The Multi-Media Edition

Tag: Recent Discoveries

Letter to Charles Ray (June 27, 1858)

Contributing Editors for this page include Jim Coe

Ranking

#37 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

“How in God’s name do you let such paragraphs into the Tribune, as the enclosed cut from that paper of yesterday? Does Sheahan write them?”

Audio Version

On This Date

HD Daily Report, June 27, 1858

The Lincoln Log, June 27, 1858

Close Readings

Custom Map

Screen shot 2014-02-22 at 9.57.48 PM
View in Larger Map

How Historians Interpret

“A recently discovered Lincoln letter from early in the 1858 campaign shows his partisan teeth bared even more sharply. ‘How in God’s name do you let such paragraph into the Tribune,’ he wrote to Charles H. Ray, complaining about an article from the previous day’s Chicago Tribune. ‘Does Sheahan write them?’ he added, sarcastically referring to James Sheahan, the Democratic editor of the Chicago Times. Continuing the assault and the gratuitous insults, Lincoln then asked, ‘How can you have failed to perceive that in this short paragraph you have completely answered all your own well put complains of [Horace] Greely [sic] and Sister Burlingame?’ The slur against Massachusetts congressman Anson Burlingame’s manhood might actually qualify this particular letter as the fiercest in the Lincoln partisan canon.”

—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), 199.

“Through authoritative communications like these, Lincoln had by July strong-armed the Republican press into full conformity and allegiance, at least in Illinois. Independent-minded, out-of-state renegades like Greely, primarily eager to injure the Buchanan administration by encouraging dissident Democrats like Douglas, proved harder to tame. Their unpredictable behavior convinced stalwart David Davis that the Republican Party remained merely ‘confederated,’ not ‘consolidated,’ and unless brought into line would be powerless to battle ‘the infernal South, that prolific monster of ruin, niggers, and disunion.’ Bring the statewide party and press into line Lincoln did. Now it was time to take the Senate battle to the people.”

—Harold Holzer, Lincoln and the Power of the Press (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2015), 174-175.

 

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

 

Searchable Text

My dear Sir, 

How in God’s name do you let such paragraphs into the Tribune, as the enclosed cut from that paper of yesterday? Does Sheahan write them? How can you have failed to perceive that in this short paragraph you have completely answered all your own well put complaints of Greely [Greeley] and Sister Burlingame? What right have you to interfere in Indiana, more than they in Illinois? And what possible argument can be made why all Republicans shall stand out of Hon. John G. Davis’s way in his district in Indiana that can not be made why all Republicans in Illinois shall stand out of Hon. S.A. Douglas’s way? The part in larger type is plainly editorial, and your editorial at that, as you do not credit it to any other paper. I confess it astonishes me. 

Yours truly, A. Lincoln.

Letter to Lorenzo Thomas (November 7, 1861)

Ranking

#58 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

“First. We need all the educated military talent we can get.”

On This Date

HD Daily Report, November 7, 1861

The Lincoln Log, November 7, 1861

Custom Map

Screen shot 2014-02-22 at 10.37.06 PM
View in Larger Map

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

 

Searchable Text

Executive Mansion
Washington, November 7, 1861
 
Adjut. Genl. Thomas:
Sir:
Capt. Gurden Chapin, who was dismissed from the Army on the discovery of a letter written by him promising his father to resign and join the South, at a certain time and place, presets himself, and asks to be re-instated.  He asks this, because he did not resign at the time promised, having already determined to not do so; and has since done good service, and been under fire on one occasion.
My view of all this class of cases is:
First. We need all educate military talent we can get.
Second. It [is] our interest to have as little of it as possible go to the enemy.
Third.  That officers (and especially young ones, as Capt. Chapin is) who have been dismissed, even on good cause prima facie, and who still cling to us, protest their loyalty and refuse to take service under the enemy, as a general rule may safely be trusted.  Examine his case, & if you are willing for him to be restored, so am I.
A. Lincoln

Letter to Andrew McCormick (January 1, 1841)

Ranking

#77 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

“For Heaven’s sake, for your friends sake, for the sake of the recollection of all the hard battles we have heretofore fought shoulder, to shoulder, do not forsake us this time.”

