SELECTIONS FROM LINCOLN'S WORKS

INTRODUCTION

The following selections from Lincoln's works are based on the well known edition of Lincoln's Complete Works, by Nicolay and Hay. Permission to reproduce these selections here has been kindly granted by The Century Company. As a matter of fact, there is as yet no complete edition of Lincoln's writings, although the Nicolay and Hay edition is so far complete that it is still the most important resource for students of the great war President. New Lincoln materials appear from time to time. Miss Tarbell's first edition of her "Life of Abraham Lincoln" added nearly two hundred pages of unpublished letters, etc. More recently, Gilbert A. Tracy's "Uncollected Letters of Abraham Lincoln" brought upwards of three hundred and fifty more Lincoln letters together for the first time. Other letters yet unpublished are known to exist, and it is believed that time will reveal still others written by Lincoln. The selections which follow are not inclusive of all that Lincoln wrote of literary value. At least

the writer of this volume would not convey such an impression. But they are representative of Lincoln as a man of letters, and undoubtedly include his finest work. They include not only those writings which illustrate the man and his mind, but those which have especial significance for our own time and value for the time to come.

ADDRESSES AND STATE PAPERS

LINCOLN'S EARLY POLITICAL AMBITION

In 1832, after serving as captain in the Black Hawk war, in a "bloodless campaign," Lincoln returned to New Salem and became a candidate for the Illinois legislature. He issued the following address to the voters of Sangamon county. It contains his views on the issues of the time-internal improvements, public education, and the regulation of state finance. He was now entering his twenty-third year, and had come from Indiana but two years before. His development in style and in knowledge of public affairs had been rapid. His youth was probably the chief cause of his defeat, although of the two hundred and eighty-four votes cast in his home precinct of New Salem he received all but seven.

FELLOW CITIZENS: Having become a candidate for the honorable office of one of your Representatives in the next General Assembly of this state, in accordance with an established custom and the principles of true republicanism, it becomes my duty to make known to you, the people whom I propose to represent, my sentiments with regard to local affairs.

Time and experience have verified to a demonstration the public utility of internal improvements. That the poorest and most thinly populated countries would be greatly benefited by the opening of good roads, and in the clearing of navigable streams within their limits, is what no person will deny. Yet it is folly to undertake works of this or any other kind without first knowing that we are able to finish them-as half-finished work generally proves to be labor lost. There cannot justly be any objection to having railroads and canals, any more than to other good things, provided they cost nothing. The only objection is to paying

for them; and the objection arises from want of ability to pay.

(Then follow six paragraphs in which Lincoln argues that although railroad communication would be the more reliable and useful, the estimated cost of the proposed line between "some eligible point on the Illinois river," via Jacksonville, to Springfield, namely, $290,000, made the improvement of the Sangamon River "an object much better suited to our infant resources.")

It appears that the practice of loaning money at exorbitant rates of interest has already been opened as a field for discussion; so I suppose I may enter upon it without claiming the honor, or risking the danger, which may await its first explorer. It seems as though we are never to have an end to this baneful and corroding system, acting almost as prejudicially to the general interests of the community as a direct tax of several thousand dollars annually laid on each county for the benefit of a few individuals only, unless there be a law made fixing the limits of usury. A law for this purpose, I am of opinion, may be made without materially injuring any class of people. In cases of extreme necessity, there could always be means found to cheat the law; while in all other cases it would have its intended effect. I would favor the passage of a law on this subject which might not be very easily evaded. Let it be such that the labor and difficulty of evading it could only be justified in cases of greatest necessity.

Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we, as a people, can be engaged in. That every man may receive at least a moderate education, and thereby be enabled to read the histories of his own and other countries, by which he may duly appreciate the value of our free institutions, appears to be an object of vital importance, even on this account alone, to say nothing of the advantages and satisfaction to be de