President Lincoln Writes London Workers

February 2, 1863

President Lincoln responded to a letter from London workingmen regarding emancipation: “We have watched with the warmest interest the steady advance of your policy along the path of emancipation; and on the eve of the day on which your proclamation of freedom takes effect, we pray God to strengthen your hands, to confirm your noble purpose, and to hasten the restoration of that lawful authority which engages, in peace or war, by compensation or by force of arms, to realize the glorious principle on which your Constitution is founded—the brotherhood, freedom and equality of all men.”  President Lincoln wrote in response:

I have received the new year’s address which you have sent me with a sincere appreciation of the exalted and humane sentiments by which it was inspired.

As those sentiments are manifestly the enduring support of the free institutions of England, so I am sure also that they constitute the only reliable basis for free institutions throughout the world.

The resources, advantages, and powers of the American people are very great, and they have, consequently, succeeded to equally great responsibilities.  It seems to have devolved upon them to test whether a government, established on the principles of human freedom, can be maintained against an effort to build one upon the exclusive foundation of human bondage.

They will rejoice with me in the new evidences which your proceedings furnish, that the magnamity they are exhibiting is justly estimated by the true friends of freedom and humanity in foreign countries.

Accept my best wishes for your individual welfare, and for the welfare and unhappiness of the whole British people.

Wisconsin Senator James  Doolittle visits the White House to press for a constituent to be appointed to West Point.  President Lincoln wrote: “To-day Senator Doolittle, Mrs. Spaulding, and Col. Root, call and ask that Eliphalet Nott Chester, of Buffalo N.Y. 17 the 18th. of next July, be sent to West-Point.  Two of his brothers have served in this war, (one of them still in the service) and he, as a private, has been through the battles of South-Mountain, Antietam, and Fredericksburg. Col. Root is his Col., and gives the strongest testimony, both as to his general worthiness, and his particular talent for Military matters.”

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