, would not authorize you to refuse to give
+bonds with any coupons attached payable before the first day of July,
+1860. We have very maturely considered this question and have arrived
+at the conclusion that you have a right to use such measures as will
+secure the State against the loss of six months' interest on these
+bonds by the indefiniteness of the Act of 1859. While it cannot be
+denied that the letter of the laws favor the construction claimed by
+some of the creditors that interest-bearing bonds were required to be
+issued to them, inasmuch as the restriction that no interest is to
+run on said bonds until 1st January, 1860, relates solely to the
+bonds issued under the Act of 1857.  And the Act of 1859 directing
+you to issue new bonds does not contain this restriction, but directs
+you to issue coupon bonds.  Nevertheless the very indefiniteness and
+generality of the Act of 1859, giving no rate of interest, no time
+due, no place of payment, no postponement of the time when interest
+commences, necessarily implies that the Legislature intended to
+invest you with a discretion to impose such terms and restrictions as
+would protect the interest of the State; and we think you have a
+right and that it is your duty to see that the State Bonds are so
+issued that the State shall not lose six months' interest.  Two plans
+present themselves either of which will secure the State.  1st. If in
+literal compliance with the law you issue bonds bearing interest from
+1st July, 1859, you may deduct from the bonds presented three
+thousand from every $100,000 of bonds and issue $97,000 of coupon
+bonds; by this plan $3000 out of $100,000 of principal would be
+extinguished in consideration of paying $2910 interest on the first
+of January, 1860--and the interest on the $3000 would forever cease;
+this would be no doubt most advantageous to the State.  But if the
+Auditor will not consent to this, then,  2nd. Cut off of each bond
+all the coupons payable before 1st July, 1860.
+
+One of these plans would undoubtedly have been prescribed by the
+Legislature if its attention had been directed to this question.
+
+May 28, 1859.
+
+
+
+
+ON LINCOLN'S SCRAP BOOK
+
+TO H. C. WHITNEY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD,  December 25, 1858.
+
+H. C. WHITNEY, ESQ.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I have just received yours of the 23rd inquiring
+whether I received the newspapers you sent me by express.  I did
+receive them, and am very much obliged.  There is some probability
+that my scrap-book will be reprinted, and if it shall, I will save
+you a copy.
+
+Your friend as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+
+1859
+
+
+
+FIRST SUGGESTION OF A PRESIDENTIAL OFFER.
+
+TO S. GALLOWAY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., July 28, 1859.
+
+HON. SAMUEL GALLOWAY.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your very complimentary, not to say flattering, letter
+of the 23d inst. is received.  Dr. Reynolds had induced me to expect
+you here; and I was disappointed not a little by your failure to
+come.  And yet I fear you have formed an estimate of me which can
+scarcely be sustained on a personal acquaintance.
+
+Two things done by the Ohio Republican convention--the repudiation of
+Judge Swan, and the "plank" for a repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law--I
+very much regretted.  These two things are of a piece; and they are
+viewed by many good men, sincerely opposed to slavery, as a struggle
+against, and in disregard of, the Constitution itself.  And it is the
+very thing that will greatly endanger our cause, if it be not kept
+out of our national convention.  There is another thing our friends
+are doing which gives me some uneasiness.  It is their leaning toward
+"popular sovereignty."  There are three substantial objections to
+this: First, no party can command respect which sustains this year
+what it opposed last.  Secondly, Douglas (who is the most dangerous
+enemy of liberty, because the most insidious one) would have little
+support in the North, and by consequence, no capital to trade on in
+the South, if it were not for his friends thus magnifying him and his
+humbug.  But lastly, and chiefly, Douglas's popular sovereignty,
+accepted by the public mind as a just principle, nationalizes
+slavery, and revives the African slave trade inevitably.
+
+Taking slaves into new Territories, and buying slaves in Africa, are
+identical things, identical rights or identical wrongs, and the
+argument which establishes one will establish the other.  Try a
+thousand years for a sound reason why Congress shall not hinder the
+people of Kansas from having slaves, and, when you have found it, it
+will be an equally good one why Congress should not hinder the people
+of Georgia from importing slaves from Africa.
+
+As to Governor Chase, I have a kind side for him.  He was one of the
+few distinguished men of the nation who gave us, in Illinois, their
+sympathy last year.  I never saw him, but suppose him to be able and
+right-minded; but still he may not be the most suitable as a
+candidate for the Presidency.
+
+I must say I do not think myself fit for the Presidency.  As you
+propose a correspondence with me, I shall look for your letters
+anxiously.
+
+I have not met Dr. Reynolds since receiving your letter; but when I
+shall, I will present your respects as requested.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+IT IS BAD TO BE POOR.
+
+TO HAWKINS TAYLOR
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL. Sept. 6, 1859.
+
+HAWKINS TAYLOR, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 3d is just received.  There is some mistake
+about my expected attendance of the U.S. Court in your city on the 3d
+Tuesday of this month.  I have had no thought of being there.
+
+It is bad to be poor.  I shall go to the wall for bread and meat if I
+neglect my business this year as well as last.  It would please me
+much to see the city and good people of Keokuk, but for this year it
+is little less than an impossibility.  I am constantly receiving
+invitations which I am compelled to decline.  I was pressingly urged
+to go to Minnesota; and I now have two invitations to go to Ohio.
+These last are prompted by Douglas going there; and I am really
+tempted to make a flying trip to Columbus and Cincinnati.
+
+I do hope you will have no serious trouble in Iowa.  What thinks
+Grimes about it? I have not known him to be mistaken about an
+election in Iowa.  Present my respects to Col.  Carter, and any other
+friends, and believe me
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SPEECH AT COLUMBUS, OHIO.
+
+SEPTEMBER 16, 1859.
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE STATE OF OHIO: I cannot fail to remember that
+I appear for the first time before an audience in this now great
+State,--an audience that is accustomed to hear such speakers as
+Corwin, and Chase, and Wade, and many other renowned men; and,
+remembering this, I feel that it will be well for you, as for me,
+that you should not raise your expectations to that standard to which
+you would have been justified in raising them had one of these
+distinguished men appeared before you.  You would perhaps be only
+preparing a disappointment for yourselves, and, as a consequence of
+your disappointment, mortification to me.  I hope, therefore, that
+you will commence with very moderate expectations; and perhaps, if
+you will give me your attention, I shall be able to interest you to a
+moderate degree.
+
+Appearing here for the first time in my life, I have been somewhat
+embarrassed for a topic by way of introduction to my speech; but I
+have been relieved from that embarrassment by an introduction which
+the Ohio Statesman newspaper gave me this morning.  In this paper I
+have read an article, in which, among other statements, I find the
+following:
+
+"In debating with Senator Douglas during the memorable contest of
+last fall, Mr. Lincoln declared in favor of negro suffrage, and
+attempted to defend that vile conception against the Little Giant."
+
+I mention this now, at the opening of my remarks, for the purpose of
+making three comments upon it.  The first I have already announced,--
+it furnishes me an introductory topic; the second is to show that the
+gentleman is mistaken; thirdly, to give him an opportunity to correct
+it.
+
+In the first place, in regard to this matter being a mistake.  I have
+found that it is not entirely safe, when one is misrepresented under
+his very nose, to allow the misrepresentation to go uncontradicted.
+I therefore propose, here at the outset, not only to say that this is
+a misrepresentation, but to show conclusively that it is so; and you
+will bear with me while I read a couple of extracts from that very
+"memorable" debate with Judge Douglas last year, to which this
+newspaper refers.  In the first pitched battle which Senator Douglas
+and myself had, at the town of Ottawa, I used the language which I
+will now read.  Having been previously reading an extract, I
+continued as follows:
+
+"Now, gentlemen, I don't want to read at any greater length, but this
+is the true complexion of all I have ever said in regard to the
+institution of slavery and the black race.  This is the whole of it;
+and anything that argues me into his idea of perfect social and
+political equality with the negro, is but a specious and fantastic
+arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be
+a chestnut horse.  I will say here, while upon this subject, that I
+have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the
+institution of slavery in the States where it exists.  I believe I
+have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.  I
+have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between
+the white and the black races.  There is a physical difference
+between the two which, in my judgment, will probably forbid their
+ever living together upon the footing of perfect equality; and
+inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference,
+I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I
+belong having the superior position.  I have never said anything to
+the contrary, but I hold that, notwithstanding all this, there is no
+reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural
+rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence,--the right to
+life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  I hold that he is as
+much entitled to these as the white man.  I agree with judge Douglas,
+he is not my equal in many respects,--certainly not in color, perhaps
+not in moral or intellectual endowments.  But in the right to eat the
+bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is
+my equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every
+living man."
+
+Upon a subsequent occasion, when the reason for making a statement
+like this occurred, I said:
+
+"While I was at the hotel to-day an elderly gentleman called upon me
+to know whether I was really in favor of producing perfect equality
+between the negroes and white people.  While I had not proposed to
+myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet, as the
+question was asked me, I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes
+in saying something in regard to it.  I will say, then, that I am
+not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the
+social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am
+not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of
+negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, or intermarry with
+the white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a
+physical difference between the white and black races which I believe
+will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social
+and political equality.  And inasmuch as they can not so live, while
+they do remain together there must be the position of superior and
+inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the
+superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this
+occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the
+superior position, the negro should be denied everything.  I do not
+understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave, I
+must necessarily want her for a wife.  My understanding is that I can
+just let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly
+never have had a black woman for either a slave or a wife.  So it
+seems to me quite possible for us to get along without making either
+slaves or wives of negroes.  I will add to this that I have never
+seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman, or child, who was in favor of
+producing perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and
+white men.  I recollect of but one distinguished instance that I ever
+heard of so frequently as to be satisfied of its correctness, and
+that is the case of Judge Douglas's old friend Colonel Richard M.
+Johnson.  I will also add to the remarks I have made (for I am not
+going to enter at large upon this subject), that I have never had the
+least apprehension that I or my friends would marry negroes, if there
+was no law to keep them from it; but as judge Douglas and his friends
+seem to be in great apprehension that they might, if there were no
+law to keep them from it, I give him the most solemn pledge that I
+will to the very last stand by the law of the State which forbids the
+marrying of white people with negroes."
+
+There, my friends, you have briefly what I have, upon former
+occasions, said upon this subject to which this newspaper, to the
+extent of its ability, has drawn the public attention.  In it you not
+only perceive, as a probability, that in that contest I did not at
+any time say I was in favor of negro suffrage, but the absolute proof
+that twice--once substantially, and once expressly--I declared
+against it.  Having shown you this, there remains but a word of
+comment upon that newspaper article.  It is this, that I presume the
+editor of that paper is an honest and truth-loving man, and that he
+will be greatly obliged to me for furnishing him thus early an
+opportunity to correct the misrepresentation he has made, before it
+has run so long that malicious people can call him a liar.
+
+The Giant himself has been here recently.  I have seen a brief report
+of his speech.  If it were otherwise unpleasant to me to introduce
+the subject of the negro as a topic for discussion, I might be
+somewhat relieved by the fact that he dealt exclusively in that
+subject while he was here.  I shall, therefore, without much
+hesitation or diffidence, enter upon this subject.
+
+The American people, on the first day of January, 1854, found the
+African slave trade prohibited by a law of Congress.  In a majority
+of the States of this Union, they found African slavery, or any other
+sort of slavery, prohibited by State constitutions.  They also found
+a law existing, supposed to be valid, by which slavery was excluded
+from almost all the territory the United States then owned.  This was
+the condition of the country, with reference to the institution of
+slavery, on the first of January, 1854.  A few days after that, a
+bill was introduced into Congress, which ran through its regular
+course in the two branches of the national legislature, and finally
+passed into a law in the month of May, by which the Act of Congress
+prohibiting slavery from going into the Territories of the United
+States was repealed.  In connection with the law itself, and, in
+fact, in the terms of the law, the then existing prohibition was not
+only repealed, but there was a declaration of a purpose on the part
+of Congress never thereafter to exercise any power that they might
+have, real or supposed, to prohibit the extension or spread of
+slavery. This was a very great change; for the law thus repealed was
+of more than thirty years' standing.  Following rapidly upon the
+heels of this action of Congress, a decision of the Supreme Court is
+made, by which it is declared that Congress, if it desires to
+prohibit the spread of slavery into the Territories, has no
+constitutional power to do so.  Not only so, but that decision lays
+down principles which, if pushed to their logical conclusion,--I say
+pushed to their logical conclusion,--would decide that the
+constitutions of free States, forbidding slavery, are themselves
+unconstitutional.  Mark me, I do not say the judges said this, and
+let no man say I affirm the judges used these words; but I only say
+it is my opinion that what they did say, if pressed to its logical
+conclusion, will inevitably result thus.
+
+Looking at these things, the Republican party, as I understand its
+principles and policy, believes that there is great danger of the
+institution of slavery being spread out and extended until it is
+ultimately made alike lawful in all the States of this Union; so
+believing, to prevent that incidental and ultimate consummation is
+the original and chief purpose of the Republican organization. I say
+"chief purpose" of the Republican organization; for it is certainly
+true that if the National House shall fall into the hands of the
+Republicans, they will have to attend to all the other matters of
+national house-keeping, as well as this.  The chief and real purpose
+of the Republican party is eminently conservative.  It proposes
+nothing save and except to restore this government to its original
+tone in regard to this element of slavery, and there to maintain it,
+looking for no further change in reference to it than that which the
+original framers of the Government themselves expected and looked
+forward to.
+
+The chief danger to this purpose of the Republican party is not just
+now the revival of the African slave trade, or the passage of a
+Congressional slave code, or the declaring of a second Dred Scott
+decision, making slavery lawful in all the States.  These are not
+pressing us just now.  They are not quite ready yet.  The authors of
+these measures know that we are too strong for them; but they will be
+upon us in due time, and we will be grappling with them hand to hand,
+if they are not now headed off.  They are not now the chief danger to
+the purpose of the Republican organization; but the most imminent
+danger that now threatens that purpose is that insidious Douglas
+popular sovereignty.  This is the miner and sapper.  While it does
+not propose to revive the African slave trade, nor to pass a slave
+code, nor to make a second Dred Scott decision, it is preparing us
+for the onslaught and charge of these ultimate enemies when they
+shall be ready to come on, and the word of command for them to
+advance shall be given.  I say this "Douglas popular sovereignty";
+for there is a broad distinction, as I now understand it, between
+that article and a genuine popular sovereignty.
+
+I believe there is a genuine popular sovereignty.  I think a
+definition of "genuine popular sovereignty," in the abstract, would
+be about this: That each man shall do precisely as he pleases with
+himself, and with all those things which exclusively concern him.
+Applied to government, this principle would be, that a general
+government shall do all those things which pertain to it, and all the
+local governments shall do precisely as they please in respect to
+those matters which exclusively concern them.  I understand that this
+government of the United States, under which we live, is based upon
+this principle; and I am misunderstood if it is supposed that I have
+any war to make upon that principle.
+
+Now, what is judge Douglas's popular sovereignty?  It is, as a
+principle, no other than that if one man chooses to make a slave of
+another man neither that other man nor anybody else has a right to
+object.  Applied in government, as he seeks to apply it, it is this:
+If, in a new Territory into which a few people are beginning to enter
+for the purpose of making their homes, they choose to either exclude
+slavery from their limits or to establish it there, however one or
+the other may affect the persons to be enslaved, or the infinitely
+greater number of persons who are afterwards to inhabit that
+Territory, or the other members of the families of communities, of
+which they are but an incipient member, or the general head of the
+family of States as parent of all, however their action may affect
+one or the other of these, there is no power or right to interfere.
+That is Douglas's popular sovereignty applied.
+
+He has a good deal of trouble with popular sovereignty.  His
+explanations explanatory of explanations explained are interminable.
+The most lengthy, and, as I suppose, the most maturely considered of
+this long series of explanations is his great essay in Harper's
+Magazine.  I will not attempt to enter on any very thorough
+investigation of his argument as there made and presented.  I will
+nevertheless occupy a good portion of your time here in drawing your
+attention to certain points in it.  Such of you as may have read this
+document will have perceived that the judge early in the document
+quotes from two persons as belonging to the Republican party, without
+naming them, but who can readily be recognized as being Governor
+Seward of New York and myself.  It is true that exactly fifteen
+months ago this day, I believe, I for the first time expressed a
+sentiment upon this subject, and in such a manner that it should get
+into print, that the public might see it beyond the circle of my
+hearers; and my expression of it at that time is the quotation that
+Judge Douglas makes. He has not made the quotation with accuracy, but
+justice to him requires me to say that it is sufficiently accurate
+not to change the sense.
+
+The sense of that quotation condensed is this: that this slavery
+element is a durable element of discord among us, and that we shall
+probably not have perfect peace in this country with it until it
+either masters the free principle in our government, or is so far
+mastered by the free principle as for the public mind to rest in the
+belief that it is going to its end.  This sentiment, which I now
+express in this way, was, at no great distance of time, perhaps in
+different language, and in connection with some collateral ideas,
+expressed by Governor Seward.  Judge Douglas has been so much annoyed
+by the expression of that sentiment that he has constantly, I
+believe, in almost all his speeches since it was uttered, been
+referring to it.  I find he alluded to it in his speech here, as well
+as in the copyright essay.  I do not now enter upon this for the
+purpose of making an elaborate argument to show that we were right in
+the expression of that sentiment.  In other words, I shall not stop
+to say all that might properly be said upon this point, but I only
+ask your attention to it for the purpose of making one or two points
+upon it.
+
+If you will read the copyright essay, you will discover that judge
+Douglas himself says a controversy between the American Colonies and
+the Government of Great Britain began on the slavery question in
+1699, and continued from that time until the Revolution; and, while
+he did not say so, we all know that it has continued with more or
+less violence ever since the Revolution.
+
+Then we need not appeal to history, to the declarations of the
+framers of the government, but we know from judge Douglas himself
+that slavery began to be an element of discord among the white people
+of this country as far back as 1699, or one hundred and sixty years
+ago, or five generations of men,--counting thirty years to a
+generation.  Now, it would seem to me that it might have occurred to
+Judge Douglas, or anybody who had turned his attention to these
+facts, that there was something in the nature of that thing, slavery,
+somewhat durable for mischief and discord.
+
+There is another point I desire to make in regard to this matter,
+before I leave it. From the adoption of the Constitution down to 1820
+is the precise period of our history when we had comparative peace
+upon this question,--the precise period of time when we came nearer
+to having peace about it than any other time of that entire one
+hundred and sixty years in which he says it began, or of the eighty
+years of our own Constitution.  Then it would be worth our while to
+stop and examine into the probable reason of our coming nearer to
+having peace then than at any other time.  This was the precise
+period of time in which our fathers adopted, and during which they
+followed, a policy restricting the spread of slavery, and the whole
+Union was acquiescing in it.  The whole country looked forward to the
+ultimate extinction of the institution.  It was when a policy had
+been adopted, and was prevailing, which led all just and right-minded
+men to suppose that slavery was gradually coming to an end, and that
+they might be quiet about it, watching it as it expired.  I think
+Judge Douglas might have perceived that too; and whether he did or
+not, it is worth the attention of fair-minded men, here and
+elsewhere, to consider whether that is not the truth of the case.  If
+he had looked at these two facts,--that this matter has been an
+element of discord for one hundred and sixty years among this people,
+and that the only comparative peace we have had about it was when
+that policy prevailed in this government which he now wars upon, he
+might then, perhaps, have been brought to a more just appreciation of
+what I said fifteen months ago,--that "a house divided against itself
+cannot stand.  I believe that this government cannot endure
+permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the house to
+fall, I do not expect the Union to dissolve; 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 will rest in the belief that it is
+in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it
+forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as
+well as new, North as well as South."  That was my sentiment at that
+time.  In connection with it, I said: "We are now far into the fifth
+year since a policy was inaugurated with the avowed object and
+confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation.  Under the
+operation of the policy that agitation has not only not ceased, but
+has constantly augmented."  I now say to you here that we are
+advanced still farther into the sixth year since that policy of Judge
+Douglas--that popular sovereignty of his--for quieting the slavery
+question was made the national policy.  Fifteen months more have been
+added since I uttered that sentiment; and I call upon you and all
+other right-minded men to say whether that fifteen months have belied
+or corroborated my words.
+
+While I am here upon this subject, I cannot but express gratitude
+that this true view of this element of discord among us--as I believe
+it is--is attracting more and more attention.  I do not believe that
+Governor Seward uttered that sentiment because I had done so before,
+but because he reflected upon this subject and saw the truth of it.
+Nor do I believe because Governor Seward or I uttered it that Mr.
+Hickman of Pennsylvania, in, different language, since that time, has
+declared his belief in the utter antagonism which exists between the
+principles of liberty and slavery.  You see we are multiplying.  Now,
+while I am speaking of Hickman, let me say, I know but little about
+him.  I have never seen him, and know scarcely anything about the
+man; but I will say this much of him: Of all the anti-Lecompton
+Democracy that have been brought to my notice, he alone has the true,
+genuine ring of the metal.  And now, without indorsing anything else
+he has said, I will ask this audience to give three cheers for
+Hickman. [The audience responded with three rousing cheers for
+Hickman.]
+
+Another point in the copyright essay to which I would ask your
+attention is rather a feature to be extracted from the whole thing,
+than from any express declaration of it at any point.  It is a
+general feature of that document, and, indeed, of all of Judge
+Douglas's discussions of this question, that the Territories of the
+United States and the States of this Union are exactly alike; that
+there is no difference between them at all; that the Constitution
+applies to the Territories precisely as it does to the States; and
+that the United States Government, under the Constitution, may not do
+in a State what it may not do in a Territory, and what it must do in
+a State it must do in a Territory.  Gentlemen, is that a true view of
+the case?  It is necessary for this squatter sovereignty, but is it
+true?
+
+Let us consider.  What does it depend upon?  It depends altogether
+upon the proposition that the States must, without the interference
+of the General Government, do all those things that pertain
+exclusively to themselves,--that are local in their nature, that have
+no connection with the General Government.  After Judge Douglas has
+established this proposition, which nobody disputes or ever has
+disputed, he proceeds to assume, without proving it, that slavery is
+one of those little, unimportant, trivial matters which are of just
+about as much consequence as the question would be to me whether my
+neighbor should raise horned cattle or plant tobacco; that there is
+no moral question about it, but that it is altogether a matter of
+dollars and cents; that when a new Territory is opened for
+settlement, the first man who goes into it may plant there a thing
+which, like the Canada thistle or some other of those pests of the
+soil, cannot be dug out by the millions of men who will come
+thereafter; that it is one of those little things that is so trivial
+in its nature that it has nor effect upon anybody save the few men
+who first plant upon the soil; that it is not a thing which in any
+way affects the family of communities composing these States, nor any
+way endangers the General Government. Judge Douglas ignores
+altogether the very well known fact that we have never had a serious
+menace to our political existence, except it sprang from this thing,
+which he chooses to regard as only upon a par with onions and
+potatoes.
+
+Turn it, and contemplate it in another view.  He says that, according
+to his popular sovereignty, the General Government may give to the
+Territories governors, judges, marshals, secretaries, and all the
+other chief men to govern them, but they, must not touch upon this
+other question.  Why?  The question of who shall be governor of a
+Territory for a year or two, and pass away, without his track being
+left upon the soil, or an act which he did for good or for evil being
+left behind, is a question of vast national magnitude; it is so much
+opposed in its nature to locality that the nation itself must decide
+it: while this other matter of planting slavery upon a soil,--a thing
+which, once planted, cannot be eradicated by the succeeding millions
+who have as much right there as the first comers, or, if eradicated,
+not without infinite difficulty and a long struggle, he considers the
+power to prohibit it as one of these little local, trivial things
+that the nation ought not to say a word about; that it affects nobody
+save the few men who are there.
+
+Take these two things and consider them together, present the
+question of planting a State with the institution of slavery by the
+side of a question who shall be Governor of Kansas for a year or two,
+and is there a man here, is there a man on earth, who would not say
+the governor question is the little one, and the slavery question is
+the great one?  I ask any honest Democrat if the small, the local,
+and the trivial and temporary question is not, Who shall be governor?
+while the durable, the important, and the mischievous one is, Shall
+this soil be planted with slavery?
+
+This is an idea, I suppose, which has arisen in Judge Douglas's mind
+from his peculiar structure.  I suppose the institution of slavery
+really looks small to him.  He is so put up by nature that a lash
+upon his back would hurt him, but a lash upon anybody else's back
+does not hurt him.  That is the build of the man, and consequently he
+looks upon the matter of slavery in this unimportant light.
+
+Judge Douglas ought to remember, when he is endeavoring to force this
+policy upon the American people, that while he is put up in that way,
+a good many are not.  He ought to remember that there was once in
+this country a man by the name of Thomas Jefferson, supposed to be a
+Democrat,--a man whose principles and policy are not very prevalent
+amongst Democrats to-day, it is true; but that man did not take
+exactly this view of the insignificance of the element of slavery
+which our friend judge Douglas does.  In contemplation of this thing,
+we all know he was led to exclaim, "I tremble for my country when I
+remember that God is just!"  We know how he looked upon it when he
+thus expressed himself.  There was danger to this country,--danger of
+the avenging justice of God, in that little unimportant popular
+sovereignty question of judge Douglas.  He supposed there was a
+question of God's eternal justice wrapped up in the enslaving of any
+race of men, or any man, and that those who did so braved the arm of
+Jehovah; that when a nation thus dared the Almighty, every friend of
+that nation had cause to dread his wrath.  Choose ye between
+Jefferson and Douglas as to what is the true view of this element
+among us.
+
+There is another little difficulty about this matter of treating the
+Territories and States alike in all things, to which I ask your
+attention, and I shall leave this branch of the case.  If there is no
+difference between them, why not make the Territories States at once?
+What is the reason that Kansas was not fit to come into the Union
+when it was organized into a Territory, in Judge Douglas's view?  Can
+any of you tell any reason why it should not have come into the Union
+at once?  They are fit, as he thinks, to decide upon the slavery
+question,--the largest and most important with which they could
+possibly deal: what could they do by coming into the Union that they
+are not fit to do, according to his view, by staying out of it?  Oh,
+they are not fit to sit in Congress and decide upon the rates of
+postage, or questions of ad valorem or specific duties on foreign
+goods, or live-oak timber contracts, they are not fit to decide these
+vastly important matters, which are national in their import, but
+they are fit, "from the jump," to decide this little negro question.
+But, gentlemen, the case is too plain; I occupy too much time on this
+head, and I pass on.
+
+Near the close of the copyright essay, the judge, I think, comes very
+near kicking his own fat into the fire. I did not think, when I
+commenced these remarks, that I would read that article, but I now
+believe I will:
+
+"This exposition of the history of these measures shows conclusively
+that the authors of the Compromise measures of 1850 and of the
+Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, as well as the members of the
+Continental Congress of 1774., and the founders of our system of
+government subsequent to the Revolution, regarded the people of the
+Territories and Colonies as political communities which were entitled
+to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their provisional
+legislatures, where their representation could alone be preserved, in
+all cases of taxation and internal polity."
+
+When the judge saw that putting in the word "slavery" would
+contradict his own history, he put in what he knew would pass
+synonymous with it, "internal polity."  Whenever we find that in one
+of his speeches, the substitute is used in this manner; and I can
+tell you the reason.  It would be too bald a contradiction to say
+slavery; but "internal polity" is a general phrase, which would pass
+in some quarters, and which he hopes will pass with the reading
+community for the same thing.
+
+"This right pertains to the people collectively, as a law-abiding and
+peaceful community, and not in the isolated individuals who may
+wander upon the public domain in violation of the law. It can only be
+exercised where there are inhabitants sufficient to constitute a
+government, and capable of performing its various functions and
+duties,--a fact to be ascertained and determined by "who do you
+think?  Judge Douglas says "by Congress!"  "Whether the number shall
+be fixed at ten, fifteen or twenty thousand inhabitants, does not
+affect the principle."
+
+Now, I have only a few comments to make. Popular sovereignty, by his
+own words, does not pertain to the few persons who wander upon the
+public domain in violation of law.  We have his words for that.  When
+it does pertain to them, is when they are sufficient to be formed
+into an organized political community, and he fixes the minimum for
+that at ten thousand, and the maximum at twenty thousand.  Now, I
+would like to know what is to be done with the nine thousand?  Are
+they all to be treated, until they are large enough to be organized
+into a political community, as wanderers upon the public land, in
+violation of law?  And if so treated and driven out, at what point of
+time would there ever be ten thousand?  If they were not driven out,
+but remained there as trespassers upon the public land in violation
+of the law, can they establish slavery there?  No; the judge says
+popular sovereignty don't pertain to them then.  Can they exclude it
+then?  No; popular sovereignty don't pertain to them then.  I would
+like to know, in the case covered by the essay, what condition the
+people of the Territory are in before they reach the number of ten
+thousand?
+
+But the main point I wish to ask attention to is, that the question
+as to when they shall have reached a sufficient number to be formed
+into a regular organized community is to be decided "by Congress."
+Judge Douglas says so.  Well, gentlemen, that is about all we want.
+No, that is all the Southerners want.  That is what all those who are
+for slavery want.  They do not want Congress to prohibit slavery from
+coming into the new Territories, and they do not want popular
+sovereignty to hinder it; and as Congress is to say when they are
+ready to be organized, all that the South has to do is to get
+Congress to hold off.  Let Congress hold off until they are ready to
+be admitted as a State, and the South has all it wants in taking
+slavery into and planting it in all the Territories that we now have
+or hereafter may have.  In a word, the whole thing, at a dash of the
+pen, is at last put in the power of Congress; for if they do not have
+this popular sovereignty until Congress organizes them, I ask if it
+at last does not come from Congress?  If, at last, it amounts to
+anything at all, Congress gives it to them.  I submit this rather for
+your reflection than for comment.  After all that is said, at last,
+by a dash of the pen, everything that has gone before is undone, and
+he puts the whole question under the control of Congress.  After
+fighting through more than three hours, if you undertake to read it,
+he at last places the whole matter under the control of that power
+which he has been contending against, and arrives at a result
+directly contrary to what he had been laboring to do.  He at last
+leaves the whole matter to the control of Congress.
+
+There are two main objects, as I understand it, of this Harper's
+Magazine essay. One was to show, if possible, that the men of our
+Revolutionary times were in favor of his popular sovereignty, and the
+other was to show that the Dred Scott decision had not entirely
+squelched out this popular sovereignty.  I do not propose, in regard
+to this argument drawn from the history of former times, to enter
+into a detailed examination of the historical statements he has made.
+I have the impression that they are inaccurate in a great many
+instances,--sometimes in positive statement, but very much more
+inaccurate by the suppression of statements that really belong to the
+history.  But I do not propose to affirm that this is so to any very
+great extent, or to enter into a very minute examination of his
+historical statements.  I avoid doing so upon this principle,--that
+if it were important for me to pass out of this lot in the least
+period of time possible, and I came to that fence, and saw by a
+calculation of my known strength and agility that I could clear it at
+a bound, it would be folly for me to stop and consider whether I
+could or not crawl through a crack.  So I say of the whole history
+contained in his essay where he endeavored to link the men of the
+Revolution to popular sovereignty.  It only requires an effort to
+leap out of it, a single bound to be entirely successful.  If you
+read it over, you will find that he quotes here and there from
+documents of the Revolutionary times, tending to show that the people
+of the colonies were desirous of regulating their own concerns in
+their own way, that the British Government should not interfere; that
+at one time they struggled with the British Government to be
+permitted to exclude the African slave trade,--if not directly, to be
+permitted to exclude it indirectly, by taxation sufficient to
+discourage and destroy it.  From these and many things of this sort,
+judge Douglas argues that they were in favor of the people of our own
+Territories excluding slavery if they wanted to, or planting it there
+if they wanted to, doing just as they pleased from the time they
+settled upon the Territory.  Now, however his history may apply and
+whatever of his argument there may be that is sound and accurate or
+unsound and inaccurate, if we can find out what these men did
+themselves do upon this very question of slavery in the Territories,
+does it not end the whole thing?  If, after all this labor and effort
+to show that the men of the Revolution were in favor of his popular
+sovereignty and his mode of dealing with slavery in the Territories,
+we can show that these very men took hold of that subject, and dealt
+with it, we can see for ourselves how they dealt with it.  It is not
+a matter of argument or inference, but we know what they thought
+about it.
+
+It is precisely upon that part of the history of the country that one
+important omission is made by Judge Douglas.  He selects parts of the
+history of the United States upon the subject of slavery, and treats
+it as the whole, omitting from his historical sketch the legislation
+of Congress in regard to the admission of Missouri, by which the
+Missouri Compromise was established and slavery excluded from a
+country half as large as the present United States.  All this is left
+out of his history, and in nowise alluded to by him, so far as I can
+remember, save once, when he makes a remark, that upon his principle
+the Supreme Court were authorized to pronounce a decision that the
+act called the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.  All that
+history has been left out.  But this part of the history of the
+country was not made by the men of the Revolution.
+
+There was another part of our political history, made by the very men
+who were the actors in the Revolution, which has taken the name of
+the Ordinance of '87.  Let me bring that history to your attention.
+In 1784, I believe, this same Mr. Jefferson drew up an ordinance for
+the government of the country upon which we now stand, or, rather, a
+frame or draft of an ordinance for the government of this country,
+here in Ohio, our neighbors in Indiana, us who live in Illinois, our
+neighbors in Wisconsin and Michigan.  In that ordinance, drawn up not
+only for the government of that Territory, but for the Territories
+south of the Ohio River, Mr. Jefferson expressly provided for the
+prohibition of slavery.  Judge Douglas says, and perhaps is right,
+that that provision was lost from that ordinance.  I believe that is
+true.  When the vote was taken upon it, a majority of all present in
+the Congress of the Confederation voted for it; but there were so
+many absentees that those voting for it did not make the clear
+majority necessary, and it was lost.  But three years after that, the
+Congress of the Confederation were together again, and they adopted a
+new ordinance for the government of this Northwest Territory, not
+contemplating territory south of the river, for the States owning
+that territory had hitherto refrained from giving it to the General
+Government; hence they made the ordinance to apply only to what the
+Government owned.  In fact, the provision excluding slavery was
+inserted aside, passed unanimously, or at any rate it passed and
+became a part of the law of the land.  Under that ordinance we live.
+First here in Ohio you were a Territory; then an enabling act was
+passed, authorizing you to form a constitution and State Government,
+provided it was republican and not in conflict with the Ordinance of
+'87.  When you framed your constitution and presented it for
+admission, I think you will find the legislation upon the subject
+will show that, whereas you had formed a constitution that was
+republican, and not in conflict with the Ordinance of '87, therefore
+you were admitted upon equal footing with the original States.  The
+same process in a few years was gone through with in Indiana, and so
+with Illinois, and the same substantially with Michigan and
+Wisconsin.
+
+Not only did that Ordinance prevail, but it was constantly looked to
+whenever a step was taken by a new Territory to become a State.
+Congress always turned their attention to it, and in all their
+movements upon this subject they traced their course by that
+Ordinance of '87.  When they admitted new States, they advertised
+them of this Ordinance, as a part of the legislation of the country.
+They did so because they had traced the Ordinance of '87 throughout
+the history of this country.  Begin with the men of the Revolution,
+and go down for sixty entire years, and until the last scrap of that
+Territory comes into the Union in the form of the State of Wisconsin,
+everything was made to conform with the Ordinance of '87, excluding
+slavery from that vast extent of country.
+
+I omitted to mention in the right place that the Constitution of the
+United States was in process of being framed when that Ordinance was
+made by the Congress of the Confederation; and one of the first Acts
+of Congress itself, under the new Constitution itself, was to give
+force to that Ordinance by putting power to carry it out in the hands
+of the new officers under the Constitution, in the place of the old
+ones, who had been legislated out of existence by the change in the
+Government from the Confederation to the Constitution.  Not only so,
+but I believe Indiana once or twice, if not Ohio, petitioned the
+General Government for the privilege of suspending that provision and
+allowing them to have slaves.  A report made by Mr. Randolph, of
+Virginia, himself a slaveholder, was directly against it, and the
+action was to refuse them the privilege of violating the Ordinance of
+'87.
+
+This period of history, which I have run over briefly, is, I presume,
+as familiar to most of this assembly as any other part of the history
+of our country. I suppose that few of my hearers are not as familiar
+with that part of history as I am, and I only mention it to recall
+your attention to it at this time.  And hence I ask how extraordinary
+a thing it is that a man who has occupied a position upon the floor
+of the Senate of the United States, who is now in his third term, and
+who looks to see the government of this whole country fall into his
+own hands, pretending to give a truthful and accurate history o the
+slavery question in this country, should so entirely ignore the whole
+of that portion of our history--the most important of all.  Is it not
+a most extraordinary spectacle that a man should stand up and ask for
+any confidence in his statements who sets out as he does with
+portions of history, calling upon the people to believe that it is a
+true and fair representation, when the leading part and controlling
+feature of the whole history is carefully suppressed?
+
+But the mere leaving out is not the most remarkable feature of this
+most remarkable essay. His proposition is to establish that the
+leading men of the Revolution were for his great principle of
+nonintervention by the government in the question of slavery in the
+Territories, while history shows that they decided, in the cases
+actually brought before them, in exactly the contrary way, and he
+knows it.  Not only did they so decide at that time, but they stuck
+to it during sixty years, through thick and thin, as long as there
+was one of the Revolutionary heroes upon the stage of political
+action.  Through their whole course, from first to last, they clung
+to freedom.  And now he asks the community to believe that the men of
+the Revolution were in favor of his great principle, when we have the
+naked history that they themselves dealt with this very subject
+matter of his principle, and utterly repudiated his principle, acting
+upon a precisely contrary ground.  It is as impudent and absurd as if
+a prosecuting attorney should stand up before a jury and ask them
+to convict A as the murderer of B, while B was walking alive before
+them.
+
+I say, again, if judge Douglas asserts that the men of the Revolution
+acted upon principles by which, to be consistent with themselves,
+they ought to have adopted his popular sovereignty, then, upon a
+consideration of his own argument, he had a right to make you
+believe that they understood the principles of government, but
+misapplied them, that he has arisen to enlighten the world as to the
+just application of this principle.  He has a right to try to
+persuade you that he understands their principles better than they
+did, and, therefore, he will apply them now, not as they did, but as
+they ought to have done.  He has a right to go before the community
+and try to convince them of this, but he has no right to attempt to
+impose upon any one the belief that these men themselves approved of
+his great principle.  There are two ways of establishing a
+proposition.  One is by trying to demonstrate it upon reason, and the
+other is, to show that great men in former times have thought so and
+so, and thus to pass it by the weight of pure authority.  Now, if
+Judge Douglas will demonstrate somehow that this is popular
+sovereignty,--the right of one man to make a slave of another,
+without any right in that other or any one else to object,-
+-demonstrate it as Euclid demonstrated propositions,--there is no
+objection.  But when he comes forward, seeking to carry a principle
+by bringing to it the authority of men who themselves utterly
+repudiate that principle, I ask that he shall not be permitted to do
+it.
+
+I see, in the judge's speech here, a short sentence in these words:
+"Our fathers, when they formed this government under which we live,
+understood this question just as well, and even better than, we do
+now."  That is true; I stick to that.  I will stand by Judge Douglas
+in that to the bitter end.  And now, Judge Douglas, come and stand by
+me, and truthfully show how they acted, understanding it better than
+we do.  All I ask of you, Judge Douglas, is to stick to the
+proposition that the men of the Revolution understood this subject
+better than we do now, and with that better understanding they acted
+better than you are trying to act now.
+
+I wish to say something now in regard to the Dred Scott decision, as
+dealt with by Judge Douglas.  In that "memorable debate" between
+Judge Douglas and myself, last year, the judge thought fit to
+commence a process of catechising me, and at Freeport I answered his
+questions, and propounded some to him.  Among others propounded to
+him was one that I have here now.  The substance, as I remember it,
+is, "Can the people of a United States Territory, under the Dred
+Scott decision, in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of
+the United States, exclude slavery from its limits, prior to the
+formation of a State constitution?"  He answered that they could
+lawfully exclude slavery from the United States Territories,
+notwithstanding the Dred Scot decision.  There was something about
+that answer that has probably been a trouble to the judge ever since.
+
+The Dred Scott decision expressly gives every citizen of the United
+States a right to carry his slaves into the United States
+Territories.  And now there was some inconsistency in saying that the
+decision was right, and saying, too, that the people of the Territory
+could lawfully drive slavery out again.  When all the trash, the
+words, the collateral matter, was cleared away from it, all the chaff
+was fanned out of it, it was a bare absurdity,--no less than that a
+thing may be lawfully driven away from where it has a lawful right to
+be.  Clear it of all the verbiage, and that is the naked truth of his
+proposition,--that a thing may be lawfully driven from the place
+where it has a lawful right to stay.  Well, it was because the judge
+could n't help seeing this that he has had so much trouble with it;
+and what I want to ask your especial attention to, just now, is to
+remind you, if you have not noticed the fact, that the judge does not
+any longer say that the people can exclude slavery.  He does not say
+so in the copyright essay; he did not say so in the speech that he
+made here; and, so far as I know, since his re-election to the Senate
+he has never said, as he did at Freeport, that the people of the
+Territories can exclude slavery.  He desires that you, who wish the
+Territories to remain free, should believe that he stands by that
+position; but he does not say it himself.  He escapes to some extent
+the absurd position I have stated, by changing his language entirely.
+What he says now is something different in language, and we will
+consider whether it is not different in sense too.  It is now that
+the Dred Scott decision, or rather the Constitution under that
+decision, does not carry slavery into the Territories beyond the
+power of the people of the Territories to control it as other
+property.  He does not say the people can drive it out, but they can
+control it as other property.  The language is different; we should
+consider whether the sense is different.  Driving a horse out of this
+lot is too plain a proposition to be mistaken about; it is putting
+him on the other side of the fence.  Or it might be a sort of
+exclusion of him from the lot if you were to kill him and let the
+worms devour him; but neither of these things is the same as
+"controlling him as other property."  That would be to feed him, to
+pamper him, to ride him, to use and abuse him, to make the most money
+out of him, "as other property"; but, please you, what do the men who
+are in favor of slavery want more than this?  What do they really
+want, other than that slavery, being in the Territories, shall be
+controlled as other property?  If they want anything else, I do not
+comprehend it.  I ask your attention to this, first, for the purpose
+of pointing out the change of ground the judge has made; and, in the
+second place, the importance of the change,--that that change is not
+such as to give you gentlemen who want his popular sovereignty the
+power to exclude the institution or drive it out at all.  I know the
+judge sometimes squints at the argument that in controlling it as
+other property by unfriendly legislation they may control it to
+death; as you might, in the case of a horse, perhaps, feed him so
+lightly and ride him so much that he would die.  But when you come to
+legislative control, there is something more to be attended to. I
+have no doubt, myself, that if the Territories should undertake to
+control slave property as other property that is, control it in such
+a way that it would be the most valuable as property, and make it
+bear its just proportion in the way of burdens as property, really
+deal with it as property,--the Supreme Court of the United States
+will say, "God speed you, and amen."  But I undertake to give the
+opinion, at least, that if the Territories attempt by any direct
+legislation to drive the man with his slave out of the Territory, or
+to decide that his slave is free because of his being taken in there,
+or to tax him to such an extent that he cannot keep him there, the
+Supreme Court will unhesitatingly decide all such legislation
+unconstitutional, as long as that Supreme Court is constructed as the
+Dred Scott Supreme Court is.  The first two things they have already
+decided, except that there is a little quibble among lawyers between
+the words "dicta" and "decision."  They have already decided a negro
+cannot be made free by Territorial legislation.
+
+What is the Dred Scott decision?  Judge Douglas labors to show that
+it is one thing, while I think it is altogether different.  It is a
+long opinion, but it is all embodied in this short statement: "The
+Constitution of the United States forbids Congress to deprive a man
+of his property, without due process of law; the right of property in
+slaves is distinctly and expressly affirmed in that Constitution:
+therefore, if Congress shall undertake to say that a man's slave is
+no longer his slave when he crosses a certain line into a Territory,
+that is depriving him of his property without due process of law, and
+is unconstitutional."  There is the whole Dred Scott decision.  They
+add that if Congress cannot do so itself, Congress cannot confer any
+power to do so; and hence any effort by the Territorial Legislature
+to do either of these things is absolutely decided against.  It is a
+foregone conclusion by that court.
+
+Now, as to this indirect mode by "unfriendly legislation," all
+lawyers here will readily understand that such a proposition cannot
+be tolerated for a moment, because a legislature cannot indirectly do
+that which it cannot accomplish directly.  Then I say any legislation
+to control this property, as property, for its benefit as property,
+would be hailed by this Dred Scott Supreme Court, and fully
+sustained; but any legislation driving slave property out, or
+destroying it as property, directly or indirectly, will most
+assuredly, by that court, be held unconstitutional.
+
+Judge Douglas says if the Constitution carries slavery into the
+Territories, beyond the power of the people of the Territories to
+control it as other property; then it follows logically that every
+one who swears to support the Constitution of the United States must
+give that support to that property which it needs.  And, if the
+Constitution carries slavery into the Territories, beyond the power
+of the people, to control it as other property, then it also carries
+it into the States, because the Constitution is the supreme law of
+the land.  Now, gentlemen, if it were not for my excessive modesty, I
+would say that I told that very thing to Judge Douglas quite a year
+ago.  This argument is here in print, and if it were not for my
+modesty, as I said, I might call your attention to it.  If you read
+it, you will find that I not only made that argument, but made it
+better than he has made it since.
+
+There is, however, this difference: I say now, and said then, there
+is no sort of question that the Supreme Court has decided that it is
+the right of the slave holder to take his slave and hold him in the
+Territory; and saying this, judge Douglas himself admits the
+conclusion.  He says if that is so, this consequence will follow; and
+because this consequence would follow, his argument is, the decision
+cannot, therefore, be that way,--" that would spoil my popular
+sovereignty; and it cannot be possible that this great principle has
+been squelched out in this extraordinary way.  It might be, if it
+were not for the extraordinary consequences of spoiling my humbug."
+
+Another feature of the judge's argument about the Dred Scott case is,
+an effort to show that that decision deals altogether in declarations
+of negatives; that the Constitution does not affirm anything as
+expounded by the Dred Scott decision, but it only declares a want of
+power a total absence of power, in reference to the Territories.  It
+seems to be his purpose to make the whole of that decision to result
+in a mere negative declaration of a want of power in Congress to do
+anything in relation to this matter in the Territories.  I know the
+opinion of the Judges states that there is a total absence of power;
+but that is, unfortunately; not all it states: for the judges add
+that the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly
+affirmed in the Constitution.  It does not stop at saying that the
+right of property in a slave is recognized in the Constitution, is
+declared to exist somewhere in the Constitution, but says it is
+affirmed in the Constitution.  Its language is equivalent to saying
+that it is embodied and so woven in that instrument that it cannot be
+detached without breaking the Constitution itself.  In a word, it is
+part of the Constitution.
+
+Douglas is singularly unfortunate in his effort to make out that
+decision to be altogether negative, when the express language at the
+vital part is that this is distinctly affirmed in the Constitution.
+I think myself, and I repeat it here, that this decision does not
+merely carry slavery into the Territories, but by its logical
+conclusion it carries it into the States in which we live.  One
+provision of that Constitution is, that it shall be the supreme law
+of the land,--I do not quote the language,--any constitution or law
+of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.  This Dred Scott
+decision says that the right of property in a slave is affirmed in
+that Constitution which is the supreme law of the land, any State
+constitution or law notwithstanding.  Then I say that to destroy a
+thing which is distinctly affirmed and supported by the supreme law
+of the land, even by a State constitution or law, is a violation of
+that supreme law, and there is no escape from it.  In my judgment
+there is no avoiding that result, save that the American people shall
+see that constitutions are better construed than our Constitution is
+construed in that decision.  They must take care that it is more
+faithfully and truly carried out than it is there expounded.
+
+I must hasten to a conclusion. Near the beginning of my remarks I
+said that this insidious Douglas popular sovereignty is the measure
+that now threatens the purpose of the Republican party to prevent
+slavery from being nationalized in the United States.  I propose to
+ask your attention for a little while to some propositions in
+affirmance of that statement.  Take it just as it stands, and apply
+it as a principle; extend and apply that principle elsewhere; and
+consider where it will lead you.  I now put this proposition, that
+Judge Douglas's popular sovereignty applied will reopen the African
+slave trade; and I will demonstrate it by any variety of ways in
+which you can turn the subject or look at it.
+
+The Judge says that the people of the Territories have the right, by
+his principle, to have slaves, if they want them.  Then I say that
+the people in Georgia have the right to buy slaves in Africa, if they
+want them; and I defy any man on earth to show any distinction
+between the two things,--to show that the one is either more wicked
+or more unlawful; to show, on original principles, that one is better
+or worse than the other; or to show, by the Constitution, that one
+differs a whit from the other.  He will tell me, doubtless, that
+there is no constitutional provision against people taking slaves
+into the new Territories, and I tell him that there is equally no
+constitutional provision against buying slaves in Africa.  He will
+tell you that a people, in the exercise of popular sovereignty, ought
+to do as they please about that thing, and have slaves if they want
+them; and I tell you that the people of Georgia are as much entitled
+to popular sovereignty and to buy slaves in Africa, if they want
+them, as the people of the Territory are to have slaves if they want
+them.  I ask any man, dealing honestly with himself, to point out a
+distinction.
+
+I have recently seen a letter of Judge Douglas's in which, without
+stating that to be the object, he doubtless endeavors to make a
+distinction between the two.  He says he is unalterably opposed to
+the repeal of the laws against the African slave trade.  And why?  He
+then seeks to give a reason that would not apply to his popular
+sovereignty in the Territories.  What is that reason?  "The abolition
+of the African slave trade is a compromise of the Constitution!"  I
+deny it.  There is no truth in the proposition that the abolition of
+the African slave trade is a compromise of the Constitution.  No man
+can put his finger on anything in the Constitution, or on the line of
+history, which shows it.  It is a mere barren assertion, made simply
+for the purpose of getting up a distinction between the revival of
+the African slave trade and his "great principle."
+
+At the time the Constitution of the United States was adopted, it was
+expected that the slave trade would be abolished. I should assert and
+insist upon that, if judge Douglas denied it.  But I know that it was
+equally expected that slavery would be excluded from the Territories,
+and I can show by history that in regard to these two things public
+opinion was exactly alike, while in regard to positive action, there
+was more done in the Ordinance of '87 to resist the spread of slavery
+than was ever done to abolish the foreign slave trade.  Lest I be
+misunderstood, I say again that at the time of the formation of the
+Constitution, public expectation was that the slave trade would be
+abolished, but no more so than the spread of slavery in the
+Territories should be restrained.  They stand alike, except that in
+the Ordinance of '87 there was a mark left by public opinion, showing
+that it was more committed against the spread of slavery in the
+Territories than against the foreign slave trade.
+
+Compromise!  What word of compromise was there about it?  Why, the
+public sense was then in favor of the abolition of the slave trade;
+but there was at the time a very great commercial interest involved
+in it, and extensive capital in that branch of trade.  There were
+doubtless the incipient stages of improvement in the South in the way
+of farming, dependent on the slave trade, and they made a proposition
+to Congress to abolish the trade after allowing it twenty years,--a
+sufficient time for the capital and commerce engaged in it to be
+transferred to other channel.  They made no provision that it should
+be abolished in twenty years; I do not doubt that they expected it
+would be, but they made no bargain about it.  The public sentiment
+left no doubt in the minds of any that it would be done away.  I
+repeat, there is nothing in the history of those times in favor of
+that matter being a compromise of the constitution.  It was the
+public expectation at the time, manifested in a thousand ways, that
+the spread of slavery should also be restricted.
+
+Then I say, if this principle is established, that there is no wrong
+in slavery, and whoever wants it has a right to have it, is a matter
+of dollars and cents, a sort of question as to how they shall deal
+with brutes, that between us and the negro here there is no sort of
+question, but that at the South the question is between the negro and
+the crocodile, that is all, it is a mere matter of policy, there is a
+perfect right, according to interest, to do just as you please,--when
+this is done, where this doctrine prevails, the miners and sappers
+will have formed public opinion for the slave trade.  They will be
+ready for Jeff. Davis and Stephens and other leaders of that company
+to sound the bugle for the revival of the slave trade, for the second
+Dred Scott decision, for the flood of slavery to be poured over the
+free States, while we shall be here tied down and helpless and run
+over like sheep.
+
+It is to be a part and parcel of this same idea to say to men who
+want to adhere to the Democratic party, who have always belonged to
+that party, and are only looking about for some excuse to stick to
+it, but nevertheless hate slavery, that Douglas's popular sovereignty
+is as good a way as any to oppose slavery.  They allow themselves to
+be persuaded easily, in accordance with their previous dispositions,
+into this belief, that it is about as good a way of opposing slavery
+as any, and we can do that without straining our old party ties or
+breaking up old political associations.  We can do so without being
+called negro-worshipers.  We can do that without being subjected to
+the jibes and sneers that are so readily thrown out in place of
+argument where no arguement can be found.  So let us stick to this
+popular sovereignty,--this insidious popular sovereignty.
+
+Now let me call your attention to one thing that has really happened,
+which shows this gradual and steady debauching of public opinion,
+this course of preparation for the revival of the slave trade, for
+the Territorial slave code, and the new Dred Scott decision that is
+to carry slavery into the Free States.  Did you ever, five years ago,
+hear of anybody in the world saying that the negro had no share in
+the Declaration of National Independence; that it does not mean
+negroes at all; and when "all men" were spoken of, negroes were not
+included?
+
+I am satisfied that five years ago that proposition was not put upon
+paper by any living being anywhere.  I have been unable at any time
+to find a man in an audience who would declare that he had ever known
+of anybody saying so five years ago.  But last year there was not a
+Douglas popular sovereign in Illinois who did not say it.  Is there
+one in Ohio but declares his firm belief that the Declaration of
+Independence did not mean negroes at all? I do not know how this is;
+I have not been here much; but I presume you are very much alike
+everywhere.  Then I suppose that all now express the belief that the
+Declaration of Independence never did mean negroes.  I call upon one
+of them to say that he said it five years ago.
+
+If you think that now, and did not think it then, the next thing that
+strikes me is to remark that there has been a change wrought in you,-
+-and a very significant change it is, being no less than changing the
+negro, in your estimation, from the rank of a man to that of a brute.
+They are taking him down and placing him, when spoken of, among
+reptiles and crocodiles, as Judge Douglas himself expresses it.
+
+Is not this change wrought in your minds a very important change?
+Public opinion in this country is everything.  In a nation like ours,
+this popular sovereignty and squatter sovereignty have already
+wrought a change in the public mind to the extent I have stated.
+There is no man in this crowd who can contradict it.
+
+Now, if you are opposed to slavery honestly, as much as anybody, I
+ask you to note that fact, and the like of which is to follow, to be
+plastered on, layer after layer, until very soon you are prepared to
+deal with the negro every where as with the brute.  If public
+sentiment has not been debauched already to this point, a new turn of
+the screw in that direction is all that is wanting; and this is
+constantly being done by the teachers of this insidious popular
+sovereignty.  You need but one or two turns further, until your
+minds, now ripening under these teachings, will be ready for all
+these things, and you will receive and support, or submit to, the
+slave trade, revived with all its horrors, a slave code enforced in
+our Territories, and a new Dred Scott decision to bring slavery up
+into the very heart of the free North.  This, I must say, is but
+carrying out those words prophetically spoken by Mr. Clay,--many,
+many years ago,--I believe more than thirty years, when he told an
+audience that if they would repress all tendencies to liberty and
+ultimate emancipation they must go back to the era of our
+independence, and muzzle the cannon which thundered its annual joyous
+return on the Fourth of July; they must blow out the moral lights
+around us; they must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate the love
+of liberty: but until they did these things, and others eloquently
+enumerated by him, they could not repress all tendencies to ultimate
+emancipation.
+
+I ask attention to the fact that in a pre-eminent degree these
+popular sovereigns are at this work: blowing out the moral lights
+around us; teaching that the negro is no longer a man, but a brute;
+that the Declaration has nothing to do with him; that he ranks with
+the crocodile and the reptile; that man, with body and soul, is a
+matter of dollars and cents.  I suggest to this portion of the Ohio
+Republicans, or Democrats, if there be any present, the serious
+consideration of this fact that there is now going on among you a
+steady process of debauching public opinion on this subject.  With
+this, my friends, I bid you adieu.
+
+
+
+
+SPEECH AT CINCINNATI OHIO, SEPTEMBER 17, 1859
+
+My Fellow-Citizens of the State of Ohio:  This is the first time in
+my life that I have appeared before an audience in so great a city as
+this: I therefore--though I am no longer a young man--make this
+appearance under some degree of embarrassment.  But I have found that
+when one is embarrassed, usually the shortest way to get through with
+it is to quit talking or thinking about it, and go at something else.
+
+I understand that you have had recently with you my very
+distinguished friend Judge Douglas, of Illinois; and I understand,
+without having had an opportunity (not greatly sought, to be sure) of
+seeing a report of the speech that he made here, that he did me the
+honor to mention my humble name.  I suppose that he did so for the
+purpose of making some objection to some sentiment at some time
+expressed by me.  I should expect, it is true, that judge Douglas had
+reminded you, or informed you, if you had never before heard it, that
+I had once in my life declared it as my opinion that this government
+cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free; that a house
+divided against itself cannot stand, and, as I had expressed it, I
+did not expect the house to fall, that I did not expect the Union to
+be dissolved, but that I did expect that it would cease to be
+divided, that it would become all one thing, or all the other; that
+either the opponents of slavery would arrest the further spread of
+it, and place it where the public mind would rest in the belief that
+it was in the course of ultimate extinction, or the friends of
+slavery will push it forward until it becomes alike lawful in all the
+States, old or new, free as well as slave. I did, fifteen months ago,
+express that opinion, and upon many occasions Judge Douglas has
+denounced it, and has greatly, intentionally or unintentionally,
+misrepresented my purpose in the expression of that opinion.
+
+I presume, without having seen a report of his speech, that he did so
+here.  I presume that he alluded also to that opinion, in different
+language, having been expressed at a subsequent time by Governor
+Seward of New York, and that he took the two in a lump and denounced
+them; that he tried to point out that there was something couched in
+this opinion which led to the making of an entire uniformity of the
+local institutions of the various States of the Union, in utter
+disregard of the different States, which in their nature would seem
+to require a variety of institutions and a variety of laws,
+conforming to the differences in the nature of the different States.
+
+Not only so: I presume he insisted that this was a declaration of war
+between the free and slave States, that it was the sounding to the
+onset of continual war between the different States, the slave and
+free States.
+
+This charge, in this form, was made by Judge Douglas on, I believe,
+the 9th of July, 1858, in Chicago, in my hearing.  On the next
+evening, I made some reply to it.  I informed him that many of the
+inferences he drew from that expression of mine were altogether
+foreign to any purpose entertained by me, and in so far as he should
+ascribe these inferences to me, as my purpose, he was entirely
+mistaken; and in so far as he might argue that, whatever might be my
+purpose, actions conforming to my views would lead to these results,
+he might argue and establish if he could; but, so far as purposes
+were concerned, he was totally mistaken as to me.
+
+When I made that reply to him, I told him, on the question of
+declaring war between the different States of the Union, that I had
+not said that I did not expect any peace upon this question until
+slavery was exterminated; that I had only said I expected peace when
+that institution was put where the public mind should rest in the
+belief that it was in course of ultimate extinction; that I believed,
+from the organization of our government until a very recent period of
+time, the institution had been placed and continued upon such a
+basis; that we had had comparative peace upon that question through a
+portion of that period of time, only because the public mind rested
+in that belief in regard to it, and that when we returned to that
+position in relation to that matter, I supposed we should again have
+peace as we previously had. I assured him, as I now, assure you, that
+I neither then had, nor have, or ever had, any purpose in any way of
+interfering with the institution of slavery, where it exists.  I
+believe we have no power, under the Constitution of the United
+States, or rather under the form of government under which we live,
+to interfere with the institution of slavery, or any other of the
+institutions of our sister States, be they free or slave States.  I
+declared then, and I now re-declare, that I have as little
+inclination to interfere with the institution of slavery where it now
+exists, through the instrumentality of the General Government, or any
+other instrumentality, as I believe we have no power to do so.  I
+accidentally used this expression:  I had no purpose of entering into
+the slave States to disturb the institution of slavery.  So, upon the
+first occasion that Judge Douglas got an opportunity to reply to me,
+he passed by the whole body of what I had said upon that subject, and
+seized upon the particular expression of mine that I had no purpose
+of entering into the slave States to disturb the institution of
+slavery.  "Oh, no," said he, "he [Lincoln] won't enter into the slave
+States to disturb the institution of slavery, he is too prudent a man
+to do such a thing as that; he only means that he will go on to the
+line between the free and slave States, and shoot over at them.  This
+is all he means to do.  He means to do them all the harm he can, to
+disturb them all he can, in such a way as to keep his own hide in
+perfect safety."
+
+Well, now, I did not think, at that time, that that was either a very
+dignified or very logical argument but so it was, I had to get along
+with it as well as I could.
+
+It has occurred to-me here to-night that if I ever do shoot over the
+line at the people on the other side of the line into a slave State,
+and purpose to do so, keeping my skin safe, that I have now about the
+best chance I shall ever have. I should not wonder if there are some
+Kentuckians about this audience--we are close to Kentucky; and
+whether that be so or not, we are on elevated ground, and, by
+speaking distinctly, I should not wonder if some of the Kentuckians
+would hear me on the other side of the river. For that reason I
+propose to address a portion of what I have to say to the
+Kentuckians.
+
+I say, then, in the first place, to the Kentuckians, that I am what
+they call, as I understand it, a "Black Republican."  I think slavery
+is wrong, morally and politically.  I desire that it should be no
+further spread in--these United States, and I should not object if it
+should gradually terminate in the whole Union.  While I say this for
+myself, I say to you Kentuckians that I understand you differ
+radically with me upon this proposition; that you believe slavery is
+a good thing; that slavery is right; that it ought to be extended and
+perpetuated in this Union.  Now, there being this broad difference
+between us, I do not pretend, in addressing myself to you
+Kentuckians, to attempt proselyting you; that would be a vain effort.
