SPRINGFIELD June 23, 1858.
John L. Scripps, Esq. [1]
My dear Sir: Your kind note of yesterday is duly received. I am much flattered by the estimate you place on my late speech; and yet I am much mortified that any part of it should be construed so differently from any thing intended by me. The language, “place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction,” I used deliberately, not dreaming then, nor believing now, that it asserts or intimates any power or purpose, to interfere with slavery in the states where it exists. But to not cavil about language, I declare that whether the clause used by me will bear such construction or not, I never so intended it. I have declared a thousand times, and now repeat that, in my opinion, neither the General Government, nor any other power outside of the slave states, can constitutionally or rightfully interfere with slaves or slavery where it already exists. I believe that whenever the effort to spread slavery into the new territories, by whatever means, and into the free states themselves, by Supreme Court decisions, shall be fairly headed off, the institution will then be in course of ultimate extinction; and by the language used I meant only this.
I do not intend this for publication; but still you may show it to any one you think fit. I think I shall, as you suggest, take some early occasion to publicly repeat the declaration I have already so often made as before stated.
Yours very truly,
A. LINCOLN
[1] A Chicago journalist, author of the first biography of Lincoln,
New York Tribune Tracts, No. 6 (1860).
1858. June 18.—The New York Herald disproves the reported aggression off Pensacola, and represents the idea of war as blown over. There would appear to have been great exaggeration in the accounts of outrage. It is, perhaps, owing to this discovery that I have had no new cases sent me from the State Department. The four or five received are far from being strong ones in incident or evidence.
At the Queen’s concert. An unusually numerous company. More than common display of plate in the supper-room, in consequence, I suppose, of the presence of the Belgian King, his daughter, the Duchess of Brabant, and his two sons. Quite unexpectedly to me, his Majesty singled me out of a group in which I was standing, conversing with Lord Palmerston. He said, “You are doing a great deal of good at this Court. Two such great nations as the United States and England should not quarrel, but remove all causes of difference.” He is certainly politically interested in preserving the general peace.
1858. June 17.—Rumor of an attack by a British cruiser upon one of our vessels in the Gulf of Pensacola, and a seaman killed. If this prove true, we shall be at loggerheads soon; and God speed the right.
In the afternoon went to the House of Lords. The Bishop of Oxford presented a petition from Jamaica against the conduct of Spain as to the slave-trade. He introduced it with an able speech. He was followed by Brougham, Malmesbury, Aberdeen, Grey, etc. Lord Malmesbury distinct in stating that his arrangement with me, giving up visit and search, was after consultation with the law officers of the Crown.
June.—Cyrus W. Field called at our house to-day. He is making a trip through the States and stopped here a few hours because Grandmother is his aunt. He made her a present of a piece of the Atlantic cable about six inches long, which he had mounted for her. It is a very nice souvenir. He is a tall, fine looking man and very pleasant.
1858. June 10.—Reception and dance at Lady Palmerston’s. Had conversation with Stanley of Alderney, who seemed astonished when I gave an unqualified contradiction to the statement he borrowed from the Times, that slaves were sent into the United States from Cuba. I told him that was the way in which a bad cause was perpetually striving to bolster itself by inventions.
1858. June 8.—I ought to mark this day with a white stone, for, after great anxiety and labour, with varying hopes and fears for more than a week, I have succeeded in effecting an arrangement with Lord Malmesbury,—
1, that our construction of the law of nations, denying the right of visit and search in time of peace, is adopted; 2, that the aggressive acts complained of are, if true, wholly disavowed; 3, that a mode of verifying a flag hoisted by a merchantman shall be ascertained by negotiation alone; and, 4, that the practice of search be at once discontinued under peremptory orders. The concessions are complete; so much so that I should be unable to realize their having been obtained, but for the “Minute” made in writing at my request by the Earl himself.
1858. June 6.—Constant employment on the questions pending with the Foreign Office has prevented me from making memoranda. The conduct of the British naval cruisers is intolerable, and creates great anxiety as to the relations of the two countries. The cases of the Cortes, the A. A. Chapman, the Mobile, the Tropic Bird, and the comprehensive visitation of all our merchantmen in Sagua la Grande, connected with an arrogant general surveillance, make out a story of national outrage worse than anything heretofore experienced. I regard the emergency as justifying, nay, requiring, instructions to the United States Minister at this Court to demand peremptory orders to British naval officers on every station to cease visiting American vessels, and if not given in a fortnight, to ask his passports and quit the kingdom. My conviction is that such a course would be successful, and that our relations of amity would at once be restored and strengthened. I am afraid we are not prepared for so resolute a proceeding, and that we might suffer much at first; but we should soon rise to the proper national elevation and strength, and be advanced a century in dignity and character. The people at large never have faltered, and never will falter, in sustaining those who assert the independence and rights of their country.
A few days ago Sir E. B. Lytton accepted the Colonial Office, and Lord Stanley is transferred to the Presidency of the India Board of Control. The Ministry is becoming firmer and abler. It has a trump card in the American embroglio, which, if promptly and frankly played, will bind the Radicals permanently to them.