On This Date

HD Daily Report, January 1, 1841

The Lincoln Log, January 1, 1841

Custom Map

Screen shot 2014-01-26 at 7.12.31 PM
View in Larger Map

How Historians Interpret

“Lincoln’s natural talents for party leadership appeared early. Writing to Captain Andrew McCormick, one of the legendary Long Nine in the Illinois legislature who had helped him move the state capital to Springfield in the late 1830s, a thirty-one-year-old Lincoln noted in a letter that was first published in 1957, ‘I have just learned, with utter astonishment, that you have some notion of voting for Walters.’ William Walters was a Democratic newspaper editor who was competing for a patronage contract from the assembly as state printer, vying against Lincoln’s close friend and Whig ally Simeon Francis. ‘It can not be,’ Lincoln wrote emphatically, ‘that one so true, firm, and unwavering as you have ever been, can for a moment think of such a thing.’”

—Matthew Pinsker, “Boss Lincoln: A Reappraisal of Abraham Lincoln’s Party Leadership” in The Living Lincoln, Ed. Thomas A. Horrocks, Harold Holzer, and Frank J. Williams, (Southern Illinois University Press, 2011), 22.

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

 

Searchable Text

Dear Captain:
I have just learned, with utter astonishment, that you have some notion of voting for Walters.  This certainly can not be true.  It can not be, that one so true, firm, and unwavering as you have ever been, can for a moment think of such a thing.  What!  Support that pet of all those who continually slander and abuse you, and labour, day and night, for your destruction.  All our friends are ready to cut our throats about it.  An angel from heaven could not make them believe, that we do not connive at it.  For Heaven’s sake, for your friends sake, for the sake of the recollection of all the hard battles we have heretofore fought shoulder, to shoulder, do not forsake us this time.  We have been told for two or three days that you were in danger; but we gave it the lie whenever we heard it.  We were willing to bet our lives upon you.  Stand by us this time, and nothing in our power to confer, shall ever be denied you.  Surely!  Surely! You do not doubt my friendship for you.  If you do, what under Heaven can I do, to convince you.  Surely you will not think those who have been your revilers, better friends than I.  Read this & write what you will do.
 
Your friend,
Lincoln
 

Letter to Jesse Norton (February 16, 1855)

Ranking

#95 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

“I have now been beaten one day over a week; and I am very happy to find myself quite convalescent.”

On This Date

HD Daily Report, February 16, 1855

The Lincoln Log, February 16, 1855

Custom Map

Screen shot 2014-01-26 at 6.09.19 PM
View in Larger Map

How Historians Interpret

“By the time the legislature convened in early January, Lincoln’s hard work lining up the antislavery members paid dividends; Washburne, Norton, Giddings, Ray, and others had overcome the objections of most abolitionists. Lincoln later told Norton: ‘Through the untiring efforts of friends, among whom yourself and Washburne were chief, I finally surmounted the difficulty with the extreme Anti-Slavery men, and got all their votes, Lovejoy’s included.'”

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 10 (PDF), pp. 1135-1136.

“In 1855, however, Lincoln had been somewhat less cool, complaining to Norton about ‘maneuvering’ of Governor Matteson, which he insisted had ‘forced upon me and my friends the necessity of surrendering to Trumbull.’ The bile here does not make complete sense unless placed in the context of some unique details that Lincoln provided within the newly discovered letter about Matteson’s ‘tampering.’ There have long been other extant accounts from Lincoln describing the results of the 1855 senatorial balloting, but none except for this recently published letter to Norton identify by name those who cast all their ballots with Lincoln or Trumbull, but were still apparently pledged in secret to Matteson. The fact underscores the startling conclusion that Lincoln was almost surely pushed into a last-minute alliance with anti-Nebraska Democrats because the regular Democratic governor of the state was just about to succeed in buying the election. Other previously available evidence from the period has loosely suggested corruption by the Democrats, such as one of the newer letters from Lincoln which reported from the days before the balloting that his men had hoped the Democrats had ‘reached the bottom of the rotten material’ but conceded, ‘What mines and pitfalls they have under us we do not know.’ Only this summary provided to Norton makes explicit what has in the past been mere conjecture and highlights another reality of political culture in the 1850s—it was rife with fraud.”

—Matthew Pinsker ,”Boss Lincoln” in The Living LincolnEd. Thomas Horrocks, Harold Holzer, and Frank J. Williams (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2011), 30-31.

