Page 7 - Civil War Curriculum Book

Letter to George Robertson, 1855

Judge George Robertson was a lawyer, professor of law, and former Congressman from Kentucky, who
had once served as legal counsel for Lincoln in the matter of his father-in-law's will. Robertson at one
point gave Lincoln a copy of his speeches and writings on slavery and other topics, and that precipitated
this letter.

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 dayCCfor 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 Text taken from Roy Basler (editor), The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol.

II, pp. 317-319.