The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, sponsored by Lincoln’s nemesis Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and opened the territories of Nebraska and Kansas. The residents of these territories would vote to decide whether they would be admitted as free or slave states. Leaving that momentous decision to settlers in those territories Douglas called “popular sovereignty.” In his speech at Peoria, Illinois Lincoln decried the Kansas–Nebraska Act for allowing the extension of slavery into the western territories. As Lincoln later noted in his Autobiographical Sketch (see selection 1), it was the monstrous injustice (as he saw it) of this Act that inspired him to return to politics and to join the newly formed Republican Party, the main aim of which was to stop the westward expansion of slavery. The bulk of Lincoln’s long (17,000-word) speech is devoted to a history of the Missouri Compromise and its repeal. Only a small portion is reprinted here.

. . . Equal justice to the South, it is said, requires us to consent to the extending of slavery to new countries. That is to say, inasmuch as you do not object to my taking my hog to Nebraska, therefore I must not object to you taking your slave.

Using military necessity as a justification under the president’s war powers as granted by the Constitution, Lincoln issued an initial Emancipation Proclamation. He reasoned that since the Confederate war machine ran largely on the labor of slaves, removing that labor would materially aid the Union war effort. Of course, neither this nor the Final Emancipation Proclamation (see selection 22) actually freed any slaves; it merely encouraged slaves to escape with the promise that they would not be returned to their masters.

Bythe Presidentofthe United Statesof America

A Proclamataion

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United States, and each of the states, and the people thereof; in which states that relation is, or may be suspended, or disturbed.

That it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress to again recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniary aid to the free acceptance or rejection of all slave-states, so called, the people whereof may not then be in rebellion against the United States, and which states, may then have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily adopt, immediate, or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits; and that the effort to colonize persons of African descent, with their consent, upon this continent, or elsewhere, with the previously obtained consent of the Governments existing there, will be continued.

As an up-and-coming young lawyer and aspiring politician, Lincoln was often invited to speak on topics assigned by the organization that invited him. Here he addresses the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois on “the perpetuation of our political institutions.” The most precious of these institutions, says Lincoln, is the rule of law and not of the mob. The topic was not an abstract one for Lincoln and his audience, for ten weeks before Lincoln delivered this address a pro-slavery mob had lynched the abolitionist editor Elijah P. Lovejoy in nearby Alton, Illinois.

As a subject for the remarks of the evening, the perpetuation of our political institutions, is selected.

In the great journal of things happening under the sun, we, the American People, find our account running, under date of the nineteenth century of the Christian era. We find ourselves in the peaceful possession, of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them – they are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors. Theirs was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys, a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; ’tis ours only, to transmit these, the former, unprofaned by the foot of an invader; the latter, undecayed by the lapse of time, and untorn by usurpation – to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task of gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.

By the time Lincoln took the oath of office on March 4, 1861 seven Southern states had already seceded from the Union (their number would soon swell to eleven). In his First Inaugural Address Lincoln attempted to soothe Southern anger without abandoning his firm commitment to the unbreakable solidarity of the Union. As president he had sworn to uphold the Constitution, and that document, on Lincoln’s reading, forbids any state to secede from the Union of states.

Fellow citizens of the United States:

In compliance with a custom as old as the government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly, and to take, in your presence, the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States, to be taken by the President “before he enters on the execution of his office.”

I do not consider it necessary, at present, for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety, or excitement.

Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States, that by the accession of a Republican Administration, their property, and their peace, and personal security, are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed, and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this, and many similar declarations, and had never recanted them. . .

Lincoln wrote the following autobiographical sketch for the 1860 Presidential campaign. It was intended to introduce him to the broad swath of the electorate who knew little or nothing about his history and background.

