se of all this is made true.
We encourage the hearts and nerve the arms of the twelve thousand to
adhere to their work, and argue for it, and proselyte for it, and fight
for it, and feed it, and grow it, and ripen it to a complete success.
The colored man too, in seeing all united for him, is inspired with
vigilance, and energy, and daring, to the same end. Grant that he
desires the elective franchise, will he not attain it sooner by saving
the already advanced steps toward it than by running backward over
them? Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it
should be as the egg is to the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by
hatching the egg than by smashing it.

Again, if we reject Louisiana we also reject one vote in favor of the
proposed amendment to the national Constitution. To meet this
proposition it has been argued that no more than three-fourths of those
States which have not attempted secession are necessary to validly
ratify the amendment. I do not commit myself against this further than
to say that such a ratification would be questionable, and sure to be
persistently questioned, while a ratification by three-fourths of all
the States would be unquestioned and unquestionable. I repeat the
question: Can Louisiana be brought into proper practical relation with
the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new State
government? What has been said of Louisiana will apply generally to
other States. And yet so great peculiarities pertain to each State,
and such important and sudden changes occur in the same State, and
withal so new and unprecedented is the whole case that no exclusive and
inflexible plan can safely be prescribed as to details and collaterals.
Such exclusive and inflexible plan would surely become a new
entanglement. Important principles may and must be inflexible.

In the present situation, as the phrase goes, it may be my duty to make
some new announcement to the people of the South. I am considering,
and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will be proper.

FROM A LETTER TO J. W. FELL, DECEMBER 20, 1859

I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents
were born in Virginia, of undistinguished families--second families,
perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a
family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams, and
others in Macon County, Illinois. My paternal grandfather, Abraham