The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln Part 69

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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.suming 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 das.h.i.+ngly 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 cla.s.sification, 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 G.o.d, 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 doc.u.ment 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 const.i.tutional provision in regard to naturalized citizens, lately adopted by Ma.s.sachusetts, and whether I am for or against a fusion of the Republicans and other opposition elements for the canva.s.s of 1860, is received.

Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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 inst.i.tutions 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 princ.i.p.al 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 princ.i.p.al 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 cla.s.s 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 princ.i.p.al 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 Sc.r.a.p 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 sc.r.a.p-book will be reprinted, and if it shall, I will save you a copy.