of five hundred dollars. This, too, is exclusive of my ordinary expenses during the campaign, all of which, being added to my loss of time and business, bears pretty heavily upon one no better off in [this] world's goods than I; but as I had the post of honor, it is not for me to be over nice. You are feeling badly,-"And this too shall pass away," never fear. Yours as ever, A. LINCOLN. TO H. ASBURY. HENRY ASBURY, Esq. SPRINGFIELD, November 19, 1858. DEAR SIR: Yours of the 13th was received some days ago. The fight must go on. The cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at the end of one or even one hundred defeats. Douglas had the ingenuity to be supported in the late contest both as the best means to break down and to uphold the slave interest. No ingenuity can keep these antagonistic elements in harmony long. Another explosion will soon come. TO C. H. RAY. Yours truly, A. LINCOLN. DR. C. H. RAY. SPRINGFIELD, Nov. 20, 1858. MY DEAR SIR:-I wish to preserve a set of the late debates (if they may be called so), between Douglas and myself. To enable me to do so, please get two copies of each number of your paper containing the whole, and send them to me by express; and I will pay you for the papers and for your trouble. I wish the two sets in order to lay one away in the fundecipherable word] and to put the other in a scrapbook. Remember, if part of any debate is on both sides of the sheet it will take two sets to make one scrap-book. I believe, according to a letter of yours to Hatch, you are "feeling like h-ll yet." Quit that-you will soon feel better. Another "blow up" is coming; and we shall have fun again. Douglas managed to be supported both as the best instrument to put down and to uphold the slave power; but no ingenuity can long keep the antagonism in harmony. Yours as ever, A. LINCOLN. TO H. D. SHARPE. Springfield, Dec. 8, 1858. H. D. SHARPE, Esq. DEAR SIR:-Your very kind letter of Nov. 9th was duly received. I do not know that you expected or desired an answer; but glancing over the contents of yours again, I am prompted to say that, while I desired the result of the late canvass to have been different, I still regard it as an exceeding small matter. I think we have fairly entered upon a durable struggle as to whether this nation is to ultimately become all slave or all free, and though I fall early in the contest, it is nothing if I shall have contributed, in the least degree, to the final rightful result. Respectfully yours, A. LINCOLN. TO A. SYMPSON. SPRINGFIELD, Dec. 12, 1858. ALEXANDER SYMPSON, Esq. MY DEAR SIR:-I expect the result of the election went hard with you. So it did with me, too, perhaps not quite so hard as you may have supposed. I have an abiding faith that we shall beat them in the long run. Step by step the objects of the leaders will become too plain for the people to stand them. I write merely to let you know that I am neither dead nor dying. Please give my respects to your good family, and all inquiring friends. Yours as ever, A. LINCOLN. NOTES OF AN ARGUMENT. December [?], 1858. Legislation and adjudication must follow and conform to the progress of society. The progress of society now begins to produce cases of the transfer for debts of the entire property of railroad corporations; and to enable transferees to use and enjoy the transferred property legislation and adjudication begin to be necessary. Shall this class of legislation just now beginning with us be general or special? Section Ten of our Constitution requires that it should be general, if possible. (Read the section.) Special legislation always trenches upon the judicial department; and in so far violates Section Two of the Constitution. (Read it.) Just reasoning-policy-is in favor of general legislation-else the Legislature will be loaded down with the investigation of smaller cases-a work which the courts ought to perform, and can perform much more perfectly. How can the Legislature rightly decide the facts between P. & B. and S. C. & Co. It is said that under a general law, whenever a R. R. Co. gets tired of its debts, it may transfer fraudulently to get rid of them. So they may—so may individuals; and which-the Legislature or the courts-is best suited to try the question of fraud in either case? It is said, if a purchaser have acquired legal rights, let him not be robbed of them, but if he needs legislation let him submit to just terms to obtain it. Let him, say we, have general law in advance (guarded in every possible way against fraud), so that, when he acquires a legal right, he will have no occasion to wait for additional legislation; and if he has practised fraud let the courts so decide. A LEGAL OPINION BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN. The 11th Section of the Act of Congress, approved Feb. 11, 1805, prescribing rules for the subdivision of sections of land within the United States system of surveys, standing unrepealed, in my opinion, is binding on the respective purchasers of different parts of the same section, and furnishes the true rule for surveyors in establishing lines between them. That law, being in force at the time each became a purchaser, becomes a condition of the purchase. And, by that law, I think the true rule for dividing into quarters any interior section or sections, which is not fractional, is to run straight lines through the section from the opposite quarter section corners, fixing the point where such straight lines cross, or intersect each other, as the middle or centre of the section. Nearly, perhaps quite, all the original surveys are to some extent erroneous, and in some of the sections, greatly so. In each of the latter, it is obvious that a more equitable mode of division than the above might be adopted; but as error is infinitely various perhaps no better single rules can be prescribed. At all events I think the above has been prescribed by the competent authority. SPRINGFIELD, Jany. 6, 1859. A. LINCOLN. TO M. W. DELAHAY. SPRINGFIELD, March 4, 1859. M. W. DELAHAY, Esq. MY DEAR SIR:-Your second letter in relation to my being with you at your Republican convention |