Category: The Railsplitter

Campaign Circular (March 4, 1843)

On June 29, 2013

Contributing editors for this page include Adam Sonstroem

Ranking

#133 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

How Historians Interpret

“An 1843 campaign circular rallying Illinois Whigs to party unity shows Lincoln’s concern to educate the public in a manner consistent with both reason and revelation: ‘That ‘union is strength’ is a truth that has been known, illustrated and declared, in various ways and forms in all ages of the world. That great fabulist and philosopher, Aesop, illustrated it by his fable of the bundle of sticks; and he [that is, Jesus] whose wisdom surpasses that of all philosophers, has declared that ‘a house divided against itself cannot stand.” By quoting Aesop alongside the Bible, Lincoln shows how an ‘important, and universally acknowledged truth,’ whether its source be mortal or divine, is difficult to resist in the political realm. He therefore models the kind of moderation or temperance in speech he hopes to inspire within the temperance movement in precisely those parts of the address in which he shares his true opinion.”

—Lucas E. Morel, “Lincoln Among the Reformers: Tempering the Temperance Movement,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 20 (1999)

“Lincoln seems to have been, in decisive respects, a child of the Enlightenment, dedicated to the hope, if not the expectation, of continuous and unlimited progress. In this way, too—independent of the effects upon him of a soul searing war—he seems to have been open to Modern influences that are distantly grounded in Christian doctrines.”

—George Anastaplo, Abraham Lincoln: A Constitutional Biography (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001) 348.

“Lincoln’s intense hostility toward Whig deserters was reflected in the circular’s denunciation of John Reynolds, William L. D. Ewing, and Richard M. Young, all of whom had been helped by the Whigs and who then became “perseveringly vindictive in their assaults upon all our men and measures.” Whigs must adopt the convention system, Lincoln argued, for “while our opponents use it, it is madness in us not to defend ourselves with it.” Without nominating conventions, there could be none of the party unity so essential for victory. “If two friends aspire to the same office it is certain that both cannot succeed. Would it not, then, be much less painful to have the question decided by mutual friends some time before, than to snarl and quarrel until the day of the election and then both be beaten by the common enemy?” To illustrate the point, Lincoln employed a Scriptural aphorism that he would famously reuse in 1858: “he whose wisdom surpasses that of all philosophers has declared that ‘a house divided against itself cannot stand.’”

—Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript By Chapter, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 1, Chapter 7 (PDF), 639-640

NOTE TO READERS

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new “Understanding Lincoln” online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http://new.livestream.com/gilderlehrman/lincoln

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March 4, 1843

ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF ILLINOIS.

FELLOW-CITIZENS: By a resolution of a meeting of such of the Whigs of the State, as are now at Springfield, we, the undersigned, were appointed to prepare an address to you. The performance of that task we now undertake.

Several resolutions were adopted by the meeting; and the chief object of this address is, to show briefly, the reasons for their adoption.

The first of those resolutions declares a tariff of duties upon foreign importations, producing sufficient revenue for the support of the General Government, and so adjusted as to protect American industry, to be indispensably necessary to the prosperity of the American People; and the second declares Direct Taxation for a National Revenue to be improper. Those two resolutions are kindred in their nature, and therefore proper and convenient to be considered together. …

…The sixth resolution recommends the adoption of the convention system for the nomination of candidates.

This we believe to be of the very first importance. Whether the system is right in itself, we do not stop to enquire; contenting ourselves with trying to show, that while our opponents use it, it is madness in us not to defend ourselves with it. Experience has shown that we cannot successfully defend ourselves without it. For examples, look at the election last year. Our candidate for Governor, with the approbation of a large portion of the party, took the field without a nomination, and in open opposition to the system. Wherever in the counties the whigs had held Conventions and nominated candidates for the Legislature, the aspirants, who were not nominated, were induced to rebel against the nominations, and to become candidates, as is said, “on their own hook.” And go where you would into a large whig county, you were sure to find the whigs, not contending shoulder to shoulder against the common enemy, but divided into factions, and fighting furiously with one another. The election came, [and] what was the result? The Governor beaten, the whig vote being decreased many thousands since 1840, although the democratic vote had not increased any….