+I do not enter upon it.  I only propose to try to show you that you
+ought to nominate for the next Presidency, at Charleston, my
+distinguished friend Judge Douglas.  In all that there is a
+difference between you and him, I understand he is sincerely for you,
+and more wisely for you than you are for yourselves.  I will try to
+demonstrate that proposition.  Understand, now, I say that I believe
+he is as sincerely for you, and more wisely for you, than you are for
+yourselves.
+
+What do you want more than anything else to make successful your
+views of slavery,--to advance the outspread of it, and to secure and
+perpetuate the nationality of it?  What do you want more than
+anything else?  What--is needed absolutely?  What is indispensable to
+you?  Why, if I may, be allowed to answer the question, it is to
+retain a hold upon the North, it is to retain support and strength
+from the free States.  If you can get this support and strength from
+the free States, you can succeed.  If you do not get this support and
+this strength from the free States, you are in the minority, and you
+are beaten at once.
+
+If that proposition be admitted,--and it is undeniable,--then the
+next thing I say to you is, that Douglas, of all the men in this
+nation, is the only man that affords you any hold upon the free
+States; that no other man can give you any strength in the free
+States.  This being so, if you doubt the other branch of the
+proposition, whether he is for you--whether he is really for you, as
+I have expressed it,--I propose asking your attention for a while to
+a few facts.
+
+The issue between you and me, understand, is, that I think slavery is
+wrong, and ought not to be outspread; and you think it is right, and
+ought to be extended and perpetuated. [A voice, "Oh, Lord!"]  That is
+my Kentuckian I am talking to now.
+
+I now proceed to try to show you that Douglas is as sincerely for you
+and more wisely for you than you are for yourselves.
+
+In the first place, we know that in a government like this, in a
+government of the people, where the voice of all the men of the
+country, substantially, enters into the execution--or administration,
+rather--of the government, in such a government, what lies at the
+bottom of all of it is public opinion.  I lay down the proposition,
+that Judge Douglas is not only the man that promises you in advance a
+hold upon the North, and support in the North, but he constantly
+moulds public opinion to your ends; that in every possible way he can
+he constantly moulds the public opinion of the North to your ends;
+and if there are a few things in which he seems to be against you,-
+-a, few things which he says that appear to be against you, and a few
+that he forbears to say which you would like to have him say you
+ought to remember that the saying of the one, or the forbearing to
+say the other, would lose his hold upon the North, and, by
+consequence, would lose his capacity to serve you.
+
+Upon this subject of moulding public opinion I call your attention to
+the fact--for a well established fact it is--that the Judge never
+says your institution of slavery is wrong.  There is not a public man
+in the United States, I believe, with the exception of Senator
+Douglas, who has not, at some time in his life, declared his opinion
+whether the thing is right or wrong; but Senator Douglas never
+declares it is wrong.  He leaves himself at perfect liberty to do all
+in your favor which he would be hindered from doing if he were to
+declare the thing to be wrong.  On the contrary, he takes all the
+chances that he has for inveigling the sentiment of the North,
+opposed to slavery, into your support, by never saying it is right.
+This you ought to set down to his credit: You ought to give him full
+credit for this much; little though it be, in comparison to the whole
+which he does for you.
+
+Some other, things I will ask your attention to. He said upon the
+floor of the United States Senate, and he has repeated it, as I
+understand, a great many times, that he does not care whether slavery
+is "voted up or voted down."  This again shows you, or ought to show
+you, if you would reason upon it, that he does not believe it to be
+wrong; for a man may say when he sees nothing wrong in a thing; that
+he, dues not care whether it be voted up or voted down but no man can
+logically say that he cares not whether a thing goes up or goes down
+which to him appears to be wrong. You therefore have a demonstration
+in this that to Judge Douglas's mind your favorite institution, which
+you would have spread out and made perpetual, is no wrong.
+
+Another thing he tells you, in a speech made at Memphis in Tennessee,
+shortly after the canvass in Illinois, last year.  He there
+distinctly told the people that there was a "line drawn by the
+Almighty across this continent, on the one side of which the soil
+must always be cultivated by slaves"; that he did not pretend to know
+exactly where that line was, but that there was such a line.  I want
+to ask your attention to that proposition again; that there is one
+portion of this continent where the Almighty has signed the soil
+shall always be cultivated by slaves; that its being cultivated by
+slaves at that place is right; that it has the direct sympathy and
+authority of the Almighty.  Whenever you can get these Northern
+audiences to adopt the opinion that slavery is right on the other
+side of the Ohio, whenever you can get them, in pursuance of
+Douglas's views, to adopt that sentiment, they will very readily make
+the other argument, which is perfectly logical, that that which is
+right on that side of the Ohio cannot be wrong on this, and that if
+you have that property on that side of the Ohio, under the seal and
+stamp of the Almighty, when by any means it escapes over here it is
+wrong to have constitutions and laws "to devil" you about it. So
+Douglas is moulding the public opinion of the North, first to say
+that the thing is right in your State over the Ohio River, and hence
+to say that that which is right there is not wrong here, and that all
+laws and constitutions here recognizing it as being wrong are
+themselves wrong, and ought to be repealed and abrogated.  He will
+tell you, men of Ohio, that if you choose here to have laws against
+slavery, it is in conformity to the idea that your climate is not
+suited to it, that your climate is not suited to slave labor, and
+therefore you have constitutions and laws against it.
+
+Let us attend to that argument for a little while and see if it be
+sound.  You do not raise sugar-cane (except the new-fashioned
+sugar-cane, and you won't raise that long), but they do raise it in
+Louisiana.  You don't raise it in Ohio, because you can't raise it
+profitably, because the climate don't suit it.  They do raise it in
+Louisiana, because there it is profitable.  Now, Douglas will tell
+you that is precisely the slavery question: that they do have slaves
+there because they are profitable, and you don't have them here
+because they are not profitable.  If that is so, then it leads to
+dealing with the one precisely as with the other.  Is there, then,
+anything in the constitution or laws of Ohio against raising
+sugar-cane?  Have you found it necessary to put any such provision in
+your law?  Surely not!  No man desires to raise sugar-cane in Ohio,
+but if any man did desire to do so, you would say it was a tyrannical
+law that forbids his doing so; and whenever you shall agree with
+Douglas, whenever your minds are brought to adopt his argument, as
+surely you will have reached the conclusion that although it is not
+profitable in Ohio, if any man wants it, is wrong to him not to let
+him have it.
+
+In this matter Judge Douglas is preparing the public mind for you of
+Kentucky to make perpetual that good thing in your estimation, about
+which you and I differ.
+
+In this connection, let me ask your attention to another thing.  I
+believe it is safe to assert that five years ago no living man had
+expressed the opinion that the negro had no share in the Declaration
+of Independence.  Let me state that again: five years ago no living
+man had expressed the opinion that the negro had no share in the
+Declaration of Independence.  If there is in this large audience any
+man who ever knew of that opinion being put upon paper as much as
+five years ago, I will be obliged to him now or at a subsequent time
+to show it.
+
+If that be true I wish you then to note the next fact: that within
+the space of five years Senator Douglas, in the argument of this
+question, has got his entire party, so far as I know, without
+exception, in saying that the negro has no share in the Declaration
+of Independence.  If there be now in all these United States one
+Douglas man that does not say this, I have been unable upon any
+occasion to scare him up.  Now, if none of you said this five years
+ago, and all of you say it now, that is a matter that you Kentuckians
+ought to note.  That is a vast change in the Northern public
+sentiment upon that question.
+
+Of what tendency is that change?  The tendency of that change is to
+bring the public mind to the conclusion that when men are spoken of,
+the negro is not meant; that when negroes are spoken of, brutes alone
+are contemplated.  That change in public sentiment has already
+degraded the black man in the estimation of Douglas and his followers
+from the condition of a man of some sort, and assigned him to the
+condition of a brute.  Now, you Kentuckians ought to give Douglas
+credit for this.  That is the largest possible stride that can be
+made in regard to the perpetuation of your thing of slavery.
+
+A voice:  Speak to Ohio men, and not to Kentuckians!
+
+Mr. LINCOLN: I beg permission to speak as I please.
+
+In Kentucky perhaps, in many of the slave States certainly, you are
+trying to establish the rightfulness of slavery by reference to the
+Bible.  You are trying to show that slavery existed in the Bible
+times by divine ordinance.  Now, Douglas is wiser than you, for your
+own benefit, upon that subject.  Douglas knows that whenever you
+establish that slavery was--right by the Bible, it will occur that
+that slavery was the slavery of the white man, of men without
+reference to color; and he knows very well that you may entertain
+that idea in Kentucky as much as you please, but you will never win
+any Northern support upon it.  He makes a wiser argument for you: he
+makes the argument that the slavery of the black man; the slavery of
+the man who has a skin of a different color from your own, is right.
+He thereby brings to your support Northern voters who could not for a
+moment be brought by your own argument of the Bible right of slavery.
+Will you give him credit for that?  Will you not say that in this
+matter he is more wisely for you than you are for yourselves?
+
+Now, having established with his entire party this doctrine, having
+been entirely successful in that branch of his efforts in your
+behalf, he is ready for another.
+
+At this same meeting at Memphis he declared that in all contests
+between the negro and the white man he was for the white man, but
+that in all questions between the negro and the crocodile he was for
+the negro.  He did not make that declaration accidentally at Memphis.
+He made it a great many times in the canvass in Illinois last year
+(though I don't know that it was reported in any of his speeches
+there, but he frequently made it).  I believe he repeated it at
+Columbus, and I should not wonder if be repeated it here.  It is,
+then, a deliberate way of expressing himself upon that subject.  It
+is a matter of mature deliberation with him thus to express himself
+upon that point of his case.  It therefore requires deliberate
+attention.
+
+The first inference seems to be that if you do not enslave the negro,
+you are wronging the white man in some way or other, and that whoever
+is opposed to the negro being enslaved, is, in some way or other,
+against the white man.  Is not that a falsehood?  If there was a
+necessary conflict between the white man and the negro, I should be
+for the white man as much as Judge Douglas; but I say there is no
+such necessary conflict.  I say that there is room enough for us all
+to be free, and that it not only does not wrong the white man that
+the negro should be free, but it positively wrongs the mass of the
+white men that the negro should be enslaved; that the mass of white
+men are really injured by the effects of slave labor in the vicinity
+of the fields of their own labor.
+
+But I do not desire to dwell upon this branch of the question more
+than to say that this assumption of his is false, and I do hope that
+that fallacy will not long prevail in the minds of intelligent white
+men.  At all events, you ought to thank Judge Douglas for it; it is
+for your benefit it is made.
+
+The other branch of it is, that in the struggle between the negro and
+the crocodile; he is for the negro.  Well, I don't know that there is
+any struggle between the negro and the crocodile, either.  I suppose
+that if a crocodile (or, as we old Ohio River boatmen used to call
+them, alligators) should come across a white man, he would kill him
+if he could; and so he would a negro.  But what, at last, is this
+proposition?  I believe it is a sort of proposition in proportion,
+which may be stated thus: "As the negro is to the white man, so is
+the crocodile to the negro; and as the negro may rightfully treat the
+crocodile as a beast or reptile, so the white man may rightfully
+treat the negro as a beast or a reptile."  That is really the "knip"
+of all that argument of his.
+
+Now, my brother Kentuckians, who believe in this, you ought to thank
+Judge Douglas for having put that in a much more taking way than any
+of yourselves have done.
+
+Again, Douglas's great principle, "popular sovereignty," as he calls
+it, gives you, by natural consequence, the revival of the slave trade
+whenever you want it.  If you question this, listen awhile, consider
+awhile what I shall advance in support of that proposition.
+
+He says that it is the sacred right of the man who goes into the
+Territories to have slavery if he wants it.  Grant that for
+argument's sake.  Is it not the sacred right of the man who don't go
+there equally to buy slaves in Africa, if he wants them?  Can you
+point out the difference?  The man who goes into the Territories of
+Kansas and Nebraska, or any other new Territory, with the sacred
+right of taking a slave there which belongs to him, would certainly
+have no more right to take one there than I would, who own no slave,
+but who would desire to buy one and take him there.  You will not say
+you, the friends of Judge Douglas but that the man who does not own a
+slave has an equal right to buy one and take him to the Territory as
+the other does.
+
+A voice: I want to ask a question. Don't foreign nations interfere
+with the slave trade?
+
+Mr. LINCOLN:  Well! I understand it to be a principle of Democracy to
+whip foreign nations whenever, they interfere with us.
+
+Voice: I only asked for information.  I am a Republican myself.
+
+Mr. LINCOLN: You and I will be on the best terms in the world, but
+I do not wish to be diverted from the point I was trying to press.
+
+I say that Douglas's popular sovereignty, establishing his sacred
+right in the people, if you please, if carried to its logical
+conclusion gives equally the sacred right to the people of the States
+or the Territories themselves to buy slaves wherever they can buy
+them cheapest; and if any man can show a distinction, I should like
+to hear him try it.  If any man can show how the people of Kansas
+have a better right to slaves, because they want them, than the
+people of Georgia have to buy them in Africa, I want him to do it.
+I think it cannot be done. If it is "popular sovereignty" for the
+people to have slaves because they want them, it is popular
+sovereignty for them to buy them in Africa because they desire to do
+so.
+
+I know that Douglas has recently made a little effort, not seeming to
+notice that he had a different theory, has made an effort to get rid
+of that.  He has written a letter, addressed to somebody, I believe,
+who resides in Iowa, declaring his opposition to the repeal of the
+laws that prohibit the Africa slave trade.  He bases his opposition
+to such repeal upon the ground that these laws are themselves one of
+the compromises of the Constitution of the United States.  Now, it
+would be very interesting to see Judge Douglas or any of his friends
+turn, to the Constitution of the United States and point out that
+compromise, to show where there is any compromise in the
+Constitution, or provision in the Constitution; express or implied,
+by which the administrators of that Constitution are under any
+obligation to repeal the African slave trade.  I know, or at least I
+think I know, that the framers of that Constitution did expect the
+African slave trade would be abolished at the end of twenty years, to
+which time their prohibition against its being abolished extended.
+there is abundant contemporaneous history to show that the framers of
+the Constitution expected it to be abolished. But while they so
+expected, they gave nothing for that expectation, and they put no
+provision in the Constitution requiring it should be so abolished.
+The migration or importation of such persons as the States shall see
+fit to admit shall not be prohibited, but a certain tax might be
+levied upon such importation.  But what was to be done after that
+time?  The Constitution is as silent about that as it is silent,
+personally, about myself.  There is absolutely nothing in it about
+that subject; there is only the expectation of the framers of the
+Constitution that the slave trade would be abolished at the end of
+that time; and they expected it would be abolished, owing to public
+sentiment, before that time; and the put that provision in, in order
+that it should not be abolished before that time, for reasons which I
+suppose they thought to be sound ones, but which I will not now try
+to enumerate before you.
+
+But while, they expected the slave trade would be abolished at that
+time, they expected that the spread of slavery into the new
+Territories should also be restricted.  It is as easy to prove that
+the framers of the Constitution of the United States expected that
+slavery should be prohibited from extending into the new Territories,
+as it is to prove that it was expected that the slave trade should be
+abolished.  Both these things were expected.  One was no more
+expected than the other, and one was no more a compromise of the
+Constitution than the other.  There was nothing said in the
+Constitution in regard to the spread of slavery into the Territory.
+I grant that; but there was something very important said about it by
+the same generation of men in the adoption of the old Ordinance of
+'87, through the influence of which you here in Ohio, our neighbors
+in Indiana, we in Illinois, our neighbors in Michigan and Wisconsin,
+are happy, prosperous, teeming millions of free men.  That generation
+of men, though not to the full extent members of the convention that
+framed the Constitution, were to some extent members of that
+convention, holding seats at the same time in one body and the other,
+so that if there was any compromise on either of these subjects, the
+strong evidence is that that compromise was in favor of the
+restriction of slavery from the new Territories.
+
+But Douglas says that he is unalterably opposed to the repeal of
+those laws because, in his view, it is a compromise of the
+Constitution.  You Kentuckians, no doubt, are somewhat offended with
+that.  You ought not to be!  You ought to be patient!  You ought to
+know that if he said less than that, he would lose the power of
+"lugging" the Northern States to your support.  Really, what you
+would push him to do would take from him his entire power to serve
+you.  And you ought to remember how long, by precedent, Judge Douglas
+holds himself obliged to stick by compromises.  You ought to remember
+that by the time you yourselves think you are ready to inaugurate
+measures for the revival of the African slave trade, that sufficient
+time will have arrived, by precedent, for Judge Douglas to break
+through, that compromise.  He says now nothing more strong than he
+said in 1849 when he declared in favor of Missouri Compromise,--and
+precisely four years and a quarter after he declared that Compromise
+to be a sacred thing, which "no ruthless hand would ever daze to
+touch," he himself brought forward the measure ruthlessly to destroy
+it.  By a mere calculation of time it will only be four years more
+until he is ready to take back his profession about the sacredness of
+the Compromise abolishing the slave trade.  Precisely as soon as you
+are ready to have his services in that direction, by fair
+calculation, you may be sure of having them.
+
+But you remember and set down to Judge Douglas's debt, or discredit,
+that he, last year, said the people of Territories can, in spite of
+the Dred Scott decision, exclude your slaves from those Territories;
+that he declared, by "unfriendly legislation" the extension of your
+property into the new Territories may be cut off, in the teeth of the
+decision of the Supreme Court of the United States.
+
+He assumed that position at Freeport on the 27th of August, 1858.  He
+said that the people of the Territories can exclude slavery, in so
+many words: You ought, however, to bear in mind that he has never
+said it since.  You may hunt in every speech that he has since made,
+and he has never used that expression once.  He has never seemed to
+notice that he is stating his views differently from what he did
+then; but by some sort of accident, he has always really stated it
+differently.  He has always since then declared that "the
+Constitution does not carry slavery into the Territories of the
+United States beyond the power of the people legally to control it,
+as other property."  Now, there is a difference in the language used
+upon that former occasion and in this latter day.  There may or may
+not be a difference in the meaning, but it is worth while considering
+whether there is not also a difference in meaning.
+
+What is it to exclude?  Why, it is to drive it out.  It is in some
+way to put it out of the Territory.  It is to force it across the
+line, or change its character so that, as property, it is out of
+existence.  But what is the controlling of it "as other property"?
+Is controlling it as other property the same thing as destroying it,
+or driving it away?  I should think not.  I should think the
+controlling of it as other property would be just about what you in
+Kentucky should want.  I understand the controlling of property means
+the controlling of it for the benefit of the owner of it.  While I
+have no doubt the Supreme Court of the United States would say "God
+speed" to any of the Territorial Legislatures that should thus
+control slave property, they would sing quite a different tune if, by
+the pretence of controlling it, they were to undertake to pass laws
+which virtually excluded it,--and that upon a very well known
+principle to all lawyers, that what a Legislature cannot directly do,
+it cannot do by indirection; that as the Legislature has not the
+power to drive slaves out, they have no power, by indirection, by
+tax, or by imposing burdens in any way on that property, to effect
+the same end, and that any attempt to do so would be held by the Dred
+Scott court unconstitutional.
+
+Douglas is not willing to stand by his first proposition that they
+can exclude it, because we have seen that that proposition amounts to
+nothing more nor less than the naked absurdity that you may lawfully
+drive out that which has a lawful right to remain. He admitted at
+first that the slave might be lawfully taken into the Territories
+under the Constitution of the United States, and yet asserted that he
+might be lawfully driven out.  That being the proposition, it is the
+absurdity I have stated.  He is not willing to stand in the face of
+that direct, naked, and impudent absurdity; he has, therefore,
+modified his language into that of being "controlled as other
+property."
+
+The Kentuckians don't like this in Douglas! I will tell you where it
+will go. He now swears by the court.  He was once a leading man in
+Illinois to break down a court, because it had made a decision he did
+not like. But he now not only swears by the court, the courts having
+got to working for you, but he denounces all men that do not swear by
+the courts, as unpatriotic, as bad citizens.  When one of these acts
+of unfriendly legislation shall impose such heavy burdens as to, in
+effect, destroy property in slaves in a Territory, and show plainly
+enough that there can be no mistake in the purpose of the Legislature
+to make them so burdensome, this same Supreme Court will decide that
+law to be unconstitutional, and he will be ready to say for your
+benefit "I swear by the court; I give it up"; and while that is going
+on he has been getting all his men to swear by the courts, and to
+give it up with him. In this again he serves you faithfully, and, as
+I say, more wisely than you serve yourselves.
+
+Again: I have alluded in the beginning of these remarks to the fact
+that Judge Douglas has made great complaint of my having expressed
+the opinion that this government "cannot endure permanently, half
+slave and half free."  He has complained of Seward for using
+different language, and declaring that there is an "irrepressible
+conflict" between the principles of free and slave labor.  [A voice:
+" He says it is not original with Seward.  That it is original with
+Lincoln."]  I will attend to that immediately, sir. Since that time,
+Hickman of Pennsylvania expressed the same sentiment. He has never
+denounced Mr. Hickman: why?  There is a little chance,
+notwithstanding that opinion in the mouth of Hickman, that he may yet
+be a Douglas man.  That is the difference!  It is not unpatriotic to
+hold that opinion if a man is a Douglas man.
+
+But neither I, nor Seward, nor Hickman is entitled to the enviable or
+unenviable distinction of having first expressed that idea.  That
+same idea was expressed by the Richmond Enquirer, in Virginia, in
+1856,--quite two years before it was expressed by the first of us.
+And while Douglas was pluming himself that in his conflict with my
+humble self, last year, he had "squelched out" that fatal heresy, as
+he delighted to call it, and had suggested that if he only had had a
+chance to be in New York and meet Seward he would have "squelched" it
+there also, it never occurred to him to breathe a word against Pryor.
+I don't think that you can discover that Douglas ever talked of going
+to Virginia to "squelch" out that idea there.  No.  More than that.
+That same Roger A. Pryor was brought to Washington City and made the
+editor of the par excellence Douglas paper, after making use of that
+expression, which, in us, is so unpatriotic and heretical.  From all
+this, my Kentucky friends may see that this opinion is heretical in
+his view only when it is expressed by men suspected of a desire that
+the country shall all become free, and not when expressed by those
+fairly known to entertain the desire that the whole country shall
+become slave. When expressed by that class of men, it is in nowise
+offensive to him. In this again, my friends of Kentucky, you have
+Judge Douglas with you.
+
+There is another reason why you Southern people ought to nominate
+Douglas at your convention at Charleston.  That reason is the
+wonderful capacity of the man,--the power he has of doing what would
+seem to be impossible. Let me call your attention to one of these
+apparently impossible things:
+
+Douglas had three or four very distinguished men of the most extreme
+anti-slavery views of any men in the Republican party expressing
+their desire for his re-election to the Senate last year.  That
+would, of itself, have seemed to be a little wonderful; but that
+wonder is heightened when we see that Wise of Virginia, a man exactly
+opposed to them, a man who believes in the divine right of slavery,
+was also expressing his desire that Douglas should be reelected; that
+another man that may be said to be kindred to Wise, Mr. Breckinridge,
+the Vice-President, and of your own State, was also agreeing with the
+anti-slavery men in the North that Douglas ought to be re-elected.
+Still to heighten the wonder, a senator from Kentucky, whom I have
+always loved with an affection as tender and endearing as I have ever
+loved any man, who was opposed to the anti-slavery men for reasons
+which seemed sufficient to him, and equally opposed to Wise and
+Breckinridge, was writing letters into Illinois to secure the
+reelection of Douglas.  Now, that all these conflicting elements
+should be brought, while at daggers' points with one another, to
+support him, is a feat that is worthy for you to note and consider.
+It is quite probable that each of these classes of men thought, by
+the re-election of Douglas, their peculiar views would gain
+something: it is probable that the anti-slavery men thought their
+views would gain something; that Wise and Breckinridge thought so
+too, as regards their opinions; that Mr. Crittenden thought that his
+views would gain something, although he was opposed to both these
+other men.  It is probable that each and all of them thought that
+they were using Douglas; and it is yet an unsolved problem whether he
+was not using them all.  If he was, then it is for you to consider
+whether that power to perform wonders is one for you lightly to throw
+away.
+
+There is one other thing that I will say to you, in this relation. It
+is but my opinion, I give it to you without a fee.  It is my opinion
+that it is for you to take him or be defeated; and that if you do
+take him you may be beaten.  You will surely be beaten if you do not
+take him.  We, the Republicans and others forming the opposition of
+the country, intend to "stand by our guns," to be patient and firm,
+and in the long run to beat you, whether you take him or not.  We
+know that before we fairly beat you we have to beat you both
+together.  We know that you are "all of a feather," and that we have
+to beat you all together, and we expect to do it.  We don't intend to
+be very impatient about it.  We mean to be as deliberate and calm
+about it as it is possible to be, but as firm and resolved as it is
+possible for men to be.  When we do as we say,--beat you,--you
+perhaps want to know what we will do with you.
+
+I will tell you, so far as I am authorized to speak for the
+opposition, what we mean to do with you. We mean to treat you, as
+near as we possibly can, as Washington, Jefferson, and Madison
+treated you.  We mean to leave you alone, and in no way interfere
+with your institution; to abide by all and every compromise of the
+Constitution, and, in a word, coming back to the original
+proposition, to treat you, so far as degenerated men (if we have
+degenerated) may, according to the examples of those noble fathers,
+Washington, Jefferson, and Madison.  We mean to remember that you are
+as good as we; that there is no difference between us other than the
+difference of circumstances.  We mean to recognize and bear in mind
+always that you have as good hearts in your bosoms as other people,
+or as we claim to have, and treat you accordingly.  We mean to marry
+your girls when we have a chance, the white ones I mean; and I have
+the honor to inform you that I once did have a chance in that way.
+
+I have told you what we mean to do. I want to know, now, when that
+thing takes place, what do you mean to do?  I often hear it intimated
+that you mean to divide the Union whenever a Republican, or anything
+like it, is elected President of the United States.  [A voice: "That
+is so."]  "That is so," one of them says; I wonder if he is a
+Kentuckian?  [A voice: "He is a Douglas man."]  Well, then, I want to
+know what you are going to do with your half of it?  Are you going to
+split the Ohio down through, and push your half off a piece?  Or are
+you going to keep it right alongside of us outrageous fellows?  Or
+are you going to build up a wall some way between your country and
+ours, by which that movable property of yours can't come over here
+any more, to the danger of your losing it?  Do you think you can
+better yourselves, on that subject, by leaving us here under no
+obligation whatever to return those specimens of your movable
+property that come hither?  You have divided the Union because we
+would not do right with you, as you think, upon that subject; when we
+cease to be under obligations to do anything for you, how much better
+off do you think you will be?  Will you make war upon us and kill us
+all?  Why, gentlemen, I think you are as gallant and as brave men as
+live; that you can fight as bravely in a good cause, man for man, as
+any other people living; that you have shown yourselves capable of
+this upon various occasions: but, man for man, you are not better
+than we are, and there are not so many of you as there are of us. You
+will never make much of a hand at whipping us.  If we were fewer in
+numbers than you, I think that you could whip us; if we were equal,
+it would likely be a drawn battle; but being inferior in numbers, you
+will make nothing by attempting to master us.
+
+But perhaps I have addressed myself as long, or longer, to the
+Kentuckians than I ought to have done, inasmuch as I have said that
+whatever course you take we intend in the end to beat you.  I propose
+to address a few remarks to our friends, by way of discussing with
+them the best means of keeping that promise that I have in good faith
+made.
+
+It may appear a little episodical for me to mention the topic of
+which I will speak now. It is a favorite position of Douglas's that
+the interference of the General Government, through the Ordinance of
+'87, or through any other act of the General Government never has
+made or ever can make a free State; the Ordinance of '87 did not make
+free States of Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois; that these States are free
+upon his "great principle" of popular sovereignty, because the people
+of those several States have chosen to make them so.  At Columbus,
+and probably here, he undertook to compliment the people that they
+themselves have made the State of Ohio free, and that the Ordinance
+of '87 was not entitled in any degree to divide the honor with them.
+I have no doubt that the people of the State of Ohio did make her
+free according to their own will and judgment, but let the facts be
+remembered.
+
+In 1802, I believe, it was you who made your first constitution, with
+the clause prohibiting slavery, and you did it, I suppose, very
+nearly unanimously; but you should bear in mind that you--speaking of
+you as one people--that you did so unembarrassed by the actual
+presence of the, institution amongst you; that you made it a free
+State not with the embarrassment upon you of already having among you
+many slaves, which if they had been here, and you had sought to make
+a free State, you would not know what to do with.  If they had been
+among you, embarrassing difficulties, most probably, would have
+induced you to tolerate a slave constitution instead of a free one,
+as indeed these very difficulties have constrained every people on
+this continent who have adopted slavery.
+
+Pray what was it that made you free?  What kept you free?  Did you
+not find your country free when you came to decide that Ohio should
+be a free State?  It is important to inquire by what reason you found
+it so.  Let us take an illustration between the States of Ohio and
+Kentucky.  Kentucky is separated by this River Ohio, not a mile wide.
+A portion of Kentucky, by reason of the course of the Ohio, is
+farther north than this portion of Ohio, in which we now stand.
+Kentucky is entirely covered with slavery; Ohio is entirely free from
+it: What made that difference?  Was it climate?  No.  A portion of
+Kentucky was farther north than this portion of Ohio.  Was it soil?
+No.  There is nothing in the soil of the one more favorable to slave
+than the other. It was not climate or soil that mused one side of the
+line to be entirely covered with slavery, and the other side free of
+it.  What was it?  Study over it.  Tell us, if you can, in all the
+range of conjecture, if there be anything you can conceive of that
+made that difference, other than that there was no law of any sort
+keeping it out of Kentucky, while the Ordinance of '87 kept it out of
+Ohio.  If there is any other reason than this, I confess that it is
+wholly beyond my power to conceive of it.  This, then, I offer to
+combat the idea that that Ordinance has never made any State free.
+
+I don't stop at this illustration. I come to the State of Indiana;
+and what I have said as between Kentucky and Ohio, I repeat as
+between Indiana and Kentucky: it is equally applicable. One
+additional argument is applicable also to Indiana.  In her
+Territorial condition she more than once petitioned Congress to
+abrogate the Ordinance entirely, or at least so far as to suspend its
+operation for a, time, in order that they should exercise the
+"popular sovereignty" of having slaves if they wanted them. The men
+then controlling the General Government, imitating the men of the
+Revolution, refused Indiana that privilege.  And so we have the
+evidence that Indiana supposed she could have slaves, if it were not
+for that Ordinance; that she besought Congress to put that barrier
+out of the way; that Congress refused to do so; and it all ended at
+last in Indiana being a free State.  Tell me not then that the
+Ordinance of '87 had nothing to do with making Indiana a free State,
+when we find some men chafing against, and only restrained by, that
+barrier.
+
+Come down again to our State of Illinois.  The great Northwest
+Territory, including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and
+Wisconsin, was acquired first, I believe, by the British Government,
+in part at least, from the French.  Before the establishment of our
+independence it became a part of Virginia, enabling Virginia
+afterward to transfer it to the General Government.  There were
+French settlements in what is now Illinois, and at the same time
+there were French settlements in what is now Missouri, in the tract
+of country that was not purchased till about 1803.  In these French
+settlements negro slavery had existed for many years, perhaps more
+than a hundred; if not as much as two hundred years,--at Kaskaskia,
+in Illinois, and at St. Genevieve, or Cape Girardeau, perhaps, in
+Missouri.  The number of slaves was not very great, but there was
+about the same number in each place.  They were there when we
+acquired the Territory.  There was no effort made to break up the
+relation of master and slave, and even the Ordinance of 1787 was not
+so enforced as to destroy that slavery in Illinois; nor did the
+Ordinance apply to Missouri at all.
+
+What I want to ask your attention to; at this point, is that Illinois
+and Missouri came into the Union about the same time, Illinois in the
+latter part of 1818, and Missouri, after a struggle, I believe
+sometime in 1820.  They had been filling up with American people
+about the same period of time; their progress enabling them to come
+into the Union about the same time.  At the end of that ten years, in
+which they had been so preparing (for it was about that period of
+time), the number of slaves in Illinois had actually decreased; while
+in Missouri, beginning with very few, at the end of that ten years
+there were about ten thousand.  This being so, and it being
+remembered that Missouri and Illinois are, to a certain extent, in
+the same parallel of latitude, that the northern half of Missouri and
+the southern half of Illinois are in the same parallel of latitude,
+so that climate would have the same effect upon one as upon the
+other, and that in the soil there is no material difference so far as
+bears upon the question of slavery being settled upon one or the
+other,--there being none of those natural causes to produce a
+difference in filling them, and yet there being a broad difference to
+their filling up, we are led again to inquire what was the cause of
+that difference.
+
+It is most natural to say that in Missouri there was no law to keep
+that country from filling up with slaves, while in Illinois there was
+the Ordinance of The Ordinance being there, slavery decreased during
+that ten years; the Ordinance not being in the other, it increased
+from a few to ten thousand. Can anybody doubt the reason of the
+difference?
+
+I think all these facts most abundantly prove that my friend Judge
+Douglas's proposition, that the Ordinance of '87, or the national
+restriction of slavery, never had a tendency to make a free State, is
+a fallacy,--a proposition without the shadow or substance of truth
+about it.
+
+Douglas sometimes says that all the States (and it is part of this
+same proposition I have been discussing) that have become free have
+become so upon his "great principle"; that the State of Illinois
+itself came into the Union as a slave State, and that the people,
+upon the "great principle" of popular sovereignty, have since made it
+a free State.  Allow me but a little while to state to you what facts
+there are to justify him in saying that Illinois came into the Union
+as a slave State.
+
+I have mentioned to you that there were a few old French slaves
+there.  They numbered, I think, one or two hundred.  Besides that,
+there had been a Territorial law for indenturing black persons.
+Under that law, in violation of the Ordinance of '87, but without any
+enforcement of the Ordinance to overthrow the system, there had been
+a small number of slaves introduced as indentured persons.  Owing to
+this, the clause for the prohibition of slavery was slightly
+modified.  Instead of running like yours, that neither slavery nor
+involuntary servitude, except for crime, of which the party shall
+have been duly convicted, should exist in the State, they said that
+neither slavery nor involuntary servitude should thereafter be
+introduced; and that the children of indentured servants should be
+born free; and nothing was said about the few old French slaves.  Out
+of this fact, that the clause for prohibiting slavery was modified
+because of the actual presence of it, Douglas asserts again and again
+that Illinois came into the Union as a slave State.  How far the
+facts sustain the conclusion that he draws, it is for intelligent and
+impartial men to decide.  I leave it with you, with these remarks,
+worthy of being remembered, that that little thing, those few
+indentured servants being there, was of itself sufficient to modify a
+constitution made by a people ardently desiring to have a free
+constitution; showing the power of the actual presence of the
+institution of slavery to prevent any people, however anxious to make
+a free State, from making it perfectly so.
+
+I have been detaining you longer, perhaps, than I ought to do.
+
+I am in some doubt whether to introduce another topic upon which I
+could talk a while. [Cries of "Go on," and "Give us it."] It is this,
+then: Douglas's  Popular sovereignty, as a principle, is simply this:
+If one man chooses to make a slave of another man, neither that man
+nor anybody else has a right to object.  Apply it to government, as
+he seeks to apply it, and it is this: If, in a new Territory into
+which a few people are beginning to enter for the purpose of making
+their homes, they choose to either exclude slavery from their limits,
+or to establish it there, however one or the other may affect the
+persons to be enslaved, or the infinitely greater number of persons
+who are afterward to inhabit that Territory, or the other members of
+the family of communities of which they are but an incipient member,
+or the general head of the family of States as parent of all, however
+their action may affect one or the other of these, there is no power
+or right to interfere.  That is Douglas's popular sovereignty
+applied.  Now, I think that there is a real popular sovereignty in
+the world.  I think the definition of popular sovereignty, in the
+abstract, would be about this: that each man shall do precisely as he
+pleases with himself, and with all those things which exclusively
+concern him.  Applied in government, this principle would be that a
+general government shall do all those things which pertain to it, and
+all the local governments shall do precisely as they please in
+respect to those matters which exclusively concern them.
+
+Douglas looks upon slavery as so insignificant that the people must
+decide that question for themselves; and yet they are not fit to
+decide who shall be their governor, judge, or secretary, or who shall
+be any of their officers.  These are vast national matters in his
+estimation; but the little matter in his estimation is that of
+planting slavery there.  That is purely of local interest, which
+nobody should be allowed to say a word about.
+
+Labor is the great source from which nearly all, if not all, human
+comforts and necessities are drawn. There is a difference in opinion
+about the elements of labor in society.  Some men assume that there
+is necessary connection between capital and labor, and that
+connection draws within it the whole of the labor of the community.
+They assume that nobody works unless capital excites them to work.
+They begin next to consider what is the best way.  They say there are
+but two ways: one is to hire men, and to allure them to labor by
+their consent; the other is to buy the men, and drive them, to it,
+and that is slavery.  Having assumed that, they proceed to discuss
+the question of whether the laborers themselves are better off in the
+condition of slaves or of hired laborers, and they usually decide
+that they are better off in the condition of slaves.
+
+In the first place, I say that the whole thing is a mistake.  That
+there is a certain relation between capital and labor, I admit.  That
+it does exist, and rightfully exists, I think is true.  That men who
+are industrious, and sober, and honest in the pursuit of their own
+interests should after a while accumulate capital, and after that
+should be allowed to enjoy it in peace, and also, if they should
+choose, when they have accumulated it, to use it to save themselves
+from actual labor, and hire other people to labor for them, is right.
+In doing so they do not wrong the man they employ, for they find men
+who have not of their own land to work upon, or shops to work in, and
+who are benefited by working for others, hired laborers, receiving
+their capital for it.  Thus a few men, that own capital, hire a few
+others, and these establish the relation of capital and labor
+rightfully, a relation of which I make no complaint. But I insist
+that that relation, after all, does not embrace more than one eighth
+of the labor of the country.
+
+[The speaker proceeded to argue that the hired laborer, with his
+ability to become an employer, must have every precedence over him
+who labors under the inducement of force. He continued:]
+
+I have taken upon myself in the name of some of you to say that we
+expect upon these principles to ultimately beat them. In order to do
+so, I think we want and must have a national policy in regard to the
+institution of slavery that acknowledges and deals with that
+institution as being wrong.  Whoever desires the prevention of the
+spread of slavery and the nationalization of that institution yields
+all when he yields to any policy that either recognizes slavery as
+being right or as being an indifferent thing.  Nothing will make you
+successful but setting up a policy which shall treat the thing as
+being wrong: When I say this, I do not mean to say that this General
+Government is charged with the duty of redressing or preventing all
+the wrongs in the world, but I do think that it is charged with
+preventing and redressing all wrongs which are wrongs to itself.
+This Government is expressly charged with the duty of providing for
+the general welfare.  We believe that the spreading out and
+perpetuity of the institution of slavery impairs the general welfare.
+We believe--nay, we know--that that is the only thing that has ever
+threatened the perpetuity of the Union itself.  The only thing which
+has ever menaced the destruction of the government under which we
+live is this very thing. To repress this thing, we think, is,
+Providing for the general welfare. Our friends in Kentucky differ
+from us.  We need not make our argument for them, but we who think it
+is wrong in all its relations, or in some of them at least, must
+decide as to our own actions and our own course, upon our own
+judgment.
+
+I say that we must not interfere with the institution of slavery in
+the States where it exists, because the Constitution forbids it, and
+the general welfare does not require us to do so.  We must not
+withhold an efficient Fugitive Slave law, because the Constitution
+requires us, as I understand it, not to withhold such a law.  But we
+must prevent the outspreading of the institution, because neither the
+Constitution nor general welfare requires us to extend it.  We must
+prevent the revival of the African slave trade, and the enacting by
+Congress of a Territorial slave code.  We must prevent each of these
+things being done by either Congresses or courts.  The people of
+these United States are the rightful masters of both Congresses and
+courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men
+who pervert the Constitution.
+
+To do these things we must employ instrumentalities.  We must hold
+conventions; we must adopt platforms, if we conform to ordinary
+custom; we must nominate candidates; and we must carry elections.  In
+all these things, I think that we ought to keep in view our real
+purpose, and in none do anything that stands adverse to our purpose.
+If we shall adopt a platform that fails to recognize or express our
+purpose, or elect a man that declares himself inimical to our
+purpose, we not only take nothing by our success, but we tacitly
+admit that we act upon no other principle than a desire to have "the
+loaves and fishes," by which, in the end, our apparent success is
+really an injury to us.
+
+I know that this is very desirable with me, as with everybody else,
+that all the elements of the opposition shall unite in the next
+Presidential election and in all future time. I am anxious that that
+should be; but there are things seriously to be considered in
+relation to that matter.  If the terms can be arranged, I am in favor
+of the union.  But suppose we shall take up some man, and put him
+upon one end or the other of the ticket, who declares himself against
+us in regard to the prevention of the spread of slavery, who turns up
+his nose and says he is tired of hearing anything more about it, who
+is more against us than against the enemy, what will be the issue?
+Why, he will get no slave States, after all,--he has tried that
+already until being beat is the rule for him.  If we nominate him
+upon that ground, he will not carry a slave State; and not only so,
+but that portion of our men who are high-strung upon the principle we
+really fight for will not go for him, and he won't get a single
+electoral vote anywhere, except, perhaps, in the State of Maryland.
+There is no use in saying to us that we are stubborn and obstinate
+because we won't do some such thing as this.  We cannot do it.  We
+cannot get our men to vote it.  I speak by the card, that we cannot
+give the State of Illinois in such case by fifty thousand.  We would
+be flatter down than the "Negro Democracy" themselves have the heart
+to wish to see us.
+
+After saying this much let me say a little on the other side. There
+are plenty of men in the slave States that are altogether good enough
+for me to be either President or Vice-President, provided they will
+profess their sympathy with our purpose, and will place themselves on
+the ground that our men, upon principle, can vote for them.  There
+are scores of them, good men in their character for intelligence and
+talent and integrity.  If such a one will place himself upon the
+right ground, I am for his occupying one place upon the next
+Republican or opposition ticket.  I will heartily go for him.  But
+unless he does so place himself, I think it a matter of perfect
+nonsense to attempt to bring about a union upon any other basis; that
+if a union be made, the elements will scatter so that there can be no
+success for such a ticket, nor anything like success.  The good old
+maxims of the Bible axe applicable, and truly applicable, to human
+affairs, and in this, as in other things, we may say here that he who
+is not for us is against us; he who gathereth not with us,
+scattereth.  I should be glad to have some of the many good and able
+and noble men of the South to place themselves where we can confer
+upon them the high honor of an election upon one or the other end of
+our ticket.  It would do my soul good to do that thing.  It would
+enable us to teach them that, inasmuch as we select one of their own
+number to carry out our principles, we are free from the charge that
+we mean more than we say.
+
+But, my friends, I have detained you much longer than I expected to
+do.  I believe I may do myself the compliment to say that you have
+stayed and heard me with great patience, for which I return you my
+most sincere thanks.
+
+
+
+
+ON PROTECTIVE TARIFFS
+
+TO EDWARD WALLACE.
+
+CLINTON, October 11, 1859
+
+Dr. EDWARD WALLACE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I am here just now attending court.  Yesterday, before
+I left Springfield, your brother, Dr. William S. Wallace, showed me a
+letter of yours, in which you kindly mention my name, inquiring for
+my tariff views, and suggest the propriety of my writing a letter
+upon the subject.  I was an old Henry-Clay-Tariff Whig.  In old times
+I made more speeches on that subject than any other.
+
+I have not since changed my views.  I believe yet, if we could have a
+moderate, carefully adjusted protective tariff, so far acquiesced in
+as not to be a perpetual subject of political strife, squabbles
+changes, and uncertainties, it would be better for us.  Still it is
+my opinion that just now the revival of that question will not
+advance the cause itself, or the man who revives it.
+
+I have not thought much on the subject recently, but my general
+impression is that the necessity for a protective tariff will ere
+long force its old opponents to take it up; and then its old friends
+can join in and establish it on a more firm and durable basis.  We,
+the Old Whigs, have been entirely beaten out on the tariff question,
+and we shall not be able to re-establish the policy until the absence
+of it shall have demonstrated the necessity for it in the minds of
+men heretofore opposed to it.  With this view, I should prefer to not
+now write a public letter on the subject.  I therefore wish this to
+be considered confidential.   I shall be very glad to receive a
+letter from you.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ON MORTGAGES
+
+TO W. DUNGY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, November, 2, 1859.
+
+WM. DUNGY, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of October 27 is received.  When a mortgage is given
+to secure two notes, and one of the notes is sold and assigned, if
+the mortgaged premises are only sufficient to pay one note, the one
+assigned will take it all.  Also, an execution from a judgment on the
+assigned note may take it all; it being the same thing in substance.
+There is redemption on execution sales from the United States Court
+just as from any other court.
+
+You did not mention the name of the plaintiff or defendant in the
+suit, and so I can tell nothing about it as to sales, bids, etc.
+Write again.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+FRAGMENT OF SPEECH AT LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS,
+DECEMBER, 1859.
+
+.............  But you Democrats are for the Union; and you greatly
+fear the success of the Republicans would destroy the Union.  Why? Do
+the Republicans declare against the Union? Nothing like it.  Your own
+statement of it is that if the Black Republicans elect a President,
+you "won't stand it."  You will break up the Union.  If we shall
+constitutionally elect a President, it will be our duty to see that
+you submit.  Old John Brown has been executed for treason against a
+State.  We cannot object, even though he agreed with us in thinking
+slavery wrong.  That cannot excuse violence, bloodshed and treason.
+It could avail him nothing that he might think himself right.  So, if
+we constitutionally elect a President, and therefore you undertake to
+destroy the Union, it will be our duty to deal with you as old John
+Brown has been dealt with.  We shall try to do our duty.  We hope and
+believe that in no section will a majority so act as to render such
+extreme measures necessary.
+
+
+
+
+TO G. W. DOLE, G. S. HUBBARD, AND W. H. BROWN.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, Dec. 14, 1859
+
+MESSRS. DOLE, HUBBARD & BROWN.
+
+GENT.:--Your favor of the 12th is at hand, and it gives me pleasure
+to be able to answer it.  It is not my intention to take part in any
+of the rivalries for the gubernatorial nomination; but the fear of
+being misunderstood upon that subject ought not to deter me from
+doing justice to Mr. Judd, and preventing a wrong being done to him
+by the use of nay name in connection with alleged wrongs to me.
+
+In answer to your first question, as to whether Mr. Judd was guilty
+of any unfairness to me at the time of Senator Trumbull's election, I
+answer unhesitatingly in the negative; Mr. Judd owed no political
+allegiance to any party whose candidate I was.  He was in the Senate,
+holding over, having been elected by a Democratic Constituency.  He
+never was in any caucus of the friends who sought to make me U. S.
+Senator, never gave me any promises or pledges to support me, and
+subsequent events have greatly tended to prove the wisdom,
+politically, of Mr. Judd's course.  The election of Judge Trumbull
+strongly tended to sustain and preserve the position of that lion of
+the Democrats who condemned the repeal of the Missouri Compromise,
+and left them in a position of joining with us in forming the
+Republican party, as was done at the Bloomington convention in 1856.
+
+During the canvass of 1858 for the senatorship my belief was, and
+still is, that I had no more sincere and faithful friend than Mr.
+Judd--certainly none whom I trusted more.  His position as chairman
+of the State Central Committee led to my greater intercourse with
+him, and to my giving him a larger share of my confidence, than with
+or to almost any other friend; and I have never suspected that that
+confidence was, to any degree, misplaced.
+
+My relations with Mr. Judo since the organization of the Republican
+party, in, our State, in 1856, and especially since the adjournment
+of the Legislature in Feb., 1857, have been so very intimate that I
+deem it an impossibility that he could have been dealing
+treacherously with me. He has also, at all times, appeared equally
+true and faithful to the party. In his position as chairman of the
+committee, I believe he did all that any man could have done. The
+best of us are liable to commit errors, which become apparent by
+subsequent developments; but I do not know of a single error, even,
+committed by Mr. Judd, since he and I have acted together
+politically.
+
+I, had occasionally heard these insinuations against Mr. Judd, before
+the receipt of your letter; and in no instance have I hesitated to
+pronounce them wholly unjust, to the full extent of my knowledge and
+belief. I have been, and still am, very anxious to take no part
+between the many friends, all good and true, who are mentioned as
+candidates for a Republican gubernatorial nomination; but I can not
+feel that my own honor is quite clear if I remain silent when I hear
+any one of them assailed about matters of which I believe I know more
+than his assailants.
+
+I take pleasure in adding that, of all the avowed friends I had in
+the canvass of last year, I do not suspect any of having acted
+treacherously to me, or to our cause; and that there is not one of
+them in whose honesty, honor, and integrity I, today, have greater
+confidence than I have in those of Mr. Judd.
+
+I dislike to appear before the public in this matter; but you are at
+liberty to make such use of this letter as you may think justice
+requires.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO G. M. PARSONS AND OTHERS.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, December 19, 1859.
+
+MESSRS. G. M. PARSONS AND OTHERS, CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, ETC.
+
+GENTLEMEN:--Your letter of the 7th instant, accompanied by a similar
+one from the governor-elect, the Republican State officers, and the
+Republican members of the State Board of Equalization of Ohio, both
+requesting of me, for publication in permanent form, copies of the
+political debates between Senator Douglas and myself last year, has
+been received.  With my grateful acknowledgments to both you and them
+for the very flattering terms in which the request is communicated, I
+transmit you the copies.  The copies I send you are as reported and
+printed by the respective friends of Senator Douglas and myself, at
+the time--that is, his by his friends, and mine by mine.  It would be
+an unwarrantable liberty for us to change a word or a letter in his,
+and the changes I have made in mine, you perceive, are verbal only,
+and very few in number.  I wish the reprint to be precisely as the
+copies I send, without any comment whatever.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
+
+TO J. W. FELL,
+
+SPRINGFIELD, December 20, 1859.
+
+J. W. FELL, Esq.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Herewith is a little sketch, as you requested.  There
+is not much of it, for the reason, I suppose, that there is not much
+of me.  If anything be made out of it, I wish it to be modest, and
+not to go beyond the material.  If it were thought necessary to
+incorporate anything from any of my speeches I suppose there would be
+no objection.  Of course it must not appear to have been written by
+myself.
+
+Yours very truly,
+A. LINCOLN
+
+-----------------------
+
+I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky.  My parents
+were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families--second
+families, perhaps I should say.  My mother, who died in my tenth
+year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside
+in Adams, and others in Macon County, Illinois.  My paternal
+grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham County,
+Virginia, to Kentucky about 1781 or 1782, where a year or two later
+he was killed by the Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he
+was laboring to open a farm in the forest.  His ancestors, who were
+Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County, Pennsylvania.  An effort
+to identify them with the New England family of the same name ended
+in nothing more definite than a similarity of Christian names in both
+families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and the
+like.
+
+My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age, and
+he grew up literally without education.  He removed from Kentucky to
+what is now Spencer County, Indiana, in my eighth year.  We reached
+our new home about the time that State came into the Union.  It was a
+wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the
+woods.  There I grew up.  There were some schools, so called, but no
+qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond "readin',
+writin', and cipherin"' to the Rule of Three.  If a straggler
+supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood
+he was looked upon as a wizard.  There was absolutely nothing to
+excite ambition for education.  Of course, when I came of age I did
+not know much.  Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to
+the Rule of Three, but that was all.  I have not been to school
+since.  The little advance I now have upon this store of education I
+have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity.
+
+I was raised to farm work, which I continued till I was twenty-two.
+At twenty-one I came to Illinois, Macon County.  Then I got to New
+Salem, at that time in Sangamon, now in Menard County, where I
+remained a year as a sort of clerk in a store.  Then came the Black
+Hawk war; and I was elected a captain of volunteers, a success which
+gave me more pleasure than any I have had since.  I went the
+campaign, was elected, ran for the Legislature the same year (1832),
+and was beaten--the only time I ever have been beaten by the people.
+The next and three succeeding biennial elections I was elected to the
+Legislature.  I was not a candidate afterward.  During this
+legislative period I had studied law, and removed to Springfield to
+practice it.  In 1846 I was once elected to the lower House of
+Congress.  Was not a candidate for re-election.  From 1849 to 1854,
+both inclusive, practiced law more assiduously than ever before.
+Always a Whig in politics; and generally on the Whig electoral
+tickets, making active canvasses.  I was losing interest in politics
+when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again.  What I
+have done since then is pretty well known.
+
+If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be
+said I am, in height, six feet four inches, nearly; lean in flesh,
+weighing on an average one hundred and eighty pounds; dark
+complexion, with coarse black hair and gray eyes.  No other marks or
+brands recollected.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ON NOMINATION TO THE NATIONAL TICKET
+
+To N. B. JUDD.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, FEBRUARY 9, 1859
+
+HON. N. B. JUDD.
+
+DEAR Sir:--I am not in a position where it would hurt much for me to
+not be nominated on the national ticket; but I am where it would hurt
+some for me to not get the Illinois delegates.  What I expected when
+I wrote the letter to Messrs.  Dole and others is now happening.
+Your discomfited assailants are most bitter against me; and they
+will, for revenge upon me, lay to the Bates egg in the South, and to
+the Seward egg in the North, and go far toward squeezing me out in
+the middle with nothing.   Can you help me a little in this matter in
+your end of the vineyard.   I mean this to be private.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+
+1860
+
+
+SPEECH AT THE COOPER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK
+FEBRUARY 27, 1860
+
+
+MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF NEW YORK:--The facts with which
+I shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there
+anything new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall
+be any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and
+the inferences and observations following that presentation.
+
+In his speech last autumn at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New
+York Times, Senator Douglas said:
+
+"Our fathers, when they framed the Government under which we live,
+understood this question just as well, and even better than we do
+now."
+
+I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse.
+I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed starting-
+point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of the
+Democracy headed by Senator Douglas.  It simply leaves the inquiry:
+What was the understanding those fathers had of the question
+mentioned?
+
+What is the frame of Government under which we live?
+
+The answer must be--the Constitution of the United States.  That
+Constitution consists of the original, framed in 1787 (and under
+which the present Government first went into operation), and twelve
+subsequently framed amendments, the first ten of which were framed in
+1789.
+
+Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution?  I suppose the
+"thirty-nine" who signed the original instrument may be fairly called
+our fathers who framed that part of the present Government.  It is
+almost exactly true to say they framed it, and it is altogether true
+to say they fairly represented the opinion and sentiment of the whole
+nation at that time.
+
+Their names, being familiar to nearly all, and accessible to quite
+all, need not now be repeated.
+
+I take these "thirty-nine," for the present, as being our "fathers
+who framed the Government under which we live."
+
+What is the question which, according to the text, those fathers
+understood "just as well, and even better than we do now"?
+
+It is this: Does the proper division of local from Federal authority,
+or anything in the Constitution, forbid our Federal Government to
+control as to slavery in our Federal Territories?
+
+Upon this Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and Republicans the
+negative.  This affirmation and denial form an issue, and this issue-
+-this question is precisely what the text declares our fathers
+understood "better than we."
+
+Let us now inquire whether the "thirty-nine," or any of them, acted
+upon this question; and if they did, how they acted upon it--how they
+expressed that better understanding.
+
+In 1784, three years before the Constitution--the United States then
+owning the Northwestern Territory, and no other--the Congress of the
+Confederation had before them the question of prohibiting slavery in
+that Territory; and four of the "thirty nine" who afterward framed
+the Constitution were in that Congress and voted on that question.
+Of these, Roger Sherman, Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh Williamson voted
+for the prohibition, thus showing that, in their understanding, no
+line dividing local from Federal authority, nor anything else,
+properly forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in
+Federal territory.  The other of the four--James McHenry voted
+against the prohibition, showing that, for some cause, he thought it
+improper to vote for it.
+
+In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the convention was
+in session framing it, and while the Northwestern Territory still was
+the only Territory owned by the United States, the same question of
+prohibiting slavery in the Territory again came before the Congress
+of the Confederation; and two more of the "thirty-nine" who afterward
+signed the Constitution were in that Congress, and voted on the
+question. They were William Blount and William Few; and they both
+voted for the prohibition thus showing that, in their understanding,
+no line dividing local from Federal authority, nor anything else,
+properly forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in
+Federal territory. This time the prohibition became a law, being part
+of what is now well known as the Ordinance of '87.
+
+The question of Federal control of slavery in the Territories seems
+not to have been directly before the convention which framed the
+original Constitution; and hence it is not recorded that the
+"thirty-nine," or any of them, while engaged on that instrument,
+expressed any opinion on that precise question.
+
+In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under the Constitution, an
+act was passed to enforce the Ordinance of '87, including the
+prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory.  The bill for
+this act was reported by one of the "thirty-nine," Thomas
+Fitzsimmons, then a member of the House of Representatives from
+Pennsylvania.  It went through all its stages without a word of
+opposition, and finally passed both branches without yeas and nays,
+which is equivalent to a unanimous passage.  In this Congress there
+were sixteen of the thirty-nine fathers who framed the original
+Constitution.  They were John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman, Wm. S.
+Johnnson, Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, Thos. Fitzsimmons, William
+Few, Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William Paterson, George Claimer,
+Richard Bassett, George Read, Pierce Butler, Daniel Carroll, James
+Madison.
+
+This shows that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from
+Federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, properly forbade
+Congress to prohibit slavery in the Federal territory; else both
+their fidelity to correct principles and their oath to support the
+Constitution would have constrained them to oppose the prohibition.
+
+Again: George Washington, another of the "thirty nine," was then
+President of the United States, and, as such, approved and signed the
+bill; thus completing its validity as a law, and thus showing that,
+in his understanding, no line dividing local from Federal authority,
+nor anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to
+control as to slavery in Federal territory.
+
+No great while after the adoption of the original Constitution, North
+Carolina ceded to the Federal Government the country now constituting
+the State of Tennessee; and, a few years later, Georgia ceded that
+which now constitutes the States of Mississippi and Alabama.  In both
+deeds of cession it was made a condition by the ceding States that
+the Federal Government should not prohibit slavery in the ceded
+country.  Besides this, slavery was then actually in the ceded
+country.  Under these circumstances, Congress, on taking charge of
+these countries, did not absolutely prohibit slavery within them.
+But they did interfere with it--take control of it--even there, to a
+certain extent.  In 1798, Congress organized the Territory of
+Mississippi: In the act of organization they prohibited the bringing
+of slaves into the Territory from any place without the United
+States, by fine and giving freedom to slaves so brought.  This act
+passed both branches of Congress without yeas and nays.  In that
+Congress were three of the "thirty-nine" who framed the original
+Constitution. They were John Langdon, George Read, and Abraham
+Baldwin.  They all, probably, voted for it. Certainly they would have
+placed their opposition to it upon record, if, in their
+understanding, any line dividing local from Federal authority, or
+anything in the Constitution, properly forbade the Federal Government
+to control as to slavery in Federal territory.
+
+In 1803, the Federal Government purchased the Louisiana country.  Our
+former territorial acquisitions came from certain of our own States;
+but this Louisiana country was acquired from a foreign nation.  In
+1804, Congress gave a territorial organization to that part of it
+which now constitutes the State of Lousiana.  New Orleans, lying
+within that part, was an old and comparatively large city.  There
+were other considerable towns and settlements, and slavery was
+extensively and thoroughly intermingled with the people.  Congress
+did not, in the Territorial Act, prohibit slavery; but they did
+interfere with it take control of it--in a more marked and extensive
+way than they did in the case of Mississippi.  The substance of the
+provision therein made in relation to slaves was:
+
+First. That no slave should be imported into the Territory from
+foreign parts.
+
+Second. That no slave should be carried into it who had been imported
+into the United States since the first day of May, 1798.
+
+Third. That no slave should be carried into it except by the owner,
+and for his own use as a settler; the penalty in all the cases being
+a fine upon the violator of the law, and freedom to the slave.
+
+This act also was passed without yeas and nays. In the Congress which
+passed it there were two of the "thirty-nine."  They were Abraham
+Baldwin and Jonathan Dayton.  As stated in the case of Mississippi,
+it is probable they both voted for it. They would not have allowed it
+to pass without recording their opposition to it, if, in their
+understanding, it violated either the line properly dividing local
+from Federal authority, or any provision of the Constitution.
+
+In 1819-20 came and passed the Missouri question.  Many votes were
+taken, by yeas and nays, in both branches of Congress, upon the
+various phases of the general question. Two of the "thirty-nine"-
+-Rufus King and Charles Pinckney were members of that Congress.  Mr.
+King steadily voted for slavery prohibition and against all
+compromises, while Mr. Pinckney as steadily voted against slavery
+prohibition, and against all compromises.  By this, Mr. King showed
+that, in his understanding, no line dividing local from Federal
+authority, nor anything in the Constitution, was violated by Congress
+prohibiting slavery in Federal territory; while Mr. Pinckney, by his
+vote, showed that in his understanding there was some sufficient
+reason for opposing such prohibition in that case.
+
+The cases I have mentioned are the only acts of the "thirty-nine," or
+of any of them, upon the direct issue, which I have been able to
+discover.
+
+To enumerate the persons who thus acted, as being four in 1784, two
+in 1787, seventeen in 1789, three in 1798, two in 1804, and two in
+1819-20--there would be thirty of them.  But this would be counting,
+John Langdon, Roger Sherman, William Few, Rufus King, and George
+Read, each twice, and Abraham Baldwin three times.  The true number
+of those of the "thirty-nine" whom I have shown to have acted upon
+the question which, by the text, they understood better than we, is
+twenty-three, leaving sixteen not shown to have acted upon it in any
+way.
+
+Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our thirty-nine fathers "who
+framed the Government under which we live," who have, upon their
+official responsibility and their corporal oaths, acted upon the very
+question which the text affirms they "understood just as well, and
+even better than we do now"; and twenty-one of them--a clear majority
+of the whole "thirty-nine"--so acting upon it as to make them guilty
+of gross political impropriety and wilful perjury, if, in their
+understanding, any proper division between local and Federal.
+authority, or anything in the Constitution they had made themselves,
+and sworn to support, forbade the Federal Government to control as to
+slavery in the Federal Territories.  Thus the twenty-one acted; and,
+as actions speak louder than words, so actions under such
+responsibilities speak still louder.