Abraham Lincoln was born Feb. 12, 1809, then in Hardin, now in the more recently formed county of Larue, Kentucky. His father, Thomas, & grand-father, Abraham, were born in Rockingham county, Virginia, whither their ancestors had come from Berks county, Pennsylvania. His lineage has been traced no farther back than this. The family were originally quakers, though in later times they have fallen away from the peculiar habits of that people. The grandfather Abraham, had four brothers – Isaac, Jacob, John & Thomas. So far as known, the descendants of Jacob and John are still in Virginia. Isaac went to a place near where Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, join; and his descendants are in that region. Thomas came to Kentucky, and after many years, died there, whence his descendants went to Missouri. Abraham, grandfather of the subject of this sketch, came to Kentucky, and was killed by indians about the year 1784. He left a widow, three sons and two daughters. The eldest son, Mordecai, remained in Kentucky till late in life, when he removed to Hancock county, Illinois, where soon after he died, and where several of his descendants still reside. The second son, Josiah, removed at an early day to a place on Blue River, now within Harrison county, Indiana; but no recent information of him, or his family, has been obtained. The eldest sister, Mary, married Ralph Crume and some of her descendants are now known to be in Breckenridge county, Kentucky. The second sister, Nancy, married William Brumfield, and her family are not known to have left Kentucky, but there is no recent information from them. Thomas, the youngest son, and father of the present subject, by the early death of his father, and very narrow circumstances of his mother, even in childhood was a wandering laboring boy, and grew up litterally without education. He never did more in the way of writing than to bunglingly sign his own name. Before he was grown, he passed one year as a hired hand with his uncle Isaac on Wataga, a branch of the Holsteen River.

In this speech in the 1858 senatorial campaign, Lincoln goes on the offensive against Douglas and the Dred Scott decision of the preceding year. He draws a sharp contrast between Douglas’s professed indifference to the expansion of slavery and his own view that “slavery [is] a moral, social and political wrong.” To allow the extension of this wrong – as the Kansas–Nebraska Act (1854) and the Dred Scott decision (1857) do – is to aid and abet evil.

I have been requested to give a concise statement, as I understand it, of the difference between the Democratic and the Republican parties on the leading issues of this campaign. The question has just been put to me by a gentleman whom I do not know. I do not even know whether he is a friend of mine or a supporter of Judge Douglas in this contest; nor does that make any difference. His question is a pertinent one and, though it has not been asked me anywhere in the State before, I am very glad that my attention has been called to it to-day. Lest I should forget it, I will give you my answer before proceeding with the line of argument I had marked out for this discussion.

En route to Washington, DC to take the presidential oath of office, President-elect Lincoln spoke briefly to an audience in Indianapolis about the threat of several Southern states to secede from the Union. Lincoln denied that they had the right to do this.

It is not possible, in my journey to the national capital, to address assemblies like this which may do me the great honor to meet me as you have done, but very briefly. I should be entirely worn out if I were to attempt it. I appear before you now to thank you for this very magnificent welcome which you have given me, and still more for the very generous support which your State recently gave to the political cause of the whole country, and the whole world. [Applause.] Solomon has said, that there is a time to keep silence. [Renewed and deafening applause.] * * * * * We know certain that they mean the same thing while using the same words now, and it perhaps would be as well if they would keep silence.

In 1857 the US Supreme Court, in the case of Scott v. Sandford, declared that no person of African ancestry is or can ever be a citizen of the United States. The case was brought by Dred Scott, a slave from Missouri who had spent time with his master in the free state of Illinois and the free territory of Minnesota. Scott argued that, since under the terms of the Missouri Compromise both were free regions, he was thus no longer a slave but a free man. The Court ruled that Scott lacked “standing” – i.e., the ability to bring this case – although, contradictorily, the Court accepted it anyway and rendered a decision. The Court also implicitly upheld the constitutionality of the Kansas–Nebraska Act by declaring that the Missouri Compromise had been unconstitutional, thus effectively opening all the western territories to slavery. Incensed, Lincoln once again mounted the rostrum to denounce the injustice of this decision.

fellow citizens: – I am here to-night, partly by the invitation of some of you, and partly by my own inclination. Two weeks ago Judge Douglas spoke here on the several subjects of Kansas, the Dred Scott decision, and Utah. I listened to the speech at the time, and have read the report of it since. It was intended to controvert opinions which I think just, and to assail (politically, not personally) those men who, in common with me, entertain those opinions. For this reason I wished then, and still wish, to make some answer to it, which I now take the opportunity of doing.