…That “union is strength” is a truth that has been known, illustrated and declared, in various ways and forms in all ages of the world. That great fabulist and philosopher, Aesop, illustrated it by his fable of the bundle of sticks; and he whose wisdom surpasses that of all philosophers, has declared that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” It is to induce our friends to act upon this important, and universally acknowledged truth, that we urge the adoption of the Convention System. Reflection will prove, that there is no other way of practically applying it. In its application, we know there will be incidents temporarily painful; but, after all, we believe those incidents will be fewer and less intense, with, than without, the system. If two friends aspire to the same office, it is certain both cannot succeed. Would it not, then, be much less painful to have the question decided by mutual friends some time before, than to snarl and quarrel till the day of election, and then both be beaten by the common enemy?

…Before closing, permit us to add a few reflections on [the present condition and future prospects of] the whig party. In almost all the States we have fallen into the minority, and despondency seems to prevail universally among us. Is there just cause for this? In 1840 we carried the nation by more than a hundred and forty thousand majority. Our opponents charged that we did it by fraudulent voting; but whatever they may have believed, we knew the charge to be untrue. Where now is that mighty host? Have they gone over to the enemy? Let the results of the late elections answer. Every State which has fallen off from the whig cause since 1840 has done so, not by giving more democratic votes than they did then, but by giving fewer Whig. Bouck, who was elected democratic Governor of New York last fall by more than 15,000 majority, had not then as many votes as he had in 1840, when he was beaten by seven or eight thousand. And so has it been in all the other States which have fallen away from our cause. From this, it is evident, that tens of thousands, in the late elections, have not voted at all. Who and what are they? is an important question, as respects the future. They cancome forward and give us the victory again. That all, or nearly all of them, are whigs, is most apparent. Our opponents, stung to madness by the defeat of 1840, have ever since rallied with more than their usual unanimity. It has not been they that have been staid from the polls. These facts show what the result must be, once the people again rally in their entire strength.

Letter to Andrew Johnston With Poem (April 18, 1846)

By Matthew Pinsker

On June 29, 2013

In The Railsplitter

Contributing Editors for this page include Todd Jansson

Ranking

#134 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

“My childhood’s home I see again,

And sadden with the view;

And still, as memory crowds my brain,

There’s pleasure in it too.”

On This Date

HD Daily Report, April 18, 1846

The Lincoln Log, April 18, 1846

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Todd Jansson, Understanding Lincoln blog post (via Genius), 2016

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How Historians Interpret

“In Indiana Lincoln was home again. Even as he stumped politically, he was thinking poetically. “That part of the country,” he later wrote a friend, “is within itself, as unpoetical as any spot of the earth; but still, seeing and its objects and inhabitants aroused feelings in me which were certainly poetry.”

— John C. Waugh, One Man Was Great Enough: Abraham Lincoln’s Road to the Civil War (Boston: Houghton Miffin Harcourt, 2007).

“He preferred such lugubrious woks as the poem “Mortality” by William Knox. ‘I would give all I am worth, and go into debt, to be able to write so fine a piece as I think that is,’ he said in 1846. Lawrence Weldon observed him, at day’s end on the circuit, sit ‘by the decaying embers of an old-fashioned fire-place’ and ‘quote at length’ from ‘Mortality.’ He told friends that Knox’s verses ‘sounded to him as much like true poetry as anything he had ever heard.’ Evidently he first made its acquaintance in New Salem but came to love it intensely after visiting southwestern Indiana during the 1844 presidential campaign. He described that trip as a visit to “the neighborhood in that State where I was raised, where my mother and only sister were buried, and from which I have been absent about fifteen years.”

—Michael Burlingame, The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 108.

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Tremont, April 18, 1846.

Friend Johnston:

Your letter, written some six weeks since, was received in due course, and also the paper with the parody. It is true, as suggested it might be, that I have never seen Poe’s “Raven”; and I very well know that a parody is almost entirely dependent for its interest upon the reader’s acquaintance with the original. Still there is enough in the polecat, self-considered, to afford one several hearty laughs. I think four or five of the last stanzas are decidedly funny, particularly where Jeremiah “scrubbed and washed, and prayed and fasted.”