+
+Two of the twenty-three voted against Congressional prohibition of
+slavery in the Federal Territories, in the instances in which they
+acted upon the question. But for what reasons they so voted is not
+known.  They may have done so because they thought a proper division
+of local from Federal authority, or some provision or principle of
+the Constitution, stood in the way; or they may, without any such
+question, have voted against the prohibition on what appeared to them
+to be sufficient grounds of expediency.  No one who has sworn to
+support the Constitution can conscientiously vote for what he
+understands to be an unconstitutional measure, however expedient he
+may think it; but one may and ought to vote against a measure which
+he deems constitutional, if, at the same time, he deems it
+inexpedient.  It therefore would be unsafe to set down even the two
+who voted against the prohibition as having done so because, in their
+understanding, any proper division of local from Federal authority,
+or anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to
+control as to slavery in Federal territory.
+
+The remaining sixteen of the "thirty-nine," so far as I have
+discovered, have left no record of their understanding upon the
+direct question of Federal control on slavery in the Federal
+Territories. But there is much reason to believe that their
+understanding upon that question would not have appeared different
+from that of their twenty-three compeers, had it been manifested at
+all.
+
+For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, I have purposely
+omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested by any
+person, however distinguished, other than the thirty-nine fathers who
+framed the original Constitution; and, for the same reason, I have
+also omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested by any
+of the "thirty tine" even on any other phase of the general question
+of slavery.  If we should look into their acts and declarations on
+those other phases, as the foreign slave trade, and the morality and
+policy of slavery generally, it would appear to us that on the direct
+question of Federal control of slavery in Federal Territories, the
+sixteen, if they had acted at all, would probably have acted just as
+the twenty-three did. Among that sixteen were several of the most
+noted anti-slavery men of those times--as Dr. Franklin, Alexander
+Hamilton, and Gouverneur Morris while there was not one now known to
+have been otherwise, unless it may be John Rutledge, of South
+Carolina.
+
+The sum of the whole is, that of our thirty-nine fathers who framed
+the original Constitution, twenty-one--a clear majority of the
+whole--certainly understood that no proper division of local from
+Federal authority, nor any part of the Constitution, forbade the
+Federal Government to control slavery in the Federal Territories;
+whilst all the rest probably had the same understanding.  Such,
+unquestionably, was the understanding of our fathers who framed the
+original Constitution; and the text affirms that they understood the
+question "better than we."
+
+But, so far, I have been considering the understanding of the
+question manifested by the framers of the original Constitution.  In
+and by the original instrument, a mode was provided for amending it;
+and, as I have already stated, the present frame of "the Government
+under which we live" consists of that original, and twelve amendatory
+articles framed and adopted since. Those who now insist that Federal
+control of slavery in Federal Territories violates the Constitution,
+point us to the provisions which they suppose it thus violates; and,
+as I understand, they all fix upon provisions in these amendatory
+articles, and not in the original instrument.  The Supreme Court, in
+the Dred Scott case, plant themselves upon the fifth amendment, which
+provides that no person shall be deprived of "life, liberty, or
+property without due process of law"; while Senator Douglas and his
+peculiar adherents plant themselves upon the tenth amendment,
+providing that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the
+Constitution"  "are reserved to the States respectively, or to the
+people."
+
+Now, it so happens that these amendments were framed by the first
+Congress which sat under the Constitution--the identical Congress
+which passed the act already mentioned, enforcing the prohibition of
+slavery in the Northwestern Territory.  Not only was it the same
+Congress, but they were the identical same individual men who, at the
+same session, and at the same time within the session, had under
+consideration, and in progress toward maturity, these Constitutional
+amendments, and this act prohibiting slavery in all the territory the
+nation then owned.  The Constitutional amendments were introduced
+before and passed after the act enforcing the Ordinance of '87; so
+that, during the whole pendency of the act to enforce the Ordinance,
+the Constitutional amendments were also pending.
+
+The seventy-six members of that Congress, including sixteen of the
+framers of the original Constitution, as before stated, were
+pre-eminently our fathers who framed that part of "the Government
+under which we live," which is now claimed as forbidding the Federal
+Government to control slavery in the Federal Territories.
+
+Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at this day to affirm that
+the two things which that Congress deliberately framed, and carried
+to maturity at the same time, are absolutely inconsistent with each
+other?  And does not such affirmation become impudently absurd when
+coupled with the other affirmation from the same mouth, that those
+who did the two things alleged to be inconsistent understood whether
+they really were inconsistent better than we--better than he who
+affirms that they are inconsistent?
+
+It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine framers of the
+original Constitution, and the seventy-six members of the Congress
+which framed the amendments thereto, taken together, do certainly
+include those who may be fairly called "our fathers who framed the
+Government under which we live."  And, so assuming, I defy any man to
+show that any one of them ever, in his whole life, declared that, in
+his understanding, any proper division of local from Federal
+authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal
+Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories.  I go
+a step further.  I defy any one to show that any living man in the
+world ever did, prior to the beginning of the present century (and I
+might almost say prior to the beginning of the last half of the
+present century), declare that, in his understanding, any proper
+division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the
+Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery
+in the Federal Territories.  To those who now so declare, I give not
+only "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live," but
+with them all other living men within the century in which it was
+framed, among whom to search, and they shall not be able to find the
+evidence of a single man agreeing with them.
+
+Now and here let me guard a little against being misunderstood. I do
+not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our
+fathers did.  To do so would be to discard all the lights of current
+experience to reject all progress, all improvement.  What I do say is
+that, if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers in
+any case, we should do so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument
+so clear, that even their great authority, fairly considered and
+weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case whereof we
+ourselves declare they understood the question better than we.
+
+If any man at this day sincerely believes that proper division of
+local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution,
+forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the
+Federal Territories, he is right to say so, and to enforce his
+position by all truthful evidence and fair argument which he can.
+But he has no right to mislead others who have less access to
+history, and less leisure to study it, into the false belief that
+"our fathers who framed the Government under which we live" were of
+the same opinion thus substituting falsehood and deception for
+truthful evidence and fair argument.  If any man at this day
+sincerely believes "our fathers, who framed the Government under
+which we live," used and applied principles, in other cases, which
+ought to have led them to understand that a proper division of local
+from Federal authority, or some part of the Constitution, forbids the
+Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal
+Territories, he is right to say so.  But he should, at the same time,
+brave the responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he
+understands their principles better than they did themselves; and
+especially should he not shirk that responsibility by asserting that
+they "understood the question just as well, and even better than we
+do now."
+
+But enough!  Let all who believe that "our fathers, who framed the
+Government under which we live, understood this question just as
+well, and even better than we do now," speak as they spoke, and act
+as they acted upon it.  This is all Republicans ask--all Republicans
+desire--in relation to slavery.  As those fathers marked it, so let
+it be again marked, as an evil not to be extended, but to be
+tolerated and protected only because of, and so far as, its actual
+presence among us makes that toleration and protection a necessity.
+Let all the guaranties those fathers gave it be not grudgingly, but
+fully and fairly maintained. For this Republicans contend, and with
+this, so far as I know or believe, they will be content.
+
+And now, if they would listen--as I suppose they will not--I would
+address a few words to the Southern people.
+
+I would say to them: You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just
+people; and I consider that in the general qualities of reason and
+justice you are not inferior to any other people.  Still, when you
+speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles,
+or, at the best, as no better than outlaws.  You will grant a hearing
+to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to "Black Republicans."
+In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an
+unconditional condemnation of "Black Republicanism" as the first
+thing to be attended to.  Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be
+an indispensable prerequisite license, so to speak among you, to be
+admitted or permitted to speak at all: Now; can you, or not, be
+prevailed upon to pause, and to consider whether this is quite just
+to us, or even to yourselves?  Bring forward your charges and
+specifications, and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or
+justify.
+
+You say we are sectional.  We deny it.  That makes an issue; and the
+burden of proof is upon you.  You produce your proof; and what is it?
+Why, that our party has no existence in your section--gets no votes
+in your section.  The fact is substantially true; but does it prove
+the issue?  If it does, then in case we should, without change of
+principle, begin to get votes in your section, we should thereby
+cease to be sectional.  You cannot escape this conclusion; and yet,
+are you willing to abide by it?  If you are, you will probably soon
+find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in
+your section this very year.  You will then begin to discover, as the
+truth plainly is, that your proof, does not touch the issue. The fact
+that we get no votes in your section is a fact of your making, and
+not of ours.  And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is
+primarily yours, and remains so until you show that we repel you by,
+some wrong principle or practice.  If we do repel you by any wrong
+principle or practice, the fault is ours; but this brings you to
+where you ought to have started to a discussion of the right or wrong
+of our principle.  If our principle, put in practice, would wrong
+your section for the benefit of ours, or for any other object, then
+our principle, and we with it, are sectional, and are justly opposed
+and denounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of whether our
+principle, put in practice, would wrong your section; and so meet us
+as if it were possible that something may be said on our side.  Do
+you accept the challenge?  No!  Then you really believe that the
+principle which "our fathers who framed the Government under which we
+live" thought so clearly right as to adopt it, and indorse it again
+and again, upon their official oaths, is in fact so clearly wrong as
+to demand your condemnation without a moment's consideration.
+
+Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warning against
+sectional parties given by Washington in his Farewell Address.  Less
+than eight years before Washington gave that warning, he had, as
+President of the United States, approved and signed an act of
+Congress enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern
+Territory, which act embodied the policy of the Government upon that
+subject up to, and at, the very moment he penned that warning; and
+about one year after he penned it, he wrote La Fayette that he
+considered that prohibition a wise measure, expressing in the same
+connection his hope that we should at some time have a confederacy of
+free States.
+
+Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has since arisen
+upon this same subject, is that warning a weapon in your hands
+against us, or in our hands against you?  Could Washington himself
+speak, would he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who
+sustain his policy, or upon you, who repudiate it?  We respect that
+warning of Washington, and we commend it to you, together with his
+example pointing to the right application of it.
+
+But you say you are conservative--eminently conservative--while we
+are revolutionary, destructive, or something, of the sort.  What is
+conservatism?  Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against a
+new and untried?  We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy
+on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who
+framed the Government under which we live"; while you with one accord
+reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy and insist upon
+substituting something new.  True, you disagree among yourselves as
+to what that substitute shall be.  You are divided on new
+propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and
+denouncing the old policy of the fathers.  Some of you are for
+reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congressional slave code
+for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the Territories to
+prohibit slavery within their limits; some for maintaining slavery in
+the Territories through the judiciary; some for the "gur-reat
+pur-rinciple" that "if one man would enslave another, no third man
+should object," fantastically called "popular sovereignty"; but never
+a man among you in favor of Federal prohibition of slavery in Federal
+Territories, according to the practice of "our fathers who framed the
+Government under which we live."  Not one of all your various plans
+can show a precedent or an advocate in the century within which our
+Government originated.  Consider, then, whether your claim of
+conservatism for yourselves, and your charge of destructiveness
+against us, are based on the most clear and stable foundations.
+
+Again: You say we have made the slavery question more prominent than
+it formerly was.  We deny it.  We admit that it is more prominent,
+but we deny that we made it so.  It was not we, but you, who
+discarded the old policy of the fathers.  We resisted and still
+resist your innovation; and thence comes the greater prominence of
+the question.  Would you have that question reduced to its former
+proportions?  Go back to that old policy.  What has been will be
+again, under the same conditions.  If you would have the peace of the
+old times, readopt the precepts and policy of the old times.
+
+You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves.  We deny
+it; and what is your proof'?  Harper's Ferry!  John Brown!!  John
+Brown was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single
+Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise.  If any member of our
+party is guilty in that matter you know it or you do not know it.  If
+you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man and
+proving the fact.  If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for
+asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after
+you have tried and failed to make the proof.  You need not be told
+that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true is
+simply malicious slander.
+
+Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or encouraged
+the Harper's Ferry affair, but still insist that our doctrines and
+declarations necessarily lead to such results.  We do not believe it.
+We know we hold to no doctrine, and make no declaration, which were
+not held to and made by our fathers who framed the Government under
+which we live.  You never dealt fairly by us in relation to this
+affair.  When it occurred, some important State elections were near
+at hand, and you were in evident glee with the belief that, by
+charging the blame upon us, you could get an advantage of us in those
+elections.   The elections came, and your expectations were not quite
+fulfilled.  Every Republican man knew that, as to himself at least,
+your charge was a slander, and he was not much inclined by it to cast
+his vote in your favor.  Republican doctrines and declarations are
+accompanied with a continued protest against any interference
+whatever with your slaves, or with you about your slaves.  Surely,
+this does not encourage them to revolt.  True, we do, in common with
+"our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live," declare
+our belief that slavery is wrong; but the slaves do not hear us
+declare even this.  For any thing we say or do, the slaves would
+scarcely know there is a Republican party.  I believe they would not,
+in fact, generally know it but for your misrepresentations of us in
+their hearing.  In your political contests among yourselves, each
+faction charges the other with sympathy with Black Republicanism; and
+then, to give point to the charge, defines Black Republicanism to
+simply be insurrection, blood, and thunder among the slaves.
+
+Slave insurrections are no more common now than they were before the
+Republican party was organized.  What induced the Southampton
+insurrection, twenty-eight years ago, in which, at least, three times
+as many lives were lost as at Harper's Ferry? You can scarcely
+stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclusion that Southampton
+was "got up by Black Republicanism."  In the present state of things
+in the United States, I do not think a general or even a very
+extensive slave insurrection is possible.  The indispensable concert
+of action cannot be attained.  The slaves have no means of rapid
+communication; nor can incendiary freemen, black or white, supply it.
+The explosive materials are everywhere in parcels; but there neither
+are, nor can be supplied the indispensable connecting trains.
+
+Much is said by Southern people about the affection of slaves for
+their masters and mistresses; and a part of it, at least, is true.  A
+plot for an uprising could scarcely be devised and communicated to
+twenty individuals before some one of them, to save the life of a
+favorite master or mistress, would divulge it.  This is the rule; and
+the slave revolution in Hayti was not an exception to it, but a case
+occurring under peculiar circumstances.  The gunpowder plot of
+British history, though not connected with slaves, was more in point.
+In that case, only about twenty were admitted to the secret; and yet
+one of them, in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the plot to
+that friend, and, by consequence, averted the calamity.  Occasional
+poisonings from the kitchen, and open or stealthy assassinations in
+the field, and local revolts, extending to a score or so, will
+continue to occur as the natural results of slavery; but no general
+insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in this country for a
+long time.  Whoever much fears or much hopes for such an event will
+be alike disappointed.
+
+In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years ago, "It is
+still in our power to direct the process of emancipation and
+deportation peaceably, and in such slow degrees as that the evil will
+wear off insensibly, and their places be, pari passu, filled up by
+free white laborers.  If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself
+on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up."
+
+Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the power of
+emancipation is in the Federal Government.  He spoke of Virginia;
+and, as to the power of emancipation, I speak of the slave holding
+States only.  The Federal Government, however, as we insist, has the
+power of restraining the extension of the institution--the power to
+insure that a slave insurrection shall never occur on any American
+soil which is now free from slavery.
+
+John Brown's effort was peculiar.  It was not a slave insurrection.
+It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in
+which the slaves refused to participate.  In fact, it was so absurd
+that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it
+could not succeed.  That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with
+the many attempts related in history at the assassination of kings
+and emperors.  An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people
+till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them.  He
+ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own
+execution.  Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon and John Brown's
+attempt at Harper's Ferry were, in their philosophy, precisely the
+same.  The eagerness to cast blame on old England in the one case,
+and on New England in the other, does not disprove the sameness of
+the two things.
+
+And how much would it avail you, if you could, by the use of John
+Brown, Helper's Book, and the like, break up the Republican
+organization? Human action can be modified to some extent, but human
+nature cannot be changed.  There is a judgment and a feeling against
+slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a half of
+votes.  You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling--that sentiment-
+-by breaking up the political organization which rallies around it.
+You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which has been formed
+into order in the face of your heaviest fire; but if you could, how
+much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which created it out of
+the peaceful channel of the ballot-box, into some other channel?
+What would that other channel probably be?  Would the number of John
+Browns be lessened or enlarged by the operation?
+
+But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of
+your constitutional rights.
+
+That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be palliated, if not
+fully justified, were we proposing, by the mere force of numbers, to
+deprive you of some right plainly written down in the Constitution.
+But we are proposing no such thing.
+
+When you make these declarations, you have a specific and well-
+understood allusion to an assumed constitutional right of yours to
+take slaves into the Federal Territories, and to hold them there as
+property.  But no such right is specifically written in the
+Constitution.  That instrument is literally silent about any such
+right.  We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any existence
+in the Constitution, even by implication.
+
+Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the
+Government unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the
+Constitution as you please on all points in dispute between you and
+us.  You will rule or ruin, in all events.
+
+This, plainly stated, is your language.  Perhaps you will say the
+Supreme Court has decided the disputed constitutional question in
+your favor.  Not quite so.  But, waiving the lawyer's distinction
+between dictum and decision, the court have decided the question for
+you in a sort of way.  The court have substantially said it is your
+constitutional right to take slaves into the Federal Territories, and
+to hold them there as property.  When I say, the decision was made in
+a sort of way, I mean it was made in a divided court, by a bare
+majority of the judges, and they not quite agreeing with one another
+in the reasons for making it; that it is so made as that its avowed
+supporters disagree with one another about its meaning, and that it
+was mainly based upon a mistaken statement of fact--the statement in
+the opinion that "the right of property in a slave is distinctly and
+expressly affirmed in the Constitution."
+
+An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of
+property in a slave is not "distinctly and expressly affirmed" in it.
+Bear in mind, the judges do not pledge their judicial opinion that
+such right is impliedly affirmed in the Constitution; but they pledge
+their veracity that it is "distinctly and expressly" affirmed there-
+-"distinctly," that is, not mingled with anything else; "expressly,"
+that is, in words meaning just that, without the aid of any
+inference, and susceptible of no other meaning.
+
+If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that such right is
+affirmed in the instrument by implication, it would be open to others
+to show that neither the word "slave" nor "slavery" is to be found in
+the Constitution, nor the word "property" even, in any connection
+with language alluding to the things slave or slavery; and that
+wherever in that instrument the slave is alluded to, he is called a
+"person"; and wherever his master's legal right in relation to him is
+alluded to, it is spoken of as "service or labor which may be due,"
+as a debt payable in service or labor.  Also, it would be open to
+show, by contemporaneous history, that this mode of alluding to
+slaves and slavery, instead of speaking of them, was employed on
+purpose to exclude from the Constitution the idea that there could be
+property in man.
+
+To show all this, is easy and certain.
+
+When this obvious mistake of the judges shall be brought to their
+notice, is it not reasonable to expect that they will withdraw the
+mistaken statement, and reconsider the conclusion based upon it?
+
+And then it is to be remembered that "our fathers; who framed the
+Government under which we live",--the men who made the Constitution--
+decided this same constitutional question in our favor, long ago;
+decided it without division among themselves, when making the
+decision, without division among themselves about the meaning of it
+after it was made, and, so far as any evidence is left, without
+basing it upon any mistaken statement of facts.
+
+Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves
+justified to break up this Government unless such a court decision as
+yours is shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule
+of political action?  But you will not abide the election of a
+Republican President!  In that supposed event, you say, you will
+destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having
+destroyed it will be upon us!  That is cool.  A highwayman holds a
+pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "stand and deliver,
+or I shall kill you, and then you'll be a murderer!"
+
+To be sure, what the robber demanded of me-my money was my own, and I
+had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote
+is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the
+threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely
+be distinguished in principle.
+
+A few words now to Republicans: It is exceedingly desirable that all
+parts of this great confederacy shall be at peace and in harmony one
+with another.  Let us Republicans do our part to have it so.  Even
+though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill
+temper.  Even though the Southern people will not so much as listen
+to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to them if, in
+our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can.  Judging by all
+they say and do, and by the subject and nature of their controversy
+with us, let us determine, if we can, what will satisfy them.
+
+Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally
+surrendered to them?  We know they will not.  In all their present
+complaints against us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned.
+Invasions and insurrections are the rage now.  Will it satisfy them
+if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and,
+insurrections?  We know it will not.  We so know because we know we
+never had anything to do with invasions and insurrections; and yet
+this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the
+denunciation.
+
+The question recurs, what will satisfy them?  Simply this: We must
+not only let them alone, but we must, somehow, convince them that we
+do let them alone.  This, we know by experience, is no easy task.
+We have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of
+our organization, but with no success.  In all our platforms and
+speeches we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone;
+but this has had no tendency to convince them.  Alike unavailing to
+convince them is the fact that they have never detected a man of us
+in any attempt to disturb them.
+
+These natural and apparently adequate means all failing, what will
+convince them?  This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and
+join them in calling it right.  And this must be done thoroughly--
+done in acts as well as in words.  Silence will not be tolerated--we
+must place ourselves avowedly with them.  Senator Douglas's new
+sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all
+declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in
+presses, in pulpits; or in private.  We must arrest and return their
+fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure.  We must pull down our free
+State constitutions.  The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from
+all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe
+that all their troubles proceed from us.
+
+I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely in this way.
+Most of them would probably say to us, "Let us alone, do nothing to
+us, and say what you please about slavery."  But we do let them alone
+have never disturbed them--so that after all it is what we say which
+dissatisfies them.  They will continue to accuse us of doing, until
+we cease saying.
+
+I am also aware they have not as yet, in terms, demanded the
+overthrow of our free State constitutions.  Yet those constitutions
+declare the wrong of slavery, with more solemn emphasis than do all
+other sayings against it; and when all these other sayings shall have
+been silenced, the overthrow of these constitutions will be demanded,
+and nothing be left to resist the demand.  It is nothing to the
+contrary, that they do not demand the whole of this just now.
+Demanding what they do, and for the reason they do, they can
+voluntarily stop nowhere short of this consummation.  Holding, as
+they do, that slavery is morally right, and socially elevating, they
+cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of it, as a legal
+right and a social blessing.
+
+Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground save our
+conviction that slavery is wrong.  If slavery is right, all words,
+acts, laws, and constitutions against it are themselves wrong, and
+should be silenced and swept away.  If it is right, we cannot justly
+object to its nationality its universality; if it is wrong, they
+cannot justly insist upon its extension--its enlargement.  All they
+ask we could readily grant if we thought slavery right; all we ask
+they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong.  Their
+thinking it right and our thinking it wrong is the precise fact upon
+which depends the whole controversy.  Thinking it right, as they do,
+they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as being
+right; but thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them?  Can we
+cast our votes with their view, and against our own?  In view of our
+moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this?  Wrong
+as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it
+is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual
+presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it,
+allow it to spread into the national Territories, and to overrun us
+here in these free States?  If our sense of duty forbids this, then
+let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively.  Let us be
+diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are
+so industriously plied and belabored-contrivances such as groping for
+some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the
+search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead
+man-such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about which all
+true men do care--such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to
+yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not
+the sinners, but the righteous to repentance--such as invocations to
+Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo
+what Washington did.
+
+Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations
+against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the
+Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT
+MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR
+DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.
+
+
+
+
+SPEECH AT NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT, MARCH 6, 1860
+
+MR. PRESIDENT, AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF NEW HAVEN:--If the Republican
+party of this nation shall ever have the national House entrusted to
+its keeping, it will be the duty of that party to attend to all the
+affairs of national housekeeping.  Whatever matters of importance may
+come up, whatever difficulties may arise in its way of administration
+of the Government, that party will then have to attend to.  It will
+then be compelled to attend to other questions, besides this question
+which now assumes an overwhelming importance--the question of
+slavery.  It is true that in the organization of the Republican party
+this question of slavery was more important than any other: indeed,
+so much more important has it become that no more national question
+can even get a hearing just at present.  The old question of tariff-
+-a matter that will remain one of the chief affairs of national
+house-keeping to all time; the question of the management of
+financial affairs; the question of the disposition of the public
+domain how shall it be managed for the purpose of getting it well
+settled, and of making there the homes of a free and happy people?
+these will remain open and require attention for a great while yet,
+and these questions will have to be attended to by whatever party has
+the control of the Government.  Yet, just now, they cannot even
+obtain a hearing, and I do not propose to detain you upon these
+topics or what sort of hearing they should have when opportunity
+shall come.
+
+For, whether we will or not, the question of slavery is the question,
+the all-absorbing topic of the day. It is true that all of us--and by
+that I mean, not the Republican party alone, but the whole American
+people, here and elsewhere--all of us wish this question settled,
+wish it out of the way. It stands in the way, and prevents the
+adjustment, and the giving of necessary attention to other questions
+of national house-keeping. The people of the whole nation agree that
+this question ought to be settled, and yet it is not settled.  And
+the reason is that they are not yet agreed how it shall be settled.
+All wish it done, but some wish one way and some another, and some a
+third, or fourth, or fifth; different bodies are pulling in different
+directions, and none of them, having a decided majority, are able to
+accomplish the common object.
+
+In the beginning of the year 1854, a new policy was inaugurated with
+the avowed object and confident promise that it would entirely and
+forever put an end to the slavery agitation.  It was again and again
+declared that under this policy, when once successfully established,
+the country would be forever rid of this whole question.  Yet under
+the operation of that policy this agitation has not only not ceased,
+but it has been constantly augmented.  And this too, although, from
+the day of its introduction, its friends, who promised that it would
+wholly end all agitation, constantly insisted, down to the time that
+the Lecompton Bill was introduced, that it was working admirably, and
+that its inevitable tendency was to remove the question forever from
+the politics of the country.  Can you call to mind any Democratic
+speech, made after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, down to the
+time of the Lecompton Bill, in which it was not predicted that the
+slavery agitation was just at an end, that "the abolition excitement
+was played out," "the Kansas question was dead," "they have made the
+most they can out of this question and it is now forever settled"?
+But since the Lecompton Bill no Democrat, within my experience, has
+ever pretended that he could see the end. That cry has been dropped.
+They themselves do not pretend, now, that the agitation of this
+subject has come to an end yet.
+
+The truth is that this question is one of national importance, and we
+cannot help dealing with it; we must do something about it, whether
+we will or not.  We cannot avoid it; the subject is one we cannot
+avoid considering; we can no more avoid it than a man can live
+without eating.  It is upon us; it attaches to the body politic as
+much and closely as the natural wants attach to our natural bodies.
+Now I think it important that this matter should be taken up in
+earnest, and really settled: And one way to bring about a true
+settlement of the question is to understand its true magnitude.
+
+There have been many efforts made to settle it.  Again and again it
+has been fondly hoped that it was settled; but every time it breaks
+out afresh, and more violently than ever.  It was settled, our
+fathers hoped, by the Missouri Compromise, but it did not stay
+settled.  Then the compromises of 1850 were declared to be a full and
+final settlement of the question.  The two great parties, each in
+national convention, adopted resolutions declaring that the
+settlement made by the Compromise of 1850 was a finality that it
+would last forever.  Yet how long before it was unsettled again?
+It broke out again in 1854, and blazed higher and raged more
+furiously than ever before, and the agitation has not rested since.
+
+These repeated settlements must have some faults about them.  There
+must be some inadequacy in their very nature to the purpose to which
+they were designed.  We can only speculate as to where that fault,
+that inadequacy, is, but we may perhaps profit by past experiences.
+
+I think that one of the causes of these repeated failures is that our
+best and greatest men have greatly underestimated the size of this
+question.  They have constantly brought forward small cures for great
+sores--plasters too small to cover the wound.  That is one reason
+that all settlements have proved temporary--so evanescent.
+
+Look at the magnitude of this subject: One sixth of our population,
+in round numbers--not quite one sixth, and yet more than a seventh,--
+about one sixth of the whole population of the United States are
+slaves.  The owners of these slaves consider them property.  The
+effect upon the minds of the owners is that of property, and nothing
+else it induces them to insist upon all that will favorably affect
+its value as property, to demand laws and institutions and a public
+policy that shall increase and secure its value, and make it durable,
+lasting, and universal.  The effect on the minds of the owners is to
+persuade them that there is no wrong in it.  The slaveholder does not
+like to be considered a mean fellow for holding that species of
+property, and hence, he has to struggle within himself and sets about
+arguing himself into the belief that slavery is right.  The property
+influences his mind.  The dissenting minister who argued some
+theological point with one of the established church was always met
+with the reply, "I can't see it so."  He opened a Bible and pointed
+him a passage, but the orthodox minister replied, "I can't see it
+so."  Then he showed him a single word--"Can you see that?"  "Yes, I
+see it," was the reply.  The dissenter laid a guinea over the word
+and asked, "Do you see it now?"  So here.  Whether the owners of this
+species of property do really see it as it is, it is not for me to
+say, but if they do, they see it as it is through two thousand
+millions of dollars, and that is a pretty thick coating.  Certain it
+is that they do not see it as we see it.  Certain it is that this two
+thousand millions of dollars, invested in this species of property,
+all so concentrated that the mind can grasp it at once--this immense
+pecuniary interest--has its influence upon their minds.
+
+But here in Connecticut and at the North slavery does not exist, and
+we see it through no such medium.
+
+To us it appears natural to think that slaves are human beings; men,
+not property; that some of the things, at least, stated about men in
+the Declaration of Independence apply to them as well as to us.
+I say we think, most of us, that this charter of freedom applies to
+the slaves as well as to ourselves; that the class of arguments put
+forward to batter down that idea are also calculated to break down
+the very idea of a free government, even for white men, and to
+undermine the very foundations of free society.  We think slavery a
+great moral wrong, and, while we do not claim the right to touch it
+where it exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the Territories,
+where our votes will reach it.  We think that a respect for
+ourselves, a regard for future generations and for the God that made
+us, require that we put down this wrong where our votes will properly
+reach it.  We think that species of labor an injury to free white men
+--in short, we think slavery a great moral, social, and political
+evil, tolerable only because, and so far as, its actual existence
+makes it necessary to tolerate it, and that beyond that it ought to
+be treated as a wrong.
+
+Now these two ideas, the property idea that slavery is right, and the
+idea that it is wrong, come into collision, and do actually produce
+that irrepressible conflict which Mr. Seward has been so roundly
+abused for mentioning.  The two ideas conflict, and must conflict.
+
+Again, in its political aspect, does anything in any way endanger the
+perpetuity of this Union but that single thing, slavery?  Many of our
+adversaries are anxious to claim that they are specially devoted to
+the Union, and take pains to charge upon us hostility to the Union.
+Now we claim that we are the only true Union men, and we put to them
+this one proposition: Whatever endangers this Union, save and except
+slavery?  Did any other thing ever cause a moment's fear?  All men
+must agree that this thing alone has ever endangered the perpetuity
+of the Union.  But if it was threatened by any other influence, would
+not all men say that the best thing that could be done, if we could
+not or ought not to destroy it, would be at least to keep it from
+growing any larger?  Can any man believe, that the way to save the
+Union is to extend and increase the only thing that threatens the
+Union, and to suffer it to grow bigger and bigger?
+
+Whenever this question shall be settled, it must be settled on some
+philosophical basis. No policy that does not rest upon some
+philosophical opinion can be permanently maintained.  And hence there
+are but two policies in regard to slavery that can be at all
+maintained.  The first, based on the property view that slavery is
+right, conforms to that idea throughout, and demands that we shall do
+everything for it that we ought to do if it were right.  We must
+sweep away all opposition, for opposition to the right is wrong; we
+must agree that slavery is right, and we must adopt the idea that
+property has persuaded the owner to believe that slavery is morally
+right and socially elevating.  This gives a philosophical basis for a
+permanent policy of encouragement.
+
+The other policy is one that squares with the idea that slavery is
+wrong, and it consists in doing everything that we ought to do if it
+is wrong.  Now, I don't wish to be misunderstood, nor to leave a gap
+down to be misrepresented, even.  I don't mean that we ought to
+attack it where it exists.  To me it seems that if we were to form a
+government anew, in view of the actual presence of slavery we should
+find it necessary to frame just such a government as our fathers did-
+-giving to the slaveholder the entire control where the system was
+established, while we possessed the power to restrain it from going
+outside those limits.  From the necessities of the case we should be
+compelled to form just such a government as our blessed fathers gave
+us; and, surely, if they have so made it, that adds another reason
+why we should let slavery alone where it exists.
+
+If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any man would say I
+might seize the nearest stick and kill it; but if I found that snake
+in bed with my children, that would be another question.  I might
+hurt the children more than the snake, and it might bite them.  Much
+more if I found it in bed with my neighbor's children, and I had
+bound myself by a solemn compact not to meddle with his children
+under any circumstances, it would become me to let that particular
+mode of getting rid of the gentleman alone.  But if there was a bed
+newly made up, to which the children were to be taken, and it was
+proposed to take a batch of young snakes and put them there with
+them, I take it no man would say there was any question how I ought
+to decide!
+
+That is just the case.  The new Territories are the newly made bed to
+which our children are to go, and it lies with the nation to say
+whether they shall have snakes mixed up with them or not.  It does
+not seem as if there could be much hesitation what our policy should
+be!
+
+Now I have spoken of a policy based on the idea that slavery is
+wrong, and a policy based on the idea that it is right.  But an
+effort has been made for a policy that shall treat it as neither
+right nor wrong.  It is based upon utter indifference.  Its leading
+advocate [Douglas] has said, "I don't care whether it be voted up or
+down."  "It is merely a matter of dollars and cents."  "The Almighty
+has drawn a line across this continent, on one side of which all soil
+must forever be cultivated by slave labor, and on the other by free."
+"When the struggle is between the white man and the negro, I am for
+the white man; when it is between the negro and the crocodile, I am
+for the negro."  Its central idea is indifference.   It holds that it
+makes no more difference to us whether the Territories become free or
+slave States than whether my neighbor stocks his farm with horned
+cattle or puts in tobacco.  All recognize this policy, the plausible
+sugar-coated name of which is "popular sovereignty."
+
+This policy chiefly stands in the way of a permanent settlement of
+the question.  I believe there is no danger of its becoming the
+permanent policy of the country, for it is based on a public
+indifference.  There is nobody that "don't care."  All the people do
+care one way or the other!  I do not charge that its author, when he
+says he "don't care," states his individual opinion; he only
+expresses his policy for the government.  I understand that he has
+never said as an individual whether he thought slavery right or
+wrong--and he is the only man in the nation that has not! Now such a
+policy may have a temporary run; it may spring up as necessary to the
+political prospects of some gentleman; but it is utterly baseless:
+the people are not indifferent, and it can therefore have no
+durability or permanence.
+
+But suppose it could: Then it could be maintained only by a public
+opinion that shall say, "We don't care."  There must be a change in
+public opinion; the public mind must be so far debauched as to square
+with this policy of caring not at all.  The people must come to
+consider this as "merely a question of dollars and cents," and to
+believe that in some places the Almighty has made slavery necessarily
+eternal.  This policy can be brought to prevail if the people can be
+brought round to say honestly, "We don't care"; if not, it can never
+be maintained.  It is for you to say whether that can be done.
+
+You are ready to say it cannot, but be not too fast! Remember what a
+long stride has been taken since the repeal of the Missouri
+Compromise! Do you know of any Democrat, of either branch of the
+party--do you know one who declares that he believes that the
+Declaration of Independence has any application to the negro? Judge
+Taney declares that it has not, and Judge Douglas even vilifies me
+personally and scolds me roundly for saying that the Declaration
+applies to all men, and that negroes are men.   Is there a Democrat
+here who does not deny that the Declaration applies to the negro? Do
+any of you know of one? Well, I have tried before perhaps fifty
+audiences, some larger and some smaller than this, to find one such
+Democrat, and never yet have I found one who said I did not place him
+right in that.  I must assume that Democrats hold that, and now, not
+one of these Democrats can show that he said that five years ago! I
+venture to defy the whole party to produce one man that ever uttered
+the belief that the Declaration did not apply to negroes, before the
+repeal of the Missouri Compromise! Four or five years ago we all
+thought negroes were men, and that when "all men" were named, negroes
+were included.  But the whole Democratic party has deliberately taken
+negroes from the class of men and put them in the class of brutes.
+Turn it as you will it is simply the truth! Don't be too hasty, then,
+in saying that the people cannot be brought to this new doctrine, but
+note that long stride.  One more as long completes the journey from
+where negroes are estimated as men to where they are estimated as
+mere brutes--as rightful property!
+
+That saying "In the struggle between white men and the negro," etc.,
+which I know came from the same source as this policy--that saying
+marks another step.  There is a falsehood wrapped up in that
+statement.  "In the struggle between the white man and the negro"
+assumes that there is a struggle, in which either the white man must
+enslave the negro or the negro must enslave the white.  There is no
+such struggle! It is merely the ingenious falsehood to degrade and
+brutalize the negro.  Let each let the other alone, and there is no
+struggle about it.  If it was like two wrecked seamen on a narrow
+plank, when each must push the other off or drown himself, I would
+push the negro off or a white man either, but it is not; the plank is
+large enough for both.  This good earth is plenty broad enough for
+white man and negro both, and there is no need of either pushing the
+other off.
+
+So that saying, "In the struggle between the negro and the
+crocodile," etc., is made up from the idea that down where the
+crocodile inhabits, a white man can't labor; it must be nothing else
+but crocodile or negro; if the negro does not the crocodile must
+possess the earth; in that case he declares for the negro.  The
+meaning of the whole is just this: As a white man is to a negro, so
+is a negro to a crocodile; and as the negro may rightfully treat the
+crocodile, so may the white man rightfully treat the negro.   This
+very dear phrase coined by its author, and so dear that he
+deliberately repeats it in many speeches, has a tendency to still
+further brutalize the negro, and to bring public opinion to the point
+of utter indifference whether men so brutalized are enslaved or not.
+When that time shall come, if ever, I think that policy to which I
+refer may prevail.  But I hope the good freemen of this country will
+never allow it to come, and until then the policy can never be
+maintained.
+
+Now consider the effect of this policy.  We in the States are not to
+care whether freedom or slavery gets the better, but the people in
+the Territories may care.  They are to decide, and they may think
+what they please; it is a matter of dollars and cents! But are not
+the people of the Territories detailed from the States? If this
+feeling of indifference this absence of moral sense about the
+question prevails in the States, will it not be carried into the
+Territories? Will not every man say, "I don't care, it is nothing to
+me"? If any one comes that wants slavery, must they not say, "I don't
+care whether freedom or slavery be voted up or voted down"? It
+results at last in nationalizing the institution of slavery.  Even if
+fairly carried out, that policy is just as certain to nationalize
+slavery as the doctrine of Jeff Davis himself.  These are only two
+roads to the same goal, and "popular sovereignty" is just as sure and
+almost as short as the other.
+
+What we want, and all we want, is to have with us the men who think
+slavery wrong.  But those who say they hate slavery, and are opposed
+to it, but yet act with the Democratic party--where are they? Let us
+apply a few tests.  You say that you think slavery is wrong, but you
+denounce all attempts to restrain it.  Is there anything else that
+you think wrong that you are not willing to deal with as wrong? Why
+are you so careful, so tender, of this one wrong and no other? You
+will not let us do a single thing as if it was wrong; there is no
+place where you will even allow it to be called wrong! We must not
+call it wrong in the free States, because it is not there, and we
+must not call it wrong in the slave States, because it is there; we
+must not call it wrong in politics because that is bringing morality
+into politics, and we must not call it wrong in the pulpit because
+that is bringing politics into religion; we must not bring it into
+the Tract Society or the other societies, because those are such
+unsuitable places--and there is no single place, according to you,
+where this wrong thing can properly be called wrong!
+
+Perhaps you will plead that if the people of the slave States should
+themselves set on foot an effort for emancipation, you would wish
+them success, and bid them God-speed.  Let us test that: In 1858 the
+emancipation party of Missouri, with Frank Blair at their head, tried
+to get up a movement for that purpose, and having started a party
+contested the State.  Blair was beaten, apparently if not truly, and
+when the news came to Connecticut, you, who knew that Frank Blair was
+taking hold of this thing by the right end, and doing the only thing
+that you say can properly be done to remove this wrong--did you bow
+your heads in sorrow because of that defeat? Do you, any of you, know
+one single Democrat that showed sorrow over that result? Not one! On
+the contrary every man threw up his hat, and hallooed at the top of
+his lungs, "Hooray for Democracy!"
+
+Now, gentlemen, the Republicans desire to place this great question
+of slavery on the very basis on which our fathers placed it, and no
+other.  It is easy to demonstrate that "our fathers, who framed this
+Government under which we live," looked on slavery as wrong, and so
+framed it and everything about it as to square with the idea that it
+was wrong, so far as the necessities arising from its existence
+permitted.  In forming the Constitution they found the slave trade
+existing, capital invested in it, fields depending upon it for labor,
+and the whole system resting upon the importation of slave labor.
+They therefore did not prohibit the slave trade at once, but they
+gave the power to prohibit it after twenty years.  Why was this? What
+other foreign trade did they treat in that way? Would they have done
+this if they had not thought slavery wrong?
+
+Another thing was done by some of the same men who framed the
+Constitution, and afterwards adopted as their own the act by the
+first Congress held under that Constitution, of which many of the
+framers were members, that prohibited the spread of slavery into
+Territories.  Thus the same men, the framers of the Constitution, cut
+off the supply and prohibited the spread of slavery, and both acts
+show conclusively that they considered that the thing was wrong.
+
+If additional proof is wanted it can be found in the phraseology of
+the Constitution.  When men are framing a supreme law and chart of
+government, to secure blessings and prosperity to untold generations
+yet to come, they use language as short and direct and plain as can
+be found, to express their meaning  In all matters but this of
+slavery the framers of the Constitution used the very clearest,
+shortest, and most direct language.  But the Constitution alludes to
+slavery three times without mentioning it once  The language used
+becomes ambiguous, roundabout, and mystical.  They speak of the
+"immigration of persons," and mean the importation of slaves, but do
+not say so.  In establishing a basis of representation they say "all
+other persons," when they mean to say slaves--why did they not use
+the shortest phrase? In providing for the return of fugitives they
+say "persons held to service or labor."  If they had said slaves it
+would have been plainer, and less liable to misconstruction.  Why did
+n't they do it? We cannot doubt that it was done on purpose.  Only
+one reason is possible, and that is supplied us by one of the framers
+of the Constitution--and it is not possible for man to conceive of
+any other--they expected and desired that the system would come to an
+end, and meant that when it did, the Constitution should not show
+that there ever had been a slave in this good free country of ours.
+
+I will dwell on that no longer.  I see the signs of approaching
+triumph of the Republicans in the bearing of their political
+adversaries.   A great deal of their war with us nowadays is mere
+bushwhacking.  At the battle of Waterloo, when Napoleon's cavalry had
+charged again and again upon the unbroken squares of British
+infantry, at last they were giving up the attempt, and going off in
+disorder, when some of the officers in mere vexation and complete
+despair fired their pistols at those solid squares.  The Democrats
+are in that sort of extreme desperation; it is nothing else.  I will
+take up a few of these arguments.
+
+There is "the irrepressible conflict."  How they rail at Seward for
+that saying! They repeat it constantly; and, although the proof has
+been thrust under their noses again and again that almost every good
+man since the formation of our Government has uttered that same
+sentiment, from General Washington, who "trusted that we should yet
+have a confederacy of free States," with Jefferson, Jay, Monroe, down
+to the latest days, yet they refuse to notice that at all, and
+persist in railing at Seward for saying it.  Even Roger A. Pryor,
+editor of the Richmond Enquirer, uttered the same sentiment in almost
+the same language, and yet so little offence did it give the
+Democrats that he was sent for to Washington to edit the States--the
+Douglas organ there--while Douglas goes into hydrophobia and spasms
+of rage because Seward dared to repeat it.  This is what I call
+bushwhacking, a sort of argument that they must know any child can
+see through.
+
+Another is John Brown: "You stir up insurrections, you invade the
+South; John Brown! Harper's Ferry!"  Why, John Brown was not a
+Republican!  You have never implicated a single Republican in that
+Harper's Ferry enterprise.  We tell you that if any member of the
+Republican party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not
+know it.  If you do know it, you are inexcusable not to designate the
+man and prove the fact.  If you do not know it, you are inexcusable
+to assert it, and especially to persist in the assertion after you
+have tried and failed to make the proof.  You need not be told that
+persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true is simply
+malicious slander.  Some of you admit that no Republican designedly
+aided or encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair, but still insist that
+our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to such results.  We
+do not believe it.  We know we hold to no doctrines, and make no
+declarations, which were not held to and made by our fathers who
+framed the Government 'under which we live, and we cannot see how
+declarations that were patriotic when they made them are villainous
+when we make them.  You never dealt fairly by us in relation to that
+affair--and I will say frankly that I know of nothing in your
+character that should lead us to suppose that you would.  You had
+just been soundly thrashed in elections in several States, and others
+were soon to come.  You rejoiced at the occasion, and only were
+troubled that there were not three times as many killed in the
+affair.  You were in evident glee; there was no sorrow for the killed
+nor for the peace of Virginia disturbed; you were rejoicing that by
+charging Republicans with this thing you might get an advantage of us
+in New York, and the other States.  You pulled that string as tightly
+as you could, but your very generous and worthy expectations were not
+quite fulfilled.  Each Republican knew that the charge was a slander
+as to himself at least, and was not inclined by it to cast his vote
+in your favor.  It was mere bushwhacking, because you had nothing
+else to do.  You are still on that track, and I say, go on! If you
+think you can slander a woman into loving you or a man into voting
+for you, try it till you are satisfied!
+
+Another specimen of this bushwhacking, that "shoe strike."  Now be it
+understood that I do not pretend to know all about the matter.  I am
+merely going to speculate a little about some of its phases.  And at
+the outset, I am glad to see that a system of labor prevails in New
+England under which laborers can strike when they want to, where they
+are not obliged to work under all circumstances, and are not tied
+down and obliged to labor whether you pay them or not! I like the
+system which lets a man quit when he wants to, and wish it might
+prevail everywhere.  One of the reasons why I am opposed to slavery
+is just here.  What is the true condition of the laborer? I take it
+that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as
+fast as he can.  Some will get wealthy.  I don't believe in a law to
+prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good.
+So, while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow
+the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else.
+When one starts poor, as most do in the race of life, free society is
+such that he knows he can better his condition; he knows that there
+is no fixed condition of labor for his whole life.  I am not ashamed
+to confess that twenty-five years ago I was a hired laborer, mauling
+rails, at work on a flatboat--just what might happen to any poor
+man's son! I want every man to have a chance--and I believe a Black
+man is entitled to it--in which he can better his condition; when he
+may look forward and hope to be a hired laborer this year and the
+next, work for himself afterward, and finally to hire men to work for
+him!  That is the system.  Up here in New England, you have a soil
+that scarcely sprouts black-eyed beans, and yet where will you find
+wealthy men so wealthy, and poverty so rarely in extremity? There is
+not another such place on earth! I desire that if you get too thick
+here, and find it hard to better your condition on this soil, you may
+have a chance to strike and go somewhere else, where you may not be
+degraded, nor have your families corrupted, by forced rivalry with
+negro slaves.  I want you to have a clean bed and no snakes in it!
+Then you can better your condition, and so it may go on and on in one
+endless round so long as man exists on the face of the earth!
+
+Now, to come back to this shoe strike,--if, as the senator from
+Illinois asserts, this is caused by withdrawal of Southern votes,
+consider briefly how you will meet the difficulty.  You have done
+nothing, and have protested that you have done nothing, to injure the
+South.  And yet, to get back the shoe trade, you must leave off doing
+something which you are now doing.  What is it? You must stop
+thinking slavery wrong! Let your institutions be wholly changed; let
+your State constitutions be subverted; glorify slavery, and so you
+will get back the shoe trade--for what? You have brought owned labor
+with it, to compete with your own labor, to underwork you, and to
+degrade you! Are you ready to get back the trade on those terms?
+
+But the statement is not correct.  You have not lost that trade;
+orders were never better than now! Senator Mason, a Democrat, comes
+into the Senate in homespun, a proof that the dissolution of the
+Union has actually begun! but orders are the same.  Your factories
+have not struck work, neither those where they make anything for
+coats, nor for pants nor for shirts, nor for ladies' dresses.  Mr.
+Mason has not reached the manufacturers who ought to have made him a
+coat and pants! To make his proof good for anything he should have
+come into the Senate barefoot!
+
+Another bushwhacking contrivance; simply that, nothing else! I find a
+good many people who are very much concerned about the loss of
+Southern trade.  Now either these people are sincere or they are not.
+I will speculate a little about that.   If they are sincere, and are
+moved by any real danger of the loss of Southern trade, they will
+simply get their names on the white list, and then, instead of
+persuading Republicans to do likewise, they will be glad to keep you
+away! Don't you see that they cut off competition? They would not be
+whispering around to Republicans to come in and share the profits
+with them.  But if they are not sincere, and are merely trying to
+fool Republicans out of their votes, they will grow very anxious
+about your pecuniary prospects; they are afraid you are going to get
+broken up and ruined; they do not care about Democratic votes, oh,
+no, no, no! You must judge which class those belong to whom you meet:
+I leave it to you to determine from the facts.
+
+Let us notice some more of the stale charges against Republicans.
+You say we are sectional.  We deny it.  That makes an issue; and the
+burden of proof is upon you.  You produce your proof; and what is it?
+Why, that our party has no existence in your section--gets no votes
+in your section.  The fact is substantially true; but does it prove
+the issue? If it does, then in case we should, without change of
+principle, begin to get votes in your section, we should thereby
+cease to be sectional.  You cannot escape this conclusion; and yet,
+are you willing to abide by it? If you are, you will probably soon
+find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in
+your section this very year.  The fact that we get no votes in your
+section is a fact of your making and not of ours.  And if there be
+fault in that fact, that fault is primarily yours, and remains so
+until you show that we repel you by some wrong principle or practice.
+ If we do repel you by any wrong principle or practice, the fault is
+ours; but this brings you to where you ought to have started--to a
+discussion of the right or wrong of our principle.  If our principle,
+put in practice, would wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or
+for any other object, then our principle, and we with it, are
+sectional, and are justly opposed and denounced as such.  Meet us,
+then, on the question of whether our principle put in practice would
+wrong your section; and so meet it as if it were possible that
+something may be said on our side.  Do you accept the challenge? No?
+Then you really believe that the principle which our fathers who
+framed the Government under which we live thought so clearly right as
+to adopt it, and indorse it again and again, upon their official
+oaths, is in fact so clearly wrong as to demand our condemnation
+without a moment's consideration.  Some of you delight to flaunt in
+our faces the warning against sectional parties given by Washington
+in his Farewell Address.  Less than eight years before Washington
+gave that warning, he had, as President of the United States,
+approved and signed an act of Congress enforcing the prohibition of
+slavery in the Northwestern Territory, which act embodied the policy
+of government upon that subject, up to and at the very moment he
+penned that warning; and about one year after he penned it he wrote
+La Fayette that he considered that prohibition a wise measure,
+expressing in the same connection his hope that we should sometime
+have a confederacy of free States.
+
+Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has since arisen
+upon this same subject, is that warning a weapon in your hands
+against us, or in our hands against you?  Could Washington himself
+speak, would he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who
+sustain his policy, or upon you, who repudiate it? We respect that
+warning of Washington, and we commend it to you, together with his
+example pointing to the right application of it.
+
+But you say you are conservative--eminently conservative--while we
+are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort.  What is
+conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the
+new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy
+on the point in controversy which was adopted by our fathers who
+framed the Government under which we live; while you with one accord
+reject and scout and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon
+substituting something new.
+
+True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall
+be.  You have considerable variety of new propositions and plans, but
+you are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the
+fathers.  Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave-trade; some
+for a congressional slave code for the Territories; some for Congress
+forbidding the Territories to prohibit slavery within their limits;
+some for maintaining slavery in the Territories through the
+judiciary; some for the "gur-reat pur-rinciple" that if one man would
+enslave another, no third man should object--fantastically called
+"popular sovereignty."  But never a man among you in favor of
+prohibition of slavery in Federal Territories, according to the
+practice of our fathers who framed the Government under which we
+live.  Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an
+advocate in the century within which our Government originated.   And
+yet you draw yourselves up and say, "We are eminently conservative."
+
+It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great confederacy
+shall be at peace, and in harmony one with another.  Let us
+Republicans do our part to have it so.  Even though much provoked,
+let us do nothing through passion and ill-temper.  Even though the
+Southern people will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly
+consider their demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view
+of our duty, we possibly can.  Judging by all they say and do, and by
+the subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us
+determine, if we can, what will satisfy them.
+
+Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally
+surrendered to them? We know they will not.  In all their present
+complaints against us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned.
+Invasions and insurrections are the rage now.  Will it satisfy them,
+in the future, if we have nothing to do with invasions and
+insurrections? We know it will not.  We so know because we know we
+never had anything to do with invasions and insurrections; and yet
+this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the
+denunciation.
+
+The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: we must not
+only let them alone, but we must, somehow, convince them that we do
+let them alone.  This, we know by experience, is no easy task.  We
+have been so trying to convince them, from the very beginning of our
+organization, but with no success.  In all our platforms and
+speeches, we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone;
+but this had no tendency to convince them.  Alike unavailing to
+convince them is the fact that they have never detected a man of us
+in any attempt to disturb them.
+
+These natural and apparently adequate means all failing, what will
+convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and
+join them in calling it right.  And this must be done thoroughly--
+done in acts as well as in words.  Silence will not be tolerated--we
+must place ourselves avowedly with them.  Douglas's new sedition law
+must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that
+slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits,
+or in private.   We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with
+greedy pleasure.  We must pull down our free State constitutions.
+The whole atmosphere must be disinfected of all taint of opposition
+to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles
+proceed from us.  So long as we call slavery wrong, whenever a slave
+runs away they will overlook the obvious fact that be ran away
+because he was oppressed, and declare he was stolen off.  Whenever a
+master cuts his slaves with a lash, and they cry out under it, he
+will overlook the obvious fact that the negroes cry out because they
+are hurt, and insist that they were put up to it by some rascally
+abolitionist.
+
+I am quite aware that they do not state their case precisely in this
+way.  Most of them would probably say to us, "Let us alone, do
+nothing to us, and say what you please about slavery."  But we do let
+them alone--have never disturbed them--so that, after all, it is what
+we say which dissatisfies them.  They will continue to accuse us of
+doing, until we cease saying.
+
+I am also aware that they have not as yet in terms demanded the
+overthrow of our free-State constitutions.  Yet those constitutions
+declare the wrong of slavery with more solemn emphasis than do all
+other sayings against it; and when all these other sayings shall have
+been silenced, the overthrow of these constitutions will be demanded.
+It is nothing to the contrary that they do not demand the whole of
+this just now.  Demanding what they do, and for the reason they do,
+they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this consummation.
+Holding as they do that slavery is morally right, and socially
+elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of
+it, as a legal right, and a social blessing.
+
+Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground save our
+conviction that slavery is wrong.  If slavery is right, all words,
+acts, laws, and constitutions against it are themselves wrong and
+should be silenced and swept away.  If it is right, we cannot justly
+object to its nationality--its universality: if it is wrong, they
+cannot justly insist upon its extension--its enlargement.  All they
+ask, we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask,
+they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong.  Their
+thinking it right and our thinking it wrong is the precise fact on
+which depends the whole controversy.  Thinking it right as they do,
+they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as being
+right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we
+cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view of our
+moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this?
+
+Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where
+it is because that much is due to the necessity arising from its
+actual presence m the nation; but can we, while our votes will
+prevent it, allow it to spread into the national Territories, and to
+overrun us here in these free States?
+
+If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty,
+fearlessly and effectively.  Let us be diverted by none of those
+sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and
+belabored--contrivances such as groping for some middle ground
+between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who
+would be neither a living man nor a dead man--such as a policy of
+"don't care" on a question about which all free men do care--such as
+Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists,
+reversing the divine rule, and caning, not the sinners, but the
+righteous to repentance--such as invocations of Washington, imploring
+men to unsay what Washington did.
+
+Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations
+against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the
+Government, nor of dungeons to ourselves.  Let us have faith that
+right makes might; and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do
+our duty as we understand it.
+
+[As Mr. Lincoln concluded his address, there was witnessed the
+wildest scene of enthusiasm and excitement that has been in New Haven
+for years.  The Palladium editorially says: "We give up most of our
+space to-day to a very full report of the eloquent speech of the HON.
+Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, delivered last night at Union Hall."]
+
+
+
+
+RESPONSE TO AN ELECTOR'S REQUEST FOR MONEY
+
+TO ________________
+March 16, 1860
+
+As to your kind wishes for myself, allow me to say I cannot enter the
+ring on the money basis--first, because in the main it is wrong; and
+secondly, I have not and cannot get the money.
+
+I say, in the main, the use of money is wrong; but for certain
+objects in a political contest, the use of some is both right and
+indispensable.  With me, as with yourself, the long struggle has been
+one of great pecuniary loss.
+
+I now distinctly say this--if you shall be appointed a delegate to
+Chicago, I will furnish one hundred dollars to bear the expenses of
+the trip.
+
+Your friend as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+[Extract from a letter to a Kansas delegate.]
+
+
+
+
+TO J. W. SOMERS.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, March 17, 1860
+
+JAMES W. SOMERS, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Reaching home three days ago, I found your letter of
+February 26th.   Considering your difficulty of hearing, I think you
+had better settle in Chicago, if, as you say, a good man already in
+fair practice there will take you into partnership.  If you had not
+that difficulty, I still should think it an even balance whether you
+would not better remain in Chicago, with such a chance for
+copartnership.
+
+If I went west, I think I would go to Kansas, to Leavenworth or
+Atchison.  Both of them are and will continue to be fine growing
+places.
+
+I believe I have said all I can, and I have said it with the deepest
+interest for your welfare.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ACCUSATION OF HAVING BEEN PAID FOR A
+POLITICAL SPEECH
+
+TO C. F. McNEIL.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, April 6, 1860
+
+C. F. MCNEIL, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Reaching home yesterday, I found yours of the 23d March,
+inclosing a slip from The Middleport Press.  It is not true that I
+ever charged anything for a political speech in my life; but this
+much is true: Last October I was requested by letter to deliver some
+sort of speech in Mr. Beecher's church, in Brooklyn--two hundred
+dollars being offered in the first letter.  I wrote that I could do
+it in February, provided they would take a political speech if I
+could find time to get up no other.  They agreed; and subsequently I
+informed them the speech would have to be a political one.  When I
+reached New York, I for the first time learned that the place was
+changed to "Cooper Institute."  I made the speech, and left for New
+Hampshire, where I have a son at school, neither asking for pay nor
+having any offered me.  Three days after a check for two hundred
+dollars was sent to me at New Hampshire; and I took it, and did not
+know it was wrong.  My understanding now is--though I knew nothing of
+it at the time--that they did charge for admittance to the Cooper
+Institute, and that they took in more than twice two hundred dollars.
+
+I have made this explanation to you as a friend; but I wish no
+explanation made to our enemies.  What they want is a squabble and a
+fuss, and that they can have if we explain; and they cannot have it
+if we don't.
+
+When I returned through New York from New England, I was told by the
+gentlemen who sent me the Check that a drunken vagabond in the club,
+having learned something about the two hundred dollars, made the
+exhibition out of which The Herald manufactured the article quoted by
+The Press of your town.
+
+My judgment is, and therefore my request is, that you give no denial
+and no explanation.
+
+Thanking you for your kind interest in the matter, I remain,
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO H. TAYLOR.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., April 21, 1860.
+
+HAWKINS TAYLOR, Esq.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 15th is just received.  It surprises me that
+you have written twice, without receiving an answer.  I have answered
+all I ever received from you; and certainly one since my return from
+the East.
+
+Opinions here, as to the prospect of Douglas being nominated, are
+quite conflicting--some very confident he will, and others that he
+will not be.  I think his nomination possible, but that the chances
+are against him.
+
+I am glad there is a prospect of your party passing this way to
+Chicago.  Wishing to make your visit here as pleasant as we can, we
+wish you to notify us as soon as possible whether you come this way,
+how many, and when you will arrive.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO A MEMBER OF THE ILLINOIS DELEGATION
+AT THE CHICAGO CONVENTION.
+SPRINGFIELD, May 17? 1860.
+
+I authorize no bargains and will be bound by none.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE COMMITTEE SENT BY THE CHICAGO CONVENTION TO INFORM
+LINCOLN OF HIS
+NOMINATION,
+
+MAY 19, 1860.
+
+
+Mr. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE COMMITTEE:--I tender to you, and
+through you to the Republican National Convention, and all the people
+represented in it, my profoundest thanks for the high honor done me,
+which you now formally announce.  Deeply and even painfully sensible
+of the great responsibility which is inseparable from this high
+honor--a responsibility which I could almost wish had fallen upon
+some one of the far more eminent men and experienced statesmen whose
+distinguished names were before the convention--I shall, by your
+leave, consider more fully the resolutions of the convention,
+denominated their platform, and without any unnecessary or
+unreasonable delay respond to you, Mr. Chairman, in writing--not
+doubting that the platform will be found satisfactory, and the
+nomination gratefully accepted.
+
+And now I will not longer defer the pleasure of taking you, and each
+of you, by the hand.
+
+
+
+
+ACCEPTANCE OF NOMINATION AS REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE
+ FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
+
+TO GEORGE ASHMUN AND OTHERS.
+
+SPRINGFIELD  ILLINOIS, May 23, 1860
+
+HON. GEORGE ASHMUN,
+President of Republican National Convention.
+
+SIR:--I accept the nomination tendered me by the convention over
+which you presided, and of which I am formally apprised in the letter
+of yourself and others, acting as a committee of the convention for
+that purpose.
+
+The declaration of principles and sentiments which accompanies your
+letter meets my approval; and it shall be my care not to violate or
+disregard it in any part.
+
+Imploring the assistance of Divine Providence, and with due regard to
+the views and feelings of all who were represented in the convention,
+to the rights of all the States and Territories and people of the
+nation, to the inviolability of the Constitution, and the perpetual
+union, harmony, and prosperity of all--I am most happy to co-operate
+for the practical success of the principles declared by the
+convention.
+
+Your obliged friend and fellow-citizen,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+To C. B. SMITH.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., May 26, 1860.
