Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 1.

About this Item

Title
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 1.
Author
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865.
Publication
New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press
1953.
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"Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 1." In the digital collection Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln1. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed March 19, 2024.

Pages

Annotation

[1]   AD, DLC-RTL. The order in which these fragments are printed follows the arrangement of Nicolay and Hay. The date subscribed by Nicolay and Hay has been kept, but it is obvious from Lincoln's own parenthetical note at the end that these ``scraps'' were not all written at the same time.

[2]   Another draft of this particular fragment is not included in Nicolay and Hay. It reads as follows: ``First, then, as to useless labour. But what is useless labour? I suppose, then, that all labour done directly and incidentally in carrying articles from the place of their production to a distant place for consumption, which articles, could be produced of as good quality, and sufficient quantity, with as little labour at the place of consumption, as at the place carried from, is useless labour. Applying this principle to our own country b[y] an example, let us suppose that A and B are a Pennsylvania farmer, and a Pennsylvania iron-maker, whose lands are adjoining. Under the protective policy A is furnishing B. with bread and meat, and vegetables and fruits, and food for horses and oxen, and fresh supplies of horses and oxen themselves occasionally, and receiving, in exchange all the iron, iron utensils, tools and implements he needs. In this process of exchange, each receives the whole of what the other parts with. But the change comes. The protective policy is abandoned (how, and under what expect[at]ion, I will hereafter try to show) and A. determines, for the future, to buy his supply of iron and iron fabrics of C an iron-maker in England. This he can only do by a direct or an indirect exchange of the products of his farm for them. The direct exchange is supposed to be adopted. In a certain instance of this sort, A desires to exchange ten barrels of flour, the precise product of one hundred days labour, for the greatest quantity of iron he can get; C, also wishes to exchange the precise product of one hundred days labour, in iron, for the greatest quantity of flour he can get. But before the exchange can take place, the flour must be carried from Penna. to England, and the iron from England to Pennsylvania. The flour starts. The waggoner who hauls it to Philadelphia, takes a part of it to pay him for his labour; then a merchant there, takes a little more for storage and forwarding commission, and another takes a little more for insurance; and then the shipowner carries it across the water, and takes a little more of it for his trouble; still before it reaches C it is tolled two or three times more for storage, drayage, commission and so on; so that when C gets [it, there are] but seven barrels and a half of it left. The iron, too, in it's transit from England to Pennsylvania, goes through the same process of tolling; so that when it reaches A, there are but three qua[rters] of it left. Now, this carrying labour, was generally useless in this that it diminished the quantity, while it added nothing to the quality of the articles carried; and it was useless to A because, by continuing to buy of B, it needed not to be done.''

[3]   This parenthetical comment in Lincoln's own hand was presumably written during the summer of 1860, at which time these scraps seem to have been sent to Simon Cameron by David Davis. Nicolay's list of ``The Carpet-Bag Papers,'' preserved in the Robert Todd Lincoln Collection, lists these ``Eleven foolscap halfsheets of notes and memoranda with two endorsements as follows:

`` `The foregoing paper was written by Lincoln in 1848 as being what he thought Genl. Taylor ought to say.' also

`` `The foregoing scraps about protection were written by Lincoln between his election to Congress in 1846 and taking his seat in 1847.'

``They were enclosed in an envelop addressed to Hon David Davis, Bloomington Ill. under frank of `Simon Cameron U.SS.' ''

The first of these endorsements applies to the fragment printed infra under date of [July 1, 1848]; the second applies to the document under consideration here.

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