I have not your letter now before me; but, from memory, I think you ask me who is the author of the piece I sent you, and that you do so ask as to indicate a slight suspicion that I myself am the author. Beyond all question, I am not the author. I would give all I am worth, and go in debt, to be able to write so fine a piece as I think that is. Neither do I know who is the author. I met it in a straggling form in a newspaper last summer, and I remember to have seen it once before, about fifteen years ago, and this is all I know about it. The piece of poetry of my own which I alluded to, I was led to write under the following circumstances. In the fall of 1844, thinking I might aid some to carry the State of Indiana for Mr. Clay, I went into the neighborhood in that State in which I was raised, where my mother and only sister were buried, and from which I had been absent about fifteen years. That part of the country is, within itself, as unpoetical as any spot of the earth; but still, seeing it and its objects and inhabitants aroused feelings in me which were certainly poetry; though whether my expression of those feelings is poetry is quite another question. When I got to writing, the change of subjects divided the thing into four little divisions or cantos, the first only of which I send you now and may send the others hereafter.

Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.

My childhood’s home I see again,

And sadden with the view;

And still, as memory crowds my brain,

There’s pleasure in it too.

O Memory! thou midway world

‘Twixt earth and paradise,

Where things decayed and loved ones lost

In dreamy shadows rise,

And, freed from all that’s earthly vile,

Seem hallowed, pure, and bright,

Like scenes in some enchanted isle

All bathed in liquid light.

As dusky mountains please the eye

When twilight chases day;

As bugle-notes that, passing by,

In distance die away;

As leaving some grand waterfall,

We, lingering, list its roar—

So memory will hallow all

We’ve known, but know no more.

Near twenty years have passed away

Since here I bid farewell

To woods and fields, and scenes of play,

And playmates loved so well.

Where many were, but few remain

Of old familiar things;

But seeing them, to mind again

The lost and absent brings.

The friends I left that parting day,

How changed, as time has sped!

Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray,

And half of all are dead.

I hear the loved survivors tell

How nought from death could save,

Till every sound appears a knell,

And every spot a grave.

I range the fields with pensive tread,

And pace the hollow rooms,

And feel (companion of the dead)

I’m living in the tombs.

Speech at River and Harbor Convention (July 6, 1847)

By Matthew Pinsker

On June 29, 2013

In The Railsplitter

Ranking

#135 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

“I had supposed that it was not proper for me, residing in Illinois, to occupy the time of the Convention in making a speech. I will, however, avail myself of the few minutes allowed me until the return of the committee on resolutions, as no one else, perhaps, is desirous to do so.”

On This Date

HD Daily Report, July 6, 1847

The Lincoln Log, July 6, 1847

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“At the convention, a New York Democrat, David Dudley Field, gave an “able and courteous” speech favoring a strict construction of the Constitution and supporting only limited river and harbor improvements. Horace Greeley wrote that Lincoln responded “briefly and happily” to Field.368 When he rose amid vigorous applause to speak, a Pennsylvanian asked who he was. “Oh,” came the reply, “that is Abe Lincoln of Springfield, the ablest and wittiest stump speaker on the Whig side in the State of Illinois.” His appearance was less impressive than his oratory. As one delegate recalled, the “angular and awkward” Lincoln wore “a short-waited, thin swallow-tail coat, a short vest of same material, thins pantaloons, scarcely coming down to his ankles, a straw hat and a pair of brogans with woolen socks.” Some Whigs, not sympathizing with Field’s argument, had tried to silence him with shouts of derision. Ever the peacemaker, Lincoln urged the delegates to consider themselves “a band of brothers” and not interrupt each other: “I hope there will be no more interruption – no hisses – no jibes.” Responding to Field’s remarks, Lincoln respectfully pointed out that the New Yorker had ignored a central issue: “Who is to decide differences of opinion on constitutional questions? What tribunal? How shall we make it out? The gentleman from Pennsylvania (the Hon. Andrew Stewart) says Congress must decide. If Congress has not the power, who has? Is it not, at least, for Congress to remedy the objection [the Constitution did not authorize Congress to appropriate funds for internal improvements], and settle this great question. If there is any other tribunal, where is it to be found? My friend from Pennsylvania, Mr. Benton and myself, are much alike on that subject.” Lincoln ignored the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Marbury vs. Madison that the Court itself was the ultimate arbiter of constitutional disputes. A decade later he would at much greater length question the Court’s power to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional.”

