tween your old and
new constitutions, and also whether Democratic and Republican party
lines were drawn in the adoption of it, and which were for and which were
against it. If, by possibility, I could get over among you it might be of
some advantage to know these things in advance.

Yours very truly,

A. LINCOLN.

ARGUMENT IN THE ROCK ISLAND BRIDGE CASE.

(From the Daily Press of Chicago, Sept. 24, 1857.)

Hurd et al. vs Railroad Bridge Co.

United States Circuit Court, Hon. John McLean, Presiding Judge.

13th day, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 1857.

Mr. A. Lincoln addressed the jury. He said he did not purpose to assail
anybody, that he expected to grow earnest as he proceeded but not
ill-natured. "There is some conflict of testimony in the case," he said,
"but one quarter of such a number of witnesses seldom agree, and even if
all were on one side some discrepancy might be expected. We are to try and
reconcile them, and to believe that they are not intentionally erroneous
as long as we can." He had no prejudice, he said, against steamboats or
steamboat men nor any against St. Louis, for he supposed they went about
this matter as other people would do in their situation. "St. Louis," he
continued, "as a commercial place may desire that this bridge should not
stand, as it is adverse to her commerce, diverting a portion of it from
the river; and it may be that she supposes that the additional cost of
railroad transportation upon the productions of Iowa will force them to
go to St. Louis if this bridge is removed. The meetings in St. Louis are
connected with this case only as some witnesses are in it, and thus has
some prejudice added color to their testimony." The last thing that would
be pleasing to him, Mr. Lincoln said, would be to have one of these great
channels, extending almost from where it never freezes to where it never
thaws, blocked up, but there is a travel from east to west whose demands
are not less important than those of the river. It is growing larger and
larger, building up new countries with a rapidity never before seen in the
history of the world. He alluded to the astonishing growth of Illinois,
having grown within his memory to a population of a million and a half; to
Iowa and the other young rising communities of the Northwest.

"This current of travel," said he, "has its rights as well as that of
north and south. If the river had not the advantage in priority and
legislation we could enter