To Peter Page1Jump to section
Dear Sir: While an almost overwhelming amount of business and correspondence has prevented my sooner answering your letter of the 3d inst., you may rest assured that it has neither been forgotten nor overlooked. Permit me now to return you my heartfelt thanks for your very generous offer of both personal service and pecuniary aid, to secure my inauguration. While it is a very gratifying personal compliment to myself, I prize it more highly as an evidence of the public loyalty and devotion to our Government which I am confident almost unanimously pervades the people of this state. Happily, I think there is no immediate necessity for employing the proffered help, and while I hope the ten thousand dollars you propose to give may always be employed in the peaceful channels of business or commerce, I am pleased to have the assurance that in the event of trouble or danger, you and others stand ready to give both your lives and your fortunes to the defense and maintenance of the government and the Union. Your obedient Servant, A. LINCOLN.
Annotation
[1] Hertz, II, 802. Peter Page, a real estate dealer in Chicago, wrote January 3 to offer his personal services as a bodyguard and to be ``one of one hundred in Chicago to raise ten thousand dollars each rather than to submit to the humiliating demands of the South. . . . '' (DLC-RTL).