“On the morning of July 6, 1847, David Dudley Field, prominent New York lawyer, spoke in defense of the position of the Polk administration. He rejected the obligation of the federal government to help develop the navigation of the Illinois River, which traversed a solitary state. Lincoln stood to offer a reply, speaking for the first time before a national audience. His full remarks were not recorded, but Field’s remarks brought out the best of Lincoln’s satire. Lincoln, who as usual had done his homework, learned that Field favored a federal appropriation for the Hudson River in New York. Lincoln asked “how many States the lordly Hudson ran through.” Lincoln’s remarks made an incredible impression on a leading New York newspaper editor. Horace Greely, a reformer and politician at heart, and founding editor of the New York Tribune, always had a nose for the up-and-coming. He thought he spied it in the tall congressman-elect. The next day, Greely wrote in appreciation, ‘Hon. Abraham Lincoln, a tall specimen of and Illinoian, just elected to Congress from the only Whig District in the state, spoke briefly and happily in reply to Mr. Field.’”

—Ronald C. White, A Lincoln: A Biography (New York: Random House Publishing Group, 2009), 136.

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Mr. Lincoln, member of Congress from Illinois, being called upon, addressed the Convention, in substance, as follows:

GENTLEMEN: I had supposed that it was not proper for me, residing in Illinois, to occupy the time of the Convention in making a speech. I will, however, avail myself of the few minutes allowed me until the return of the committee on resolutions, as no one else, perhaps, is desirous to do so.

I desire, for the sake of harmony, to make a few remarks –not of division and discord, but of harmony. We meet here to promote and advance the cause of internal improvement. Parties have differed on that subject, but we meet here to break down that difference –to unite, like a band of brothers, for the welfare of the common country. In harmony and good feeling, let us transact the business for which we have assembled and let no firebrands be cast amongst us to produce discord and dissensions, but let us meet each other in the spirit of conciliation and good feeling. The gentleman from New York made such a speech as he believed to be right. He expressed the sentiments he believed to be correct, and however much others may differ from him in those views, he has a right to be heard, and should not be interrupted.

If it was the object of this Convention to get up a grand hurrah, a few of its members are pursuing the proper course to effect that object. But such was not the purpose of this Convention. In the course of debate, it is impossible to speak without alluding, in some manner, to constitutional questions. In all speeches, on every occasion, there are remarks to the point and collateral remarks. Let us avoid collateral remarks in this Convention, as far as possible. Democrats do not wish to do any thing in this Convention that will conflict with their past course, and if questions should come up which they do not approve, they should be permitted to protest against them. I hope there will be no more interruption –no hisses –no jibes. I pledge myself that the delegates from Illinois will keep quiet.

The argument of the gentleman from New York upon the constitutionality of the power to make appropriations should be examined. I do not feel that I can do it –time will not permit—but some one more able, more competent to do the subject justice, will reply. All agree that something in the way of internal improvement must be done. The difficulty is to discriminate, when to begin and where to stop. There is great danger in going too far. Members of Congress will be influenced by sectional interests and sectional feelings. I have not taken the pains to write out my opinions upon the construction to be put upon the constitution. Any construction, that there is something to be done for the general good and no power to do it, would be wrong. I do not go for sectional improvements through all are more or less sectional. Is there any way to make improvements, except some persons are benefitted more than others? No improvement can be made that will benefit all alike. A pertinent question was asked the gentleman from New York, to which he did not reply: Who is to decide differences of opinion on constitutional questions? What tribunal? How shall we make it out? The gentleman from Pennsylvania, the Hon. Andrew Stewart, says Congress must decide. If Congress has not the power, who has? Is it not, at least, for Congress to remedy the objection, and settle this great question? If there is any other tribunal, where is it to be found? My friend from Pennsylvania, Mr. Benton and myself, are much alike on that subject.

I come now, to the subject of abstractions. The gentleman from New York (Mr. David Dudley Field) made a slight mistake, when he said that the Revolutionary war was caused by abstractions. They denied Parliament the right to tax them without representation. This is not a parallel case, but totally different. The abstractions of the present day are not the abstractions of the Revolution.

