LINCOLN'S INAUGURALS, ADDRESSES AND LETTERS

ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF SANGAMON COUNTY, MARCH 9, 1832

FELLOW-CITIZENS: Having become a candidate for the honorable office of
one of your representatives in the next General Assembly of this state,
in accordance with an established custom and the principles of true
republicanism, it becomes my duty to make known to you--the people whom
I propose to represent--my sentiments with regard to local affairs.

Time and experience have verified to a demonstration, the public
utility of internal improvements. That the poorest and most thinly
populated countries would be greatly benefited by the opening of good
roads, and in the clearing of navigable streams within their limits, is
what no person will deny. But yet it is folly to undertake works of
this or any other kind, without first knowing that we are able to
finish them--as half finished work generally proves to be labor lost.
There cannot justly be any objection to having railroads and canals,
any more than to other good things, provided they cost nothing. The
only objection is to paying for them; and the objection to paying
arises from the want of ability to pay.

With respect to the county of Sangamon, some more easy means of
communication than we now possess, for the purpose of facilitating the
task of exporting the surplus products of its fertile soil, and
importing necessary articles from abroad, are indispensably necessary.
A meeting has been held of the citizens of Jacksonville, and the
adjacent country, for the purpose of deliberating and enquiring into
the expediency of constructing a railroad from some eligible point on
the Illinois river, through the town of Jacksonville, in Morgan county,
to the town of Springfield in Sangamon county. This is, indeed, a very
desirable object. No other improvement that reason will justify us in
hoping for, can equal in utility the railroad. It is a never failing
source of communication, between places of business remotely situated
from each other. Upon the railroad the regular progress of commercial
intercourse is not interrupted by either high or low water, or freezing
weather, which are the principal difficulties that render our future
hopes of water communication precarious and uncertain. Yet, however
desirable an object the construction of a railroad through our country
may be; however high our imaginations may be heated at thoughts of
it--there is always a he