[E] The circumstances under which the original preceding sketch was written are explained in the following letter:—
National Hotel, Washington, D. C.,
Feb. 19, 1872.Colonel Ward H. Lamon:
Dear Sir, — In compliance with your request, I place in your hands a copy of a manuscript in my possession written by Abraham Lincoln, giving a brief account of his early history, and the commencement of that political career which terminated in his election to the Presidency.
It may not be inappropriate to say, that some time preceding the writing of the enclosed, finding, in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, a laudable curiosity in the public mind to know more about the early history of Mr. Lincoln, and looking, too, to the possibilities of his being an available candidate for the Presidency in 1860, I had on several occasions requested of him this information, and that it was not without some hesitation he placed in my hands even this very modest account of himself, which he did in the month of December, 1859.
To this were added, by myself, other facts bearing upon his legislative and political history, and the whole forwarded to a friend residing in my native county (Chester, Pa.),—the Hon. Joseph J. Lewis, former Commissioner of Internal Revenue,—who made them the basis of an ably-written and somewhat elaborate memoir of the late President, which appeared in the Pennsylvania and other papers of the country in January, 1860, and which contributed to prepare the way for the subsequent nomination at Chicago the following June.
Believing this brief and unpretending narrative, written by himself in his own peculiar vein,—and in justice to him I should add, without the remotest expectation of its ever appearing in public,—with the attending circumstances, may be of interest to the numerous admirers of that historic and truly great man, I place it at your disposal.
I am truly yours,
Jesse W. Fell.
[1] Page 20, line 21, after the word "war."
Mr. Lincoln did not think money for its own sake a fit object of any man's ambition.
[2] Page 24, line 2, after the word "Mexico."
In a speech delivered in the House July 27, 1848, on General Politics, Mr. Lincoln said: "The declaration that we (the Whigs) have always opposed the Mexican War is true or false accordingly as one may understand the term 'opposing the war.' If to say 'the war was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President' be opposing the war, then the Whigs have very generally opposed it. Whenever they have spoken at all, they have said this; and they said it on what appeared good reasons to them: the marching an army into the midst of a peaceful Mexican settlement, frightening the inhabitants away, leaving their growing crops and other property to destruction to you may appear a perfectly amiable, peaceful, unprovoking procedure, but it does not appear so to us. So to call such an act to us appears no other than a naked, impudent absurdity, and we speak of it accordingly. But if, when the war had begun and had become the cause of the country, the giving of our money and our blood, in common with yours, was support of the war, then it is not true that we have always opposed the war."
On another occasion Mr. Lincoln said that the claim that the Mexican War was not aggressive reminded him of the farmer who asserted, "I ain't greedy 'bout land, I only just wants what jines mine."
[F] For some time before this speech Mr. Lincoln had been receiving letters from friends inquiring as to the truth or falsity of Mr. Douglas's charge. Knowing that he had opposed the war with Mexico, while in Congress, they were in doubt whether or not the charge was true, and believed that if true it would be dangerous to his prospects. To one of these anxious friends he writes under date of June 24, 1858: "Give yourself no concern about my voting against the supplies, unless you are without faith that a lie can be successfully contradicted. There is not a word of truth in the charge, and I am just considering a little as to the best shape to put a contradiction in. Show this to whom you please, but do not publish it in the papers."
[3] Page 27, line 19, after the word "possession."
Mr. Lincoln felt deeply the responsibility of his great trust; and he felt still more keenly the supposed impossibility of administering the government for the sole benefit of an organization which had no existence in one-half of the Union. He was therefore willing, not only to appoint Democrats to office, but to appoint them to the very highest offices within his gift. At this time he thought very highly of Mr. Stephens of Georgia, and would gladly have taken him into his cabinet but for the fear that Georgia might secede, and take Mr. Stephens along with her. He commissioned Thurlow Weed to place a seat in the Cabinet at the disposal of Mr. Gilmore of North Carolina; but Mr. Gilmore, finding that his state was likely to secede, was reluctantly compelled to decline it. I had thought that Mr. Lincoln had authorized his friend Mr. Speed to offer the Treasury Department to Mr. Guthrie of Kentucky. Mr. Speed writes of this incident in a letter to me dated June 24, 1872.