Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 4 [Mar. 5, 1860-Oct. 24, 1861].

About this Item

Title: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 4 [Mar. 5, 1860-Oct. 24, 1861].
Author: Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865.
Publication: New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press; 1953.
Rights/Permissions: The University of Michigan Library provides access to these materials for educational and research purposes, with permission from their copyright holder. If you decide to use any of these materials, you are responsible for making your own legal assessment and securing any necessary permission.
Link to this Item: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/lincoln4
Cite this Item: "Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 4 [Mar. 5, 1860-Oct. 24, 1861]." In the digital collection Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/lincoln4. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 6, 2025.

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To Truman Smith1Jump to section

Private & confidential. Hon. Truman Smith Springfield Ill Nov 10th 1860.

My dear Sir This is intended as a strictly private letter to you, and not as an answer to yours brought me by Mr. Sanford.2Jump to section It is with the most profound appreciation of your motive, and highest respect for your judgment too, that I feel constrained, for the present, at least, to make no declaration for the public.

First, I could say nothing which I have not already said, and which is in print, and open for the inspection of all. To press a repetition of this upon those who have listened, is useless; to press it upon those who have refused to listen, and still refuse, would be wanting in self-respect, and would have an appearance of sycophancy and timidity, which would excite the contempt of good men, and encourage bad ones to clamor the more loudly.

I am not insensible to any commercial or financial depression that may exist; but nothing is to be gained by fawning around the ``respectable scoundrels'' who got it up. Let them go to work and repair the mischief of their own making; and then perhaps they will be less greedy to do the like again. Yours very truly

A. LINCOLN.

Annotation

[1] Copy, DLC-RTL. Ex-representative (1839-1843, 1845-1849) and Senator (1849-1854) Truman Smith of Stamford, Connecticut, wrote on November 7, urging Lincoln to make a public statement `` . . . to disarm mischief makers, to

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allay causeless anxiety, to compose the public mind and to induce all good citizens to . . . `judge the tree by it's fruit'. . . . '' (DLC-RTL). See also Lincoln to George T. M. Davis, October 27, supra.

[2] Henry S. Sanford of Derby, Connecticut, charge d'affaires at Paris during President Taylor's administration, had carried a letter of introduction dated October 30, 1860 (DLC-RTL), but there is no other letter from Smith prior to that of November 7. Probably Sanford's mission was concerned with the same subject as Smith's letter of November 7.