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PROPERTY FROM THE FORBES COLLECTION
LINCOLN, Abraham (1809-1865), President. Autograph speech notes, prepared by Lincoln and used when delivering his address at Hartford, Connecticut, 5 March 1860.
Details
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 the question. Is it possible that a national policy can be sustained because nobody opposes it or favors it?....I do not believe a majority of the people of this nation can be made to take this view of it."
On the "John Brown" point he says in the speech: "Another species of bushwhacking is exhibited in their treatment of the John Brown and Harper's Ferry affair. They insist upon it that the Republican party incites insurrections....Each Republican knew that the charge that his party had incited the insurrection was, so far as he was concerned, a slander upon him." The "Shoe Trade" reference alludes to a strike at a nearby New Hampshire factory, but more broadly answers the charge of some slaveholders that abolitionists would rue their agitation when the "wage slaves" of the North turned rebellious. Lincoln finds the argument contemptible and tells the Hartford crowd: "Now they are going to work at the shoe strike." He then draws on his legendary comic talents as a mimic and breaks into his best sarcastic southern drawl to mock the words of Virginia's James Mason: "A Democratic Senator gets up in the Senate Chamber and pompously announces that 'I cannot dawt thot this strike is thresult of the onforchunit wahfar brought aboat boy this sucktional controvussy!' Now whether this is so or not, I know one thing there is a strike! And I am glad to know that there is a system of labor where the laborer can strike if he wants to! I would to God that such a system prevailed all over the world!"
The Hartford address is a masterful example of Lincoln's oratorical powers and these notes are a rare and most revealing glimpse into how he organized and structured his remarks. He expands these keywords into a compelling address that mixes humor and indignation, irony and outrage. He does it all so skillfully and effectively, it's no wonder he soon catapulted over the heads of more senior and experienced politicians like Seward to become the prime Republican contender for the Presidency when his party met to nominate a candidate just two months later in Chicago. Published in Basler, 4:1. The text, as recorded by the Hartford Courant is also in Basler at 4:2-8. Provenance: Philip D. Sang (sale, Sotheby's, 4 December 1981, lot 1216).
CENSUS OF LINCOLN SPEECHES, NOTES FOR SPEECHES AND SPEECH TRANSCRIPTS (Sold at auction between 1975 and 2005, previous auction appearances omitted)
Autograph Ms, Lincoln's last public address, delivered 11 April 1865. 12 pp, folio. Payson--Forbes collections. Christie's, 27 March 2002, $2,800,000 ($3,086,000 with premium).
Autograph Ms, passage from the Second Inaugural Address ("Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war"), March 1865. 1p., in the John P. Usher album. Christie's, 27 March 2002, $400,000 ($446,000 with premium).
Autograph Ms, speech, 16 Mar 1861. 2 pp., folio. Welcoming the new minister from Nicaragua. Christie's, 10 December 1999, $55,000 ($67,500 with premium)
Autograph Ms, the peroration of a speech during the Lincoln-Douglas debates, [c.July 1858]. 2 pp. Predicting the eventual abolition of slavery. Christie's, 17 May 1996, $450,000 ($497,500 with premium)
Autograph Ms, fragment of a speech on slavery, [1854 or 1858?]. 1 p. Sotheby's, 21 May 1993, $900,000 ($992,500 with premium)
Autograph Ms, fragment from State of the Union Address, given 6 December 1864. 1 p. Refers to loyal state governments. Sotheby's, 21 May 1993, $90,000 ($101,500 with premium).
Autograph Ms, fragment of an unidentified speech, [late Dec 1857?]. 1 p. With earliest use of the "House Divided" doctrine. Sotheby's, 16 December 1992, $1,400,000 ($1,540,000 with premium)
Autograph Ms, concluding passage of his Second Inaugural address ("With malice toward none..."), delivered March 1865. 1 p., in the Caroline Wright album. Christie's, 20 November 1992, $1,200,000 ($1,320,000)
Autograph Ms, passage from his annual message, given 20 December 1863. 1p. Promising not "to retract or modify the emancipation proclamation..." Christie's, 14 May 1992, $420,000 ($462,000 with premium).
