Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Stephen Douglas, December 1, 1856

    Type
    Letter
    Date Certainty
    Estimated
    Transcriber
    Adapted by Matthew Pinsker, Dickinson College
    Transcription date
    The following text is presented here in complete form, as it originally appeared in print. Spelling and typographical errors have been preserved as in the original.
    [December, 1856?]
     
    Twenty-two years ago Judge Douglas and I first became acquainted. We were both young then; he a trifle younger than I. Even then, we were both ambitious; I, perhaps, quite as much so as he. With me, the race of ambition has been a failure---a flat failure; with him it has been one of splendid success. His name fills the nation; and is not unknown, even, in foreign lands. I affect no contempt for the high eminence he has reached. So reached, that the oppressed of my species, might have shared with me in the elevation, I would rather stand on that eminence, than wear the richest crown that ever pressed a monarch's brow.
    How to Cite This Page: "Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Stephen Douglas, December 1, 1856," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/40526.