may be swept away. Broken by it I, too, may be; bow to it I never
will. The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to
deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not
deter me. If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those
dimensions not wholly unworthy of its almighty Architect, it is when I
contemplate the cause of my country deserted by all the world beside,
and I standing up boldly and alone, and hurling defiance at her
victorious oppressors. Here, without contemplating consequences, before
high heaven and in the face of the world, I swear eternal fidelity to
the just cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life, my liberty, and
my love. And who that thinks with me will not fearlessly adopt the oath
that I take? Let none falter who thinks he is right, and we may succeed.
But if, after all, we shall fail, be it so. We still shall have the
proud consolation of saying to our consciences, and to the departed
shade of our country's freedom, that the cause approved of our judgment,
and adored of our hearts, in disaster, in chains, in torture, in death,
we never faltered in defending.

TO JOHN T. STUART.

SPRINGFIELD, December 23, 1839.

DEAR STUART:

Dr. Henry will write you all the political news. I write this about some
little matters of business. You recollect you told me you had drawn the
Chicago Masark money, and sent it to the claimants. A hawk-billed Yankee
is here besetting me at every turn I take, saying that Robert Kinzie
never received the eighty dollars to which he was entitled. Can you tell
me anything about the matter? Again, old Mr. Wright, who lives up South
Fork somewhere, is teasing me continually about some deeds which he says
he left with you, but which I can find nothing of. Can you tell me where
they are? The Legislature is in session and has suffered the bank to
forfeit its charter without benefit of clergy. There seems to be little
disposition to resuscitate it.

Whenever a letter comes from you to Mrs.____________ I carry it to her,
and then I see Betty; she is a tolerable nice "fellow" now. Maybe I will
write again when I get more time.

Your friend as ever, A. LINCOLN

P. S.--The Democratic giant is here, but he is not much worth talking
about. A.L.

1840

CIRCULAR FROM WHIG COMMITTEE.

Confidential.

January [1?], 1840.

To MESSRS ------

GENTLEMEN:--In obedience to a resolution of the Whig State convent