eir candor. But they never vote that way. Although in
a private letter or conversation you will express your preference that
Kansas shall be free, you would vote for no man for Congress who would say
the same thing publicly. No such man could be elected from any district
in a slave State. You think Stringfellow and company ought to be hung; and
yet at the next Presidential election you will vote for the exact type and
representative of Stringfellow. The slave-breeders and slave-traders are
a small, odious, and detested class among you; and yet in politics they
dictate the course of all of you, and are as completely your masters as
you are the master of your own negroes. You inquire where I now stand.
That is a disputed point. I think I am a Whig; but others say there are
no Whigs, and that I am an Abolitionist. When I was at Washington, I voted
for the Wilmot Proviso as good as forty times; and I never heard of any
one attempting to un-Whig me for that. I now do no more than oppose the
extension of slavery. I am not a Know-Nothing; that is certain. How could
I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes be in favor of
degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to
me to be pretty rapid. As a nation we began by declaring that "all men
are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal,
except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men
are created equal, except negroes and foreigners and Catholics." When it
comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make
no pretense of loving liberty,--to Russia, for instance, where despotism
can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

Mary will probably pass a day or two in Louisville in October. My kindest
regards to Mrs. Speed. On the leading subject of this letter I have more
of her sympathy than I have of yours; and yet let me say I am,

Your friend forever,

A. LINCOLN.

1856

REQUEST FOR A RAILWAY PASS

TO R. P. MORGAN

SPRINGFIELD, February 13, 1856.

R. P. MORGAN, ESQ.:

Says Tom to John, "Here's your old rotten wheelbarrow. I've broke it usin'
on it. I wish you would mend it, 'case I shall want to borrow it this
arternoon." Acting on this as a precedent, I say, "Here's your old
'chalked hat,--I wish you would take it and send me a new one, 'case I
shall want to use it the first of March."

Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.

(A 'chal