Autograph Ms, speech on "Discoveries and Inventions," given in Bloomington, Ill., 6 April 1858. 10 pp. Christie's, 11 May 1987, $95,000 ($104,500 with premium).
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 the question. Is it possible that a national policy can be sustained because nobody opposes it or favors it?....I do not believe a majority of the people of this nation can be made to take this view of it."
On the "John Brown" point he says in the speech: "Another species of bushwhacking is exhibited in their treatment of the John Brown and Harper's Ferry affair. They insist upon it that the Republican party incites insurrections....Each Republican knew that the charge that his party had incited the insurrection was, so far as he was concerned, a slander upon him." The "Shoe Trade" reference alludes to a strike at a nearby New Hampshire factory, but more broadly answers the charge of some slaveholders that abolitionists would rue their agitation when the "wage slaves" of the North turned rebellious. Lincoln finds the argument contemptible and tells the Hartford crowd: "Now they are going to work at the shoe strike." He then draws on his legendary comic talents as a mimic and breaks into his best sarcastic southern drawl to mock the words of Virginia's James Mason: "A Democratic Senator gets up in the Senate Chamber and pompously announces that 'I cannot dawt thot this strike is thresult of the onforchunit wahfar brought aboat boy this sucktional controvussy!' Now whether this is so or not, I know one thing there is a strike! And I am glad to know that there is a system of labor where the laborer can strike if he wants to! I would to God that such a system prevailed all over the world!"
The Hartford address is a masterful example of Lincoln's oratorical powers and these notes are a rare and most revealing glimpse into how he organized and structured his remarks. He expands these keywords into a compelling address that mixes humor and indignation, irony and outrage. He does it all so skillfully and effectively, it's no wonder he soon catapulted over the heads of more senior and experienced politicians like Seward to become the prime Republican contender for the Presidency when his party met to nominate a candidate just two months later in Chicago. Published in Basler, 4:1. The text, as recorded by the Hartford Courant is also in Basler at 4:2-8. Provenance: Philip D. Sang (sale, Sotheby's, 4 December 1981, lot 1216).
CENSUS OF LINCOLN SPEECHES, NOTES FOR SPEECHES AND SPEECH TRANSCRIPTS (Sold at auction between 1975 and 2005, previous auction appearances omitted)
Autograph Ms, Lincoln's last public address, delivered 11 April 1865. 12 pp, folio. Payson--Forbes collections. Christie's, 27 March 2002, $2,800,000 ($3,086,000 with premium).
Autograph Ms, passage from the Second Inaugural Address ("Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war"), March 1865. 1p., in the John P. Usher album. Christie's, 27 March 2002, $400,000 ($446,000 with premium).
Autograph Ms, speech, 16 Mar 1861. 2 pp., folio. Welcoming the new minister from Nicaragua. Christie's, 10 December 1999, $55,000 ($67,500 with premium)
Autograph Ms, the peroration of a speech during the Lincoln-Douglas debates, [c.July 1858]. 2 pp. Predicting the eventual abolition of slavery. Christie's, 17 May 1996, $450,000 ($497,500 with premium)
Autograph Ms, fragment of a speech on slavery, [1854 or 1858?]. 1 p. Sotheby's, 21 May 1993, $900,000 ($992,500 with premium)
Autograph Ms, fragment from State of the Union Address, given 6 December 1864. 1 p. Refers to loyal state governments. Sotheby's, 21 May 1993, $90,000 ($101,500 with premium).
Autograph Ms, fragment of an unidentified speech, [late Dec 1857?]. 1 p. With earliest use of the "House Divided" doctrine. Sotheby's, 16 December 1992, $1,400,000 ($1,540,000 with premium)
Autograph Ms, concluding passage of his Second Inaugural address ("With malice toward none..."), delivered March 1865. 1 p., in the Caroline Wright album. Christie's, 20 November 1992, $1,200,000 ($1,320,000)
Autograph Ms, passage from his annual message, given 20 December 1863. 1p. Promising not "to retract or modify the emancipation proclamation..." Christie's, 14 May 1992, $420,000 ($462,000 with premium).
Autograph Ms, speech on "Discoveries and Inventions," given in Bloomington, Ill., 6 April 1858. 10 pp. Christie's, 11 May 1987, $95,000 ($104,500 with premium).