In Lincoln’s home state of Illinois, Peace Democrats or “Copperheads” had drafted resolutions opposing the Emancipation Proclamation (see selection 22), agitating for peace at any price, and decrying Lincoln’s decision to deploy colored troops. Hoping to halt the spread of such views Lincoln’s friend James C. Conkling called a meeting of staunch Unionists to which he invited the president. Instead of attending Lincoln sent the following firmly worded letter with instructions to Conkling to read it “very slowly” to the assembled multitude.

1. Hon. James C. Conkling

2. Executive Mansion,

3. Washington.

4. August 26, 1863

My Dear Sir.

Your letter inviting me to attend a mass-meeting of unconditional Union men, to be held at the Capital of Illinois, on the 3rd day of September, has been received.

It would be very agreeable to me, to thus meet my old friends, at my own home; but I cannot, just now, be absent from here, so long as a visit there would require.

The meeting is to be of all those who maintain unconditional devotion to the Union; and I am sure my old political friends will thank me for tendering, as I do, the nation’s gratitude to those other noble men, whom no partizan malice, or partizan hope, can make false to the nation’s life.

. . .

During the run-up to the 1864 election the Wisconsin editor and War Democrat (as distinguished from Peace Democrat or Copperhead) Charles D. Robinson wrote to Lincoln to take issue with the president’s statement that he would entertain any sincere Confederate peace proposal that included “the restoration of the peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery.” If the third of these was indeed the president’s position, Robinson wrote, he and his fellow War Democrats would not support Lincoln’s reelection. Lincoln penned the following reply to Robinson, which apparently was not sent.

1. Hon. Charles D. Robinson

2. Executive Mansion,

3. Washington,

4. August 17, 1864

My Dear Sir:

Your letter of the 7th was placed in my hand yesterday by Gov[ernor] Randall.

To me it seems plain that saying re-union and abandonment of slavery would be considered, if offered, is not saying that nothing else or less would be considered, if offered. But I will not stand upon the mere construction of language. It is true, as you remind me, that in the Greeley letter of 1862, I said: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some, and leaving others alone I would also do that.” I continued in the same letter as follows: “What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause; and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.” All this I said in the utmost sincerity; and I am as true to the whole of it now, as when I first said it. . .

The Judge has alluded to the Declaration of Independence, and insisted that negroes are not included in that Declaration; and that it is a slander upon the framers of that instrument, to suppose that negroes were meant therein; and he asks you: Is it possible to believe that Mr. Jefferson, who penned the immortal paper, could have supposed himself applying the language of that instrument to the negro race, and yet held a portion of that race in slavery? Would he not at once have freed them? I only have to remark upon this part of the Judge’s speech (and that, too, very briefly, for I shall not detain myself, or you, upon that point for any great length of time), that I believe the entire records of the world, from the date of the Declaration of Independence up to within three years ago, may be searched in vain for one single affirmation, from one single man, that the negro was not included in the Declaration of Independence. I think I may defy Judge Douglas to show that he ever said so, that Washington ever said so, that any President ever said so, that any member of Congress ever said so, or that any living man upon the whole earth ever said so, until the necessities of the present policy of the Democratic party, in regard to slavery, had to invent that affirmation. [Tremendous applause.] And I will remind Judge Douglas and this audience, that while Mr. Jefferson was the owner of slaves, as undoubtedly he was, in speaking upon this very subject, he used the strong language that “he trembled for his country when he remembered that God was just”; and I will offer the highest premium in my power to Judge Douglas if he will show that he, in all his life, ever uttered a sentiment at all akin to that of Jefferson. [Great applause and cries of “Hit him again,” “good,” “good.”]. . .

I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. [Loud cheers.] I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects – certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man. [Great applause.]

On his way to Washington, DC, President-elect Lincoln spoke at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence had been signed eighty-five years earlier. An ardent admirer of Jefferson and the Declaration, Lincoln said, “I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.”

Mr. Cuyler:

I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself standing here in the place where were collected together the wisdom, the patriotism, the devotion to principle, from which sprang the institutions under which we live. You have kindly suggested to me that in my hands is the task of restoring peace to our distracted country. I can say in return, sir, that all the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated, and were given to the world from this hall in which we stand. I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. (Great cheering) I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here and adopted that Declaration of Independence – I have pondered over the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army, who achieved that Independence. (Applause) I have often inquired of myself, what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the mother land; but something in that Declaration giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time. (Great applause) It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. (Cheers) This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence.