I have the highest respect for the gentleman from New York. In his speech, he made a beautiful appeal in behalf of the Constitution. He implores us, by all considerations, to foster and protect it. He loves the Constitution. I hope I may love it as well as he does, but in a different way. He looks upon it as a new work, which may be sifted the seeds of discord and dissension. I look upon it as a complete protection to the Union. He loves it in his way; I, in mine. There are many here who entertain the same views which I do, who will, I doubt not, sustain me, and with these remarks I beg leave to close.

Letter to Thaddeus Stevens (September 3, 1848)

By Matthew Pinsker

On June 29, 2013

In The Railsplitter

Contributing Editors for this page include Annemarie Gray

Ranking

#139 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

“You may possibly remember seeing me at the Philadelphia Convention—introduced to you as the lone whig star of Illinois. Since the adjournment, I have remained here, so long, in the Whig document room. I am now about to start for home; and I desire the undisguised opinion of some experienced and sagacious Pennsylvania politician, as to how the vote of that state, for governor, and president, is likely to go.”

On This Date

HD Daily Report, September 3, 1848

The Lincoln Log, September 3, 1848

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Posted at YouTube by “Understanding Lincoln” participant Annemarie Gray, November 15, 2013

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“On his return to Washington, Lincoln stopped in Wilmington, Delaware, to attend a local Whig meeting held to ratify the convention’s choice, where he was introduced as the ‘Lone Star of Illinois,’ and given three cheers. Undoubtedly, he invented the nickname himself, adapting it from Clay, known as the ‘Star of the West’ early in his career. (In a letter sent in September to an influential lawyer among the Whigs of Pennsylvania that year for the house, Thaddeus Stevens, later to become the Radical Republican leader, Lincoln wrote, ‘You probably remember seeing me at the Philadelphia Convention—introduced to you as the lone Whig star of Illinois.’) Lincoln’s speech, as reported by the Wilmington newspaper, roundly assailed Polk for his ‘abuse of power,’ the ‘high-handed and despotic exercise of the veto power’ against internal improvements, and for waging ‘a war of conquest brought into existence to catch votes.’”

—Sidney Blumenthal, A Self Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. 1, 1809-1849 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2016), 384.

“After he entered Congress himself in the late 1840s, Lincoln quickly cast his eyes beyond the doubtful districts of Western Illinois. He took it upon himself, for example, to contact former Whig legislator Thaddeus Stevens during the 1848 presidential campaign in an effort to obtain soundings from the state of Pennsylvania. ‘You may possibly remember seeing me at the Philadelphia convention,’ Lincoln began, reminding him that he was ‘the lone whig star of Illinois.’ Reporting that he was about to leave the nation’s capital, Lincoln stated that he desired ‘the undisguised opinion of some experienced and sagacious Pennsylvania politician, as to how the vote of that state, for governor, and president, is likely to go,’ asking that Stevens send such opinions by mail to him in Springfield.”

—Matthew Pinsker, “Lincoln and the Lessons of Party Leadership” in Lincoln and Liberty: Wisdom for the Ages, Ed. Lucas E. Morel (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2014), 194.

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Hon: Thaddeus Stevens Washington,
Dear Sir: Sept. 3. 1848

You may possibly remember seeing me at the Philadelphia Convention—introduced to you as the lone whig star of Illinois. Since the adjournment, I have remained here, so long, in the Whig document room. I am now about to start for home; and I desire the undisguised opinion of some experienced and sagacious Pennsylvania politician, as to how the vote of that state, for governor, and president, is likely to go. In casting about for such a man, I have settled upon you; and I shall be much obliged if you will write me at Springfield, Illinois.

The news we are receiving here now, by letters from all quarters is steadily on the rise; we have none lately of a discouraging character. This is the sum, without giving particulars. Yours truly
A Lincoln

Category: The Railsplitter

Campaign Circular (March 4, 1843)

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Letter to Andrew Johnston With Poem (April 18, 1846)

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Speech at River and Harbor Convention (July 6, 1847)

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Letter to Thaddeus Stevens (September 3, 1848)

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