Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC05302

Author/Creator: Lincoln, Abraham (1809-1865)

Place Written: s.l.

Type: Autograph manuscript

Date: ca. July 1858

Pagination: 2 p. 32 x 20.4 cm

Summary of Content: Manuscript, probably the concluding portion of speech, possibly from the 1858 Senate campaign, concerning his expectation that slavery would eventually be abolished. Lincoln acknowledge his ambition for higher office but continues, ”[i]n the Republican cause there is a higher aim than that of mere office. I have not allowed myself to forget that the abolition of the Slave-trade by Great Brittain [sic], was agitated a hundred years before it was a final success;... School-boys know that Wilbe[r]force, and Granville Sharp helped that cause forward; but who can now name a single man who labored to retard it? Remembering these things I can not regard it as possible that the higher object of this contest may not be completely attained within the term of my natural life. But I can not doubt either that it will come in due time. Even in this view, I am proud, in my passing speck of time, to contribute an humble mite to that glorious consummation, which my own poor eyes may not last to see.”, , Basler, Roy P. The Collected Works Of Abraham Lincoln. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), Vol. II 1848 - 1858, , p. 482

Historical Era: National Expansion and Reform, 1815-1860

Full Transcript: I have never professed an indifference to the honors of official station; and were I to do so now, I should only make myself ridiculous. Yet I have never failed - do not now fail - to remember that in the republican cause there is a higher aim than that of mere office - I have not allowed myself to forget that the abolition of the Slave-trade by Great Brittain [sic], was agitated a hundred years before it was a final success; that the measure had it’s open fire-eating opponents; it’s stealthy ”don’t care” opponents; it’s dollars and cent opponents; it’s inferior race opponents; it’s negro equality opponents; and it’s religion and good order opponents; that all these opponents got offices, and their adversaries got none - But I have also remembered that [inserted: though] they blazed, like tallow-candles for a century, at last they flickered in the socket, died out, stank in the dark for a brief season, and were remembered no more, even by the smell - School-boys know that Wilbe[r]force, and Granville Sharpe, helped that cause forward; but who can now name a single man who labored to retard it? Remembering these things I can not but regard it as possible that the higher object of this contest may not be completely attained within [2] the term of my [inserted: natural] life. But I can not doubt either that it will come in due time. Even in this view, I am proud, in my passing speck of time, to contribute an humble mite to that glorious consummation, which my own poor eyes may [struck: never] [inserted: not] last to see -

Keywords/Subjects: Slavery, Elections

Sub Era: Age of Jackson, Slavery & Anti-slavery, The Crisis of the 1850’s, Lincoln

Background: Notes: Basler 2: 482. Robert Todd Lincoln, in 1892, presented this speech fragment to the Duchess of St. Alban with an explanatory note: ”The MS. is a note made in preparing for one of the speeches in the joint-debate Campaign between Mr. Douglas & my father in 1858.” (482n).

LOC Search Terms: Slavery., Abolition., African Americans.

Resource: Lincoln on abolition in England and the United States, 1858