+
+HON. C. B. SMITH.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:-Yours of the 21st was duly received, but have found no
+time until now to say a word in the way of answer.  I am indeed much
+indebted to Indiana; and, as my home friends tell me, much to you
+personally.  Your saying, you no longer consider Ia. a doubtful State
+is very gratifying.  The thing starts well everywhere--too well, I
+almost fear, to last.  But we are in, and stick or go through must be
+the word.
+
+Let me hear from Indiana occasionally.
+
+Your friend, as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+FORM OF REPLY PREPARED BY MR. LINCOLN, WITH WHICH HIS PRIVATE
+SECRETARY WAS INSTRUCTED TO ANSWER A NUMEROUS CLASS OF LETTERS IN
+THE CAMPAIGN OF 1860.
+
+(Doctrine.)
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, _______, 1860
+
+DEAR SIR:--Your letter to Mr. Lincoln of and by which you seek to
+obtain his opinions on certain political points, has been received by
+him.  He has received others of a similar character, but he also has
+a greater number of the exactly opposite character.  The latter class
+beseech him to write nothing whatever upon any point of political
+doctrine.  They say his positions were well known when he was
+nominated, and that he must not now embarrass the canvass by
+undertaking to shift or modify them.  He regrets that he cannot
+oblige all, but you perceive it is impossible for him to do so.
+
+Yours, etc.,
+
+JNO. J. NICOLAY.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. B. WASHBURNE.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS,
+MAY 26, 1860
+
+HON. E. B. WASHBURNE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I have several letters from you written since the
+nomination, but till now have found no moment to say a word by way of
+answer.  Of course I am glad that the nomination is well received by
+our friends, and I sincerely thank you for so informing me.  So far
+as I can learn, the nominations start well everywhere; and, if they
+get no back-set, it would seem as if they are going through.  I hope
+you will write often; and as you write more rapidly than I do, don't
+make your letters so short as mine.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO S. HAYCRAFT.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., June 4, 1860.
+
+HON. SAMUEL HAYCRAFT.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Like yourself I belonged to the old Whig party from its
+origin to its close.  I never belonged to the American party
+organization, nor ever to a party called a Union party; though I hope
+I neither am or ever have been less devoted to the Union than
+yourself or any other patriotic man.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ABRAHAM OR "ABRAM"
+
+TO G. ASHMUN.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL.   June 4, 1860
+
+HON. GEORGE ASHMUN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--It seems as if the question whether my first name is
+"Abraham" or "Abram" will never be settled.  It is "Abraham," and if
+the letter of acceptance is not yet in print, you may, if you think
+fit, have my signature thereto printed "Abraham Lincoln."  Exercise
+your judgment about this.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY
+
+TO S. GALLOWAY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., June 19, 1860
+
+HON. SAM'L GALLOWAY.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your very kind letter of the 15th is received.  Messrs.
+Follett, Foster, & Co.'s Life of me is not by my authority; and I
+have scarcely been so much astounded by anything, as by their public
+announcement that it is authorized by me.  They have fallen into some
+strange misunderstanding.  I certainly knew they contemplated
+publishing a biography, and I certainly did not object to their doing
+so, upon their own responsibility.  I even took pains to facilitate
+them.  But, at the same time, I made myself tiresome, if not hoarse,
+with repeating to Mr. Howard, their only agent seen by me, my protest
+that I authorized nothing--would be responsible for nothing.   How
+they could so misunderstand me, passes comprehension.   As a matter
+wholly my own, I would authorize no biography, without time and
+opportunity [sic] to carefully examine and consider every word of it
+and, in this case, in the nature of things, I can have no such time
+and Opportunity [sic].  But, in my present position, when, by the
+lessons of the past, and the united voice of all discreet friends, I
+can neither write nor speak a word for the public, how dare I to send
+forth, by my authority, a volume of hundreds of pages, for
+adversaries to make points upon without end? Were I to do so, the
+convention would have a right to re-assemble and substitute another
+name for mine.
+
+For these reasons, I would not look at the proof sheets--I am
+determined to maintain the position of [sic] truly saying I never saw
+the proof sheets, or any part of their work, before its publication.
+
+Now, do not mistake me--I feel great kindness for Messrs.  F., F., &
+Co.--do not think they have intentionally done wrong.  There may be
+nothing wrong in their proposed book--I sincerely hope there will
+not.  I barely suggest that you, or any of the friends there, on the
+party account, look it over, and exclude what you may think would
+embarrass the party bearing in mind, at all times, that I authorize
+nothing--will be responsible for nothing.
+
+Your friend, as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+[The custom then, and it may be a good one, was for the Presidential
+candidate to do no personal canvassing or speaking--or as we have it
+now "running for election."  He stayed at home and kept his mouth
+shut.  D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+TO HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, July 18, 1860.
+
+HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
+MY DEAR SIR:--It appears to me that you and I ought to be acquainted,
+and accordingly I write this as a sort of introduction of myself to
+you.  You first entered the Senate during the single term I was a
+member of the House of Representatives, but I have no recollection
+that we were introduced.  I shall be pleased to receive a line from
+you.
+
+The prospect of Republican success now appears very flattering, so
+far as I can perceive.  Do you see anything to the contrary?
+
+Yours truly,    A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO A. JONAS.
+
+(Confidential.)
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, JULY 21, 1860.
+
+HON. A. JONAS.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 20th is received. I suppose as good or
+even better men than I may have been in American or Know-Nothing
+lodges; but in point of fact, I never was in one at Quincy or
+elsewhere.  I was never in Quincy but one day and two nights while
+Know-Nothing lodges were in existence, and you were with me that day
+and both those nights.  I had never been there before in my life, and
+never afterward, till the joint debate with Douglas in 1858.  It was
+in 1854 when I spoke in some hall there, and after the speaking, you,
+with others, took me to an oyster-saloon, passed an hour there, and
+you walked with me to, and parted with me at, the Quincy House, quite
+late at night.  I left by stage for Naples before daylight in the
+morning, having come in by the same route after dark the evening,
+previous to the speaking, when I found you waiting at the Quincy
+House to meet me.  A few days after I was there, Richardson, as I
+understood, started this same story about my having been in a
+Know-Nothing lodge.  When I heard of the charge, as I did soon after;
+I taxed my recollection for some incident which could have suggested
+it; and I remembered that on parting with you the last night I went
+to the office of the hotel to take my stage-passage for the morning,
+was told that no stage-office for that line was kept there, and that
+I must see the driver before retiring, to insure his calling for me
+in the morning; and a servant was sent with me to find the driver,
+who, after taking me a square or two, stopped me, and stepped perhaps
+a dozen steps farther, and in my hearing called to some one, who
+answered him, apparently from the upper part of a building, and
+promised to call with the stage for me at the Quincy House.
+I returned, and went to bed, and before day the stage called and took
+me. This is all.
+
+That I never was in a Know-Nothing lodge in Quincy, I should expect
+could be easily proved by respectable men who were always in the
+lodges and never saw me there.  An affidavit of one or two such would
+put the matter at rest.
+
+And now a word of caution. Our adversaries think they can gain a
+point if they could force me to openly deny the charge, by which some
+degree of offence would be given to the Americans.  For this reason
+it must not publicly appear that I am paying any attention to the
+charge.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO JOHN B. FRY.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, August 15, 1860.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 9th, inclosing the letter of HON. John
+Minor Botts, was duly received.  The latter is herewith returned
+according to your request.  It contains one of the many assurances I
+receive from the South, that in no probable event will there be any
+very formidable effort to break up the Union.  The people of the
+South have too much of good sense and good temper to attempt the ruin
+of the government rather than see it administered as it was
+administered by the men who made it.  At least so I hope and believe.
+I thank you both for your own letter and a sight of that of Mr.
+Botts.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THURLOW WEED
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL. August 17 1860.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 13th was received this morning.  Douglas
+is managing the Bell element with great adroitness.  He had his men
+in Kentucky to vote for the Bell candidate, producing a result which
+has badly alarmed and damaged Breckenridge, and at the same time has
+induced the Bell men to suppose that Bell will certainly be
+President, if they can keep a few of the Northern States away from us
+by throwing them to Douglas.  But you, better than I, understand all
+this.
+
+I think there will be the most extraordinary effort ever made to
+carry New York for Douglas.  You and all others who write me from
+your State think the effort cannot succeed, and I hope you are right.
+Still, it will require close watching and great efforts on the other
+side.
+
+Herewith I send you a copy of a letter written at New York, which
+sufficiently explains itself, and which may or may not give you a
+valuable hint.  You have seen that Bell tickets have been put on the
+track both here and in Indiana.  In both cases the object has been, I
+think, the same as the Hunt movement in New York--to throw States to
+Douglas.  In our State, we know the thing is engineered by Douglas
+men, and we do not believe they can make a great deal out of it.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SLOW TO LISTEN TO CRIMINATIONS
+
+TO HON. JOHN ______________
+
+(Private.)
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., Aug.  31, 1860
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 27th is duly received.  It consists almost
+exclusively of a historical detail of some local troubles, among some
+of our friends in Pennsylvania; and I suppose its object is to guard
+me against forming a prejudice against Mr. McC___________, I have not
+heard near so much upon that subject as you probably suppose; and I
+am slow to listen to criminations among friends, and never expose
+their quarrels on either side.  My sincere wish is that both sides
+will allow bygones to be bygones, and look to the present and future
+only.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO HANNIBAL HAMLIN
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, September 4, 1860
+
+HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I am annoyed some by a letter from a friend in Chicago,
+in which the following passage occurs: "Hamlin has written Colfax
+that two members of Congress will, he fears, be lost in Maine, the
+first and sixth districts; and that Washburne's majority for governor
+will not exceed six thousand."
+
+I had heard something like this six weeks ago, but had been assured
+since that it was not so.  Your secretary of state,--Mr. Smith, I
+think,--whom you introduced to me by letter, gave this assurance;
+more recently, Mr. Fessenden, our candidate for Congress in one of
+those districts, wrote a relative here that his election was sure by
+at least five thousand, and that Washburne's majority would be from
+14,000 to 17,000; and still later, Mr. Fogg, of New Hampshire, now at
+New York serving on a national committee, wrote me that we were
+having a desperate fight in Maine, which would end in a splendid
+victory for us.
+
+Such a result as you seem to have predicted in Maine, in your letter
+to Colfax, would, I fear, put us on the down-hill track, lose us the
+State elections in Pennsylvania and Indiana, and probably ruin us on
+the main turn in November.
+
+You must not allow it.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO E. B. WASHBURNE.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS,
+September 9, 1860
+
+HON. E. B. WASHBURNE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR: Yours of the 5th was received last evening.  I was right
+glad to see it.  It contains the freshest "posting" which I now have.
+It relieved me some from a little anxiety I had about Maine.  Jo
+Medill, on August 3oth, wrote me that Colfax had a letter from Mr.
+Hamlin saying we were in great danger of losing two members of
+Congress in Maine, and that your brother would not have exceeding six
+thousand majority for Governor.  I addressed you at once, at Galena,
+asking for your latest information.  As you are at Washington, that
+letter you will receive some time after the Maine election.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. H. HERNDON.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., OCTOBER 10, 1860
+
+DEAR WILLIAM:--I cannot give you details, but it is entirely certain
+that Pennsylvania and Indiana have gone Republican very largely.
+Pennsylvania 25,000, and Indiana 5000 to 10,000.  Ohio of course is
+safe.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO L. M. BOND.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., October 15, 1860
+
+L. MONTGOMERY BOND, Esq.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:     I certainly am in no temper and have no purpose to
+embitter the feelings of the South, but whether I am inclined to such
+a course as would in fact embitter their feelings you can better
+judge by my published speeches than by anything I would say in a
+short letter if I were inclined now, as I am not, to define my
+position anew.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER SUGGESTING A BEARD
+
+TO MISS GRACE BEDELL, RIPLEY N.Y.
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., October 19, 1860
+
+MISS GRACE BEDELL.
+
+MY DEAR LITTLE MISS:--Your very agreeable letter of the 15th is
+received.  I regret the necessity of saying I have no daughter.  I
+have three sons--one seventeen, one nine, and one seven.  They with
+their mother constitute my whole family.  As to the whiskers, as I
+have never worn any, do you not think that people would call it a
+piece of silly affectation were I to begin wearing them now?
+
+I am your true friend and sincere well-wisher,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+EARLY INFORMATION ON ARMY DEFECTION IN SOUTH
+
+TO D. HUNTER.
+
+(Private and Confidential.)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, October 26, 1860
+
+MAJOR DAVID HUNTER
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your very kind letter of the 20th was duly received,
+for which please accept my thanks.  I have another letter, from a
+writer unknown to me, saying the officers of the army at Fort Kearny
+have determined in case of Republican success at the approaching
+Presidential election, to take themselves, and the arms at that
+point, south, for the purpose of resistance to the government.  While
+I think there are many chances to one that this is a humbug, it
+occurs to me that any real movement of this sort in the Army would
+leak out and become known to you.  In such case, if it would not be
+unprofessional or dishonorable (of which you are to be judge), I
+shall be much obliged if you will apprise me of it.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO HANNIBAL HAMLIN
+
+(Confidential.)
+SPRINGFIELD. ILLINOIS, November 8, 1860
+
+HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I am anxious for a personal interview with you at as
+early a day as possible.  Can you, without much inconvenience, meet
+me at Chicago? If you can, please name as early a day as you
+conveniently can, and telegraph me, unless there be sufficient time
+before the day named to communicate by mail.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO SAMUEL HAYCRAFT.
+
+(Private and Confidential.)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., Nov.13, 1860
+
+HON. SAMUEL HAYCRAFT.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 9th is just received.  I can only answer
+briefly.  Rest fully assured that the good people of the South who
+will put themselves in the same temper and mood towards me which you
+do will find no cause to complain of me.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REMARKS AT THE MEETING AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS
+TO CELEBRATE LINCOLN'S ELECTION,
+
+NOVEMBER 20, 1860
+
+FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS:--Please excuse me on this occasion from
+making a speech.  I thank you in common with all those who have
+thought fit by their votes to indorse the Republican cause.  I
+rejoice with you in the success which has thus far attended that
+cause.  Yet in all our rejoicings let us neither express nor cherish
+any hard feelings toward any citizen who by his vote has differed
+with us.  Let us at all times remember that all American citizens are
+brothers of a common country, and should dwell together in the bonds
+of fraternal feeling.  Let me again beg you to accept my thanks, and
+to excuse me from further speaking at this time.
+
+
+
+
+TO ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL.  NOV. 30, 1860
+
+HON. A. H. STEPHENS.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I have read in the newspapers your speech recently
+delivered (I think) before the Georgia Legislature, or its assembled
+members.  If you have revised it, as is probable, I shall be much
+obliged if you will send me a copy.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO HANNIBAL HAMLIN
+
+(Private)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, December 8, 1860
+
+HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 4th was duly received.  The inclosed to
+Governor Seward covers two notes to him, copies of which you find
+open for your inspection.  Consult with Judge Trumbull; and if you
+and he see no reason to the contrary, deliver the letter to Governor
+Seward at once.  If you see reason to the contrary write me at once.
+
+I have an intimation that Governor Banks would yet accept a place in
+the Cabinet.  Please ascertain and write me how this is,
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+BLOCKING "COMPROMISE" ON SLAVERY ISSUE
+
+TO E. B. WASHBURNE
+
+(Private and Confidential.)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., December 13, 1860
+
+HON. E. B. WASHBURNE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your long letter received.  Prevent, as far as
+possible, any of our friends from demoralizing themselves and our
+cause by entertaining propositions for compromise of any sort on
+"slavery extension."  There is no possible compromise upon it but
+which puts us under again, and leaves all our work to do over again.
+Whether it be a Missouri line or Eli Thayer's popular sovereignty, it
+is all the same.  Let either be done, and immediately filibustering
+and extending slavery recommences.  On that point hold firm, as with
+a chain of steel.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+OPINION ON SECESSION
+
+TO THURLOW WEED
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, DECEMBER 17, 1860
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 11th was received two days ago.  Should
+the convocation of governors of which you speak seem desirous to know
+my views on the present aspect of things, tell them you judge from my
+speeches that I will be inflexible on the territorial question; but I
+probably think either the Missouri line extended, or Douglas's and
+Eli Thayer's popular sovereignty would lose us everything we gain by
+the election; that filibustering for all south of us and making slave
+States of it would follow in spite of us, in either case; also that I
+probably think all opposition, real and apparent, to the fugitive
+slave clause of the Constitution ought to be withdrawn.
+
+I believe you can pretend to find but little, if anything, in my
+speeches, about secession.  But my opinion is that no State can in
+any way lawfully get out of the Union without the consent of the
+others; and that it is the duty of the President and other government
+functionaries to run the machine as it is.
+
+Truly yours,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SOME FORTS SURRENDERED TO THE SOUTH
+
+TO E. B. WASHBURNE
+
+(Confidential)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, December 21, 1860
+
+HON. E. B. WASHBURNE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Last night I received your letter giving an account of
+your interview with General Scott, and for which I thank you.  Please
+present my respects to the General, and tell him, confidentially, I
+shall be obliged to him to be as well prepared as he can to either
+hold or retake the forts, as the case may require, at and after the
+inauguration.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO A. H. STEPHENS.
+
+(For your own eye only)
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, DECEMBER 22, 1860
+
+HON. ALEXANDER STEVENS
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your obliging answer to my short note is just received,
+and for which please accept my thanks.  I fully appreciate the
+present peril the country is in, and the weight of responsibility on
+me.  Do the people of the South really entertain fear that a
+Republican administration would, directly or indirectly, interfere
+with the slaves, or with them about the slaves? If they do, I wish to
+assure you, as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that
+there is no cause for such fears.  The South would be in no more
+danger in this respect than it was in the days of Washington.  I
+suppose, however, this does not meet the case.  You think slavery is
+right and ought to be extended, while we think it is wrong and ought
+to be restricted.  That, I suppose, is the rub.  It certainly is the
+only substantial difference between us.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SUPPORT OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE CLAUSE
+
+MEMORANDUM
+
+December [22?], 1860
+
+Resolved:
+That the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution ought to be
+enforced by a law of Congress, with efficient provisions for that
+object, not obliging private persons to assist in its execution, but
+punishing all who resist it, and with the usual safeguards to
+liberty, securing free men against being surrendered as slaves.
+
+That all State laws, if there be such, really or apparently in
+conflict with such law of Congress, ought to be repealed; and no
+opposition to the execution of such law of Congress ought to be made.
+
+That the Federal Union must be preserved.
+
+
+Prepared for the consideration of the Republican members of the
+Senate Committee of Thirteen.
+
+
+
+
+TO D. HUNTER.
+
+(Confidential.)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS December 22, 1860
+
+MAJOR DAVID HUNTER.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I am much obliged by the receipt of yours of the 18th.
+The most we can do now is to watch events, and be as well prepared as
+possible for any turn things may take.  If the forts fall, my
+judgment is that they are to be retaken.  When I shall determine
+definitely my time of starting to Washington, I will notify you.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO I. N. MORRIS
+
+(Confidential.)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., Dec 24, 1860
+
+HON. I. N. MORRIS.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Without supposing that you and I are any nearer
+together, politically, than heretofore, allow me to tender you my
+sincere thanks for your Union resolution, expressive of views upon
+which we never were, and, I trust, never will be at variance.
+
+Yours very truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ATTEMPT TO FORM A COALITION CABINET
+
+TO HANNIBAL HAMLIN
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, December 14, 1860.
+
+HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I need a man of Democratic antecedents from New
+England.  I cannot get a fair share of that element in without.  This
+stands in the way of Mr. Adams.  I think of Governor Banks, Mr.
+Welles, and Mr. Tuck.  Which of them do the New England delegation
+prefer?  Or shall I decide for myself?
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+1861
+
+
+TO WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
+
+(Private.)
+SPRINGFIELD. ILL., January 3, 1861.
+
+HON. W. H. SEWARD.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours without signature was received last night.  I have
+been considering your suggestions as to my reaching Washington
+somewhat earlier than is usual.  It seems to me the inauguration is
+not the most dangerous point for us.  Our adversaries have us now
+clearly at disadvantage on the second Wednesday of February, when the
+votes should be officially counted.  If the two houses refuse to meet
+at all, or meet without a quorum of each, where shall we be?  I do
+not think that this counting is constitutionally essential to the
+election, but how are we to proceed in the absence of it? In view of
+this, I think it is best for me not to attempt appearing in
+Washington till the result of that ceremony is known.
+
+It certainly would be of some advantage if you could know who are to
+be at the heads of the War and Navy departments, but until I can
+ascertain definitely whether I can get any suitable men from the
+South, and who, and how many, I can not well decide.  As yet, I have
+no word from Mr. Gilmer in answer to my request for an interview with
+him.  I look for something on the subject, through you, before long.
+Yours very truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO W. H. SEWARD.
+(Private.)
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., January 12, 1861
+
+HON. W. H. SEWARD.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 8th received.  I still hope Mr. Gilmer
+will, on a fair understanding with us, consent to take a place in the
+Cabinet.  The preference for him over Mr. Hunt or Mr. Gentry is that,
+up to date--he has a living position in the South, while they have
+not.  He is only better than Winter Davis in that he is farther
+south.   I fear, if we could get, we could not safely take more than
+one such man--that is, not more than one who opposed us in the
+election--the danger being to lose the confidence of our own friends.
+Your selection for the State Department having become public, I am
+happy to find scarcely any objection to it.  I shall have trouble
+with every other Northern Cabinet appointment--so much so that I
+shall have to defer them as long as possible to avoid being teased
+into insanity, to make changes.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+TO E. D. MORGAN
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL. FEB. 4, 1861
+
+SIR:--Your letter of the 30th ult. inviting me, on behalf of the
+Legislature of New York, to pass through that State on my way to
+Washington, and tendering me the hospitalities of her authorities and
+people, has been duly received.  With the feelings of deep gratitude
+to you and them for this testimonial of regard and esteem I beg you
+to notify them that I accept the invitation so kindly tendered.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+P.S.--Please let the ceremonies be only such as to take the least
+time possible.          A. L.
+
+
+
+
+PATRONAGE CLAIMS
+
+TO THURLOW WEED
+
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., February 4, 1861
+
+DEAR SIR:--I have both your letter to myself and that to Judge Davis,
+in relation to a certain gentleman in your State claiming to dispense
+patronage in my name, and also to be authorized to use my name to
+advance the chances of Mr. Greeley for an election to the United
+States Senate.
+
+It is very strange that such things should be said by any one.  The
+gentleman you mention did speak to me of Mr. Greeley in connection
+with the senatorial election, and I replied in terms of kindness
+toward Mr. Greeley, which I really feel, but always with an expressed
+protest that my name must not be used in the senatorial election in
+favor of or against any one.  Any other representation of me is a
+misrepresentation.
+
+As to the matter of dispensing patronage, it perhaps will surprise
+you to learn that I have information that you claim to have my
+authority to arrange that matter in New York.  I do not believe you
+have so claimed; but still so some men say.  On that subject you know
+all I have said to you is "justice to all," and I have said nothing
+more particular to any one.  I say this to reassure you that I have
+not changed my position.
+
+In the hope, however, that you will not use my name in the matter, I
+am,
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+FAREWELL ADDRESS AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS,
+FEBRUARY 11, 1861
+
+MY FRIENDS:--One who has never been placed in a like position cannot
+understand my feelings at this hour, nor the oppressive sadness I
+feel at this parting.  For more than twenty-five years I have lived
+among you, and during all that time I have received nothing but
+kindness at your hands.  Here the most cherished ties of earth were
+assumed.  Here my children were born, and here one of them lies
+buried.  To you, my friends, I owe all that I have, all that I am.
+All the strange checkered past seems to crowd upon my mind.  To-day I
+leave you.  I go to assume a task more difficult than that which
+devolved upon General Washington.  Unless the great God who assisted
+him shall be with and aid me I cannot prevail; but if the same
+almighty arm that directed and protected him shall guide and support
+me I shall not fail; I shall succeed.  Let us pray that the God of
+our fathers may not forsake us now.  To Him I commend you all.
+Permit me to ask that with equal sincerity and faith you will all
+invoke His wisdom and goodness for me.
+
+With these words I must leave you; for how long I know not.  Friends,
+one and all, I must now wish you an affectionate farewell.
+
+
+
+
+REMARKS AT TOLONO, ILLINOIS, FEBRUARY 11, 1861
+
+I am leaving you on an errand of national importance, attended, as
+you are aware, with considerable difficulties.   Let us believe, as
+some poet has expressed it, "Behind the cloud the sun is still
+shining."  I bid you an affectionate farewell.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO ADDRESS OF WELCOME, INDIANAPOLIS,
+
+INDIANA, FEBRUARY 11, 1861
+
+GOVERNOR MORTON AND FELLOW CITIZENS
+OF THE STATE OF INDIANA:
+
+Most heartily do I thank you for this magnificent reception, and
+while I cannot take to myself any share of the compliment thus paid,
+more than that which pertains to a mere instrument, an accidental
+instrument, perhaps I should say, of a great cause, I yet must look
+upon it as a most magnificent reception, and as such most heartily do
+thank you for it.  You have been pleased to address yourself to me
+chiefly in behalf of this glorious Union in which we live, in all of
+which you have my hearty sympathy, and, as far as may be within my
+power, will have, one and inseparable, my hearty consideration.
+While I do not expect, upon this occasion, or until I get to
+Washington, to attempt any lengthy speech, I will only say to the
+salvation of the Union there needs but one single thing--the hearts
+of a people like yours.
+
+The people--when they rise in mass in behalf of the Union and the
+liberties of their country, truly may it be said, "The gates of hell
+cannot prevail against them."  In all trying positions in which I
+shall be
+placed--and, doubtless, I shall be placed in many such--my reliance
+will be placed upon you and the people of the United States; and I
+wish you to remember, now and forever, that it is your business, and
+not mine; that if the union of these States and the liberties of this
+people shall be lost, it is but little to any one man of fifty-two
+years of age, but a great deal to the thirty millions of people who
+inhabit these United States, and to their posterity in all coming
+time.  It is your business to rise up and preserve the Union and
+liberty for yourselves, and not for me.
+
+I desire they should be constitutionally performed.  I, as already
+intimated, am but an accidental instrument, temporary, and to serve
+but for a limited time; and I appeal to you again to constantly bear
+in mind that with you, and not with politicians, not with Presidents,
+not with office-seekers, but with you is the question, Shall the
+Union and shall the liberties of this country be preserved to the
+latest generations?
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF INDIANA, AT INDIANAPOLIS,
+
+FEBRUARY 12, 1861
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE STATE OF INDIANA:--I am here to thank you much
+for this magnificent welcome, and still more for the generous support
+given by your State to that political cause which I think is the true
+and just cause of the whole country and the whole world.
+
+Solomon says there is "a time to keep silence," and when men wrangle
+by the mouth with no certainty that they mean the same thing while
+using the same word, it perhaps were as well if they would keep
+silence.
+
+The words "coercion" and "invasion" are much used in these days, and
+often with some temper and hot blood.  Let us make sure, if we can,
+the meaning of those who use them.  Let us get the exact definitions
+of these words, not from dictionaries, but from the men themselves,
+who certainly deprecate the things they would represent by the use of
+the words.
+
+What, then, is coercion? What is invasion? Would the marching of an
+army into South Carolina, without the consent of her people, and with
+hostile intent toward them, be invasion? I certainly think it would,
+and it would be coercion also, if the South Carolinians were forced
+to submit.  But if the United States should merely hold and retake
+its own forts and other property, and collect the duties on foreign
+importations, or even withhold the mails from places where they were
+habitually violated, would any or all of these things be invasion or
+coercion? Do our professed lovers of the Union, who spitefully
+resolve that they will resist coercion and invasion, understand that
+such things as these, on the part of the United States, would be
+coercion or invasion of a State? If so, their idea of means to
+preserve the object of their great affection would seem to be
+exceedingly thin and airy.  If sick, the little pills of the
+homoeopathist would be much too large for it to swallow.  In their
+view, the Union, as a family relation, would seem to be no regular
+marriage, but rather a sort of "free-love" arrangement, to be
+maintained on passional attraction.
+
+By the way, in what consists the special sacredness of a State? I
+speak not of the position assigned to a State in the Union by the
+Constitution, for that is a bond we all recognize.  That position,
+however, a State cannot carry out of the Union with it.  I speak of
+that assumed primary right of a State to rule all which is less than
+itself, and to ruin all which is larger than itself.  If a State and
+a county, in a given case, should be equal in number of inhabitants,
+in what, as a matter of principle, is the State better than the
+county? Would an exchange of name be an exchange of rights? Upon what
+principle, upon what rightful principle, may a State, being no more
+than one fiftieth part of the nation in soil and population, break up
+the nation, and then coerce a proportionably large subdivision of
+itself in the most arbitrary way? What mysterious right to play
+tyrant is conferred on a district of country, with its people, by
+merely calling it a State? Fellow-citizens, I am not asserting
+anything.  I am merely asking questions for you to consider.  And now
+allow me to bid you farewell.
+
+
+
+
+INTENTIONS TOWARD THE SOUTH
+
+ADDRESS TO THE MAYOR AND CITIZENS OF
+
+CINCINNATI, OHIO, FEBRUARY 12, 1861
+
+Mr. MAYOR, AND GENTLEMEN:--Twenty-four hours ago, at the capital of
+Indiana, I said to myself, "I have never seen so many people
+assembled together in winter weather."  I am no longer able to say
+that.  But it is what might reasonably have been expected--that this
+great city of Cincinnati would thus acquit herself on such an
+occasion.  My friends, I am entirely overwhelmed by the magnificence
+of the reception which has been given, I will not say to me, but to
+the President-elect of the United States of America.  Most heartily
+do I thank you, one and all, for it.
+
+I have spoken but once before this in Cincinnati.  That was a year
+previous to the late Presidential election.  On that occasion, in a
+playful manner, but with sincere words, I addressed much of what I
+said to the Kentuckians.  I gave my opinion that we, as Republicans,
+would ultimately beat them as Democrats, but that they could postpone
+that result longer by nominating Senator Douglas for the Presidency
+than they could by any other way.  They did not, in any true sense of
+the word, nominate Mr. Douglas, and the result has come certainly as
+soon as ever I expected.  I also told them how I expected they would
+be treated after they should have been beaten, and I now wish to call
+their attention to what I then said upon that subject.  I then said:
+
+"When we do as we say, beat you, you perhaps want to know what we
+will do with you.  I will tell you, as far as I am authorized to
+speak for the Opposition, what we mean to do with you.  We mean to
+treat you, as near as we possibly can, as Washington, Jefferson, and
+Madison treated you.  We mean to leave you alone, and in no way to
+interfere with your institutions; to abide by all and every
+compromise of the Constitution, and, in a word, coming back to the
+original proposition, to treat you so far as degenerate men, if we
+have degenerated, may, according to the example of those noble
+fathers, Washington, Jefferson, and Madison.
+
+"We mean to remember that you are as good as we; that there is no
+difference between us other than the difference of circumstances.  We
+mean to recognize and bear in mind always that you have as good
+hearts in your bosoms as other people, or as we claim to have, and
+treat you accordingly."
+
+Fellow-citizens of Kentucky--friends and brethren, may I call you in
+my new position?--I see no occasion and feel no inclination to
+retract a word of this.  If it shall not be made good, be assured the
+fault shall not be mine.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE GERMAN CLUB OF CINCINNATI, OHIO,
+
+FEBRUARY 12, 1861
+
+
+Mr. CHAIRMAN:--I thank you and those whom you represent for the
+compliment you have paid me by tendering me this address.  In so far
+as there is an allusion to our present national difficulties, which
+expresses, as you have said, the views of the gentlemen present, I
+shall have to beg pardon for not entering fully upon the questions
+which the address you have now read suggests.
+
+I deem it my duty--a duty which I owe to my constituents--to you,
+gentlemen, that I should wait until the last moment for a development
+of the present national difficulties before I express myself
+decidedly as to what course I shall pursue.  I hope, then, not to be
+false to anything that you have expected of me.
+
+I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, that the working men are the basis of
+all governments, for the plain reason that they are all the more
+numerous, and as you added that those were the sentiments of the
+gentlemen present, representing not only the working class, but
+citizens of other callings than those of the mechanic, I am happy to
+concur with you in these sentiments, not only of the native-born
+citizens, but also of the Germans and foreigners from other
+countries.
+
+Mr. Chairman, I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve
+not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating the
+condition of mankind; and therefore, without entering upon the
+details of the question, I will simply say that I am for those means
+which will give the greatest good to the greatest number.
+
+In regard to the Homestead law, I have to say that, in so far as the
+government lands can be disposed of, I am in favor of cutting up the
+wild lands into parcels, so that every poor man may have a home.
+
+In regard to the Germans and foreigners, I esteem them no better than
+other people, nor any worse.  It is not my nature, when I see a
+people borne down by the weight of their shackles--the oppression of
+tyranny--to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater
+burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke than
+to add anything that would tend to crush them.
+
+Inasmuch as our own country is extensive and new, and the countries
+of Europe are densely populated, if there are any abroad who desire
+to make this the land of their adoption, it is not in my heart to
+throw aught in their way to prevent them from coming to the United
+States.
+
+Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I will bid you an affectionate farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF OHIO AT COLUMBUS
+FEBRUARY 13, 1861
+
+Mr. PRESIDENT AND Mr. SPEAKER, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY
+OF OHIO:--It is true, as has been said by the president of the
+Senate, that very great responsibility rests upon me in the position
+to which the votes of the American people have called me.  I am
+deeply sensible of that weighty responsibility.  I cannot but know
+what you all know, that without a name, perhaps without a reason why
+I should have a name, there has fallen upon me a task such as did not
+rest even upon the Father of his Country; and so feeling, I can turn
+and look for that support without which it will be impossible for me
+to perform that great task.  I turn, then, and look to the American
+people and to that God who has never forsaken them.  Allusion has
+been made to the interest felt in relation to the policy of the new
+administration.  In this I have received from some a degree of credit
+for having kept silence, and from others some deprecation.  I still
+think that I was right.
+
+In the varying and repeatedly shifting scenes of the present, and
+without a precedent which could enable me to judge by the past, it
+has seemed fitting that before speaking upon the difficulties of the
+country I should have gained a view of the whole field, being at
+liberty to modify and change the course of policy as future events
+may make a change necessary.
+
+I have not maintained silence from any want of real anxiety.  It is a
+good thing that there is no more than anxiety, for there is nothing
+going wrong.  It is a consoling circumstance that when we look out
+there is nothing that really hurts anybody.  We entertain different
+views upon political questions, but nobody is suffering anything.
+This is a most consoling circumstance, and from it we may conclude
+that all we want is time, patience, and a reliance on that God who
+has never forsaken this people.
+
+Fellow-citizens, what I have said I have said altogether
+extemporaneously, and I will now come to a close.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT STEUBENVILLE, OHIO,
+
+FEBRUARY 14, 1861
+
+I fear that the great confidence placed in my ability is unfounded.
+Indeed, I am sure it is.  Encompassed by vast difficulties as I am,
+nothing shall be wanting on my part, if sustained by God and the
+American people.  I believe the devotion to the Constitution is
+equally great on both sides of the river.  It is only the different
+understanding of that instrument that causes difficulty.  The only
+dispute on both sides is, "What are their rights?"  If the majority
+should not rule, who would be the judge? Where is such a judge to be
+found? We should all be bound by the majority of the American people;
+if not, then the minority must control.  Would that be right? Would
+it be just or generous? Assuredly not.  I reiterate that the majority
+should rule.  If I adopt a wrong policy, the opportunity for
+condemnation will occur in four years' time.  Then I can be turned
+out, and a better man with better views put in my place.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
+FEBRUARY 15, 1861
+
+I most cordially thank his Honor Mayor Wilson, and the citizens of
+Pittsburg generally, for their flattering reception.  I am the more
+grateful because I know that it is not given to me alone, but to the
+cause I represent, which clearly proves to me their good-will, and
+that sincere feeling is at the bottom of it.  And here I may remark
+that in every short address I have made to the people, in every crowd
+through which I have passed of late, some allusion has been made to
+the present distracted condition of the country.  It is natural to
+expect that I should say something on this subject; but to touch upon
+it at all would involve an elaborate discussion of a great many
+questions and circumstances, requiring more time than I can at
+present command, and would, perhaps, unnecessarily commit me upon
+matters which have not yet fully developed themselves.  The condition
+of the country is an extraordinary one, and fills the mind of every
+patriot with anxiety.  It is my intention to give this subject all
+the consideration I possibly can before specially deciding in regard
+to it, so that when I do speak it may be as nearly right as possible.
+When I do speak I hope I may say nothing in opposition to the spirit
+of the Constitution, contrary to the integrity of the Union, or which
+will prove inimical to the liberties of the people, or to the peace
+of the whole country.  And furthermore, when the time arrives for me
+to speak on this great subject, I hope I may say nothing to
+disappoint the people generally throughout the country, especially if
+the expectation has been based upon anything which I may have
+heretofore said.  Notwithstanding the troubles across the river [the
+speaker pointing southwardly across the Monongahela, and smiling],
+there is no crisis but an artificial one.  What is there now to
+warrant the condition of affairs presented by our friends over the
+river? Take even their own view of the questions involved, and there
+is nothing to justify the course they are pursuing.  I repeat, then,
+there is no crisis, excepting such a one as may be gotten up at any
+time by turbulent men aided by designing politicians, My advice to
+them, under such circumstances, is to keep cool.  If the great
+American people only keep their temper on both sides of the line, the
+troubles will come to an end, and the question which now distracts
+the country will be settled, just as surely as all other difficulties
+of a like character which have originated in this government have
+been adjusted.  Let the people on both sides keep their
+self-possession, and just as other clouds have cleared away in due
+time, so will this great nation continue to prosper as heretofore.
+But, fellow-citizens, I have spoken longer on this subject than I
+intended at the outset.
+
+It is often said that the tariff is the specialty of Pennsylvania.
+Assuming that direct taxation is not to be adopted, the tariff
+question must be as durable as the government itself.   It is a
+question of national housekeeping.   It is to the government what
+replenishing the meal-tub is to the family.  Every varying
+circumstances will require frequent modifications as to the amount
+needed and the sources of supply.  So far there is little difference
+of opinion among the people.  It is as to whether, and how far,
+duties on imports shall be adjusted to favor home production in the
+home market, that controversy begins.  One party insists that such
+adjustment oppresses one class for the advantage of another; while
+the other party argues that, with all its incidents, in the long run
+all classes are benefited.  In the Chicago platform there is a plank
+upon this subject which should be a general law to the incoming
+administration.  We should do neither more nor less than we gave the
+people reason to believe we would when they gave us their votes.
+Permit me, fellow-citizens, to read the tariff plank of the Chicago
+platform, or rather have it read in your hearing by one who has
+younger eyes.
+
+[Mr. Lincoln's private secretary then read Section 12 of the Chicago
+platform, as follows:]
+
+"That, while providing revenue for the support of the General
+Government by duties upon imports, sound policy requires such an
+adjustment of these imposts as will encourage the development of the
+industrial interest of the whole country; and we commend that policy
+of national exchanges which secures to working-men liberal wages, to
+agriculture remunerating prices, to mechanics and manufacturers
+adequate return for their skill, labor, and enterprise, and to the
+nation commercial prosperity and independence."
+
+As with all general propositions, doubtless, there will be shades of
+difference in construing this.  I have by no means a thoroughly
+matured judgment upon this subject, especially as to details; some
+general ideas are about all.  I have long thought it would be to our
+advantage to produce any necessary article at home which can be made
+of as good quality and with as little labor at home as abroad, at
+least by the difference of the carrying from abroad.  In such case
+the carrying is demonstrably a dead loss of labor.  For instance,
+labor being the true standard of value, is it not plain that if equal
+labor get a bar of railroad iron out of a mine in England and another
+out of a mine in Pennsylvania, each can be laid down in a track at
+home cheaper than they could exchange countries, at least by the
+carriage? If there be a present cause why one can be both made and
+carried cheaper in money price than the other can be made without
+carrying, that cause is an unnatural and injurious one, and ought
+gradually, if not rapidly, to be removed.  The condition of the
+treasury at this time would seem to render an early revision of the
+tariff indispensable.  The Morrill [tariff] bill, now pending before
+Congress, may or may not become a law.  I am not posted as to its
+particular provisions, but if they are generally satisfactory, and
+the bill shall now pass, there will be an end for the present.  If,
+however, it shall not pass, I suppose the whole subject will be one
+of the most pressing and important for the next Congress.  By the
+Constitution, the executive may recommend measures which he may think
+proper, and he may veto those he thinks improper, and it is supposed
+that he may add to these certain indirect influences to affect the
+action of Congress.  My political education strongly inclines me
+against a very free use of any of these means by the executive to
+control the legislation of the country.  As a rule, I think it better
+that Congress should originate as well as perfect its measures
+without external bias.  I therefore would rather recommend to every
+gentleman who knows he is to be a member of the next Congress to take
+an enlarged view, and post himself thoroughly, so as to contribute
+his part to such an adjustment of the tariff as shall produce a
+sufficient revenue, and in its other bearings, so far as possible, be
+just and equal to all sections of the country and classes of the
+people.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT CLEVELAND, OHIO,
+
+FEBRUARY 15, 1861
+
+Mr. CHAIRMAN AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF CLEVELAND:--We have been marching
+about two miles through snow, rain, and deep mud.   The large numbers
+that have turned out under these circumstances testify that you are
+in earnest about something or other.  But do I think so meanly of you
+as to suppose that that earnestness is about me personally? I would
+be doing you an injustice to suppose you did.  You have assembled to
+testify your respect for the Union, the Constitution, and the laws;
+and here let me say that it is with you, the people, to advance the
+great cause of the Union and the Constitution, and not with any one
+man.  It rests with you alone.  This fact is strongly impressed upon
+my mind at present.  In a community like this, whose appearance
+testifies to their intelligence, I am convinced that the cause of
+liberty and the Union can never be in danger.  Frequent allusion is
+made to the excitement at present existing in our national politics,
+and it is as well that I should also allude to it here.  I think that
+there is no occasion for any excitement.  'The crisis, as it is
+called, is altogether an artificial crisis.  In all parts of the
+nation there are differences of opinion on politics.  There are
+differences of opinion even here.  You did not all vote for the
+person who now addresses you.  What is happening now will not hurt
+those who are farther away from here.  Have they not all their rights
+now as they ever have had? Do they not have their fugitive slaves
+returned now as ever? Have they not the same Constitution that they
+have lived under for seventy-odd years? Have they not a position as
+citizens of this common country, and have we any power to change that
+position? What, then, is the matter with them? Why all this
+excitement? Why all these complaints?
+
+As I said before, this crisis is all artificial! It has no foundation
+in facts.  It is not argued up, as the saying is, and cannot,
+therefore, be argued down.  Let it alone and it will go down of
+itself.
+
+[Mr. Lincoln then said that they must be content with a few words
+from him, as he was tired, etc.  Having been given to understand that
+the crowd was not all Republican, but consisted of men of all
+parties, he continued:]
+
+This is as it should be.  If Judge Douglas had been elected and had
+been here on his way to Washington, as I am to-night, the Republicans
+should have joined his supporters in welcoming him, just as his
+friends have joined with mine tonight.  If all do not join now to
+save the good old ship of the Union this voyage, nobody will have a
+chance to pilot her on another voyage.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT BUFFALO, NEW YORK,
+FEBRUARY 16, 1861
+
+Mr. MAYOR AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF BUFFALO AND THE STATE OF NEW YORK:--
+I am here to thank you briefly for this grand reception given to me,
+not personally, but as the representative of our great and beloved
+country.  Your worthy mayor has been pleased to mention, in his
+address to me, the fortunate and agreeable journey which I have had
+from home, on my rather circuitous route to the Federal capital.  I
+am very happy that he was enabled in truth to congratulate myself and
+company on that fact.  It is true we have had nothing thus far.  to
+mar the pleasure of the trip.  We have not been met alone by those
+who assisted in giving the election to me--I say not alone by them,
+but by the whole population of the country through which we have
+passed.  This is as it should be.  Had the election fallen to any
+other of the distinguished candidates instead of myself, under the
+peculiar circumstances, to say the least, it would have been proper
+for all citizens to have greeted him as you now greet me.  It is an
+evidence of the devotion of the whole people to the Constitution, the
+Union, and the perpetuity of the liberties of this country.  I am
+unwilling on any occasion that I should be so meanly thought of as to
+have it supposed for a moment that these demonstrations are tendered
+to me personally.  They are tendered to the country, to the
+institutions of the country, and to the perpetuity of the liberties
+of the country, for which these institutions were made and created.
+
+Your worthy mayor has thought fit to express the hope that I may be
+able to relieve the country from the present, or, I should say, the
+threatened difficulties.  I am sure I bring a heart true to the work.
+For the ability to perform it, I must trust in that Supreme Being who
+has never forsaken this favored land, through the instrumentality of
+this great and intelligent people.  Without that assistance I shall
+surely fail; with it, I cannot fail.  When we speak of threatened
+difficulties to the Country, it is natural that it should be expected
+that something should be said by myself with regard to particular
+measures.  Upon more mature reflection, however, others will agree
+with me that, when it is considered that these difficulties are
+without precedent, and have never been acted upon by any individual
+situated as I am, it is most proper I should wait and see the
+developments, and get all the light possible, so that when I do speak
+authoritatively, I may be as near right as possible.  When I shall
+speak authoritatively, I hope to say nothing inconsistent with the
+Constitution, the Union, the rights of all the States, of each State,
+and of each section of the country, and not to disappoint the
+reasonable expectations of those who have confided to me their votes.
+In this connection allow me to say that you, as a portion of the
+great American people, need only to maintain your composure, stand up
+to your sober convictions of right, to your obligations to the
+Constitution, and act in accordance with those sober convictions, and
+the clouds now on the horizon will be dispelled, and we shall have a
+bright and glorious future; and when this generation has passed away,
+tens of thousands will inhabit this country where only thousands
+inhabit it now.  I do not propose to address you at length; I have no
+voice for it.  Allow me again to thank you for this magnificent
+reception, and bid you farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT ROCHESTER, NEW YORK,
+
+FEBRUARY 18, 1861
+
+I confess myself, after having seen many large audiences since
+leaving home, overwhelmed with this vast number of faces at this hour
+of the morning.  I am not vain enough to believe that you are here
+from any wish to see me as an individual, but because I am for the
+time being the representative of the American people.  I could not,
+if I would, address you at any length.  I have not the strength, even
+if I had the time, for a speech at each of these many interviews that
+are afforded me on my way to Washington.  I appear merely to see you,
+and to let you see me, and to bid you. farewell.  I hope it will be
+understood that it is from no disinclination to oblige anybody that I
+do not address you at greater length.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT SYRACUSE, NEW YORK,
+
+FEBRUARY 18, 1861.
+
+LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--I See you have erected a very fine and
+handsome platform here for me, and I presume you expected me to speak
+from it.  If I should go upon it, you would imagine that I was about
+to deliver you a much longer speech than I am.  I wish you to
+understand that I mean no discourtesy to you by thus declining.  I
+intend discourtesy to no one.  But I wish you to understand that,
+though I am unwilling to go upon this platform, you are not at
+liberty to draw inferences concerning any other platform with which
+my name has been or is connected.  I wish you long life and
+prosperity individually, and pray that with the perpetuity of those
+institutions under which we have all so long lived and prospered, our
+happiness may be secured, our future made brilliant, and the glorious
+destiny of our country established forever.  I bid you a kind
+farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT UTICA, NEW YORK,
+
+FEBRUARY 18, 1860
+
+LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--I have no speech to make to you; and no time
+to speak in.  I appear before you that I may see you, and that you
+may see me; and I am willing to admit that so far as the ladies are
+concerned I have the best of the bargain, though I wish it to be
+understood that I do not make the same acknowledgment concerning the
+men.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MAYOR OF ALBANY, NEW YORK
+
+FEBRUARY 18, 1861.
+
+MR. MAYOR:--I can hardly appropriate to myself the flattering terms
+in which you communicate the tender of this reception, as personal to
+myself.  I most gratefully accept the hospitalities tendered to me,
+and will not detain you or the audience with any extended remarks at
+this time.  I presume that in the two or three courses through which
+I shall have to go, I shall have to repeat somewhat, and I will
+therefore only express to you my thanks for this kind reception.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO GOVERNOR MORGAN OF NEW YORK, AT ALBANY,
+
+FEBRUARY 18, 1861.
+
+GOVERNOR MORGAN:--I was pleased to receive an invitation to visit the
+capital of the great Empire State of this nation while on my way to
+the Federal capital.  I now thank you, Mr. Governor, and you, the
+people of the capital of the State of New York, for this most hearty
+and magnificent welcome.  If I am not at fault, the great Empire
+State at this time contains a larger population than did the whole of
+the United States of America at the time they achieved their national
+independence, and I was proud--to be invited to visit its capital, to
+meet its citizens, as I now have the honor to do. I am notified by
+your governor that this reception is tendered by citizens without
+distinction of party.  Because of this I accept it the more gladly.
+In this country, and in any country where freedom of thought is
+tolerated, citizens attach themselves to political parties.  It is
+but an ordinary degree of charity to attribute this act to the
+supposition that, in thus attaching themselves to the various
+parties, each man in his own judgment supposes he thereby best
+advances the interests of the whole country.  And when an election is
+past it is altogether befitting a free people, as I suppose, that,
+until the next election, they should be one people.  The reception
+you have extended me to-day is not given to me personally,--it should
+not be so,--but as the representative, for the time being, of the
+majority of the nation.  If the election had fallen to any of the
+more distinguished citizens who received the support of the people,
+this same honor should have greeted him that greets me this day, in
+testimony of the universal, unanimous devotion of the whole people to
+the Constitution, the Union, and to the perpetual liberties of
+succeeding generations in this country.
+
+I have neither the voice nor the strength to address you at any
+greater length.  I beg you will therefore accept my most grateful
+thanks for this manifest devotion--not to me, but the institutions of
+this great and glorious country.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF NEW YORK, AT ALBANY,
+
+FEBRUARY 18, 1861.
+
+MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF
+NEW YORK:--It is with feelings of great diffidence, and, I may say,
+with feelings of awe, perhaps greater than I have recently
+experienced, that I meet you here in this place.  The history of this
+great State, the renown of those great men who have stood here, and
+have spoken here, and have been heard here, all crowd around my
+fancy, and incline me to shrink from any attempt to address you.  Yet
+I have some confidence given me by the generous manner in which you
+have invited me, and by the still more generous manner in which you
+have received me, to speak further.  You have invited and received me
+without distinction of party.  I cannot for a moment suppose that
+this has been done in any considerable degree with reference to my
+personal services, but that it is done in so far as I am regarded, at
+this time, as the representative of the majesty of this great nation.
+I doubt not this is the truth, and the whole truth of the case, and
+this is as it should be.  It is much more gratifying to me that this
+reception has been given to me as the elected representative of a
+free people, than it could possibly be if tendered merely as an
+evidence of devotion to me, or to any one man personally.
+
+And now I think it were more fitting that I should close these hasty
+remarks.  It is true that, while I hold myself, without mock modesty,
+the humblest of all individuals that have ever been elevated to the
+Presidency, I have a more difficult task to perform than any one of
+them.
+
+You have generously tendered me the support--the united support--of
+the great Empire State.  For this, in behalf of the nation--in behalf
+of the present and future of the nation--in behalf of civil and
+religious liberty for all time to come, most gratefully do I thank
+you.  I do not propose to enter into an explanation of any particular
+line of policy, as to our present difficulties, to be adopted by the
+incoming administration.  I deem it just to you, to myself, to all,
+that I should see everything, that I should hear everything, that I
+should have every light that can be brought within my reach, in order
+that, when I do so speak, I shall have enjoyed every opportunity to
+take correct and true ground; and for this reason I do not propose to
+speak at this time of the policy of the Government.  But when the
+time comes, I shall speak, as well as I am able, for the good of the
+present and future of this country for the good both of the North and
+of the South--for the good of the one and the other, and of all
+sections of the country.  In the meantime, if we have patience, if we
+restrain ourselves, if we allow ourselves not to run off in a
+passion, I still have confidence that the Almighty, the Maker of the
+universe, will, through the instrumentality of this great and
+intelligent people, bring us through this as He has through all the
+other difficulties of our country. Relying on this, I again thank you
+for this generous reception.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT TROY, NEW YORK,
+
+FEBRUARY 19, 1861
+
+MR. MAYOR AND CITIZENS OF TROY:--I thank you very kindly for this
+great reception.  Since I left my home it has not been my fortune to
+meet an assemblage more numerous and more orderly than this.  I am
+the more gratified at this mark of your regard since you assure me it
+is tendered, not to the individual but to the high office you have
+called me to fill.  I have neither strength nor time to make any
+extended remarks on this occasion, and I can only repeat to you my
+sincere thanks for the kind reception you have thought proper to
+extend to me.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT POUGHKEEPSIE, NEW YORK,
+
+FEBRUARY 19, 1861
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS:--It is altogether impossible I should make myself
+heard by any considerable portion of this vast assemblage; but,
+although I appear before you mainly for the purpose of seeing you,
+and to let you see rather than hear me, I cannot refrain from saying
+that I am highly gratified--as much here, indeed, under the
+circumstances, as I have been anywhere on my route--to witness this
+noble demonstration--made, not in honor of an individual, but of the
+man who at this time humbly, but earnestly, represents the majesty of
+the nation.
+
+This reception, like all the others that have been tendered to me,
+doubtless emanates from all the political parties, and not from one
+alone.  As such I accept it the more gratefully, since it indicates
+an earnest desire on the part of the whole people, with out regard to
+political differences, to save--not the country, because the country
+will save itself but to save the institutions of the country, those
+institutions under which, in the last three quarters of a century, we
+have grown to a great, and intelligent, and a happy people--the
+greatest, the most intelligent, and the happiest people in the world.
+These noble manifestations indicate, with unerring certainty, that
+the whole people are willing to make common cause for this object;
+that if, as it ever must be, some have been successful in the recent
+election and some have been beaten, if some are satisfied and some
+are dissatisfied, the defeated party are not in favor of sinking the
+ship, but are desirous of running it through the tempest in safety,
+and willing, if they think the people have committed an error in
+their verdict now, to wait in the hope of reversing it and setting it
+right next time.  I do not say that in the recent election the people
+did the wisest thing, that could have been done--indeed, I do not
+think they did; but I do say that in accepting the great trust
+committed to me, which I do with a determination to endeavor to prove
+worthy of it, I must rely upon you, upon the people of the whole
+country, for support; and with their sustaining aid, even I, humble
+as I am, cannot fail to carry the ship of state safely through the
+storm.
+
+I have now only to thank you warmly for your kind attendance, and bid
+you all an affectionate farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT HUDSON, NEW YORK,.
+
+FEBRUARY 19, 1860
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS:--I see that you are providing a platform for me.  I
+shall have to decline standing upon it, because the president of the
+company tells me that I shall not have time to wait until it is
+brought to me.  As I said yesterday, under similar circumstances at
+another gathering, you must not draw the inference that I have any
+intention of deserting any platform with which I have a legitimate
+connection because I do not stand on yours.  Allow me to thank you
+for this splendid reception, and I now bid you farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT PEEKSKILL, NEW YORK,
+FEBRUARY 19, 1861
+
+LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--I have but a moment to stand before you to
+listen to and return your kind greeting. I thank you for this
+reception, and for the pleasant manner in which it is tendered to me
+by our mutual friends. I will say in a single sentence, in regard to
+the difficulties that lie before me and our beloved country, that if
+I can only be as generously and unanimously sustained as the
+demonstrations I have witnessed indicate I shall be, I shall not
+fail; but without your sustaining hands I am sure that neither I nor
+any other man can hope to surmount these difficulties.  I trust that
+in the course I shall pursue I shall be sustained not only by the
+party that elected me, but by the patriotic people of the whole
+country.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT FISHKILL LANDING
+
+FEBRUARY 19, 1861
+
+LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--I appear before you not to make a speech.  I
+have not sufficient time, if I had the strength, to repeat speeches
+at every station where the people kindly gather to welcome me as we
+go along.  If I had the strength, and should take the time, I should
+not get to Washington until after the inauguration, which you must be
+aware would not fit exactly.  That such an untoward event might not
+transpire, I know you will readily forego any further remarks; and I
+close by bidding you farewell.
+
+
+
+
+REMARKS AT THE ASTOR HOUSE, NEW YORK CITY, FEBRUARY 19, 1861
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS:--I have stepped before you merely in compliance with
+what appears to be your wish, and not with the purpose of making a
+speech.  I do not propose making a speech this afternoon.  I could
+not be heard by any but a small fraction of you, at best; but, what
+is still worse than that, I have nothing just now to say that is
+worthy of your hearing.  I beg you to believe that I do not now
+refuse to address you from any disposition to disoblige you, but to
+the contrary.  But, at the same time, I beg of you to excuse me for
+the present.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT NEW YORK CITY,
+
+FEBRUARY 19, 1861
+
+Mr. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:--I am rather an old man to avail myself
+of such an excuse as I am now about to do.  Yet the truth is so
+distinct, and presses itself so distinctly upon me, that I cannot
+well avoid it--and that is, that I did not understand when I was
+brought into this room that I was to be brought here to make a
+speech.  It was not intimated to me that I was brought into the room
+where Daniel Webster and Henry Clay had made speeches, and where one
+in my position might be expected to do something like those men or
+say something worthy of myself or my audience.  I therefore beg you
+to make allowance for the circumstances in which I have been by
+surprise brought before you.  Now I have been in the habit of
+thinking and sometimes speaking upon political questions that have
+for some years past agitated the country; and, if I were disposed to
+do so, and we could take up some one of the issues, as the lawyers
+call them, and I were called upon to make an argument about it to the
+best of my ability, I could do so without much preparation.  But that
+is not what you desire to have done here to-night.
+
+I have been occupying a position, since the Presidential election, of
+silence--of avoiding public speaking, of avoiding public writing.  I
+have been doing so because I thought, upon full consideration, that
+was the proper course for me to take.   I am brought before you now,
+and required to make a speech, when you all approve more than
+anything else of the fact that I have been keeping silence.  And now
+it seems to me that the response you give to that remark ought to
+justify me in closing just here.  I have not kept silence since the
+Presidential election from any party wantonness, or from any
+indifference to the anxiety that pervades the minds of men about the
+aspect of the political affairs of this country.  I have kept silence
+for the reason that I supposed it was peculiarly proper that I should
+do so until the time came when, according to the custom of the
+country, I could speak officially.
+
+I still suppose that, while the political drama being enacted in this
+country at this time is rapidly shifting its scenes--forbidding an
+anticipation with any degree of certainty to-day of what we shall see
+to-morrow--it is peculiarly fitting that I should see it all, up to
+the last minute, before I should take ground that I might be
+disposed, by the shifting of the scenes afterward, also to shift.  I
+have said several times upon this journey, and I now repeat it to
+you, that when the time does come, I shall then take the ground that
+I think is right--right for the North, for the South, for the East,
+for the West, for the whole country.  And in doing so I hope to feel
+no necessity pressing upon me to say anything in conflict with the
+Constitution, in conflict with the continued union of these States,
+in conflict with the perpetuation of the liberties of this people, or
+anything in conflict with anything whatever that I have ever given
+you reason to expect from me.  And now, my friends, have I said
+enough? [Loud cries of "No, no!" and, "Three cheers for LINCOLN!"]
+Now, my friends, there appears to be a difference of opinion between
+you and me, and I really feel called upon to decide the question
+myself.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY,
+FEBRUARY 20, 1861
+
+Mr. MAYOR:--It is with feelings of deep gratitude that I make my
+acknowledgments for the reception that has been given me in the great
+commercial city of New York.  I cannot but remember that it is done
+by the people who do not, by a large majority, agree with me in
+political sentiment.  It is the more grateful to me because in this I
+see that for the great principles of our Government the people are
+pretty nearly or quite unanimous.  In regard to the difficulties that
+confront us at this time, and of which you have seen fit to speak so
+becomingly and so justly, I can only say I agree with the sentiments
+expressed.  In my devotion to the Union I hope I am behind no man in
+the nation.  As to my wisdom in conducting affairs so as to tend to
+the preservation of the Union, I fear too great confidence may have
+been placed in me.  I am sure I bring a heart devoted to the work.
+There is nothing that could ever bring me to consent--willingly to
+consent--to the destruction of this Union (in which not only the
+great city of New York, but the whole country, has acquired its
+greatness), unless it would be that thing for which the Union itself
+was made.  I understand that the ship is made for the carrying and
+preservation of the cargo; and so long as the ship is safe with the
+cargo, it shall not be abandoned.  This Union shall never be
+abandoned, unless the possibility of its existence shall cease to
+exist without the necessity of throwing passengers and cargo
+overboard.  So long, then, as it is possible that the prosperity and
+liberties of this people can be preserved within this Union, it shall
+be my purpose at all tunes to preserve it.  And now, Mr. Mayor,
+renewing my thanks for this cordial reception, allow me to come to a
+close.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY
+
+FEBRUARY 21, 1860
+
+MR. DAYTON AND GENTLEMEN OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY:--I shall only
+thank you briefly for this very kind reception given me, not
+personally, but as the temporary representative of the majesty of the
+nation.  To the kindness of your hearts, and of the hearts of your
+brethren in your State, I should be very proud to respond, but I
+shall not have strength to address you or other assemblages at
+length, even if I had the time to do so.  I appear before you,
+therefore, for little else than to greet you, and to briefly say
+farewell. You have done me the very high honor to present your
+reception courtesies to me through your great man a man with whom it
+is an honor to be associated anywhere, and in owning whom no State
+can be poor.  He has said enough, and by the saying of it suggested
+enough, to require a response of an hour, well considered.  I could
+not in an hour make a worthy response to it.  I therefore, ladies and
+gentlemen of New Jersey, content myself with saying, most heartily do
+I indorse all the sentiments he has expressed.  Allow me, most
+gratefully, to bid you farewell.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MAYOR OF NEWARK, NEW JERSEY,
+
+FEBRUARY 21, 1861.
+
+MR. MAYOR:--I thank you for this reception at the city of Newark.