. . .

Lincoln met with a delegation of free black men to outline his plan for the gradual emancipation and subsequent relocation of American slaves. This widely publicized meeting may have been called to prepare public opinion for the coming Emancipation Proclamation (see selections 19 and 22). By proposing relocation Lincoln sought to reassure white Northerners who feared that freed slaves would take away their jobs and livelihood.

This afternoon the President of the United States gave audience to a Committee of colored men at the White House. They were introduced by the Rev[erend] J. Mitchell, Commissioner of Emigration. E.M. Thomas, the Chairman, remarked that they were there by invitation to hear what the Executive had to say to them. Having all been seated, the President, after a few preliminary observations, informed them that a sum of money had been appropriated by Congress, and placed at his disposition for the purpose of aiding the colonization in some country of the people, or a portion of them, of African descent, thereby making it his duty, as it had for a long time been his inclination, to favor that cause; and why, he asked, should the people of your race be colonized, and where? Why should they leave this country? This is, perhaps, the first question for proper consideration. You and we are different races.Wehave between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated. You here are freemen I suppose.

. . .

After the abolitionist editor Horace Greeley published “The Prayer of Twenty Millions” in The New York Tribune (August 20, 1862), an open letter urging the president to use his power to emancipate all American slaves, Lincoln replied in a letter published five days later. Lincoln says that his “paramount object” is not to free the slaves but to save the Union, and he would free none, all, or some slaves only if that would further that higher end. He had already drafted the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation (see selection 19), and used his widely publicized reply to Greeley to prepare the public for its release.

Hon. Horace Greeley:

1. Executive Mansion, Washington

2. August 22, 1862

Dear Sir

I have just read yours of the 19th addressed to myself through the New York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not, now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I “seem to be pursuing” as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

. . .

In his Second Annual Message to Congress President Lincoln once again made the case against allowing the Union to be divided. He was replying to “Peace Democrats” and others who wanted the Civil War to end in a draw, allowing the Confederate States of America to coexist peacefully with a shrunken United States to its north. Lincoln also reiterated his proposal to compensate slave owners in the border states for the freeing of their slaves (see selection 16) and the relocation of former slaves outside the United States (see selection 17).

Fellow-citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

Since your last annual assembling another year of health and bountiful harvests has passed. And while it has not pleased the Almighty to bless us with a return of peace, we can but press on, guided by the best light He gives us, trusting that in His own good time, and wise way, all will yet be well…

On the twenty-second day of September last a proclamation was issued by the Executive, a copy of which is herewith submitted.

In accordance with the purpose expressed in the second paragraph of that paper, I now respectfully recall your attention to what may be called “compensated emancipation.”

. . .

William H. Herndon was Lincoln’s law partner (and posthumous biographer). During his single term as a Whig member of the US House of Representatives (1847–9) Lincoln opposed the Mexican-American War as unconstitutional. In a strongly worded speech he held President James K. Polk responsible for starting that war by abusing and overextending his presidential power as outlined in the Constitution. Herndon wrote to Lincoln to object to (as Herndon saw it) his undue restriction of presidential prerogative. Here is Lincoln’s reply.

Washington, February 15, 1848

Dear William:

Your letter of the 29th Jany. was received last night. Being exclusively a constitutional argument, I wish to submit some reflections upon it in the same spirit of kindness that I know actuates you. Let me first state what I understand to be your position. It is, that if it shall become necessary, to repel invasion, the President may, without violation of the Constitution, cross the line, and invade the territory of another country; and that whether such necessity exists in any given case, the President is to be the sole judge.

Before going further, consider well whether this is, or is not your position. If it is, it is a position that neither the President himself, nor any friend of his, so far as I know, has ever taken. Their only positions are first, that the soil was ours where hostilities commenced, and second, that whether it was rightfully ours or not, Congress had annexed it, and the President, for that reason was bound to defend it, both of which are as clearly proved to be false in fact, as you can prove that your house is not mine. That soil was not ours; and Congress did not annex or attempt to annex it. But to return to your position: Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose – and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose. If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, “I see no probability of the British invading us,” but he will say to you “be silent; I see it, if you don’t.”

…