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

 

Searchable Text

Springfield, Feb. 16, 1855
Hon: J.O. Norton
 
My dear Sir:
I have now been beaten one day over a week; and I am very happy to find myself quite convalescent.  Your kind letter of the 20th of Jan’y I did not receive till the day before yesterday –owing, I suppose to our great snow-storm.  The day after the election I wrote Washburne the particulars, tolerably fully.  Through the untiring efforts of friends, among whom yourself and Washburne were chief, I finally surmounted the difficulty with the extreme Anti-Slavery men, and got all their votes, Lovejoy’s included.  Cook, Judd, Palmer, and Baker of Alton were the men who never could vote for a whig; and without the votes of two of whom I never could reach the requisite number to make an election. I do not mean that I actually got within two votes of the required number; but I easily enough could have done so, provided I could have assured my friends that two of the above named four would go for me.  In this connection it is necessary to bear in mind that your Senator Osgood, together with Don. Morrison, Kinney & Trapp of St Clair had openly gone over to the enemy.  
It was Govr Matteson’s manoevering that forced upon me and my friends the necessity of surrendering to Trumbull.  He made his first successful hit by tampering with Old man Strunk.  Strunk was pledged to me, which Matteson knew, but he succeeded in persuading him that I stood no chance of an election, and in getting a pledge from him to go for him as second choice.  He next made similar impressions on Hills of DuPage, Parks of your town, and Strawn and Day of LaSalle –at least we saw strong signs that he had, and they being old democrats, and I an old whig, I could get no sufficient access to them to sound them to the bottom.  
That Matteson assured the Nebraska democrats, he could get their men after they should have made a respectable show by voting a few ballots for other men, I think there is no doubt; and by holding up to their greedy eyes this amount of capital in our ranks, it was, that he induced the Nebraska men to drop Shields and take him en masse.  The Nebraska men, since Osgood’s and Don’s defection, had control of the Senate; and they refused to pass the resolution for going into the election till three hours before the joint session was to, and did in fact, commence.  One of the Nebraska senators has since told me that they only passed the resolution when they did, upon being privately assured by the Governor that he had it all safe.  
I have omitted to say that it was well understood Baker would vote for Trumbull, but would go over to Matteson rather than me.  
Passing over the first eight ballots which you have doubtless seen, when, on the ninth, Matteson had 47 –having every Nebraska man, and the Old man Strunk besides, and wanting but three of an election; and when the looser sort of my friends had gone over to Trumbull, and raised him to 35 and reduced me to 15 it struck me that Hills, Parks, Strawn, Day, and Baker, or at least some three of them would go over from Trumbull to Matteson & elect him on the tenth ballot, unless they should be kept on T. by seeing my remaining men coming on to him.  I accordingly gave the intimation which my friends acted upon, electing T. that ballot.  All were taken by surprise, Trumbull quite as much as any one else.
There was no pre-concert about it –in fact I think a pre-concert to that effect could not have been made.  The heat of the battle, andimminent danger of Matteson’s election were indispensably necessary to the result.  I know that few, if any, of my remaining 15 men would have gone from me without my direction; and I gave the direction, simultaneously with forming the resolution to do it.
It is not true, as might appear by the first ballot, that Trumbull had only five friends who preferred him to me.  I know the business of all the men tolerably well, and my opinion is, that if the 51 who elected him, were compelled to a naked expression of preference between him and me, he would at the outside, have 16 and I would have the remainder.  And this again would depend substantially upon the fact that his 16 came from the old democratic ranks & the remainder from the whigs.  Such as preferred him, yet voted for me on the first ballottings and so on the idea that a minority among friends, ought not to stand out against a majority.  
Lest you might receive a different impression, I wish to say I hold Judge Parks in very high estimation; believing him to be neither knave or fool, but decidedly the reverse of both.  Now, as I have called names so freely, you will of course consider this confidential.
Yours much obliged, &c.
A. Lincoln

Letter to Alexander McClure (August 30, 1860)

Ranking

#97 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

“When you say you are organizing every election district, do you mean to include the idea that you are ‘canvassing’ – ‘counting noses?'”