+With regard to the great work of which you speak, I will say that I
+bring to it a heart filled with love for my country, and an honest
+desire to do what is right.  I am sure, however, that I have not the
+ability to do anything unaided of God, and that without His support
+and that of this free, happy, prosperous, and intelligent people, no
+man can succeed in doing that the importance of which we all
+comprehend.  Again thanking you for the reception you have given me,
+I will now bid you farewell, and proceed upon my journey.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS IN TRENTON AT THE TRENTON HOUSE,
+
+FEBRUARY 21, 1861
+
+I have been invited by your representatives to the Legislature to
+visit this the capital of your honored State, and in acknowledging
+their kind invitation, compelled to respond to the welcome of the
+presiding officers of each body, and I suppose they intended I should
+speak to you through them, as they are the representatives of all of
+you; and if I were to speak again here, I should only have to repeat
+in a great measure much that I have said, which would be disgusting
+to my friends around me who have met here.  I have no speech to make,
+but merely appear to see you and let you look at me; and as to the
+latter I think I have greatly the best of the bargain.  My friends,
+allow me to bid you farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE SENATE OF NEW JERSEY
+
+FEBRUARY 21, 1861
+
+MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF NEW
+JERSEY:--I am very grateful to you for the honorable reception of
+which I have been the object.  I cannot but remember the place that
+New Jersey holds in our early history.  In the Revolutionary struggle
+few of the States among the Old Thirteen had more of the battle-
+fields of the country within their limits than New Jersey. May I be
+pardoned if, upon this occasion, I mention that away back in my
+childhood, the earliest days of my being able to read, I got hold of
+a small book, such a one as few of the younger members have ever seen
+Weems's Life of Washington.  I remember all the accounts there given
+of the battle-fields and struggles for the liberties of the country;
+and none fixed themselves upon my imagination so deeply as the
+struggle here at Trenton, New Jersey.  The crossing of the river, the
+contest with the Hessians, the great hardships endured at that time,
+all fixed themselves on my memory more than any single Revolutionary
+event; and you all know, for you have all been boys, how these early
+impressions last longer than any others.  I recollect thinking then,
+boy even though I was, that there must have been something more than
+common that these men struggled for.  I am exceedingly anxious that
+that thing that something even more than national independence, that
+something that held out a great promise to all the people of the
+world to all time to come--I am exceedingly anxious that this Union,
+the Constitution, and the liberties of the people shall be
+perpetuated in accordance with the original idea for which that
+struggle was made; and I shall be most happy indeed if I shall be a
+humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, and of this his
+almost chosen people, for perpetuating the object of that great
+struggle.  You give me this reception, as I understand, without
+distinction of party.  I learn that this body is composed of a
+majority of gentlemen who, in the exercise of their best judgment in
+the choice of a chief magistrate, did not think I was the man.  I
+understand, nevertheless, that they come forward here to greet me as
+the constitutionally elected President of the United States--as
+citizens of the United States to meet the man who, for the time
+being, is the representative of the majesty of the nation--united by
+the single purpose to perpetuate the Constitution, the union, and the
+liberties of the people.  As such, I accept this reception more
+gratefully than I could do did I believe it were tendered to me as an
+individual.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE ASSEMBLY OF NEW JERSEY,
+
+FEBRUARY 21, 1861
+
+MR. SPEAKER AND GENTLEMEN: I have just enjoyed the honor of a
+reception by the other branch of this Legislature, and I return to
+you and them my thanks for the reception which the people of New
+Jersey have given through their chosen representatives to me as the
+representative, for the time being, of the majesty of the people of
+the United States.  I appropriate to myself very little of the
+demonstrations of respect with which I have been greeted.  I think
+little should be given to any man, but that it should be a
+manifestation of adherence to the Union and the Constitution.
+I understand myself to be received here by the representatives of the
+people of New Jersey, a majority of whom differ in opinion from those
+with whom I have acted.  This manifestation is therefore to be
+regarded by me as expressing their devotion to the Union, the
+Constitution, and the liberties of the people.
+
+You, Mr. Speaker, have well said that this is a time when the bravest
+and wisest look with doubt and awe upon the aspect presented by our
+national affairs.  Under these circumstances you will readily see why
+I should not speak in detail of the course I shall deem it best to
+pursue.  It is proper that I should avail myself of all the
+information and all the time at my command, in order that when the
+time arrives in which I must speak officially, I shall be able to
+take the ground which I deem best and safest, and from which I may
+have no occasion to swerve.  I shall endeavor to take the ground I
+deem most just to the North, the East, the West, the South, and the
+whole country.  I shall take it, I hope, in good temper, certainly
+with no malice toward, any section.  I shall do all that may be in my
+power to promote a peaceful settlement of all our difficulties.  The
+man does not live who is more devoted to peace than I am, none who
+would do more to preserve it, but it may be necessary to put the foot
+down firmly.  And if I do my duty and do right, you will sustain me,
+will you not?  [Loud cheers, and cries of "Yes, yes; we will."]
+Received as I am by the members of a Legislature the majority of whom
+do not agree with me in political sentiments, I trust that I may have
+their assistance in piloting the ship of state through this voyage,
+surrounded by perils as it is; for if it should suffer wreck now,
+there will be no pilot ever needed for another voyage.
+
+Gentlemen, I have already spoken longer than I intended, and must beg
+leave to stop here.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MAYOR OF PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA,
+FEBRUARY 21, 1861
+
+MR. MAYOR AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF PHILADELPHIA:--I appear before you
+to make no lengthy speech, but to thank you for this reception. The
+reception you have given me to-night is not to me, the man, the
+individual, but to the man who temporarily represents, or should
+represent, the majesty of the nation.  It is true, as your worthy
+mayor has said, that there is great anxiety amongst the citizens of
+the United States at this time.  I deem it a happy circumstance that
+this dissatisfied portion of our fellow-citizens does not point us to
+anything in which they are being injured or about to be injured; for
+which reason I have felt all the while justified in concluding that
+the crisis, the panic, the anxiety of the country at this time is
+artificial.  If there be those who differ with me upon this subject,
+they have not pointed out the substantial difficulty that exists.
+I do not mean to say that an artificial panic may not do considerable
+harm; that it has done such I do not deny.  The hope that has been
+expressed by your mayor, that I may be able to restore peace,
+harmony, and prosperity to the country, is most worthy of him; and
+most happy, indeed, will I be if I shall be able to verify and fulfil
+that hope.  I promise you that I bring to the work a sincere heart.
+Whether I will bring a head equal to that heart will be for future
+times to determine.  It were useless for me to speak of details of
+plans now; I shall speak officially next Monday week, if ever. If I
+should not speak then, it were useless for me to do so now.  If I do
+speak then, it is useless for me to do so now.  When I do speak, I
+shall take such ground as I deem best calculated to restore peace,
+harmony, and prosperity to the country, and tend to the perpetuity of
+the nation and the liberty of these States and these people.  Your
+worthy mayor has expressed the wish, in which I join with him, that
+it were convenient for me to remain in your city long enough to
+consult your merchants and manufacturers; or, as it were, to listen
+to those breathings rising within the consecrated walls wherein the
+Constitution of the United States and, I will add, the Declaration of
+Independence, were originally framed and adopted.  I assure you and
+your mayor that I had hoped on this occasion, and upon all occasions
+during my life, that I shall do nothing inconsistent with the
+teachings of these holy and most sacred walls.  I have never asked
+anything that does not breathe from those walls.  All my political
+warfare has been in favor of the teachings that come forth from these
+sacred walls.  May my right hand forget its cunning and my tongue
+cleave to the roof of my mouth if ever I prove false to those
+teachings.  Fellow-citizens, I have addressed you longer than I
+expected to do, and now allow me to bid you goodnight.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS IN THE HALL OF INDEPENDENCE, PHILADELPHIA,
+
+FEBRUARY 22, 1861
+
+MR. CUYLER:--I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself standing
+here, in this place, where were collected together the wisdom, the
+devotion to principle, from which sprang the institutions under which
+we live. You have kindly suggested to me that in my hands is the task
+of restoring peace to the present distracted condition of the
+country. I can say in return, sir, that all the political sentiments
+I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them,
+from the sentiments which originated and were given to the world from
+this hall.  I have never had a feeling politically that did not
+spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of
+Independence.  I have often pondered over the dangers which were
+incurred by the men who assembled here and framed and adopted that
+Declaration of Independence.  I have pondered over the toils that
+were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army who achieved
+that independence.  I have often inquired of myself what great
+principle or idea it was that kept the confederacy so long together.
+It was not the mere matter of separation of the colonies from the
+motherland, but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence
+which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I
+hope, to the world for all future time.  It was that which gave
+promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the
+shoulders of all men.  This is the sentiment embodied in the
+Declaration of Independence.  Now, my friends, can the country be
+saved upon that basis?  If it can, I will consider myself one of the
+happiest men in the world if I can help to save it.  If it cannot be
+saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful.  But if this
+country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about
+to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it.
+Now, in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there need be no
+bloodshed or war.  There is no necessity for it.  I am not in favor
+of such a course, and I may say, in advance, that there will be no
+bloodshed unless it is forced upon the Government, and then it will
+be compelled to act in self-defence.
+
+My friends; this is wholly an unexpected speech, and I did not expect
+to be called upon to say a word when I came here.  I supposed it was
+merely to do something toward raising the flag.  I may, therefore,
+have said something indiscreet.  I have said nothing but what I am
+willing to live by and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, die
+by.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE WILMINGTON DELEGATION,
+
+FEBRUARY 22, 1861
+
+MR. CHAIRMAN:--I feel highly flattered by the encomiums you have seen
+fit to bestow upon me.  Soon after the nomination of General Taylor,
+I attended a political meeting in the city of Wilmington, and have
+since carried with me a fond remembrance of the hospitalities of the
+city on that occasion.  The programme established provides for my
+presence in Harrisburg in twenty-four hours from this time.  I expect
+to be in Washington on Saturday.  It is, therefore, an impossibility
+that I should accept your kind invitation.  There are no people whom
+I would more gladly accommodate than those of Delaware; but
+circumstances forbid, gentlemen.  With many regrets for the character
+of the reply I am compelled to give you, I bid you adieu.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS AT LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA,
+
+FEBRUARY 22, 1860
+
+LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF OLD LANCASTER:--I appear not to make a
+speech. I have not time to make a speech at length, and not strength
+to make them on every occasion; and, worse than all, I have none to
+make.  There is plenty of matter to speak about in these times, but
+it is well known that the more a man speaks the less he is
+understood--the more he says one thing, the more his adversaries
+contend he meant something else. I shall soon have occasion to speak
+officially, and then I will endeavor to put my thoughts just as plain
+as I can express myself--true to the Constitution and Union of all
+the States, and to the perpetual liberty of all the people.  Until I
+so speak, there is no need to enter upon details.  In conclusion, I
+greet you most heartily, and bid you an affectionate farewell.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF PENNSYLVANIA, AT HARRISBURG,
+
+FEBRUARY 22, 1861
+
+MR. SPEAKER OF THE SENATE, AND ALSO MR. SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF
+REPRESENTATIVES, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE
+OF PENNSYLVANIA:--I appear before you only for a very few brief
+remarks in response to what has been said to me.  I thank you most
+sincerely for this reception, and the generous words in which support
+has been promised me upon this occasion.  I thank your great
+commonwealth for the overwhelming support it recently gave, not me
+personally, but the cause which I think a just one, in the late
+election.
+
+Allusion has been made to the fact--the interesting fact perhaps we
+should say--that I for the first time appear at the capital of the
+great commonwealth of Pennsylvania upon the birthday of the Father of
+his Country.  In connection with that beloved anniversary connected
+with the history of this country, I have already gone through one
+exceedingly interesting scene this morning in the ceremonies at
+Philadelphia.  Under the kind conduct of gentlemen there, I was for
+the first time allowed the privilege of standing in old Independence
+Hall to have a few words addressed to me there, and opening up to me
+an opportunity of manifesting my deep regret that I had not more time
+to express something of my own feelings excited by the occasion, that
+had been really the feelings of my whole life.
+
+Besides this, our friends there had provided a magnificent flag of
+the country.  They had arranged it so that I was given the honor of
+raising it to the head of its staff, and when it went up I was
+pleased that it went to its place by the strength of my own feeble
+arm.  When, according to the arrangement, the cord was pulled, and it
+floated gloriously to the wind, without an accident, in the bright,
+glowing sunshine of the morning, I could not help hoping that there
+was in the entire success of that beautiful ceremony at least
+something of an omen of what is to come.  Nor could I help feeling
+then, as I have often felt, that in the whole of that proceeding I
+was a very humbled instrument.  I had not provided the flag; I had
+not made the arrangements for elevating it to its place; I had
+applied but a very small portion of even my feeble strength in
+raising it.  In the whole transaction I was in the hands of the
+people who had arranged it, and if I can have the same generous
+co-operation of the people of this nation, I think the flag of our
+country may yet be kept flaunting gloriously.
+
+I recur for a moment but to repeat some words uttered at the hotel in
+regard to what has been said about the military support which the
+General Government may expect from the commonwealth of Pennsylvania
+in a proper emergency.  To guard against any possible mistake do I
+recur to this.  It is not with any pleasure that I contemplate the
+possibility that a necessity may arise in this country for the use of
+the military arm.  While I am exceedingly gratified to see the
+manifestation upon your streets of your military force here, and
+exceedingly gratified at your promise to use that force upon a proper
+emergency--while I make these acknowledgments I desire to repeat, in
+order to preclude any possible misconstruction, that I do most
+sincerely hope that we shall have no use for them; that it will never
+become their duty to shed blood, and most especially never to shed
+fraternal blood.  I promise that so far as I may have wisdom to
+direct, if so painful a result shall in any wise be brought about, it
+shall he through no fault of mine.
+
+Allusion has also been made by one of your honored speakers to some
+remarks recently made by myself at Pittsburg in regard to what is
+supposed to be the especial interest of this great commonwealth of
+Pennsylvania.  I now wish only to say in regard to that matter, that
+the few remarks which I uttered on that occasion were rather
+carefully worded.  I took pains that they should be so.  I have seen
+no occasion since to add to them or subtract from them.  I leave them
+precisely as they stand, adding only now that I am pleased to have an
+expression from you, gentlemen of Pennsylvania, signifying that they
+are satisfactory to you.
+
+And now, gentlemen of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of
+Pennsylvania, allow me again to return to you my most sincere thanks.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MAYOR OF WASHINGTON, D.C.,
+
+FEBRUARY 27, 1861
+
+Mr. MAYOR:--I thank you, and through you the municipal authorities of
+this city who accompany you, for this welcome.  And as it is the
+first time in my life, since the present phase of politics has
+presented itself in this country, that I have said anything publicly
+within a region of country where the institution of slavery exists, I
+will take this occasion to say that I think very much of the ill
+feeling that has existed and still exists between the people in the
+section from which I came and the people here, is dependent upon a
+misunderstanding of one another.  I therefore avail myself of this
+opportunity to assure you, Mr. Mayor, and all the gentlemen present,
+that I have not now, and never have had, any other than as kindly
+feelings toward you as to the people of my own section.  I have not
+now, and never have had, any disposition to treat you in any respect
+otherwise than as my own neighbors.  I have not now any purpose to
+withhold from you any of the benefits of the Constitution, under any
+circumstances, that I would not feel myself constrained to withhold
+from my own neighbors; and I hope, in a word, that when we shall
+become better acquainted--and I say it with great confidence--we
+shall like each other better.  I thank you for the kindness of this
+reception.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO A SERENADE AT WASHINGTON, D.C.,
+FEBRUARY 28, 1861
+
+MY FRIENDS:--I suppose that I may take this as a compliment paid to
+me, and as such please accept my thanks for it.  I have reached this
+city of Washington under circumstances considerably differing from
+those under which any other man has ever reached it.  I am here for
+the purpose of taking an official position amongst the people, almost
+all of whom were politically opposed to me, and are yet opposed to
+me, as I suppose.
+
+I propose no lengthy address to you.  I only propose to say, as I did
+on yesterday, when your worthy mayor and board of aldermen called
+upon me, that I thought much of the ill feeling that has existed
+between you and the people of your surroundings and that people from
+among whom I came, has depended, and now depends, upon a
+misunderstanding.
+
+I hope that, if things shall go along as prosperously as I believe we
+all desire they may, I may have it in my power to remove something of
+this misunderstanding; that I may be enabled to convince you, and the
+people of your section of the country, that we regard you as in all
+things our equals, and in all things entitled to the same respect and
+the same treatment that we claim for ourselves; that we are in no
+wise disposed, if it were in our power, to oppress you, to deprive
+you of any of your rights under the Constitution of the United
+States, or even narrowly to split hairs with you in regard to these
+rights, but are determined to give you, as far as lies in our hands,
+all your rights under the Constitution--not grudgingly, but fully and
+fairly.  I hope that, by thus dealing with you, we will become better
+acquainted, and be better friends.
+
+And now, my friends, with these few remarks, and again returning my
+thanks for this compliment, and expressing my desire to hear a little
+more of your good music, I bid you good-night.
+
+
+
+
+WASHINGTON, SUNDAY, MARCH 3, 1861
+
+[During the struggle over the appointments of LINCOLN's Cabinet, the
+President-elect spoke as follows:]
+
+Gentlemen, it is evident that some one must take the responsibility
+of these appointments, and I will do it.  My Cabinet is completed.
+The positions are not definitely assigned, and will not be until I
+announce them privately to the gentlemen whom I have selected as my
+Constitutional advisers.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS,
+MARCH 4, 1861
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES:--In compliance with a custom as
+old as the Government itself, I appear before you to address you
+briefly, and to take in your presence the oath prescribed by the
+Constitution of the United States to be taken by the President
+"before he enters on the execution of his office."
+
+I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those
+matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or
+excitement.
+
+Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States
+that by the accession of a Republican administration their property
+and their peace and personal security are to be endangered.  There
+has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension.  Indeed,
+the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and
+been open to their inspection.  It is found in nearly all the
+published speeches of him who now addresses you.  I do but quote from
+one of those speeches when I declare that
+
+"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the
+institution of slavery in the States where it exists.  I believe I
+have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
+
+Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I
+had made this and many similar declarations, and had never recanted
+them.  And, more than this, they placed in the platform for my
+acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and
+emphatic resolution which I now read:
+
+"Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the
+States, and especially the right of each State to order and control
+its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment
+exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the
+perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend, and we
+denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State
+or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as amongst the gravest of
+crimes."
+
+I now reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing so, I only press upon
+the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case
+is susceptible, that the property, peace, and security of no section
+are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming administration.
+I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with the
+Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to
+all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause--as
+cheerfully to one section as to another.
+
+There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from
+service or labor.  The clause I now read is as plainly written in the
+Constitution as any other of its provisions:
+
+"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws
+thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or
+regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but
+shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or
+labor may be due."
+
+It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those
+who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and
+the intention of the lawgiver is the law.  All members of Congress
+swear their support to the whole Constitution--to this provision as
+much as to any other.  To the proposition, then, that slaves whose
+cases come within the terms of this clause "shall be delivered up,"
+their oaths are unanimous.  Now, if they would make the effort in
+good temper, could they not with nearly equal unanimity frame and
+pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?
+
+There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be
+enforced by national or by State authority; but surely that
+difference is not a very material one.  If the slave is to be
+surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others
+by which authority it is done.  And should any one in any case be
+content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial
+controversy as to how it shall be kept?
+
+Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of
+liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced,
+so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And
+might it not be well at the same time to provide by law for the
+enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that
+"the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and
+immunities of citizens in the several States"?
+
+I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations, and with
+no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical
+rules.  And, while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of
+Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much
+safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to
+and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate
+any of them, trusting to find impunity in having them held to be
+unconstitutional.
+
+It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President
+under our national Constitution.  During that period fifteen
+different and greatly distinguished citizens have, in succession,
+administered the executive branch of the Government.  They have
+conducted it through many perils, and generally with great success.
+Yet, with all this scope of precedent, I now enter upon the same task
+for the brief constitutional term of four years under great and
+peculiar difficulty.  A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore
+only menaced, is now formidably attempted.
+
+I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of the
+Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual.  Perpetuity is
+implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national
+governments.  It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had
+a provision in its organic law for its own termination.  Continue to
+execute all the express provisions of our national Constitution, and
+the Union will endure forever--it being impossible to destroy it
+except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.
+
+Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an
+association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it as a
+contract be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made
+it? One party to a contract may violate it--break it, so to speak;
+but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?
+
+Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition
+that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the
+history of the Union itself.  The Union is much older than the
+Constitution.  It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association
+in 1774.  It was matured and continued by the Declaration of
+Independence in 1776.  It was further matured, and the faith of all
+the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it
+should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778.  And,
+finally, in 1787 one of the declared objects for ordaining and
+establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union."
+
+But if the destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the
+States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before
+the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.
+
+It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion
+can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to
+that effect are legally void; and that acts of violence, within any
+State or States, against the authority of the United States, are
+insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.
+
+I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution and the laws,
+the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability I shall take
+care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the
+laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States.  Doing
+this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform
+it so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American
+people, shall withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative
+manner direct the contrary.  I trust this will not be regarded as a
+menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will
+constitutionally defend and maintain itself.
+
+In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there
+shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority.  The
+power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the
+property and places belonging to the Government, and to collect the
+duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these
+objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or
+among the people anywhere.  Where hostility to the United States, in
+any interior locality, shall be so great and universal as to prevent
+competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there
+will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for
+that object.  While the strict legal right may exist in the
+government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to
+do so would be so irritating, and so nearly impracticable withal,
+that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such
+offices.
+
+The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all
+parts of the Union.  So far as possible, the people everywhere shall
+have that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm
+thought and reflection.  The course here indicated will be followed
+unless current events and experience shall show a modification or
+change to be proper, and in every case and exigency my best
+discretion will be exercised according to circumstances actually
+existing, and with a view and a hope of a peaceful solution of the
+national troubles and the restoration of fraternal sympathies and
+affections.
+
+That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy
+the Union at all events, and are glad of any pretext to do it, I will
+neither affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no word
+to them.  To those, however, who really love the Union may I not
+speak?
+
+Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our
+national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes,
+would it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you
+hazard so desperate a step while there is any possibility that any
+portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you,
+while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones
+you fly from--will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake?
+
+All profess to be content in the Union if all constitutional rights
+can be maintained.  Is it true, then, that any right, plainly written
+in the Constitution, has been denied? I think not.  Happily the human
+mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of
+doing this.  Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a
+plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied.
+If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority
+of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral
+point of view, justify revolution--certainly would if such a right
+were a vital one.  But such is not our case.  All the vital rights of
+minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by
+affirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in the
+Constitution, that controversies never arise concerning them.  But no
+organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically
+applicable to every question which may occur in practical
+administration.  No foresight can anticipate, nor any document of
+reasonable length contain, express provisions for all possible
+questions.  Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or
+by State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say.  May
+Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does
+not expressly say.  Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories?
+The Constitution does not expressly say.
+
+From questions of this class spring all our constitutional
+controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and
+minorities.  If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must,
+or the Government must cease.   There is no other alternative; for
+continuing the Government is acquiescence on one side or the other.
+
+If a minority in such case will secede rather than acquiesce, they
+make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them; for a
+minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority
+refuses to be controlled by such minority.  For instance, why may not
+any portion of a new confederacy a year or two hence arbitrarily
+secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to
+secede from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments are now being
+educated to the exact temper of doing this.
+
+Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to
+compose a new Union as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed
+secession?
+
+Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy.  A
+majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations,
+and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular
+opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people.
+Whoever rejects it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to
+despotism.  Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a
+permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the
+majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is
+left.
+
+I do not forget the position assumed by some, that constitutional
+questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny that
+such decisions must be binding, in any case, upon the parties to a
+suit, as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to
+very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all
+other departments of the government.  And, while it is obviously
+possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still
+the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case,
+with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent
+for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a
+different practice.  At the same time, the candid citizen must
+confess that if the policy of the government, upon vital questions
+affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions
+of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary
+litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have
+ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically
+resigned the government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.  Nor
+is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges.   It
+is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly
+brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to
+turn their decisions to political purposes.
+
+One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be
+extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be
+extended.  This is the only substantial dispute.  The fugitive slave
+clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the
+foreign slave trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law
+can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people
+imperfectly supports the law itself.  The great body of the people
+abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over
+in each.  This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured; and it would be
+worse in both cases after the separation of the sections than before.
+The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be
+ultimately revived, without restriction, in one section, while
+fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be
+surrendered at all by the other.
+
+Physically speaking, we cannot separate.  We cannot remove our
+respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall
+between them.  A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the
+presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts
+of our country cannot do this.  They cannot but remain face to face,
+and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between
+them.  Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more
+advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can
+aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties
+be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among
+friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when,
+after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease
+fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are
+again upon you.
+
+This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who
+inhabit it.  Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing
+government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending
+it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.  I
+cannot be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic
+citizens are desirous of having the national Constitution amended.
+While I make no recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize the
+rightful authority of the people over the whole subject, to be
+exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself,
+and I should, under existing circumstances, favor rather than oppose
+a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it.  I will
+venture to add that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in
+that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves,
+instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions
+originated by others not especially chosen for the purpose, and which
+might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or
+refuse.  I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution which
+amendment, however, I have not seen--has passed Congress, to the
+effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the
+domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held
+to service.  To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart
+from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to
+say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional
+law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.
+
+The chief magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and
+they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of
+the States.  The people themselves can do this also if they choose;
+but the executive, as such, has nothing to do with it.  His duty is
+to administer the present government, as it came to his hands, and to
+transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his successors.
+
+Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice
+of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our
+present differences is either party without faith of being in the
+right? If the Almighty Ruler of nations, with his eternal truth and
+justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that
+truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this
+great tribunal of the American people.
+
+By the frame of the government under which we live, this same people
+have wisely given their public servants but little power for
+mischief; and have, with equal wisdom, provided for the return of
+that little to their own hands at very short intervals.  While the
+people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any
+extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the
+government in the short space of four years.
+
+My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole
+subject.  Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.  If there be
+an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would
+never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking
+time; but no good object can be frustrated by it.  Such of you as are
+now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on
+the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the
+new administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to
+change either.  If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied
+hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good
+reason for precipitate action.  Intelligence, patriotism,
+Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken
+this favored land, are still competent to adjust in the best way all
+our present difficulty.
+
+In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is
+the momentous issue of civil war.  The government will not assail
+you.  You can have no conflict without being yourselves the
+aggressors.  You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the
+government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve,
+protect, and defend" it.
+
+I am loath to close.  We are not enemies, but friends.  We must not
+be enemies.  Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our
+bonds of affection.  The mystic chords of memory, stretching from
+every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and
+hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of
+the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better
+angels of our nature.
+
+
+
+
+REFUSAL OF SEWARD RESIGNATION
+
+TO WM. H. SEWARD.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, March 4, 1861.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your note of the 2d instant, asking to withdraw your
+acceptance of my invitation to take charge of the State Department,
+was duly received.  It is the subject of the most painful solicitude
+with me, and I feel constrained to beg that you will countermand the
+withdrawal.  The public interest, I think, demands that you should;
+and my personal feelings are deeply enlisted in the same direction.
+Please consider and answer by 9 A.M. to-morrow.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE PENNSYLVANIA DELEGATION,
+
+WASHINGTON, MARCH 5, 1861
+
+Mr. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE PENNSYLVANIAN  DELEGATION:--As I
+have so frequently said heretofore, when I have had occasion to
+address the people of the Keystone, in my visits to that State, I can
+now but repeat the assurance of my gratification at the support you
+gave me at the election, and at the promise of a continuation of that
+support which is now tendered to me.
+
+Allusion has been made to the hope that you entertain that you have a
+President and a government.  In respect to that I wish to say to you
+that in the position I have assumed I wish to do more than I have
+ever given reason to believe I would do.  I do not wish you to
+believe that I assume to be any better than others who have gone
+before me.  I prefer rather to have it understood that if we ever
+have a government on the principles we profess, we should remember,
+while we exercise our opinion, that others have also rights to the
+exercise of their opinions, and that we should endeavor to allow
+these rights, and act in such a manner as to create no bad feeling.
+I hope we have a government and a President.  I hope, and wish it to
+be understood, that there may he no allusion to unpleasant
+differences.
+
+We must remember that the people of all the States are entitled to
+all the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the several
+States.  We should bear this in mind, and act in such a way as to say
+nothing insulting or irritating.  I would inculcate this idea, so
+that we may not, like Pharisees, set ourselves up to be better than
+other people.
+
+Now, my friends, my public duties are pressing to-day, and will
+prevent my giving more time to you.  Indeed, I should not have left
+them now, but I could not well deny myself to so large and
+respectable a body.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MASSACHUSETTS DELEGATION,
+
+WASHINGTON, MARCH 5, 1861
+
+I am thankful for this renewed assurance of kind feeling and
+confidence, and the support of the old Bay State, in so far as you,
+Mr. Chairman, have expressed, in behalf of those whom you represent,
+your sanction of what I have enunciated in my inaugural address.
+This is very grateful to my feelings.  The object was one of great
+delicacy, in presenting views at the opening of an administration
+under the peculiar circumstances attending my entrance upon the
+official duties connected with the Government.  I studied all the
+points with great anxiety, and presented them with whatever of
+ability and sense of justice I could bring to bear.  If it met the
+approbation of our good friends in Massachusetts, I shall be
+exceedingly gratified, while I hope it will meet the approbation of
+friends everywhere.  I am thankful for the expressions of those who
+have voted with us; and like every other man of you, I like them as
+certainly as I do others.  As the President in the administration of
+the Government, I hope to be man enough not to know one citizen of
+the United States from another, nor one section from another.  I
+shall be gratified to have good friends of Massachusetts and others
+who have thus far supported me in these national views still to
+support me in carrying them out.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY SEWARD
+
+EXECUTIVE CHAMBER, MARCH 7, 1861
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Herewith is the diplomatic address and my reply.  To
+whom the reply should be addressed--that is, by what title or style--
+I do not quite understand, and therefore I have left it blank.
+
+Will you please bring with you to-day the message from the War
+Department, with General Scott's note upon it, which we had here
+yesterday? I wish to examine the General's opinion, which I have not
+yet done.
+
+Yours very truly
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS
+
+WASHINGTON, THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 1861
+
+Mr. FIGANIERE AND GENTLEMEN OF THE DIPLOMATIC BODY:--Please accept my
+sincere thanks for your kind congratulations.  It affords me pleasure
+to confirm the confidence you so generously express in the friendly
+disposition of the United States, through me, towards the sovereigns
+and governments you respectively represent.  With equal satisfaction
+I accept the assurance you are pleased to give, that the same
+disposition is reciprocated by your sovereigns, your governments, and
+yourselves.
+
+Allow me to express the hope that these friendly relations may remain
+undisturbed, arid also my fervent wishes for the health and happiness
+of yourselves personally.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY SEWARD
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, MARCH 11,1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF STATE.
+DEAR SIR:--What think you of sending ministers at once as follows:
+Dayton to England; Fremont to France; Clay to Spain; Corwin to
+Mexico?
+
+We need to have these points guarded as strongly and quickly as
+possible.  This is suggestion merely, and not dictation.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO J. COLLAMER
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, MARCH 12, 1861
+
+HON. JACOB COLLAMER.
+MY DEAR SIR:--God help me.  It is said I have offended you.  I hope
+you will tell me how.
+
+Yours very truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+March 14, 1861.
+DEAR SIR:--I am entirely unconscious that you have any way offended
+me.  I cherish no sentiment towards you but that of kindness and
+confidence.
+Your humble servant,
+J. COLLAMER
+
+ [Returned with indorsement:]
+
+Very glad to know that I have n't.
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, MARCH 13, 1861
+
+HON. P. M. G.
+
+DEAR SIR:--The bearer of this, Mr. C. T. Hempstow, is a Virginian who
+wishes to get, for his son, a small place in your Dept.  I think
+Virginia should be heard, in such cases.
+
+LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE ASKING CABINET OPINIONS ON FORT SUMTER.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, MARCH 15, 1861
+
+THE HONORABLE SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Assuming it to be possible to now provision Fort
+Sumter, under all the circumstances is it wise to attempt it?  Please
+give me your opinion in writing on this question.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+[Same to other members of the Cabinet.]
+
+
+
+
+ON ROYAL ARBITRATION OF AMERICAN BOUNDARY LINE
+
+TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
+
+The Senate has transmitted to me a copy of the message sent by my
+predecessor to that body on the 21st of February last, proposing to
+take its advice on the subject of a proposition made by the British
+Government through its minister here to refer the matter in
+controversy between that government and the Government of the United
+States to the arbitrament of the King of Sweden and Norway, the King
+of the Netherlands, or the Republic of the Swiss Confederation.
+
+In that message my predecessor stated that he wished to present to
+the Senate the precise questions following, namely:
+
+"Will the Senate approve a treaty referring to either of the
+sovereign powers above named the dispute now existing between the
+governments of the United States and Great Britain concerning the
+boundary line between Vancouver's Island and the American continent?
+In case the referee shall find himself unable to decide where the
+line is by the description of it in the treaty of June 15, 1846,
+shall he be authorized to establish a line according to the treaty as
+nearly as possible? Which of the three powers named by Great Britain
+as an arbiter shall be chosen by the United States?"
+
+I find no reason to disapprove of the course of my predecessor in
+this important matter; but, on the contrary, I not only shall receive
+the advice of the Senate thereon cheerfully, but I respectfully ask
+the Senate for their advice on the three questions before recited
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+WASHINGTON, March 16, 1861
+
+
+
+
+AMBASSADORIAL APPOINTMENTS
+
+TO SECRETARY SEWARD.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, MARCH 18, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF STATE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I believe it is a necessity with us to make the
+appointments I mentioned last night--that is, Charles F. Adams to
+England, William L. Dayton to France, George P. Marsh to Sardinia,
+and Anson Burlingame to Austria.  These gentlemen all have my highest
+esteem, but no one of them is originally suggested by me except Mr.
+Dayton.  Mr. Adams I take because you suggested him, coupled with his
+eminent fitness for the place.  Mr. Marsh and Mr. Burlingame I take
+because of the intense pressure of their respective States, and their
+fitness also.
+
+The objection to this card is that locally they are so huddled up--
+three being in New England and two from a single State.  I have
+considered this, and will not shrink from the responsibility.  This,
+being done, leaves but five full missions undisposed of--Rome, China,
+Brazil, Peru, and Chili.  And then what about Carl Schurz; or, in
+other words, what about our German friends?
+
+Shall we put the card through, and arrange the rest afterward? What
+say you?
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO G. E. PATTEN.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, March 19, 1861.
+
+TO MASTER GEO. EVANS PATTEN.
+
+WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:--I did see and talk with Master Geo. Evans
+Patten last May at Springfield, Ill.
+
+Respectfully,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+[Written because of a denial that any interview with young Patten,
+then a schoolboy, had ever taken place.]
+
+
+
+
+RESPONSE TO SENATE INQUIRY RE. FORT SUMTER
+
+MESSAGE TO THE SENATE.
+
+TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:--I have received a copy of the
+resolution of the Senate, passed on the 25th instant, requesting me,
+if in my opinion not incompatible with the public interest, to
+communicate to the Senate the despatches of Major Robert Anderson to
+the War Department during the time he has been in command of Fort
+Sumter.  On examination of the correspondence thus called for, I
+have, with the highest respect for the Senate, come to the conclusion
+that at the present moment the publication of it would be
+inexpedient.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+WASHINGTON, MARCH 16, 1861
+
+
+
+
+PREPARATION OF FIRST NAVAL ACTION
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, MARCH 29, 1861
+
+HONORABLE SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+SIR:--I desire that an expedition to move by sea be got ready to sail
+as early as the 6th of April next, the whole according to memorandum
+attached, and that you cooperate with the Secretary of the Navy for
+that object.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+[Inclosure.]
+
+Steamers Pocahontas at Norfolk, Paunee at Washington, Harriet Lane at
+New York, to be under sailing orders for sea, with stores, etc., for
+one month.  Three hundred men to be kept ready for departure from on
+board the receiving-ships at New York. Two hundred men to be ready to
+leave Governor's Island in New York. Supplies for twelve months for
+one hundred men to be put in portable shape, ready for instant
+shipping. A large steamer and three tugs conditionally engaged.
+
+
+
+
+TO ______ STUART.
+
+WASHINGTON, March 30, 1861
+
+DEAR STUART:
+
+Cousin Lizzie shows me your letter of the 27th.  The question of
+giving her the Springfield post-office troubles me.  You see I have
+already appointed William Jayne a Territorial governor and Judge
+Trumbull's brother to a land-office.  Will it do for me to go on and
+justify the declaration that Trumbull and I have divided out all the
+offices among our relatives?  Dr. Wallace, you know, is needy, and
+looks to me; and I personally owe him much.
+
+I see by the papers, a vote is to be taken as to the post-office.
+Could you not set up Lizzie and beat them all?  She, being here, need
+know nothing of it, so therefore there would be no indelicacy on her
+part. Yours as ever,
+
+
+
+
+TO THE COMMANDANT OF THE NEW YORK NAVY-YARD.
+
+NAVY DEPT., WASHINGTON, April 1, 1861
+
+TO THE COMMANDANT OF THE NAVY-YARD,
+Brooklyn, N. Y.
+
+Fit out the Powhatan to go to sea at the earnest possible moment
+under sealed orders.  Orders by a confidential messenger go forward
+to-morrow.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO LIEUTENANT D. D. PORTER
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, April 1, 1861
+
+LIEUTENANT D. D. PORTER, United States Navy.
+
+
+SIR:--You will proceed to New York, and with the least possible
+delay, assuming command of any naval steamer available, proceed to
+Pensacola Harbor, and at any cost or risk prevent any expedition from
+the mainland reaching Fort Pickens or Santa Rosa Island.
+
+You will exhibit this order to any naval officer at Pensacola, if you
+deem it necessary, after you have established yourself within the
+harbor, and will request co-operation by the entrance of at least one
+other steamer.
+
+This order, its object, and your destination will be communicated to
+no person whatever until you reach the harbor of Pensacola.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+Recommended, WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
+
+
+
+
+RELIEF EXPEDITION FOR FORT SUMTER
+
+ORDER TO OFFICERS OF THE ARMY AND NAVY.
+
+WASHINGTON, EXECUTIVE MANSION, April 1, 1861.
+
+All officers of the army and navy to whom this order may be exhibited
+will aid by every means in their power the expedition under the
+command of Colonel Harvey Brown, supplying him with men and material,
+and co-operating with him as he may desire.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER TO CAPTAIN SAMUEL MERCER.
+(Confidential.)
+
+WASHINGTON CITY,
+April 1, 1861
+
+SIR:--Circumstances render it necessary to place in command of your
+ship (and for a special purpose) an officer who is fully informed and
+instructed in relation to the wishes of the Government, and you will
+therefore consider yourself detached.  But in taking this step the
+Government does not in the least reflect upon your efficiency or
+patriotism; on the contrary, have the fullest confidence in your
+ability to perform any duty required of you.  Hoping soon to be able
+to give you a better command than the one you now enjoy, and trusting
+that you will have full confidence in the disposition of the
+Government toward you,
+I remain, etc.,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SECRETARY SEWARD'S BID FOR POWER
+
+MEMORANDUM FROM SECRETARY SEWARD,
+APRIL 1, 1861
+
+Some thoughts for the President's Consideration,
+
+First.  We are at the end of a month's administration, and yet
+without a policy either domestic or foreign.
+
+Second.  This, however, is not culpable, and it has even been
+unavoidable.  The presence of the Senate, with the need to meet
+applications for patronage, have prevented attention to other and
+more grave matters.
+
+Third.  But further delay to adopt and prosecute our policies for
+both domestic and foreign affairs would not only bring scandal on the
+administration, but danger upon the country.
+
+Fourth.  To do this we must dismiss the applicants for office.  But
+how? I suggest that we make the local appointments forthwith, leaving
+foreign or general ones for ulterior and occasional action.
+
+Fifth.  The policy at home.  I am aware that my views are singular,
+and perhaps not sufficiently explained.  My system is built upon this
+idea as a ruling one, namely, that we must
+CHANGE THE QUESTION BEFORE THE PUBLIC FROM ONE UPON SLAVERY, OR ABOUT
+SLAVERY, for a question upon UNION OR DISUNION:
+In other words, from what would be regarded as a party question, to
+one of patriotism or union.
+
+The occupation or evacuation of Fort Sumter, although not in fact a
+slavery or a party question, is so regarded.  Witness the temper
+manifested by the Republicans in the free States, and even by the
+Union men in the South.
+
+I would therefore terminate it as a safe means for changing the
+issue.  I deem it fortunate that the last administration created the
+necessity.
+
+For the rest, I would simultaneously defend and reinforce all the
+ports in the gulf, and have the navy recalled from foreign stations
+to be prepared for a blockade.  Put the island of Key West under
+martial law.
+
+This will raise distinctly the question of union or disunion.  I
+would maintain every fort and possession in the South.
+
+
+FOR FOREIGN NATIONS,
+
+I would demand explanations from Spain and France, categorically, at
+once.
+
+I would seek explanations from Great Britain and Russia, and send
+agents into Canada, Mexico, and Central America to rouse a vigorous
+continental spirit of independence on this continent against European
+intervention.
+
+And, if satisfactory explanations are not received from Spain and
+France,
+
+Would convene Congress and declare war against them.
+
+But whatever policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution
+of it.
+
+For this purpose it must be somebody's business to pursue and direct
+it incessantly.
+
+Either the President must do it himself, and be all the while active
+in it, or Devolve it on some member of his Cabinet.  Once adopted,
+debates on it must end, and all agree and abide.
+
+It is not in my especial province; But I neither seek to evade nor
+assume responsibility.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO SECRETARY SEWARD'S MEMORANDUM
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, APRIL 1, 1861
+
+HON. W. H. SEWARD.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Since parting with you I have been considering your
+paper dated this day, and entitled "Some Thoughts for the President's
+Consideration."  The first proposition in it is, "First, We are at
+the end of a month's administration, and yet without a policy either
+domestic or foreign."
+
+At the beginning of that month, in the inaugural, I said: "The power
+confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property
+and places belonging to the Government, and to Collect the duties and
+imposts."  This had your distinct approval at the time; and, taken in
+connection with the order I immediately gave General Scott, directing
+him to employ every means in his power to strengthen and hold the
+forts, comprises the exact domestic policy you now urge, with the
+single exception that it does not propose to abandon Fort Sumter.
+
+Again, I do not perceive how the reinforcement of Fort Sumter would
+be done on a slavery or a party issue, while that of Fort Pickens
+would be on a more national and patriotic one.
+
+The news received yesterday in regard to St. Domingo certainly brings
+a new item within the range of our foreign policy; but up to that
+time we have been preparing circulars and instructions to ministers
+and the like, all in perfect harmony, without even a suggestion that
+we had no foreign policy.
+
+Upon your Closing propositions--that,
+
+"Whatever policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution of
+it.
+
+"For this purpose it must be somebody's business to pursue and direct
+it incessantly.
+
+"Either the President must do it himself, and be all the while active
+in it, or,
+
+"Devolve it on some member of his Cabinet.  Once adopted, debates on
+it must end, and all agree and abide"--
+
+I remark that if this must be done, I must do it.  When a general
+line of policy is adopted, I apprehend there is no danger of its
+being changed without good reason, or continuing to be a subject of
+unnecessary debate; still, upon points arising in its progress I
+wish, and suppose I am entitled to have, the advice of all the
+Cabinet.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO A COMMITTEE FROM THE VIRGINIA CONVENTION, APRIL 13, 1861
+
+HON. WILLIAM BALLARD PRESTON, ALEXANDER H.
+H. STUART, GEORGE W. RANDOLPH, Esq.
+
+GENTLEMEN:--As a committee of the Virginia Convention now in Session,
+you present me a preamble and resolution in these words:
+
+"Whereas, in the opinion of this Convention, the uncertainty which
+prevails in the public mind as to the policy which the Federal
+Executive intends to pursue toward the seceded States is extremely
+injurious to the industrial and commercial interests of the country,
+tends to keep up an excitement which is unfavorable to the adjustment
+of pending difficulties, and threatens a disturbance of the public
+peace: therefore
+
+"Resolved, that a committee of three delegates be appointed by this
+Convention to wait upon the President of the United States, present
+to him this preamble and resolution, and respectfully ask him to
+communicate to this Convention the policy which the Federal Executive
+intends to pursue in regard to the Confederate States.
+
+"Adopted by the Convention of the State of Virginia, Richmond, April
+8, 1861."
+
+In answer I have to say that, having at the beginning of my official
+term expressed my intended policy as plainly as I was able, it is
+with deep regret and some mortification I now learn that there is
+great and injurious uncertainty in the public mind as to what that
+policy is, and what course I intend to pursue.  Not having as yet
+seen occasion to change, it is now my purpose to pursue the course
+marked out in the inaugural address.   I commend a careful
+consideration of the whole document as the best expression I can give
+of my purposes.
+
+As I then and therein said, I now repeat: "The power confided to me
+will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places
+belonging to the Government, and to collect the duties and imposts;
+but beyond what is necessary for these objects, there will be no
+invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere."  By
+the words "property and places belonging to the Government," I
+chiefly allude to the military posts and property which were in the
+possession of the Government when it came to my hands.
+
+But if, as now appears to be true, in pursuit of a purpose to drive
+the United States authority from these places, an unprovoked assault
+has been made upon Fort Sumter, I shall hold myself at liberty to
+repossess, if I can, like places which had been seized before the
+Government was devolved upon me.  And in every event I shall, to the
+extent of my ability, repel force by force.  In case it proves true
+that Fort Sumter has been assaulted, as is reported, I shall perhaps
+cause the United States mails to be withdrawn from all the States
+which claim to have seceded, believing that the commencement of
+actual war against the Government justifies and possibly demands
+this.
+
+I scarcely need to say that I consider the military posts and
+property situated within the States which claim to have seceded as
+yet belonging to the Government of the United States as much as they
+did before the supposed secession.
+
+Whatever else I may do for the purpose, I shall not attempt to
+collect the duties and imposts by any armed invasion of any part of
+the country; not meaning by this, however, that I may not land a
+force deemed necessary to relieve a fort upon a border of the
+country.
+
+From the fact that I have quoted a part of the inaugural address, it
+must not be inferred that I repudiate any other part, the whole of
+which I reaffirm, except so far as what I now say of the mails may be
+regarded as a modification.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION CALLING FOR 75,000 MILITIA, AND CONVENING CONGRESS IN
+EXTRA SESSION,  APRIL 15, 1861.
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF
+AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas the laws of the United States have been for some time past
+and now are opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, in the
+States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi,
+Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed
+by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers
+vested in the marshals bylaw:
+
+Now, therefore, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States,
+in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and the laws,
+have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth, the militia
+of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of
+seventy-five thousand, in order to suppress said combinations, and to
+cause the laws to be duly executed.
+
+The details for this object will be immediately communicated to the
+State authorities through the War Department.
+
+I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this
+effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our
+National Union, and the perpetuity of popular government; and to
+redress wrongs already long enough endured.
+
+I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces
+hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places,
+and property which have been seized from the Union; and in every
+event the utmost care will be observed, consistently with the objects
+aforesaid, to avoid any devastation, any destruction of or
+interference with property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens
+in any part of the country.
+
+And I hereby command the persons composing the combinations aforesaid
+to disperse and retire peacefully to their respective abodes within
+twenty days from date.
+
+Deeming that the present condition of public affairs presents an
+extraordinary occasion, I do hereby, in virtue of the power in me
+vested by the Constitution, convene both Houses of Congress.
+Senators and Representatives are therefore summoned to assemble at
+their respective chambers, at twelve o'clock noon, on Thursday, the
+fourth day of July next, then and there to consider and determine
+such measures as, in their wisdom, the public safety and interest may
+seem to demand.
+
+In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal
+of the United States to be affixed.
+
+Done at the city of Washington, this fifteenth day of April, in the
+year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of the
+independence of the United States the eighty-fifth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
+Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION OF BLOCKADE, APRIL 19, 1861
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF
+
+AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas an insurrection against the Government of the United States
+has broken out in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
+Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and the laws of the
+United States for the collection of the revenue cannot be effectually
+executed therein conformably to that provision of the Constitution
+which requires duties to be uniform throughout the United States:
+
+And Whereas a combination of persons engaged in such insurrection
+have threatened to grant pretended letters of marque to authorize the
+bearers thereof to commit assaults on the lives, vessels, and
+property of good citizens of the country lawfully engaged in commerce
+on the high seas, and in waters of the United States:
+
+And Whereas an executive proclamation has been already issued
+requiring the persons engaged in these disorderly proceedings to
+desist therefrom, calling out a militia force for the purpose of
+repressing the same, and convening Congress in extraordinary session
+to deliberate and determine thereon:
+
+Now, therefore, I, Abraham LINCOLN, President of the United States,
+with a view to the same purposes before mentioned, and to the
+protection of the public peace, and the lives and property of quiet
+and orderly citizens pursuing their lawful occupations, until
+Congress shall have assembled and deliberated on the said unlawful
+proceedings, or until the same shall have ceased, have further deemed
+it advisable to set on foot a blockade of the ports within the States
+aforesaid, in pursuance of the laws of the United States, and of the
+law of nations in such case provided.  For this purpose a competent
+force will be posted so as to prevent entrance and exit of vessels
+from the ports aforesaid.  If, therefore, with a view to violate such
+blockade, a vessel shall approach or shall attempt to leave either of
+the said ports, she will be duly warned by the commander of one of
+the blockading vessels, who will indorse on her register the fact and
+date of such warning, and if the same vessel shall again attempt to
+enter or leave the blockaded port, she will be captured and sent to
+the nearest convenient port, for such proceedings against her and her
+cargo, as prize, as may be deemed advisable.
+
+And I hereby proclaim and declare that if any person, under the
+pretended authority of the said States, or under any other pretense,
+shall molest a vessel of the United States, or the persons or cargo
+on board of her, such person will be held amenable to the laws of the
+United States for the prevention and punishment of piracy.
+
+In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
+of the United States to be affixed.
+
+Done at the city of Washington, this nineteenth day of April, in the
+year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of the
+independence of the United States the eighty-fifth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
+Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+TO GOVERNOR HICKS AND MAYOR BROWN.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 20, 1861
+
+GOVERNOR HICKS AND MAYOR BROWN.
+
+GENTLEMEN:--Your letter by Messrs.  Bond, Dobbin, and Brune is
+received.  I tender you both my sincere thanks for your efforts to
+keep the peace in the trying situation in which you are placed.
+
+For the future troops must be brought here, but I make no point of
+bringing them through Baltimore.  Without any military knowledge
+myself, of course I must leave details to General Scott.  He hastily
+said this morning in the presence of these gentlemen, "March them
+around Baltimore, and not through it."  I sincerely hope the General,
+on fuller reflection, will consider this practical and proper, and
+that you will not object to it.  By this a collision of the people of
+Baltimore with the troops will be avoided, unless they go out of
+their way to seek it.  I hope you will exert your influence to
+prevent this.
+
+Now and ever I shall do all in my power for peace consistently with
+the maintenance of the Government.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GOVERNOR HICKS.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 20, 1861
+
+GOVERNOR HICKS:
+
+I desire to consult with you and the Mayor of Baltimore relative to
+preserving the peace of Maryland.  Please come immediately by special
+train, which you can take at Baltimore; or, if necessary, one can be
+sent from here.  Answer forthwith.
+
+LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER TO DEFEND FROM A MARYLAND INSURRECTION
+
+ORDER TO GENERAL SCOTT.
+WASHINGTON, April 25, 1861
+
+LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SCOTT.
+
+MY DEAR SIR--The Maryland Legislature assembles to-morrow at
+Annapolis, and not improbably will take action to arm the people
+of that State against the United States.  The question has been
+submitted to and considered by me whether it would not be
+justifiable, upon the ground of necessary defense, for you, as
+General in Chief of the United States Army, to arrest or disperse the
+members of that body.  I think it would not be justifiable nor
+efficient for the desired object.
+
+First.  They have a clearly legal right to assemble, and we cannot
+know in advance that their action will not be lawful and peaceful,
+and if we wait until they shall have acted their arrest or dispersion
+will not lessen the effect of their action.
+
+Secondly.  We cannot permanently prevent their action.   If we arrest
+them, we cannot long hold them as prisoners, and when liberated they
+will immediately reassemble and take their action; and precisely the
+same if we simply disperse them--they will immediately reassemble in
+some other place.
+
+I therefore conclude that it is only left to the Commanding General
+to watch and await their action, which, if it shall be to arm their
+people against the United States, he is to adopt the most prompt and
+efficient means to counteract, even, if necessary, to the bombardment
+of their cities and, in the extremist necessity, the suspension of
+the writ of habeas corpus.
+
+Your obedient servant,   ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION OF BLOCKADE, APRIL 27, 1861
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas, for the reasons assigned in my proclamation of the
+nineteenth instant, a blockade of the ports of the States of South
+Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and
+Texas was ordered to be established:
+
+And whereas, since that date, public property of the United States
+has been seized, the collection of the revenue obstructed, and duly
+commissioned officers of the United States, while engaged in
+executing the orders of their superiors, have been arrested and held
+in custody as prisoners, or have been impeded in the discharge of
+their official duties, without due legal process, by persons claiming
+to act under authorities of the States of Virginia and North
+Carolina:
+
+An efficient blockade of the ports of those States will also be
+established
+
+In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
+the United States to be affixed.
+
+Done at the city of Washington, this twenty  seventh day of April, in
+the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of
+the independence of the United States the eighty-fifth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REMARKS TO A MILITARY COMPANY, WASHINGTON,
+APRIL 27, 1861
+
+I have desired as sincerely as any man, and I sometimes think more
+than any other man, that our present difficulties might be settled
+without the shedding of blood.  I will not say that all hope has yet
+gone; but if the alternative is presented whether the Union is to be
+broken in fragments and the liberties of the people lost, or blood be
+shed, you will probably make the choice with which I shall not be
+dissatisfied.
+
+
+
+
+LOCALIZED REPEAL OF WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS
+
+TO GENERAL SCOTT.
+
+TO THE COMMANDING GENERAL,
+ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES.
+
+You are engaged in suppressing an insurrection against the laws of
+the United States.  If at any point on or in the vicinity of any
+military line which is now or which shall be used between the City of
+Philadelphia and the city of Washington you find resistance which
+renders it necessary to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for the
+public safety, you personally, or through the officer in command at
+the point at which resistance occurs, are authorized to suspend that
+writ.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 17, 1861
+
+
+
+
+MILITARY ENROLLMENT OF ST. LOUIS CITIZENS
+
+FROM THE SECRETARY OF WAR
+WAR DEPARTMENT, April 30, 1861
+
+TO CAPTAIN NATHANIEL LYON.
+
+CAPT. NATHANIEL LYON,
+Commanding Department of the West.
+
+SIR:--The President of the United States directs that you enroll in
+the military service of the United States the loyal citizens of Saint
+Louis and vicinity, not exceeding, with those heretofore enlisted,
+ten thousand in number, for the purpose of maintaining the authority
+of the United States; for the protection of the peaceful inhabitants
+of Missouri; and you will, if deemed necessary for that purpose by
+yourself, by Messrs.  Oliver F. Ferny, John How, James O. Broadhead,
+Samuel T. Glover, J. Wilzie, Francis P. Blair, Jr., proclaim martial
+law in the city of Saint Louis.
+
+The additional force hereby authorized shall be discharged in part or
+in whole, if enlisted.  As soon as it appears to you and the
+gentlemen above mentioned that there is no danger of an attempt on
+the part of the enemies of the Government to take military possession
+of the city of Saint Louis, or put the city in control of the
+combination against the Government of the United States; and whilst
+such additional force remains in the service the same shall be
+governed by the Rules and Articles of War, and such special
+regulations as you may prescribe.  I shall like the force hereafter
+directed to be enrolled to be under your command.
+
+The arms and other military stores in the Saint Louis Arsenal not
+needed for the forces of the United States in Missouri must be
+removed to Springfield, or some other safe place of deposit in the
+State of Illinois, as speedily as practicable, by the ordnance
+officers in charge at Saint Louis.
+
+(Indorsement.)
+
+It is revolutionary times, and therefore I do not object to the
+irregularity of this.  W. S.
+
+Approved, April 30, 1861.  A. LINCOLN.
+
+Colonel Thomas will make this order.
+SIMON CAMERON, Secretary of War.
+
+
+
+
+CONDOLENCE OVER FAILURE OF FT. SUMTER RELIEF
+
+TO GUSTAVUS V. FOX.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., May 1, 1861
+
+CAPTAIN G. V. Fox.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I sincerely regret that the failure of the late attempt
+to provision Fort Sumter should be the source of any annoyance to
+you.
+
+The practicability of your plan was not, in fact, brought to a test.
+By reason of a gale, well known in advance to be possible and not
+improbable, the tugs, an essential part of the plan, never reached
+the ground; while, by an accident for which you were in no wise
+responsible, and possibly I to some extent was, you were deprived of
+a war vessel, with her men, which you deemed of great importance to
+the enterprise.
+
+I most cheerfully and truly declare that the failure of the
+undertaking has not lowered you a particle, while the qualities you
+developed in the effort have greatly heightened you in my estimation.
+
+For a daring and dangerous enterprise of a similar character you
+would to-day be the man of all my acquaintances whom I would select.
+You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be
+advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even if it
+should fail; and it is no small consolation now to feel that our
+anticipation is justified by the result.
+
+Very truly your friend,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION CALLING FOR 42,034 VOLUNTEERS,
+
+MAY 3, 1861
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
+
+A Proclamation..
+
+Whereas existing exigencies demand immediate and adequate measures
+for the protection of the National Constitution and the preservation
+of the National Union by the suppression of the insurrectionary
+combinations now existing in several States for opposing the laws of
+the Union and obstructing the execution thereof, to which end a
+military force in addition to that called forth by my proclamation of
+the 15th day of April in the present year appears to be indispensably
+necessary:
+
+Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States
+and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy thereof and of the
+militia of the several States when called into actual service, do
+hereby call into the service of the United States 42,034 volunteers
+to serve for the period of three years, unless sooner discharged, and
+to be mustered into service as infantry and cavalry.  The proportions
+of each arm and the details of enrollment and organization will be
+made known through the Department of War.
+
+And I also direct that the Regular Army of the United States be
+increased by the addition of eight regiments of infantry, one
+regiment of cavalry, and one regiment of artillery, making altogether
+a maximum aggregate increase of 22,714 officers and enlisted men, the
+details of which increase will also be made known through the
+Department of War.
+
+And I further direct the enlistment for not less than one or more
+than three years of 18,000 seamen, in addition to the present force,
+for the naval service of the United States.  The details of the
+enlistment and organization will be made known through the Department
+of the Navy.
+
+The call for volunteers hereby made and the direction for the
+increase of the Regular Army and for the enlistment of seamen hereby
+given, together with the plan of organization adopted for the
+volunteer and for the regular forces hereby authorized, will be
+submitted to Congress as soon as assembled.
+
+In the meantime I earnestly invoke the co-operation of all good
+citizens in the measures hereby adopted for the effectual suppression
+of unlawful violence, for the impartial enforcement of constitutional
+laws, and for the speediest possible restoration of peace and order,
+and with these of happiness and prosperity, throughout our country.
+
+In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my band and caused the seal
+of the United States to be affixed................
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+COMMUNICATION WITH VICE-PRESIDENT
+
+TO VICE-PRESIDENT HAMLIN.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., May 6, 1861
+
+HON. H. HAMLIN, New York.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:-Please advise me at the close of each day what troops
+left during the day, where going, and by what route; what remaining
+at New York, and what expected in the next day.  Give the numbers, as
+near as convenient, and what corps they are.  This information,
+reaching us daily, will be very useful as well as satisfactory.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER TO COLONEL ANDERSON,
+MAY 7, 1861
+
+TO ALL WHO SHALL SEE THESE PRESENTS, GREETING:
+
+Know ye that, reposing special trust and confidence in the
+patriotism, valor, fidelity, and ability of Colonel Robert Anderson,
+U. S. Army, I have empowered him, and do hereby empower him, to
+receive into the army of the United States as many regiments of
+volunteer troops from the State of Kentucky and from the western part
+of the State of Virginia as shall be willing to engage in the Service
+of the United States for the term of three years, upon the terms and
+according to the plan proposed by the proclamation of May 3, 1861,
+and General Orders No.   15, from the War Department, of May 4, 1861.
+
+The troops whom he receives shall be on the same footing in every
+respect as those of the like kind called for in the proclamation
+above cited, except that the officers shall be commissioned by the
+United States.  He is therefore carefully and diligently to discharge
+the duty hereby devolved upon him by doing and performing all manner
+of things thereunto belonging.
+
+Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, this 7th day of May,
+A. D. 1861, and in the eighty-fifth year of the independence of the
+United States.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+SIMON CAMERON, Secretary of War,
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION SUSPENDING THE WRIT OF HABEAS
+CORPUS IN FLORIDA, MAY 10, 1861.
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas an insurrection exists in the State of Florida, by which the
+lives, liberty, and property of loyal citizens of the United States
+are endangered:
+
+And whereas it is deemed proper that all needful measures should be
+taken for the protection of such citizens and all officers of the
+United States in the discharge of their public duties in the State
+aforesaid:
+
+Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham LINCOLN, President of the
+United States, do hereby direct the commander of the forces of the
+United States on the Florida coast to permit no person to exercise
+any office or authority upon the islands of Key West, the Tortugas,
+and Santa Rosa, which may be inconsistent with the laws and
+Constitution of the United States, authorizing him at the same time,
+if he shall find it necessary, to suspend there the writ of habeas
+corpus, and to remove from the vicinity of the United States
+fortresses all dangerous or suspected persons.
+
+In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
+of the United States to be affixed.....................
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY WELLES.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, May 11, 1861
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY.
+
+SIR:-Lieut.  D. D. Porter was placed in command of the steamer
+Powhatan, and Captain Samuel Mercer was detached therefrom, by my
+special order, and neither of them is responsible for any apparent or
+real irregularity on their part or in connection with that vessel.
