LINCOLN, Abraham (1809-1865), President . Autograph speech notes, prepared by Lincoln and used when delivering his address at Hartford, Connecticut, 5 March 1860.
LINCOLN, Abraham (1809-1865), President . Autograph speech notes, prepared by Lincoln and used when delivering his address at Hartford, Connecticut, 5 March 1860. 2 pages, 8vo (6 x 4 in.), comprising some 80 words, the first four lines boldly penned in ink (minor dampstains, slightly affecting ink), the rest of the notes added (slightly later?) in pencil (one line slighty shaved in binding). The sheet of Lincoln's notes neatly inlaid to a larger, protective sheet; preceded by a manuscript titlepage reading "Notes used by Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, in a Speech at City Hall, Hartford, Conn. On the evening of March 5th 1860. Left on the Table by Him and preserved by Jesse H. Lord, Reporter of the Hartford Daily Times"; a 4 May 1923 letter from Robert Todd Lincoln to John O. H. Pitney tipped in. Bound in dark green morocco gilt, gilt borders and spine, gilt inner turn-ins, watered silk endleaves, by H. Zucker. LINCOLN'S ORIGINAL OUTLINE FOR HIS IMPORTANT HARTFORD ADDRESS ENDORSING THE "IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT" BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH OVER SLAVERY An exceptionally rare speech outline attacking "Southern bushwhackers," rejecting John Brown and defending free labor's right to strike. This sheet of notes was taken from the podium after Lincoln finished delivering this influential, mostly impromptu address at the Hartford City Hall on 5 March 1860. As his son Robert Todd Lincoln notes in the accompanying letter, the phrases are "clearly...written by" his father "in his very clear but compact and neat way." The first page reads as follows: "Signs of decay--bushwhacking. Irrepressible conflict. John Brown Shoe trade. True or not true. If true, what? Mason. Plasters. If not true, what?" On the verso: "[It still] is the question. We must deal with it. Magnitude of question. What prevents just now? Right--wrong--indifference. Indifference unphilosophical. Because nobody is indifferent. Must be converted to. Can be, or cannot be done. I suppose can not. But if can, what result? Indifference, then must be rejected. And what supported? Sectionalism Conservatism. John Brown Conclusion." This cryptic outline--whose very survival is almost miraculous--was Lincoln's attempt to solve a problem caused by his great Cooper Union address in New York a few days before, on 27 February. With the text of that speech widely printed and circulated, and with Lincoln now pressed into a New England speaking tour on short notice, he had to come up with some new material. These notes show him being bolder than he'd been at New York. There, in a carefully prepared address, he made a point of staying away from Seward's inflammatory phrase, "the irrepressible conflict." But here he embraces it, elaborates on it, and defends Seward against charges of extremism. As reported verbatim by the Hartford papers, Lincoln declared "I think the Democracy are pretty generally getting into a system of bushwhackery in this controversy. You all know how Seward has been abused for his 'irrepressible conflict' doctrine...I call this bushwhackery because they have been reminded time after time, but could never be made to admit, that the old fathers said the same thing. They dare not deny it because they know the proof is ready at your hands to meet their denial. Jefferson said it; Washington said it..." The notes on the verso trace Lincoln's consideration of the moral nature of this "irrepressible conflict," elaborated into his spoken address as: "We suppose slavery is wrong, and that it endangers the perpetuity of the Union...Its effect on free labor makes it what Seward has been so roundly abused for calling, an irrepressible conflict...." Yet "some men think it is neither a question of right or wrong; that it is a question of dollars and cents only." Some tried to strip the issue of any moral significance, and "There is effort to make this feeling of indifference prevalent in the country, and this is one of the things, perhaps, that prevents the sudden settlement of th
LINCOLN, Abraham (1809-1865), President . Autograph speech notes, prepared by Lincoln and used when delivering his address at Hartford, Connecticut, 5 March 1860.
LINCOLN, Abraham (1809-1865), President . Autograph speech notes, prepared by Lincoln and used when delivering his address at Hartford, Connecticut, 5 March 1860. 2 pages, 8vo (6 x 4 in.), comprising some 80 words, the first four lines boldly penned in ink (minor dampstains, slightly affecting ink), the rest of the notes added (slightly later?) in pencil (one line slighty shaved in binding). The sheet of Lincoln's notes neatly inlaid to a larger, protective sheet; preceded by a manuscript titlepage reading "Notes used by Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, in a Speech at City Hall, Hartford, Conn. On the evening of March 5th 1860. Left on the Table by Him and preserved by Jesse H. Lord, Reporter of the Hartford Daily Times"; a 4 May 1923 letter from Robert Todd Lincoln to John O. H. Pitney tipped in. Bound in dark green morocco gilt, gilt borders and spine, gilt inner turn-ins, watered silk endleaves, by H. Zucker. LINCOLN'S ORIGINAL OUTLINE FOR HIS IMPORTANT HARTFORD ADDRESS ENDORSING THE "IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT" BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH OVER SLAVERY An exceptionally rare speech outline attacking "Southern bushwhackers," rejecting John Brown and defending free labor's right to strike. This sheet of notes was taken from the podium after Lincoln finished delivering this influential, mostly impromptu address at the Hartford City Hall on 5 March 1860. As his son Robert Todd Lincoln notes in the accompanying letter, the phrases are "clearly...written by" his father "in his very clear but compact and neat way." The first page reads as follows: "Signs of decay--bushwhacking. Irrepressible conflict. John Brown Shoe trade. True or not true. If true, what? Mason. Plasters. If not true, what?" On the verso: "[It still] is the question. We must deal with it. Magnitude of question. What prevents just now? Right--wrong--indifference. Indifference unphilosophical. Because nobody is indifferent. Must be converted to. Can be, or cannot be done. I suppose can not. But if can, what result? Indifference, then must be rejected. And what supported? Sectionalism Conservatism. John Brown Conclusion." This cryptic outline--whose very survival is almost miraculous--was Lincoln's attempt to solve a problem caused by his great Cooper Union address in New York a few days before, on 27 February. With the text of that speech widely printed and circulated, and with Lincoln now pressed into a New England speaking tour on short notice, he had to come up with some new material. These notes show him being bolder than he'd been at New York. There, in a carefully prepared address, he made a point of staying away from Seward's inflammatory phrase, "the irrepressible conflict." But here he embraces it, elaborates on it, and defends Seward against charges of extremism. As reported verbatim by the Hartford papers, Lincoln declared "I think the Democracy are pretty generally getting into a system of bushwhackery in this controversy. You all know how Seward has been abused for his 'irrepressible conflict' doctrine...I call this bushwhackery because they have been reminded time after time, but could never be made to admit, that the old fathers said the same thing. They dare not deny it because they know the proof is ready at your hands to meet their denial. Jefferson said it; Washington said it..." The notes on the verso trace Lincoln's consideration of the moral nature of this "irrepressible conflict," elaborated into his spoken address as: "We suppose slavery is wrong, and that it endangers the perpetuity of the Union...Its effect on free labor makes it what Seward has been so roundly abused for calling, an irrepressible conflict...." Yet "some men think it is neither a question of right or wrong; that it is a question of dollars and cents only." Some tried to strip the issue of any moral significance, and "There is effort to make this feeling of indifference prevalent in the country, and this is one of the things, perhaps, that prevents the sudden settlement of th
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
