Annotation
[1] AD, owned by Norman B. Frost, Washington, D.C. Mr. Frost writes (letter to the editor, April 19, 1948) as follows: ``At the time he gave the notes to me, they were in an envelope bearing on the outside the following in Mr. Robert Lincoln's handwriting: `A. L. Douglas Speech Notes.''' Unable to find any particular speech in which the fragments occur verbatim, the editors have supplied a probable date based on the contents of the first and second fragments. The earliest similar reference to the contents of the first fragment is in Lincoln's letter to Lyman Trumbull, December 11, 1858, supra, and Lincoln may well have used this fragment at any time during 1859 or the early months of 1860. The second fragment with its reference to Douglas' article in Harper's for September, 1859, at the earliest would seem to be contemporary with the speech at Columbus, Ohio, September 16, 1859, in which Lincoln makes much the same point concerning Douglas' phrase about the ``fathers who framed the government under which we live.'' But Lincoln continued to refer to Douglas' article and Columbus speech in the speeches in Kansas in December, 1859, and made of the argument a major theme in his address at Cooper Institute, February 27, 1860. The third fragment might well have been jotted down at any time between December, 1858, and March, 1860.