Springfield, Illinois
August 15, 1855
Hon: Geo. Robertson
Lexington, Ky
My Dear Sir:
The volume you left for me has been
received. I am really grateful for the honor of your kind
remembrance, as well as for the book. The partial reading I have
already given it, has afforded me much of both pleasure and
instruction. It was new to me that the exact question which led
to the Missouri compromise, had arisen before it arose in regard
to Missouri; and that you had taken so prominent a part in it.
Your short, but able and patriotic speech upon that occasion, has
not been improved upon since, by those holding the same views;
and, with all the lights you then had, the views you took appear
to me as very reasonable.
You are not a friend of slavery in the
abstract. In that speech you spoke of "the peaceful
extinction of slavery" and used other expressions indicating
your belief that the thing was, at some time, to have an end[.]
Since then we have had thirty six years of experience; and this
experience has demonstrated, I think, that there is no peaceful
extinction of slavery in prospect for us. The signal failure of
Henry Clay, and other good and great men, in 1849, to effect any
thing in favor of gradual emancipation in Kentucky, together with
a thousand other signs, extinguishes that hope utterly. On the
question of liberty, as a principle, we are not what we have
been. When we were the political slaves of King George, and
wanted to be free, we called the maxim that "all men are
created equal" a self evident truth; but now when we have
grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we
have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim
"a self evident lie" The fourth of July has not quite
dwindled away; it is still a great day—for burning
fire-crackers!!!
That spirit which desired the peaceful
extinction of slavery, has itself become extinct, with the
occasion, and the men of the Revolution. Under the impulse of
that occasion, nearly half the states adopted systems of
emancipation at once; and it is a significant fact, that not a
single state has done the like since. So far as peaceful,
voluntary emancipation is concerned, the condition of the negro
slave in America, scarcely less terrible to the contemplation of
a free mind, is now as fixed, and hopeless of change for the
better, as that of the lost souls of the finally impenitent. The
Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown, and proclaim
his subjects free republicans sooner than will our American
masters voluntarily give up their slaves.
Our political problem now is "Can
we, as a nation, continue together permanently -- forever -- half
slave, and half free?" The problem is too mighty for me. May
God, in his mercy, superintend the solution.
Your much obliged friend, and humble
servant
A. Lincoln
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