+
+Hereafter Captain Porter is relieved from that special service and
+placed under the direction of the Navy Department, from which he will
+receive instructions and to which he will report.
+
+Very respectfully,
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S CORRECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIC DESPATCH WRITTEN BY
+THE SECRETARY OF STATE TO MINISTER ADAMS
+
+NO. 10.
+
+DEPARTMENT OF STATE.
+WASHINGTON, May 21, 1861
+
+SIR:---Mr. Dallas, in a brief despatch of May 2d (No. 333), tells us
+that Lord John Russell recently requested an interview with him on
+account of the solicitude which his lordship felt concerning the
+effect of certain measures represented as likely to be adopted by the
+President.  In that conversation the British secretary told Mr.
+Dallas that the three representatives of the Southern Confederacy
+were then in London, that Lord John Russell had not yet seen them,
+but that he was not unwilling to see them unofficially.  He further
+informed Mr. Dallas that an understanding exists between the British
+and French governments which would lead both to take one and the same
+course as to recognition.  His lordship then referred to the rumor of
+a meditated blockade by us of Southern ports, and a discontinuance of
+them as ports of entry.  Mr. Dallas answered that he knew nothing on
+those topics, and therefore
+
+     (The President's corrections, both in notes and text, are in
+     caps. All matter between brackets was to be marked out.)
+
+could say nothing.  He added that you were expected to arrive in two
+weeks.  Upon this statement Lord John Russell acquiesced in the
+expediency of waiting for the full knowledge you were expected to
+bring.
+
+Mr. Dallas transmitted to us some newspaper reports of ministerial
+explanations made in Parliament.
+
+You will base no proceedings on parliamentary debates further than to
+seek explanations when necessary and communicate them to this
+department. [We intend to have a clear and simple record of whatever
+issue may arise between us and Great Britain.]
+
+The President [is surprised and grieved] regrets that Mr. Dallas did
+not protest against the proposed unofficial intercourse between the
+British Government and the missionaries of the insurgents [as well as
+against the demand for explanations made by the British Government].
+It is due, however, to Mr. Dallas to say that our instructions had
+been given only to you and not to him, and that his loyalty and
+fidelity, too rare in these times [among our late representatives
+abroad, are confessed and]  are appreciated.
+
+Intercourse of any kind with the so-called commissioners is liable to
+be construed as a recognition of the authority which appointed them.
+Such intercourse would be none the less [wrongful] hurtful to us for
+being called unofficial, and it might be even more injurious, because
+we should have no means of knowing what points might be resolved by
+it.  Moreover, unofficial intercourse is useless and meaningless if
+it is not expected to ripen into official intercourse and direct
+recognition.  It is left doubtful here whether the proposed
+unofficial intercourse has yet actually begun. Your own [present]
+antecedent instructions are deemed explicit enough, and it is hoped
+that you have not misunderstood them.  You will in any event desist
+from all intercourse whatever, unofficial as well as official, with
+the British Government, so long as it shall continue intercourse of
+either kind with the domestic enemies of this country [confining
+yourself to a delivery of a copy of this paper to the Secretary of
+State. After doing this.]  When intercourse shall have been arrested
+for this cause, you will communicate with this department and receive
+further directions.
+
+Lord John Russell has informed us of an understanding between the
+British and French governments that they will act together in regard
+to our affairs.  This communication, however, loses something of its
+value from the circumstance that the communication was withheld until
+after knowledge of the fact had been acquired by us from other
+sources.  We know also another fact that has not yet been officially
+communicated to us--namely, that other European States are apprised
+by France and England of their agreement, and are expected to concur
+with or follow them in whatever measures they adopt on the subject of
+recognition. The United States have been impartial and just in all
+their conduct toward the several nations of Europe.  They will not
+complain, however, of the combination now announced by the two
+leading powers, although they think they had a right to expect a more
+independent, if not a more friendly, course from each of them.  You
+will take no notice of that or any other alliance.  Whenever the
+European governments shall see fit to communicate directly with us,
+we shall be, as heretofore, frank and explicit in our reply.
+
+As to the blockade, you will say that by [the] our own laws [of
+nature] and the laws of nature and the laws of nations, this
+Government has a clear right to suppress insurrection.  An exclusion
+of commerce from national ports which have been seized by the
+insurgents, in the equitable form of blockade, is the proper means to
+that end.  You will [admit] not insist that our blockade is [not] to
+be respected if it be not maintained by a competent force; but
+passing by that question as not now a practical, or at least an
+urgent, one, you will add that [it] the blockade is now, and it will
+continue to be so maintained, and therefore we expect it to be
+respected by Great Britain.  You will add that we have already
+revoked the exequatur of a Russian consul who had enlisted in the
+military service of the insurgents, and we shall dismiss or demand
+the recall of every foreign agent, consular or diplomatic, who shall
+either disobey the Federal laws or disown the Federal authority.
+
+As to the recognition of the so-called Southern Confederacy, it is
+not to be made a subject of technical definition.  It is, of course,
+[quasi] direct recognition to publish an acknowledgment of the
+sovereignty and independence of a new power. It is [quasi] direct
+recognition to receive its ambassadors, ministers, agents, or
+commissioners officially.  A concession of belligerent rights is
+liable to be construed as a recognition of them.  No one of these
+proceedings will [be borne] pass [unnoticed] unquestioned by the
+United States in this case.
+
+Hitherto recognition has been moved only on the assumption that the
+so-called Confederate States are de facto a self-sustaining power.
+Now, after long forbearance, designed to soothe discontent and avert
+the need of civil war, the land and naval forces of the United States
+have been put in motion to repress the insurrection.  The true
+character of the pretended new State is at once revealed.  It is seen
+to be a power existing in pronunciamento only, It has never won a
+field.  It has obtained no forts that were not virtually betrayed
+into its hands or seized in breach of trust.  It commands not a
+single port on the coast nor any highway out from its pretended
+capital by land.  Under these circumstances Great Britain is called
+upon to intervene and give it body and independence by resisting our
+measures of suppression.  British recognition would be British
+intervention to create within our own territory a hostile state by
+overthrowing this republic itself.  [When this act of intervention is
+distinctly performed, we from that hour shall cease to be friends,
+and become once more, as we have twice before been forced to be,
+enemies of Great Britain.]
+
+As to the treatment of privateers in the insurgent service, you will
+say that this is a question exclusively our own.  We treat them as
+pirates.  They are our own citizens, or persons employed by our
+citizens, preying on the commerce of our country.  If Great Britain
+shall choose to recognize them as lawful belligerents, and give them
+shelter from our pursuit and punishment, the laws of nations afford
+an adequate and proper remedy [and we shall avail ourselves of it.
+And while you need not say this in advance, be sure that you say
+nothing inconsistent with it.]
+
+Happily, however, her Britannic Majesty's government can avoid all
+these difficulties.  It invited us in 1856 to accede to the
+declaration of the Congress of Paris, of which body Great Britain was
+herself a member, abolishing privateering everywhere in all cases and
+forever.  You already have our authority to propose to her our
+accession to that declaration.  If she refuse to receive it, it can
+only be because she is willing to become the patron of privateering
+when aimed at our devastation.
+
+These positions are not elaborately defended now, because to
+vindicate them would imply a possibility of our waiving them.
+
+
+1 We are not insensible of the grave importance of
+
+1 (Drop all from this line to the end, and in lieu of it write, "This
+paper is for your own guidance only, and not [sic] to be read or
+shown to any one.)
+
+(Secretary Seward, when the despatch was returned to him, added an
+introductory paragraph stating that the document was strictly
+confidential. For this reason these last two paragraphs remained as
+they are here printed.)
+
+this occasion. We see how, upon the result of the debate in which we
+are engaged, a war may ensue between the United States and one, two,
+or even more European nations.  War in any case is as exceptionable
+from the habits as it is revolting from the sentiments of the
+American people. But if it come, it will be fully seen that it
+results from the action of Great Britain, not our own; that Great
+Britain will have decided to fraternize with our domestic enemy,
+either without waiting to hear from you our remonstrances and our
+warnings, or after having heard them.  War in defense of national
+life is not immoral, and war in defense of independence is an
+inevitable part of the discipline of nations.
+
+The dispute will be between the European and the American branches of
+the British race.  All who belong to that race will especially
+deprecate it, as they ought.  It may well be believed that men of
+every race and kindred will deplore it.  A war not unlike it between
+the same parties occurred at the close of the last century.  Europe
+atoned by forty years of suffering for the error that Great Britain
+committed in provoking that contest.  If that nation shall now repeat
+the same great error, the social convulsions which will follow may
+not be so long, but they will be more general.  When they shall have
+ceased, it will, we think, be seen, whatever may have been the
+fortunes of other nations, that it is not the United States that will
+have come out of them with its precious Constitution altered or its
+honestly obtained dominion in any degree abridged.  Great Britain has
+but to wait a few months and all her present inconveniences will
+cease with all our own troubles.  If she take a different course, she
+will calculate for herself the ultimate as well as the immediate
+consequences, and will consider what position she will hold when she
+shall have forever lost the sympathies and the affections of the only
+nation on whose sympathies and affections she has a natural claim.
+In making that calculation she will do well to remember that in the
+controversy she proposes to open we shall be actuated by neither
+pride, nor passion, nor cupidity, nor ambition; but we shall stand
+simply on the principle of self-preservation, and that our cause will
+involve the independence of nations and the rights of human nature.
+
+I am, Sir, respectfully your obedient servant,
+W. H. S.
+
+CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Esq., etc,
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR,
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, May 21, 1861.
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+MY DEAR SIR:--Why cannot Colonel Small's Philadelphia regiment be
+received?  I sincerely wish it could.  There is something strange
+about it.  Give these gentlemen an interview, and take their
+regiment.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GOVERNOR MORGAN.
+
+WASHINGTON, May 12, 1861
+
+GOVERNOR E. D. MORGAN, Albany, N.Y.
+
+I wish to see you face to face to clear these difficulties about
+forwarding troops from New York.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO CAPTAIN DAHLGREEN.
+
+EXECUTIVE, MANSION, May 23, 1863.
+
+CAPT. DAHLGREEN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Allow me to introduce Col. J. A. McLernand, M.C. of my
+own district in Illinois.  If he should desire to visit Fortress
+Monroe, please introduce him to the captain of one of the vessels in
+our service, and pass him down and back.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER OF CONDOLENCE TO ONE OF FIRST CASUALTIES
+
+TO COLONEL ELLSWORTH'S PARENTS,
+WASHINGTON, D.C., May 25, 1861
+
+TO THE FATHER AND MOTHER
+OF COL. ELMER E. ELLSWORTH.
+
+MY DEAR SIR AND MADAME:--In the untimely loss of your noble son, our
+affliction here is scarcely less than your own.  So much of promised
+usefulness to one's country, and of bright hopes for one's self and
+friends, have never been so suddenly dashed as in his fall.  In size,
+in years, and in youthful appearance a boy only, his power to command
+men was surpassingly great.   This power, combined with a fine
+intellectual and indomitable energy, and a taste altogether military,
+constituted in him, as seemed to me, the best natural talent in that
+department I ever knew.  And yet he was singularly modest and
+deferential in social intercourse.  My acquaintance with him began
+less than two years ago; yet, through the latter half of the
+intervening period, it was as intense as the disparity of our ages
+and my engrossing engagements would permit.  To me he appeared to
+have no indulgences or pastimes, and I never heard him utter a
+profane or an intemperate word.  What was conclusive of his good
+heart, he never forgot his parents.  The honors he labored for so
+laudably, and for which, in the sad end, he so gallantly gave his
+life, he meant for them no less than for himself.
+
+In the hope that it may be no intrusion upon the sacredness of your
+sorrow, I have ventured to address you this tribute to the memory of
+my young friend and your brave and early fallen son.
+
+May God give you the consolation which is beyond all early power.
+
+
+Sincerely your friend in common affliction,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO COLONEL BARTLETT.
+
+WASHINGTON, May 27, 1861
+
+COL. W. A. BARTLETT, New York.
+
+The Naval Brigade was to go to Fort Monroe without trouble to the
+government, and must so go or not at all.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MEMORANDUM ABOUT INDIANA REGIMENTS.
+
+WASHINGTON, JUNE 11, 1861
+
+ The government has already accepted ten regiments from the State of
+Indiana.  I think at least six more ought to be received from that
+State, two to be those of Colonel James W. McMillan and Colonel
+William L. Brown, and the other four to be designated by the Governor
+of the State of Indiana, and to be received into the volunteer
+service of the United States according to the "Plan of Organization"
+in the General Orders of the War Department, No.15.  When they report
+to Major-General McClellan in condition to pass muster according to
+that order, and with the approval of the Secretary of War to be
+indorsed hereon, and left in his department, I direct that the whole
+six, or any smaller number of such regiments, be received.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, JUNE 13, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--There is, it seems, a regiment in Massachusetts
+commanded by Fletcher Webster, and which HON. Daniel Webster's old
+friends very much wish to get into the service.  If it can be
+received with the approval of your department and the consent of the
+Governor of Massachusetts I shall indeed be much gratified.  Give Mr.
+Ashmun a chance to explain fully.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, JUNE 13, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR--I think it is entirely safe to accept a fifth regiment
+from Michigan, and with your approbation I should say a regiment
+presented by Col. T. B. W. Stockton, ready for service within two
+weeks from now, will be received.  Look at Colonel Stockton's
+testimonials.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 17, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY Of WAR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--With your concurrence, and that of the Governor of
+Indiana, I am in favor of accepting into what we call the three
+years' service any number not exceeding four additional regiments
+from that State.  Probably they should come from the triangular
+region between the Ohio and Wabash Rivers, including my own old
+boyhood home.  Please see HON. C. M. Allen, Speaker of the Indiana
+House of Representatives, and unless you perceive good reason to the
+contrary, draw up an order for him according to the above.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, JUNE 17,1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+MY DEAR SIR:--With your concurrence, and that of the Governor of
+Ohio, I am in favor of receiving into what we call the three years'
+service any number not exceeding six additional regiments from that
+State, unless you perceive good reasons to the contrary.  Please see
+HON. John A. Gurley, who bears this, and make an order corresponding
+with the above.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO N. W. EDWARDS
+
+WASHINGTON, D. C., June 19, 1861
+
+Hon. N. W. EDWARDS
+MY DEAR SIR:
+.............
+.............
+When you wrote me some time ago in reference to looking up something
+in the departments here, I thought I would inquire into the thing and
+write you, but the extraordinary pressure upon me diverted me from
+it, and soon it passed out of my mind.  The thing you proposed, it
+seemed to me, I ought to understand myself before it was set on foot
+by my direction or permission; and I really had no time to make
+myself acquainted with it.  Nor have I yet.  And yet I am unwilling,
+of course, that you should be deprived of a chance to make something,
+if it can be done without injustice to the Government, or to any
+individual.  If you choose to come here and point out to me how this
+can be done I shall not only not object, but shall be gratified to be
+able to oblige you.
+
+Your friend as ever
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY CAMERON.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 20, 1861.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Since you spoke to me yesterday about General J. H.
+Lane, of Kansas, I have been reflecting upon the subject, and have
+concluded that we need the service of such a man out there at once;
+that we had better appoint him a brigadier-general of volunteers
+to-day, and send him off with such authority to raise a force (I
+think two regiments better than three, but as to this I am not
+particular) as you think will get him into actual work quickest.
+Tell him, when he starts, to put it through not to be writing or
+telegraphing back here, but put it through.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+[Indorsement.]
+
+General Lane has been authorized to raise two additional regiments of
+volunteers.
+
+SIMON CAMERON, Secretary o f War.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE KENTUCKY DELEGATION.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 29, 1861.
+
+GENTLEMEN OF THE KENTUCKY DELEGATION WHO ARE FOR THE UNION:
+
+I somewhat wish to authorize my friend Jesse Bayles to raise a
+Kentucky regiment, but I do not wish to do it without your consent.
+If you consent, please write so at the bottom of this.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+We consent:
+R. MALLORY.
+H. GRIDER.
+G. W. DUNLAP.
+J. S. JACKSON.
+C. A. WICKLIFFE.
+
+
+
+
+August 5, 1861.
+
+I repeat, I would like for Col. Bayles to raise a regiment of cavalry
+whenever the Union men of Kentucky desire or consent to it.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER AUTHORIZING GENERAL SCOTT TO SUSPEND THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS,
+JULY 2, 1861
+
+TO THE COMMANDING GENERAL,
+ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES:
+
+You are engaged in suppressing an insurrection against the laws of
+the United States.  If at any point on or in the vicinity of any
+military line which is now or which shall be used between the city of
+New York and the city of Washington you find resistance which renders
+it necessary to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for the public
+safety, you personally, or through the officer in command at the
+point where resistance occurs, are authorized to suspend that writ.
+
+Given under my hand and the seal of the United States at the city of
+Washington, this second day of July, A.D. 1861, and of the
+independence of the United States the eighty-fifth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY SEWARD.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, JULY 3, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF STATE.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--General Scott had sent me a copy of the despatch of
+which you kindly sent one.  Thanks to both him and you.  Please
+assemble the Cabinet at twelve to-day to look over the message and
+reports.
+
+And now, suppose you step over at once and let us see General Scott
+(and) General Cameron about assigning a position to General Fremont.
+
+Yours as ever,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS IN SPECIAL SESSION,
+JULY 4, 1861.
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:--Having
+been convened on an extraordinary occasion, as authorized by the
+Constitution, your attention is not called to any ordinary subject of
+legislation.
+
+At the beginning of the present Presidential term, four months ago,
+the functions of the Federal Government were found to be generally
+suspended within the several States of South Carolina, Georgia,
+Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida, excepting only those of
+the Post-Office Department.
+
+Within these States all the forts, arsenals, dockyards,
+custom-houses, and the like, including the movable and stationary
+property in and about them, had been seized, and were held in open
+hostility to this government, excepting only Forts Pickens, Taylor,
+and Jefferson, on and near the Florida coast, and Fort Sumter, in
+Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.  The forts thus seized had been
+put in improved condition, new ones had been built, and armed forces
+had been organized and were organizing, all avowedly with the same
+hostile purpose.
+
+The forts remaining in the possession of the Federal Government in
+and near these States were either besieged or menaced by warlike
+preparations, and especially Fort Sumter was nearly surrounded by
+well-protected hostile batteries, with guns equal in quality to the
+best of its own, and outnumbering the latter as perhaps ten to one.
+A disproportionate share of the Federal muskets and rifles had
+somehow found their way into these States, and had been seized to be
+used against the government.  Accumulations of the public revenue
+lying within them had been seized for the same object.  The navy was
+scattered in distant seas, leaving but a very small part of it within
+the immediate reach of the government.  Officers of the Federal army
+and navy had resigned in great numbers; and of those resigning a
+large proportion had taken up arms against the government.
+Simultaneously, and in connection with all this, the purpose to sever
+the Federal Union was openly avowed.  In accordance with this
+purpose, an ordinance had been adopted in each of these States,
+declaring the States respectively to be separated from the national
+Union.  A formula for instituting a combined government of these
+States had been promulgated; and this illegal organization, in the
+character of confederate States, was already invoking recognition,
+aid, and intervention from foreign powers.
+
+Finding this condition of things, and believing it to be an
+imperative duty upon the incoming executive to prevent, if possible,
+the consummation of such attempt to destroy the Federal Union, a
+choice of means to that end became indispensable.  This choice was
+made and was declared in the inaugural address.  The policy chosen
+looked to the exhaustion of all peaceful measures before a resort to
+any stronger ones.  It sought only to hold the public places and
+property not already wrested from the government, and to collect the
+revenue, relying for the rest on time, discussion, and the
+ballot-box.  It promised a continuance of the mails, at government
+expense, to the very people who were resisting the government; and it
+gave repeated pledges against any disturbance to any of the people,
+or any of their rights.  Of all that which a President might
+constitutionally and justifiably do in such a case, everything was
+forborne without which it was believed possible to keep the
+government on foot.
+
+On the 5th of March (the present incumbent's first full day in
+office), a letter of Major Anderson, commanding at Fort Sumter,
+written on the 28th of February and received at the War Department on
+the 4th of March, was by that department placed in his hands.  This
+letter expressed the professional opinion of the writer that
+reinforcements could not be thrown into that fort within the time for
+his relief, rendered necessary by the limited supply of provisions,
+and with a view of holding possession of the same, with a force of
+less than twenty thousand good and well-disciplined men.  This
+opinion was concurred in by all the officers of his command, and
+their memoranda on the subject were made inclosures of Major
+Anderson's letter.  The whole was immediately laid before
+Lieutenant-General Scott, who at once concurred with Major Anderson
+in opinion.  On reflection, however, he took full time, consulting
+with other officers, both of the army and the navy, and at the end of
+four days came reluctantly but decidedly to the same conclusion as
+before.  He also stated at the same time that no such sufficient
+force was then at the control of the government, or could be raised
+and brought to the ground within the time when the provisions in the
+fort would be exhausted.  In a purely military point of view, this
+reduced the duty of the administration in the case to the mere matter
+of getting the garrison safely out of the fort.
+
+It was believed, however, that to so abandon that position, under the
+circumstances, would be utterly ruinous; that the necessity under
+which it was to be done would not be fully understood; that by many
+it would be construed as a part of a voluntary policy; that at home
+it would discourage the friends of the Union, embolden its
+adversaries, and go far to insure to the latter a recognition abroad;
+that in fact, it would be our national destruction consummated.  This
+could not be allowed.  Starvation was not yet upon the garrison, and
+ere it would be reached Fort Pickens might be reinforced.  This last
+would be a clear indication of policy, and would better enable the
+country to accept the evacuation of Fort Sumter as a military
+necessity.  An order was at once directed to be sent for the landing
+of the troops from the steamship Brooklyn into Fort Pickens.  This
+order could not go by land, but must take the longer and slower route
+by sea.  The first return news from the order was received just one
+week before the fall of Fort Sumter.  The news itself was that the
+officer commanding the Sabine, to which vessel the troops had been
+transferred from the Brooklyn, acting upon some quasi armistice of
+the late administration (and of the existence of which the present
+administration, up to the time the order was despatched, had only too
+vague and uncertain rumors to fix attention), had refused to land the
+troops.  To now reinforce Fort Pickens before a crisis would be
+reached at Fort Sumter was impossible--rendered so by the near
+exhaustion of provisions in the latter-named fort.  In precaution
+against such a conjuncture, the government had, a few days before,
+commenced preparing an expedition as well adapted as might be to
+relieve Fort Sumter, which expedition was intended to be ultimately
+used, or not, according to circumstances.  The strongest anticipated
+case for using it was now presented, and it was resolved to send it
+forward.  As had been intended in this contingency, it was also
+resolved to notify the governor of South Carolina that he might
+expect an attempt would be made to provision the fort; and that, if
+the attempt should not be resisted, there would be no effort to throw
+in men, arms, or ammunition, without further notice, or in case of an
+attack upon the fort.  This notice was accordingly given; whereupon
+the fort was attacked and bombarded to its fall, without even
+awaiting the arrival of the provisioning expedition.
+
+It is thus seen that the assault upon and reduction of Fort Sumter
+was in no sense a matter of self-defense on the part of the
+assailants.  They well knew that the garrison in the fort could by no
+possibility commit aggression upon them.  They knew--they were
+expressly notified--that the giving of bread to the few brave and
+hungry men of the garrison was all which would on that occasion be
+attempted, unless themselves, by resisting so much, should provoke
+more.  They knew that this government desired to keep the garrison in
+the fort, not to assail them, but merely to maintain visible
+possession, and thus to preserve the Union from actual and immediate
+dissolution--trusting, as hereinbefore stated, to time, discussion,
+and the ballot-box for final adjustment; and they assailed and
+reduced the fort for precisely the reverse object--to drive out the
+visible authority of the Federal Union, and thus force it to
+immediate dissolution.  That this was their object the executive well
+understood; and having said to them in the inaugural address, "You
+can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors," he
+took pains not only to keep this declaration good, but also to keep
+the case so free from the power of ingenious sophistry that the world
+should not be able to misunderstand it.  By the affair at Fort
+Sumter, with its surrounding circumstances, that point was reached.
+Then and thereby the assailants of the government began the conflict
+of arms, without a gun in sight or in expectancy to return their
+fire, save only the few in the fort sent to that harbor years before
+for their own protection, and still ready to give that protection in
+whatever was lawful.  In this act, discarding all else, they have
+forced upon the country the distinct issue, "immediate dissolution or
+blood."
+
+And this issue embraces more than the fate of these United States.
+It presents to the whole family of man the question whether a
+constitutional republic or democracy--a government of the people by
+the same people--can or cannot maintain its territorial integrity
+against its own domestic foes.  It presents the question whether
+discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control
+administration according to organic law in any case, can always, upon
+the pretenses made in this case, or on any other pretenses, or
+arbitrarily without any pretense, break up their government, and thus
+practically put an end to free government upon the earth.  It forces
+us to ask: Is there in all republics this inherent and fatal
+weakness?  Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the
+liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own
+existence?
+
+So viewing the issue, no choice was left but to call out the war
+power of the government, and so to resist force employed for its
+destruction by force for its preservation.
+
+The call was made, and the response of the country was most
+gratifying, surpassing in unanimity and spirit the most sanguine
+expectation.  Yet none of the States commonly called slave States,
+except Delaware, gave a regiment through regular State organization.
+A few regiments have been organized within some others of those
+States by individual enterprise, and received into the government
+service.  Of course the seceded States, so called (and to which Texas
+had been joined about the time of the inauguration), gave no troops
+to the cause of the Union.
+
+The border States, so called, were not uniform in their action, some
+of them being almost for the Union, while in others--as Virginia,
+North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas--the Union sentiment was
+nearly repressed and silenced.  The course taken in Virginia was the
+most remarkable--perhaps the most important.  A convention elected by
+the people of that State to consider this very question of disrupting
+the Federal Union was in session at the capital of Virginia when Fort
+Sumter fell.  To this body the people had chosen a large majority of
+professed Union men.  Almost immediately after the fall of Sumter,
+many members of that majority went over to the original disunion
+minority, and with them adopted an ordinance for withdrawing the
+State from the Union.  Whether this change was wrought by their great
+approval of the assault upon Sumter, or their great resentment at the
+government's resistance to that assault, is not definitely known.
+Although they submitted the ordinance for ratification to a vote of
+the people, to be taken on a day then somewhat more than a month
+distant, the convention and the Legislature (which was also in
+session at the same time and place), with leading men of the State
+not members of either, immediately commenced acting as if the State
+were already out of the Union.  They pushed military preparations
+vigorously forward all over the State.  They seized the United States
+armory at Harper's Ferry, and the navy-yard at Gosport, near Norfolk.
+They received perhaps invited--into their State large bodies of
+troops, with their warlike appointments, from the so-called seceded
+States.  They formally entered into a treaty of temporary alliance
+and co-operation with the so-called "Confederate States," and sent
+members to their congress at Montgomery.  And finally, they permitted
+the insurrectionary government to be transferred to their capital at
+Richmond.
+
+The people of Virginia have thus allowed this giant insurrection to
+make its nest within her borders; and this government has no choice
+left but to deal with it where it finds it.  And it has the less
+regret as the loyal citizens have, in due form, claimed its
+protection.  Those loyal citizens this government is bound to
+recognize and protect, as being Virginia.
+
+In the border States, so called,--in fact, the middle States,--there
+are those who favor a policy which they call "armed neutrality"; that
+is, an arming of those States to prevent the Union forces passing one
+way, or the disunion the other, over their soil.  This would be
+disunion completed.  Figuratively speaking, it would be the building
+of an impassable wall along the line of separation--and yet not quite
+an impassable one, for under the guise of neutrality it would tie the
+hands of Union men and freely pass supplies from among them to the
+insurrectionists, which it could not do as an open enemy.  At a
+stroke it would take all the trouble off the hands of secession,
+except only what proceeds from the external blockade.  It would do
+for the disunionists that which, of all things, they most desire--
+feed them well and give them disunion without a struggle of their
+own.  It recognizes no fidelity to the Constitution, no obligation to
+maintain the Union; and while very many who have favored it are
+doubtless loyal citizens, it is, nevertheless, very injurious in
+effect.
+
+Recurring to the action of the government, it may be stated that at
+first a call was made for 75,000 militia; and, rapidly following
+this, a proclamation was issued for closing the ports of the
+insurrectionary districts by proceedings in the nature of blockade.
+So far all was believed to be strictly legal.  At this point the
+insurrectionists announced their purpose to enter upon the practice
+of privateering.
+
+Other calls were made for volunteers to serve for three years, unless
+sooner discharged, and also for large additions to the regular army
+and navy.  These measures, whether strictly legal or not, were
+ventured upon, under what appeared to be a popular demand and a
+public necessity; trusting then, as now, that Congress would readily
+ratify them.  It is believed that nothing has been done beyond the
+constitutional competency of Congress.
+
+Soon after the first call for militia, it was considered a duty to
+authorize the commanding general in proper cases, according to his
+discretion, to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus,
+or, in other words, to arrest and detain, without resort to the
+ordinary processes and forms of law, such individuals as he might
+deem dangerous to the public safety.  This authority has purposely
+been exercised but very sparingly.  Nevertheless, the legality and
+propriety of what has been done under it are questioned, and the
+attention of the country has been called to the proposition that one
+who has sworn to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed"
+should not himself violate them.  Of course some consideration was
+given to the questions of power and propriety before this matter was
+acted upon.  The whole of the laws which were required to be
+faithfully executed were being resisted and failing of execution in
+nearly one third of the States.  Must they be allowed to finally fail
+of execution, even had it been perfectly clear that by the use of the
+means necessary to their execution some single law, made in such
+extreme tenderness of the citizen's liberty that, practically, it
+relieves more of the guilty than of the innocent, should to a very
+limited extent be violated? To state the question more directly, are
+all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the government itself go
+to pieces lest that one be violated? Even in such a case, would not
+the official oath be broken if the government should be overthrown
+when it was believed that disregarding the single law would tend to
+preserve it? But it was not believed that this question was
+presented.  It was not believed that any law was violated.  The
+provision of the Constitution that "the privilege of the writ of
+habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when, in cases of
+rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it," is
+equivalent to a provision--is a provision--that such privilege may be
+suspended when, in case of rebellion or invasion, the public safety
+does require it.  It was decided that we have a case of rebellion,
+and that the public safety does require the qualified suspension of
+the privilege of the writ which was authorized to be made.  Now it is
+insisted that Congress, and not the executive, is vested with this
+power.  But the Constitution itself is silent as to which or who is
+to exercise the power; and as the provision was plainly made for a
+dangerous emergency, it cannot be believed the framers of the
+instrument intended that in every case the danger should run its
+course until Congress could be called together, the very assembling
+of which might be prevented, as was intended in this case, by the
+rebellion.
+
+No more extended argument is now offered, as an opinion at some
+length will probably be presented by the attorney-general.  Whether
+there shall be any legislation upon the subject, and if any, what, is
+submitted entirely to the better judgment of Congress.
+
+The forbearance of this government had been so extraordinary and so
+long continued as to lead some foreign nations to shape their action
+as if they supposed the early destruction of our national Union was
+probable.  While this, on discovery, gave the executive some concern,
+he is now happy to say that the sovereignty and rights of the United
+States are now everywhere practically respected by foreign powers;
+and a general sympathy with the country is manifested throughout the
+world.
+
+The reports of the Secretaries of the Treasury, War, and the Navy
+will give the information in detail deemed necessary and convenient
+for your deliberation and action; while the executive and all the
+departments will stand ready to supply omissions, or to communicate
+new facts considered important for you to know.
+
+It is now recommended that you give the legal means for making this
+contest a short and decisive one: that you place at the control of
+the government for the work at least four hundred thousand men and
+$400,000,000.  That number of men is about one-tenth of those of
+proper ages within the regions where, apparently, all are willing to
+engage; and the sum is less than a twenty-third part of the money
+value owned by the men who seem ready to devote the whole.  A debt of
+$600,000,000 now is a less sum per head than was the debt of our
+Revolution when we came out of that struggle; and the money value in
+the country now bears even a greater proportion to what it was then
+than does the population.  Surely each man has as strong a motive now
+to preserve our liberties as each had then to establish them.
+
+A right result at this time will be worth more to the world than ten
+times the men and ten times the money.  The evidence reaching us from
+the country leaves no doubt that the material for the work is
+abundant, and that it needs only the hand of legislation to give it
+legal sanction, and the hand of the executive to give it practical
+shape and efficiency.  One of the greatest perplexities of the
+government is to avoid receiving troops faster than it can provide
+for them.  In a word, the people will save their government if the
+government itself will do its part only indifferently well.
+
+It might seem, at first thought, to be of little difference whether
+the present movement at the South be called "secession" or
+"rebellion."  The movers, however, well understand the difference.  At
+the beginning they knew they could never raise their treason to any
+respectable magnitude by any name which implies violation of law.
+They knew their people possessed as much of moral sense, as much of
+devotion to law and order, and as much pride in and reverence for the
+history and government of their common country as any other civilized
+and patriotic people.  They knew they could make no advancement
+directly in the teeth of these strong and noble sentiments.
+Accordingly, they commenced by an insidious debauching of the public
+mind.  They invented an ingenious sophism which, if conceded, was
+followed by perfectly logical steps, through all the incidents, to
+the complete destruction of the Union.  The sophism itself is that
+any State of the Union may consistently with the national
+Constitution, and therefore lawfully and peacefully, withdraw from
+the Union without the consent of the Union or of any other State.
+The little disguise that the supposed right is to be exercised only
+for just cause, themselves to be the sole judges of its justice, is
+too thin to merit any notice.
+
+With rebellion thus sugar-coated they have been drugging the public
+mind of their section for more than thirty years, and until at length
+they have brought many good men to a willingness to take up arms
+against the government the day after some assemblage of men have
+enacted the farcical pretense of taking their State out of the Union,
+who could have been brought to no such thing the day before.
+
+This sophism derives much, perhaps the whole, of its currency from
+the assumption that there is some omnipotent and sacred supremacy
+pertaining to a State--to each State of our Federal Union.  Our
+States have neither more nor less power than that reserved to them in
+the Union by the Constitution--no one of them ever having been a
+State out of the Union.  The original ones passed into the Union even
+before they cast off their British colonial dependence; and the new
+ones each came into the Union directly from a condition of
+dependence, excepting Texas.  And even Texas in its temporary
+independence was never designated a State.  The new ones only took
+the designation of States on coming into the Union, while that name
+was first adopted for the old ones in and by the Declaration of
+Independence.  Therein the "United Colonies" were declared to be
+"free and independent States"; but even then the object plainly was
+not to declare their independence of one another or of the Union, but
+directly the contrary, as their mutual pledge and their mutual action
+before, at the time, and afterward, abundantly show.  The express
+plighting of faith by each and all of the original thirteen in the
+Articles of Confederation, two years later, that the Union shall be
+perpetual, is most conclusive.  Having never been States either in
+substance or in name outside of the Union, whence this magical
+omnipotence of "State rights," asserting a claim of power to
+lawfully destroy the Union itself? Much is said about the
+"sovereignty" of the States; but the word even is not in the national
+Constitution, nor, as is believed, in any of the State constitutions.
+What is "sovereignty" in the political sense of the term? Would it be
+far wrong to define it as "a political community without a political
+superior"? Tested by this, no one of our States except Texas ever was
+a sovereignty.  And even Texas gave up the character on coming into
+the Union; by which act she acknowledged the Constitution of the
+United States, and the laws and treaties of the United States made in
+pursuance of the Constitution, to be for her the supreme law of the
+land.  The States have their status in the Union, and they have no
+other legal status.  If they break from this, they can only do so
+against law and by revolution.  The Union, and not themselves
+separately, procured their independence and their liberty.  By
+conquest or purchase the Union gave each of them whatever of
+independence or liberty it has.  The Union is older than any of the
+States, and, in fact, it created them as States.  Originally some
+dependent colonies made the Union, and, in turn, the Union threw off
+their old dependence for them, and made them States, such as they
+are.  Not one of them ever had a State constitution independent of
+the Union.  Of course, it is not forgotten that all the new States
+framed their constitutions before they entered the Union
+nevertheless, dependent upon and preparatory to coming into the
+Union.
+
+Unquestionably the States have the powers and rights reserved to them
+in and by the national Constitution; but among these surely are not
+included all conceivable powers, however mischievous or destructive,
+but, at most, such only as were known in the world at the time as
+governmental powers; and certainly a power to destroy the government
+itself had never been known as a governmental, as a merely
+administrative power.  This relative matter of national power and
+State rights, as a principle, is no other than the principle of
+generality and locality.  Whatever concerns the whole should be
+confided to the whole--to the General Government; while whatever
+concerns only the State should be left exclusively to the State.
+This is all there is of original principle about it.  Whether the
+national Constitution in defining boundaries between the two has
+applied the principle with exact accuracy, is not to be questioned.
+We are all bound by that defining, without question.
+
+What is now combated is the position that secession is consistent
+with the Constitution--is lawful and peaceful.  It is not contended
+that there is any express law for it; and nothing should ever be
+implied as law which leads to unjust or absurd consequences.  The
+nation purchased with money the countries out of which several of
+these States were formed.  Is it just that they shall go off without
+leave and without refunding? The nation paid very large sums (in the
+aggregate, I believe, nearly a hundred millions) to relieve Florida
+of the aboriginal tribes.  Is it just that she shall now be off
+without consent or without making any return? The nation is now in
+debt for money applied to the benefit of these so-called seceding
+States in common with the rest.  Is it just either that creditors
+shall go unpaid or the remaining States pay the whole? A part of the
+present national debt was contracted to pay the old debts of Texas.
+Is it just that she shall leave and pay no part of this herself?
+
+Again, if one State may secede, so may another; and when all shall
+have seceded, none is left to pay the debts.  Is this quite just for
+creditors? Did we notify them of this sage view of ours when we
+borrowed their money? If we now recognize this doctrine by allowing
+the seceders to go in peace, it is difficult to see what we can do if
+others choose to go or to extort terms upon which they will promise
+to remain.
+
+The seceders insist that our Constitution admits of secession.  They
+have assumed to make a national constitution of their own, in which
+of necessity they have either discarded or retained the right of
+secession as they insist it exists in ours.   If they have discarded
+it, they thereby admit that on principle it ought not to be in ours.
+If they have retained it, by their own construction of ours, they
+show that to be consistent they must secede from one another whenever
+they shall find it the easiest way of settling their debts, or
+effecting any other selfish or unjust object.  The principle itself
+is one of disintegration and upon which no government can possibly
+endure.
+
+If all the States save one should assert the power to drive that one
+out of the Union, it is presumed the whole class of seceder
+politicians would at once deny the power and denounce the act as the
+greatest outrage upon State rights.  But suppose that precisely the
+same act, instead of being called "driving the one out," should be
+called "the seceding of the others from that one," it would be
+exactly what the seceders claim to do, unless, indeed, they make the
+point that the one, because it is a minority, may rightfully do what
+the others, because they are a majority, may not rightfully do.
+These politicians are subtle and profound on the rights of
+minorities.  They are not partial to that power which made the
+Constitution and speaks from the preamble calling itself "We, the
+People."
+
+It may well be questioned whether there is to-day a majority of the
+legally qualified voters of any State except perhaps South Carolina
+in favor of disunion.  There is much reason to believe that the Union
+men are the majority in many, if not in every other one, of the so-
+called seceded States.  The contrary has not been demonstrated in any
+one of them.  It is ventured to affirm this even of Virginia and
+Tennessee; for the result of an election held in military camps,
+where the bayonets are all on one side of the question voted upon,
+can scarcely be considered as demonstrating popular sentiment.  At
+such an election, all that large class who are at once for the Union
+and against coercion would be coerced to vote against the Union.
+
+It may be affirmed without extravagance that the free institutions we
+enjoy have developed the powers and improved the condition of our
+whole people beyond any example in the world.  Of this we now have a
+striking and an impressive illustration.  So large an army as the
+government has now on foot was never before known without a soldier
+in it but who has taken his place there of his own free choice.  But
+more than this, there are many single regiments whose members, one
+and another, possess full practical knowledge of all the arts,
+sciences, professions, and whatever else, whether useful or elegant,
+is known in the world; and there is scarcely one from which there
+could not be selected a President, a Cabinet, a Congress, and perhaps
+a court, abundantly competent to administer the government itself.
+Nor do I say this is not true also in the army of our late friends,
+now adversaries in this contest; but if it is, so much better the
+reason why the government which has conferred such benefits on both
+them and us should not be broken up.  Whoever in any section proposes
+to abandon such a government would do well to consider in deference
+to what principle it is that he does it; what better he is likely to
+get in its stead; whether the substitute will give, or be intended to
+give, so much of good to the people.  There are some foreshadowings
+on this subject.  Our adversaries have adopted some declarations of
+independence in which, unlike the good old one, penned by Jefferson,
+they omit the words "all men are created equal."  Why? They have
+adopted a temporary national constitution, in the preamble of which,
+unlike our good old one, signed by Washington, they omit "We, the
+People," and substitute, "We, the deputies of the sovereign and
+independent States."  Why? Why this deliberate pressing out of view
+the rights of men and the authority of the people?
+
+This is essentially a people's contest.  On the side of the Union it
+is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of
+government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men to
+lift artificial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of
+laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start, and a
+fair chance in the race of life.  Yielding to partial and temporary
+departures, from necessity; this is the leading object of the
+government for whose existence we contend.
+
+I am most happy to believe that the plain people understand and
+appreciate this.  It is worthy of note that, while in this the
+government's hour of trial large numbers of those in the army and
+navy who have been favored with the offices have resigned and proved
+false to the hand which had pampered them, not one common soldier or
+common sailor is known to have deserted his flag.
+
+Great honor is due to those officers who remained true, despite the
+example of their treacherous associates; but the greatest honor, and
+most important fact of all, is the unanimous firmness of the common
+soldiers and common sailors.  To the last man, so far as known, they
+have successfully resisted the traitorous efforts of those whose
+commands, but an hour before, they obeyed as absolute law.  This is
+the patriotic instinct of the plain people.  They understand, without
+an argument, that the destroying of the government which was made by
+Washington means no good to them.
+
+Our popular government has often been called an experiment.  Two
+points in it our people have already settled--the successful
+establishing and the successful administering of it.  One still
+remains--its successful maintenance against a formidable internal
+attempt to overthrow it.  It is now for them to demonstrate to the
+world that those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a
+rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of
+bullets; and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally
+decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets; that
+there can be no successful appeal, except to ballots themselves, at
+succeeding elections.  Such will be a great lesson of peace:
+teaching men that what they cannot take by an election, neither can
+they take it by a war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners
+of a war.
+
+Lest there be some uneasiness in the minds of candid men as to what
+is to be the course of the government toward the Southern States
+after the rebellion shall have been suppressed, the executive deems
+it proper to say it will be his purpose then, as ever, to be guided
+by the Constitution and the laws; and that he probably will have no
+different understanding of the powers and duties of the Federal
+Government relatively to the rights of the States and the people,
+under the Constitution, than that expressed in the inaugural address.
+
+He desires to preserve the government, that it may be administered
+for all as it was administered by the men who made it.  Loyal
+citizens everywhere have the right to claim this of their government,
+and the government has no right to withhold or neglect it.  It is not
+perceived that in giving it there is any coercion, any conquest, or
+any subjugation, in any just sense of those terms.
+
+The Constitution provides, and all the States have accepted the
+provision, that "the United States shall guarantee to every State in
+this Union a republican form of government."  But if a State may
+lawfully go out of the Union, having done so it may also discard the
+republican form of government, so that to prevent its going out is an
+indispensable means to the end of maintaining the guarantee
+mentioned; and when an end is lawful and obligatory, the
+indispensable means to it are also lawful and obligatory.
+
+It was with the deepest regret that the executive found the duty of
+employing the war power in defense of the government forced upon him.
+He could but perform this duty or surrender the existence of the
+government.  No compromise by public servants could, in this case, be
+a cure; not that compromises are not often proper, but that no
+popular government can long survive a marked precedent that those who
+carry an election can only save the government from immediate
+destruction by giving up the main point upon which the people gave
+the election.  The people themselves, and not their servants, can
+safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.
+
+As a private citizen the executive could not have consented that
+these institutions shall perish; much less could he in betrayal of so
+vast and so sacred a trust as these free people had confided to him.
+He felt that he had no moral right to shrink, nor even to count the
+chances of his own life, in what might follow.  In full view of his
+great responsibility he has, so far, done what he has deemed his
+duty.  You will now, according to your own judgment, perform yours.
+He sincerely hopes that your views and your action may so accord with
+his as to assure all faithful citizens who have been disturbed in
+their rights of a certain and speedy restoration to them, under the
+Constitution and the laws.
+
+And having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure
+purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear
+and with manly hearts.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN,   July 4, 1861
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 6, 1861.
+
+HON. SEC. OF INTERIOR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Please ask the Comr. of Indian Affairs, and of the
+Gen'l Land Office to come with you, and see me at once. I want the
+assistance of all of you in overhauling the list of appointments a
+little before I send them to the Senate.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
+
+TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
+9th instant, requesting a copy of correspondence upon the subject of
+the incorporation of the Dominican republic with the Spanish
+monarchy, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State; to whom
+the resolution was referred.
+
+WASHINGTON, July 11, 1861.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+I transmit to Congress a copy of correspondence between the Secretary
+of State and her Britannic Majesty's envoy extraordinary and minister
+plenipotentiary accredited to this government, relative to the
+exhibition of the products of industry of all nations, which is to
+take place at London in the course of next year.  As citizens of the
+United States may justly pride themselves upon their proficiency in
+industrial arts, it is desirable that they should have proper
+facilities toward taking part in the exhibition.  With this view I
+recommend such legislation by Congress at this session as may be
+necessary for that purpose.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+WASHINGTON, July 16, 1861
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+As the United States have, in common with Great Britain and France, a
+deep interest in the preservation and development of the fisheries
+adjacent to the northeastern coast and islands of this continent, it
+seems proper that we should concert with the governments of those
+countries such measures as may be conducive to those important
+objects.  With this view I transmit to Congress a copy of a
+correspondence between the Secretary of State and the British
+minister here, in which the latter proposes, on behalf of his
+government, the appointment of a joint commission to inquire into the
+matter, in order that such ulterior measures may be adopted as may be
+advisable for the objects proposed. Such legislation recommended as
+may be necessary to enable the executive to provide for a commissioner
+on behalf of the United States:
+
+WASHINGTON, JULY 19, 1861.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE ADJUTANT-GENERAL
+
+WASHINGTON, JULY 19, 1861
+
+ADJUTANT-GENERAL:
+
+I have agreed, and do agree, that the two Indian regiments named
+within shall be accepted if the act of Congress shall admit it.  Let
+there be no further question about it.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MEMORANDA OF MILITARY POLICY SUGGESTED BY THE
+BULL RUN DEFEAT.
+
+JULY 23, 1861
+
+1. Let the plan for making the blockade effective be pushed forward
+with all possible despatch.
+
+2. Let the volunteer forces at Fort Monroe and vicinity under
+General Butler be constantly drilled, disciplined, and instructed
+without more for the present.
+
+3. Let Baltimore be held as now, with a gentle but firm and certain
+hand.
+
+4. Let the force now under Patterson or Banks be strengthened and made
+secure in its position.
+
+5. Let the forces in Western Virginia act till further orders
+according to instructions or orders from General McClellan.
+
+6. [Let] General Fremont push forward his organization and operations
+in the West as rapidly as possible, giving rather special attention
+to Missouri.
+
+7. Let the forces late before Manassas, except the three-months men,
+be reorganized as rapidly as possible in their camps here and about
+Arlington.
+
+8. Let the three-months forces who decline to enter the longer service
+be discharged as rapidly as circumstances will permit.
+
+9. Let the new volunteer forces be brought forward as fast as
+possible, and especially into the camps on the two sides of the river
+here.
+
+When the foregoing shall be substantially attended to:
+
+1. Let Manassas Junction (or some point on one or other of the
+railroads near it) and Strasburg be seized, and permanently held,
+with an open line from Washington to Manassas, and an open line from
+Harper's Ferry to Strasburg the military men to find the way of doing
+these.
+
+2. This done, a joint movement from Cairo on Memphis; and from
+Cincinnati on East Tennessee.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., July 24, 1861
+
+THE GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY.
+
+SIR:--Together with the regiments of three years' volunteers which
+the government already has in service in your State, enough to make
+eight in all, if tendered in a reasonable time, will be accepted, the
+new regiments to be taken, as far as convenient, from the three
+months' men and officers just discharged, and to be organized,
+equipped, and sent forward as fast as single regiments are ready, On
+the same terms as were those already in the service from that State.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+[Indorsement.]
+
+This order is entered in the War Department, and the Governor of New
+Jersey is authorized to furnish the regiments with wagons and horses.
+
+S.  CAMERON, Secretary of War.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
+
+TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
+22d instant; requesting a copy of the correspondence between this,
+government and foreign powers with reference to maritime right, I
+transmit a report from the Secretary of State.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+WASHINGTON, July 25, 1861
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
+
+TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
+15th instant, requesting a copy of the correspondence between this
+government and foreign powers on the subject of the existing
+insurrection in the United States, I transmit a report from the
+Secretary of State.
+
+WASHINGTON, July 25, 1861.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY CHASE.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, JULY 16, 1861
+
+MR CHASE:--The bearer, Mr._____ , wants ________in the custom house
+at Baltimore.  If his recommendations are satisfactory, and I
+recollect them to have been so, the fact that he is urged by the
+Methodists should be in his favor, as they complain of us some.
+
+LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
+
+TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
+24th instant, asking the grounds, reasons, and evidence upon which
+the police Commissioners of Baltimore were arrested and are now
+detained as prisoners at Port McHenry, I have to state that it is
+judged to be incompatible with the public interest at this time to
+furnish the information called for by the resolution.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+WASHINGTON, JULY 27, 1861
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE SENATE.
+
+TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 19th instant
+requesting information concerning the quasi armistice alluded to in
+my message of the 4th instant, I transmit a report from the Secretary
+of the Navy.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+JULY 30, 1861
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE SENATE.
+
+TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 23d instant
+requesting information concerning the imprisonment of Lieutenant John
+J. Worden (John L. Worden) of the United States navy, I transmit a
+report from the Secretary of the Navy.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+July 30, 1861
+
+
+
+
+ORDER TO UNITED STATES MARSHALS.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, D.C.,
+JULY 31, 1861
+
+The Marshals of the United States in the vicinity of forts where
+political prisoners are held will supply decent lodging and
+sustenance for such prisoners unless they shall prefer to provide in
+those respects for themselves, in which case they will be allowed to
+do so by the commanding officer in charge.
+
+Approved, and the Secretary of the State will transmit the order to
+the Marshals, to the Lieutenant-General, and the Secretary of the
+Interior.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
+
+TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of
+yesterday, requesting information regarding the imprisonment of loyal
+citizens of the United States by the forces now in rebellion against
+this government, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, and
+the copy of a telegraphic despatch by which it was accompanied.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+WASHINGTON, August 2, 1861.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE SENATE.
+
+TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of your honorable body of date July 31,
+1861, requesting the President to inform the Senate whether the Hon.
+James H. Lane, a member of that body from Kansas, has been appointed
+a brigadier-general in the army of the United States, and if so,
+whether he has accepted such appointment, I have the honor to
+transmit herewith certain papers, numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7,
+which, taken together, explain themselves, and which contain all the
+information I possess upon the questions propounded.
+
+It was my intention, as shown by my letter of June 20, 1861, to
+appoint Hon. James H. Lane, of Kansas, a brigadier-general of United
+States volunteers in anticipation of the act of Congress, since
+passed, for raising such volunteers; and I have no further knowledge
+upon the subject, except as derived from the papers herewith
+enclosed.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 5, 1861
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY CAMERON.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, AUGUST 7, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--The within paper, as you see, is by HON. John S. Phelps
+and HON. Frank P. Blair, Jr., both members of the present Congress
+from Missouri.  The object is to get up an efficient force of
+Missourians in the southwestern part of the State.  It ought to be
+done, and Mr. Phelps ought to have general superintendence of it.
+I see by a private report to me from the department that eighteen
+regiments are already accepted from Missouri.  Can it not be arranged
+that part of them (not yet organized, as I understand) may be taken
+from the locality mentioned and put under the control of Mr. Phelps,
+and let him have discretion to accept them for a shorter term than
+three years--or the war--understanding, however, that he will get
+them for the full term if he can? I hope this can be done, because
+Mr. Phelps is too zealous and efficient and understands his ground
+too well for us to lose his service.  Of course provision for arming,
+equipping, etc., must be made.  Mr. Phelps is here, and wishes to
+carry home with him authority for this matter.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION OF A NATIONAL FAST-DAY,
+AUGUST 12, 1861.
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
+OF AMERICA
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas a joint committee of both houses of Congress has waited on
+the President of the United States and requested him to "recommend a
+day of public humiliation, prayer, and fasting to be observed by the
+people of the United States with religious solemnities and the
+offering of fervent supplications to Almighty God for the safety and
+welfare of these States, His blessings on their arms, and a speedy
+restoration of peace"; and
+
+Whereas it is fit and becoming in all people at all times to
+acknowledge and revere the supreme government of God, to bow in
+humble submission to His chastisements, to confess and deplore their
+sins and transgressions in the full conviction that the fear of the
+Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and to pray with all fervency and
+contrition for the pardon of their past offences and for a blessing
+upon their present and prospective action; and
+
+Whereas when our own beloved country, once, by the blessing of God,
+united, prosperous, and happy, is now afflicted with faction and
+civil war, it is peculiarly fit for us to recognize the hand of God
+in this terrible visitation, and in sorrowful remembrance of our own
+faults and crimes as a nation and as individuals to humble ourselves
+before Him and to pray for His mercy-to pray that we may be spared
+further punishment, though most justly deserved, that our arms may be
+blessed and made effectual for the re-establishment of order, law,
+and peace throughout the wide extent of our country, and that the
+inestimable boon of civil and religious liberty, earned under His
+guidance and blessing by the labors and sufferings of our fathers,
+may be restored in all its original excellence
+
+Therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do
+appoint the last Thursday in September next as a day of humiliation,
+prayer, and fasting for all the people of the nation.  And I do
+earnestly recommend to all the people, and especially to all
+ministers and teachers of religion of all denominations and to all
+heads of families, to observe and keep that day according to their
+several creeds and modes of worship in all humility and with all
+religious solemnity, to the end that the united prayer of the nation
+may ascend to the Throne of Grace and bring down plentiful blessings
+upon our country.
+
+          In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand
+          and caused the seal of the United States to
+[SEAL.]   be affixed, this twelfth day of August, A. D.
+          1861, and of the independence of the United
+          States of America the eighty-sixth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President
+
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary o f State.
+
+
+
+
+TO JAMES POLLOCK.
+
+WASHINGTON, AUGUST 15, 1861
+
+HON. JAMES POLLOCK.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--You must make a job for the bearer of this--make a job
+of it with the collector and have it done.  You can do it for me and
+you must.
+
+Yours as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GOVERNOR O. P. MORTON.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., AUGUST 15, 1861
+
+GOVERNOR MORTON, Indiana:
+Start your four regiments to St.  Louis at the earliest moment
+possible.  Get such harness as may be necessary for your rifled gums.
+Do not delay a single regiment, but hasten everything forward as soon
+as any one regiment is ready.  Have your three additional regiments
+organized at once.  We shall endeavor to send you the arms this week.
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL FREMONT,
+
+WASHINGTON, August 15, 1861
+
+TO MAJOR-GENERAL FREMONT:
+
+Been answering your messages since day before yesterday.  Do you
+receive the answers?  The War Department has notified all the
+governors you designate to forward all available force.  So
+telegraphed you.  Have you received these messages? Answer
+immediately.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION FORBIDDING INTERCOURSE WITH
+REBEL STATES, AUGUST 16, 1861.
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
+OF AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas on the fifteenth day of April, eighteen hundred and sixty-
+one, the President of the United States, in view of an insurrection
+against the laws, Constitution, and government of the United States
+which had broken out within the States of South Carolina, Georgia,
+Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and in pursuance
+of the provisions of the act entitled "An act to provide for calling
+forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress
+insurrections, and repel invasions, and to repeal the act now in
+force for that purpose," approved February twenty-eighth, seventeen
+hundred and ninety-five, did call forth the militia to suppress said
+insurrection, and to cause the laws of the Union to be duly executed,
+and the insurgents have failed to disperse by the time directed by
+the President; and whereas such insurrection has since broken out and
+yet exists within the States of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee,
+and Arkansas; and whereas the insurgents in all the said States claim
+to act under the authority thereof, and such claim is not disclaimed
+or repudiated by the persons exercising the functions of government
+in such State or States, or in the part or parts thereof in which
+such combinations exist, nor has such insurrection been suppressed by
+said States:
+
+Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States,
+in pursuance of an act of Congress approved July thirteen, eighteen
+hundred and sixty-one, do hereby declare that the inhabitants of the
+said States of Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina,
+Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, and
+Florida (except the inhabitants of that part of the State of Virginia
+lying west of the Allegheny Mountains, and of such other parts of
+that State, and the other States hereinbefore named, as may maintain
+a loyal adhesion to the Union and the Constitution, or may be time to
+time occupied and controlled by forces of the United States engaged
+in the dispersion of said insurgents), are in a state of insurrection
+against the United States, and that all commercial intercourse
+between the same and the inhabitants thereof, with the exceptions
+aforesaid, and the citizens of other States and other parts of the
+United States, is unlawful, and will remain unlawful until such
+insurrection shall cease or has been suppressed; that all goods and
+chattels, wares and merchandise, coming from any of said States, with
+the exceptions aforesaid, into other parts of the United States,
+without the special license and permission of the President, through
+the Secretary of the Treasury, or proceeding to any of said States,
+with the exceptions aforesaid, by land or water, together with the
+vessel or vehicle conveying the same, or conveying persons to or from
+said States, with said exceptions, will be forfeited to the United
+States; and that from and after fifteen days from the issuing of this
+proclamation all ships and vessels belonging in whole or in part to
+any citizen or inhabitant of any of said States, with said
+exceptions, found at sea, or in any port of the United States, will
+be forfeited to the United States; and I hereby enjoin upon all
+district attorneys, marshals, and officers of the revenue and of the
+military and naval forces of the United States to be vigilant in the
+execution of said act, and in the enforcement of the penalties and
+forfeitures imposed or declared by it; leaving any party who may
+think himself aggrieved thereby to his application to the Secretary
+of the Treasury for the remission of any penalty or forfeiture, which
+the said Secretary is authorized by law to grant if, in his judgment,
+the special circumstances of any case shall require such remission.
+
+In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand,...................
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of Sate.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY CAMERON.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 17, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Unless there be reason to the contrary, not known to
+me, make out a commission for Simon B. Buckner, of Kentucky, as a
+brigadier-general of volunteers. It is to be put into the hands of
+General Anderson, and delivered to General Buckner or not, at the
+discretion of General Anderson.  Of course it is to remain a secret
+unless and until the commission is delivered.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN
+
+Same day made.
+
+[Indorsement.]
+
+
+
+
+TO GOVERNOR MAGOFFIN,
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., AUGUST 24, 1861
+
+To HIS EXCELLENCY B. MAGOFFIN,
+Governor of the State of Kentucky.
+
+SIR:--Your letter of the 19th instant, in which you urge the "removal
+from the limits of Kentucky of the military force now organized and
+in camp within that State," is received.
+
+I may not possess full and precisely accurate knowledge upon this
+subject; but I believe it is true that there is a military force in
+camp within Kentucky, acting by authority of the United States, which
+force is not very large, and is not now being augmented.
+
+I also believe that some arms have been furnished to this force by
+the United States.
+
+I also believe this force consists exclusively of Kentuckians, having
+their camp in the immediate vicinity of their own homes, and not
+assailing or menacing any of the good people of Kentucky.
+
+In all I have done in the premises I have acted upon the urgent
+solicitation of many Kentuckians, and in accordance with what I
+believed, and still believe, to be the wish of a majority of all the
+Union-loving people of Kentucky.
+
+While I have conversed on this subject with many eminent men of
+Kentucky, including a large majority of her members of Congress, I do
+not remember that any one of them, or any other person, except your
+Excellency and the bearers of your Excellency's letter, has urged me
+to remove the military force from Kentucky or to disband it.  One
+other very worthy citizen of Kentucky did solicit me to have the
+augmenting of the force suspended for a time.
+
+Taking all the means within my reach to form a judgment, I do not
+believe it is the popular wish of Kentucky that this force shall be
+removed beyond her limits; and, with this impression, I must
+respectfully decline to so remove it.
+
+I most cordially sympathize with your Excellency in the wish to
+preserve the peace of my own native State, Kentucky.  It is with
+regret I search, and cannot find, in your not very short letter, any
+declaration or intimation that you entertain any desire for the
+preservation of the Federal Union.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL FREMONT.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., SEPTEMBER 2, 1861
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL FREMONT.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Two points in your proclamation of August 30 give me
+some anxiety.
+
+First.  Should you shoot a man, according to the proclamation, the
+Confederates would very certainly shoot our best men in their hands
+in retaliation; and so, man for man, indefinitely.  It is, therefore,
+my order that you allow no man to be shot under the proclamation
+without first having my approbation or consent.
+
+Second.  I think there is great danger that the closing paragraph, in
+relation to the confiscation of property and the liberating slaves of
+traitorous owners, will alarm our Southern Union friends and turn
+them against us; perhaps ruin our rather fair prospect for Kentucky.
+Allow me, therefore, to ask that you will, as of your own motion,
+modify that paragraph so as to conform to the first and fourth
+sections of the act of Congress entitled "An act to confiscate
+property used for insurrectionary purposes," approved August 6, 1861,
+and a copy of which act I herewith send you.
+
+This letter is written in a spirit of caution, and not of censure.  I
+send it by special messenger, in order that it may certainly and
+speedily reach you.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GOVERNORS WASHBURN OF MAINE, FAIRBANKS OF VERMONT, BERRY
+OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, ANDREW OF MASSACHUSETTS, BUCKINGHAM OF CONNECTICUT,
+AND SPRAGUE OF RHODE ISLAND.
+
+WAR DEPARTMENT, September 11, 1861.
+
+General Butler proposes raising in New England six regiments, to be
+recruited and commanded by himself, and to go on special service.
