{"id":1092,"date":"2013-06-29T13:08:47","date_gmt":"2013-06-29T13:08:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/?p=1092"},"modified":"2016-06-18T15:48:31","modified_gmt":"2016-06-18T15:48:31","slug":"letter-to-ichabod-codding-november-27-1854","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/letter-to-ichabod-codding-november-27-1854\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter to Ichabod Codding (November 27, 1854)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ranking<\/strong><\/h3>\n

#124<\/span> on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents<\/em><\/p>\n

Annotated Transcript<\/h3>\n

“Your note of the 13th. requesting my attendance of the Republican State Central Committee, on the 17th. Inst. at Chicago, was, owing to my absence from home, received on the evening of that day (17th) only. While I have pen in hand allow me to say I have been perplexed some to understand why my name was placed on that committee. I was not consulted on the subject; nor was I apprized of the appointment, until I discovered it by accident two or three weeks afterwards.”\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On This Date<\/h3>\n

HD Daily Report, November 27, 1854<\/a><\/p>\n

The Lincoln Log, November 27, 1854<\/a><\/p>\n

Custom Map<\/h3>\n

\"Screen<\/a>
\n\u00a0View in Larger Map<\/a><\/p>\n

How Historians Interpret<\/h3>\n

“Lincoln advised Whigs to ‘stand with anybody that stands RIGHT,’ even if it meant standing with the ‘abolitionist in restoring the Missouri Compromise,’ suggesting that there were moments when principle must overcome party. \u00a0His words were put to a test almost immediately. . . The fusionists placed his name on the Republican State Central Committee, even though some of them expressed doubts about the sincerity of his views on slavery. \u00a0The Douglas press gleefully pounced on the action as proof that Lincoln was an abolitionist after all. \u00a0Deeply annoyed and perplexed, Lincoln protested that his name had been used without consulting him first. \u00a0‘I suppose my opposition to the principle of slavery is as strong as that of any member of the Republican party, he explained to Ichabod Codding, ‘but I had also supposed that the\u00a0extent\u00a0<\/em>to which I feel authorized to carry that opposition, practically, was not at all satisfactory to that party.’ \u00a0His response was equivocal; this time, political expediency overcame principle. \u00a0Still, he did not ask that his name be removed, and he only implied that he was unwilling to serve. \u00a0Perhaps the Republicans had misunderstood his position, he suggestion. \u00a0Or had he misunderstood theirs? \u00a0He was unwilling to commit himself to their cause, but he did not want to alienate them either.”<\/p>\n

\u2014Robert W. Johannsen,\u00a0Lincoln, The South, and Slavery: The Political Dimension\u00a0<\/em>(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Press, 1993), 45-46<\/a><\/p>\n

NOTE TO READERS<\/h3>\n

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new \u201cUnderstanding Lincoln\u201d 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<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Searchable Text<\/span><\/h3>\n
Springfield,<\/span><\/div>\n
Novr. 27. 1854<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
I. Codding, Esq<\/span><\/div>\n
Dear Sir\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Your note of the 13th. requesting my attendance of the Republican State Central Committee, on the 17th. Inst. at Chicago, was, owing to my absence from home, received on the evening of that day (17th) only. While I have pen in hand allow me to say I have been perplexed some to understand why my name was placed on that committee. I was not consulted on the subject; nor was I apprized of the appointment, until I discovered it by accident two or three weeks afterwards. I suppose my opposition to the principle of slavery is as strong as that of any member of the Republican party; but I had also supposed that the extent to which I feel authorized to carry that opposition, practically; was not at all satisfactory to that party. The leading men who organized that party, were present, on the 4th. of Oct. at the discussion between Douglas and myself at Springfield, and had full oppertunity to not misunderstand my position. Do I misunderstand theirs? Please write, and inform me.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Yours truly\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
A. LINCOLN<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ranking #124 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents Annotated Transcript “Your note of the 13th. requesting my attendance of the Republican State Central Committee, on the 17th. Inst. at Chicago, was, owing to my absence from home, received on the evening of that day (17th) only. While I have pen in hand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10856],"tags":[10866,11665,6088,11669,11635,10865],"class_list":["post-1092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-honest-abe","tag-antebellum","tag-election-of-1854","tag-letter","tag-needs-close-reading","tag-partisanship","tag-private"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1092"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4336,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1092\/revisions\/4336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}