Abraham Lincoln (November 1863) Photo by Alexander Gardner
Abraham Lincoln, “Letter to Joshua Speed” (August 24, 1855)
“When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.'”
Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed met in Springfield, Illinois, during the 1830s. Although Speed returned to his native Kentucky, they remained friends throughout life. In this letter, Lincoln expresses his thinking about slavery, which contrasted with Speed, who grew up on a plantation and owned slaves. The year before Lincoln wrote this letter, the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed Congress, repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and opened the territories to slavery. The passage of this bill proved a turning point in Lincoln’s career. As he observed, “I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again.”
Source and Complete Text: Abraham Lincoln Online