+
+I shall be glad if you, as governor of ______, will answer by
+telegraph if you consent.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL FREMONT.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., SEPTEMBER 11, 1861
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN C. FREMONT.
+
+SIR:-Yours of the 8th, in answer to mine of the 2d instant, is just
+received.  Assuming that you, upon the ground, could better judge of
+the necessities of your position than I could at this distance, on
+seeing your proclamation of August 30 I perceived no general objection
+to it.  The particular clause, however, in relation to the
+confiscation of property and the liberation of slaves appeared to me
+to be objectionable in its nonconformity to the act of Congress
+passed the 6th of last August upon the same subjects; and hence I
+wrote you, expressing my wish that that clause should be modified
+accordingly.  Your answer, just received, expresses the preference on
+your part that I should make an open order for the modification,
+which I very cheerfully do.  It is therefore ordered that the said
+clause of said proclamation be so modified, held, and construed as to
+conform to, and not to transcend, the provisions on the same subject
+contained in the act of Congress entitled "An act to confiscate
+property used for insurrectionary purposes," approved August 6, 1861,
+and that said act be published at length with this order.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO MRS. FREMONT.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C.,
+September 12, 1861
+
+Mrs. GENERAL FREMONT.
+
+MY DEAR MADAM:--Your two notes of to-day are before me.  I answered
+the letter you bore me from General Fremont on yesterday, and not
+hearing from you during the day, I sent the answer to him by mail.
+It is not exactly correct, as you say you were told by the elder Mr.
+Blair, to say that I sent Postmaster-General Blair to St.  Louis to
+examine into that department and report.  Postmaster-General Blair
+did go, with my approbation, to see and converse with General Fremont
+as a friend.  I do not feel authorized to furnish you with copies of
+letters in my possession without the consent of the writers.  No
+impression has been made on my mind against the honor or integrity of
+General Fremont, and I now enter my protest against being understood
+as acting in any hostility toward him.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO JOSEPH HOLT,
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, SEPTEMBER 12, 1861
+
+HON. JOSEPH HOLT.
+
+DEAR SIR:-Yours of this day in relation to the late proclamation of
+General Fremont is received yesterday I addressed a letter to him, by
+mail, on the same subject, and which is to be made public when he
+receives it.  I herewith send you a copy of that letter, which
+perhaps shows my position as distinctly as any new one I could write.
+I will thank you not to make it public until General Fremont shall
+have had time to receive the original.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL SCOTT
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., September 16, 1861.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Since conversing with you I have concluded to request you
+to frame an order for recruiting North Carolinians at Fort Hatteras.
+I suggest it to be so framed as for us to accept a smaller force--
+even a company--if we cannot get a regiment or more.  What is
+necessary to now say about officers you will judge.   Governor Seward
+says he has a nephew (Clarence A. Seward, I believe) who would be
+willing to go and play colonel and assist in raising the force.
+Still it is to be considered whether the North Carolinians will not
+prefer officers of their own.  I should expect they would.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY CAMERON.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, September 18, 1861
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+MY DEAR SIR:--To guard against misunderstanding, I think fit to say
+that the joint expedition of the army and navy agreed upon some time
+since, and in which General T. W. Sherman was and is to bear a
+conspicuous part, is in no wise to be abandoned, but must be ready to
+move by the 1st of, or very early in, October.   Let all preparations
+go forward accordingly.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL FREMONT,
+
+WASHINGTON, SEPTEMBER 12, 1861
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL FREMONT:
+
+Governor Morton telegraphs as follows: "Colonel Lane, just arrived by
+special train, represents Owensborough, forty miles above Evansville,
+in possession of secessionists.  Green River is navigable.
+Owensborough must be seized.  We want a gunboat sent up from Paducah
+for that purpose."  Send up the gunboat if, in your discretion, you
+think it right.  Perhaps you had better order those in charge of the
+Ohio River to guard it vigilantly at all points.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+To O. H. BROWNING.
+
+(Private and Confidential)
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON
+SEPTEMBER 22, 1861
+
+HON. O. H. BROWNING.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 17th is just received; and coming from you,
+I confess it astonishes me.  That you should object to my adhering to
+a law which you had assisted in making and presenting to me less than
+a month before is odd enough.  But this is a very small part.
+General Fremont's proclamation as to confiscation of property and the
+liberation of slaves is purely political and not within the range of
+military law or necessity.  If a commanding general finds a necessity
+to seize the farm of a private owner for a pasture, an encampment, or
+a fortification, he has the right to do so, and to so hold it as long
+as the necessity lasts; and this is within military law, because
+within military necessity.  But to say the farm shall no longer
+belong to the owner, or his heirs forever, and this as well when the
+farm is not needed for military purposes as when it is, is purely
+political, without the savor of military law about it.  And the same
+is true of slaves.  If the general needs them, he can seize them and
+use them; but when the need is past, it is not for him to fix their
+permanent future condition.   That must be settled according to laws
+made by law-makers, and not by military proclamations.  The
+proclamation in the point in question is simply "dictatorship."  It
+assumes that the general may do anything he pleases confiscate the
+lands and free the slaves of loyal people, as well as of disloyal
+ones.  And going the whole figure, I have no doubt, would be more
+popular with some thoughtless people than that which has been done,
+But I cannot assume this reckless position, nor allow others to
+assume it on my responsibility.
+
+You speak of it as being the only means of saving the government.  On
+the contrary, it is itself the surrender of the government.  Can it
+be pretended that it is any longer the Government of the United
+States--any government of constitution and laws wherein a general or
+a president may make permanent rules of property by proclamation? I
+do not say Congress might not with propriety pass a law on the point,
+just such as General Fremont proclaimed.
+
+I do not say I might not, as a member of Congress, vote for it.  What
+I object to is, that I, as President, shall expressly or impliedly
+seize and exercise the permanent legislative functions of the
+government.
+
+So much as to principle.  Now as to policy.  No doubt the thing was
+popular in some quarters, and would have been more so if it had been
+a general declaration of emancipation.  The Kentucky Legislature
+would not budge till that proclamation was modified; and General
+Anderson telegraphed me that on the news of General Fremont having
+actually issued deeds of manumission, a whole company of our
+volunteers threw down their arms and disbanded.  I was so assured as
+to think it probable that the very arms we had furnished Kentucky
+would be turned against us.  I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the
+same as to lose the whole game.  Kentucky gone, we cannot hold
+Missouri, nor, as I think, Maryland.  These all against us, and the
+job on our hands is too large for us.  We would as well consent to
+separation at once, including the surrender of this Capital.  On the
+contrary, if you will give up your restlessness for new positions,
+and back me manfully on the grounds upon which you and other kind
+friends gave me the election and have approved in my public
+documents, we shall go through triumphantly.  You must not understand
+I took my course on the proclamation because of Kentucky.  I took the
+same ground in a private letter to General Fremont before I heard
+from Kentucky.
+
+You think I am inconsistent because I did not also forbid General
+Fremont to shoot men under the proclamation.  I understand that part
+to be within military law, but I also think, and so privately wrote
+General Fremont, that it is impolitic in this, that our adversaries
+have the power, and will certainly exercise it, to shoot as many of
+our men as we shoot of theirs.   I did not say this in the public
+letter, because it is a subject I prefer not to discuss in the
+hearing of our enemies.
+
+There has been no thought of removing General Fremont on any ground
+connected with his proclamation, and if there has been any wish for
+his removal on any ground, our mutual friend Sam.  Glover can
+probably tell you what it was.  I hope no real necessity for it
+exists on any ground.
+
+Your friend, as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+MEMORANDUM FOR A PLAN OF CAMPAIGN
+[OCTOBER 1?] 1861
+
+On or about the 5th of October (the exact date to be determined
+hereafter) I wish a movement made to seize and hold a point on the
+railroad connecting Virginia and Tennessee near the mountain-pass
+called Cumberland Gap.  That point is now guarded against us by
+Zollicoffer, with 6000 or 8000 rebels at Barboursville Ky.,--say
+twenty-five miles from the Gap, toward Lexington.   We have a force
+of 5000 or 6000 under General Thomas, at Camp Dick Robinson, about
+twenty-five miles from Lexington and seventy-five from Zollicoffer's
+camp, On the road between the two.  There is not a railroad anywhere
+between Lexington and the point to be seized, and along the whole
+length of which the Union sentiment among the people largely
+predominates.  We have military possession of the railroad from
+Cincinnati to Lexington, and from Louisville to Lexington, and some
+home guards, under General Crittenden, are on the latter line.   We
+have possession of the railroad from Louisville to Nashville, Tenn.,
+so far as Muldraugh's Hill, about forty miles, and the rebels have
+possession of that road all south of there.  At the Hill we have a
+force of 8000, under General Sherman, and about an equal force of
+rebels is a very short distance south, under General Buckner.
+
+We have a large force at Paducah, and a smaller at Port Holt, both on
+the Kentucky side, with some at Bird's Point, Cairo, Mound City,
+Evansville, and New Albany, all on the other side, and all which,
+with the gunboats on the river, are perhaps sufficient to guard the
+Ohio from Louisville to its mouth.
+
+About supplies of troops, my general idea is that all from Wisconsin,
+Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas, not now elsewhere,
+be left to Fremont.  All from Indiana and Michigan, not now
+elsewhere, be sent to Anderson at Louisville.  All from Ohio needed
+in western Virginia be sent there, and any remainder be sent to
+Mitchell at Cincinnati, for Anderson.  All east of the mountains be
+appropriated to McClellan and to the coast.
+
+As to movements, my idea is that the one for the coast and that on
+Cumberland Gap be simultaneous, and that in the meantime preparation,
+vigilant watching, and the defensive only be acted upon; this,
+however, not to apply to Fremont's operations in northern and middle
+Missouri.  That before these movements Thomas and Sherman shall
+respectively watch but not attack Zollicoffer and Buckner.  That when
+the coast and Gap movements shall be ready Sherman is merely to stand
+fast, while all at Cincinnati and all at Louisville, with all on the
+line, concentrate rapidly at Lexington, and thence to Thomas's camp,
+joining him, and the whole thence upon the Gap.  It is for the
+military men to decide whether they can find a pass through the
+mountains at or near the Gap which cannot be defended by the enemy
+with a greatly inferior force, and what is to be done in regard to
+this.
+
+The coast and Gap movements made, Generals McClellan and Fremont, in
+their respective departments, will avail themselves of any advantages
+the diversions may present.
+
+[He was entirely unable to get this started, Sherman would have taken
+an active part if given him, the others were too busy getting lines
+of communication guarded--and discovering many "critical" supply
+items that had not been sent them.   Also the commanding general did
+not like it.   D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE.
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, October 4, 1861
+
+HONORABLE SECRETARY OF STATE.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Please see Mr. Walker, well vouched as a Union man and
+son-in-law of Governor Morehead, and pleading for his release.  I
+understand the Kentucky arrests were not made by special direction
+from here, and I am willing if you are that any of the parties may be
+released when James Guthrie and James Speed think they should be.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE VICEROY OF EGYPT.
+
+WASHINGTON, October 11, 1861.
+
+GREAT AND GOOD FRIEND:--I have received from Mr. Thayer, Consul-
+General of the United States at Alexandria, a full account of the
+liberal, enlightened, and energetic proceedings which, on his
+complaint, you have adopted in bringing to speedy and condign
+punishment the parties, subjects of your Highness in Upper Egypt, who
+were concerned in an act of criminal persecution against Faris, an
+agent of certain Christian missionaries in Upper Egypt.  I pray your
+Highness to be assured that these proceedings, at once so prompt and
+so just, will be regarded as a new and unmistakable proof equally of
+your Highness's friendship for the United States and of the firmness,
+integrity and wisdom, with which the government of your Highness is
+conducted.  Wishing you great prosperity and success, I am your
+friend,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+HIS HIGHNESS MOHAMMED SAID PACHA,
+Viceroy of Egypt and its Dependencies, etc.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER AUTHORIZING SUSPENSION OF THE WRIT OF
+HABEAS CORPUS.
+
+October 14 1861
+
+LIEUTENANT-GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT:
+
+The military line of the United States for the suppression of the
+insurrection may be extended so far as Bangor, in Maine.  You and any
+officer acting under your authority are hereby authorized to suspend
+the writ of habeas corpus in any place between that place and the
+city of Washington.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY OF INTERIOR.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, October 14, 1861
+
+HON. SEC. OF INTERIOR.
+
+DEAR SIR:--How is this? I supposed I was appointing for register of
+wills a citizen of this District.  Now the commission comes to me
+"Moses Kelly, of New Hampshire."  I do not like this.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TWO SONS WHO WANT TO WORK
+
+TO MAJOR RAMSEY.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, October 17, 1861
+
+MAJOR RAMSEY.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--The lady bearer of this says she has two sons who want
+to work.  Set them at it if possible.  Wanting to work is so rare a
+want that it should be encouraged.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL THOMAS W. SHERMAN.
+
+WASHINGTON, October 18, 1861.
+
+GENERAL THOMAS SHERMAN, Annapolis, Md.:
+
+Your despatch of yesterday received and shown to General McClellan.
+I have promised him not to direct his army here without his consent.
+I do not think I shall come to Annapolis.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL CURTIS, WITH INCLOSURES.
+
+WASHINGTON, October 24, 1861
+
+BRIGADIER-GENERAL S. R. CURTIS.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Herewith is a document--half letter, half order--which,
+wishing you to see, but not to make public, I send unsealed.  Please
+read it and then inclose it to the officer who may be in command of
+the Department of the West at the time it reaches him.  I cannot now
+know whether Fremont or Hunter will then be in command.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+WASHINGTON, October 24, 1861
+
+BRIGADIER-GENERAL S. R. CURTIS.
+
+DEAR SIR:--On receipt of this, with the accompanying inclosures, you
+will take safe, certain, and suitable measures to have the inclosure
+addressed to Major-General Fremont delivered to him with all
+reasonable despatch, subject to these conditions only:  that if, when
+General Fremont shall be reached by the messenger--yourself or any
+one sent by you--he shall then have, in personal command, fought and
+won a battle, or shall then be actually in a battle, or shall then be
+in the immediate presence of the enemy in expectation of a battle, it
+is not to be delivered, but held for further orders.  After, and not
+till after, the delivery to General Fremont, let the inclosure
+addressed to General Hunter be delivered to him.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+(General Orders No.  18.)
+HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY,
+
+WASHINGTON, October 24, 1861
+
+Major-General Fremont, of the United States Army, the present
+commander of the Western Department of the same, will, on the receipt
+of this order, call Major-General Hunter, of the United States
+Volunteers, to relieve him temporarily in that command, when he
+(Major-General Fremont) will report to general headquarters by letter
+for further orders.
+
+WINFIELD SCOTT.
+By command: E. D. TOWNSEND, Assistant Adjutant-General.
+
+
+
+
+WASHINGTON, October 24, 1861
+
+TO THE COMMANDER OF THE
+DEPARTMENT OF THE WEST.
+
+SIR:--The command of the Department of the West having devolved upon
+you, I propose to offer you a few suggestions.  Knowing how hazardous
+it is to bind down a distant commander in the field to specific lines
+and operations, as so much always depends on a knowledge of
+localities and passing events, it is intended, therefore, to leave a
+considerable margin for the exercise of your judgment and discretion.
+
+The main rebel army (Price's) west of the Mississippi is believed to
+have passed Dade County in full retreat upon northwestern Arkansas,
+leaving Missouri almost freed from the enemy, excepting in the
+southeast of the State.  Assuming this basis of fact, it seems
+desirable, as you are not likely to overtake Price, and are in danger
+of making too long a line from your own base of supplies and
+reinforcements, that you should give up the pursuit, halt your main
+army, divide it into two corps of observation, one occupying Sedalia
+and the other Rolla, the present termini of railroads; then recruit
+the condition of both corps by re-establishing and improving their
+discipline and instructions, perfecting their clothing and
+equipments, and providing less uncomfortable quarters.  Of course,
+both railroads must be guarded and kept open, judiciously employing
+just so much force as is necessary for this.  From these two points,
+Sedalia and Rolla, and especially in judicious cooperation with Lane
+on the Kansas border, it would be so easy to concentrate and repel
+any army of the enemy returning on Missouri from the southwest, that
+it is not probable any such attempt will be made before or during the
+approaching cold weather.  Before spring the people of Missouri will
+probably be in no favorable mood to renew for next year the troubles
+which have so much afflicted and impoverished them during this.  If
+you adopt this line of policy, and if, as I anticipate, you will see
+no enemy in great force approaching, you will have a surplus of force
+which you can withdraw from these points and direct to others as may
+be needed, the railroads furnishing ready means of reinforcing these
+main points if occasion requires.  Doubtless local uprisings will for
+a time continue to occur, but these can be met by detachments and
+local forces of our own, and will ere long tire out of themselves.
+
+While, as stated in the beginning of the letter, a large discretion
+must be and is left with yourself, I feel sure that an indefinite
+pursuit of Price or an attempt by this long and circuitous route to
+reach Memphis will be exhaustive beyond endurance, and will end in
+the loss of the whole force engaged in it.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER RETIRING GENERAL SCOTT AND APPOINTING
+GENERAL McCLELLAN HIS SUCCESSOR.
+(General Orders, No.94.)
+
+WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE
+
+WASHINGTON, November 1, 1861
+
+The following order from the President of the United States,
+announcing the retirement from active command of the honored veteran
+Lieutenant general Winfield Scott, will be read by the army with
+profound regret:
+
+
+
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON.
+
+November 1, 1861
+
+On the 1st day of November, A.D. 1861, upon his own application to
+the President of the United States, Brevet Lieutenant-General
+Winfield Scott is ordered to be placed, and hereby is placed, upon
+the list of retired officers of the army of the United States,
+without reduction in his current pay, subsistence, or allowances.
+
+The American people will hear with sadness and deep emotion that
+General Scott has withdrawn from the active control of the army,
+while the President and a unanimous Cabinet express their own and the
+nation's sympathy in his personal affliction and their profound sense
+of the important public services rendered by him to his country
+during his long and brilliant career, among which will ever be
+gratefully distinguished his faithful devotion to the Constitution,
+the Union, and the flag when assailed by parricidal rebellion.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+
+
+The President is pleased to direct that Major general George B.
+McClellan assume the command of the army of the United States.  The
+headquarters of the army will be established in the city of
+Washington.  All communications intended for the commanding general
+will hereafter be addressed direct to the adjutant-general.  The
+duplicate returns, orders, and other papers heretofore sent to the
+assistant adjutant-general, headquarters of the army, will be
+discontinued.
+
+By order of the Secretary of War:
+L. THOMAS, Adjutant General.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER APPROVING THE PLAN OF GOVERNOR GAMBLE
+OF MISSOURI.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
+
+November 5, 1861.
+
+The Governor of the State of Missouri, acting under the direction of
+the convention of that State, proposes to the Government of the
+United States that he will raise a military force to serve within the
+State as State militia during the war there, to cooperate with the
+troops in the service of the United States in repelling the invasion
+of the State and suppressing rebellion therein; the said State
+militia to be embodied and to be held in the camp and in the field,
+drilled, disciplined, and governed according to the Army Regulations
+and subject to the Articles of War; the said State militia not to be
+ordered out of the State except for the immediate defense of the
+State of Missouri, but to co-operate with the troops in the service
+of the United States in military operations within the State or
+necessary to its defense, and when officers of the State militia act
+with officers in the service of the United States of the same grade
+the officers of the United States service shall command the combined
+force; the State militia to be armed, equipped, clothed, subsisted,
+transported, and paid by the United States during such time as they
+shall be actually engaged as an embodied military force in service in
+accordance with regulations of the United States Army or general
+orders as issued from time to time.
+
+In order that the Treasury of the United States may not be burdened
+with the pay of unnecessary officers, the governor proposes that,
+although the State law requires him to appoint upon the general staff
+an adjutant-general, a commissary-general, an inspector-general, a
+quartermaster-general, a paymaster-general, and a surgeon-general,
+each with the rank of colonel of cavalry, yet he proposes that the
+Government of the United States pay only the adjutant-general, the
+quartermaster-general, and inspector-general, their services being
+necessary in the relations which would exist between the State
+militia and the United States.  The governor further proposes that
+while he is allowed by the State law to appoint aides-de-camp to the
+governor at his discretion, with the rank of colonel, three only
+shall be reported to the United States for payment.  He also proposes
+that the State militia shall be commanded by a single major-general
+and by such number of brigadier-generals as shall allow one for a
+brigade of not less than four regiments, and that no greater number
+of staff officers shall be appointed for regimental, brigade, and
+division duties than as provided for in the act of Congress of the
+22d July, 1861; and that, whatever be the rank of such officers as
+fixed by the law of the State, the compensation that they shall
+receive from the United States shall only be that which belongs to
+the rank given by said act of Congress to officers in the United
+States service performing the same duties.
+
+The field officers of a regiment in the State militia are one
+colonel, one lieutenant-colonel, and one major, and the company
+officers are a captain, a first lieutenant, and a second lieutenant.
+The governor proposes that, as the money to be disbursed is the money
+of the United States, such staff officers in the service of the
+United States as may be necessary to act as disbursing officers for
+the State militia shall be assigned by the War Department for that
+duty; or, if such cannot be spared from their present duty, he will
+appoint such persons disbursing officers for the State militia as the
+President of the United States may designate.  Such regulations as
+may be required, in the judgment of the President, to insure
+regularity of returns and to protect the United States from any
+fraudulent practices shall be observed and obeyed by all in office in
+the State militia.
+
+The above propositions are accepted on the part of the United States,
+and the Secretary of War is directed to make the necessary orders
+upon the Ordnance, Quartermaster's, Commissary, Pay, and Medical
+departments to carry this agreement into effect.  He will cause the
+necessary staff officers in the United States service to be detailed
+for duty in connection with the Missouri State militia, and will
+order them to make the necessary provision in their respective
+offices for fulfilling this agreement.  All requisitions upon the
+different officers of the United States under this agreement to be
+made in substance in the same mode for the Missouri State militia as
+similar requisitions are made for troops in the service of the United
+States; and the Secretary of War will cause any additional
+regulations that may be necessary to insure regularity and economy in
+carrying this agreement into effect to be adopted and communicated to
+the Governor of Missouri for the government of the Missouri State
+militia.
+
+[Indorsement.]
+
+November 6, 1861.
+
+This plan approved, with the modification that the governor
+stipulates that when he commissions a major-general of militia it
+shall be the same person at the time in command of the United States
+Department of the West; and in case the United States shall change
+such commander of the department, he (the governor) will revoke the
+State commission given to the person relieved and give one to the
+person substituted to the United States command of said department.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+REPLY TO THE MINISTER FROM SWEDEN.
+
+November 8, 1861.
+
+SIR:--I receive with great pleasure a Minister from Sweden.  That
+pleasure is enhanced by the information which preceded your arrival
+here, that his Majesty, your sovereign, had selected you to fill the
+mission upon the grounds of your derivation from an ancestral stock
+identified with the most glorious era of your country's noble
+history, and your own eminent social and political standing in
+Sweden.  This country, sir, maintains, and means to maintain, the
+rights of human nature, and the capacity of men for self-government.
+The history of Sweden proves that this is the faith of the people of
+Sweden, and we know that it is the faith and practice of their
+respected sovereign.  Rest assured, therefore, that we shall be found
+always just and paternal in our transactions with your government,
+and that nothing will be omitted on my part to make your residence in
+this capital agreeable to yourself and satisfactory to your
+government.
+
+
+
+
+INDORSEMENT AUTHORIZING MARTIAL LAW IN SAINT LOUIS.
+
+St. Louis, November 20, 1861.
+(Received Nov. 20th.)
+
+GENERAL McCLELLAN,
+
+For the President of the United States.
+
+No written authority is found here to declare and enforce martial law
+in this department. Please send me such written authority and
+telegraph me that it has been sent by mail.
+
+H. W. HALLECK,
+Major-General.
+
+
+[Indorsement.]
+November 21, 1861.
+
+If General McClellan and General Halleck deem it necessary to declare
+and maintain martial law in Saint Louis, the same is hereby
+authorized.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+OFFER TO COOPERATE AND GIVE SPECIAL LINE OF INFORMATION TO HORACE
+GREELEY
+
+TO GOVERNOR WALKER.
+
+WASHINGTON, November 21, 1861
+
+DEAR GOVERNOR:--I have thought over the interview which Mr. Gilmore
+has had with Mr. Greeley, and the proposal that Greeley has made to
+Gilmore, namely, that he [Gilmore] shall communicate to him [Greeley]
+all that he learns from you of the inner workings of the
+administration, in return for his [Greeley's] giving such aid as he
+can to the new magazine, and allowing you [Walker] from time to time
+the use of his [Greeley's] columns when it is desirable to feel of,
+or forestall, public opinion on important subjects.   The arrangement
+meets my unqualified approval, and I shall further it to the extent
+of my ability, by opening to you--as I do now--fully the policy of
+the Government,--its present views and future intentions when formed,
+giving you permission to communicate them to Gilmore for Greeley; and
+in case you go to Europe I will give these things direct to Gilmore.
+But all this must be on the express and explicit understanding that
+the fact of these communications coming from me shall be absolutely
+confidential,--not to be disclosed by Greeley to his nearest friend,
+or any of his subordinates.  He will be, in effect, my mouthpiece,
+but I must not be known to be the speaker.
+
+I need not tell you that I have the highest confidence in Mr.
+Greeley.  He is a great power.  Having him firmly behind me will be
+as helpful to me as an army of one hundred thousand men.
+
+This was to be most severely regretted, when Greeley became a traitor
+to the cause, editorialized for compromise and separation--and
+promoted McClellan as Democratic candidate for the Presidency.
+
+That he has ever kicked the traces has been owing to his not being
+fully informed.  Tell Gilmore to say to him that, if he ever objects
+to my policy, I shall be glad to have him state to me his views
+frankly and fully.  I shall adopt his if I can.  If I cannot, I will
+at least tell him why.  He and I should stand together, and let no
+minor differences come between us; for we both seek one end, which is
+the saving of our country.  Now, Governor, this is a longer letter
+than I have written in a month,--longer than I would have written for
+any other man than Horace Greeley.
+
+Your friend, truly,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+P. S.--The sooner Gilmore sees Greeley the better, as you may before
+long think it wise to ventilate our policy on the Trent affair.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER AUTHORIZING GENERAL HALLECK TO SUSPEND
+THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS,
+
+DECEMBER 2, 1861.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL H. W. HALLECK,
+Commanding in the Department of Missouri.
+
+GENERAL:--As an insurrection exists in the United States, and is in
+arms in the State of Missouri, you are hereby authorized and
+empowered to suspend the writ of habeas corpus within the limits of
+the military division under your command, and to exercise martial law
+as you find it necessary in your discretion to secure the public
+safety and the authority of the United States.
+
+In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the
+seal of the United States to be affixed at Washington, this second
+day of December, A.D. 1861.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+ANNUAL MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+WASHINGTON,  December 3, 1861
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:--In the
+midst of unprecedented political troubles we have cause of great
+gratitude to God for unusual good health and most abundant harvests.
+
+You will not be surprised to learn that in the peculiar exigencies of
+the times our intercourse with foreign nations has been attended with
+profound solicitude, chiefly turning upon our own domestic affairs.
+
+A disloyal portion of the American people have during the whole year
+been engaged in an attempt to divide and destroy the Union.  A nation
+which endures factious domestic division is exposed to disrespect
+abroad, and one party, if not both, is sure sooner or later to invoke
+foreign intervention.
+
+Nations thus tempted to interfere are not always able to resist the
+counsels of seeming expediency and ungenerous ambition, although
+measures adopted under such influences seldom fail to be unfortunate
+and injurious to those adopting them.
+
+The disloyal citizens of the United States who have offered the ruin
+of our country in return for the aid and comfort which they have
+invoked abroad have received less patronage and encouragement than
+they probably expected.  If it were just to suppose, as the
+insurgents have seemed to assume, that foreign nations in this case,
+discarding all moral, social, and treaty obligations, would act
+solely and selfishly for the most speedy restoration of commerce,
+including especially the acquisition of cotton, those nations appear
+as yet not to have seen their way to their object more directly or
+clearly through the destruction than through the preservation of the
+Union.  If we could dare to believe that foreign nations are actuated
+by no higher principle than this, I am quite sure a sound argument
+could be made to show them that they can reach their aim more readily
+and easily by aiding to crush this rebellion than by giving
+encouragement to it.
+
+The principal lever relied on by the insurgents for exciting foreign
+nations to hostility against us, as already intimated, is the
+embarrassment of commerce.  Those nations, however, not improbably
+saw from the first that it was the Union which made as well our
+foreign as our domestic commerce.  They can scarcely have failed to
+perceive that the effort for disunion produces the existing
+difficulty, and that one strong nation promises more durable peace
+and a more extensive, valuable, and reliable commerce than can the
+same nation broken into hostile fragments.
+
+It is not my purpose to review our discussions with foreign states,
+because, whatever might be their wishes or dispositions, the
+integrity of our country and the stability of our government mainly
+depend not upon them, but on the loyalty, virtue, patriotism, and
+intelligence of the American people.  The correspondence itself, with
+the usual reservations, is herewith submitted.
+
+I venture to hope it will appear that we have practiced prudence and
+liberality toward foreign powers, averting causes of irritation and
+with firmness maintaining our own rights and honor.
+
+Since, however, it is apparent that here, as in every other state,
+foreign dangers necessarily attend domestic difficulties, I recommend
+that adequate and ample measures be adopted for maintaining the
+public defenses on every side.  While under this general
+recommendation provision for defending our seacoast line readily
+occurs to the mind, I also in the same connection ask the attention
+of Congress to our great lakes and rivers.  It is believed that some
+fortifications and depots of arms and munitions, with harbor and
+navigation improvements, all at well-selected points upon these,
+would be of great importance to the national defense and preservation
+I ask attention to the views of the Secretary of War, expressed in
+his report, upon the same general subject.
+
+I deem it of importance that the loyal regions of east Tennessee and
+western North Carolina should be connected with Kentucky and other
+faithful parts of the Union by rail-road.   I therefore recommend, as
+a military measure, that Congress provide for the construction of
+such rail-road as speedily as possible.  Kentucky will no doubt
+co-operate, and through her Legislature make the most judicious
+selection of a line.  The northern terminus must connect with some
+existing railroad, and whether the route shall be from Lexington or
+Nicholasville to the Cumberland Gap, or from Lebanon to the Tennessee
+line, in the direction of Knoxville, or on some still different line,
+can easily be determined.  Kentucky and the General Government
+co-operating, the work can be completed in a very short time, and
+when done it will be not only of vast present usefulness but also a
+valuable permanent improvement, worth its cost in all the future.
+
+Some treaties, designed chiefly for the interests of commerce, and
+having no grave political importance, have been negotiated, and will
+be submitted to the Senate for their consideration.
+
+Although we have failed to induce some of the commercial powers to
+adopt a desirable melioration of the rigor of maritime war, we have
+removed all obstructions from the way of this humane reform except
+such as are merely of temporary and accidental occurrence.
+
+I invite your attention to the correspondence between her Britannic
+Majesty's minister accredited to this government and the Secretary of
+State relative to the detention of the British ship Perthshire in
+June last by the United States steamer Massachusetts for a supposed
+breach of the blockade.  As this detention was occasioned by an
+obvious misapprehension of the facts, and as justice requires that we
+should commit no belligerent act not founded in strict right as
+sanctioned by public law, I recommend that an appropriation be made
+to satisfy the reasonable demand of the owners of the vessel for her
+detention.
+
+I repeat the recommendation of my predecessor in his annual message
+to Congress in December last in regard to the disposition of the
+surplus which will probably remain after satisfying the claims of
+American citizens against China, pursuant to the awards of the
+commissioners under the act of the 3d of March, 1859.  If, however,
+it should not be deemed advisable to carry that recommendation into
+effect, I would suggest that authority be given for investing the
+principal, or the proceeds of the surplus referred to, in good
+securities, with a view to the satisfaction of such other just claims
+of our citizens against China as are not unlikely to arise hereafter
+in the course of our extensive trade with that empire.
+
+By the act of the 5th of August last Congress authorized the
+President to instruct the commanders of suitable vessels to defend
+themselves against and to capture pirates.  His authority has been
+exercised in a single instance only.  For the more effectual
+protection of our extensive and valuable commerce in the Eastern seas
+especially, it seems to me that it would also be advisable to
+authorize the commanders of sailing vessels to recapture any prizes
+which pirates may make of United States vessels and their cargoes,
+and the consular courts now established by law in Eastern countries
+to adjudicate the cases in the event that this should not be objected
+to by the local authorities.
+
+If any good reason exists why we should persevere longer in
+withholding our recognition of the independence and sovereignty of
+Haiti and Liberia, I am unable to discern it.  Unwilling, however, to
+inaugurate a novel policy in regard to them without the approbation
+of Congress, I submit for your consideration the expediency of an
+appropriation for maintaining a charge d'affaires near each of those
+new States.  It does not admit of doubt that important commercial
+advantages might be secured by favorable treaties with them.
+
+The operations of the treasury during the period which has elapsed
+since your adjournment have been conducted with signal success.  The
+patriotism of the people has placed at the disposal of the government
+the large means demanded by the public exigencies.  Much of the
+national loan has been taken by citizens of the industrial classes,
+whose confidence in their country's faith and zeal for their
+country's deliverance from present peril have induced them to
+contribute to the support of the government the whole of their
+limited acquisitions.  This fact imposes peculiar obligations to
+economy in disbursement and energy in action.
+
+The revenue from all sources, including loans, for the financial year
+ending on the 30th of June, 1861, was $86,835,900.27, and the
+expenditures for the same period, including payments on account of
+the public debt, were $84,578,834.47, leaving a balance in the
+treasury on the 1st of July of $2,257,065.80.  For the first quarter
+of the financial year ending on the 3oth of September, 1861, the
+receipts from all sources, including the balance of the 1st of July,
+were $102,532,509.27, and the expenses $98,239733.09, leaving a
+balance on the 1st of October, 1861, of $4,292,776.18.
+
+Estimates for the remaining three quarters of the year and for the
+financial year 1863, together with his views of ways and means for
+meeting the demands contemplated by them, will be submitted to
+Congress by the Secretary of the Treasury.  It is gratifying to know
+that the expenditures made necessary by the rebellion are not beyond
+the resources of the loyal people, and to believe that the same
+patriotism which has thus far sustained the government will continue
+to sustain it till peace and union shall again bless the land.
+
+I respectfully refer to the report of the Secretary of War for
+information respecting the numerical strength of the army and for
+recommendations having in view an increase of its efficiency and the
+well-being of the various branches of the service intrusted to his
+care.  It is gratifying to know that the patriotism of the people has
+proved equal to the occasion, and that the number of troops tendered
+greatly exceeds the force which Congress authorized me to call into
+the field.
+
+I refer with pleasure to those portions of his report which make
+allusion to the creditable degree of discipline already attained by
+our troops and to the excellent sanitary condition of the entire
+army.
+
+The recommendation of the Secretary for an organization of the
+militia upon a uniform basis is a subject of vital importance to the
+future safety of the country, and is commended to the serious
+attention of Congress.
+
+The large addition to the regular army, in connection with the
+defection that has so considerably diminished the number of its
+officers, gives peculiar importance to his recommendation for
+increasing the corps of cadets to the greatest capacity of the
+Military Academy.
+
+By mere omission, I presume, Congress has failed to provide chaplains
+for hospitals occupied by volunteers.  This subject was brought to my
+notice, and I was induced to draw up the form of a letter, one copy
+of which, properly addressed, has been delivered to each of the
+persons, and at the dates respectively named and stated in a
+schedule, containing also the form of the letter, marked A, and
+herewith transmitted.
+
+These gentlemen, I understand, entered upon the duties designated at
+the times respectively stated in the schedule, and have labored
+faithfully therein ever since.  I therefore recommend that they be
+compensated at the same rate as chaplains in the army.   I further
+suggest that general provision be made for chaplains to serve at
+hospitals, as well as with regiments.
+
+The report of the Secretary of the Navy presents in detail the
+operations of that branch of the service, the activity and energy
+which have characterized its administration, and the results of
+measures to increase its efficiency and power such have been the
+additions, by construction and purchase, that it may almost be said a
+navy has been created and brought into service since our difficulties
+commenced.
+
+Besides blockading our extensive coast, squadrons larger than ever
+before assembled under our flag have been put afloat and performed
+deeds which have increased our naval renown.
+
+I would invite special attention to the recommendation of the
+Secretary for a more perfect organization of the navy by introducing
+additional grades in the service.
+
+The present organization is defective and unsatisfactory, and the
+suggestions submitted by the department will, it is believed, if
+adopted, obviate the difficulties alluded to, promote harmony, and
+increase the efficiency of the navy.
+
+There are three vacancies on the bench of the Supreme Court--two by
+the decease of Justices Daniel and McLean and one by the resignation
+of Justice Campbell.  I have so far forborne making nominations to
+fill these vacancies for reasons which I will now state.  Two of the
+outgoing judges resided within the States now overrun by revolt, so
+that if successors were appointed in the same localities they could
+not now serve upon their circuits; and many of the most competent men
+there probably would not take the personal hazard of accepting to
+serve, even here, upon the Supreme bench.  I have been unwilling to
+throw all the appointments north-ward, thus disabling myself from
+doing justice to the South on the return of peace; although I may
+remark that to transfer to the North one which has heretofore been in
+the South would not, with reference to territory and population, be
+unjust.
+
+During the long and brilliant judicial career of Judge McLean his
+circuit grew into an empire-altogether too large for any one judge to
+give the courts therein more than a nominal attendance--rising in
+population from 1,470,018 in 1830 to 6,151,405 in 1860.
+
+Besides this, the country generally has outgrown our present judicial
+system.  If uniformity was at all intended, the system requires that
+all the States shall be accommodated with circuit courts, attended by
+Supreme judges, while, in fact, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas,
+Florida, Texas, California, and Oregon have never had any such
+courts.  Nor can this well be remedied without a change in the
+system, because the adding of judges to the Supreme Court, enough for
+the accommodation of all parts of the country with circuit courts,
+would create a court altogether too numerous for a judicial body of
+any sort.  And the evil, if it be one, will increase as new States
+come into the Union.  Circuit courts are useful or they are not
+useful.  If useful, no State should be denied them; if not useful, no
+State should have them.  Let them be provided for all or abolished as
+to all.
+
+Three modifications occur to me, either of which, I think, would be
+an improvement upon our present system.  Let the Supreme Court be of
+convenient number in every event; then, first, let the whole country
+be divided into circuits of convenient size, the Supreme judges to
+serve in a number of them corresponding to their own number, and
+independent circuit judges be provided for all the rest; or,
+secondly, let the Supreme judges be relieved from circuit duties and
+circuit judges provided for all the circuits; or, thirdly, dispense
+with circuit courts altogether, leaving the judicial functions wholly
+to the district courts and an independent Supreme Court.
+
+I respectfully recommend to the consideration of Congress the present
+condition of the statute laws, with the hope that Congress will be
+able to find an easy remedy for many of the inconveniences and evils
+which constantly embarrass those engaged in the practical
+administration of them.  Since the Organization of the government,
+Congress has enacted some 5000 acts and joint resolutions, which fill
+more than 6000 closely printed pages and are scattered through many
+volumes.  Many of these acts have been drawn in haste and without
+sufficient caution, so that their provisions are often obscure in
+themselves or in conflict with each other, or at least so doubtful as
+to render it very difficult for even the best-informed persons to
+ascertain precisely what the statute law really is.
+
+It seems to me very important that the statute laws should be made as
+plain and intelligible as possible, and be reduced to as small a
+compass as may consist with the fullness and precision of the will of
+the Legislature and the perspicuity of its language.  This well done
+would, I think, greatly facilitate the labors of those whose duty it
+is to assist in the administration of the laws, and would be a
+lasting benefit to the people, by placing before them in a more
+accessible and intelligible form the laws which so deeply concern
+their interests arid their duties.
+
+I am informed by some whose opinions I respect that all the acts of
+Congress now in force and of a permanent and general nature might be
+revised and rewritten so as to be embraced in one volume (or at most
+two volumes) of ordinary and convenient size; and I respectfully
+recommend to Congress to consider of the subject, and if my
+suggestion be approved to devise such plan as to their wisdom shall
+seem most proper for the attainment of the end proposed.
+
+One of the unavoidable consequences of the present insurrection is
+the entire suppression in many places of all the ordinary means of
+administering civil justice by the officers and in the forms of
+existing law.  This is the case, in whole or in part, in all the
+insurgent States; and as our armies advance upon and take possession
+of parts of those States the practical evil becomes more apparent.
+There are no courts or officers to whom the citizens of other States
+may apply for the enforcement of their lawful claims against citizens
+of the insurgent States, and there is a vast amount of debt
+constituting such claims.  Some have estimated it as high as
+$200,000,000, due in large part from insurgents in open rebellion to
+loyal citizens who are even now making great sacrifices in the
+discharge of their patriotic duty to support the government.
+
+
+Under these circumstances I have been urgently solicited to
+establish, by military power, courts to administer summary justice in
+such cases.  I have thus far declined to do it, not because I had any
+doubt that the end proposed--the collection of the debts--was just
+and right in itself, but because I have been unwilling to go beyond
+the pressure of necessity in the unusual exercise of power.  But the
+powers of Congress, I suppose, are equal to the anomalous occasion,
+and therefore I refer the whole matter to Congress, with the hope
+that a plan maybe devised for the administration of justice in all
+such parts of the insurgent States and Territories as may be under
+the control of this government, whether by a voluntary return to
+allegiance and order or by the power of our arms; this, however, not
+to be a permanent institution, but a temporary substitute, and to
+cease as soon as the ordinary courts can be reestablished in peace.
+
+It is important that some more convenient means should be provided,
+if possible, for the adjustment of claims against the government,
+especially in view of their increased number by reason of the war.
+It is as much the duty of government to render prompt justice against
+itself in favor of citizens as it is to administer the same between
+private individuals.  The investigation and adjudication of claims in
+their nature belong to the judicial department.  Besides, it is
+apparent that the attention of Congress will be more than usually
+engaged for some time to come with great national questions.  It was
+intended by the organization of the Court of Claims mainly to remove
+this branch of business from the halls of Congress; but, while the
+court has proved to be an effective and valuable means of
+investigation, it in great degree fails to effect the object of its
+creation for want of power to make its judgments final.
+
+Fully aware of the delicacy, not to say the danger of the subject, I
+commend to your careful consideration whether this power of making
+judgments final may not properly be given to the court, reserving the
+right of appeal on questions of law to the Supreme Court, with such
+other provisions as experience may have shown to be necessary.
+
+I ask attention to the report of the Postmaster general, the
+following being a summary statement of the condition of the
+department:
+
+The revenue from all sources during the fiscal year ending June 30,
+1861, including the annual permanent appropriation of $700,000 for
+the transportation of "free mail matter," was $9,049,296.40, being
+about 2 per cent. less than the revenue for 1860.
+
+The expenditures were $13,606,759.11, showing a decrease of more than
+8 per cent. as compared with those of the previous year and leaving
+an excess of expenditure over the revenue for the last fiscal year
+of $4,557,462.71.
+
+The gross revenue for the year ending June 30, 1863, is estimated at
+an increase of 4 per cent. on that of 1861, making $8,683,000, to
+which should be added the earnings of the department in carrying free
+matter, viz., $700,000, making $9,383,000.
+
+The total expenditures for 1863 are estimated at $12,528,000, leaving
+an estimated deficiency of $3,145,000 to be supplied from the
+treasury in addition to the permanent appropriation.
+
+The present insurrection shows, I think, that the extension of this
+District across the Potomac River at the time of establishing the
+capital here was eminently wise, and consequently that the
+relinquishment of that portion of it which lies within the State of
+Virginia was unwise and dangerous.  I submit for your consideration
+the expediency of regaining that part of the District and the
+restoration of the original boundaries thereof through negotiations
+with the State of Virginia.
+
+The report of the Secretary of the Interior, with the accompanying
+documents, exhibits the condition of the several branches of the
+public business pertaining to that department.   The depressing
+influences of the insurrection have been specially felt in the
+operations of the Patent and General Land Offices.  The cash receipts
+from the sales of public lands during the past year have exceeded the
+expenses of our land system only about $200,000.  The sales have been
+entirely suspended in the Southern States, while the interruptions to
+the business of the country and the diversion of large numbers of men
+from labor to military service have obstructed settlements in the new
+States and Territories of the Northwest.
+
+The receipts of the Patent Office have declined in nine months about
+$100,000.00 rendering a large reduction of the force employed
+necessary to make it self-sustaining.
+
+The demands upon the Pension Office will be largely increased by the
+insurrection.   Numerous applications for pensions, based upon the
+casualties of the existing war, have already been made.  There is
+reason to believe that many who are now upon the pension rolls and in
+receipt of the bounty of the government are in the ranks of the
+insurgent army or giving them aid and comfort.  The Secretary of the
+Interior has directed a suspension of the payment of the pensions of
+such persons upon proof of their disloyalty.  I recommend that
+Congress authorize that officer to cause the names of such persons to
+be stricken from the pension rolls.
+
+The relations of the government with the Indian tribes have been
+greatly disturbed by the insurrection, especially in the southern
+superintendency and in that of New Mexico.  The Indian country south
+of Kansas is in the possession of insurgents from Texas and Arkansas.
+The agents of the United States appointed since the 4th of March for
+this superintendency have been unable to reach their posts, while the
+most of those who were in office before that time have espoused the
+insurrectionary cause, and assume to exercise the powers of agents by
+virtue of commissions from the insurrectionists.  It has been stated
+in the public press that a portion of those Indians have been
+organized as a military force and are attached to the army of the
+insurgents.  Although the government has no official information upon
+this subject, letters have been written to the Commissioner of Indian
+Affairs by several prominent chiefs giving assurance of their loyalty
+to the United States and expressing a wish for the presence of
+Federal troops to protect them.  It is believed that upon the
+repossession of the country by the Federal forces the Indians will
+readily cease all hostile demonstrations and resume their former
+relations to the government.
+
+Agriculture, confessedly the largest interest of the nation, has not
+a department nor a bureau, but a clerkship only, assigned to it in
+the government.  While it is fortunate that this great interest is so
+independent in its nature as not to have demanded and extorted more
+from the government, I respectfully ask Congress to consider whether
+something more cannot be given voluntarily with general advantage.
+
+Annual reports exhibiting the condition of our agriculture, commerce,
+and manufactures would present a fund of information of great
+practical value to the country.  While I make no suggestion as to
+details, I venture the opinion that an agricultural and statistical
+bureau might profitably be organized.
+
+The execution of the laws for the suppression of  the African slave
+trade has been confided to the Department of the Interior.   It is a
+subject of gratulation that the efforts which have been made for the
+suppression of this inhuman traffic have been recently attended with
+unusual success.  Five vessels being fitted out for the slave trade
+have been seized and condemned.  Two mates of vessels engaged in the
+trade and one person in equipping a vessel as a slaver have been
+convicted and subjected to the penalty of fine and imprisonment, and
+one captain, taken with a cargo of Africans on board his vessel, has
+been convicted of the highest grade of offense under our laws, the
+punishment of which is death.
+
+The Territories of Colorado, Dakota, and Nevada, created by the last
+Congress, have been organized, and civil administration has been
+inaugurated therein under auspices especially gratifying when it is
+considered that the leaven of treason was found existing in some of
+these new countries when the Federal officers arrived there.
+
+The abundant natural resources of these Territories, with the
+security and protection afforded by organized government, will
+doubtless invite to them a large immigration when peace shall restore
+the business of the country to its accustomed channels.  I submit the
+resolutions of the Legislature of Colorado, which evidence the
+patriotic spirit of the people of the Territory.  So far the
+authority of the United States has been upheld in all the
+Territories, as it is hoped it will be in the future.  I commend
+their interests and defense to the enlightened and generous care of
+Congress.
+
+I recommend to the favorable consideration of Congress the interests
+of the District of Columbia.  The insurrection has been the cause of
+much suffering and sacrifice to its inhabitants, and as they have no
+representative in Congress that body should not overlook their just
+claims upon the government.
+
+At your late session a joint resolution was adopted authorizing the
+President to take measures for facilitating a proper representation
+of the industrial interests of the United States at the exhibition of
+the industry of all nations to be holden at London in the year 1862.
+I regret to say I have been unable to give personal attention to this
+subject--a subject at once so interesting in itself and so
+extensively and intimately connected with the material prosperity of
+the world.  Through the Secretaries of State and of the Interior a
+plan or system has been devised and partly matured, and which will be
+laid before you.
+
+Under and by virtue of the act of Congress entitled "An act to
+confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes," approved
+August 6, 1861, the legal claims of certain persons to the labor and
+service of certain other persons have become forfeited, and numbers
+of the latter thus liberated are already dependent on the United
+States, and must be provided for in some way.  Besides this, it is
+not impossible that some of the States will pass similar enactments
+for their own benefit respectively, and by operation of which persons
+of the same class will be thrown upon them for disposal.  In such
+case I recommend that Congress provide for accepting such persons
+from such States, according to some mode of valuation, in lieu, pro
+tanto, of direct taxes, or upon some other plan to be agreed on with
+such States respectively; that such persons, on such acceptance by
+the General Government, be at once deemed free, and that in any event
+steps be taken for colonizing both classes (or the one first
+mentioned if the other shall not be brought into existence) at some
+place or places in a climate congenial to them.  It might be well to
+consider, too, whether the free colored people already in the United
+States could not, so far as individuals may desire, be included in
+such colonization.
+
+To carry out the plan of colonization may involve the acquiring of
+territory, and also the appropriation of money beyond that to be
+expended in the territorial acquisition.  Having practised the
+acquisition of territory for nearly sixty years, the question of
+constitutional power to do so is no longer an open one with us.  The
+power was questioned at first by Mr. Jefferson, who, however, in the
+purchase of Louisiana, yielded his scruples on the plea of great
+expediency.  If it be said that the only legitimate object of
+acquiring territory is to furnish homes for white men, this measure
+effects that object, for emigration of colored men leaves additional
+room for white men remaining or coming here.  Mr. Jefferson, however,
+placed the importance of procuring Louisiana more on political and
+commercial grounds than on providing room for population.
+
+On this whole proposition, including the appropriation of money with
+the acquisition of territory, does not the expediency amount to
+absolute necessity--that without which the government itself cannot
+be perpetuated?
+
+The war continues.  In considering the policy to be adopted for
+suppressing the insurrection I have been anxious and careful that the
+inevitable conflict for this purpose shall not degenerate into a
+violent and remorseless revolutionary struggle.  I have therefore in
+every case thought it proper to keep the integrity of the Union
+prominent as the primary object of the contest on our part, leaving
+all questions which are not of vital military importance to the more
+deliberate action of the Legislature.
+
+In the exercise of my best discretion I have adhered to the blockade
+of the ports held by the insurgents, instead of putting in force by
+proclamation the law of Congress enacted at the late session for
+closing those ports.
+
+So also, obeying the dictates of prudence, as well as the obligations
+of law, instead of transcending I have adhered to the act of Congress
+to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes.  If a new
+law upon the same subject shall be proposed, its propriety will be
+duly considered.  The Union must be preserved, and hence all
+indispensable means must be employed.  We should not be in haste to
+determine that radical and extreme measures, which may reach the
+loyal as well as the disloyal, are indispensable.
+
+The inaugural address at the beginning of the Administration and the
+message to Congress at the late special session were both mainly
+devoted to topics domestic controversy out of which the insurrection
+and consequent war have sprung.  Nothing now occurs to add or
+subtract to or from the principles or general purposes stated and
+expressed in those documents.
+
+The last ray of hope for preserving the Union peaceably expired at
+the assault upon Fort Sumter, and a general review of what has
+occurred since may not be unprofitable.  What was painfully uncertain
+then is much better defined and more distinct now, and the progress
+of events is plainly in the right direction.  The insurgents
+confidently claimed a strong support from north of Mason and Dixon's
+line, and the friends of the Union were not free from apprehension on
+the point.  This, however, was soon settled definitely, and on the
+right side.  South of the line noble little Delaware led off right
+from the first.  Maryland was made to seem against the Union.  Our
+soldiers were assaulted, bridges were burned, and railroads torn up
+within her limits, and we were many days at one time without the
+ability to bring a single regiment over her soil to the capital.  Now
+her bridges and railroads are repaired and open to the government;
+she already gives seven regiments to the cause of the Union, and none
+to the enemy; and her people, at a regular election, have sustained
+the Union by a larger majority and a larger aggregate vote than they
+ever before gave to any candidate or any question.  Kentucky, too,
+for some time in doubt, is now decidedly and, I think, unchangeably
+ranged on the side of the Union.  Missouri is comparatively quiet,
+and, I believe, can, not again be overrun by the insurrectionists.
+These three States of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, neither of
+which would promise a single soldier at first, have now an aggregate
+of not less than forty thousand in the field for the Union, while of
+their citizens certainly not more than a third of that number, and
+they of doubtful whereabouts and doubtful existence, are in arms
+against us.  After a somewhat bloody struggle of months, winter
+closes on the Union people of western Virginia, leaving them masters
+of their own country.
+
+An insurgent force of about fifteen hundred, for months dominating
+the narrow peninsular region constituting the counties of Accomac and
+Northampton, and known as Eastern Shore of Virginia, together with
+some contiguous parts of Maryland, have laid down their arms, and the
+people there have renewed their allegiance to and accepted the
+protection of the old flag.  This leaves no armed insurrectionist
+north of the Potomac or east of the Chesapeake.
+
+Also we have obtained a footing at each of the isolated points on the
+southern coast of Hatteras, Port Royal, Tybee Island (near Savannah),
+and Ship Island; and we likewise have some general accounts of
+popular movements in behalf of the Union in North Carolina and
+Tennessee.
+
+These things demonstrate that the cause of the Union is advancing
+steadily and certainly southward.
+
+Since your last adjournment Lieutenant-General Scott has retired from
+the head of the army.  During his long life the nation has not been
+unmindful of his merit; yet on calling to mind how faithfully, ably,
+and brilliantly he has served the country, from a time far back in
+our history, when few of the now living had been born, and
+thenceforward continually, I cannot but think we are still his
+debtors.  I submit, therefore, for your consideration what further
+mark of recognition is due to him, and to ourselves as a grateful
+people.
+
+With the retirement of General Scott came the Executive duty of
+appointing in his stead a general-in-chief of the army.  It is a
+fortunate circumstance that neither in council nor country was there,
+so far as I know, any difference of opinion as to the proper person
+to be selected.  The retiring chief repeatedly expressed his judgment
+in favor of General McClellan for the position, and in this the
+nation seemed to give a unanimous concurrence.  The designation of
+General McClellan is therefore in considerable degree the selection
+of the country as well as of the Executive, and hence there is better
+reason to hope there will be given him the confidence and cordial
+support thus by fair implication promised, and without which he
+cannot with so full efficiency serve the country.
+
+It has been said that one bad general is better than two good ones,
+and the saying is true if taken to mean no more than that an army is
+better directed by a single mind, though inferior, than by two
+superior ones at variance and cross-purposes with each other.
+
+And the same is true in all joint operations wherein those engaged
+can have none but a common end in view and can differ only as to the
+choice of means.  In a storm at sea no one on hoard can wish the ship
+to sink, and yet not unfrequently all go down together because too
+many will direct and no single mind can be allowed to control.
+
+It continues to develop that the insurrection is largely, if not
+exclusively, a war upon the first principle of popular government--
+the rights of the people.  Conclusive evidence of this is found in
+the most grave and maturely considered public documents, as well as
+in the general tone of the insurgents.  In those documents we find
+the abridgment of the existing right of suffrage and the denial to
+the people of all right to participate in the selection of public
+officers except the legislative boldly advocated, with labored
+arguments to prove that large control of the people in government is
+the source of all political evil.  Monarchy itself is sometimes
+hinted at as a possible refuge from the power of the people.
+
+In my present position I could scarcely be justified were I to omit
+raising a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism.
+It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be
+made in favor of popular institutions, but there is one point, with
+its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a
+brief attention.  It is the effort to place capital on an equal
+footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government.  It
+is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital;
+that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by
+the use of it induces him to labor.  This assumed, it is next
+considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and
+thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive
+them to it without their consent.  Having proceeded so far, it is
+naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or
+what we call slaves.  And further, it is assumed that whoever is once
+a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.
+
+Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed,
+nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the
+condition of a hired laborer.  Both these assumptions are false, and
+all inferences from them are groundless.
+
+Labor is prior to and independent of capital.  Capital is only the
+fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first
+existed.  Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the
+higher consideration.  Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of
+protection as any other rights.  Nor is it denied that there is, and
+probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital
+producing mutual benefits.  The error is in assuming that the whole
+labor of community exists within that relation.  A few men own
+capital, and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital
+hire or buy another few to labor for them.  A large majority belong
+to neither class--neither work for others nor have others working for
+them.  In most of the Southern States a majority of the whole people
+of all colors are neither slaves nor masters, while in the Northern a
+large majority are neither hirers nor hired.  Men, with their
+families--wives, sons, and daughters,--work for themselves on their
+farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product
+to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand nor of
+hired laborers or slaves on the other.  It is not forgotten that a
+considerable number of persons mingle their own labor with capital;
+that is, they labor with their own hands and also buy or hire others
+to labor for them; but this is only a mixed and not a distinct class.
+No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed
+class.
+
+Again, as has already been said, there is not of necessity any such
+thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for
+life.  Many independent men everywhere in these States a few years
+back in their lives were hired laborers.  The prudent, penniless
+beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with
+which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own
+account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to
+help him.  This is the just and generous and prosperous system which
+opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy and
+progress and improvement of condition to all.  No men living are more
+worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty; none less
+inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned.
+Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already
+possess, and which if surrendered will surely be used to close the
+door of advancement against such as they and to fix new disabilities
+and burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost.
+
+From the first taking of our national census to the last are seventy
+years, and we find our population at the end of the period eight
+times as great as it was at the beginning.  The increase of those
+other things which men deem desirable has been even greater.  We thus
+have at one view what the popular principle, applied to government
+through the machinery of the States and the Union, has produced in a
+given time, and also what if firmly maintained it promises for the
+future.  There are already among us those who if the Union be
+preserved will live to see it contain 200,000,000.  The struggle of
+to-day is not altogether for to-day; it is for a vast future also.
+With a reliance on Providence all the more firm and earnest, let us
+proceed in the great task which events have devolved upon us.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+WASHINGTON, December 20, 1861.
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+I transmit to Congress a letter from the secretary of the executive
+committee of the commission appointed to represent the interests of
+those American citizens who may desire to become exhibitors at the
+industrial exhibition to be held in London in 1862, and a memorial of
+that commission, with a report of the executive committee thereof and
+copies of circulars announcing the decisions of Her Majesty's
+commissioners in London, giving directions to be observed in regard
+to articles intended for exhibition, and also of circular forms of
+application, demands for space, approvals, etc., according to the
+rules prescribed by the British commissioners.
+
+As these papers fully set forth the requirements necessary to enable
+those citizens of the United States who may wish to become exhibitors
+to avail themselves of the privileges of the exhibition, I commend
+them to your early consideration, especially in view of the near
+approach of the time when the exhibition will begin.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER OF REPRIMAND TO GENERAL HUNTER
+
+TO GENERAL HUNTER.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
+
+Dec.31, 1861
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL HUNTER.
+
+DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 23d is received, and I am constrained to say
+it is difficult to answer so ugly a letter in good temper.  I am, as
+you intimate, losing much of the great confidence I placed in you,
+not from any act or omission of yours touching the public service, up
+to the time you were sent to Leavenworth, but from the flood of
+grumbling despatches and letters I have seen from you since.  I knew
+you were being ordered to Leavenworth at the time it was done; and I
+aver that with as tender a regard for your honor and your
+sensibilities as I had for my own, it never occurred to me that you
+were being "humiliated, insulted, and disgraced"; nor have I, up to
+this day, heard an intimation that you have been wronged, coming from
+any one but yourself.  No one has blamed you for the retrograde
+movement from Springfield, nor for the information you gave General
+Cameron; and this you could readily understand, if it were not for
+your unwarranted assumption that the ordering you to Leavenworth must
+necessarily have been done as a punishment for some fault.  I thought
+then, and think yet, the position assigned to you is as responsible,
+and as honorable, as that assigned to Buell--I know that General
+McClellan expected more important results from it.  My impression is
+that at the time you were assigned to the new Western Department, it
+had not been determined to replace General Sherman in Kentucky; but
+of this I am not certain, because the idea that a command in Kentucky
+was very desirable, and one in the farther West undesirable, had
+never occurred to me.  You constantly speak of being placed in
+command of only 3000.   Now, tell me, is this not mere impatience?
+Have you not known all the while that you are to command four or five
+times that many.
+
+I have been, and am sincerely your friend; and if, as such, I dare to
+make a suggestion, I would say you are adopting the best possible way
+to ruin yourself.  "Act well your part, there all the honor lies."  He
+who does something at the head of one regiment, will eclipse him who
+does nothing at the head of a hundred.
+
+Your friend, as ever,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL HALLECK.
+
+WASHINGTON, D.C., December 31, 1861
+
+GENERAL H. W. HALLECK, St.  Louis, Missouri:
+
+General McClellan is sick.  Are General Buell and yourself in
+concert? When he moves on Bowling Green, what hinders it being
+reinforced from Columbus? A simultaneous movement by you on Columbus
+might prevent it.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+[Similar despatch to Buell same date.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+1862
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL D. C. BUELL.
