on, he wrote: "Massachusetts is a sovereign and
independent State; and it is no privilege of mine to scold her for
what she does. Still, if from what she has done, an inference is
sought to be drawn as to what I would do, I may, without impropriety,
speak out, I say then, that, as I understand the Massachusetts
provision, I am against its adoption in Illinois, or in any other
place where I have a right to oppose it. Understanding the spirit of
our institutions to aim at the elevation of men, I am opposed to
whatever tends to degrade them. I have some little notoriety for
commiserating the oppressed condition of the negro; and I should be
strangely inconsistent if I could favor any project for curtailing the
existing rights of white men, even though born in different lands, and
speaking different languages from myself. As to the matter of fusion,
I am for it, if it can be had on Republican grounds; and I am not for
it on any other terms. A fusion on any other terms would be as foolish
and unprincipled. It would lose the whole North, while the common
enemy would still carry the whole South. The question of men is a
different one. There are good patriotic men and able statesmen in the
South whom I would cheerfully support, if they would now place
themselves on Republican ground, but I am against letting down the
Republican standard a hair's breadth."

The other was a somewhat longer letter, to a Boston committee which
had invited him to a festival in honor of Jefferson's birthday.
"Bearing in mind that about seventy years ago two great political
parties were first formed in this country; that Thomas Jefferson was
the head of one of them, and Boston the headquarters of the other, it
is both curious and interesting that those supposed to descend
politically from the party opposed to Jefferson, should now be
celebrating his birthday, in their own original seat of empire, while
those claiming political descent from him have nearly ceased to
breathe his name everywhere...."

[Sidenote] Lincoln to Pierce and others, April 6, 1859.

"But, soberly, it is now no child's play to save the principles of
Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation. One would state with
great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the
simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but nevertheless he would
fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms.
The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of fre