CINCINNATI, September 30, 1860.
DEAR UNCLE:—. . . . I have made a few little speeches in the country townships, and shall make a few more. I cannot get up much interest in the contest. A wholesome contempt for Douglas, on account of his recent demagoguery, is the chief feeling I have. I am not so confident that Lincoln will get votes enough as many of our friends. I think his chances are fair, but what may be the effect of fusions in such anti-Republican States as New Jersey and Pennsylvania, is more than I can tell or confidently guess until after the state elections. In this county, the fight is doubtful, but probably against us.
We saw the Prince yesterday as he passed our house. A modest, decently behaved youngster. His visit has been without unpleasant incidents. — Love to all.
Sincerely,
R. B. HAYES.
S. BIRCHARD.
Letter to Professor Gardner
SPRINGFIELD, ILL., September 28, 1860.
Dear Sir: Some specimens of your Soap have been used at our house and Mrs. L. declares it is a superior article. She at the same time protests that I have never given sufficient attention to the “soap question” to be a competent judge. Yours very truly,
A. LINCOLN.
SPRINGFIELD, ILLS. Sep 22, 1860.
MRS. M. J. GREEN
My dear Madam: Your kind congratulatory letter, of August, was received in due course, and should have been answered sooner. The truth is I have never corresponded much with ladies; and hence I postpone writing letters to them, as a business which I do not understand. I can only say now I thank you for the good opinion you express of me, fearing, at the same time, I may not be able to maintain it through life.
Yours very truly,
A. LINCOLN
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, September 22, 1860.
Dear Doctor: Yours of July 18th was received some time ago. When you wrote you had not learned the result of the Democratic conventions at Charleston and Baltimore. With the two tickets in the field I should think it possible for our friends to carry Oregon. But the general result, I think, does not depend upon Oregon. No one this side of the mountains pretends that any ticket can be elected by the people, unless it be ours. Hence great efforts to combine against us are being made, which, however, as yet have not had much success. Besides what we see in the newspapers, I have a good deal of private correspondence; and without giving details, I will only say it all looks very favorable to our success.
Make my best respects to Mrs. Henry and the rest of your family.
Your friend, as ever,
A. LINCOLN.
SEPTEMBER 12, 1860.
Fellow Democrats,—I thank you most cordially for the honor which you confer upon me by permitting me to preside over your deliberations on this occasion. It is an occasion the importance of which cannot be impressed too much upon our minds. We have come together in order to pledge our support to the nominations of our National and State Conventions, determined to withhold the thirty-five electoral votes of the great Empire State from Abraham Lincoln, and thus to save the glorious Republic from the horrors of disunion and anarchy. We have come together to listen to the heart-stirring eloquence of our noble and gallant standard-bearers, Stephen A. Douglas, the bold and fearless champion of the Constitution and the rights of the people, and Herschel V. Johnson, the patriot and the statesman. In order to share this rare privilege with you, I have sacrificed the pleasing duty of attending the celebration by which the city of Cleveland honored this week the memory of an illustrious kinsman of my family. It is forty-seven years since the gallant Perry fought and conquered, after a most bloody struggle against fearful odds, the enemies of his country on Lake Erie. Let us this day pledge our united and unwavering energies to fight and conquer the enemies of the Constitution and the Union, arrayed against us by sectional fanaticism North and South. We are fighting for the maintenance of our beloved and blessed Union, and the sacredness of our cause should give us the victory. Let us, then, advance to the charge, and the lion-hearted Democracy of this vast Republic, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, will in November next inscribe on its banners the memorable words of Perry, “We have met the enemy and they are ours.”
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, August 27, 1860.
Dear Sir: Your second note, inclosing the supposed speech of Mr. Dallas to Lord Brougham, is received. I have read the speech quite through, together with the real author’s introductory and closing remarks. I have also looked through the long preface of the book to-day. Both seem to be well written, and contain many things with which I could agree, and some with which I could not. A specimen of the latter is the declaration, in the closing remarks upon the “speech,” that the institution is a “necessity” imposed on us by the negro race. That the going many thousand miles, seizing a set of savages, bringing them here, and making slaves of them is a necessity imposed on us by them involves a species of logic to which my mind will scarcely assent.