+
+WASHINGTON CITY, January 1, 1862
+
+BRIGADIER-GENERAL BUELL, Louisville:
+
+General McClellan should not yet be disturbed with business.  I think
+you better get in concert with General Halleck at once.  I write you
+to-night.  I also telegraph and write Halleck.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL H. W. HALLECK.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 1, 1862
+
+DEAR GENERAL HALLECK:
+
+General McClellan is not dangerously ill, as I hope, but would better
+not be disturbed with business.  I am very anxious that, in case of
+General Buell's moving toward Nashville, the enemy shall not be
+greatly reinforced, and I think there is danger he will be from
+Columbus.  It seems to me that a real or feigned attack upon Columbus
+from up the river at the same time would either prevent this or
+compensate for it by throwing Columbus into our hands.  I wrote
+General Buell a letter similar to this, meaning that he and you shall
+communicate and act in concert, unless it be your judgment and his
+that there is no necessity for it.  You and he will understand much
+better than I how to do it.  Please do not lose time in this matter.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE PEOPLE OF MARYLAND,
+
+In view of the recent declaration of the people of Maryland of their
+adhesion to the Union, so distinctly made in their recent election,
+the President directs that all the prisoners who having heretofore
+been arrested in that State are now detained in military custody by
+the President's authority, be released from their imprisonment on the
+following conditions, namely: that if they were holding any civil or
+military offices when arrested, the terms of which have expired, they
+shall not resume or reclaim such office; and secondly, all persons
+availing themselves of this proclamation shall engage by oath or
+parole of honor to maintain the Union and the Constitution of the
+United States, and in no way to aid or abet by arms, counsel,
+conversation, or information of any kind the existing insurrection
+against the Government of the United States.
+
+To guard against misapprehension it is proper to state that this
+proclamation does not apply to prisoners of war.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+WASHINGTON, January 2, 1862
+
+To THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
+
+I transmit to Congress a copy of a letter to the Secretary of State
+from James R. Partridge, secretary to the executive committee to the
+in exhibition to be held in London in the course present year, and a
+copy of the correspond which it refers, relative to a vessel for the
+of taking such articles as persons in this country may wish to
+exhibit on that occasion. As it appears no naval vessel can be spared
+for the purpose, I recommend that authority be given to charter a
+suitable merchant vessel, in order that facilities similar to those
+afforded by the government exhibition of 1851 may also be extended to
+citizens of the United States who may desire to contribute to the
+exhibition of this year.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGES OF DISAPPOINTMENT WITH HIS GENERALS
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL D. C. BUELL.
+
+WASHINGTON, January 4, 1862.
+
+GENERAL BUELL:
+
+Have arms gone forward for East Tennessee?  Please tell me the
+progress and condition of the movement in that direction.  Answer.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL D. C. BUELL.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
+
+January 6, 1862.
+
+BRIGADIER-GENERAL BUELL.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--Your despatch of yesterday has been received, and it
+disappoints and distresses me.  I have shown it to General McClellan,
+who says he will write you to-day.  I am not competent to criticize
+your views, and therefore what I offer is in justification of myself.
+Of the two, I would rather have a point on the railroad south of
+Cumberland Gap than Nashville.  First, because it cuts a great artery
+of the enemy's communication, which Nashville does not; and secondly,
+because it is in the midst of loyal people who would rally around it,
+while Nashville is not.  Again, I cannot see why the movement on East
+Tennessee would not be a diversion in your favor rather than a
+disadvantage, assuming that a movement toward Nashville is the main
+object.  But my distress is that our friends in East Tennessee are
+being hanged and driven to despair, and even now, I fear, are
+thinking of taking rebel arms for the sake of personal protection.
+In this we lose the most valuable stake we have in the South.  My
+despatch, to which yours is an answer, was sent with the knowledge of
+Senator Johnson and Representative Maynard of East Tennessee, and
+they will be upon me to know the answer, which I cannot safely show
+them.  They would despair, possibly resign to go and save their
+families somehow, or die with them.  I do not intend this to be an
+order in any sense, but merely, as intimated before, to show you the
+grounds of my anxiety.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+ A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL BUELL.
+
+WASHINGTON, January 7, 1862.
+
+BRIGADIER-GENERAL D.C. BUELL, Louisville:
+
+Please name as early a day as you safely can on or before which you
+can be ready to move southward in concert with Major-General Halleck.
+Delay is ruining us, and it is indispensable for me to have something
+definite.  I send a like despatch to Major-General Halleck.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+WASHINGTON, January 10, 1862
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+I transmit to Congress a translation of an instruction to the
+minister of his Majesty the Emperor of Austria accredited to this
+government, and a copy of a note to that minister from the Secretary
+of State relative to the questions involved in the taking from the
+British steamer Trent of certain citizens of the United States by
+order of Captain Wilkes of the United States Navy.  This
+correspondence may be considered as a sequel to that previously
+communicated to Congress relating to the same subject.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+INDORSEMENT ON LETTER FROM GENERAL HALLECK,
+JANUARY 10, 1862.
+
+HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI
+ST. Louis, January 6, 1862.
+
+To His EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT:
+
+In reply to your Excellency's letter of the 1st instant, I have to
+state that on receiving your telegram I immediately communicated with
+General Buell and have since sent him all the information I could
+obtain of the enemy's movements about Columbus and Camp Beauregard.
+No considerable force has been sent from those places to Bowling
+Green.  They have about 22,000 men at Columbus, and the place is
+strongly fortified.  I have at Cairo, Port Holt, and Paducah only
+about 15,000, which, after leaving guards at these places, would give
+me but little over 10,000 men with which to assist General Buell.  It
+would be madness to attempt anything serious with such a force, and I
+cannot at the present time withdraw any from Missouri without risking
+the loss of this State.  The troops recently raised in other States
+of this department have, without my knowledge, been sent to Kentucky
+and Kansas.
+
+I am satisfied that the authorities at Washington do not appreciate
+the difficulties with which we have to contend here.  The operations
+of Lane, Jennison, and others have so enraged the people of Missouri
+that it is estimated that there is a majority of 80,000 against the
+government.  We are virtually in an enemy's country.  Price and
+others have a considerable army in the southwest, against which I am
+operating with all my available force.
+
+This city and most of the middle and northern counties are
+insurrectionary,--burning bridges, destroying telegraph lines, etc.,-
+-and can be kept down only by the presence of troops.  A large
+portion of the foreign troops organized by General Fremont are
+unreliable; indeed, many of them are already mutinous.  They have
+been tampered with by politicians, and made to believe that if they
+get up a mutiny and demand Fremont's return the government will be
+forced to restore him to duty here.  It is believed that some high
+officers are in the plot I have already been obliged to disarm
+several of these organizations, and I am daily expecting more serious
+outbreaks.  Another grave difficulty is the want of proper general
+officers to command the troops and enforce order and discipline, and
+especially to protect public property from robbery and plunder.  Some
+of the brigadier-generals assigned to this department are entirely
+ignorant of their duties and unfit for any command.  I assure you,
+Mr. President, it is very difficult to accomplish much with such
+means.  I am in the condition of a carpenter who is required to build
+a bridge with a dull axe, a broken saw, and rotten timber.  It is
+true that I have some very good green timber, which will answer the
+purpose as soon as I can get it into shape and season it a little.
+
+I know nothing of General Buell's intended operations, never having
+received any information in regard to the general plan of campaign.
+If it be intended that his column shall move on Bowling Green while
+another moves from Cairo or Paducah on Columbus or Camp Beauregard,
+it will be a repetition of the same strategic error which produced
+the disaster of Bull Run.  To operate on exterior lines against an
+enemy occupying a central position will fail, as it always has
+failed, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred.  It is condemned by
+every military authority I have ever read.
+
+General Buell's army and the forces at Paducah occupy precisely the
+same position in relation to each other and to the enemy as did the
+armies of McDowell and Patterson before the battle of Bull Run.
+
+Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
+
+H. W. HALLECK, Major-General
+
+
+[Indorsement]
+
+The within is a copy of a letter just received from General Halleck.
+It is exceedingly discouraging.  As everywhere else, nothing can be
+done.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GOVERNOR ANDREW.
+
+WASHINGTON, D. C.,
+January 11, 1862
+
+GOVERNOR JOHN A. ANDREW, Boston:
+
+I will be greatly obliged if you will arrange; somehow with General
+Butler to officer his two un-officered regiments.
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL D. C. BUELL.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, January 13, 1861
+
+BRIGADIER-GENERAL BUELL.
+
+MY DEAR SIR--Your despatch of yesterday is received, in which you
+say, "I received your letter and General McClellan's, and will at
+once devote my efforts to your views and his."  In the midst of my
+many cares I have not seen, nor asked to see, General McClellan's
+letter to you.  For my own views, I have not offered and do not now
+offer them as orders; and while I am glad to have them respectfully
+considered, I would blame you to follow them contrary to your own
+clear judgment, unless I should put them in the form of orders.  As
+to General McClellan's views, you understand your duty in regard to
+them better than I do.
+
+With this preliminary I state my general idea of this war to be, that
+we have the greater numbers and the enemy has the greater facility of
+concentrating forces upon points of collision; that we must fail
+unless we can find some way of making our advantage an overmatch for
+his; and that this can only be done by menacing him with superior
+forces at different points at the same time, so that we can safely
+attack one or both if he makes no change; and if he weakens one to
+strengthen the other, forbear to attack the strengthened one, but
+seize and hold the weakened one, gaining so much.
+
+To illustrate: Suppose last summer, when Winchester ran away to
+reinforce Manassas, we had forborne to attack Manassas, but had
+seized and held Winchester.  I mention this to illustrate and not to
+criticise.  I did not lose confidence in McDowell, and I think less
+harshly of Patterson than some others seem to.  .  .  .  Applying the
+principle to your case, my idea is that Halleck shall menace Columbus
+and "down river" generally, while you menace Bowling Green and East
+Tennessee.  If the enemy shall concentrate at Bowling Green, do not
+retire from his front, yet do not fight him there either, but seize
+Columbus and East Tennessee, one or both, left exposed by the
+concentration at Bowling Green.  It is a matter of no small anxiety
+to me, and which I am sure you will not overlook, that the East
+Tennessee line is so long and over so bad a road.
+
+Yours very truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+(Indorsement.)
+
+Having to-day written General Buell a letter, it occurs to me to send
+General Halleck a copy of it.
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL H. W. HALLECK.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, January 1 , 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL HALLECK.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--The Germans are true and patriotic and so far as they
+have got cross in Missouri it is upon mistake and misunderstanding.
+Without a knowledge of its contents, Governor Koerner, of Illinois,
+will hand you this letter.  He is an educated and talented German
+gentleman, as true a man as lives.  With his assistance you can set
+everything right with the Germans.  .  .  .  My clear judgment is
+that, with reference to the German element in your command, you
+should have Governor Koerner with you; and if agreeable to you and
+him, I will make him a brigadier-general, so that he can afford to
+give his time.  He does not wish to command in the field, though he
+has more military knowledge than some who do.  If he goes into the
+place, he will simply be an efficient, zealous, and unselfish
+assistant to you.  I say all this upon intimate personal acquaintance
+with Governor Koerner.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+WASHINGTON, January 17, 1862
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+I transmit to Congress a translation of an instruction to the
+minister of his Majesty the King of Prussia accredited to this
+government, and a copy of a note to that minister from the Secretary
+of State relating to the capture and detention of certain citizens of
+the United States, passengers on board the British steamer Trent, by
+order of Captain Wilkes of the United States Navy.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL McCLELLAN.
+
+DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON.
+
+January 20, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE B. McCLELLAN,
+
+Commanding Armies of the United States:
+
+You or any officer you may designate will in your discretion suspend
+the writ of habeas corpus so far as may relate to Major Chase, lately
+of the Engineer Corps of the Army of the United States, now alleged
+to be guilty of treasonable practices against this government.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
+
+
+
+
+PRESIDENT'S GENERAL WAR ORDER NO. 1
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON , January 27, 1862.
+
+Ordered, That the 22d day of February, 1862, be the day for a general
+movement of the land and the naval forces of the United States
+against the insurgent forces.
+
+That especially the army at and about Fortress Monroe, the Army of
+the Potomac, the Army of Western Virginia, the army near
+Munfordville, Kentucky, the army and flotilla at Cairo, and a naval
+force in the Gulf of Mexico, be ready for a movement on that day.
+
+That all other forces, both land and naval, with their respective
+commanders, obey existing orders for the time, and be ready to obey
+additional orders when duly given.
+
+That the heads of departments, and especially the Secretaries of War
+and of the Navy, with all their subordinates, and the
+General-in-chief, with all other commanders and subordinates of land
+and naval forces, will severally be held to their strict and full
+responsibilities for the prompt execution of this order.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO SECRETARY STANTON,
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION WASHINGTON, January 31, 1862
+
+HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--It is my wish that the expedition commonly called the
+"Lane Expedition" shall be, as much as has been promised at the
+adjutant-general's office, under the supervision of General
+McClellan, and not any more.  I have not intended, and do not now
+intend, that it shall be a great, exhausting affair, but a snug,
+sober column of 10,000 or 15,000.  General Lane has been told by me
+many times that he is under the command of General Hunter, and
+assented to it as often as told.  It was the distinct agreement
+between him and me, when I appointed him, that he was to be under
+Hunter.
+
+Yours truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PRESIDENT'S SPECIAL WAR ORDER NO. 1.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, January 31, 1862.
+
+Ordered, That all the disposable force of the Army of the Potomac,
+after providing safely for the defence of Washington, be formed into
+an expedition for the immediate object of seizing and occupying a
+point upon the railroad southwestward of what is known as Manassas
+Junction, all details to be in the discretion of the
+commander-in-chief, and the expedition to move before or on the 22d
+day of February next.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+OPPOSITION TO McCLELLAN'S PLANS
+
+TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN,
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, February 3, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL MCCLELLAN.
+
+DEAR SIR--You and I have distinct and different plans for a movement
+of the Army of the Potomac--yours to be down the Chesapeake, up the
+Rappahannock to Urbana, and across land to the terminus of the
+railroad on the York River; mine to move directly to a point on the
+railroad southwest of Manassas.
+
+If you will give me satisfactory answers to the following questions,
+I shall gladly yield my plan to yours.
+
+First.   Does not your plan involve a greatly larger expenditure of
+time and money than mine?
+
+Second.  Wherein is a victory more certain by your plan than mine?
+
+Third.  Wherein is a victory more valuable by your plan than mine?
+
+Fourth.  In fact, would it not be less valuable in this, that it
+would break no great line of the enemy's communications, while mine
+would?
+
+Fifth.  In case of disaster, would not a retreat be more difficult by
+your plan than mine?
+
+Yours truly,
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+Memorandum accompanying Letter of President Lincoln to General
+McClellan, dated February 3,1862.
+
+First.  Suppose the enemy should attack us in force before we reach
+the Occoquan, what?
+
+Second.  Suppose the enemy in force shall dispute the crossing of the
+Occoquan, what? In view of this, might it not be safest for us to
+cross the Occoquan at Coichester, rather than at the village of
+Occoquan? This would cost the enemy two miles of travel to meet us,
+but would, on the contrary, leave us two miles farther from our
+ultimate
+destination.
+
+Third.  Suppose we reach Maple Valley without an attack, will we not
+be attacked there in force by the enemy marching by the several roads
+from Manassas; and if so, what?
+
+
+
+
+TO WM. H. HERNDON.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
+February 3, 1862.
+
+DEAR WILLIAM:--Yours of January 30th just received. Do just as you
+say about the money matter.
+
+As you well know, I have not time to write a letter of respectable
+length. God bless you, says
+
+Your friend,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+RESPITE FOR NATHANIEL GORDON
+
+February 4, 1862
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
+PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
+To all to whom these Presents shall come, Greeting:
+
+Whereas it appears that at a term of the Circuit Court of the United
+States of America for the Southern District of New York held in the
+month of November, A.D. 1861, Nathaniel Gordon was indicted and
+convicted for being engaged in the slave trade, and was by the said
+court sentenced to be put to death by hanging by the neck, on Friday
+the 7th day of February, AD. 1862:
+
+And whereas a large number of respectable citizens have earnestly
+besought me to commute the said sentence of the said Nathaniel Gordon
+to a term of imprisonment for life, which application I have felt it
+to be my duty to refuse:
+
+And whereas it has seemed to me probable that the unsuccessful
+application made for the commutation of his sentence may have
+prevented the said Nathaniel Gordon from making the necessary
+preparation for the awful change which awaits him;
+
+Now, therefore, be it known, that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of
+the United States of America, have granted and do hereby grant unto
+him, the said Nathaniel Gordon, a respite of the above recited
+sentence, until Friday the twenty-first day of February, A.D. 1862,
+between the hours of twelve o'clock at noon and three o'clock in the
+afternoon of the said day, when the said sentence shall be executed.
+
+In granting this respite, it becomes my painful duty to admonish the
+prisoner that, relinquishing all expectation of pardon by human
+authority, he refer himself alone to the mercy of the common God and
+Father of all men.
+
+In testimony whereof  I have hereunto signed my name and caused the
+seal of the United States to be affixed.
+
+Done at the City of Washington, this fourth day of February, A.D.
+1862, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-sixth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD,  Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE SENATE.
+
+WASHINGTON CITY, February 4.  1862
+
+To THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:
+
+The third section of the "Act further to promote the efficiency of
+the Navy," approved December 21, 1862, provides:
+
+"That the President of the United States, by and with the advice and
+consent of the Senate, shall have the authority to detail from the
+retired list of the navy for the command of squadrons and single
+ships such officers as he may believe that the good of the service
+requires to be thus placed in command; and such officers may, if upon
+the recommendation of the President of the United States they shall
+receive a vote of thanks of Congress for their services and gallantry
+in action against an enemy, be restored to the active list, and not
+otherwise."
+
+In conformity with this law, Captain Samuel F. Du Pont, of the navy,
+was nominated to the Senate for continuance as the flag-officer in
+command of the squadron which recently rendered such important
+service to the Union in the expedition to the coast of South
+Carolina.
+
+Believing that no occasion could arise which would more fully
+correspond with the intention of the law, or be more pregnant with
+happy influence as an example, I cordially recommend that Captain
+Samuel F. Du Pont receive a vote of thanks of Congress for his
+services and gallantry displayed in the capture of Forts Walker and
+Beauregard, commanding the entrance of Port Royal Harbor, on the 7th
+of November, 1861.
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERALS D. HUNTER AND J. H. LANE.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION WASHINGTON, FEBRUARY 4, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL HUNTER AND BRIGADIER-GENERAL LANE,
+Leavenworth, Kansas:
+
+My wish has been and is to avail the government of the services of
+both General Hunter and General Lane, and, so far as possible, to
+personally oblige both.  General Hunter is the senior officer, and
+must command when they serve together; though in so far as he can
+consistently with the public service and his own honor oblige General
+Lane, he will also oblige me.  If they cannot come to an amicable
+understanding, General Lane must report to General Hunter for duty,
+according to the rules, or decline the service.
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 1, RELATING TO POLITICAL
+PRISONERS.
+
+WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON,
+February 14,1862.
+
+The breaking out of a formidable insurrection based on a conflict of
+political ideas, being an event without precedent in the United
+States, was necessarily attended by great confusion and perplexity of
+the public mind.  Disloyalty before unsuspected suddenly became bold,
+and treason astonished the world by bringing at once into the field
+military forces superior in number to the standing army of the United
+States.
+
+Every department of the government was paralyzed by treason.
+Defection appeared in the Senate, in the House of Representatives, in
+the Cabinet, in the Federal courts; ministers and consuls returned
+from foreign countries to enter the insurrectionary councils of land
+or naval forces; commanding and other officers of the army and in the
+navy betrayed our councils or deserted their posts for commands in
+the insurgent forces.  Treason was flagrant in the revenue and in the
+post-office service, as well as in the Territorial governments and in
+the Indian reserves.
+
+Not only governors, judges, legislators, and ministerial officers in
+the States, but even whole States rushed one after another with
+apparent unanimity into rebellion.  The capital was besieged and its
+connection with all the States cut off.  Even in the portions of the
+country which were most loyal, political combinations and secret
+societies were formed furthering tile work of disunion, while, from
+motives of disloyalty or cupidity or from excited passions or
+perverted sympathies, individuals were found furnishing men, money,
+and materials of war and supplies to the insurgents' military and
+naval forces.  Armies, ships, fortifications, navy yards, arsenals,
+military posts, and garrisons one after another were betrayed or
+abandoned to the insurgents.
+
+Congress had not anticipated, and so had not provided for, the
+emergency.  The municipal authorities were powerless and inactive.
+The judicial machinery seemed as if it had been designed, not to
+sustain the government, but to embarrass and betray it.
+
+Foreign intervention, openly invited and industriously instigated by
+the abettors of the insurrection, became imminent, and has only been
+prevented by the practice of strict and impartial justice, with the
+most perfect moderation, in our intercourse with nations.
+
+The public mind was alarmed and apprehensive, though fortunately not
+distracted or disheartened.  It seemed to be doubtful whether the
+Federal Government, which one year before had been thought a model
+worthy of universal acceptance, had indeed the ability to defend and
+maintain itself.
+
+Some reverses, which, perhaps, were unavoidable, suffered by newly
+levied and inefficient forces, discouraged the loyal and gave new
+hopes to the insurgents.  Voluntary enlistments seemed about to cease
+and desertions commenced.  Parties speculated upon the question
+whether conscription had not become necessary to fill up the armies
+of the United States.
+
+In this emergency the President felt it his duty to employ with
+energy the extraordinary powers which the Constitution confides to
+him in cases of insurrection.  He called into the field such military
+and naval forces, unauthorized by the existing laws, as seemed
+necessary.  He directed measures to prevent the use of the post-
+office for treasonable correspondence.  He subjected passengers to
+and from foreign countries to new passport regulations, and he
+instituted a blockade, suspended the writ of habeas corpus in various
+places, and caused persons who were represented to him as being or
+about to engage in disloyal and treasonable practices to be arrested
+by special civil as well as military agencies and detained in
+military custody when necessary to prevent them and deter others from
+such practices.  Examinations of such cases were instituted, and some
+of the persons so arrested have been discharged from time to time
+under circumstances or upon conditions compatible, as was thought,
+with the public safety.
+
+Meantime a favorable change of public opinion has occurred.  The line
+between loyalty and disloyalty is plainly defined.  The whole
+structure of the government is firm and stable.  Apprehension of
+public danger and facilities for treasonable practices have
+diminished with the passions which prompted heedless persons to adopt
+them.  The insurrection is believed to have culminated and to be
+declining.
+
+The President, in view of these facts, and anxious to favor a return
+to the normal course of the administration as far as regard for the
+public welfare will allow, directs that all political prisoners or
+state prisoners now held in military custody be released on their
+subscribing to a parole engaging them to render no aid or comfort to
+the enemies in hostility to the United States.
+
+The Secretary of War will, however, in his discretion, except from
+the effect of this order any persons detained as spies in the service
+of the insurgents, or others whose release at the present moment may
+be deemed incompatible with the public safety.
+
+To all persons who shall be so released, and who shall keep their
+parole, the President grants an amnesty for any past offences of
+treason or disloyalty which they may have comminuted.
+
+Extraordinary arrests will hereafter be made under the direction of
+the military authorities alone.
+
+By order of the President
+EDWIN M. STANTON,   Secretary of War.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+WASHINGTON CITY, February 15, 1862
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES:
+The third section of the "Act further to promote the efficiency of
+the Navy," approved December 21, 1861, provides
+
+"That the President of the United States, by and with the advice and
+consent of the Senate, shall have the authority to detail from the
+retired list of the navy for the command of squadrons and single
+ships such officers as he may believe that the good of the service
+requires to be thus placed in command; and such officers may, if upon
+the recommendation of the President of the United States they shall
+receive a vote of thanks of Congress for their services and gallantry
+in action against an enemy, be restored to the active list, and not
+otherwise."
+
+In conformity with this law, Captain Louis M. Goldsborough, of the
+navy, was nominated to the Senate for continuance as the flag-officer
+in command of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, which recently
+rendered such important service to the Union in the expedition to the
+coast of North Carolina.
+
+Believing that no occasion could arise which would more fully
+correspond with the intention of the law or be more pregnant with
+happy influence as an example, I cordially recommend that Captain
+Louis M. Goldsborough receive a vote of thanks of Congress for his
+services and gallantry displayed in the combined attack of the forces
+commanded by him and Brigadier-General Burnside in the capture of
+Roanoke Island and the destruction of rebel gunboats On the 7th, 8th,
+and 10th of February, 1862.
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST WRITTEN NOTICE OF GRANT
+
+TO GENERAL H. W. HALLECK.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
+
+February 16, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL HALLECK, St.  Louis, Missouri:
+
+You have Fort Donelson safe, unless Grant shall be overwhelmed from
+outside; to prevent which latter will, I think, require all the
+vigilance, energy, and skill of yourself and Buell, acting in full
+co-operation.  Columbus will not get at Grant, but the force from
+Bowling Green will.  They hold the railroad from Bowling Green to
+within a few miles of Fort Donelson, with the bridge at Clarksville
+undisturbed.  It is unsafe to rely that they will not dare to expose
+Nashville to Buell.  A small part of their force can retire slowly
+toward Nashville, breaking up the railroad as they go, and keep Buell
+out of that city twenty days.  Meanwhile Nashville will be abundantly
+defended by forces from all South and perhaps from hers at Manassas.
+Could not a cavalry force from General Thomas on the upper Cumberland
+dash across, almost unresisted, and cut the railroad at or near
+Knoxville, Tennessee?  In the midst of a bombardment at Fort
+Donelson, why could not a gunboat run up and destroy the bridge at
+Clarksville? Our success or failure at Fort Donelson is vastly
+important, and I beg you to put your soul in the effort.  I send a
+copy of this to Buell.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 2.--IN RELATION TO STATE PRISONERS.
+
+WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON CITY,
+FEBRUARY 27, 1862
+
+It is ordered:
+
+First.  That a special commission of two persons, one of military
+rank and the other in civil life, be appointed to examine the cases
+of the state prisoners remaining in the military custody of the
+United States, and to determine whether in view of the public Safety
+and the existing rebellion they should be discharged, or remain in
+military custody, or be remitted to the civil tribunals for trial.
+
+Second.  That Major-General John A. Dix, commanding in Baltimore, and
+the HON. Edwards Pierrepont, of New York, be, and they are hereby,
+appointed commissioners for the purpose above mentioned; and they are
+authorized to examine, hear, and determine the cases aforesaid ex
+parte and in a summary manner, at such times and places as in their
+discretion they may appoint, and make full report to the War
+Department.
+
+By order of the President
+EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War.
+
+
+
+
+ORDER RELATING TO COMMERCIAL INTERCOURSE.
+
+Considering that the existing circumstances of the country allow a
+partial restoration of commercial intercourse between the inhabitants
+of those parts of the United States heretofore declared to be in
+insurrection and the citizens of the loyal States of the Union, and
+exercising the authority and discretion confided to me by the act of
+Congress, approved July 13, 1861, entitled "An act further to provide
+for the collection of duties on imports, and for other purposes," I
+hereby license and permit such commercial intercourse in all cases
+within the rules and regulations which have been or may be prescribed
+by the Secretary of the Treasury for conducting and carrying on the
+same on the inland waters arid ways of the United States.
+
+WASHINGTON, February 28, 1862.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+SPEECH TO THE PERUVIAN MINISTER,
+
+WASHINGTON, D. C.,
+MARCH 4, 1862
+
+The United States have no enmities, animosities, or rivalries, and no
+interests which conflict with the welfare, safety, and rights or
+interests of any other nation.  Their own prosperity, happiness, and
+aggrandizement are sought most safely and advantageously through the
+preservation not only of peace on their own part, but peace among all
+other nations.  But while the United States are thus a friend to all
+other nations, they do not seek to conceal the fact that they cherish
+especial sentiments of friendship for, and sympathies with, those
+who, like themselves, have founded their institutions on the
+principle of the equal rights of men; and such nations being more
+prominently neighbors of the United States, the latter are
+co-operating with them in establishing civilization and culture on
+the American continent. Such being the general principles which
+govern the United States in their foreign relations, you may be
+assured, sir, that in all things this government will deal justly,
+frankly, and, if it be possible, even liberally with Peru, whose
+liberal sentiments toward us you have so kindly expressed.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS RECOMMENDING COMPENSATED EMANCIPATION.
+
+March 6, 1862
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:--
+I recommend the adoption of a joint resolution by your honorable
+bodies which shall be substantially as follows:
+
+"Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with any State
+which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State
+pecuniary aid, to be used by such State, in its discretion, to
+compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by
+such change of system."
+
+If the proposition contained in the resolution does not meet the
+approval of Congress and the country, there is the end; but if it
+does command such approval, I deem it of importance that the States
+and people immediately interested should be at once distinctly
+notified of the fact, so that they may begin to consider whether to
+accept or reject it.  The Federal Government would find its highest
+interest in such a measure, as one of the most efficient means of
+self-preservation.  The leaders of the existing insurrection
+entertain the hope that this government will ultimately be forced to
+acknowledge the independence of some part of the disaffected region,
+and that all the slave States north of such part will then say, "The
+Union for which we have struggled being already gone, we now choose
+to go with the Southern section."  To deprive them of this hope
+substantially ends the rebellion, and the initiation of emancipation
+completely deprives them of it as to all the States initiating it.
+The point is not that all the States tolerating slavery would very
+soon, if at all, initiate emancipation; but that, while the offer is
+equally made to all, the more northern shall by such initiation make
+it certain to the more southern that in no event will the former ever
+join the latter in their proposed confederacy.  I say "initiation"
+because, in my judgment, gradual and not sudden emancipation is
+better for all.  In the mere financial or pecuniary view, any member
+of Congress with the census tables and treasury reports before him
+can readily see for himself how very soon the current expenditures of
+this war would purchase, at fair valuation, all the slaves in any
+named State.  Such a proposition on the part of the General
+Government sets up no claim of a right by Federal authority to
+interfere with slavery within State limits, referring, as it does,
+the absolute control of the subject in each case to the State and its
+people immediately interested.  It is proposed as a matter of
+perfectly free choice with them.
+
+In the annual message last December, I thought fit to say, "The Union
+must be preserved, and hence all indispensable means must be
+employed."  I said this not hastily, but deliberately.  War has been
+made and continues to be an indispensable means to this end.  A
+practical reacknowledgment of the national authority would render the
+war unnecessary, and it would at once cease.  If, however, resistance
+continues, the war must also continue; and it is impossible to
+foresee all the incidents which may attend and all the ruin which may
+follow it.  Such as may seem indispensable or may obviously promise
+great efficiency toward ending the struggle must and will come.
+
+The proposition now made (though an offer only), I hope it may be
+esteemed no offense to ask whether the pecuniary consideration
+tendered would not be of more value to the States and private persons
+concerned than are the institution and property in it in the present
+aspect of affairs.
+
+While it is true that the adoption of the proposed resolution would
+be merely initiatory, and not within itself a practical measure, it
+is recommended in the hope that it would soon lead to important
+practical results.  In full view of my great responsibility to my God
+and to my country, I earnestly beg the attention of Congress and the
+people to the subject.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+INDORSEMENT ON LETTER FROM GOVERNOR YATES.
+
+STATE OF ILLINOIS, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,
+SPRINGFIELD, ILL., March 1, 1862
+
+HON. EDWIN M. STANTON,
+SECRETARY OF WAR, Washington, D. C.
+
+SIR:--The government at my special request a few months since
+contracted for fourteen batteries of the James rifled gun, 6-pounder
+calibre, and a limited quantity of the James projectiles, weighing
+about fourteen pounds each. The reports showing the superiority of
+this gun and projectile, both as regards range, accuracy, and
+execution, for field service over that of all others at the battle of
+Fort Donelson, leads me to request that there be furnished to the
+State of Illinois in the shortest time practicable seven batteries of
+12-pounder calibre James rifled guns, with carriages, harness,
+implements, etc., complete and ready for field service, together with
+the following fixed ammunition to each gun, viz., 225 shells, 225
+canister, and 50 solid projectiles, weighing about 24 pounds each,
+and also 200 shells, 100 canister, and 100 solid projectiles for each
+of the guns of the fourteen batteries named above, weighing about
+14 pounds each, all to be of the James model.
+
+Very respectfully,
+
+RICHARD YATES,
+Governor of Illinois.
+
+[Indorsement.]
+
+March 8, 1862.
+
+The within is from the Governor of Illinois. I understand the seven
+additional batteries now sought are to be 6-gun batteries, and the
+object is to mix them with the fourteen batteries they already have
+so as to make each battery consist of four 6-pounders and two
+12-pounders. I shall be very glad to have the requisition filled if
+it can be without detriment to the service.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PRESIDENT'S GENERAL WAR ORDER NO.2.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON
+
+March 8, 1862.
+
+Ordered:
+1.  That the major-general commanding the Army of the Potomac proceed
+forthwith to organize that part of the said army destined to enter
+upon active operations (including the reserve, but excluding the
+troops to be left in the fortifications about Washington) into four
+army corps, to be commanded according to seniority of rank, as
+follows:
+
+First Corps to consist of four divisions, and to be commanded by
+Major-General I. McDowell.
+Second Corps to consist of three divisions, and to be commanded by
+Brigadier-General E. V. Sumner.
+Third Corps to consist of three divisions, and to be commanded by
+Brigadier-General S. P. Heintzelman.
+Fourth Corps to consist of three divisions, and to be commanded by
+Brigadier-General E. D. Keyes.
+
+2.   That the divisions now commanded by the officers above assigned
+to the commands of army corps shall be embraced in and form part of
+their respective corps.
+
+3.   The forces left for the defense of Washington will be placed in
+command of Brigadier-General James S. Wadsworth, who shall also be
+military governor of the District of Columbia.
+
+4.   That this order be executed with such promptness and dispatch as
+not to delay the commencement of the operations already directed to
+be underwritten by the Army of the Potomac.
+
+5.  A fifth army corps, to be commanded by Major general N. P. Banks,
+will be formed from his own and General Shields's (late General
+Lander's) divisions.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PRESIDENT'S GENERAL WAR ORDER NO.3.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, MARCH 8,1862
+
+Ordered: That no change of the base of operations of the Army of the
+Potomac shall be made without leaving in and about Washington such a
+force as in the opinion of the general-in-chief and the commanders of
+all the army corps shall leave said city entirely secure.
+
+That no more than two army corps (about 50,000 troops) of said Army
+of the Potomac shall be moved en route for a new base of operations
+until the navigation of the Potomac from Washington to the Chesapeake
+Bay shall be freed from enemy's batteries and other obstructions, or
+until the President shall hereafter give express permission.
+
+That any movements as aforesaid en route for a new base of operations
+which may be ordered by the general-in-chief, and which may be
+intended to move upon the Chesapeake Bay, shall begin to move upon
+the bay as early as the 18th day of March instant, and the
+general-in-chief shall be responsible that it so move as early as
+that day.
+
+Ordered, That the army and navy co-operate in an immediate effort to
+capture the enemy's batteries upon the Potomac between Washington and
+the Chesapeake Bay.
+
+A. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+MEMORANDUM OF AN INTERVIEW BETWEEN THE PRESIDENT AND SOME BORDER
+SLAVE STATE REPRESENTATIVES, BY HON. J. W. CRISFIELD.
+
+"DEAR SIR:--I called, at the request of the President, to ask you to
+come to the White House tomorrow morning, at nine o'clock, and bring
+such of your colleagues as are in town."
+
+WASHINGTON, March 10, 1862.
+
+Yesterday, on my return from church, I found Mr. Postmaster-General
+Blair in my room, writing the above note, which he immediately
+suspended, and verbally communicated the President's invitation, and
+stated that the President's purpose was to have some conversation
+with the delegations of Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Virginia, and
+Delaware, in explanation of his message of the 6th instant.
+
+This morning these delegations, or such of them as were in town,
+assembled at the White House at the appointed time, and after some
+little delay were admitted to an audience.  Mr. Leary and myself were
+the only members from Maryland present, and, I think, were the only
+members of the delegation at that time in the city.  I know that Mr.
+Pearoe, of the Senate, and Messrs.  Webster and Calvert, of the
+House, were absent.
+
+After the usual salutations, and we were seated, the President said,
+in substance, that he had invited us to meet him to have some
+conversation with us in explanation of his message of the 6th; that
+since he had sent it in several of the gentlemen then present had
+visited him, but had avoided any allusion to the message, and he
+therefore inferred that the import of the message had been
+misunderstood, and was regarded as inimical to the interests we
+represented; and he had resolved he would talk with us, and disabuse
+our minds of that erroneous opinion.
+
+The President then disclaimed any intent to injure the interests or
+wound the sensibilities of the slave States.  On the contrary, his
+purpose was to protect the one and respect the other; that we were
+engaged in a terrible, wasting, and tedious war; immense armies were
+in the field, and must continue in the field as long as the war
+lasts; that these armies must, of necessity, be brought into contact
+with slaves in the States we represented and in other States as they
+advanced; that slaves would come to the camps, and continual
+irritation was kept up; that he was constantly annoyed by conflicting
+and antagonistic complaints: on the one side a certain class
+complained if the slave was not protected by the army; persons were
+frequently found who, participating in these views, acted in a way
+unfriendly to the slaveholder; on the other hand, slaveholders
+complained that their rights were interfered with, their slaves
+induced to abscond and protected within the lines; these complaints
+were numerous, loud and deep; were a serious annoyance to him and
+embarrassing to the progress of the war; that it kept alive a spirit
+hostile to the government in the States we represented; strengthened
+the hopes of the Confederates that at some day the border States
+would unite with them, and thus tend to prolong the war; and he was
+of opinion, if this resolution should be adopted by Congress and
+accepted by our States, these causes of irritation and these hopes
+would be removed, and more would be accomplished toward shortening
+the war than could be hoped from the greatest victory achieved by
+Union armies; that he made this proposition in good faith, and
+desired it to be accepted, if at all, voluntarily, and in the same
+patriotic spirit in which it was made; that emancipation was a
+subject exclusively under the control of the States, and must be
+adopted or rejected by each for itself; that he did not claim nor had
+this government any right to coerce them for that purpose; that such
+was no part of his purpose in making this proposition, and he wished
+it to be clearly understood; that he did not expect us there to be
+prepared to give him an answer, but he hoped we would take the
+subject into serious consideration, confer with one another, and then
+take such course as we felt our duty and the interests of our
+constituents required of us.
+
+Mr. Noell, of Missouri, said that in his State slavery was not
+considered a permanent institution; that natural causes were there in
+operation which would at no distant day extinguish it, and he did not
+think that this proposition was necessary for that; and, besides
+that, he and his friends felt solicitous as to the message on account
+of the different constructions which the resolution and message had
+received.  The New York Tribune was for it, and understood it to mean
+that we must accept gradual emancipation according to the plan
+suggested, or get something worse.
+
+The President replied that he must not be expected to quarrel with
+the New York Tribune before the right time; he hoped never to have to
+do it; he would not anticipate events.  In respect to emancipation in
+Missouri, he said that what had been observed by Mr. Noell was
+probably true, but the operation of these natural causes had not
+prevented the irritating conduct to which he had referred, or
+destroyed the hopes of the Confederates that Missouri would at some
+time merge herself alongside of them, which, in his judgment, the
+passage of this resolution by Congress and its acceptance by Missouri
+would accomplish.
+
+Mr. Crisfield, of Maryland, asked what would be the effect of the
+refusal of the State to accept this proposal, and he desired to know
+if the President looked to any policy beyond the acceptance or
+rejection of this scheme.
+
+The President replied that he had no designs beyond the actions of
+the States on this particular subject.  He should lament their
+refusal to accept it, but he had no designs beyond their refusal of
+it.
+
+Mr. Menzies, of Kentucky, inquired if the President thought there was
+any power except in the States themselves to carry out his scheme of
+emancipation.
+
+The President replied that he thought there could not be.  He then
+went off into a course of remarks not qualifying the foregoing
+declaration nor material to be repeated to a just understanding of
+his meaning.
+
+Mr. Crisfield said he did not think the people of Maryland looked
+upon slavery as a permanent institution; and he did not know that
+they would be very reluctant to give it up if provision was made to
+meet the loss and they could be rid of the race; but they did not
+like to be coerced into emancipation, either by the direct action of
+the government or by indirection, as through the emancipation of
+slaves in this District, or the confiscation of Southern property as
+now threatened; and he thought before they would consent to consider
+this proposition they would require to be informed on these points.
+The President replied that, unless he was expelled by the act of God
+or the Confederate armies he should occupy that house for three
+years; and as long as he remained there Maryland had nothing to fear
+either for her institutions or her interests on the points referred
+to.
+
+Mr. Crisfield immediately added: "Mr. President, if what you now say
+could be heard by the people of Maryland, they would consider your
+proposition with a much better feeling than I fear without it they
+will be inclined to do."
+
+The President: "That [meaning a publication of what he said] will not
+do; it would force me into a quarrel before the proper time "; and,
+again intimating, as he had before done, that a quarrel with the
+"Greeley faction" was impending, he said he did not wish to encounter
+it before the proper time, nor at all if it could be avoided.
+
+[The Greely faction wanted an immediate Emancipation Proclamation.
+D.W.]
+
+Governor Wickliffe, of Kentucky, then asked him respecting the
+constitutionality of his scheme.
+
+The President replied: "As you may suppose, I have considered that;
+and the proposition now submitted does not encounter any
+constitutional difficulty.  It proposes simply to co-operate with any
+State by giving such State pecuniary aid"; and he thought that the
+resolution, as proposed by him, would be considered rather as the
+expression of a sentiment than as involving any constitutional
+question.
+
+Mr. Hall, of Missouri, thought that if this proposition was adopted
+at all it should be by the votes of the free States, and come as a
+proposition from them to the slave States, affording them an
+inducement to put aside this subject of discord; that it ought not to
+be expected that members representing slaveholding constituencies
+should declare at once, and in advance of any proposition to them,
+for the emancipation of slavery.
+
+The President said he saw and felt the force of the objection; it was
+a fearful responsibility, and every gentleman must do as he thought
+best; that he did not know how this scheme was received by the
+members from the free States; some of them had spoken to him and
+received it kindly; but for the most part they were as reserved and
+chary as we had been, and he could not tell how they would vote.  And
+in reply to some expression of Mr. Hall as to his own opinion
+regarding slavery, he said he did not pretend to disguise his anti-
+slavery feeling; that he thought it was wrong, and should continue to
+think so; but that was not the question we had to deal with now.
+Slavery existed, and that, too, as well by the act of the North as of
+the South; and in any scheme to get rid of it the North as well as
+the South was morally bound to do its full and equal share.  He
+thought the institution wrong and ought never to have existed; but
+yet he recognized the rights of property which had grown out of it,
+and would respect those rights as fully as similar rights in any
+other property; that property can exist and does legally exist.  He
+thought such a law wrong, but the rights of property resulting must
+be respected; he would get rid of the odious law, not by violating
+the rights, but by encouraging the proposition and offering
+inducements to give it up.
+
+Here the interview, so far as this subject is concerned, terminated
+by Mr. Crittenden's assuring the President that, whatever might be
+our final action, we all thought him solely moved by a high
+patriotism and sincere devotion to the happiness and glory of his
+country; and with that conviction we should consider respectfully the
+important suggestions he had made.
+
+After some conversation on the current war news, we retired, and I
+immediately proceeded to my room and wrote out this paper.
+
+J. W. CRISFIELD.
+
+
+We were present at the interview described in the foregoing paper of
+Mr. Crisfield, and we certify that the substance of what passed on
+the occasion is in this paper faithfully and fully given.
+
+J. W. MENZIES,
+J. J. CRITTENDEN,
+R. MALLORY.
+
+March 10, 1862.
+
+
+
+
+PRESIDENT'S SPECIAL WAR ORDER NO.3.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, March 11, 1862.
+
+Major-General McClellan having personally taken the field at the head
+of the Army of the Potomac, until otherwise ordered he is relieved
+from the command of the other military departments, he retaining
+command of the Department of the Potomac.
+
+Ordered further, That the departments now under the respective
+commands of Generals Halleck and Hunter, together with so much of
+that under General Buell as lies west of a north and south line
+indefinitely drawn through Knoxville, Tenn., be consolidated and
+designated the Department of the Mississippi, and that until
+otherwise ordered Major General Halleck have command of said
+department.
+
+Ordered also, That the country west of the Department of the Potomac
+and east of the Department of the Mississippi be a military
+department, to be called the Mountain Department, and that the same
+be commanded by Major-General Fremont.
+
+That all the commanders of departments, after the receipt of this
+order by them, respectively report severally and directly to the
+Secretary of War, and that prompt, full, and frequent reports will be
+expected of all and each of them.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+FROM SECRETARY STANTON TO GENERAL MCCLELLAN.
+WAR DEPARTMENT, March 13, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN:
+
+The President, having considered the plan of operations agreed upon
+by yourself and the commanders of army corps, makes no objection to
+the same but gives the following directions as to its execution:
+
+1.   Leave such force at Manassas Junction as shall make it entirely
+certain that the enemy shall no repossess himself of that position
+and line of communication.
+
+2.   Leave Washington entirely secure.
+
+3.   Move the remainder of the force down the Potomac, choosing a new
+base at Fortress Monroe or anywhere between here and there, or, at
+all events, move such remainder of the army at once in pursuit of the
+enemy by some route.
+
+EDWARD M. STANTON,
+Secretary of War.
+
+
+
+
+SPEECH TO A PARTY OF MASSACHUSETTS GENTLEMAN
+
+WASHINGTON, MARCH 13, 1862
+
+I thank you, Mr. Train, for your kindness in presenting me with this
+truly elegant and highly creditable specimen of the handiwork of the
+mechanics of your State of Massachusetts, and I beg of you to express
+my hearty thanks to the donors.  It displays a perfection of
+workmanship which I really wish I had time to acknowledge in more
+fitting words, and I might then follow your idea that it is
+suggestive, for it is evidently expected that a good deal of whipping
+is to be done.  But as we meet here socially let us not think only of
+whipping rebels, or of those who seem to think only of whipping
+negroes, but of those pleasant days, which it is to be hoped are in
+store for us, when seated behind a good pair of horses we can crack
+our whips and drive through a peaceful, happy, and prosperous land.
+With this idea, gentlemen, I must leave you for my business duties.
+[It was likely a Buggy-Whip D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+
+WASHINGTON CITY, March 20, 1862.
+
+TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+
+The third section of the "Act further to promote the efficiency of
+the Navy," approved December 21, 1861, provides:
+
+"That the President of the United States, by and with the advice and
+consent of the Senate, shall have the authority to detail from the
+retired list of the navy for the command of squadrons and single
+ships such officers as he may believe the good of the service
+requires to be thus placed in command; and such officers may, if upon
+the recommendation of the President of the United States they shall
+receive a vote of thanks cf Congress for their services and gallantry
+in action against an enemy, be restored to the active list, and not
+otherwise."
+
+In conformity with this law, Captain Samuel F. Du Pont, of the navy,
+was nominated to the Senate for continuance as the flag-officer in
+command of the squadron which recently rendered such important
+service to the Union in the expedition to the coasts of South
+Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.
+
+Believing that no occasion could arise which would more fully
+correspond with the intention of the law or be more pregnant with
+happy influence as an example, I cordially recommend that Captain
+Samuel F. Du Pont receive a vote of thanks of Congress for his
+service and gallantry displayed in the capture since the 21st
+December, 1861, of various ports on the coasts of Georgia and
+Florida, particularly Brunswick, Cumberland Island and Sound, Amelia
+Island, the towns of St. Mary's, St. Augustine, and Jacksonville and
+Fernandina.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, MARCH 31, 1862
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:-This morning I felt constrained to order Blenker's
+division to Fremont, and I write this to assure you I did so with
+great pain, understanding that you would wish it otherwise.  If you
+could know the full pressure of the case, I am confident that you
+would justify it, even beyond a mere acknowledgment that the
+commander-in-chief may order what he pleases.
+
+Yours very truly,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+GIFT OF SOME RABBITS
+
+TO MICHAEL CROCK.
+360 N. Fourth St., Philadelphia.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
+April 2, 1862.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:-Allow me to thank you in behalf of my little son for
+your present of white rabbits.  He is very much pleased with them.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+INSTRUCTION TO SECRETARY STANTON.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, April 3, 1862.
+
+The Secretary of War will order that one or the other of the corps of
+General McDowell and General Sumner remain in front of Washington
+until further orders from the department, to operate at or in the
+direction of Manassas Junction, or otherwise, as occasion may
+require; that the other Corps not so ordered to remain go forward to
+General McClellan as speedily as possible; that General McClellan
+commence his forward movements from his new base at once, and that
+such incidental modifications as the foregoing may render proper be
+also made.
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL McCLELLAN.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 6, 1862.
+
+GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN:
+
+Yours of 11 A. M. today received.  Secretary of War informs me that
+the forwarding of transportation, ammunition, and Woodbury's brigade,
+under your orders, is not, and will not be, interfered with.  You now
+have over one hundred thousand troops with you, independent of
+General Wool's command.  I think you better break the enemy's line
+from Yorktown to Warwick River at once.  This will probably use time
+as advantageously as you can.
+
+A. LINCOLN, President
+
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 9, 1862
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN.
+
+MY DEAR SIR+--Your despatches, complaining that you are not properly
+sustained, while they do not offend me, do pain me very much.
+
+Blenker's division was withdrawn from you before you left here, and
+you knew the pressure under which I did it, and, as I thought,
+acquiesced in it certainly not without reluctance.
+
+After you left I ascertained that less than 20,000 unorganized men,
+without a single field battery, were all you designed to be left for
+the defense of Washington and Manassas Junction, and part of this
+even to go to General Hooker's old position; General Banks's corps,
+once designed for Manassas Junction, was divided and tied up on the
+line of Winchester and Strasburg, and could not leave it without
+again exposing the upper Potomac and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
+This presented (or would present when McDowell and Sumner should be
+gone) a great temptation to the enemy to turn back from the
+Rappahannock and sack Washington.  My explicit order that Washington
+should, by the judgment of all the Commanders of corps, be left
+entirely secure, had been neglected.  It was precisely this that
+drove me to detain McDowell.
+
+I do not forget that I was satisfied with your arrangement to leave
+Banks at Manassas Junction; but when that arrangement was broken up
+and nothing substituted for it, of course I was not satisfied.  I was
+constrained to substitute something for it myself.
+
+And now allow me to ask, do you really think I should permit the line
+from Richmond via Manaasas Junction to this city to be entirely open,
+except what resistance could be presented by less than 20,000
+unorganized troops?  This is a question which the country will not
+allow me to evade.
+
+There is a curious mystery about the number of the troops now with
+you.  When I telegraphed you on the 6th, saying you had over 100,000
+with you, I had just obtained from the Secretary of War a statement,
+taken as he said from your own returns, making 108,000 then with you
+and en route to you.  You now say you will have but 85,000 when all
+enroute to you shall have reached you.  How can this discrepancy of
+23,000 be accounted for?
+
+As to General Wool's command, I understand it is doing for you
+precisely what a like number of your own would have to do if that
+command was away.  I suppose the whole force which has gone forward
+to you is with you by this time; and if so, I think it is the precise
+time for you to strike a blow.  By delay the enemy will relatively
+gain upon you--that is, he will gain faster by fortifications and
+reinforcements than you can by reinforcements alone.
+
+And once more let me tell you it is indispensable to you that you
+strike a blow.  I am powerless to help this.  You will do me the
+justice to remember I always insisted that going down the bay in
+search of a field, instead of fighting at or near Manassas, was only
+shifting and not surmounting a difficulty; that we would find the
+same enemy and the same or equal entrenchments at either place.  The
+country will not fail to note--is noting now--that the present
+hesitation to move upon an entrenched enemy is but the story of
+Manassas repeated.
+
+I beg to assure you that I have never written you or spoken to you in
+greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose to
+sustain you, so far as in my most anxious judgment I consistently
+can; but you must act.
+
+Yours very truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+TO GENERAL H. W. HALLECK.
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
+April 9, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL HALLECK, Saint Louis, Mo.:
+If the rigor of the confinement of Magoffin (Governor of Kentucky) at
+Alton is endangering his life, or materially impairing his health, I
+wish it mitigated as far as it can be consistently with his safe
+detention.
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+Please send above, by order of the President.
+JOHN HAY.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION RECOMMENDING THANKSGIVING FOR VICTORIES,
+
+APRIL 10, 1862.
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation
+
+It has pleased Almighty God to vouchsafe signal victories to the land
+and naval forces engaged in suppressing, an internal rebellion, and
+at the same time to avert from our country the dangers of foreign
+intervention and invasion.
+
+It is therefore recommended to the people of the United States that
+at their next weekly assemblages in their accustomed places of public
+worship which shall occur after notice of this proclamation shall
+have been received, they especially acknowledge and render thanks to
+our Heavenly Father for these inestimable blessings, that they then
+and there implore spiritual consolation in behalf of all who have
+been brought into affliction by the casualties and calamities of
+sedition and civil war, and that they reverently invoke the divine
+guidance for our national counsels, to the end that they may speedily
+result in the restoration of peace, harmony, and unity throughout our
+borders and hasten the establishment of fraternal relations among all
+the countries of the earth.
+
+In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
+the United States to be affixed.
+
+Done at the city of Washington, this tenth day of April, A.D. 1862,
+and of the independence of the United States the eighty-sixth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+ABOLISHING SLAVERY IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
+
+MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.
+April 16, 1862.
+
+FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
+The act entitled "An act for the relief of certain persons held to
+service or labor in the District of Columbia" has this day been
+approved and signed.
+
+I have never doubted the constitutional authority of Congress to
+abolish slavery in this District, and I have ever desired to see the
+national capital freed from the institution in some satisfactory way.
+Hence there has never been in my mind any question on the subject
+except the one of expediency, arising in view of all the
+circumstances.  If there be matters within and about this act which
+might have taken a course or shape more satisfactory to my judgment,
+I do not attempt to specify them.  I am gratified that the two
+principles of compensation and colonization are both recognized and
+practically applied in the act.
+
+In the matter of compensation, it is provided that claims may be
+presented within ninety days from the passage of the act, "but not
+thereafter"; and there is no saving for minors, femmes covert, insane
+or absent persons.  I presume this is an omission by mere oversight,
+and I recommend that it be supplied by an amendatory or supplemental
+act.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 21, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN:
+
+Your despatch of the 19th was received that day.  Fredericksburg is
+evacuated and the bridges destroyed by the enemy, and a small part of
+McDowell's command occupies this side of the Rappahannock, opposite
+the town.  He purposes moving his whole force to that point.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO POSTMASTER-GENERAL
+
+A. LINCOLN. EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
+April 24, 1862.
+
+Hon. POSTMASTER-GENERAL.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--The member of Congress from the district including
+Tiffin, O., calls on me about the postmaster at that place.
+I believe I turned over a despatch to you from some persons there,
+asking a suspension, so as for them to be heard, or something of the
+sort.  If nothing, or nothing amounting to anything, has been done, I
+think the suspension might now be suspended, and the commission go
+forward.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.
+
+WASHINGTON, April 29, 1862.
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN:
+
+Would it derange or embarrass your operations if I were to appoint
+Captain Charles Griffin a brigadier-general of volunteers?  Please
+answer.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+MESSAGE TO THE SENATE, MAY 1, 1862.
+
+TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES:
+
+In answer to the resolution of the Senate [of April 22] in relation
+to Brigadier-General Stone, I have the honor to state that he was
+arrested and imprisoned under my general authority, and upon evidence
+which whether he be guilty or innocent, required, as appears to me,
+such proceedings to be had against him for the public safety.   I
+deem it incompatible with the public interest, as also, perhaps,
+unjust to General Stone, to make a more particular statement of the
+evidence.
+
+He has not been tried because, in the state of military operations at
+the time of his arrest and since, the officers to constitute a court
+martial and for witnesses could not be withdrawn from duty without
+serious injury to the service.  He will be allowed a trial without
+any unnecessary delay; the charges and specifications will be
+furnished him in due season, and every facility for his defense will
+be afforded him by the War Department.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
+WASHINGTON, MAY 1, 1862
+
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL McCLELLAN
+
+EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, MAY 1, 1862
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN:
+
+Your call for Parrott guns from Washington alarms me, chiefly because
+it argues indefinite procrastination.  Is anything to be done?
+
+A LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO GENERAL H. W. HALLECK.
+
+WAR DEPARTMENT, MAY 1, 1862
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL HALLECK, Pittsburgh Landing, Tennessee:
+
+I am pressed by the Missouri members of Congress to give General
+Schofield independent command in Missouri.  They insist that for want
+of this their local troubles gradually grow worse.  I have forborne,
+so far, for fear of interfering with and embarrassing your
+operations.  Please answer telling me whether anything, and what, I
+can do for them without injuriously interfering with you.
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+RESPONSE TO EVANGELICAL LUTHERANS, MAY 6, 1862
+
+GENTLEMEN:--I welcome here the representatives of the Evangelical
+Lutherans of the United States.  I accept with gratitude their
+assurances of the sympathy and support of that enlightened,
+influential, and loyal class of my fellow citizens in an important
+crisis which involves, in my judgment, not only the civil and
+religious liberties of our own dear land, but in a large degree the
+civil and religious liberties of mankind in many countries and
+through many ages.  You well know, gentlemen, and the world knows,
+how reluctantly I accepted this issue of battle forced upon me on my
+advent to this place by the internal enemies of our country.  You all
+know, the world knows, the forces and the resources the public agents
+have brought into employment to sustain a government against which
+there has been brought not one complaint of real injury committed
+against society at home or abroad.  You all may recollect that in
+taking up the sword thus forced into our hands this government
+appealed to the prayers of the pious and the good, and declared that
+it placed its whole dependence on the favor of God.  I now humbly and
+reverently, in your presence, reiterate the acknowledgment of that
+dependence, not doubting that, if it shall please the Divine Being
+who determines the destinies of nations, this shall remain a united
+people, and that they will, humbly seeking the divine guidance, make
+their prolonged national existence a source of new benefits to
+themselves and their successors, and to all classes and conditions of
+mankind.
+
+
+
+
+TELEGRAM TO FLAG-OFFICER L. M. GOLDSBOROUGH.
+
+FORT MONROE, VIRGINIA, MAY 7, 1862
+
+FLAG-OFFICER GOLDSBOROUGH.
+
+SIR:--Major-General McClellan telegraphs that he has ascertained by a
+reconnaissance that the battery at Jamestown has been abandoned, and
+he again requests that gunboats may be sent up the James River.
+
+If you have tolerable confidence that you can successfully contend
+with the Merrimac without the help of the Galena and two accompanying
+gunboats, send the Galena and two gunboats up the James River at
+once.  Please report your action on this to me at once.  I shall be
+found either at General Wool's headquarters or on board the Miami.
+
+Your obedient servant,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+FURTHER REPRIMAND OF McCLELLAN
+
+TO GENERAL G. B. McCLELLAN.
+
+FORT MONROE, VIRGINIA, May 9, 1862
+
+MAJOR-GENERAL McCLELLAN:
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I have just assisted the Secretary of War in framing
+part of a despatch to you relating to army corps, which despatch, of
+course, will have reached you long before this will.  I wish to say a
+few words to you privately on this subject.  I ordered the army corps
+organization not only on the unanimous opinion of the twelve generals
+whom you had selected and assigned as generals of divisions, but also
+on the unanimous opinion of every military man I could get an opinion
+from, and every modern military book, yourself only excepted.  Of
+course, I did not on my own judgment pretend to understand the
+subject.  I now think it indispensable for you to know how your
+struggle against it is received in quarters which we cannot entirely
+disregard.  It is looked upon as merely an effort to pamper one or
+two pets, and to persecute and degrade their supposed rivals.  I have
+had no word from Sumner, Heintzleman, or Keyes the commanders of
+these corps are, of course, the three highest officers with you; but
+I am constantly told that you have no consultation or communication
+with them; that you consult and communicate with nobody but General
+Fitz John Porter, and perhaps General Franklin.  I do not say these
+complaints are true or just; but at all events, it is proper you
+should know of their existence.  Do the commanders of corps disobey
+your orders in anything?
+
+When you relieved General Hamilton of his command the other day, you
+thereby lost the confidence of at least one of your best friends in
+the Senate.  And here let me say, not as applicable to you
+personally, that Senators and Representatives speak of me in their
+places without question, and that officers of the army must cease
+addressing insulting letters to them for taking no greater liberty
+with them.
+
+But to return.  Are you strong enough--are you strong enough even
+with my help--to set your foot upon the necks of Sumner, Heintzelman,
+and Keyes all at once? This is a practical and very serious question
+to you?
+
+The success of your army and the cause of the country are the same,
+and, of course, I only desire the good of the cause.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+TO FLAG-OFFICER L. M. GOLDSBOROUGH,
+
+FORT MONROE, VIRGINIA, May 10, 1862
+
+FLAG-OFFICER GOLDSBOROUGH.
+
+MY DEAR SIR:--I send you this copy of your report of yesterday for
+the purpose of saying to you in writing that you are quite right in
+supposing the movement made by you and therein reported was made in
+accordance with my wishes verbally expressed to you in advance.  I
+avail myself of the occasion to thank you for your courtesy and all
+your conduct, so far as known to me, during my brief visit here.
+
+Yours very truly,
+A. LINCOLN.
+
+
+
+
+PROCLAMATION RAISING THE BLOCKADE OF CERTAIN PORTS.
+May 12, 1862.
+
+BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
+
+A Proclamation.
+
+Whereas, by my proclamation of the 19th of April, one thousand eight
+hundred and sixty-one, it was declared that the ports of certain
+States, including those of Beaufort, in the State of North Carolina,
+Port Royal, in the State of South Carolina, and New Orleans, in the
+State of Louisiana, were, for reasons therein set forth, intended to
+be placed under blockade; and whereas the said ports of Beaufort,
+Port Royal, and New Orleans have since been blockaded; but as the
+blockade of the same ports may now be safely relaxed with advantage
+to the interests of commerce:
+
+Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the
+United States, pursuant to the authority in me vested by the fifth
+section of the act of Congress approved on the 13th of July last,
+entitled "An act further to provide for the collection of duties on
+imports, and for other purposes," do hereby declare that the blockade
+of the said ports of Beaufort, Port Royal, and New Orleans shall so
+far cease and determine, from and after the first day of June next,
+that commercial intercourse with those ports, except as to persons,
+things, and information contraband of war, may from that time be
+carried on, subject to the laws of the United States, and to the
+limitations and in pursuance of the regulations which are prescribed
+by the Secretary of the Treasury in his order of this date, which is
+appended to this proclamation.
+
+In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
+of the United States to be affixed.
+
+Done at the city of Washington, this twelfth day of May, in the year
+of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the
+independence of the United States the eighty-sixth.
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+
+By the President:
+WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Writings of Lincoln, v5
+By Abraham Lincoln
+
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