October 11th. I was an old Henry Clay-Tariff Whig. In old days I made more speeches on that subject than any other. I have not since changed my views. I believe yet, if we could have a moderate, carefully adjusted, protective tariff, so far acquiesced in as not to be a perpetual subject of political strife, squabbles, changes, and uncertainties, it would be better for us. Still it is my opinion that just now the revival of that question will not advance the cause itself, or the man who revives it.

I have not thought much on the subject recently, but my general impression is that the necessity for a protective tariff will ere long force its old opponents to take it up; and then its old friends can join in and establish it on a more firm and durable basis.

17th. (To Mark W. Delahay.) As to the pecuniary matter, about which you formerly wrote me, I again appealed to our friend Turner by letter, but he never answered. I can but repeat to you that I am so pressed myself, as to be unable to assist you, unless I could get it from him.

Though his silent friends are still hoping to bring about his nomination, he still refrains from committing himself.

November 1st. For my single self, I have enlisted for the permanent success of the Republican cause; and for this object I shall labor faithfully in the ranks, unless, as I think not probable, the judgment of the party shall assign me a different position.

December. A speech-making trip in Kansas is a great popular success. Arguments of the Douglas debates are effectually used again.

9th. (To N. B. Judd.) I do not understand Trumbull and myself to be rivals. I am pledged to not enter a struggle

with him for the seat of the Senate now occupied by him; and yet I would rather have a full term in the Senate than in the Presidency.

19th. (To G. M. Parsons and Others.) Your letter of the 7th instant, accompanied by a similar one from the governorelect, the Republican State officers, and the Republican members of the State Board of Equalization of Ohio, both requesting of me, for publication in permanent form, copies of the political debates between Senator Douglas and myself last year, has been received. With my grateful acknowledgments to both you and them for the very flattering terms in which the request is communicated, I transmit you the copies.

As evidence of the growth of his silent "boom," his friends obtain from him the earliest sketch of his life.

20th. (To J. W. Fell.) Herewith is a little sketch, as you requested. There is not much of it, for the reason, I suppose, that there is not much of me. If anything be made out of it, I wish it to be modest, and not to go beyond the material. If it were thought necessary to incorporate anything from any of my speeches, I suppose there would be no objection. Of course it must not appear to have been written by myself.

If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be said that I am, in height, six feet four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on an average one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair and grey eyes. no other marks or brands recollected.*

22nd. The Union we intend to keep, and loyal states will not let disloyal ones break it. Its constitution and laws made in pursuance thereof must and shall remain, "the supreme law

*The entries in this record which cover his early years are drawn in part from the sketch of himself prepared for Fell. Others are from a fuller sketch prepared in 1860.

of the land." The enforcement of what laws? If they are those which give the use of jails and domestic police for masters seeking "fugitives from labor" that means war in the North. No law is stronger than is the public sentiment where it is to be enforced. Free speech and immunity from the whip and tar and feathers, seem implied by the guarantee of each state of “a republican form of government." Try Henry Clay's "gradual emancipation" scheme now in Kentucky, or to circulate W. L. Garrison's Liberator where most men are salivated by the excessive use of the Charleston Mercury. Father told a story of a man in your parts required to give a warrantee bill of sale with a horse. He wrote, "I warrant him sound in skin and skeleton and without faults or faculties." That is more than I can say of an unmeaning platform. Compromises of principles break of their own weight.

Old John Brown has been executed for treason against a State.*

We Republicans can not object, even though he agreed with us in thinking slavery wrong. That can not excuse violence, bloodshed and treason. It could avail him nothing that he might think himself right. So, if we constitutionally elect a President, and therefore you, Democrats, undertake to destroy the Union, it will be our duty to deal with you as old John Brown has been dealt with. We shall try to do our duty. We hope and believe that in no section will a majority so act as to render such extreme measures necessary.

*December 2nd, 1859.

1860

January 19th. (To Alexander H. Stephens.) Your letter and one from Honorable J. J. Crittenden, reached me at the same time. He wants a new party on the platform of "The Union, the Constitution and the Enforcement of Laws,"-not construed. You from your retirement at Liberty Hall complain of the bad faith of many in the Free States who refuse to return fugitives from labor, as agreed in the compromise of 1850, 1854; but I infer that you agree with Judge Douglas that the territories are to be left to "form and regulate their own domestic institutions subject only to the Constitution of the United States."

When we were both members of the Young-Indian Club in Washington,* you then argued for paramount state Sovereignty going very nearly to the extreme of state nullification of Federal laws with John C. Calhoun; and of secession at will with Robert Toombs. The Colonies were subject up to July 4, 1776, and had no recognized independence until they won it in 1783; but the only time they ever had the shadows of separate sovereignty was in the two years before they were compelled to the articles of Confederation July 9, 1778. They fought England for seven years for the right to club together but when were they independent of each other? Let me say right here that only unanimous consent of all the States can dissolve this Union. We shall not secede and you shall not. Let me show you what I think of the reserved rights of the states as declared in the articles of Confederation and in the

*When Lincoln was a member of Congress.

Constitution and so-called Jeffersonian amendments; suppose that I sold a farm here in Illinois with all and singular the rights, members and appurtenances to the same in any wise belonging or appertaining, signed, sealed, and delivered: I have now sold my land. Will it at all change the contract if I go to the clerk's office and add a post script to the record; that all rights not therein conveyed I reserve to myself and my children? The colonies, by the Declaration of July 4, 1776, did not get nationality, for they were leagued to fight for it. By the articles of Confederation of July 9, 1778, under stress and peril of failure without union, a government was created to which the states ceded certain powers of nationality, especially in the command of the army and navy, as yet supported by the states.

Three years later Virginia led the states in urging concessions of power, and then by twelve states-Rhode Island objecting-was framed our original Constitution of 1787, fully three and a half years after the peace that sealed our United National Independence. No loop hole left for nullification, and none for secession-because the right of peaceable assembly and of petition and by the Article Fifth of the Constitution, the right of amendment is the Constitutional substitute for revolution. Here is our Magna Charta not wrested by Barons from King John, but the free gift of the states to the nation they create and in the very amendments harped upon by states rights men are proposed by Federal congress and approved by Presidents, to make the liberties of the Republic of the West forever sure. All of the States' Rights which they wished to retain are now and forever retained in the Union, including slavery, and so I have sworn loyalty to this constitutional Union, and for it let me live or let me die.

I am not in favor of a party of Union, Constitution and Law to suit Mr. Bell or Mr. Everett and be construed variously in as many sections as there are states.