(Apparently unfinished.)
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, August 15, 1860.
My dear Sir: Yours of the 9th, inclosing the letter of Hon. John Minor Botts, was duly received. The latter is herewith returned according to your request. It contains one of the many assurances I receive from the South, that in no probable event will there be any very formidable effort to break up the Union. The people of the South have too much of good sense and good temper to attempt the ruin of the government rather than see it administered as it was administered by the men who made it. At least so I hope and believe. I thank you both for your own letter and a sight of that of Mr. Botts.
Yours very truly,
A. LINCOLN.
August 14, 1860.
My Fellow-citizens: I appear among you upon this occasion with no intention of making a speech.
It has been my purpose since I have been placed in my present position to make no speeches. This assemblage having been drawn together at the place of my residence, it appeared to be the wish of those constituting this vast assembly to see me; and it is certainly my wish to see all of you. I appear upon the ground here at this time only for the purpose of affording myself the best opportunity of seeing you, and enabling you to see me.
I confess with gratitude, be it understood, that I did not suppose my appearance among you would create the tumult which I now witness. I am profoundly grateful for this manifestation of your feelings. I am grateful, because it is a tribute such as can be paid to no man as a man; it is the evidence that four years from this time you will give a like manifestation to the next man who is the representative of the truth on the questions that now agitate the public; and it is because you will then fight for this cause as you do now, or with even greater ardor than now, though I be dead and gone, that I most profoundly and sincerely thank you.
Having said this much, allow me now to say that it is my wish that you will hear this public discussion by others of our friends who are present for the purpose of addressing you, and that you will kindly let me be silent.
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, August 14., 1860.
Dear Sir: Yours of the 10th is received, and for which I thank you. I would cheerfully answer your questions in regard to the fugitive-slave law were it not that I consider it would be both imprudent and contrary to the reasonable expectation of my friends for me to write or speak anything upon doctrinal points now. Besides this, my published speeches contain nearly all I could willingly say. Justice and fairness to all, is the utmost I have said, or will say. Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN.
1860. July 24.—Judge Longstreet has issued a letter addressed to the International Statistical Congress about their gross conduct in applauding Lord Brougham. It is printed in the Morning Chronicle, and evinces considerable ability and tact. I shall not be surprised if, on this sensitive topic, my countrymen, who never can be rational about it, should consider me as having too tranquilly submitted to the remark of Brougham. One of them here wishes I had “jumped to my feet and knocked the old blackguard down!” This is not “ma manure d’agir.” First, it would have been great folly to imply, by word or act, that the question of slavery in the United States could legitimately be discussed before the American Minister at a European Congress of any sort. Second, the Congress was unanimously and vociferously hostile; the words of Brougham were cheered loudly; it was palpable that the act was the result of a contrivance between Brougham and his associate to get up an altercation between the latter and myself, which was defeated by my treating the movement with silence. Third, quitting the room was impossible, because my doing so was physically impeded, and would instantly have been followed by loud and prolonged indignities. Fourth, to attempt, at a moment of sudden astonishment and indignation, to vindicate the United States from the slur thrown out, would have been extremely imprudent and AT hazardous; no man is authorized to commit his country in a manner so unprepared. Fifth, my individual opinion as to the races being unequal in intellect is strong, but the point has never been studied, and could not be handled in the slightest manner without exhibiting weakness. Sixth, a foreign Minister cannot be justified or excused in taking the attitude of a public declaimer in a Congress where he was only an invited guest, and where such a topic was not only not to be anticipated, but wholly out of order. Indeed, such are my convictions that I have thanked Heaven frequently and profoundly that I had presence of mind enough to take the course I did. Brougham has attempted in the very Congress itself, and only two days after his extravagance, a feeble and unsatisfactory apology; he has sought me that he might apologize in person, and has been turned from the door. He is now perpetually inculcating that what he did was not intended to be disrespectful to me or the United States, and that it should be regarded as insignificant.
