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 ‘chalked hat’ was the common term, at that time, for a railroad pass.)

Speech delivered before the first republican
state convention of Illinois,
held at Bloomington, on may 29, 1856.

[From the Report by William C. Whitney.]

(Mr. Whitney’s notes were made at the time, but not written out until 1896.  He does not claim that the speech, as here reported, is literally correct only that he has followed the argument, and that in many cases the sentences are as Mr. Lincoln spoke them.)

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen:  I was over at [Cries of “Platform!” “Take the platform!"]—­I say, that while I was at Danville Court, some of our friends of Anti-Nebraska got together in Springfield and elected me as one delegate to represent old Sangamon with them in this convention, and I am here certainly as a sympathizer in this movement and by virtue of that meeting and