st as hearty, his interest
just as real for the welfare of the men, as when he was among our own
soldiers."

X

FROM LINCOLN'S SPEECHES AND WRITINGS

LINCOLN'S LIFE AS WRITTEN BY HIMSELF

The compiler of the "Dictionary of Congress" states that while
preparing that work for publication in 1858, he sent to Mr. Lincoln
the usual request for a sketch of his life, and received the following
reply:

"Born February 12, 1809, in Hardin Co., Kentucky.

Education Defective. Profession a Lawyer. Have been a Captain of
Volunteers in Black Hawk War. Postmaster at a very small office. Four
times a member of the Illinois Legislature, and was a member of the
Lower House of Congress.

Yours, etc.
A. Lincoln."

THE INJUSTICE OF SLAVERY

(_Speech at Peoria, Ill., October 16, 1854_)

This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert zeal, for the
spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the
monstrous injustice of slavery itself; I hate it because it deprives
our republic of an example of its just influence in the world; enables
the enemies of free institutions with plausibility to taunt us as
hypocrites; causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity;
and, especially, because it forces so many really good men among
ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of
civil liberty, criticising the Declaration of Independence and
insisting that there is no right principle of action but
self-interest.

The doctrine of self-government is right,--absolutely and eternally
right,--but it has no just application, as here attempted. Or,
perhaps, I should rather say, that whether it has such just
application depends upon whether a negro is not, or is, a man. If he
is not a man, in that case he who is a man may, as a matter of
self-government, do just what he pleases with him. But if the negro is
a man, is it not to that extent a total destruction of self-government
to say that he, too, shall not govern himself?

When the white man governs himself that is self-government; but when
he governs himself, and also governs another man, that is more than
self-government--that is despotism.

What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man
without that other's consent.

The master not only governs the slave without his consent, but he
governs him by a set of rule