On This Date

HD Daily Report, August 30, 1860

The Lincoln Log, August 30, 1860

Custom Map

Screen shot 2014-01-26 at 5.58.45 PM
View in Larger Map

How Historians Interpret

“Lincoln also asked Alexander K. McClure, chairman of the Pennsylvania State Republican Committee, to keep him informed of the status of the campaign at the local level. On August 27, Lincoln responded to McClure report on the campaign by asking, ‘When you say you are organizing every election district, do you mean to include the idea that you are ‘canvassing’—‘counting noses?’’ Lincoln’s inquiry reveals the keen interest that he took in local party organization during the 1860 campaign. A New York visitor reported after a meeting with Lincoln: ‘He sat down beside me on the sofa and commenced talking about political affairs in my own State with a knowledge of details which surprised me.’”

William C. Harris, “Lincoln’s Role in the 1860 Presidential Campaign” in Exploring Lincoln: Great Historians Reappraise Our Greatest President, Ed. Harold Holzer, Craig L. Symonds, and Frank J. Williams, (New York: Fordham University Press, 2015).

 

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

 

Searchable Text

Private
Springfield, Ills. Aug. 30, 1860
 
A.K. McClure, Esq.
My dear Sir,
 
Yours of the 27th was received last evening; as also was one only a few days before.  Neither of these bears quite so hopeful a tone as your former letters.  When you say you are organizing every election district, do you mean to include the idea that you are “canvassing” – “counting noses?”
 
I am always glad to see your letters.   
Yours very truly, 
A.Lincoln

Letter to Thomas Corwin (October 9, 1859)

Contributing Editors for this page include Jim Coe

Ranking

#108 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

 

Annotated Transcript

We must have though a man who recognizes the slavery issue as being the living issue of the day; who does not hesitate to declare slavery a wrong, nor to deal with it as such; who believes in the power and duty of Congress to prevent the spread of it. 

On This Date

HD Daily Report, October 9, 1859

The Lincoln Log, October 9, 1859

Close Readings

Custom Map

Screen shot 2014-02-02 at 4.32.51 PM
View in Larger Map

How Historians Interpret

“Despite his modesty, Lincoln between August 1859 and March 1860 positioned himself for a presidential run by giving speeches and corresponding with party leaders in several states, among them Iowa, Ohio, Wisconsin, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Kansas.  At the same time, he labored to keep Republicans true to their principles by having them steer a middle course between the Scylla of Douglas’s popular sovereignty and the Charybdis of radical abolitionism.  Only thus could he and his party capture the White House.  And only thus could a lesser-known Moderate like himself lead the ticket.  Lincoln took encouragement from the ever-widening rift in the Democratic party over such issues as a federal slave code for the territories and the reopening of the African slave trade.  To Herndon and others he said, in substance: ‘an explosion must come in the near future. Douglas is a great man in his way and has quite unlimited power over the great mass of his party, especially in the North.  If he goes to the Charleston Convention [of the national Democratic party in 1860], which he will do, he, in a kind of spirit of revenge, will split the Convention wide open and give it the devil; & right here is our future success or rather the glad hope of it.’ Herndon recalled that Lincoln ‘prayed for this state of affairs,’ for ‘he saw in it his opportunity and wisely played his line.'”

Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2 volumes, originally published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) Unedited Manuscript By Chapters, Lincoln Studies Center, Volume 1, Chapter 14 (PDF), pp. 1525

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

 

Searchable Text

Confidential

Springfield, Oct. 9, 1859

Hon. Thomas Corwin

My dear Sir:

Reaching home yesterday I for the first received yours of Sept. 24.  I reply in a hurry, because of the sentence in your letter, in these words, “I was sorry to hear from you, that a moderate man on our side would lose Illinois by 50,000.”  Whether you understood me as having said this in the speech at Cincinnati, or somehow else, I am not certain; but I am certain I have not meant to say it anywhere.  I did say at Cincinnati, that a candidate who shall turn up his nose at the Republican cause, could not carry Illinois by 50,000, but I am not considering such a man as “a moderate man on our side.”  I understand such a man as not being on our side at all; and as seeking to drive us to abandon our side ourselves.  They know we would organize to prevent the spread and nationalizing of Slavery; and yet they tell us they are tired of this view, and they invite us to abandon this view, and to join them against the Administration on the tariff, extravagances, live oak contracts, and the like –the very old issues upon which the whig party was beat out of existence.  Now I have expressed, and today repeat, that such an arrangement would lose Illinois by 50,000.  The thing is pretense.  The whigs here were in a minority of 15,000.  A full fifth of them have openly gone over to the enemy; still last year the Republicans had a large plurality, and very nearly a clear majority.  How was this?  Simply that more democratshave gone with us, than whigs have gone against us.  What brought these democrats with us?  The Slavery issue.  Drop that issue and they have no motive to remain, and will not remain with us.  It is idiotic to think otherwise. 

