Now he had carefully drawn up a bill embracing these three separate propositions, which he intended to propose as a substitute for all these bills in the House, or in Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union, at some suitable time.  If there was a disposition on the part of the House to act at once on this separate proposition, he repeated that, with the gentlemen from Arkansas, he should prefer it lest they should lose all.  But if there was to be a reference, he desired to introduce his bill embracing the three propositions, thus enabling the committee and the House to act at the same time, whether favorably or unfavorably, upon all.  He inquired whether an amendment was now in order.

The Speaker replied in the negative.

TO ARCHIBALD WILLIAMS.

Washington, April 30, 1848.

Dear Williams:—­I have not seen in the papers any evidence of a movement to send a delegate from your circuit to the June convention.  I wish to say that I think it all-important that a delegate should be sent.  Mr. Clay’s chance for an election is just no chance at all.  He might get New York, and that would have elected in 1844, but it will not now, because he must now, at the least, lose Tennessee, which he had then, and in addition the fifteen new votes of Florida, Texas, Iowa, and Wisconsin.  I know our good friend Browning is a great admirer of Mr. Clay, and I therefore fear he is favoring his nomination.  If he is, ask him to discard feeling, and try if he can possibly, as a matter of judgment, count the votes necessary to elect him.

In my judgment we can elect nobody but General Taylor; and we cannot elect him without a nomination.  Therefore don’t fail to send a delegate.

Your friend as ever,

A. Lincoln.

REMARKS IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

May 11, 1848.

A bill for the admission of Wisconsin into the Union had been passed.

Mr. Lincoln moved to reconsider the vote by which the bill was passed.  He stated to the House that he had made this motion for the purpose of obtaining an opportunity to say a few words in relation to a point raised in the course of the debate on this bill, which he would now proceed to make if in order.  The point in the case to which he referred arose on the amendment that was submitted by the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Collamer] in Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union, and which was afterward renewed in the House, in relation to the question whether the reserved sections, which, by some bills heretofore passed, by which an appropriation of land had been made to Wisconsin, had been enhanced in value, should be reduced to the minimum price of the public lands.  The question of the reduction in value of those sections was to him at this time a matter very nearly of indifference.