You are now in need of some money; and what I propose is, that you shall go to work, “tooth and nail,” for somebody who will give you money for it.  Let father and your boys take charge of your things at home, prepare for a crop, and make the crop, and you go to work for the best money wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get; and, to secure you a fair reward for your labour, I now promise you, that for every dollar you will, between this and the first of May, get for your own labour, either in money or as your own indebtedness, I will then give you one other dollar.  By this, if you hire yourself at ten dollars a month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty dollars a month for your work.  In this I do not mean you shall go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines, or the gold mines in California, but I mean for you to go at it for the best wages you can get close to home in Coles County.  Now, if you will do this, you will be soon out of debt, and, what is better, you will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt again.  But, if I should now clear you out of debt, next year you would be just as deep in as ever.  You say you would almost give your place in heaven for seventy or eighty dollars.  Then you value your place in heaven very cheap, for I am sure you can, with the offer I make, get the seventy or eighty dollars for four or five months’ work.  You say if I will furnish you the money you will deed me the land, and, if you don’t pay the money back, you will deliver possession.  Nonsense!  If you can’t now live with the land, how will you then live without it?  You have always been kind to me, and I do not mean to be unkind to you.  On the contrary, if you will but follow my advice, you will find it worth more than eighty times eighty dollars to you.

Letter to John D. Johnston.  Shelbyville.  November 4, 1851

Dear Brother, When I came into Charleston day before yesterday, I learned that you are anxious to sell the land where you live and move to Missouri.  I have been thinking of this ever since, and cannot but think such a notion is utterly foolish.  What can you do in Missouri better than here?  Is the land any richer?  Can you there, any more than here, raise corn and wheat and oats without work?  Will anybody there, any more than here, do your work for you?  If you intend to go to work, there is no better place than right where you are; if you do not intend to go to work, you cannot get along anywhere.  Squirming and crawling about from place to place can do no good.  You have raised no crop this year; and what you really want is to sell the land, get the money, and spend it.  Part with the land you have, and, my life upon it, you will never after own a spot big enough to bury you in.  Half you will get for the land you will spend in moving to Missouri, and the other half you will eat, drink, and wear out, and no foot of land will be bought.  Now, I feel it my duty to have no hand in such a piece of foolery.