 

Do you understand me as saying Illinois must have an extreme anti-slavery candidate?  I do not so mean.  We must have though a man who recognizes the slavery issue as being the living issue of the day; who does not hesitate to declare slavery a wrong, nor to deal with it as such; who believes in the power and duty of Congress to prevent the spread of it.  It would be unfavorable to us, I think, to have one who is bent on having a “rumpus” over the Fugitive Slave Law.  The present law I do not think is a very seemly one, but I do think an efficient fugitive slave law is demanded [by] the Constitution.  I said this is in the canvass last year; and I said nearly the same in the Cincinnati speech.  But I think you understand me.

 

Yours very truly,

A. Lincoln

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

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

Custom Map

Screen shot 2014-01-26 at 4.34.34 PM
View in Larger Map

How Historians Intepret

“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.”

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), pp. 726-727.

“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.

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

 

Searchable Text

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 Richard Oglesby (September 8, 1854)

Contributing Editors for this page include Chris Jaax

Ranking

#137 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents

Annotated Transcript

“Other things being equal, I would much prefer a temperate man, to an intemperate one; still I do not make my vote depend absolutely upon the question of whether a candidate does or does not taste liquor.” 

On This Date

HD Daily Report, September 8, 1854

The Lincoln Log, September 8, 1854

Custom Map

Screen shot 2014-01-26 at 4.51.20 PM
View in Larger Map

Close Readings


Posted at YouTube by “Understanding Lincoln” course participant Chris Jaax, August 2014

How Historians Interpret

“When he heard that Democrats were whispering that Yates, though professing to be a temperate man, was a secret drinker, he recognized that the rumor might cost the Whigs the large prohibitionist vote and sought to kill the allegation. ‘I have never seen him drink liquor, nor act, or speak, as if he had been drinking, nor smelled it on his breath,’ he wrote. But then – almost as if he realized that the future would show that Yates did indulge in liquor, to the point of being intoxicated when he was inaugurated as governor of Illinois in 1861 – Lincoln carefully explained his own position to a friend: ‘Other things being equal I would much prefer a temperate man, to an intemperate one; still I do not make my vote depend absolutely upon the question of whether a candidates does or does not taste liquor.’”
–David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 171.

 

“Lincoln helped Yates plot campaign strategy. To counter rumors that the congressman was a nativist bigot, Lincoln drafted a letter for him to circulate. (Yates ignored the advice and later acknowledged that his failure to heed Lincoln probably cost him the election.) Antiforeign, anti-Catholic sentiment was sweeping the North, in some states becoming the dominant theme in 1854. Supporters of this movement, called Native Americans or Know Nothings, adopted the slogan, “Americans must rule America.” They believed that Catholicism was incompatible with America’s democratic, individualistic values; that Catholics had disproportionate power; that established political parties and professional politicians were corrupt and unresponsive to the popular will; that slavery and liquor were evil; and that immigrants were the source of crime, corruption, pauperism, wage reductions, voter fraud, and the defeat of antislavery candidates.”

–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 10 (PDF), 1087.

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

 

Searchable Text

Confidential
Springfield, Sept. 8, 1854
 
R.J. Oglesby, Esq.
 
Dear Sir:
You perhaps know how anxious I am for Yates’ re-election in this District.  I understand his enemies are getting up a charge against him, that while he passes for a temperate man, he is in the habit of drinking secretly –and that they calculate on proving an instance of the charge by you.  If, indeed, you have told them any thing, I can not help thinking they have misunderstood what you did tell them.  Other things being equal, I would much prefer a temperate man, to an intemperate one; still I do not make my vote depend absolutely upon the question of whether a candidate does or does not taste liquor. 
 
Thousands and thousands of us, in point of fact, have known Yates for more than twenty years; and as I have never seen him drink liquor, nor act, or speak, as if he had been drinking, nor smelled it on his breath, nor heard any man say he ever had and as he has been twice elected to congress without any such thing being discovered I can not but think such a charge as the above must be incorrect.  Will you please write me, and tell me what the truth of the matter is?  I will reciprocate at any time.  
Yours truly,
A Lincoln

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén