Photoessay #29 - Restored Lincoln Letter

Here is a picture of the restored Lincoln Letter


Executive Mansion
Dec. 3, 1861

Hon. Sec. of State
My dear Sir:

Enclosed are three resolutions two of the House of Representatives and one of the Senate. Passed at the last session and required to be answered at (???)

I believe your Department is the place to look for the means of answering all of these. Will you please attend to it?

Yours truly
A. Lincoln

A full scan of the letter can be found at

http://www.papersofabrahamlincoln.org/Document%20Images/229634-01.jpg

This letter was restored at a studio in Chicago (Graphic Conservation Company) which specializes in old historical documents. They were able to sever the letter from the poor backing and framing and get rid of some of discoloration. It is mounted with archival quality paper and plastic for safekeeping.

Apparently the Congress had passed a resolution in 1861, instructing the Secretary of State to prepare a quarterly report to the Congress regarding the state of the Confederacy. There are later documents from William H. Seward, Secretary of State, informing Congress that it would endanger national security for his office to do so. I don't have the report that Seward prepared. This letter was a small missing link, where Lincoln wrote to Seward asking him to deal with the matter.

This letter was previously unknown though historians likely knew it existed. It has been added to canon of "Papers of Abraham Lincoln" administered by the Abraham Lincoln Library in Springfield, IL. The Library sent personnel to my parents' home in Rockford IL to scan the letter.

The authenticity of the letter was not questioned as it fit so neatly into an historical niche. A letter written in 1861 from Lincoln to Seward asking him to attend to matters of a Congressional bill. You would have to know a lot of background to fake this. Lincoln also gave his State of the Union Address on this same day (December 3, 1861). Very interesting reading actually, didn't find a reference to this matter, however there is a fascinating discussion about the relationship between capital and labor, notably a condemnation of the superiority of capital, especially in government matters and a refutation of the idea that someone who is a hired laborer will forever be in that state.

I don't know what the context of these paragraphs are (which I am including below). Clearly there was some controversy going on at that time which caused Lincoln to make such a lengthy inclusion in his speech. I wonder if the current administration would have the same attitude towards holders of capital.

Lincoln sees those who hold capital and those who are hired laborer as two distinct groups. From his 1861 view, he asserts "A large majority belong to neither class--neither work for others nor have others working for them." Most American are working on their farms are in their small shops. Is that the case today? I would like to know more about the context of these statements.

It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions, but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.

Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.

Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for them. A large majority belong to neither class--neither work for others nor have others working for them. In most of the Southern States a majority of the whole people of all colors are neither slaves nor masters, while in the Northern a large majority are neither hirers nor hired. Men, with their families--wives, sons, and daughters--work for themselves on their farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand nor of hired laborers or slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their own labor with capital; that is, they labor with their own hands and also buy or hire others to labor for them; but this is only a mixed and not a distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed class.

Again, as has already been said, there is not of necessity any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life. Many independent men everywhere in these States a few years back in their lives were hired laborers. The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress and improvement of condition to all. No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty; none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which if surrendered will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost.