├── .gitignore ├── LICENSE ├── Lincoln ├── 01-first-public-speech-1832.txt ├── 02-letter-to-colonel-robert-allen-1836.txt ├── 03-opinion-on-universal-suffrage-1836.txt ├── 04-from-address-before-young-mens-lyceum-of-springfield-1837..txt ├── 05-letter-to-mrs-oh-browning-1838.txt ├── 06-from-debate-1839.txt ├── 07-letter-to-wg-anderson.txt ├── 08-extract-from-letter-to-john-t-stuart-1841.txt ├── 09-from-address-before-washington-tempoerance-society-1842.txt ├── 10-from-circule-of-whig-comm-address-to-people-of-illinois-1843.txt ├── 11-from-letter-to-martin-m-morris-1843.txt ├── 12-from-letter-to-joshua-f-speed-1846.txt ├── 13-from-letter-to-william-h-herndon-jan-1848.txt ├── 14-from-letter-to-william-h-herndon-june-1848.txt ├── 15-from-letter-to-william-h-herndon-july-1848.txt ├── 16-letter-to-john-d-johnston-jan-1851.txt ├── 17-letter-to-john-d-johnston-nov-151.txt.txt ├── 18-note-for-law-lecture-1850.txt ├── 19-a-fragment-1854.txt ├── 20-a-fragment-on-slavery-1854.txt ├── 21-reply-to-senator-douglas-at-peoria-origin-of-wilmot-proviso-1854.txt ├── 22-from-letter-to-george-robertson-1855.txt ├── 23-extracts-from-letter-to-joshua-f-speed-1855.txt ├── 24-speech-1856.txt ├── 25-from-speech-on-dred-scott-decision-1857.txt ├── 26-a-house-divided-against-itself-cannot-stand-1858.txt ├── 27-reply-to-judge-douglas-at-chicago-on-popular-sovereignty-1858.txt ├── 28-from-speech-at-springfield-1858.txt ├── 29-from-reply-to-douglas-first-joint-debate-ottawa-illinois-1858.txt ├── 30-reply-to-judge-douglas-in-second-joint-debate-freeport-illinois-1858.txt ├── 31-from-reply-at-jonesboro-1858.txt ├── 32-from-reply-to-judge-douglas-at-charleston-illinois-1858.txt ├── 33-from-reply-to-judge-douglas-at-gatesburg-illinois-1858.txt ├── 34-notes-for-speeches-1858.txt ├── 35-reply-to-judge-douglas-in-seventh-last-debate-alton-illinois-1858.txt ├── 36-from-speech-at-columbus-ohio-on-slave-trade-etc-1859.txt ├── 37-from-speech-at-cincinnati-on-intentions-of-black-republicans-etc-1859.txt ├── 38-from-letter-to-jw-fell-1859.txt ├── 39-from-address-at-cooper-institute-ny-1860.txt ├── 40-farewell-adress-at-springfield-illinois-1861.txt ├── 41-letter-to-george-ashmun-accepting-nomination-for-presidency-1860.txt ├── 42-letter-to-miss-grace-bedell-1860.txt ├── 43-from-address-to-legislature-at-indianapolis-1861.txt ├── 44-from-address-to-legislature-at-columbus-1861.txt ├── 45-from-remarks-at-pittsburgh-1861.txt ├── 46-from-speech-at-trenton-to-senate-of-new-jersey-1861.txt ├── 47-address-in-independence-hall-philadelphia-1861.txt ├── 48-reply-to-mayor-of-washington-dc-1861.txt ├── 49-first-inaugural-address-1861.txt ├── 50-address-at-utica-ny-1861.txt ├── 51-from-first-message-to-congress-special-session-july-4-1861.txt ├── 52-from-message-to-congress-regular-session-dec-3-1861.txt ├── 53-letter-to-general-gb-mcclellan-1862.txt ├── 54-proclamation-revoking-general-hunters-order-setting-slaves-free-1862.txt ├── 55-appeal-to-border-states-in-behalf-of-compensated-emancipation-1862.txt ├── 56-from-letter-to-cuthbert-bullitt-1862.txt ├── 57-from-letter-to-august-belmont-1862.txt ├── 58-letter-to-horace-greeley-1862.txt ├── 59-from-reply-to-chicago-committee-of-united-religious-denominations-1862.txt ├── 60-from-annual-message-to-congress-dec-1-1862.txt ├── 61-emancipation-proclamation-jan-1-1863.txt ├── 62-letter-to-general-grant-july-13-1863.txt ├── 63-letter-to-moulton-1863.txt ├── 64-letter-to-mrs-lincoln-aug-8-1863.txt ├── 65-letter-to-james-h-hackett-1863.txt ├── 66-note-to-secretary-stanton-nov-11-1863.txt ├── 67-letter-to-james-c-conkling-1863.txt ├── 68-proclamation-for-day-of-thanksgiving-oct-3-1863.txt ├── 69-gettysburg-address-nov-19-1863.txt ├── 70-from-annual-message-to-congress-dec-8-1863.txt ├── 71-letter-to-secretary-stanton-march-1-1864.txt ├── 72-letter-to-governor-michael-hahn-1864.txt ├── 73-address-at-fair-for-the-sanitary-commission-1864.txt ├── 74-letter-to-ag-hodges-1864.txt ├── 75-from-address-at-sanitary-fair-baltimore-1864.txt ├── 76-letter-to-general-grant-april-30-1864.txt ├── 77-from-address-to-166th-ohio-regiment-aug-22-1864.txt ├── 78-reply-to-a-serenade-nov-10-1864.txt ├── 79-letter-to-mrs-bixley-of-boston-nov-21-1864.txt ├── 80-letter-to-general-grant-jan-19-1865.txt ├── 81-second-inaugural-address-march-4-1865.txt ├── 82-letter-to-thurlow-weed-1865.txt ├── 83-from-address-to-an-indiana-regiment-march-17-1865.txt ├── 84-from-reply-to-a-serenade-lincolns-last-public-address-april-11-1865.txt └── Lincoln.zip ├── PyIndex.ipynb ├── README.md ├── src ├── .fuse_hidden0046f5eb000023ce ├── __init__.py ├── _compress.py ├── indices.py ├── manager.py ├── postings.py ├── svbcomp.cpython-34m.so ├── svbcomp.cpython-35m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so └── swhoosh.py └── streamvbyte ├── #setup.py# ├── .fuse_hidden00479bdc000023cd ├── .gitignore ├── .travis.yml ├── LICENSE ├── README.md ├── README_2.md ├── example ├── example.c ├── include ├── streamvbyte.h ├── streamvbytedelta.h ├── varintdecode.h └── varintencode.h ├── makefile ├── setup.py ├── src ├── streamvbyte.c ├── streamvbytedelta.c ├── varintdecode.c └── varintencode.c ├── svbcomp ├── svbcomp.c ├── svbcomp.pyx ├── test svbcomp.ipynb ├── tests └── unit.c └── unit /.gitignore: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # Byte-compiled / optimized / DLL files 2 | __pycache__/ 3 | *.py[cod] 4 | *$py.class 5 | 6 | # Jupyter Notebook 7 | .ipynb_checkpoints 8 | 9 | # other 10 | wind/* 11 | wind2/* 12 | randomIdx/* 13 | randomIdx2/* 14 | TCP-ECCO/ 15 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /LICENSE: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | MIT License 2 | 3 | Copyright (c) 2016 spitis 4 | 5 | Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy 6 | of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal 7 | in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights 8 | to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell 9 | copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is 10 | furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: 11 | 12 | The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all 13 | copies or substantial portions of the Software. 14 | 15 | THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR 16 | IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, 17 | FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE 18 | AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER 19 | LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, 20 | OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE 21 | SOFTWARE. 22 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/01-first-public-speech-1832.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or 2 | system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most 3 | important subject which we, as a people, can be engaged in. That every 4 | man may receive at least a moderate education, and thereby be enabled to 5 | read the histories of his own and other countries, by which he may duly 6 | appreciate the value of our free institutions, appears to be an object 7 | of vital importance, even on this account alone, to say nothing of the 8 | advantages and satisfaction to be derived from all being able to read 9 | the Scriptures and other works, both of a religious and moral nature, 10 | for themselves. 11 | 12 | For my part, I desire to see the time when education--and by its means 13 | morality, sobriety, enterprise, and industry--shall become much more 14 | general than at present; and should be gratified to have it in my power 15 | to contribute something to the advancement of any measure which might 16 | have a tendency to accelerate that happy period. 17 | 18 | With regard to existing laws, some alterations are thought to be 19 | necessary. Many respectable men have suggested that our estray laws--the 20 | law respecting the issuing of executions, the road law, and some 21 | others--are deficient in their present form, and require alterations. 22 | But considering the great probability that the framers of those laws 23 | were wiser than myself, I should prefer not meddling with them, unless 24 | they were first attacked by others, in which case I should feel it both 25 | a privilege and a duty to take that stand which, in my view, might tend 26 | to the advancement of justice. 27 | 28 | But, fellow-citizens, I shall conclude. Considering the great degree of 29 | modesty which should always attend youth, it is probable I have already 30 | been more presuming than becomes me. However, upon the subjects of which 31 | I have treated, I have spoken as I have thought. I may be wrong in 32 | regard to any or all of them; but, holding it a sound maxim that it is 33 | better only to be sometimes right than at all times wrong, so soon as I 34 | discover my opinions to be erroneous I shall be ready to renounce them. 35 | 36 | Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or 37 | not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so great as that of being 38 | truly esteemed of my fellow-men by rendering myself worthy of their 39 | esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be 40 | developed. I am young and unknown to many of you; I was born and have 41 | ever remained in the most humble walks of life. I have no wealthy or 42 | popular relations or friends to recommend me. My case is thrown 43 | exclusively upon the independent voters of the county, and if elected, 44 | they will have conferred a favour upon me for which I shall be 45 | unremitting in my labours to compensate. But if the good people in their 46 | wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too 47 | familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined. 48 | 49 | Your friend and fellow-citizen, 50 | A. LINCOLN. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/02-letter-to-colonel-robert-allen-1836.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Dear Colonel, I am told that during my absence last week you passed 2 | through this place, and stated publicly that you were in possession of a 3 | fact or facts which, if known to the public, would entirely destroy the 4 | prospects of N.W. Edwards and myself at the ensuing election; but that, 5 | through favour to us, you should forbear to divulge them. No one has 6 | needed favours more than I, and, generally, few have been less unwilling 7 | to accept them; but in this case favour to me would be injustice to the 8 | public, and therefore I must beg your pardon for declining it. That I 9 | once had the confidence of the people of Sangamon, is sufficiently 10 | evident; and if I have since done anything, either by design or 11 | misadventure, which if known would subject me to a forfeiture of that 12 | confidence, he that knows of that thing, and conceals it, is a traitor 13 | to his country's interest. 14 | 15 | I find myself wholly unable to form any conjecture of what fact or 16 | facts, real or supposed, you spoke; but my opinion of your veracity will 17 | not permit me for a moment to doubt that you at least believed what you 18 | said. I am flattered with the personal regard you manifested for me; but 19 | I do hope that, on more mature reflection, you will view the public 20 | interest as a paramount consideration, and therefore determine to let 21 | the worst come. I here assure you that the candid statement of facts on 22 | your part, however low it may sink me, shall never break the tie of 23 | personal friendship between us. I wish an answer to this, and you are at 24 | liberty to publish both, if you choose. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/03-opinion-on-universal-suffrage-1836.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | I go for all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in 2 | bearing its burdens: consequently I go for admitting all whites to the 3 | right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms [by no means excluding 4 | females]. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/04-from-address-before-young-mens-lyceum-of-springfield-1837..txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spitis/PyIndex/b4719440a4ff8e439d570a79067fd5e0eb66b7c0/Lincoln/04-from-address-before-young-mens-lyceum-of-springfield-1837..txt -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/05-letter-to-mrs-oh-browning-1838.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Dear Madam, Without apologising for being egotistical, I shall make the 2 | history of so much of my life as has elapsed since I saw you the subject 3 | of this letter. And, by the way, I now discover that in order to give a 4 | full and intelligible account of the things I have done and suffered 5 | since I saw you, I shall necessarily have to relate some that happened 6 | before. 7 | 8 | It was, then, in the autumn of 1836 that a married lady of my 9 | acquaintance, and who was a great friend of mine, being about to pay a 10 | visit to her father and other relatives residing in Kentucky, proposed 11 | to me that on her return she would bring a sister of hers with her on 12 | condition that I would engage to become her brother-in-law with all 13 | convenient dispatch. I, of course, accepted the proposal, for you know I 14 | could not have done otherwise had I really been averse to it; but 15 | privately, between you and me, I was most confoundedly well pleased with 16 | the project. I had seen the said sister some three years before, thought 17 | her intelligent and agreeable, and saw no good objection to plodding 18 | life through hand-in-hand with her. Time passed on, the lady took her 19 | journey, and in due time returned, sister in company, sure enough. This 20 | astonished me a little, for it appeared to me that her coming so readily 21 | showed that she was a trifle too willing, but on reflection it occurred 22 | to me that she might have been prevailed on by her married sister to 23 | come, without anything concerning me having been mentioned to her, and 24 | so I concluded that if no other objection presented itself, I would 25 | consent to waive this. All this occurred to me on hearing of her arrival 26 | in the neighbourhood--for, be it remembered, I had not yet seen her, 27 | except about three years previous, as above mentioned. In a few days we 28 | had an interview, and, although I had seen her before, she did not look 29 | as my imagination had pictured her. I knew she was over-size, but she 30 | now appeared a fair match for Falstaff. I knew she was called an "old 31 | maid," and I felt no doubt of the truth of at least half of the 32 | appellation, but now, when I beheld her, I could not for my life avoid 33 | thinking of my mother; and this, not from withered features,--for her 34 | skin was too full of fat to permit of its contracting into wrinkles--but 35 | from her want of teeth, weather-beaten appearance in general, and from a 36 | kind of notion that ran in my head that nothing could have commenced at 37 | the size of infancy and reached her present bulk in less than 38 | thirty-five or forty years; and, in short, I was not at all pleased with 39 | her. But what could I do? I had told her sister that I would take her 40 | for better or for worse, and I made a point of honour and conscience in 41 | all things to stick to my word, especially if others had been induced to 42 | act on it, which in this case I had no doubt they had, for I was now 43 | fairly convinced that no other man on earth would have her, and hence 44 | the conclusion that they were bent on holding me to my bargain. "Well," 45 | thought I, "I have said it, and, be the consequences what they may, it 46 | shall not be my fault if I fail to do it." At once I determined to 47 | consider her my wife, and this done, all my powers of discovery were put 48 | to work in search of perfections in her which might be fairly set off 49 | against her defects. I tried to imagine her handsome, which, but for her 50 | unfortunate corpulency, was actually true. Exclusive of this, no woman 51 | that I have ever seen has a finer face. I also tried to convince myself 52 | that the mind was much more to be valued than the person, and in this 53 | she was not inferior, as I could discover, to any with whom I had been 54 | acquainted. 55 | 56 | Shortly after this, without attempting to come to any positive 57 | understanding with her, I set out for Vandalia, when and where you first 58 | saw me. During my stay there I had letters from her which did not change 59 | my opinion of either her intellect or intention, but, on the contrary, 60 | confirmed it in both. 61 | 62 | All this while, although I was fixed "firm as the surge-repelling rock" 63 | in my resolution, I found I was continually repenting the rashness which 64 | had led me to make it. Through life I have been in no bondage, either 65 | real or imaginary, from the thraldom of which I so much desired to be 66 | free. After my return home I saw nothing to change my opinion of her in 67 | any particular. She was the same, and so was I. I now spent my time in 68 | planning how I might get along in life after my contemplated change of 69 | circumstances should have taken place, and how I might procrastinate the 70 | evil day for a time, which I really dreaded as much, perhaps more, than 71 | an Irishman does the halter. 72 | 73 | After all my sufferings upon this deeply interesting subject, here I 74 | am, wholly, unexpectedly, completely out of the "scrape," and I now want 75 | to know if you can guess how I got out of it--out, clear, in every sense 76 | of the term--no violation of word, honour, or conscience. I don't 77 | believe you can guess, and so I might as well tell you at once. As the 78 | lawyer says, it was done in the manner following, to wit: After I had 79 | delayed the matter as long as I thought I could in honour do (which, by 80 | the way, had brought me round into the last fall), I concluded I might 81 | as well bring it to a consummation without further delay, and so I 82 | mustered my resolution and made the proposal to her direct; but, 83 | shocking to relate, she answered, No. At first I supposed she did it 84 | through an affectation of modesty, which I thought but ill became her 85 | under the peculiar circumstances of the case, but on my renewal of the 86 | charge I found she repelled it with greater firmness than before. I 87 | tried it again and again, but with the same success, or rather with the 88 | same want of success. 89 | 90 | I finally was forced to give it up, at which I very unexpectedly found 91 | myself mortified almost beyond endurance. I was mortified, it seemed to 92 | me, in a hundred different ways. My vanity was deeply wounded by the 93 | reflection that I had so long been too stupid to discover her 94 | intentions, and at the same time never doubting that I understood them 95 | perfectly; and also that she, whom I had taught myself to believe nobody 96 | else would have, had actually rejected me with all my fancied greatness. 97 | And, to cap the whole, I then for the first time began to suspect that I 98 | was really a little in love with her. But let it all go! I'll try and 99 | outlive it. Others have been made fools of by the girls, but this can 100 | never in truth be said of me. I most emphatically, in this instance, 101 | made a fool of myself. I have now come to the conclusion never again to 102 | think of marrying, and for this reason--I can never be satisfied with 103 | any one who would be blockhead enough to have me. 104 | 105 | When you receive this, write me a long yarn about something to amuse me. 106 | Give my respects to Mr. Browning. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/06-from-debate-1839.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spitis/PyIndex/b4719440a4ff8e439d570a79067fd5e0eb66b7c0/Lincoln/06-from-debate-1839.txt -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/07-letter-to-wg-anderson.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Dear Sir, Your note of yesterday is received. In the difficulty between 2 | us of which you speak, you say you think I was the aggressor. I do not 3 | think I was. You say my "words imported insult." I meant them as a fair 4 | set-off to your own statements, and not otherwise; and in that light 5 | alone I now wish you to understand them. You ask for my present 6 | "feelings on the subject." I entertain no unkind feelings to you, and 7 | none of any sort upon the subject, except a sincere regret that I 8 | permitted myself to get into such an altercation. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/08-extract-from-letter-to-john-t-stuart-1841.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | For not giving you a general summary of news, you must pardon me; it is 2 | not in my power to do so. I am now the most miserable man living. If 3 | what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there 4 | would not be one cheerful face on earth. Whether I shall ever be better, 5 | I cannot tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is 6 | impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me. The matter you 7 | speak of on my account you may attend to as you say, unless you shall 8 | hear of my condition forbidding it. I say this because I fear I shall be 9 | unable to attend to any business here, and a change of scene might help 10 | me. If I could be myself, I would rather remain at home with Judge 11 | Logan. I can write no more. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/09-from-address-before-washington-tempoerance-society-1842.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Although the temperance cause has been in progress for nearly twenty 2 | years, it is apparent to all that it is just now being crowned with a 3 | degree of success hitherto unparalleled. 4 | 5 | The list of its friends is daily swelled by the additions of fifties, of 6 | hundreds, and of thousands. The cause itself seems suddenly transformed 7 | from a cold abstract theory to a living, breathing, active and powerful 8 | chieftain, going forth conquering and to conquer. The citadels of his 9 | great adversary are daily being stormed and dismantled; his temples and 10 | his altars, where the rites of his idolatrous worship have long been 11 | performed, and where human sacrifices have long been wont to be made, 12 | are daily desecrated and deserted. The trump of the conqueror's fame is 13 | sounding from hill to hill, from sea to sea, and from land to land, and 14 | calling millions to his standard at a blast. 15 | 16 | * * * * * 17 | 18 | "But," say some, "we are no drunkards, and we shall not acknowledge 19 | ourselves such by joining a reform drunkard's society, whatever our 20 | influence might be." Surely no Christian will adhere to this objection. 21 | 22 | If they believe, as they profess, that Omnipotence condescended to take 23 | on himself the form of sinful man, and, as such, to die an ignominious 24 | death for their sakes, surely they will not refuse submission to the 25 | infinitely lesser condescension for the temporal and perhaps eternal 26 | salvation of a large, erring, and unfortunate class of their 27 | fellow-creatures; nor is the condescension very great. In my judgment, 28 | such of us as have never fallen victims have been spared more from the 29 | absence of appetite, than from any mental or moral superiority over 30 | those who have. Indeed I believe, if we take habitual drunkards as a 31 | class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison 32 | with those of any other class. There seems ever to have been a proneness 33 | in the brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into this vice. The demon of 34 | intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius 35 | and generosity. What one of us but can call to mind some relative more 36 | promising in youth than all his fellows, who has fallen a sacrifice to 37 | his rapacity? He ever seems to have gone forth like the Egyptian angel 38 | of death, commissioned to slay, if not the first, the fairest born of 39 | every family. Shall he now be arrested in his desolating career? In that 40 | arrest all can give aid that will; and who shall be excused that can and 41 | will not? Far around as human breath has ever blown, he keeps our 42 | fathers, our brothers, our sons, and our friends prostrate in the chains 43 | of moral death.... 44 | 45 | When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind, 46 | unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and a true 47 | maxim "that a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall." 48 | So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him 49 | that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches 50 | his heart, which, say what you will, is the great high-road to his 51 | reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in 52 | convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause, if indeed that 53 | cause really be a just one. On the contrary, assume to dictate to his 54 | judgment, or to command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned 55 | and despised, and he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues 56 | to his head and his heart; and though your cause be naked truth itself, 57 | transformed to the heaviest lance, harder than steel, and sharper than 58 | steel can be made, and though you throw it with more than herculean 59 | force and precision, you shall be no more able to pierce him than to 60 | penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw. Such is man, 61 | and so must he be understood by those who would lead him, even to his 62 | own best interests.... 63 | 64 | Another error, as it seems to me, into which the old reformers fell, was 65 | the position that all habitual drunkards were utterly incorrigible, and 66 | therefore must be turned adrift and damned without remedy in order that 67 | the grace of temperance might abound, to the temperate then, and to all 68 | mankind some hundreds of years thereafter. There is in this something so 69 | repugnant to humanity, so uncharitable, so cold-blooded and feelingless, 70 | that it never did, nor never can enlist the enthusiasm of a popular 71 | cause. We could not love the man who taught it--we could not hear him 72 | with patience. The heart could not throw open its portals to it, the 73 | generous man could not adopt it--it could not mix with his blood. It 74 | looked so fiendishly selfish, so like throwing fathers and brothers 75 | overboard to lighten the boat for our security, that the noble-minded 76 | shrank from the manifest meanness of the thing. And besides this, the 77 | benefits of a reformation to be effected by such a system were too 78 | remote in point of time to warmly engage many in its behalf. Few can be 79 | induced to labour exclusively for posterity; and none will do it 80 | enthusiastically. Posterity has done nothing for us; and theorize on it 81 | as we may, practically we shall do very little for it, unless we are 82 | made to think we are at the same time doing something for ourselves. 83 | 84 | What an ignorance of human nature does it exhibit, to ask or expect a 85 | whole community to rise up and labour for the temporal happiness of 86 | others, after themselves shall be consigned to the dust, a majority of 87 | which community take no pains whatever to secure their own eternal 88 | welfare at no more distant day! Great distance in either time or space 89 | has wonderful power to lull and render quiescent the human mind. 90 | Pleasures to be enjoyed, or pains to be endured, after we shall be dead 91 | and gone, are but little regarded even in our own cases, and much less 92 | in the cases of others. Still, in addition to this there is something so 93 | ludicrous in promises of good or threats of evil a great way off as to 94 | render the whole subject with which they are connected easily turned 95 | into ridicule. "Better lay down that spade you are stealing, Paddy; if 96 | you don't you'll pay for it at the day of judgment." "Be the powers, if 97 | ye'll credit me so long I'll take another jist." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/10-from-circule-of-whig-comm-address-to-people-of-illinois-1843.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ... The system of loans is but temporary in its nature, and must soon 2 | explode. It is a system not only ruinous while it lasts, but one that 3 | must soon fail and leave us destitute. 4 | 5 | As an individual who undertakes to live by borrowing soon finds his 6 | original means devoured by interest, and next, no one left to borrow 7 | from, so must it be with a government. 8 | 9 | We repeat, then, that a tariff sufficient for revenue, or a direct tax, 10 | must soon be resorted to; and, indeed, we believe this alternative is 11 | now denied by no one. But which system shall be adopted? Some of our 12 | opponents in theory admit the propriety of a tariff sufficient for 13 | revenue, but even they will not in practice vote for such a tariff; 14 | while others boldly advocate direct taxation. Inasmuch, therefore, as 15 | some of them boldly advocate direct taxation, and all the rest--or so 16 | nearly all as to make exceptions needless--refuse to adopt the tariff, 17 | we think it is doing them no injustice to class them all as advocates of 18 | direct taxation. Indeed, we believe they are only delaying an open 19 | avowal of the system till they can assure themselves that the people 20 | will tolerate it. Let us, then, briefly compare the two systems. The 21 | tariff is the cheaper system, because the duties, being collected in 22 | large parcels, at a few commercial points, will require comparatively 23 | few officers in their collection; while by the direct tax system the 24 | land must be literally covered with assessors and collectors, going 25 | forth like swarms of Egyptian locusts, devouring every blade of grass 26 | and other green thing. And, again, by the tariff system the whole 27 | revenue is paid by the consumers of foreign goods, and those chiefly the 28 | luxuries and not the necessaries of life. By this system, the man who 29 | contents himself to live upon the products of his own country pays 30 | nothing at all. And surely that country is extensive enough, and its 31 | products abundant and varied enough, to answer all the real wants of its 32 | people. In short, by this system the burden of revenue falls almost 33 | entirely on the wealthy and luxurious few, while the substantial and 34 | labouring many, who live at home and upon home products, go entirely 35 | free. By the direct tax system, none can escape. However strictly the 36 | citizen may exclude from his premises all foreign luxuries, fine cloths, 37 | fine silks, rich wines, golden chains, and diamond rings,--still, for 38 | the possession of his house, his barn, and his homespun he is to be 39 | perpetually haunted and harassed by the tax-gatherer. With these views, 40 | we leave it to be determined whether we or our opponents are more truly 41 | democratic on the subject. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/11-from-letter-to-martin-m-morris-1843.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | It is truly gratifying to me to learn that while the people of Sangamon 2 | have cast me off, my old friends of Menard, who have known me longest 3 | and best, stick to me. It would astonish, if not amuse, the older 4 | citizens to learn that I (a stranger, friendless, uneducated, penniless 5 | boy, working on a flatboat at ten dollars per month) have been put down 6 | here as the candidate of pride, wealth, and aristocratic family 7 | distinction. Yet so, chiefly, it was. There was, too, the strangest 8 | combination of church influence against me. Baker is a Campbellite; and 9 | therefore, as I suppose, with few exceptions, got all that church. My 10 | wife has some relations in the Presbyterian churches, and some with the 11 | Episcopal churches; and therefore, wherever it would tell, I was set 12 | down as either the one or the other, while it was everywhere contended 13 | that no Christian ought to go for me, because I belonged to no church, 14 | was suspected of being a deist, and had talked about fighting a duel. 15 | With all these things, Baker, of course, had nothing to do. Nor do I 16 | complain of them. As to his own church going for him, I think that was 17 | right enough, and as to the influences I have spoken of in the other, 18 | though they were very strong, it would be grossly untrue and unjust to 19 | charge that they acted upon them in a body, or were very near so. I only 20 | mean that those influences levied a tax of a considerable per cent. upon 21 | my strength throughout the religious controversy. But enough of this. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/12-from-letter-to-joshua-f-speed-1846.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | We have another boy, born the 10th of March. He is very much such a 2 | child as Bob was at his age, rather of a longer order. Bob is "short and 3 | low," and I expect always will be. He talks very plainly--almost as 4 | plainly as anybody. He is quite smart enough. I sometimes fear that he 5 | is one of the little rare-ripe sort that are smarter at about five than 6 | ever after. He has a great deal of that sort of mischief that is the 7 | offspring of such animal spirits. Since I began this letter, a messenger 8 | came to tell me Bob was lost; but by the time I reached the house his 9 | mother had found him and had him whipped, and by now, very likely, he is 10 | run away again. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/13-from-letter-to-william-h-herndon-jan-1848.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Dear William, Your letter of December 27th was received a day or two 2 | ago. I am much obliged to you for the trouble you have taken, and 3 | promise to take in my little business there. As to speech-making, by way 4 | of getting the hang of the House, I made a little speech two or three 5 | days ago on a post-office question of no general interest. I find 6 | speaking here and elsewhere about the same thing. I was about as badly 7 | scared, and no worse, as I am when I speak in court. I expect to make 8 | one within a week or two, in which I hope to succeed well enough to wish 9 | you to see it. 10 | 11 | It is very pleasant to learn from you that there are some who desire 12 | that I should be re-elected. I most heartily thank them for their 13 | partiality; and I can say, as Mr. Clay said of the annexation of Texas, 14 | that "personally I would not object" to a re-election, although I 15 | thought at the time, and still think, it would be quite as well for me 16 | to return to the law at the end of a single term. I made the declaration 17 | that I would not be a candidate again, more from a wish to deal fairly 18 | with others, to keep peace among our friends, and to keep the district 19 | from going to the enemy, than for any cause personal to myself; so that, 20 | if it should so happen that nobody else wishes to be elected, I could 21 | refuse the people the right of sending me again. But to enter myself as 22 | a competitor of others, or to authorize any one so to enter me, is what 23 | my word and honour forbid. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/14-from-letter-to-william-h-herndon-june-1848.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | As to the young men. You must not wait to be brought forward by the 2 | older men. For instance, do you suppose that I should ever have got into 3 | notice if I had waited to be hunted up and pushed forward by older men? 4 | You young men get together and form a "Rough and Ready Club," and have 5 | regular meetings and speeches. Take in everybody you can get. Harrison 6 | Grimsley, L.A. Enos, Lee Kimball and C.W. Matheny will do to begin the 7 | thing; but as you go along gather up all the shrewd, wild boys about 8 | town, whether just of age or a little under age--Chris. Logan, Reddick 9 | Ridgley, Lewis Zwizler, and hundreds such. Let every one play the part 10 | he can play best,--some speak, some sing, and all "holler." Your 11 | meetings will be of evenings; the older men, and the women, will go to 12 | hear you; so that it will not only contribute to the election of "Old 13 | Zach," but will be an interesting pastime, and improving to the 14 | intellectual faculties of all engaged. Don't fail to do this. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/15-from-letter-to-william-h-herndon-july-1848.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself every way he can, 2 | never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him. Allow me to assure 3 | you that suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in any situation. 4 | There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and 5 | they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its 6 | true channel to brood over the attempted injury. Cast about, and see if 7 | this feeling has not injured every person you have ever known to fall 8 | into it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/16-letter-to-john-d-johnston-jan-1851.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Dear Johnston, Your request for eighty dollars I do not think it best to 2 | comply with now. At the various times when I have helped you a little 3 | you have said to me, "We can get along very well now"; but in a very 4 | short time I find you in the same difficulty again. Now, this can only 5 | happen by some defect in your conduct. What that defect is, I think I 6 | know. You are not lazy, and still you are an idler. I doubt whether, 7 | since I saw you, you have done a good whole day's work in any one day. 8 | You do not very much dislike to work, and still you do not work much, 9 | merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for it. 10 | This habit of uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty; it is 11 | vastly important to you, and still more so to your children, that you 12 | should break the habit. It is more important to them, because they have 13 | longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it, 14 | easier than they can get out after they are in. 15 | 16 | You are now in need of some money; and what I propose is, that you shall 17 | go to work, "tooth and nail," for somebody who will give you money for 18 | it. Let father and your boys take charge of your things at home, 19 | prepare for a crop, and make the crop, and you go to work for the best 20 | money wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get; and, 21 | to secure you a fair reward for your labour, I now promise you, that for 22 | every dollar you will, between this and the first of May, get for your 23 | own labour, either in money or as your own indebtedness, I will then 24 | give you one other dollar. By this, if you hire yourself at ten dollars 25 | a month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty dollars a month 26 | for your work. In this I do not mean you shall go off to St. Louis, or 27 | the lead mines, or the gold mines in California, but I mean for you to 28 | go at it for the best wages you can get close to home in Coles County. 29 | Now, if you will do this, you will be soon out of debt, and, what is 30 | better, you will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt 31 | again. But, if I should now clear you out of debt, next year you would 32 | be just as deep in as ever. You say you would almost give your place in 33 | heaven for seventy or eighty dollars. Then you value your place in 34 | heaven very cheap, for I am sure you can, with the offer I make, get the 35 | seventy or eighty dollars for four or five months' work. You say if I 36 | will furnish you the money you will deed me the land, and, if you don't 37 | pay the money back, you will deliver possession. Nonsense! If you can't 38 | now live with the land, how will you then live without it? You have 39 | always been kind to me, and I do not mean to be unkind to you. On the 40 | contrary, if you will but follow my advice, you will find it worth more 41 | than eighty times eighty dollars to you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/17-letter-to-john-d-johnston-nov-151.txt.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Dear Brother, When I came into Charleston day before yesterday, I 2 | learned that you are anxious to sell the land where you live and move to 3 | Missouri. I have been thinking of this ever since, and cannot but think 4 | such a notion is utterly foolish. What can you do in Missouri better 5 | than here? Is the land any richer? Can you there, any more than here, 6 | raise corn and wheat and oats without work? Will anybody there, any more 7 | than here, do your work for you? If you intend to go to work, there is 8 | no better place than right where you are; if you do not intend to go to 9 | work, you cannot get along anywhere. Squirming and crawling about from 10 | place to place can do no good. You have raised no crop this year; and 11 | what you really want is to sell the land, get the money, and spend it. 12 | Part with the land you have, and, my life upon it, you will never after 13 | own a spot big enough to bury you in. Half you will get for the land you 14 | will spend in moving to Missouri, and the other half you will eat, 15 | drink, and wear out, and no foot of land will be bought. Now, I feel it 16 | my duty to have no hand in such a piece of foolery. I feel that it is so 17 | even on your own account, and particularly on mother's account. The 18 | eastern forty acres I intend to keep for mother while she lives; if you 19 | will not cultivate it, it will rent for enough to support her--at least, 20 | it will rent for something. Her dower in the other two forties she can 21 | let you have, and no thanks to me. Now, do not misunderstand this 22 | letter; I do not write it in any unkindness. I write it in order, if 23 | possible, to get you to face the truth, which truth is, you are 24 | destitute because you have idled away all your time. Your thousand 25 | pretences for not getting along better are all nonsense; they deceive 26 | nobody but yourself. Go to work is the only cure for your case. 27 | 28 | A word to mother. Chapman tells me he wants you to go and live with him. 29 | If I were you I would try it awhile. If you get tired of it (as I think 30 | you will not), you can return to your own home. Chapman feels very 31 | kindly to you, and I have no doubt he will make your situation very 32 | pleasant. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/18-note-for-law-lecture-1850.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | I am not an accomplished lawyer. I find quite as much material for a 2 | lecture in those points wherein I have failed, as in those wherein I 3 | have been moderately successful. The leading rule for a lawyer, as for 4 | the man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for 5 | to-morrow which can be done to-day. Never let your correspondence fall 6 | behind. Whatever piece of business you have in hand, before stopping, do 7 | all the labour pertaining to it which can then be done. When you bring a 8 | common law-suit, if you have the facts for doing so, write the 9 | declaration at once. If a law point be involved, examine the books, and 10 | note the authority you rely on upon the declaration itself, where you 11 | are sure to find it when wanted. The same of defences and pleas. In 12 | business not likely to be litigated,--ordinary collection cases, 13 | foreclosures, partitions, and the like,--make all examinations of 14 | titles, and note them and even draft orders and decrees in advance. The 15 | course has a triple advantage; it avoids omissions and neglect, saves 16 | your labour when once done, performs the labour out of court when you 17 | have leisure, rather than in court when you have not. 18 | 19 | Extemporaneous speaking should be practised and cultivated. It is the 20 | lawyer's avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in 21 | other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make 22 | a speech. And yet there is not a more fatal error to young lawyers than 23 | relying too much on speech-making. If any one, upon his rare powers of 24 | speaking, shall claim an exemption from the drudgery of the law, his 25 | case is a failure in advance. 26 | 27 | Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbours to compromise whenever 28 | you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real 29 | loser--in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peace-maker the lawyer 30 | has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be 31 | business enough. 32 | 33 | Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who 34 | does this. Who can be more nearly a fiend than he who habitually 35 | overhauls the register of deeds in search of defects in titles, whereon 36 | to stir up strife, and put money in his pocket? A moral tone ought to be 37 | infused into the profession which should drive such men out of it. 38 | 39 | The matter of fees is important, far beyond the mere question of bread 40 | and butter involved. Properly attended to, fuller justice is done to 41 | both lawyer and client. An exorbitant fee should never be claimed. As a 42 | general rule, never take your whole fee in advance, nor any more than a 43 | small retainer. When fully paid beforehand, you are more than a common 44 | mortal if you can feel the same interest in the case as if something was 45 | still in prospect for you, as well as for your client. And when you lack 46 | interest in the case the job will very likely lack skill and diligence 47 | in the performance. Settle the amount of fee and take a note in advance. 48 | Then you will feel that you are working for something, and you are sure 49 | to do your work faithfully and well. Never sell a fee-note--at least not 50 | before the consideration service is performed. It leads to negligence 51 | and dishonesty--negligence by losing interest in the case, and 52 | dishonesty in refusing to refund when you have allowed the consideration 53 | to fail. 54 | 55 | There is a vague popular belief that lawyers are necessarily dishonest. 56 | I say vague, because when we consider to what extent confidence and 57 | honours are reposed in and conferred upon lawyers by the people, it 58 | appears improbable that their impression of dishonesty is very distinct 59 | and vivid. Yet the impression is common, almost universal. Let no young 60 | man choosing the law for a calling for a moment yield to the popular 61 | belief. Resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment 62 | you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a 63 | lawyer. Choose some other occupation, rather than one in the choosing of 64 | which you do, in advance, consent to be a knave. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/19-a-fragment-1854.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Equality in society alike beats inequality, whether the latter be of the 2 | British aristocratic sort or of the domestic slavery sort. 3 | 4 | We know Southern men declare that their slaves are better off than hired 5 | labourers amongst us. How little they know whereof they speak! There is 6 | no permanent class of hired labourers amongst us. Twenty-five years ago 7 | I was a hired labourer. The hired labourer of yesterday labours on his 8 | own account to-day, and will hire others to labour for him to-morrow. 9 | 10 | Advancement--improvement in condition--is the order of things in a 11 | society of equals. As labour is the common burden of our race, so the 12 | effort of some to shift their share of the burden on to the shoulders of 13 | others is the great durable curse of the race. Originally a curse for 14 | transgression upon the whole race, when, as by slavery, it is 15 | concentrated on a part only, it becomes the double-refined curse of God 16 | upon his creatures. 17 | 18 | Free labour has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope. The 19 | power of hope upon human exertion and happiness is wonderful. The 20 | slave-master himself has a conception of it, and hence the system of 21 | tasks among slaves. The slave whom you cannot drive with the lash to 22 | break seventy-five pounds of hemp in a day, if you will task him to 23 | break a hundred, and promise him pay for all he does over, he will break 24 | you a hundred and fifty. You have substituted hope for the rod. 25 | 26 | And yet perhaps it does not occur to you that, to the extent of your 27 | gain in the case, you have given up the slave system and adopted the 28 | free system of labour. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/20-a-fragment-on-slavery-1854.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | If A can prove, however conclusively, that he may of right enslave B, 2 | why may not B snatch the same argument and prove equally that he may 3 | enslave A? You say A is white and B is black. It is colour, then; the 4 | lighter having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule 5 | you are to be slave to the first man you meet with a fairer skin than 6 | your own. 7 | 8 | You do not mean colour exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually 9 | the superiors of the blacks, and therefore have the right to enslave 10 | them? Take care again. By this rule you are to be slave to the first man 11 | you meet with an intellect superior to your own. 12 | 13 | But, say you, it is a question of interest, and if you make it your 14 | interest you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can 15 | make it his interest he has the right to enslave you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/22-from-letter-to-george-robertson-1855.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | My dear Sir, ... You are not a friend of slavery in the abstract. In 2 | that speech you spoke of "the peaceful extinction of slavery" and used 3 | other expressions indicating your belief that the thing was, at some 4 | time, to have an end. Since then we have had thirty-six years of 5 | experience; and this experience has demonstrated, I think, that there is 6 | no peaceful extinction of slavery in prospect for us. The signal failure 7 | of Henry Clay and other good and great men, in 1849, to effect anything 8 | in favour of gradual emancipation in Kentucky, together with a thousand 9 | other signs, extinguishes that hope utterly. On the question of liberty, 10 | as a principle, we are not what we have been. When we were the political 11 | slaves of King George, and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that 12 | "all men are created equal" a self-evident truth; but now when we have 13 | grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have 14 | become so greedy to be _masters_ that we call the same maxim "a 15 | self-evident lie." The Fourth of July has not quite dwindled away; it is 16 | still a great day for burning fire-crackers! 17 | 18 | That spirit which desired the peaceful extinction of slavery has itself 19 | become extinct with the _occasion_ and the _men_ of the Revolution. 20 | Under the impulse of that occasion, nearly half the States adopted 21 | systems of emancipation at once; and it is a significant fact that not a 22 | single State has done the like since. So far as peaceful, voluntary 23 | emancipation is concerned, the condition of the negro slave in America, 24 | scarcely less terrible to the contemplation of the free mind, is now as 25 | fixed and hopeless of change for the better as that of the lost souls of 26 | the finally impenitent. The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his 27 | crown and proclaim his subjects free republicans, sooner than will our 28 | American masters voluntarily give up their slaves. 29 | 30 | Our political problem now is, "Can we as a nation continue together 31 | _permanently--for ever_--half slave, and half free?" The problem is too 32 | mighty for me. May God in his mercy superintend the solution. 33 | 34 | Your much obliged friend, and humble servant, 35 | A. LINCOLN. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/23-extracts-from-letter-to-joshua-f-speed-1855.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | You suggest that in political action now, you and I would differ. I 2 | suppose we would; not quite so much, however, as you may think. You know 3 | I dislike slavery, and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it. So far 4 | there is no cause of difference. But you say that sooner than yield your 5 | legal right to the slave, especially at the bidding of those who are not 6 | themselves interested, you would see the Union dissolved. I am not aware 7 | that any one is bidding you yield that right; very certainly I am not. I 8 | leave that matter entirely to yourself. I also acknowledge your rights 9 | and my obligations under the Constitution in regard to your slaves. I 10 | confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down and caught and 11 | carried back to their stripes and unrequited toil; but I bite my lips 12 | and keep quiet. In 1841, you and I had together a tedious low-water trip 13 | on a steamboat, from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I 14 | well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio, there were on 15 | board ten or a dozen slaves shackled together with irons. That sight was 16 | a continued torment to me, and I see something like it every time I 17 | touch the Ohio or any other slave border. It is not fair for you to 18 | assume that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually 19 | exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to 20 | appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify 21 | their feelings in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution 22 | and the Union. I do oppose the extension of slavery, because my judgment 23 | and feeling so prompt me, and I am under no obligations to the contrary. 24 | If for this you and I must differ, differ we must. You say if you were 25 | President, you would send an army and hang the leaders of the Missouri 26 | outrages upon the Kansas elections; still, if Kansas fairly votes 27 | herself a slave State she must be admitted, or the Union must be 28 | dissolved. But how if she votes herself a slave State unfairly; that 29 | is, by the very means for which you say you would hang men? Must she 30 | still be admitted, or the Union dissolved? That will be the phase of the 31 | question when it first becomes a practical one. In your assumption that 32 | there may be a fair decision of the slavery question in Kansas, I 33 | plainly see that you and I would differ about the Nebraska law. I look 34 | upon that enactment, not as a law, but as a violence from the beginning. 35 | It was conceived in violence, is maintained in violence, and is being 36 | executed in violence. I say it was conceived in violence, because the 37 | destruction of the Missouri Compromise, under the circumstances, was 38 | nothing less than violence. It was passed in violence, because it could 39 | not have passed at all but for the votes of many members in violence of 40 | the known will of their constituents. It is maintained in violence, 41 | because the elections since clearly demand its repeal, and the demand is 42 | openly disregarded. 43 | 44 | You say men ought to be hung for the way they are executing the law; I 45 | say that the way it is being executed is quite as good as any of its 46 | antecedents. It is being executed in the precise way which was intended 47 | from the first, else why does no Nebraska man express astonishment or 48 | condemnation? Poor Reeder is the only public man who has been silly 49 | enough to believe that anything like fairness was ever intended, and he 50 | has been bravely undeceived. 51 | 52 | That Kansas will form a slave constitution, and with it ask to be 53 | admitted into the Union, I take to be already a settled question, and so 54 | settled by the very means you so pointedly condemn. By every principle 55 | of law ever held by any court North or South, every negro taken to 56 | Kansas _is_ free; yet in utter disregard of this--in the spirit of 57 | violence merely--that beautiful Legislature gravely passes a law to hang 58 | any man who shall venture to inform a negro of his legal rights. This is 59 | the subject and real object of the law. If, like Haman, they should hang 60 | upon the gallows of their own building, I shall not be among the 61 | mourners for their fate. In my humble sphere, I shall advocate the 62 | restoration of the Missouri Compromise so long as Kansas remains a 63 | Territory; and when, by all these foul means, it seeks to come into the 64 | Union as a slave State, I shall oppose it. I am very loath in any case 65 | to withhold my assent to the enjoyment of property acquired or located 66 | in good faith; but I do not admit that good faith in taking a negro to 67 | Kansas to be held in slavery is a probability with any man. Any man who 68 | has sense enough to be the controller of his own property has too much 69 | sense to misunderstand the outrageous character of the whole Nebraska 70 | business. But I digress. In my opposition to the admission of Kansas, I 71 | shall have some company, but we may be beaten. If we are, I shall not, 72 | on that account, attempt to dissolve the Union. I think it probable, 73 | however, we shall be beaten. Standing as a unit among yourselves, you 74 | can, directly and indirectly, bribe enough of our men to carry the day, 75 | as you could on the open proposition to establish a monarchy. Get hold 76 | of some man in the North whose position and ability are such that he can 77 | make the support of your measure, whatever it may be, a Democratic-party 78 | necessity, and the thing is done. Apropos of this, let me tell you an 79 | anecdote. Douglas introduced the Nebraska Bill in January. In February 80 | afterward, there was a called session of the Illinois Legislature. Of 81 | the one hundred members composing the two branches of that body, about 82 | seventy were Democrats. These latter held a caucus, in which the 83 | Nebraska Bill was talked of, if not formally discussed. It was thereby 84 | discovered that just three, and no more, were in favour of the measure. 85 | In a day or two Douglas's orders came on to have resolutions passed 86 | approving the bill; and they were passed by large majorities! The truth 87 | of this is vouched for by a bolting Democratic member. The masses too, 88 | Democratic as well as Whig, were even nearer unanimous against it; but 89 | as soon as the party necessity of supporting it became apparent, the way 90 | the Democrats began to see the wisdom and justice of it was perfectly 91 | astonishing. 92 | 93 | You say that if Kansas fairly votes herself a free State, as a Christian 94 | you will rejoice at it. All decent slaveholders talk that way, and I do 95 | not doubt their candour; but they never vote that way. Although in a 96 | private letter or conversation you will express your preference that 97 | Kansas should be free, you would vote for no man for Congress who would 98 | say the same thing publicly. No such man could be elected from any 99 | district in a slave State. You think Stringfellow and company ought to 100 | be hung.... The slave-breeders and slave-traders are a small, odious, 101 | and detested class among you; and yet in politics they dictate the 102 | course of all of you, and are as completely your masters as you are the 103 | master of your own negroes. You inquire where I now stand. That is a 104 | disputed point. I think I am a Whig; but others say there are no Whigs, 105 | and that I am an Abolitionist. When I was at Washington, I voted for the 106 | Wilmot Proviso as good as forty times; and I never heard of any one 107 | attempting to unwhig me for that. I now do no more than oppose the 108 | extension of slavery. I am not a Know-nothing; that is certain. How 109 | could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes be in 110 | favour of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy 111 | appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring 112 | that _all men are created equal_. We now practically read it, _all men 113 | are created equal except negroes_. When the Know-nothings get control, 114 | it will read, _all men are created equal except negroes_ and foreigners 115 | and Catholics. When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some 116 | country where they make no pretence of loving liberty--to Russia, for 117 | instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy 118 | of hypocrisy.... My kindest regards to Mrs. Speed. On the leading 119 | subject of this letter I have more of her sympathy than I have of yours; 120 | and yet let me say I am your friend for ever. 121 | 122 | A. LINCOLN. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/28-from-speech-at-springfield-1858.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spitis/PyIndex/b4719440a4ff8e439d570a79067fd5e0eb66b7c0/Lincoln/28-from-speech-at-springfield-1858.txt -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/30-reply-to-judge-douglas-in-second-joint-debate-freeport-illinois-1858.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ... The plain truth is this. At the introduction of the Nebraska policy, 2 | we believed there was a new era being introduced in the history of the 3 | Republic, which tended to the spread and perpetuation of slavery. But in 4 | our opposition to that measure we did not agree with one another in 5 | everything. The people in the north end of the State were for stronger 6 | measures of opposition than we of the southern and central portions of 7 | the State, but we were all opposed to the Nebraska doctrine. We had that 8 | one feeling and one sentiment in common. You at the north end met in 9 | your conventions, and passed your resolutions. We in the middle of the 10 | State and further south did not hold such conventions and pass the same 11 | resolutions, although we had in general a common view and a common 12 | sentiment. So that these meetings which the Judge has alluded to, and 13 | the resolutions he has read from, were local, and did not spread over 14 | the whole State. We at last met together in 1856, from all parts of the 15 | State, and we agreed upon a common platform. You who held more extreme 16 | notions, either yielded those notions, or if not wholly yielding them, 17 | agreed to yield them practically, for the sake of embodying the 18 | opposition to the measures which the opposite party were pushing forward 19 | at that time. We met you then, and if there was anything yielded, it was 20 | for practical purposes. We agreed then upon a platform for the party 21 | throughout the entire State of Illinois, and now we are all bound as a 22 | party to that platform. And I say here to you, if any one expects of me 23 | in the case of my election, that I will do anything not signified by 24 | our Republican platform and my answers here to-day, I tell you very 25 | frankly, that person will be deceived. I do not ask for the vote of any 26 | one who supposes that I have secret purposes or pledges that I dare not 27 | speak out.... If I should never be elected to any office, I trust I may 28 | go down with no stain of falsehood upon my reputation, notwithstanding 29 | the hard opinions Judge Douglas chooses to entertain of me. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/31-from-reply-at-jonesboro-1858.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spitis/PyIndex/b4719440a4ff8e439d570a79067fd5e0eb66b7c0/Lincoln/31-from-reply-at-jonesboro-1858.txt -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/32-from-reply-to-judge-douglas-at-charleston-illinois-1858.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Judge Douglas has said to you that he has not been able to get from me 2 | an answer to the question whether I am in favour of negro citizenship. 3 | So far as I know, the Judge never asked me the question before. He shall 4 | have no occasion ever to ask it again, for I tell him very frankly that 5 | I am not in favour of negro citizenship.... Now my opinion is, that the 6 | different States have the power to make a negro a citizen under the 7 | Constitution of the United States, if they choose. The Dred Scott 8 | decision decides that they have not that power. If the State of Illinois 9 | had that power, I should be opposed to the exercise of it. That is all I 10 | have to say about it. 11 | 12 | Judge Douglas has told me that he heard my speeches north and my 13 | speeches south, ... and there was a very different cast of sentiment in 14 | the speeches made at the different points. I will not charge upon Judge 15 | Douglas that he wilfully misrepresents me, but I call upon every 16 | fair-minded man to take these speeches and read them, and I dare him to 17 | point out any difference between my speeches north and south. While I am 18 | here, perhaps I ought to say a word, if I have the time, in regard to 19 | the latter portion of the Judge's speech, which was a sort of 20 | declamation in reference to my having said that I entertained the belief 21 | that this government would not endure, half slave and half free. I have 22 | said so, and I did not say it without what seemed to me good reasons. It 23 | perhaps would require more time than I have now to set forth those 24 | reasons in detail; but let me ask you a few questions. Have we ever had 25 | any peace on this slavery question? When are we to have peace upon it if 26 | it is kept in the position it now occupies? How are we ever to have 27 | peace upon it? That is an important question. To be sure, if we will all 28 | stop and allow Judge Douglas and his friends to march on in their 29 | present career until they plant the institution all over the nation, 30 | here and wherever else our flag waves, and we acquiesce in it, there 31 | will be peace. But let me ask Judge Douglas how he is going to get the 32 | people to do that? They have been wrangling over this question for forty 33 | years. This was the cause of the agitation resulting in the Missouri 34 | Compromise; this produced the troubles at the annexation of Texas, in 35 | the acquisition of the territory acquired in the Mexican War. Again, 36 | this was the trouble quieted by the Compromise of 1850, when it was 37 | settled "for ever," as both the great political parties declared in 38 | their national conventions. That "for ever" turned out to be just four 39 | years, when Judge Douglas himself reopened it. 40 | 41 | When is it likely to come to an end? He introduced the Nebraska bill in 42 | 1854, to put another end to the slavery agitation. He promised that it 43 | would finish it all up immediately, and he has never made a speech 44 | since, until he got into a quarrel with the President about the 45 | Lecompton constitution, in which he has not declared that we are just at 46 | the end of the slavery agitation. But in one speech, I think last 47 | winter, he did say that he didn't quite see when the end of the slavery 48 | agitation would come. Now he tells us again that it is all over, and the 49 | people of Kansas have voted down the Lecompton constitution. How is it 50 | over? That was only one of the attempts to put an end to the slavery 51 | agitation,--one of these "final settlements." Is Kansas in the Union? 52 | Has she formed a constitution that she is likely to come in under? Is 53 | not the slavery agitation still an open question in that Territory?... 54 | If Kansas should sink to-day, and leave a great vacant space in the 55 | earth's surface, this vexed question would still be among us. I say, 56 | then, there is no way of putting an end to the slavery agitation amongst 57 | us, but to put it back upon the basis where our fathers placed it; no 58 | way but to keep it out of our new Territories,--to restrict it for ever 59 | to the old States where it now exists. Then the public mind will rest in 60 | the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction. That is one 61 | way of putting an end to the slavery agitation. 62 | 63 | The other way is for us to surrender, and let Judge Douglas and his 64 | friends have their way, and plant slavery over all the States,--cease 65 | speaking of it as in any way a wrong--regard slavery as one of the 66 | common matters of property, and speak of our negroes as we do of our 67 | horse and cattle. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/33-from-reply-to-judge-douglas-at-gatesburg-illinois-1858.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ... The Judge has alluded to the Declaration of Independence, and 2 | insisted that negroes are not included in that Declaration; and that it 3 | is a slander on the framers of that instrument to suppose that negroes 4 | were meant therein; and he asks you, Is it possible to believe that Mr. 5 | Jefferson, who penned that immortal paper, could have supposed himself 6 | applying the language of that instrument to the negro race, and yet held 7 | a portion of that race in slavery? Would he not at once have freed 8 | them? I only have to remark upon this part of his speech (and that too, 9 | very briefly, for I shall not detain myself or you upon that point for 10 | any great length of time), that I believe the entire records of the 11 | world, from the date of the Declaration of Independence up to within 12 | three years ago, may be searched in vain for one single affirmation from 13 | one single man, that the negro was not included in the Declaration of 14 | Independence; I think I may defy Judge Douglas to show that he ever said 15 | so, that Washington ever said so, that any President ever said so, that 16 | any member of Congress ever said so, or that any living man upon the 17 | whole earth ever said so, until the necessities of the present policy of 18 | the Democratic party in regard to slavery had to invent that 19 | affirmation. And I will remind Judge Douglas and this audience, that 20 | while Mr. Jefferson was the owner of slaves, as undoubtedly he was, in 21 | speaking on this very subject, he used the strong language that "he 22 | trembled for his country when he remembered that God was just;" and I 23 | will offer the highest premium in my power to Judge Douglas if he will 24 | show that he, in all his life, ever uttered a sentiment at all akin to 25 | that of Jefferson. 26 | 27 | ... I want to call to the Judge's attention an attack he made upon me in 28 | the first one of these debates.... In order to fix extreme Abolitionism 29 | upon me, Judge Douglas read a set of resolutions which he declared had 30 | been passed by a Republican State Convention, in October 1854, held at 31 | Springfield, Illinois, and he declared that I had taken a part in that 32 | convention. It turned out that although a few men calling themselves an 33 | anti-Nebraska State Convention had sat at Springfield about that time, 34 | yet neither did I take any part in it, nor did it pass the resolutions 35 | or any such resolutions as Judge Douglas read. So apparent had it become 36 | that the resolutions that he read had not been passed at Springfield at 37 | all, nor by any State Convention in which I had taken part, that seven 38 | days later at Freeport ... Judge Douglas declared that he had been 39 | misled ... and promised ... that when he went to Springfield he would 40 | investigate the matter.... I have waited as I think a sufficient time 41 | for the report of that investigation. 42 | 43 | ... A fraud, an absolute forgery, was committed, and the perpetration of 44 | it was traced to the three,--Lanphier, Harris, and Douglas.... Whether 45 | it can be narrowed in any way, so as to exonerate any one of them, is 46 | what Judge Douglas's report would probably show. The main object of that 47 | forgery at that time was to beat Yates and elect Harris to Congress, and 48 | that object was known to be exceedingly dear to Judge Douglas at that 49 | time. 50 | 51 | ... The fraud having been apparently successful upon that occasion, both 52 | Harris and Douglas have more than once since then been attempting to put 53 | it to new uses. As the fisherman's wife, whose drowned husband was 54 | brought home with his body full of eels, said, when she was asked what 55 | was to be done with him, 'Take out the eels and set him again,' so 56 | Harris and Douglas have shown a disposition to take the eels out of that 57 | stale fraud by which they gained Harris's election, and set the fraud 58 | again, more than once.... And now that it has been discovered publicly 59 | to be a fraud, we find that Judge Douglas manifests no surprise at 60 | all.... But meanwhile the three are agreed that each is a most 61 | honourable man. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/36-from-speech-at-columbus-ohio-on-slave-trade-etc-1859.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ... The Republican party, as I understand its principles and policy, 2 | believes that there is great danger of the institution of slavery being 3 | spread out and extended, until it is ultimately made alike lawful in all 4 | the States of this Union; so believing, to prevent that incidental and 5 | ultimate consummation is the original and chief purpose of the 6 | Republican organization. 7 | 8 | I say "chief purpose" of the Republican organization; for it is 9 | certainly true that if the national House shall fall into the hands of 10 | the Republicans, they will have to attend to all the matters of national 11 | house-keeping as well as this. The chief and real purpose of the 12 | Republican party is eminently conservative. It proposes nothing save and 13 | except to restore this Government to its original tone in regard to this 14 | element of slavery, and there to maintain it, looking for no further 15 | change in reference to it than that which the original framers of the 16 | Government themselves expected and looked forward to. 17 | 18 | The chief danger to this purpose of the Republican party is not just now 19 | the revival of the African slave-trade, or the passage of a 20 | Congressional slave-code ... but the most imminent danger that now 21 | threatens that purpose is that insidious Douglas popular sovereignty. 22 | This is the miner and sapper. While it does not propose to revive the 23 | African slave-trade, nor to pass a slave-code, nor to make a second Dred 24 | Scott decision, it is preparing us for the onslaught and charge of these 25 | ultimate enemies when they shall be ready to come on, and the word of 26 | command for them to advance shall be given. I say this _Douglas_ popular 27 | sovereignty--for there is a broad distinction, as I now understand it, 28 | between that article and a genuine popular sovereignty. 29 | 30 | I believe there is a genuine popular sovereignty. I think a definition 31 | of genuine popular sovereignty in the abstract would be about this: that 32 | each man shall do precisely as he pleases with himself, and with all 33 | those things which exclusively concern him. Applied to governments, this 34 | principle would be, that a general government shall do all those things 35 | which pertain to it; and all the local governments shall do precisely as 36 | they please in respect to those matters which exclusively concern them. 37 | I understand that this government of the United States under which we 38 | live, is based upon this principle; and I am misunderstood if it is 39 | supposed that I have any war to make upon that principle. 40 | 41 | Now, what is Judge Douglas's popular sovereignty? It is, as a principle, 42 | no other than that if one man chooses to make a slave of another man, 43 | neither that other man nor anybody else has a right to object. Applied 44 | in government, as he seeks to apply it, it is this: If, in a new 45 | Territory into which a few people are beginning to enter for the purpose 46 | of making their homes, they choose to either exclude slavery from their 47 | limits or to establish it there, however one or the other may affect the 48 | persons to be enslaved, or the infinitely greater number of persons who 49 | are afterward to inhabit that Territory, or the other members of the 50 | families of communities of which they are but an incipient member, or 51 | the general head of the family of States as parent of all,--however 52 | their action may affect one or the other of these, there is no power or 53 | right to interfere. That is Douglas popular sovereignty applied. 54 | 55 | ... I cannot but express my gratitude that this true view of this 56 | element of discord among us, as I believe it is, is attracting more and 57 | more attention. I do not believe that Governor Seward uttered that 58 | sentiment because I had done so before, but because he reflected upon 59 | this subject, and saw the truth of it. Nor do I believe, because 60 | Governor Seward or I uttered it, that Mr. Hickman of Pennsylvania, in 61 | different language, since that time, has declared his belief in the 62 | utter antagonism which exists between the principles of liberty and 63 | slavery. You see we are multiplying. Now, while I am speaking of 64 | Hickman, let me say, I know but little about him. I have never seen him, 65 | and know scarcely anything about the man; but I will say this much about 66 | him: of all the anti-Lecompton Democracy that have been brought to my 67 | notice, he alone has the true, genuine ring of the metal. 68 | 69 | ... Judge Douglas ... proceeds to assume, without proving it, that 70 | slavery is one of those little, unimportant, trivial matters which are 71 | of just about as much consequence as the question would be to me, 72 | whether my neighbour should raise horned cattle or plant tobacco; that 73 | there is no moral question about it, but that it is altogether a matter 74 | of dollars and cents; that when a new Territory is opened for 75 | settlement, the first man who goes into it may plant there a thing 76 | which, like the Canada thistle or some other of those pests of the soil, 77 | cannot be dug out by the millions of men who will come thereafter; that 78 | it is one of those little things that is so trivial in its nature that 79 | it has no effect upon anybody save the few men who first plant upon the 80 | soil; that it is not a thing which in any way affects the family of 81 | communities composing these States, nor any way endangers the general 82 | government. Judge Douglas ignores altogether the very well-known fact 83 | that we have never had a serious menace to our political existence 84 | except it sprang from this thing, which he chooses to regard as only 85 | upon a par with onions and potatoes. 86 | 87 | ... Did you ever, five years ago, hear of anybody in the world saying 88 | that the negro had no share in the Declaration of National Independence; 89 | that it did not mean negroes at all; and when "all men" were spoken of, 90 | negroes were not included? 91 | 92 | ... Then I suppose that all now express the belief that the Declaration 93 | of Independence never did mean negroes. I call upon one of them to say 94 | that he said it five years ago. If you think that now, and did not think 95 | it then, the next thing that strikes me is to remark that there has been 96 | a _change_ wrought in you, and a very significant change it is, being no 97 | less than changing the negro, in your estimation, from the rank of a man 98 | to that of a brute.... 99 | 100 | Is not this change wrought in your minds a very important change? Public 101 | opinion in this country is everything. In a nation like ours this 102 | popular sovereignty and squatter sovereignty have already wrought a 103 | change in the public mind to the extent I have stated.... 104 | 105 | ... Now, if you are opposed to slavery honestly, I ask you to note that 106 | fact (the popular-sovereignty of Judge Douglas), and the like of which 107 | is to follow, to be plastered on, layer after layer, until very soon you 108 | are prepared to deal with the negro everywhere as with the brute. If 109 | public sentiment has not been debauched already to this point, a new 110 | turn of the screw in that direction is all that is wanting; and this is 111 | constantly being done by the teachers of this insidious popular 112 | sovereignty. You need but one or two turns further, until your minds, 113 | now ripening under these teachings, will be ready for all these things, 114 | and you will receive and support or submit to the slave-trade, revived 115 | with all its horrors,--a slave-code enforced in our Territories,--and a 116 | new Dred Scott decision to bring slavery up into the very heart of the 117 | free North. 118 | 119 | ... I ask attention to the fact that in a pre-eminent degree these 120 | popular sovereigns are at this work: blowing out the moral lights around 121 | us; teaching that the negro is no longer a man, but a brute; that the 122 | Declaration has nothing to do with him; that he ranks with the crocodile 123 | and the reptile; that man with body and soul is a matter of dollars and 124 | cents. I suggest to this portion of the Ohio Republicans, or Democrats, 125 | if there be any present, the serious consideration of this fact, that 126 | there is now going on among you a steady process of debauching public 127 | opinion on this subject. With this, my friends, I bid you adieu. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/38-from-letter-to-jw-fell-1859.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents 2 | were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families--second 3 | families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, 4 | was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams, 5 | and others in Macon County, Illinois. My paternal grandfather, Abraham 6 | Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky about 7 | 1781 or 1782, where a year or two later he was killed by the Indians, 8 | not in battle, but by stealth, when he was labouring to open a farm in 9 | the forest. His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks 10 | County, Pennsylvania. An effort to identify them with the New England 11 | family of the same name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity 12 | of Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, 13 | Solomon, Abraham, and the like. 14 | 15 | My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age, and he 16 | grew up literally without education. He removed from Kentucky to what is 17 | now Spencer County, Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our new home 18 | about the time the State came into the Union. It was a wild region, with 19 | many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. 20 | There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever 21 | required of a teacher beyond "readin', writin', and cipherin'" to the 22 | rule of three. If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to 23 | sojourn in the neighbourhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was 24 | absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I 25 | came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, 26 | and cipher to the rule of three, but that was all. I have not been to 27 | school since. The little advance I now have upon this store of education 28 | I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity. 29 | 30 | I was raised to farm work, which I continued till I was twenty-two. At 31 | twenty-one I came to Illinois, Macon County. Then I got to New Salem, at 32 | that time in Sangamon, now in Menard County, where I remained a year as 33 | a sort of clerk in a store. 34 | 35 | Then came the Black Hawk War; and I was elected a captain of volunteers, 36 | a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since. I went 37 | the campaign, was elated, ran for the legislature the same year (1832), 38 | and was beaten--the only time I ever have been beaten by the people. The 39 | next and three succeeding biennial elections I was elected to the 40 | legislature. I was not a candidate afterward. During this legislative 41 | period I had studied law, and removed to Springfield to practise it. In 42 | 1846 I was once elected to the lower House of Congress. Was not a 43 | candidate for re-election. From 1849 to 1854, both inclusive, practised 44 | law more assiduously than ever before. Always a Whig in politics; and 45 | generally on the Whig electoral tickets, making active canvasses. I was 46 | losing interest in politics when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise 47 | aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known. 48 | 49 | If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be said I 50 | am, in height, six feet four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on 51 | an average one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse 52 | black hair and gray eyes. No other marks or brands recollected. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/40-farewell-adress-at-springfield-illinois-1861.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | My Friends, No one not in my situation can appreciate my feeling of 2 | sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these 3 | people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and 4 | have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, 5 | and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may 6 | return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon 7 | Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever 8 | attended him I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. 9 | Trusting in Him, who can go with me and remain with you, and be 10 | everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. 11 | To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend 12 | me, I bid you an affectionate farewell. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/41-letter-to-george-ashmun-accepting-nomination-for-presidency-1860.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | I accept the nomination tendered me by the Convention over which you 2 | presided, and of which I am formally apprized in the letter of yourself 3 | and others, acting as a committee of the Convention for that purpose. 4 | 5 | The declaration of principles and sentiments which accompanies your 6 | letter, meets my approval; and it shall be my care not to violate or 7 | disregard it in any part. 8 | 9 | Imploring the assistance of Divine Providence, and with due regard to 10 | the views and feelings of all who were represented in the Convention; to 11 | the rights of all the States and Territories and people of the nation; 12 | to the inviolability of the Constitution; and the perpetual union, 13 | harmony, and prosperity of all,--I am most happy to co-operate for the 14 | practical success of the principles declared by the Convention. 15 | 16 | Your obliged friend and fellow-citizen, 17 | A. LINCOLN. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/42-letter-to-miss-grace-bedell-1860.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | My dear little Miss, Your very agreeable letter of the 15th is received. 2 | I regret the necessity of saying I have no daughter. I have three 3 | sons--one seventeen, one nine, and one seven years of age. They, with 4 | their mother, constitute my whole family. As to the whiskers, having 5 | never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly 6 | affectation if I were to begin it now? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/43-from-address-to-legislature-at-indianapolis-1861.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Fellow-citizens of the State of Indiana, I am here to thank you much for 2 | this magnificent welcome, and still more for the generous support given 3 | by your State to that political cause which I think is the true and just 4 | cause of the whole country and the whole world. 5 | 6 | Solomon says "there is a time to keep silence," and when men wrangle by 7 | the mouth with no certainty that they mean the same thing while using 8 | the same word, it perhaps were as well if they would keep silence. 9 | 10 | The words "coercion" and "invasion" are much used in these days, and 11 | often with some temper and hot blood. Let us make sure, if we can, that 12 | we do not misunderstand the meaning of those who use them. Let us get 13 | exact definitions of these words, not from dictionaries, but from the 14 | men themselves, who certainly deprecate the things they would represent 15 | by the use of words. What then is _coercion_? what is _invasion_? Would 16 | the marching of an army into South Carolina, without the consent of her 17 | people and with hostile intent towards them, be invasion? I certainly 18 | think it would; and it would be coercion also, if the South Carolinians 19 | were forced to submit. But if the United States should merely retake and 20 | hold its own forts and other property, and collect the duties on foreign 21 | importations, or even withhold the mails from places where they were 22 | habitually violated, would any or all these things be invasion or 23 | coercion? Do our professed lovers of the Union, but who spitefully 24 | resolve that they will resist coercion and invasion, understand that 25 | such things as these, on the part of the United States, would be 26 | coercion or invasion of a State? If so, their idea of means to preserve 27 | the object of their affection would seem exceedingly thin and airy. If 28 | sick, the little pills of the homoeopathist would be much too large for 29 | them to swallow. In their view, the Union as a family relation would 30 | seem to be no regular marriage, but a sort of free-love arrangement to 31 | be maintained only on _passional attraction_. 32 | 33 | By the way, in what consists the special sacredness of a State? I speak 34 | not of the position assigned to a State in the Union by the 35 | Constitution; for that, by the bond, we all recognize. That position, 36 | however, a State cannot carry out of the Union with it. I speak of that 37 | assumed primary right of a State to rule all which is _less_ than 38 | itself, and ruin all which is larger than itself. If a State and a 39 | county in a given case should be equal in extent of territory, and equal 40 | in number of inhabitants, in what, as a matter of principle, is the 41 | State better than the county? Would an exchange of _names_ be an 42 | exchange of _rights_ upon principle? On what rightful principle may a 43 | State, being not more than one-fiftieth part of the nation in soil and 44 | population, break up the nation, and then coerce a proportionally larger 45 | subdivision of itself in the most arbitrary way? What mysterious right 46 | to play tyrant is conferred on a district of country, with its people, 47 | by merely calling it a State? 48 | 49 | Fellow-citizens, I am not asserting anything: I am merely asking 50 | questions for you to consider. And now allow me to bid you farewell. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/44-from-address-to-legislature-at-columbus-1861.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | It is true, as has been said by the president of the Senate, that a very 2 | great responsibility rests upon me in the position to which the votes of 3 | the American people have called me. I am deeply sensible of that weighty 4 | responsibility. I cannot but know, what you all know, that without a 5 | name, perhaps without a reason why I should have a name, there has 6 | fallen upon me a task such as did not rest even upon the Father of his 7 | Country; and so feeling, I cannot but turn and look for that support 8 | without which it will be impossible for me to perform that great task. I 9 | turn then, and look to the great American people, and to that God who 10 | has never forsaken them. Allusion has been made to the interest felt in 11 | relation to the policy of the new Administration. In this I have 12 | received from some a degree of credit for having kept silence, and from 13 | others, some deprecation. I still think I was right. 14 | 15 | In the varying and repeatedly shifting scenes of the present, and 16 | without a precedent which could enable me to judge by the past, it has 17 | seemed fitting that before speaking upon the difficulties of the 18 | country, I should have gained a view of the whole field, being at 19 | liberty to modify and change the course of policy as future events may 20 | make a change necessary. 21 | 22 | I have not maintained silence from any want of real anxiety. It is a 23 | good thing that there is no more than anxiety, for there is nothing 24 | going wrong. It is a consoling circumstance that when we look out, there 25 | is nothing that really hurts anybody. We entertain different views upon 26 | political questions, but nobody is suffering anything. This is a most 27 | consoling circumstance, and from it we may conclude that all we want is 28 | time, patience, and a reliance on that God who has never forsaken this 29 | people. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/45-from-remarks-at-pittsburgh-1861.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ... The condition of the country is an extraordinary one, and fills the 2 | mind of every patriot with anxiety. It is my intention to give this 3 | subject all the consideration I possibly can, before specially deciding 4 | in regard to it, so that when I do speak, it may be as nearly right as 5 | possible. When I do speak, I hope I may say nothing in opposition to the 6 | spirit of the Constitution, contrary to the integrity of the Union, or 7 | which will prove inimical to the liberties of the people or to the peace 8 | of the whole country. And furthermore, when the time arrives for me to 9 | speak on this great subject, I hope I may say nothing to disappoint the 10 | people generally throughout the country, especially if the expectation 11 | has been based upon anything which I have heretofore said. 12 | 13 | ... If the great American people only keep their temper on both sides of 14 | the line, the troubles will come to an end, and the question which now 15 | distracts the country will be settled, just as surely as all other 16 | difficulties of a like character which have originated in this 17 | government have been adjusted. Let the people on both sides keep their 18 | self-possession, and just as other clouds have cleared away in due time, 19 | so will this great nation continue to prosper as heretofore. 20 | 21 | ... It is often said that the tariff is the specialty of Pennsylvania. 22 | Assuming that direct taxation is not to be adopted, the tariff question 23 | must be as durable as the government itself. It is a question of 24 | national house-keeping. It is to the government what replenishing the 25 | meal-tub is to the family. Ever-varying circumstances will require 26 | frequent modifications as to the amount needed and the sources of 27 | supply. So far there is little difference of opinion among the people. 28 | It is only whether, and how far, duties on imports shall be adjusted to 29 | favour home productions. In the home market that controversy begins. One 30 | party insists that too much protection oppresses one class for the 31 | advantage of another; while the other party argues that, with all its 32 | incidents, in the long run all classes are benefited. In the Chicago 33 | platform there is a plank upon this subject, which should be a general 34 | law to the incoming Administration. We should do neither more nor less 35 | than we gave the people reason to believe we would when they gave us 36 | their votes. That plank is as I now read: 37 | 38 | "That while providing revenue for the support of the general 39 | government by duties upon imports, sound policy requires such an 40 | adjustment of these imposts as will encourage the development of 41 | the industrial interest of the whole country; and we commend that 42 | policy of national exchanges which secures to working-men liberal 43 | wages, to agriculture remunerating prices, to mechanics and 44 | manufacturers adequate reward for their skill, labour, and 45 | enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and 46 | independence." 47 | 48 | ... My political education strongly inclines me against a very free use 49 | of any of the means by the Executive to control the legislation of the 50 | country. As a rule, I think it better that Congress should originate as 51 | well as perfect its measures without external bias. I therefore would 52 | rather recommend to every gentleman who knows he is to be a member of 53 | the next Congress, to take an enlarged view, and post himself 54 | thoroughly, so as to contribute his part to such an adjustment of the 55 | tariff as shall provide a sufficient revenue, and in its other bearings, 56 | so far as possible, be just and equal to all sections of the country and 57 | classes of the people. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/46-from-speech-at-trenton-to-senate-of-new-jersey-1861.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ... I cannot but remember the place that New Jersey holds in our early 2 | history. In the early Revolutionary struggle few of the States among the 3 | old thirteen had more of the battle-fields of the country within their 4 | limits than old New Jersey. May I be pardoned if, upon this occasion, I 5 | mention that away back in my childhood, the earliest days of my being 6 | able to read, I got hold of a small book, such a one as few of the 7 | younger members have ever seen,--"Weems's Life of Washington." I 8 | remember all the accounts there given of the battle-fields and struggles 9 | for the liberties of the country, and none fixed themselves upon my 10 | imagination so deeply as the struggle here at Trenton, New Jersey. The 11 | crossing of the river, the contest with the Hessians, the great 12 | hardships endured at that time,--all fixed themselves upon my memory 13 | more than any single Revolutionary event; and you all know, for you have 14 | all been boys, how those early impressions last longer than any others. 15 | I recollect thinking then, boy even though I was, that there must have 16 | been something more than common that these men struggled for. I am 17 | exceedingly anxious that that thing--that something even more than 18 | national independence; that something that held out a great promise to 19 | all the people of the world for all time to come,--I am exceedingly 20 | anxious that this Union, the Constitution, and the liberties of the 21 | people shall be perpetuated in accordance with the original idea for 22 | which the struggle was made, and I shall be most happy indeed if I shall 23 | be an humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, and of this, His 24 | most chosen people, for perpetuating the object of that great struggle. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/47-address-in-independence-hall-philadelphia-1861.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself standing in this place, 2 | where were collected together the wisdom, the patriotism, the devotion 3 | to principle, from which sprang the institutions under which we live. 4 | 5 | You have kindly suggested to me that in my hands is the task of 6 | restoring peace to our distracted country. I can say in return, sir, 7 | that all the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as 8 | I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated in 9 | and were given to the world from this hall. I have never had a feeling, 10 | politically, that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the 11 | Declaration of Independence. 12 | 13 | I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men 14 | who assembled here and framed and adopted that Declaration. I have 15 | pondered over the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers 16 | of the army who achieved that independence. I have often inquired of 17 | myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so 18 | long together. It was not the mere matter of separation of the colonies 19 | from the motherland, but that sentiment in the Declaration of 20 | Independence which gave liberty not alone to the people of this country, 21 | but hope to all the world, for all future time. It was that which gave 22 | promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders 23 | of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the 24 | sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence. 25 | 26 | Now, my friends, can this country be saved on that basis? If it can, I 27 | will consider myself one of the happiest men in the world if I can help 28 | to save it. If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be truly 29 | awful. But if this country cannot be saved without giving up that 30 | principle, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this 31 | spot than surrender it. 32 | 33 | Now, in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there is no need of 34 | bloodshed and war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favour of 35 | such a course; and I may say in advance that there will be no bloodshed 36 | unless it is forced upon the government. The government will not use 37 | force unless force is used against it. 38 | 39 | My friends, this is wholly an unprepared speech. I did not expect to be 40 | called on to say a word when I came here. I supposed I was merely to do 41 | something toward raising a flag. I may, therefore, have said something 42 | indiscreet. But I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by, 43 | and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to die by. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/48-reply-to-mayor-of-washington-dc-1861.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Mr. Mayor, I thank you, and through you the municipal authorities of 2 | this city who accompany you, for this welcome. And as it is the first 3 | time in my life, since the present phase of politics has presented 4 | itself in this country, that I have said anything publicly within a 5 | region of country where the institution of slavery exists, I will take 6 | this occasion to say that I think very much of the ill-feeling that has 7 | existed and still exists between the people in the section from which I 8 | came and the people here, is dependent upon a misunderstanding of one 9 | another. I therefore avail myself of this opportunity to assure you, Mr. 10 | Mayor, and all the gentlemen present, that I have not now, and never 11 | have had, any other than as kindly feelings towards you as to the people 12 | of my own section. I have not now and never have had any disposition to 13 | treat you in any respect otherwise than as my own neighbours. I have not 14 | now any purpose to withhold from you any of the benefits of the 15 | Constitution under any circumstances, that I would not feel myself 16 | constrained to withhold from my own neighbours; and I hope, in a word, 17 | that when we become better acquainted,--and I say it with great 18 | confidence,--we shall like each other the more. I thank you for the 19 | kindness of this reception. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/50-address-at-utica-ny-1861.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Ladies and Gentlemen, I have no speech to make to you, and no time to 2 | speak in. I appear before you that I may see you, and that you may see 3 | me; and I am willing to admit, that, so far as the ladies are concerned, 4 | I have the best of the bargain, though I wish it to be understood that I 5 | do not make the same acknowledgment concerning the men. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/52-from-message-to-congress-regular-session-dec-3-1861.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Fellow-citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives, In the midst 2 | of unprecedented political troubles, we have cause of great gratitude to 3 | God for unusual good health and abundant harvests. 4 | 5 | You will not be surprised to learn that in the peculiar exigencies of 6 | the times, our intercourse with foreign nations has been attended with 7 | profound solicitude, chiefly turning upon our own domestic affairs. 8 | 9 | A disloyal portion of the American people have, during the whole year, 10 | been engaged in an attempt to divide and destroy the Union. A nation 11 | which endures factious domestic division is exposed to disrespect 12 | abroad; and one party, if not both, is sure, sooner or later, to invoke 13 | foreign intervention. Nations thus tempted to interfere are not always 14 | able to resist the counsels of seeming expediency and ungenerous 15 | ambition, although measures adopted under such influences seldom fail to 16 | be injurious and unfortunate to those adopting them. 17 | 18 | The disloyal citizens of the United States who have offered the ruin of 19 | our country in return for the aid and comfort which they have invoked 20 | abroad, have received less patronage and encouragement than they 21 | probably expected. If it were just to suppose, as the insurgents have 22 | seemed to assume, that foreign nations in this case, discarding all 23 | moral, social, and treaty obligations, would act solely and selfishly 24 | for the most speedy restoration of commerce, including especially the 25 | acquisition of cotton, those nations appear as yet not to have seen 26 | their way to their object more directly or clearly through the 27 | destruction than through the preservation of the Union. If we could dare 28 | to believe that foreign nations are actuated by no higher principle than 29 | this, I am quite sure a sound argument could be made to show them that 30 | they can reach their aim more readily and easily by aiding to crush 31 | this rebellion than by giving encouragement to it. 32 | 33 | The principal lever relied on by the insurgents for exciting foreign 34 | nations to hostility against us, as already intimated, is the 35 | embarrassment of commerce. Those nations, however, not improbably saw 36 | from the first that it was the Union which made as well our foreign as 37 | our domestic commerce. They can scarcely have failed to perceive that 38 | the effort for disunion produces the existing difficulty; and that one 39 | strong nation promises a more durable peace and a more extensive, 40 | valuable, and reliable commerce than can the same nation broken into 41 | hostile fragments. 42 | 43 | * * * * * 44 | 45 | It continues to develop that the insurrection is largely, if not 46 | exclusively, a war upon the first principle of popular government,--the 47 | rights of the people. Conclusive evidence of this is found in the most 48 | grave and maturely considered public documents, as well as in the 49 | general tone of the insurgents. In those documents we find the 50 | abridgment of the existing right of suffrage, and the denial to the 51 | people of all right to participate in the selection of public officers, 52 | except the legislative, boldly advocated, with laboured arguments to 53 | prove that large control of the people in government is the source of 54 | all political evil. Monarchy itself is sometimes hinted at, as a 55 | possible refuge from the power of the people. 56 | 57 | In my present position, I could scarcely be justified were I to omit 58 | raising a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism. 59 | 60 | It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be made 61 | in favour of popular institutions; but there is one point, with its 62 | connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief 63 | attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, 64 | if not above, labour, in the structure of government. It is assumed that 65 | labour is available only in connection with capital; that nobody 66 | labours, unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow, by the use of 67 | it, induces him to labour. This assumed, it is next considered whether 68 | it is best that capital shall hire labourers, and thus induce them to 69 | work by their own consent, or buy them and drive them to it without 70 | their consent. Having proceeded thus far, it is naturally concluded that 71 | all labourers are either hired labourers, or what we call slaves. And 72 | further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired labourer is fixed in 73 | that condition for life. 74 | 75 | Now, there is no such relation between capital and labour as assumed, 76 | nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the 77 | condition of a hired labourer. Both these assumptions are false, and all 78 | inferences from them are groundless. 79 | 80 | Labour is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit 81 | of labour, and could never have existed if labour had not first existed. 82 | Labour is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher 83 | consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection 84 | as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always 85 | will be, a relation between labour and capital, producing mutual 86 | benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labour of the 87 | community exists within that relation. A few men own capital, and that 88 | few avoid labour themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another 89 | few to labour for them. A large majority belong to neither 90 | class,--neither work for others, nor have others working for them. In 91 | most of the Southern States, a majority of the whole people, of all 92 | colours, are neither slaves nor masters; while in the Northern, a 93 | majority are neither hirers nor hired. Men with their families--wives, 94 | sons, and daughters--work for themselves, on their farms, in their 95 | houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and 96 | asking no favours of capital on the one hand, nor of hired labourers or 97 | slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of 98 | persons mingle their own labour with capital--that is, they labour with 99 | their own hands, and also buy or hire others to labour for them; but 100 | this is only a mixed and not a distinct class. No principle stated is 101 | disturbed by the existence of this mixed class. 102 | 103 | Again, as has already been said, there is not of necessity any such 104 | thing as the free, hired labourer being fixed to that condition for 105 | life. Many independent men, everywhere in these States, a few years back 106 | in their lives were hired labourers. The prudent, penniless beginner in 107 | the world labours for wages a while, saves a surplus with which to buy 108 | tools or land for himself, then labours on his own account another 109 | while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the 110 | just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all, 111 | gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress and improvement of 112 | condition to all. No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those 113 | who toil up from poverty, none less inclined to take or touch aught 114 | which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering a 115 | political power which they already possess, and which, if surrendered, 116 | will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as 117 | they, and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them, till all of 118 | liberty shall be lost. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/53-letter-to-general-gb-mcclellan-1862.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | My dear Sir, You and I have distinct and different plans for a movement 2 | of the Army of the Potomac--yours to be down the Chesapeake, up the 3 | Rappahannock to Urbana and across land to the terminus of the railroad 4 | on the York River; mine to move directly to a point on the railroad 5 | southwest of Manassas. 6 | 7 | If you will give me satisfactory answers to the following questions, I 8 | shall gladly yield my plan to yours. 9 | 10 | _First._ Does not your plan involve a greatly larger expenditure of time 11 | and money than mine? 12 | 13 | _Second._ Wherein is a victory more certain by your plan than mine? 14 | 15 | _Third._ Wherein is a victory more valuable by your plan than mine? 16 | 17 | _Fourth._ In fact, would it not be less valuable in this, that it would 18 | break no great line of the enemy's communications, while mine would? 19 | 20 | _Fifth._ In case of disaster, would not a retreat be more difficult by 21 | your plan than mine? 22 | 23 | I have just assisted the Secretary of War in framing part of a despatch 24 | to you, relating to army corps, which despatch of course will have 25 | reached you long before this will. 26 | 27 | I wish to say a few words to you privately on this subject. I ordered 28 | the army corps organization, not only on the unanimous opinion of the 29 | twelve generals whom you had selected and assigned as generals of 30 | division, but also on the unanimous opinion of every _military man_ I 31 | could get an opinion from (and every modern military book), yourself 32 | only excepted. Of course I did not on my own judgment pretend to 33 | understand the subject. I now think it indispensable for you to know how 34 | your struggle against it is received in quarters which we cannot 35 | entirely disregard. It is looked upon as merely an effort to pamper one 36 | or two pets and to persecute and degrade their supposed rivals. I have 37 | had no word from Sumner, Heintzelman, or Keyes. The commanders of these 38 | corps are of course the three highest officers with you, but I am 39 | constantly told that you have no consultation or communication with 40 | them,--that you consult and communicate with nobody but General Fitz 41 | John Porter, and perhaps General Franklin. I do not say these complaints 42 | are true or just, but at all events it is proper you should know of 43 | their existence. Do the commanders of corps disobey your orders in 44 | anything? 45 | 46 | ... Are you strong enough--are you strong enough, even with my help--to 47 | set your foot upon the necks of Sumner, Heintzelman, and Keyes, all at 48 | once? This is a practical and a very serious question for you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/54-proclamation-revoking-general-hunters-order-setting-slaves-free-1862.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ... General Hunter nor any other commander or person has been authorized 2 | by the Government of the United States to make proclamation declaring 3 | the slaves of any State free, and that the supposed proclamation now in 4 | question, whether genuine or false, is altogether void so far as 5 | respects such declaration.... On the sixth day of March last, by a 6 | special Message, I recommended to Congress the adoption of a joint 7 | resolution, to be substantially as follows:--_Resolved, That the United 8 | States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt a gradual 9 | abolishment of slavery, giving to such State earnest expression to 10 | compensate for its inconveniences, public and private, produced by such 11 | change of system_. 12 | 13 | The resolution in the language above quoted was adopted by large 14 | majorities in both branches of Congress, and now stands an authentic, 15 | definite, and solemn proposal of the nation to the States and people 16 | most immediately interested in the subject-matter. To the people of 17 | those States I now earnestly appeal. I do not argue--I beseech you to 18 | make arguments for yourselves. You cannot, if you would, be blind to the 19 | signs of the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of 20 | them, ranging, if it may be, far above personal and partisan politics. 21 | The proposal makes common cause for a common object, casting no 22 | reproaches upon any. It acts not the Pharisee. The change it 23 | contemplates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or 24 | wrecking anything. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been 25 | done by one effort in all past time as in the providence of God it is 26 | now your high privilege to do. May the vast future not have to lament 27 | that you have neglected it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/55-appeal-to-border-states-in-behalf-of-compensated-emancipation-1862.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | After the adjournment of Congress, now near, I shall have no opportunity 2 | of seeing you for several months. Believing that you of the border 3 | States hold more power for good than any other equal number of members, 4 | I feel it a duty which I cannot justifiably waive, to make this appeal 5 | to you. 6 | 7 | I do not speak of emancipation at once, but of a decision at once to 8 | emancipate gradually. Room in South America for colonization can be 9 | obtained cheaply and in abundance, and when numbers shall be large 10 | enough to be company and encouragement for one another, the freed people 11 | will not be so reluctant to go. 12 | 13 | I am pressed with a difficulty not yet mentioned,--one which threatens 14 | division among those who, united, are none too strong. General Hunter is 15 | an honest man. He was, and I hope still is, my friend. I valued him none 16 | the less for his agreeing with me in the general wish that all men 17 | everywhere could be free. He proclaimed all men free within certain 18 | States, and I repudiated the proclamation. He expected more good and 19 | less harm from the measure than I could believe would follow. Yet in 20 | repudiating it, I gave dissatisfaction if not offence to many whose 21 | support the country cannot afford to lose. And this is not the end of 22 | it. The pressure in this direction is still upon me, and is increasing. 23 | By conceding what I now ask, you can relieve me, and, much more, can 24 | relieve the country, in this important point. 25 | 26 | Upon these considerations I have again begged your attention to the 27 | message of March last. Before leaving the Capitol, consider and discuss 28 | it among yourselves. You are patriots and statesmen, and as such, I pray 29 | you, consider this proposition, and at the least commend it to the 30 | consideration of your States and people. As you would perpetuate popular 31 | government for the best people in the world, I beseech you that you do 32 | in no wise omit this. Our common country is in great peril, demanding 33 | the loftiest views and boldest action to bring it speedy relief. Once 34 | relieved, its form of government is saved to the world, its beloved 35 | history and cherished memories are vindicated, and its happy future 36 | fully assured and rendered inconceivably grand. 37 | 38 | I intend no reproach or complaint when I assure you that, in my opinion, 39 | if you all had voted for the resolution in the gradual-emancipation 40 | message of last March, the war would now be substantially ended. And the 41 | plan therein proposed is yet one of the most potent and swift means of 42 | ending it. Let the States which are in rebellion see, definitely and 43 | certainly, that in no event will the States you represent ever join 44 | their proposed confederacy, and they cannot much longer maintain the 45 | contest. But you cannot divest them of their hope to ultimately have you 46 | with them, so long as you show a determination to perpetuate the 47 | institution within your own States. Beat them at elections, as you have 48 | overwhelmingly done, and, nothing daunted, they still claim you as their 49 | own. You and I know what the lever of their power is. Break that lever 50 | before their faces, and they can shake you no more for ever. 51 | 52 | Most of you have treated me with kindness and consideration, and I trust 53 | you will not now think I improperly touch what is exclusively your own, 54 | when, for the sake of the whole country, I ask, Can you, for your 55 | States, do better than to take the course I urge? Discarding punctilio 56 | and maxims adapted to more manageable times, and looking only to the 57 | unprecedentedly stern facts of our case, can you do better in any 58 | possible event? You prefer that the constitutional relation of the 59 | States to the nation shall be practically restored without disturbance 60 | of the institution; and if this were done, my whole duty in this 61 | respect, under the Constitution and my oath of office, would be 62 | performed. But it is not done, and we are trying to accomplish it by 63 | war. The incidents of the war cannot be avoided. If the war continues 64 | long, as it must if the object be not sooner attained, the institution 65 | in your States will be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion,--by 66 | the mere incidents of the war. It will be gone, and you will have 67 | nothing valuable in lieu of it. Much of its value is gone already. How 68 | much better for you and for your people to take the step which at once 69 | shortens the war and secures substantial compensation for that which is 70 | sure to be wholly lost in any other event? How much better to thus save 71 | the money which else we sink for ever in the war! How much better to do 72 | it while we can, lest the war ere long render us pecuniarily unable to 73 | do it! How much better for you as seller, and the nation as buyer, to 74 | sell out and buy out that without which the war could never have been, 75 | than to sink both the thing to be sold and the price of it in cutting 76 | one another's throats! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/56-from-letter-to-cuthbert-bullitt-1862.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Now, I think the true remedy is very different from that suggested by 2 | Mr. Durant. It does not lie in rounding the rough angles of the war, but 3 | in removing the necessity for the war. The people of Louisiana who wish 4 | protection to person and property, have but to reach forth their hands 5 | and take it. Let them in good faith reinaugurate the national authority, 6 | and set up a State government conforming thereto under the Constitution. 7 | They know how to do it, and can have the protection of the army while 8 | doing it. The army will be withdrawn as soon as such government can 9 | dispense with its presence, and the people of the State can then, upon 10 | the old constitutional terms, govern themselves to their own liking. 11 | This is very simple and easy. 12 | 13 | If they will not do this, if they prefer to hazard all for the sake of 14 | destroying the government, it is for them to consider whether it is 15 | probable that I will surrender the government to save them from losing 16 | all. If they decline what I suggest, you will scarcely need to ask what 17 | I will do. 18 | 19 | What would you do in my position? Would you drop the war where it is, or 20 | would you prosecute it in future with elder-stalk squirts charged with 21 | rose-water? Would you deal lighter blows rather than heavier ones? Would 22 | you give up the contest, leaving any available means untried? 23 | 24 | I am in no boastful mood. I shall not do more than I can; but I shall do 25 | all I can to save the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my 26 | personal inclination. I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is 27 | too vast for malicious dealing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/57-from-letter-to-august-belmont-1862.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Dear Sir, You send to Mr. W---- an extract from a letter written at New 2 | Orleans the 9th instant, which is shown to me. You do not give the 3 | writer's name; but plainly he is a man of ability, and probably of some 4 | note. He says: "The time has arrived when Mr. Lincoln must take a 5 | decisive course. Trying to please everybody, he will satisfy nobody. A 6 | vacillating policy in matters of importance is the very worst. Now is 7 | the time, if ever, for honest men who love their country to rally to its 8 | support. Why will not the North say officially that it wishes for the 9 | restoration of the Union as it was?" 10 | 11 | And so, it seems, this is the point on which the writer thinks I have no 12 | policy. Why will he not read and understand what I have said? 13 | 14 | The substance of the very declaration he desires is in the inaugural, in 15 | each of the two regular messages to Congress, and in many, if not all, 16 | the minor documents issued by the Executive since the Inauguration. 17 | 18 | Broken eggs cannot be mended; but Louisiana has nothing to do now but to 19 | take her place in the Union as it was, barring the already broken eggs. 20 | The sooner she does so, the smaller will be the amount of that which 21 | will be past mending. This government cannot much longer play a game in 22 | which it stakes all, and its enemies stake nothing. Those enemies must 23 | understand that they cannot experiment for ten years trying to destroy 24 | the government, and if they fail still come back into the Union unhurt. 25 | If they expect in any contingency to ever have the Union as it was, I 26 | join with the writer in saying, "Now is the time." 27 | 28 | How much better it would have been for the writer to have gone at this, 29 | under the protection of the army at New Orleans, than to have sat down 30 | in a closet writing complaining letters northward. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/58-letter-to-horace-greeley-1862.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | I have just read yours of the 19th instant, addressed to myself through 2 | the "New York Tribune." 3 | 4 | If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact which I may know 5 | to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them. 6 | 7 | If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely 8 | drawn, I do not now and here argue against them. 9 | 10 | If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive 11 | it, in deference to an old friend whose heart I have always supposed to 12 | be right. 13 | 14 | As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing," as you say, I have not meant 15 | to leave any one in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it in 16 | the shortest way under the Constitution. 17 | 18 | The sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer the Union 19 | will be,--the Union as it was. 20 | 21 | If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the 22 | same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. 23 | 24 | If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the 25 | same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. 26 | 27 | _My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and not 28 | either to save or to destroy slavery._ 29 | 30 | If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I 31 | could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could 32 | save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. 33 | 34 | What I do about slavery and the coloured race, I do because I believe it 35 | helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not 36 | believe it would help to save the Union. 37 | 38 | I shall do less whenever I shall believe that what I am doing hurts the 39 | cause; and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help 40 | the cause. 41 | 42 | I shall try to correct errors where shown to be errors, and I shall 43 | adopt new views as fast as they shall appear to be true views. 44 | 45 | I have here stated my purpose according to my views of official duty, 46 | and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all 47 | men everywhere could be free. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/59-from-reply-to-chicago-committee-of-united-religious-denominations-1862.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | The subject presented in the memorial is one upon which I have thought 2 | much for weeks past, and I may even say for months. I am approached with 3 | the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who 4 | are equally certain that they represent the Divine will. I am sure that 5 | either the one or the other class is mistaken in that belief, and 6 | perhaps, in some respects, both. I hope it will not be irreverent for me 7 | to say, that if it is probable that God would reveal His will to others, 8 | on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed that He would 9 | reveal it directly to me; for, unless I am more deceived in myself than 10 | I often am, it is my earnest desire to know the will of Providence in 11 | this matter. And if I can learn what it is, I will do it. These are not, 12 | however, the days of miracles, and I suppose it will be granted that I 13 | am not to expect a direct revelation. I must study the plain, physical 14 | facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears 15 | to be wise and right. 16 | 17 | The subject is difficult, and good men do not agree. For instance, four 18 | gentlemen of standing and intelligence, from New York, called as a 19 | delegation on business connected with the war; but before leaving, two 20 | of them earnestly besought me to proclaim general emancipation, upon 21 | which the other two at once attacked them. You also know that the last 22 | session of Congress had a decided majority of anti-slavery men, yet they 23 | could not unite on this policy. And the same is true of the religious 24 | people. 25 | 26 | Why the rebel soldiers are praying with a great deal more earnestness, I 27 | fear, than our own troops, and expecting God to favour their side: for 28 | one of our soldiers who had been taken prisoner told Senator Wilson a 29 | few days since that he met nothing so discouraging as the evident 30 | sincerity of those he was among in their prayers. But we will talk over 31 | the merits of the case. 32 | 33 | What good would a proclamation of emancipation from me do, especially as 34 | we are now situated? I do not want to issue a document that the whole 35 | world will see must necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope's bull 36 | against the comet! Would my word free the slaves, when I cannot even 37 | enforce the Constitution in the rebel States? Is there a single court or 38 | magistrate or individual that would be influenced by it there? 39 | 40 | And what reason is there to think it would have any greater effect upon 41 | the slaves than the late law of Congress, which I approved, and which 42 | offers protection and freedom to the slaves of rebel masters who come 43 | within our lines? Yet I cannot learn that that law has caused a single 44 | slave to come over to us. And suppose they could be induced by a 45 | proclamation of freedom from me to throw themselves upon us, what should 46 | we do with them? How can we feed and care for such a multitude? General 47 | Butler wrote me a few days since that he was issuing more rations to the 48 | slaves who have rushed to him than to all the white troops under his 49 | command. They eat, and that is all; though it is true General Butler is 50 | feeding the whites also by the thousand, for it nearly amounts to a 51 | famine there. If now, the pressure of the war should call off our forces 52 | from New Orleans to defend some other point, what is to prevent the 53 | masters from reducing the blacks to slavery again? For I am told that 54 | whenever the rebels take any black prisoners, free or slave, they 55 | immediately auction them off! They did so with those they took from a 56 | boat that was aground in the Tennessee River a few days ago. And then I 57 | am very ungenerously attacked for it. For instance, when, after the late 58 | battles at and near Bull Run, an expedition went out from Washington 59 | under a flag of truce to bury the dead and bring in the wounded, and the 60 | rebels seized the blacks who went along to help, and sent them into 61 | slavery, Horace Greeley said in his paper "that the government would 62 | probably do nothing about it." What could I do? 63 | 64 | Now, then, tell me, if you please, what possible result of good would 65 | follow the issuing of such a proclamation as you desire? Understand, I 66 | raise no objections against it on legal or constitutional grounds, for, 67 | as commander-in-chief of the army and navy, in time of war I suppose I 68 | have a right to take any measures which may best subdue the enemy; nor 69 | do I urge objections of a moral nature, in view of possible consequences 70 | of insurrection and massacre at the South. I view this matter as a 71 | practical war-measure, to be decided on according to the advantages or 72 | disadvantages it may offer to the suppression of the rebellion. 73 | 74 | [The committee had said that emancipation would secure us the sympathy 75 | of the world, slavery being the cause of the war. To which the President 76 | replied:] 77 | 78 | I admit that slavery is at the root of the rebellion, or at least its 79 | _sine qua non_. The ambition of politicians may have instigated them to 80 | act, but they would have been impotent without slavery as their 81 | instrument. I will also concede that emancipation would help us in 82 | Europe, and convince them that we are incited by something more than 83 | ambition. I grant further, that it would help somewhat at the North, 84 | though not so much, I fear, as you and those you represent, imagine. 85 | Still, some additional strength would be added in that way to the 86 | war,--and then, unquestionably, it would weaken the rebels by drawing 87 | off their labourers, which is of great importance; but I am not so sure 88 | that we could do much with the blacks. If we were to arm them, I fear 89 | that in a few weeks the arms would be in the hands of the rebels; and 90 | indeed, thus far, we have not had arms enough to equip our white troops. 91 | I will mention another thing, though it meet only your scorn and 92 | contempt. There are fifty thousand bayonets in the Union armies from the 93 | border slave States. It would be a serious matter if, in consequence of 94 | a proclamation such as you desire, they should go over to the rebels. I 95 | do not think they all would,--not so many indeed, as a year ago, nor as 96 | six months ago; not so many to-day as yesterday. Every day increases 97 | their Union feeling. They are also getting their pride enlisted, and 98 | want to beat the rebels. Let me say one thing more: I think you should 99 | admit that we already have an important principle to rally and unite the 100 | people, in the fact that constitutional government is at stake. This is 101 | a fundamental idea, going down about as deep as anything. 102 | 103 | Do not misunderstand me because I have mentioned these objections. They 104 | indicate the difficulties that have thus far prevented my action in some 105 | such way as you desire. I have not decided against a proclamation of 106 | liberty to the slaves, but hold the matter under advisement. And I can 107 | assure you that the subject is on my mind by day and night, more than 108 | any other. Whatever shall appear to be God's will, I will do. I trust 109 | that in the freedom with which I have canvassed your views, I have not 110 | in any respect injured your feelings. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/60-from-annual-message-to-congress-dec-1-1862.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Since your last annual assembling, another year of health and bountiful 2 | harvests has passed; and while it has not pleased the Almighty to bless 3 | us with a return of peace, we can but press on, guided by the best light 4 | He gives us, trusting that in His own good time and wise way, all will 5 | yet be well. 6 | 7 | The correspondence, touching foreign affairs, which has taken place 8 | during the last year, is herewith submitted, in virtual compliance with 9 | a request to that effect made by the House of Representatives near the 10 | close of the last session of Congress. 11 | 12 | If the condition of our relations with other nations is less gratifying 13 | than it has usually been at former periods, it is certainly more 14 | satisfactory than a nation so unhappily distracted as we are, might 15 | reasonably have apprehended. In the month of June last, there were some 16 | grounds to expect that the maritime powers, which, at the beginning of 17 | our domestic difficulties, so unwisely and unnecessarily, as we think, 18 | recognized the insurgents as a belligerent, would soon recede from that 19 | position, which has proved only less injurious to themselves than to our 20 | own country. But the temporary reverses which afterward befell the 21 | national arms, and which were exaggerated by our own disloyal citizens 22 | abroad, have hitherto delayed that act of simple justice. 23 | 24 | The Civil War, which has so radically changed for the moment the 25 | occupations and habits of the American people, has necessarily disturbed 26 | the social condition and affected very deeply the prosperity of the 27 | nations with which we have carried on a commerce that has been steadily 28 | increasing throughout a period of half a century. It has, at the same 29 | time, excited political ambitions and apprehensions which have produced 30 | a profound agitation throughout the civilized world. In this unusual 31 | agitation we have forborne from taking part in any controversy between 32 | foreign States, and between parties or factions in such States. We have 33 | attempted no propagandism and acknowledged no revolution. But we have 34 | left to every nation the exclusive conduct and management of its own 35 | affairs. Our struggle has been, of course, contemplated by foreign 36 | nations with reference less to its own merits than to its supposed and 37 | often exaggerated effects and consequences resulting to those nations 38 | themselves. Nevertheless, complaint on the part of this government, even 39 | if it were just, would certainly be unwise.... 40 | 41 | There is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for a national boundary, 42 | upon which to divide. Trace through from east to west upon the line 43 | between the free and the slave country, and we shall find a little more 44 | than one-third of its length are rivers, easy to be crossed, and 45 | populated, or soon to be populated, thickly upon both sides; while 46 | nearly all its remaining length are merely surveyors' lines, over which 47 | people may walk back and forth without any consciousness of their 48 | presence. No part of this line can be made any more difficult to pass, 49 | by writing it down on paper or parchment as a national boundary. The 50 | fact of separation, if it comes, gives up, on the part of the seceding 51 | section, the fugitive-slave clause, along with all other constitutional 52 | obligations upon the section seceded from, while I should expect no 53 | treaty stipulation would be ever made to take its place. 54 | 55 | But there is another difficulty. The great interior region bounded east 56 | by the Alleghanies, north by the British dominions, west by the Rocky 57 | Mountains, and south by the line along which the culture of corn and 58 | cotton meets, ... already has above ten millions of people, and will 59 | have fifty millions within fifty years, if not prevented by any 60 | political folly or mistake. It contains more than one-third of the 61 | country owned by the United States,--certainly more than one million of 62 | square miles. Once half as populous as Massachusetts already is, and it 63 | would have more than seventy-five millions of people. A glance at the 64 | map shows that, territorially speaking, it is the great body of the 65 | republic. The other parts are but marginal borders to it, the 66 | magnificent region sloping west from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific 67 | being the deepest, and also the richest, in undeveloped resources. In 68 | the production of provisions, grains, grasses, and all which proceed 69 | from them, this great interior region is naturally one of the most 70 | important in the world. Ascertain from the statistics the small 71 | proportion of the region which has, as yet, been brought into 72 | cultivation, and also the large and rapidly increasing amount of its 73 | products, and we shall be overwhelmed with the magnitude of the prospect 74 | presented. And yet this region has no sea-coast, touches no ocean 75 | anywhere. As part of one nation, its people now find, and may for ever 76 | find, their way to Europe by New York, to South America and Africa by 77 | New Orleans, and to Asia by San Francisco. But separate our common 78 | country into two nations, as designed by the present rebellion, and 79 | every man of this great interior region is thereby cut off from one or 80 | more of these outlets,--not perhaps by a physical barrier, but by 81 | embarrassing and onerous trade regulations. 82 | 83 | And this is true, wherever a dividing or boundary line may be fixed. 84 | Place it between the now free and slave country, or place it south of 85 | Kentucky, or north of Ohio, and still the truth remains that none south 86 | of it can trade to any port or place north of it, except upon terms 87 | dictated by a government foreign to them. These outlets, east, west, and 88 | south, are indispensable to the well-being of the people inhabiting, and 89 | to inhabit, this vast interior region. Which of the three may be the 90 | best, is no proper question. All are better than either; and all of 91 | right belong to that people and their successors for ever. True to 92 | themselves, they will not ask where a line of separation shall be, but 93 | will vow rather that there shall be no such line. Nor are the marginal 94 | regions less interested in these communications to and through them to 95 | the great outside world. They too, and each of them, must have access to 96 | this Egypt of the west, without paying toll at the crossing of any 97 | national boundary. 98 | 99 | Our national strife springs not from our permanent part, not from the 100 | land we inhabit, not from our national homestead. There is no possible 101 | severing of this but would multiply and not mitigate evils among us. In 102 | all its adaptations and aptitudes, it demands union and abhors 103 | separation. In fact, it would ere long force reunion, however much of 104 | blood and treasure the separation might have cost.... 105 | 106 | Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this 107 | Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal 108 | significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery 109 | trial through which we pass will light us down, in honour or dishonour, 110 | to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will 111 | not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world 112 | knows we do know how to save it. 113 | 114 | We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving 115 | freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free,--honourable alike 116 | in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose 117 | the last, best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not 118 | fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just,--a way which, if 119 | followed, the world will for ever applaud, and God must for ever bless. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/61-emancipation-proclamation-jan-1-1863.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord 2 | one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by 3 | the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the 4 | following, to wit: 5 | 6 | "That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand 7 | eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any 8 | State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be 9 | in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, 10 | and for ever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, 11 | including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and 12 | maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to 13 | repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for 14 | their actual freedom. 15 | 16 | "That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by 17 | proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which 18 | the people thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the 19 | United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall 20 | on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United 21 | States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the 22 | qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall in the 23 | absence of strong countervailing testimony be deemed conclusive evidence 24 | that such State and the people thereof are not then in rebellion against 25 | the United States." 26 | 27 | Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by 28 | virtue of the power in me vested as commander-in-chief of the army and 29 | navy of the United States, in time of actual armed rebellion against the 30 | authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and 31 | necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first 32 | day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and 33 | sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly 34 | proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the day first 35 | above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States 36 | wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion 37 | against the United States, the following, to wit: 38 | 39 | Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, 40 | Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, 41 | Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, 42 | including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, 43 | Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the 44 | forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties 45 | of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, 46 | and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which 47 | excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this 48 | proclamation were not issued. 49 | 50 | And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and 51 | declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States 52 | and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the 53 | Executive Government of the United States, including the military and 54 | naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of 55 | said persons. 56 | 57 | And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain 58 | from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to 59 | them that, in all cases when allowed, they labour faithfully for 60 | reasonable wages. 61 | 62 | And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable 63 | condition will be received into the armed service of the United States 64 | to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man 65 | vessels of all sorts in said service. 66 | 67 | And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted 68 | by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate 69 | judgment of mankind and the gracious favour of Almighty God. 70 | 71 | In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of 72 | the United States to be affixed. 73 | 74 | [Sidenote: L.S.] 75 | 76 | Done at the city of Washington, this first day of January, in the year 77 | of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the 78 | independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh. 79 | 80 | ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 81 | 82 | By the President: 83 | WILLIAM H. SEWARD, 84 | Secretary of State. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/62-letter-to-general-grant-july-13-1863.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | My dear General, I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I 2 | write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable 3 | service you have done the country. I wish to say a word further. When 4 | you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do 5 | what you finally did--march the troops across the neck, run the 6 | batteries with the transports, and thus go below; and I never had any 7 | faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo 8 | Pass expedition and the like could succeed. When you got below and took 9 | Port Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go down the 10 | river and join General Banks, and when you turned northward, east of the 11 | Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal 12 | acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong. 13 | 14 | Yours very truly, 15 | A. LINCOLN. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/63-letter-to-moulton-1863.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | My dear Sir, There has been a good deal of complaint against you by your 2 | superior officers of the Provost-Marshal-General's Department, and your 3 | removal has been strongly urged on the ground of "persistent 4 | disobedience of orders and neglect of duty." Firmly convinced, as I am, 5 | of the patriotism of your motives, I am unwilling to do anything in your 6 | case which may seem unnecessarily harsh or at variance with the feelings 7 | of personal respect and esteem with which I have always regarded you. I 8 | consider your services in your district valuable, and should be sorry to 9 | lose them. It is unnecessary for me to state, however, that when 10 | differences of opinion arise between officers of the government, the 11 | ranking officer must be obeyed. You of course recognize as clearly as I 12 | do the importance of this rule. I hope you will conclude to go on in 13 | your present position under the regulations of the department. I wish 14 | you would write to me. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/64-letter-to-mrs-lincoln-aug-8-1863.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | My dear Wife, All as well as usual, and no particular trouble anyway. I 2 | put the money into the Treasury at five per cent., with the privilege of 3 | withdrawing it any time upon thirty days' notice. I suppose you are glad 4 | to learn this. Tell dear Tad poor "Nanny Goat" is lost, and Mrs. 5 | Cuthbert and I are in distress about it. The day you left Nanny was 6 | found resting herself and chewing her little cud on the middle of Tad's 7 | bed; but now she's gone! The gardener kept complaining that she 8 | destroyed the flowers, till it was concluded to bring her down to the 9 | White House. This was done, and the second day she had disappeared and 10 | has not been heard of since. This is the last we know of poor "Nanny." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/65-letter-to-james-h-hackett-1863.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | My dear Sir, Months ago I should have acknowledged the receipt of your 2 | book and accompanying kind note; and I now have to beg your pardon for 3 | not having done so. 4 | 5 | For one of my age I have seen very little of the drama. The first 6 | presentation of Falstaff I ever saw was yours here, last winter or 7 | spring. Perhaps the best compliment I can pay is to say, as I truly can, 8 | I am very anxious to see it again. Some of Shakespeare's plays I have 9 | never read; while others I have gone over perhaps as frequently as any 10 | unprofessional reader. Among the latter are _Lear_, _Richard III._, 11 | _Henry VIII._, _Hamlet_, and especially _Macbeth_. I think nothing 12 | equals _Macbeth_. It is wonderful. 13 | 14 | Unlike you gentlemen of the profession, I think the soliloquy in 15 | _Hamlet_ commencing "Oh, my offence is rank," surpasses that commencing 16 | "To be or not to be." But pardon this small attempt at criticism. I 17 | should like to hear you pronounce the opening speech of Richard III. 18 | Will you not soon visit Washington again? If you do, please call and let 19 | me make your personal acquaintance. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/66-note-to-secretary-stanton-nov-11-1863.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spitis/PyIndex/b4719440a4ff8e439d570a79067fd5e0eb66b7c0/Lincoln/66-note-to-secretary-stanton-nov-11-1863.txt -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/67-letter-to-james-c-conkling-1863.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Your letter inviting me to attend a mass meeting of unconditional Union 2 | men, to be held at the capital of Illinois on the third day of 3 | September, has been received. It would be very agreeable to me to thus 4 | meet my old friends at my own home, but I cannot just now be absent from 5 | here so long as a visit there would require. 6 | 7 | The meeting is to be of all those who maintain unconditional devotion to 8 | the Union; and I am sure my old political friends will thank me for 9 | tendering, as I do, the nation's gratitude to those and other noble men 10 | whom no partisan malice or partisan hope can make false to the nation's 11 | life. 12 | 13 | There are those who are dissatisfied with me. To such I would say: You 14 | desire peace, and you blame me that we do not have it. But how can we 15 | attain it? There are but three conceivable ways. First, to suppress the 16 | rebellion by force of arms. This I am trying to do. Are you for it? If 17 | you are, so far we are agreed. If you are not for it, a second way is to 18 | give up the Union. I am against this. Are you for it? If you are, you 19 | should say so plainly. If you are not for force, nor yet for 20 | dissolution, there only remains some imaginable compromise. I do not 21 | believe any compromise embracing the maintenance of the Union is now 22 | possible. All I learn leads to a directly opposite belief. The strength 23 | of the rebellion is its military, its army. That army dominates all the 24 | country and all the people within its range. Any offer of terms made by 25 | any man or men within that range, in opposition to that army, is simply 26 | nothing for the present, because such man or men have no power whatever 27 | to enforce their side of a compromise, if one were made with them. 28 | 29 | To illustrate: Suppose refugees from the South and peace men of the 30 | North get together in convention, and frame and proclaim a compromise 31 | embracing a restoration of the Union. In what way can that compromise be 32 | used to keep Lee's army out of Pennsylvania? Meade's army can keep Lee's 33 | out of Pennsylvania, and, I think, can ultimately drive it out of 34 | existence. But no paper compromise, to which the controllers of Lee's 35 | army are not agreed, can at all affect that army. In an effort at such 36 | compromise we should waste time which the enemy would improve to our 37 | disadvantage; and that would be all. A compromise, to be effective, must 38 | be made either with those who control the rebel army, or with the people 39 | first liberated from the domination of that army by the success of our 40 | own army. Now, allow me to assure you that no word or intimation from 41 | that rebel army, or from any of the men controlling it, in relation to 42 | any peace compromise, has ever come to my knowledge or belief. All 43 | charges and insinuations to the contrary are deceptive and groundless. 44 | And I promise you that if any such proposition shall hereafter come, it 45 | shall not be rejected and kept a secret from you. I freely acknowledge 46 | myself the servant of the people, according to the bond of service,--the 47 | United States Constitution,--and that, as such, I am responsible to 48 | them. 49 | 50 | But to be plain. You are dissatisfied with me about the negro. Quite 51 | likely there is a difference of opinion between you and myself upon that 52 | subject. I certainly wish that all men could be free, while I suppose 53 | you do not. Yet I have neither adopted nor proposed any measure which is 54 | not consistent with even your views, provided you are for the Union. I 55 | suggested compensated emancipation, to which you replied, you wished 56 | not to be taxed to buy negroes. But I had not asked you to be taxed to 57 | buy negroes, except in such way as to save you from greater taxation to 58 | save the Union exclusively by other means. 59 | 60 | You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation, and perhaps would have it 61 | retracted. You say it is unconstitutional. I think differently. I think 62 | the Constitution invests its commander-in-chief with the law of war in 63 | time of war. The most that can be said--if so much--is that slaves are 64 | property. Is there, has there ever been, any question that, by the law 65 | of war, property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when needed? 66 | And is it not needed whenever taking it helps us or hurts the enemy? 67 | Armies the world over destroy enemies' property when they cannot use it, 68 | and even destroy their own to keep it from the enemy. Civilized 69 | belligerents do all in their power to help themselves or hurt the enemy, 70 | except a few things regarded as barbarous or cruel. Among the exceptions 71 | are the massacre of vanquished foes and non-combatants, male and female. 72 | 73 | But the proclamation, as law, either is valid or is not valid. If it is 74 | not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it cannot be 75 | retracted any more than the dead can be brought to life. Some of you 76 | profess to think its retraction would operate favourably for the Union. 77 | Why better after the retraction than before the issue? There was more 78 | than a year and a half of trial to suppress the rebellion before the 79 | proclamation issued, the last one hundred days of which passed under an 80 | explicit notice that it was coming, unless averted by those in revolt 81 | returning to their allegiance. The war has certainly progressed as 82 | favourably for us since the issue of the proclamation as before. I know, 83 | as fully as one can know the opinions of others, that some of the 84 | commanders of our armies in the field who have given us our most 85 | important successes, believe the emancipation policy and the use of 86 | coloured troops constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion, 87 | and that at least one of these important successes could not have been 88 | achieved when it was but for the aid of black soldiers. Among the 89 | commanders holding these views are some who have never had any affinity 90 | with what is called Abolitionism or with Republican party politics, but 91 | who hold them purely as military opinions. I submit these opinions as 92 | being entitled to some weight against the objections often urged, that 93 | emancipation and arming the blacks are unwise as military measures, and 94 | were not adopted as such in good faith. 95 | 96 | You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to 97 | fight for you; but no matter. Fight you, then, exclusively to save the 98 | Union. I issued the proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the 99 | Union. Whenever you shall have conquered all resistance to the Union, if 100 | I shall urge you to continue fighting, it will be an apt time then for 101 | you to declare you will not fight to free negroes. 102 | 103 | I thought that in your struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the 104 | negroes should cease helping the enemy, to that extent it weakened the 105 | enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think differently? I thought that 106 | whatever negroes could be got to do as soldiers leaves just so much less 107 | for white soldiers to do in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise 108 | to you? But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should 109 | they do anything for us, if we will do nothing for them? If they stake 110 | their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive, even 111 | the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept. 112 | 113 | The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the 114 | sea. Thanks to the great Northwest for it. Nor yet wholly to them. Three 115 | hundred miles up they met New England, Empire, Keystone, and Jersey 116 | hewing their way right and left. The sunny South, too, in more colours 117 | than one, also lent a hand. On the spot, their part of the history was 118 | jotted down in black and white. The job was a great national one, and 119 | let none be banned who bore an honourable part in it. And while those 120 | who cleared the great river may well be proud, even that is not all. It 121 | is hard to say that anything has been more bravely and well done than at 122 | Antietam, Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, and on many fields of lesser note. 123 | Nor must Uncle Sam's web-feet be forgotten. At all the watery margins 124 | they have been present. Not only on the deep sea, the broad bay, and the 125 | rapid river, but also up the narrow, muddy bayou, and wherever the 126 | ground was a little damp, they have been and made their tracks. Thanks 127 | to all,--for the great Republic, for the principle it lives by and keeps 128 | alive, for man's vast future,--thanks to all. 129 | 130 | Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, 131 | and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future 132 | time. It will then have been proved that among freemen there can be no 133 | successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take 134 | such appeal are sure to lose their case and pay the cost. And then there 135 | will be some black men who can remember that with silent tongue, and 136 | clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have 137 | helped mankind on to this great consummation, while I fear there will be 138 | some white ones unable to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful 139 | speech they strove to hinder it. 140 | 141 | Still, let us not be over-sanguine of a speedy, final triumph. Let us be 142 | quite sober. Let us diligently apply the means, never doubting that a 143 | just God, in His own good time, will give us the rightful result. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/68-proclamation-for-day-of-thanksgiving-oct-3-1863.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the 2 | blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, 3 | which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source 4 | from which they come, others have been added, which are of so 5 | extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the 6 | heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of 7 | Almighty God. 8 | 9 | In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which 10 | has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and provoke their 11 | aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been 12 | maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has 13 | prevailed everywhere, except in the theatre of military conflict; while 14 | that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and 15 | navies of the Union. 16 | 17 | Needful diversions of wealth and strength from the fields of peaceful 18 | industry to the national defence have not arrested the plough, the 19 | shuttle, or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our 20 | settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious 21 | metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population 22 | has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in 23 | the camp, the siege, and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in 24 | the consciousness of augmented strength and vigour, is permitted to 25 | expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. 26 | 27 | No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these 28 | great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, 29 | while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless 30 | remembered mercy. 31 | 32 | It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, 33 | reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice 34 | by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite, my 35 | fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who 36 | are at sea, and those sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and 37 | observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and 38 | praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I 39 | recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to 40 | Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with 41 | humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend 42 | to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, 43 | or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably 44 | engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to 45 | heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be 46 | consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, 47 | harmony, tranquillity, and union. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/69-gettysburg-address-nov-19-1863.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this 2 | continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the 3 | proposition that all men are created equal. 4 | 5 | Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or 6 | any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on 7 | a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of 8 | that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives 9 | that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we 10 | should do this. 11 | 12 | But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we 13 | cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled 14 | here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The 15 | world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can 16 | never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be 17 | dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have 18 | thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to 19 | the great task remaining before us; that from these honoured dead we 20 | take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full 21 | measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall 22 | not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new 23 | birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and 24 | for the people, shall not perish from the earth. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/70-from-annual-message-to-congress-dec-8-1863.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ... When Congress assembled a year ago, the war had already lasted 2 | nearly twenty months, and there had been many conflicts on both land and 3 | sea, with varying results. The rebellion had been pressed back into 4 | reduced limits; yet the tone of public feeling and opinion at home and 5 | abroad was not satisfactory. With other signs, the popular elections 6 | then just past indicated uneasiness among ourselves; while, amid much 7 | that was cold and menacing, the kindest words coming from Europe were 8 | uttered in accents of pity that we were too blind to surrender a 9 | hopeless cause. Our commerce was suffering greatly from a few vessels 10 | built upon and furnished from foreign shores, and we were threatened 11 | with such additions from the same quarter as would sweep our trade from 12 | the seas and raise our blockade. We had failed to elicit from European 13 | governments anything hopeful upon this subject. The preliminary 14 | Emancipation Proclamation, issued in September, was running its assigned 15 | period to the beginning of the new year. A month later the final 16 | proclamation came, including the announcement that coloured men of 17 | suitable condition would be received into the war service. The policy of 18 | emancipation and of employing black soldiers gave to the future a new 19 | aspect, about which hope and fear and doubt contended in uncertain 20 | conflict. According to our political system, as a matter of civil 21 | administration, the general government had no lawful power to effect 22 | emancipation in any State, and for a long time it had been hoped that 23 | the rebellion could be suppressed without resorting to it as a military 24 | measure. It was all the while deemed possible that the necessity for it 25 | might come and that, if it should, the crisis of the contest would then 26 | be presented. It came, and, as was anticipated, was followed by dark and 27 | doubtful days. Eleven months having now passed, we are permitted to take 28 | another review. The rebel borders are pressed still farther back, and by 29 | the complete opening of the Mississippi, the country dominated by the 30 | rebellion is divided into distinct parts, with no practical 31 | communication between them. Tennessee and Arkansas have been 32 | substantially cleared of insurgent control, and influential citizens in 33 | each, owners of slaves and advocates of slavery at the beginning of the 34 | rebellion, now declare openly for emancipation in their respective 35 | States. Of those States not included in the Emancipation Proclamation, 36 | Maryland and Missouri, neither of which three years ago would tolerate 37 | any restraint upon the extension of slavery into new Territories, only 38 | dispute now as to the best mode of removing it within their own limits. 39 | 40 | Of those who were slaves at the beginning of the rebellion, full one 41 | hundred thousand are now in the United States military service, about 42 | one-half of which number actually bear arms in the ranks; thus giving 43 | the double advantage of taking so much labour from the insurgent cause 44 | and supplying the places which otherwise must be filled with so many 45 | white men. So far as tested, it is difficult to say they are not as good 46 | soldiers as any. No servile insurrection or tendency to violence or 47 | cruelty has marked the measures of emancipation and arming the blacks. 48 | These measures have been much discussed in foreign countries, and 49 | contemporary with such discussion the tone of public sentiment there is 50 | much improved. At home the same measures have been fully discussed, 51 | supported, criticized, and denounced, and the annual elections following 52 | are highly encouraging to those whose official duty it is to bear the 53 | country through this great trial. Thus we have the new reckoning. The 54 | crisis which threatened to divide the friends of the Union is passed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/71-letter-to-secretary-stanton-march-1-1864.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | My dear Sir, A poor widow, by the name of Baird, has a son in the army, 2 | that for some offence has been sentenced to serve a long time without 3 | pay, or at most with very little pay. I do not like this punishment of 4 | withholding pay--it falls so very hard upon poor families. After he had 5 | been serving in this way for several months, at the tearful appeal of 6 | the poor mother, I made a direction that he be allowed to enlist for a 7 | new term, on the same condition as others. She now comes, and says she 8 | cannot get it acted upon. Please do it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/72-letter-to-governor-michael-hahn-1864.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | My dear Sir, I congratulate you on having fixed your name in history as 2 | the first free-State governor of Louisiana. Now you are about to have a 3 | convention, which, among other things, will probably define the elective 4 | franchise. I barely suggest for your private consideration, whether some 5 | of the coloured people may not be let in--as, for instance, the very 6 | intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our 7 | ranks. They would probably help, in some trying time to come, to keep 8 | the jewel of liberty within the family of freedom. But this is only a 9 | suggestion, not to the public, but to you alone. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/73-address-at-fair-for-the-sanitary-commission-1864.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | I appear to say but a word. This extraordinary war in which we are 2 | engaged falls heavily upon all classes of people, but the most heavily 3 | upon the soldier. For it has been said, "all that a man hath will he 4 | give for his life;" and while all contribute of their substance, the 5 | soldier puts his life at stake, and often yields it up in his country's 6 | cause. _The highest merit, then, is due to the soldier._ 7 | 8 | In this extraordinary war extraordinary developments have manifested 9 | themselves, such as have not been seen in former wars; and amongst these 10 | manifestations nothing has been more remarkable than these fairs for the 11 | relief of suffering soldiers and their families. And the chief agents in 12 | these fairs are the women of America. 13 | 14 | I am not accustomed to the language of eulogy. I have never studied the 15 | art of paying compliments to women. But I must say, that if all that has 16 | been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise 17 | of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them 18 | justice for their conduct during this war. I will close by saying, God 19 | bless the women of America! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/74-letter-to-ag-hodges-1864.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. 2 | I cannot remember when I did not so think and feel, and yet I have never 3 | understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right 4 | to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It was in the oath 5 | that I took, that I would, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, 6 | and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take 7 | office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an 8 | oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power. I understood, 9 | too, that in ordinary civil administration this oath even forbade me to 10 | practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on the moral question 11 | of slavery. I had publicly declared this many times and in many ways. 12 | And I aver that, to this day, I have done no official act in mere 13 | deference to my abstract feeling and judgment on slavery. I did 14 | understand, however, that my oath to preserve the Constitution to the 15 | best of my ability imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every 16 | indispensable means, that government--that nation--of which that 17 | Constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation and 18 | yet preserve the Constitution? By general law, life and limb must be 19 | protected, yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life 20 | is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures, otherwise 21 | unconstitutional, might become lawful by becoming indispensable to the 22 | preservation of the Constitution through the preservation of the nation. 23 | Right or wrong, I assumed this ground; and now avow it. I could not feel 24 | that, to the best of my ability, I had even tried to preserve the 25 | Constitution, if, to save slavery or any minor matter, I should permit 26 | the wreck of government, country, and Constitution, all together. When, 27 | early in the war, General Fremont attempted military emancipation, I 28 | forbade it, because I did not then think it an indispensable necessity. 29 | When, a little later, General Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested 30 | the arming of the blacks, I objected, because I did not think it an 31 | indispensable necessity. When, still later, General Hunter attempted 32 | military emancipation, I again forbade it, because I did not yet think 33 | the indispensable necessity had come. When, in March and May and July, 34 | 1862, I made earnest and successive appeals to the border States to 35 | favour compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensable necessity 36 | for military emancipation and arming the blacks would come, unless 37 | averted by that measure. They declined the proposition, and I was, in my 38 | best judgment, driven to the alternative of either surrendering the 39 | Union, and with it the Constitution, or laying strong hand upon the 40 | coloured element. I chose the latter. In choosing it, I hoped for 41 | greater gain than loss; but of this I was not entirely confident. More 42 | than a year of trial now shows no loss by it in our foreign relations, 43 | none in our home popular sentiment, none in our white military 44 | force,--no loss by it anyhow or anywhere. On the contrary, it shows a 45 | gain of quite one hundred and thirty thousand soldiers, seamen, and 46 | labourers. These are palpable facts, about which, as facts, there can be 47 | no cavilling. We have the men, and we could not have had them without 48 | the measure. 49 | 50 | And now let any Union man who complains of the measure, test himself by 51 | writing down in one line that he is for subduing the rebellion by force 52 | of arms; and in the next, that he is for taking these hundred and thirty 53 | thousand men from the Union side, and placing them where they would be 54 | but for the measure he condemns. If he cannot face his case so stated, 55 | it is only because he cannot face the truth. 56 | 57 | I add a word which was not in the verbal conversation. In telling this 58 | tale, I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have 59 | controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. 60 | Now, at the end of three years' struggle, the nation's condition is not 61 | what either party, or any man, devised or expected. God alone can claim 62 | it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a 63 | great wrong, and wills also that we of the North, as well as you of the 64 | South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial 65 | history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and 66 | goodness of God. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/75-from-address-at-sanitary-fair-baltimore-1864.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ... The world has never had a good definition of the word "liberty," and 2 | the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare 3 | for liberty; but in using the same word, we do not all mean the same 4 | thing. With some, the word "liberty" may mean for each man to do as he 5 | pleases with himself and the product of his labour; while with others, 6 | the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men 7 | and the product of other men's labour. Here are two, not only different, 8 | but incompatible things, called by the same name,--liberty. And it 9 | follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by 10 | two different and incompatible names,--liberty and tyranny. 11 | 12 | The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the 13 | sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him 14 | for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep 15 | was a black one. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a 16 | definition of the word "liberty;" and precisely the same difference 17 | prevails to-day, among us human creatures, even in the North, and all 18 | professing to love liberty. Hence we behold the process by which 19 | thousands are daily passing from under the yoke of bondage hailed by 20 | some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed by others as the 21 | destruction of all liberty. Recently, as it seems, the people of 22 | Maryland have been doing something to define liberty, and thanks to them 23 | that, in what they have done, the wolf's dictionary has been repudiated. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/76-letter-to-general-grant-april-30-1864.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Not expecting to see you again before the spring campaign opens, I wish 2 | to express in this way my entire satisfaction with what you have done up 3 | to this time, so far as I understand it. The particulars of your plans I 4 | neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant; and, 5 | pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints nor restraints 6 | upon you. While I am very anxious that any great disaster or capture of 7 | our men in great numbers shall be avoided, I know these points are less 8 | likely to escape your attention than they would be mine. If there is 9 | anything wanting which is within my power to give, do not fail to let me 10 | know it. And now, with a brave army and a just cause, may God sustain 11 | you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/77-from-address-to-166th-ohio-regiment-aug-22-1864.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | I almost always feel inclined, when I happen to say anything to 2 | soldiers, to impress upon them, in a few brief remarks, the importance 3 | of success in this contest. It is not merely for to-day, but for all 4 | time to come, that we should perpetuate for our children's children that 5 | great and free government which we have enjoyed all our lives. I beg you 6 | to remember this, not merely for my sake, but for yours. I happen, 7 | temporarily, to occupy this White House. I am a living witness that any 8 | one of your children may look to come here as my father's child has. It 9 | is in order that each one of you may have, through this free government 10 | which we have enjoyed, an open field and a fair chance for your 11 | industry, enterprise, and intelligence; that you may all have equal 12 | privileges in the race of life, with all its desirable human 13 | aspirations. It is for this the struggle should be maintained, that we 14 | may not lose our birthright--not only for one, but for two or three 15 | years. The nation is worth fighting for, to secure such an inestimable 16 | jewel. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/78-reply-to-a-serenade-nov-10-1864.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | It has long been a grave question whether any government not too strong 2 | for the liberties of its people, can be strong enough to maintain its 3 | existence in great emergencies. On this point the present rebellion 4 | brought our Republic to a severe test; and a presidential election, 5 | occurring in regular course during the rebellion, added not a little to 6 | the strain. 7 | 8 | If the loyal people united were put to the utmost of their strength by 9 | the rebellion, must they not fail when divided and partially paralyzed 10 | by a political war among themselves? But the election was a necessity. 11 | We cannot have free government without elections; and if the rebellion 12 | could force us to forego or postpone a national election, it might 13 | fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us. The strife of the 14 | election is but human nature practically applied to the facts of the 15 | case. What has occurred in this case must ever occur in similar cases. 16 | Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, 17 | compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as 18 | silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us, therefore, study the 19 | incidents of this as philosophy to learn wisdom from, and none of them 20 | as wrongs to be revenged. But the election, along with its incidental 21 | and undesirable strife, has done good too. It has demonstrated that a 22 | people's government can sustain a national election in the midst of a 23 | great civil war. Gold is good in its place, but living, brave, patriotic 24 | men are better than gold. 25 | 26 | But the rebellion continues; and now that the election is over, may not 27 | all having a common interest reunite in a common effort to save our 28 | common country? For my own part, I have striven and shall strive to 29 | avoid placing any obstacle in the way. So long as I have been here, I 30 | have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom. While I am deeply 31 | sensible to the high compliment of a re-election, and duly grateful as I 32 | trust to Almighty God for having directed my countrymen to a right 33 | conclusion, as I think, for their own good, it adds nothing to my 34 | satisfaction that any other man may be disappointed or pained by the 35 | result. 36 | 37 | May I ask those who have not differed with me, to join with me in this 38 | same spirit towards those who have? And now let me close by asking three 39 | hearty cheers for our brave soldiers and seamen, and their gallant and 40 | skilful commanders. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/79-letter-to-mrs-bixley-of-boston-nov-21-1864.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Dear Madam, I have been shown in the files of the War Department a 2 | statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the 3 | mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I 4 | feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should 5 | attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I 6 | cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found 7 | in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our 8 | heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave 9 | you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn 10 | pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the 11 | altar of freedom. 12 | 13 | Yours very sincerely and respectfully, 14 | ABRAHAM LINCOLN. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/80-letter-to-general-grant-jan-19-1865.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Please read and answer this letter as though I was not President, but 2 | only a friend. My son, now in his twenty-second year, having graduated 3 | at Harvard, wishes to see something of the war before it ends. I do not 4 | wish to put him in the ranks, nor yet to give him a commission, to which 5 | those who have already served long are better entitled, and better 6 | qualified to hold. Could he, without embarrassment to you or detriment 7 | to the service, go into your military family with some nominal rank, I, 8 | and not the public, furnishing his necessary means? If no, say so 9 | without the least hesitation, because I am as anxious and as deeply 10 | interested that you shall not be encumbered as you can be yourself. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/81-second-inaugural-address-march-4-1865.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Fellow-countrymen, At this second appearance to take the oath of the 2 | Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than 3 | there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a 4 | course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration 5 | of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly 6 | called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still 7 | absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little 8 | that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all 9 | else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and 10 | it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With 11 | high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. 12 | 13 | On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were 14 | anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it,--all 15 | sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from 16 | this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, 17 | insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without 18 | war,--seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. 19 | Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than 20 | let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let 21 | it perish. And the war came. 22 | 23 | One-eighth of the whole population were coloured slaves, not distributed 24 | generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. 25 | These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that 26 | this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, 27 | perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the 28 | insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government 29 | claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement 30 | of it.... 31 | 32 | With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the 33 | right, as God gives us to see the right,--let us strive on to finish the 34 | work we are in: to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who 35 | shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan; to do all 36 | which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, 37 | and with all nations. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/82-letter-to-thurlow-weed-1865.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Dear Mr. Weed, Every one likes a compliment. Thank you for yours on my 2 | little notification speech and on the recent inaugural address. I expect 3 | the latter to wear as well as--perhaps better than--anything I have 4 | produced; but I believe it is not immediately popular. Men are not 5 | flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose 6 | between the Almighty and them. To deny it, however, in this case, is to 7 | deny that there is a God governing the world. It is a truth which I 8 | thought needed to be told, and, as whatever of humiliation there is in 9 | it falls most directly on myself, I thought others might afford for me 10 | to tell it. 11 | 12 | Truly yours, 13 | A. LINCOLN. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/83-from-address-to-an-indiana-regiment-march-17-1865.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | There are but few aspects of this great war on which I have not already 2 | expressed my views by speaking or writing. There is one--the recent 3 | effort of "Our erring brethren," sometimes so called, to employ the 4 | slaves in their armies. The great question with them has been, "Will the 5 | negro fight for them?" They ought to know better than we, and doubtless 6 | do know better than we. I may incidentally remark, that having in my 7 | life heard many arguments--or strings of words meant to pass for 8 | arguments--intended to show that the negro ought to be a slave,--if he 9 | shall now really fight to keep himself a slave, it will be a far better 10 | argument why he should remain a slave than I have ever before heard. He, 11 | perhaps, ought to be a slave if he desires it ardently enough to fight 12 | for it. Or, if one out of four will, for his own freedom fight to keep 13 | the other three in slavery, he ought to be a slave for his selfish 14 | meanness. I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any 15 | should be slaves, it should be first those who desire it for themselves, 16 | and secondly those who desire it for others. Whenever I hear any one 17 | arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him 18 | personally. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/84-from-reply-to-a-serenade-lincolns-last-public-address-april-11-1865.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Fellow-citizens, We meet this evening, not in sorrow but in gladness of 2 | heart. The evacuation of Richmond and Petersburg, and the surrender of 3 | the principal insurgent army, give the hope of a just and speedy peace, 4 | the joyous expression of which cannot be restrained. In all this joy, 5 | however, He from whom all blessings flow must not be forgotten. A call 6 | for a national thanksgiving is in the course of preparation, and will be 7 | duly promulgated. Nor must those whose harder part give us the cause for 8 | rejoicing be overlooked. Their honours must not be parcelled out with 9 | others. I, myself, was near the front, and had the high pleasure of 10 | transmitting much of the good news to you; but no part of the honour for 11 | plan or execution is mine. To General Grant, his skilful officers and 12 | brave men, all belongs. The gallant navy stood ready, but was not in 13 | reach to take an active part. 14 | 15 | By these recent successes the reinauguration of the national 16 | authority,--reconstruction,--which has had a large share of thought from 17 | the first, is pressed much more closely upon our attention. It is 18 | fraught with great difficulty. Unlike a case of war between independent 19 | nations, there is no organized organ for us to treat with,--no one man 20 | has authority to give up the rebellion for any other man. We simply must 21 | begin with and mould from disorganized and discordant elements. Nor is 22 | it a small additional embarrassment that we, the loyal people, differ 23 | among ourselves as to the mode, manner, and measure of reconstruction. 24 | As a general rule I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon 25 | myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I cannot properly 26 | offer an answer. In spite of this precaution, however, it comes to my 27 | knowledge that I am much censured for some supposed agency in setting up 28 | and seeking to sustain the new State government of Louisiana. 29 | 30 | In this I have done just so much as, and no more than, the public knows. 31 | In the annual message of December 1863, and in the accompanying 32 | proclamation, I presented a plan of reconstruction, as the phrase goes, 33 | which I promised, if adopted by any State, should be acceptable to and 34 | sustained by the executive government of the nation. I distinctly stated 35 | that this was not the only plan which might possibly be acceptable, and 36 | I also distinctly protested that the executive claimed no right to say 37 | when or whether members should be admitted to seats in Congress from 38 | such States. This plan was in advance submitted to the then Cabinet, and 39 | approved by every member of it.... 40 | 41 | When the message of 1863, with the plan before mentioned, reached New 42 | Orleans, General Banks wrote me that he was confident that the people, 43 | with his military co-operation, would reconstruct substantially on that 44 | plan. I wrote him and some of them to try it. They tried it, and the 45 | result is known. Such has been my only agency in getting up the 46 | Louisiana government. As to sustaining it, my promise is out, as before 47 | stated. But as bad promises are better broken than kept, I shall treat 48 | this as a bad promise and break it, whenever I shall be convinced that 49 | keeping it is adverse to the public interest; but I have not yet been so 50 | convinced. I have been shown a letter on this subject, supposed to be an 51 | able one, in which the writer expresses regret that my mind has not 52 | seemed to be definitely fixed upon the question whether the seceded 53 | States, so called, are in the Union or out of it. It would perhaps add 54 | astonishment to his regret were he to learn that since I have found 55 | professed Union men endeavouring to answer that question, I have 56 | purposely forborne any public expression upon it.... 57 | 58 | We all agree that the seceded States, so called, are out of their proper 59 | practical relation with the Union, and that the sole object of the 60 | government, civil and military, in regard to those States, is to again 61 | get them into that proper practical relation. I believe that it is not 62 | only possible, but in fact easier, to do this without deciding or even 63 | considering whether these States have ever been out of the Union, than 64 | with it. Finding themselves safely at home, it would be utterly 65 | immaterial whether they had ever been abroad. Let us all join in doing 66 | the acts necessary to restoring the proper practical relations between 67 | these States and the Union, and each for ever after innocently indulge 68 | his own opinion whether in doing the acts he brought the States from 69 | without into the Union, or only gave them proper assistance, they never 70 | having been out of it. The amount of constituency, so to speak, on which 71 | the new Louisiana government rests, would be more satisfactory to all if 72 | it contained forty thousand, or thirty thousand, or even twenty 73 | thousand, instead of only about twelve thousand as it does. It is also 74 | unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the 75 | coloured man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the 76 | very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers. 77 | 78 | Still, the question is not whether the Louisiana government, as it 79 | stands, is quite all that is desirable. The question is, will it be 80 | wiser to take it as it is and help to improve it, or to reject and 81 | disperse it? Can Louisiana be brought into proper practical relation 82 | with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new State 83 | government? Some twelve thousand voters in the heretofore slave State of 84 | Louisiana have sworn allegiance to the Union, assumed to be the rightful 85 | political power of the State, held elections, organized a State 86 | government, adopted a free-State constitution, giving the benefit of 87 | public schools equally to black and white, and empowering the 88 | legislature to confer the elective franchise upon the coloured man. 89 | Their legislature has already voted to ratify the constitutional 90 | amendment recently passed by Congress, abolishing slavery throughout 91 | the nation. These twelve thousand persons are thus fully committed to 92 | the Union and to perpetual freedom in the State,--committed to the very 93 | things, and nearly all the things, the nation wants,--and they ask the 94 | nation's recognition and its assistance to make good their committal. 95 | 96 | If we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and 97 | disperse them. We, in effect, say to the white man: You are worthless or 98 | worse; we will neither help you, nor be helped by you. To the blacks, we 99 | say: This cup of liberty, which these, your old masters, hold to your 100 | lips, we will dash from you, and leave you to the chances of gathering 101 | the spilled and scattered contents in some vague and undefined when, 102 | where, and how. If this course, discouraging and paralyzing both white 103 | and black, has any tendency to bring Louisiana into proper, practical 104 | relations with the Union, I have so far been unable to perceive it. If, 105 | on the contrary, we recognize and sustain the new government of 106 | Louisiana, the converse of all this is made true. We encourage the 107 | hearts and nerve the arms of twelve thousand to adhere to their work, 108 | and argue for it, and proselyte for it, and fight for it, and feed it, 109 | and grow it, and ripen it to a complete success. The coloured man, too, 110 | in seeing all united for him, is inspired with vigilance, and energy, 111 | and daring to the same end. Grant that he desires the elective 112 | franchise, will he not attain it sooner by saving the already advanced 113 | steps towards it, than by running backward over them? 114 | 115 | ... I repeat the question, Can Louisiana be brought into proper 116 | practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding 117 | her new State government? 118 | 119 | ... What has been said of Louisiana will apply generally to other 120 | States. And yet so great peculiarities pertain to each State, and such 121 | important and sudden changes occur in the same State, and withal so new 122 | and unprecedented is the whole case, that no exclusive and inflexible 123 | plan can safely be prescribed as to details and collaterals. Such 124 | exclusive and inflexible plan would surely become a new entanglement. 125 | Important principles may and must be inflexible. In the present 126 | situation, as the phrase goes, it may be my duty to make some new 127 | announcement to the people of the South. I am considering, and shall not 128 | fail to act when satisfied that action will be proper. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /Lincoln/Lincoln.zip: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spitis/PyIndex/b4719440a4ff8e439d570a79067fd5e0eb66b7c0/Lincoln/Lincoln.zip -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /README.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # A leaner, faster backend for Whoosh 2 | 3 | [Whoosh](http://whoosh.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html) is great, but was working a bit too slow for my purposes (which require fast access to postings and slightly big data (~200GB)). Rather than jump ship to Lucene or some other IR framework, I built this backend for Whoosh, which in addition to having fast postings access also ended up being quite a bit faster than Whoosh's default backend. 4 | 5 | ### Benefits of this backend 6 | 7 | - over 50% reduction in indexing speed 8 | - over 50% reduction in query time 9 | - substantial reduction in index size 10 | - supports the default BM25 scoring, and should play nice with much of Whoosh 11 | - codebase is small and should be easy to understand/modify 12 | 13 | ### Limitations of this backend 14 | 15 | - very lean / only supports a static index; there is no delete document, only add documents; there is no support for segments, so adding individual documents requires the entire index to be rewritten (i.e., should add documents in bulk). 16 | - no block quality (TODO) 17 | - bare minimum testing (in the notebook) 18 | - the reduction in index size, and a small part of the speed boost is from using [this](https://github.com/lemire/streamvbyte) and [this](https://github.com/lemire/MaskedVByte) via a cython wrapper for postings compression. Very fast, but requires a recent Intel processor (e.g., Haswell). You may need to recompile the cython for this to work in your environment (run `python setup.py build_ext --inplace` in the streamvbyte directory to make a compatible .so file). It will fall back on pickle if you don't have this, which is not nearly as good (but still faster than default whoosh). 19 | - built in Python 3.5 with no eye for backward compatibility, and will not work with Python 2 without modification 20 | - takes up a lot of memory! All stored data is held in memory, and entire postings are read into memory; so this takes up a lot more memory than Whoosh (fixing this is a TODO) 21 | - lots of Whoosh features are not supported (e.g., term vectors, "unique" properties in the schema, etc.) 22 | 23 | ### Todo 24 | - add block quality and stop storing all postings in memory 25 | 26 | The IPython notebook has the benchmark calculations + shows how to use this backend with Whoosh. 27 | 28 | ### Benchmarks 29 | 30 | Datasets used are text collections from [this site](http://dhresourcesforprojectbuilding.pbworks.com/w/page/69244469/Data%20Collections%20and%20Datasets). 31 | 32 | - TCP-ECCO (170mb uncompressed) can be downloaded [here](https://github.com/Early-Modern-OCR/TCP-ECCO-texts/archive/master.zip) 33 | - Lincoln (700kb uncompressed) can be downloaded [here](http://oldsite.english.ucsb.edu/faculty/ayliu/unlocked/lincoln/lincoln-speeches-and-writings.zip) 34 | 35 | #### Index time 36 | 37 | |Dataset | Whoosh | Swhoosh | Speedup | 38 | |---|---|---|---| 39 | | Lincoln | ~1.03s | ~0.32s | 69% | 40 | | TCP-ECCO (single process) | ~175.1s | ~66.6s | 62% | 41 | | TCP-ECCO (multi process) | ~147.7s | ~27.7s | 81% | 42 | 43 | #### Index Size 44 | 45 | |Dataset | Whoosh | Swhoosh | Space saved | 46 | |---|---|---|---| 47 | | Lincoln | 1.5mb | 700kb | 53% | 48 | | TCP-ECCO | 170mb | 102mb | 40% | 49 | 50 | #### Query Time 51 | 52 | All queries disjunctive OR, on TCP-ECCO, using default BM25 scoring. 53 | 54 | | Query length | Whoosh | Swhoosh | Speedup | 55 | |---|---|---|---| 56 | | 3 words |9.07 ms | 3.83 ms | 58% | 57 | | 6 words | 14.36 ms | 5.54 ms | 61% | 58 | | 30 words | 92.54 ms | 48.19 ms | 48% | 59 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /src/.fuse_hidden0046f5eb000023ce: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spitis/PyIndex/b4719440a4ff8e439d570a79067fd5e0eb66b7c0/src/.fuse_hidden0046f5eb000023ce -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /src/__init__.py: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | from .indices import * 2 | from .postings import * 3 | from .manager import * 4 | from .swhoosh import * 5 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /src/_compress.py: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | """ 2 | think wrapper around pickle for compatibility if svb not working, but should really 3 | try to get svb working -- it's much much better 4 | """ 5 | import pickle 6 | 7 | def dump1(a, l): 8 | return pickle.dumps(a) 9 | 10 | def dump2(a, l): 11 | return pickle.dumps(a) 12 | 13 | def load1(s, l): 14 | return pickle.loads(s) 15 | 16 | def load2(s, l): 17 | return pickle.loads(s) 18 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /src/postings.py: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | try: 2 | from .svbcomp import load2 3 | except ImportError: 4 | from ._compress import load2 5 | 6 | class Postings(): 7 | """ 8 | The postings for a single term, which is a sorted list of, by index format: 9 | * existence: 1-tuple of (docId) 10 | * frequency: 2-tuple of (docId, frequency) 11 | * positions: 3-tuple of (docId, frequency, compressedPositions) 12 | 13 | You uncompress compressedPositions with the "load2" function. It will uncompressed to an 14 | array.array('I',[...]) 15 | """ 16 | 17 | def __init__(self, postings): 18 | self._postings = postings 19 | self._current = 0 # This is NOT a docId 20 | self._last = len(postings) - 1 21 | 22 | def first_doc(self): 23 | return self._postings[0] 24 | 25 | def last_doc(self): 26 | return self._postings[-1] 27 | 28 | def next_doc(self): 29 | idx = self._current 30 | self._current += 1 31 | return self._postings[idx] 32 | 33 | def prev_doc(self): 34 | self._current -= 1 35 | return self._postings[self._current] 36 | 37 | def all_docs(self): 38 | self._current = 0 39 | while self._current <= self._last: 40 | yield self._postings[self._current] 41 | self._current += 1 42 | 43 | def reset(self): 44 | self._current = 0 45 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /src/svbcomp.cpython-34m.so: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spitis/PyIndex/b4719440a4ff8e439d570a79067fd5e0eb66b7c0/src/svbcomp.cpython-34m.so -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /src/svbcomp.cpython-35m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spitis/PyIndex/b4719440a4ff8e439d570a79067fd5e0eb66b7c0/src/svbcomp.cpython-35m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /src/swhoosh.py: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | from whoosh.index import Index as whooshIndex 2 | from whoosh.reading import IndexReader as whooshIndexReader 3 | from whoosh.matching import Matcher as whooshMatcher 4 | import bisect 5 | from .manager import StaticIndexManager 6 | from .postings import Postings 7 | try: 8 | from .svbcomp import load2, load2_to_np 9 | except ImportError: 10 | from ._compress import load2 11 | load2_to_np = load2 12 | 13 | """ 14 | This file wraps the rest of the library so that it works with Whoosh. 15 | """ 16 | 17 | class Index(StaticIndexManager, whooshIndex): 18 | """A thin wrapper over StaticIndexManager that also subclasses the whoosh index""" 19 | 20 | def is_empty(self): 21 | return self._lastDocId == -1 22 | 23 | def doc_count(self): 24 | return self._lastDocId + 1 25 | 26 | def reader(self): 27 | return IndexReader(self) 28 | 29 | def writer(self): 30 | raise NotImplementedError("Use the add_documents methods on this object instead.") 31 | 32 | class IndexReader(whooshIndexReader): 33 | 34 | def __init__(self, index): 35 | self.schema = index._schema 36 | self.index = index 37 | 38 | def __contains__(self, term): 39 | fieldname, text = term 40 | if fieldname not in self.index._idxFields: 41 | return False 42 | return text in self.index._idx[fieldname]._termDict 43 | 44 | def __iter__(self): 45 | raise NotImplementedError('Not sure what this fn is for') 46 | 47 | def iter_from(self, fieldname, text): 48 | raise NotImplementedError('Not sure what this fn is for') 49 | 50 | def lexicon(self, fieldname): 51 | if fieldname not in self.index._idxFields: 52 | return None 53 | return self.index._idx[fieldname]._termDict.keys() 54 | 55 | def field_terms(self, fieldname): 56 | """Not sure how this is different from lexicon, so just returning lexicon""" 57 | return self.lexicon(fieldname) 58 | 59 | def stored_fields(self, docnum): 60 | return self.index._storedIdx[docnum] 61 | 62 | # N (total number of documents) 63 | def doc_count_all(self): 64 | return self.index.doc_count() 65 | 66 | def doc_count(self): 67 | return self.index.doc_count() 68 | 69 | # N_t (number of documents a given term appears in) 70 | def doc_frequency(self, fieldname, text): 71 | """num of docs term appears in""" 72 | try: 73 | return self.index._idx[fieldname]._termDict[text][0][1] 74 | except KeyError: 75 | return 0 76 | 77 | def frequency(self, fieldname, text): 78 | """total term frequency in collection""" 79 | raise self.index._idx[fieldname]._termDict[text][0][0] 80 | 81 | # l_d (length of document, given some field) 82 | def doc_field_length(self, docnum, fieldname, default=0): 83 | if docnum in self.index._storedIdx: 84 | res = self.index._storedIdx[docnum].get('dl_'+fieldname) 85 | return res or default 86 | 87 | # l_avg 88 | def avg_field_length(self, fieldname): 89 | """average length of each document in terms of this field""" 90 | return self.field_length(fieldname) / self.doc_count_all() 91 | 92 | def field_length(self, fieldname): 93 | """Total number of tokens in the field, across all documents""" 94 | return self.index._totalDocLen.get(fieldname) 95 | 96 | def max_field_length(self, fieldname): 97 | """Not sure what this is for -- it's never called""" 98 | raise NotImplementedError 99 | 100 | def term_info(self, fieldname, text): 101 | return MiniTermInfo(self.index._idx[fieldname].terminfo(text)) 102 | 103 | def has_vector(self, docnum, fieldname): 104 | return False 105 | 106 | def vector(self, docnum, fieldname, format_=None): 107 | raise NotImplementedError 108 | 109 | def postings(self, fieldname, text, scorer=None): 110 | """returns a matcher""" 111 | return Matcher(self.index._idx[fieldname]._postings(text), scorer) 112 | 113 | class Matcher(whooshMatcher): 114 | 115 | def __init__(self, postings, scorer): 116 | self._postings = postings 117 | self._scorer = scorer 118 | self._current = 0 # this is not a docId 119 | self._last = len(postings) - 1 120 | 121 | def is_active(self): 122 | return self._current <= self._last 123 | 124 | def id(self): 125 | return self._postings[self._current][0] 126 | 127 | def next(self): 128 | self._current += 1 129 | 130 | def value(self): 131 | return self.postings[self._current] 132 | 133 | def value_as(self, astype): 134 | if astype == 'positions': 135 | p = self._postings[self._current] 136 | return load2(p[2],p[1]) 137 | elif astype == 'frequency': 138 | return self.postings[self._current][1] 139 | else: 140 | raise NotImplementedError('Value as ' + str(astype) + ' is not implemented!') 141 | 142 | def value_as_positions(self): 143 | p = self._postings[self._current] 144 | return load2(p[2],p[1]) 145 | 146 | def value_as_positions_np(self): 147 | """returns numpy array instead of python array""" 148 | p = self._postings[self._current] 149 | return load2_to_np(p[2],p[1]) 150 | 151 | def weight(self): 152 | """weight seems to mean term frequency in current document""" 153 | return self._postings[self._current][1] 154 | 155 | def score(self): 156 | return self._scorer.score(self) 157 | 158 | def skip_to(self, id): 159 | self._current = bisect.bisect_left(self._postings, (id,)) 160 | 161 | def supports_block_quality(self): 162 | return False 163 | 164 | def max_quality(self): 165 | if self._scorer: 166 | return self._scorer.max_quality() 167 | else: 168 | raise NotImplementedError 169 | 170 | # Not whoosh methods 171 | def first_doc(self): 172 | return self._postings[0] 173 | 174 | def last_doc(self): 175 | return self._postings[-1] 176 | 177 | def next_doc(self): 178 | idx = self._current 179 | self._current += 1 180 | return self._postings[idx] 181 | 182 | def prev_doc(self): 183 | self._current -= 1 184 | return self._postings[self._current] 185 | 186 | def all_docs(self): 187 | self._current = 0 188 | while self._current <= self._last: 189 | yield self._postings[self._current] 190 | self._current += 1 191 | 192 | def reset(self): 193 | self._current = -1 194 | 195 | class MiniTermInfo(object): 196 | """For compatibility with whoosh""" 197 | 198 | def __init__(self, term_info): 199 | self._term_info = term_info 200 | 201 | def max_weight(self): 202 | return self._term_info[2] 203 | 204 | def min_length(self): 205 | return self._term_info[3] 206 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /streamvbyte/#setup.py#: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | from distutils.core import setup, Extension 2 | from Cython.Build import cythonize 3 | 4 | ext = Extension(name="svbcomp", sources=["svbcomp.pyx"], 5 | include_dirs=["include"],extra_compile_args=["-Iinclude streamvbytedelta.o","streamvbyte.o"]) 6 | 7 | setup(ext_modules=cythonize(ext)) 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /streamvbyte/.fuse_hidden00479bdc000023cd: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spitis/PyIndex/b4719440a4ff8e439d570a79067fd5e0eb66b7c0/streamvbyte/.fuse_hidden00479bdc000023cd -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /streamvbyte/.gitignore: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # Object files 2 | *.o 3 | *.ko 4 | *.obj 5 | *.elf 6 | 7 | # Precompiled Headers 8 | *.gch 9 | *.pch 10 | 11 | # Libraries 12 | *.lib 13 | *.a 14 | *.la 15 | *.lo 16 | 17 | # Shared objects (inc. Windows DLLs) 18 | *.dll 19 | *.so 20 | *.so.* 21 | *.dylib 22 | 23 | # Executables 24 | *.exe 25 | *.out 26 | *.app 27 | *.i*86 28 | *.x86_64 29 | *.hex 30 | 31 | # Debug files 32 | *.dSYM/ 33 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /streamvbyte/.travis.yml: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | language: c 2 | sudo: false 3 | compiler: 4 | - gcc 5 | - clang 6 | 7 | script: make && ./unit 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /streamvbyte/README.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | streamvbyte 2 | =========== 3 | [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/lemire/streamvbyte.png)](https://travis-ci.org/lemire/streamvbyte) 4 | 5 | StreamVByte is a new integer compression technique that applies SIMD instructions (vectorization) to 6 | Google's Group Varint approach. The net result is faster than other byte-oriented compression 7 | techniques. 8 | 9 | The approach is patent-free, the code is available under the Apache License. 10 | 11 | 12 | It includes fast differential coding. 13 | 14 | It assumes a recent Intel processor (e.g., haswell or better) . 15 | 16 | The code should build using most standard-compliant C99 compilers. The provided makefile 17 | expects a Linux-like system. 18 | 19 | 20 | Usage: 21 | 22 | make 23 | ./unit 24 | 25 | See example.c for an example. 26 | 27 | Short code sample: 28 | ```C 29 | // suppose that datain is an array of uint32_t integers 30 | size_t compsize = streamvbyte_encode(datain, N, compressedbuffer); // encoding 31 | // here the result is stored in compressedbuffer using compsize bytes 32 | streamvbyte_decode(compressedbuffer, recovdata, N); // decoding (fast) 33 | ``` 34 | 35 | If the values are sorted, then it might be preferable to use differential coding: 36 | ```C 37 | // suppose that datain is an array of uint32_t integers 38 | size_t compsize = streamvbyte_delta_encode(datain, N, compressedbuffer,0); // encoding 39 | // here the result is stored in compressedbuffer using compsize bytes 40 | streamvbyte_delta_decode(compressedbuffer, recovdata, N,0); // decoding (fast) 41 | ``` 42 | You have to know how many integers were coded when you decompress. You can store this 43 | information along with the compressed stream. 44 | 45 | See also 46 | -------- 47 | 48 | https://github.com/lemire/MaskedVByte 49 | 50 | https://github.com/lemire/simdcomp 51 | 52 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /streamvbyte/README_2.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | MaskedVByte 2 | =========== 3 | [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/lemire/MaskedVByte.png)](https://travis-ci.org/lemire/MaskedVByte) 4 | 5 | Fast decoder for VByte-compressed integers in C. 6 | 7 | It includes fast differential coding. 8 | 9 | It assumes a recent Intel processor (e.g., haswell) but should work 10 | with most x64 processors (supporting SSE instruction sets). 11 | 12 | The code should build using most standard-compliant modern C compilers (C99). The provided makefile 13 | expects a Linux-like system. 14 | 15 | 16 | Usage: 17 | 18 | make 19 | ./unit 20 | 21 | See example.c for an example. 22 | 23 | Short code sample: 24 | 25 | ```C 26 | size_t compsize = vbyte_encode(datain, N, compressedbuffer); // encoding 27 | // here the result is stored in compressedbuffer using compsize bytes 28 | size_t compsize2 = masked_vbyte_decode(compressedbuffer, recovdata, N); // decoding (fast) 29 | ``` 30 | 31 | Interesting applications 32 | ----------------------- 33 | 34 | Greg Bowyer has integrated Masked VByte into Lucene, for higher speeds : 35 | 36 | https://github.com/GregBowyer/lucene-solr/tree/intrinsics 37 | 38 | 39 | Reference 40 | ------------- 41 | 42 | Jeff Plaisance, Nathan Kurz, Daniel Lemire, Vectorized VByte Decoding, 43 | International Symposium on Web Algorithms 2015, 2015. 44 | http://arxiv.org/abs/1503.07387 45 | 46 | 47 | See also 48 | ------------ 49 | 50 | * libvbyte: A fast implementation for varbyte 32bit/64bit integer compression https://github.com/cruppstahl/libvbyte 51 | * https://github.com/lemire/streamvbyte 52 | * https://github.com/lemire/simdcomp 53 | 54 | 55 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /streamvbyte/example: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spitis/PyIndex/b4719440a4ff8e439d570a79067fd5e0eb66b7c0/streamvbyte/example -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /streamvbyte/example.c: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | #include 2 | #include 3 | #include 4 | #include 5 | 6 | #include "streamvbyte.h" 7 | #include "streamvbytedelta.h" 8 | 9 | #include "varintencode.h" 10 | #include "varintdecode.h" 11 | 12 | int test_masked(void); 13 | 14 | int main() { 15 | srand(time(NULL)); 16 | int k, N = 20; 17 | uint32_t * datain = malloc(N * sizeof(uint32_t)); 18 | uint8_t * compressedbuffer = malloc(N * sizeof(uint32_t)); 19 | uint32_t * recovdata = malloc(N * sizeof(uint32_t)); 20 | for (k = 0; k < N; ++k) 21 | datain[k] = k*8 + rand()%8; 22 | 23 | 24 | printf(" In: ["); 25 | for (k = 0; k < N; ++k) { 26 | printf("%d, ", datain[k]); 27 | } 28 | printf("%d]\n", datain[k-1]); 29 | 30 | size_t compsize = streamvbyte_delta_encode(datain, N, compressedbuffer, 0); // encoding 31 | 32 | // here the result is stored in compressedbuffer using compsize bytes 33 | size_t compsize2 = streamvbyte_delta_decode(compressedbuffer, recovdata, 34 | N, 0); // decoding (fast) 35 | 36 | assert(compsize == compsize2); 37 | 38 | printf("Out: ["); 39 | for (k = 0; k < N; ++k) { 40 | printf("%d, ", recovdata[k]); 41 | } 42 | printf("%d]\n",recovdata[k-1]); 43 | 44 | free(datain); 45 | free(compressedbuffer); 46 | free(recovdata); 47 | printf("Compressed %d integers down to %d bytes.\n",N,(int) compsize); 48 | 49 | test_masked(); 50 | return 0; 51 | } 52 | 53 | int test_masked() { 54 | int N = 5000; 55 | uint32_t * datain = malloc(N * sizeof(uint32_t)); 56 | uint8_t * compressedbuffer = malloc(N * sizeof(uint32_t)); 57 | uint32_t * recovdata = malloc(N * sizeof(uint32_t)); 58 | for (int k = 0; k < N; ++k) 59 | datain[k] = 120; 60 | size_t compsize = vbyte_encode(datain, N, compressedbuffer); // encoding 61 | // here the result is stored in compressedbuffer using compsize bytes 62 | size_t compsize2 = masked_vbyte_decode(compressedbuffer, recovdata, 63 | N); // decoding (fast) 64 | assert(compsize == compsize2); 65 | free(datain); 66 | free(compressedbuffer); 67 | free(recovdata); 68 | printf("Compressed %d integers down to %d bytes.\n",N,(int) compsize); 69 | return 0; 70 | } 71 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /streamvbyte/include/streamvbyte.h: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | 2 | #ifndef VARINTDECODE_H_ 3 | #define VARINTDECODE_H_ 4 | #define __STDC_FORMAT_MACROS 5 | #include 6 | #include // please use a C99-compatible compiler 7 | #include 8 | 9 | 10 | // Encode an array of a given length read from in to bout in varint format. 11 | // Returns the number of bytes written. 12 | size_t streamvbyte_encode(uint32_t *in, uint32_t length, uint8_t *out); 13 | 14 | // Read "length" 32-bit integers in varint format from in, storing the result in out. 15 | // Returns the number of bytes read. 16 | size_t streamvbyte_decode(const uint8_t* in, uint32_t* out, uint32_t length); 17 | 18 | 19 | #endif /* VARINTDECODE_H_ */ 20 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /streamvbyte/include/streamvbytedelta.h: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | /* 2 | * streamvbytedelta.h 3 | * 4 | * Created on: Apr 14, 2016 5 | * Author: lemire 6 | */ 7 | 8 | #ifndef INCLUDE_STREAMVBYTEDELTA_H_ 9 | #define INCLUDE_STREAMVBYTEDELTA_H_ 10 | 11 | 12 | // Encode an array of a given length read from in to bout in StreamVByte format. 13 | // Returns the number of bytes written. 14 | // this version uses differential coding (coding differences between values) starting at prev (you can often set prev to zero) 15 | size_t streamvbyte_delta_encode(uint32_t *in, uint32_t length, uint8_t *out, uint32_t prev); 16 | 17 | // Read "length" 32-bit integers in StreamVByte format from in, storing the result in out. 18 | // Returns the number of bytes read. 19 | // this version uses differential coding (coding differences between values) starting at prev (you can often set prev to zero) 20 | size_t streamvbyte_delta_decode(uint8_t* in, uint32_t* out, uint32_t length, uint32_t prev); 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | #endif /* INCLUDE_STREAMVBYTEDELTA_H_ */ 25 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /streamvbyte/include/varintdecode.h: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | 2 | #ifndef VARINTDECODE_H_ 3 | #define VARINTDECODE_H_ 4 | #define __STDC_FORMAT_MACROS 5 | #include 6 | #include // please use a C99-compatible compiler 7 | #include 8 | 9 | // Read "length" 32-bit integers in varint format from in, storing the result in out. Returns the number of bytes read. 10 | size_t masked_vbyte_decode(const uint8_t* in, uint32_t* out, uint64_t length); 11 | 12 | // Read "length" 32-bit integers in varint format from in, storing the result in out with differential coding starting at prev. Setting prev to zero is a good default. Returns the number of bytes read. 13 | size_t masked_vbyte_decode_delta(const uint8_t* in, uint32_t* out, uint64_t length, uint32_t prev); 14 | 15 | // Read 32-bit integers in varint format from in, reading inputsize bytes, storing the result in out. Returns the number of integers read. 16 | size_t masked_vbyte_decode_fromcompressedsize(const uint8_t* in, uint32_t* out, 17 | size_t inputsize); 18 | 19 | // Read 32-bit integers in varint format from in, reading inputsize bytes, storing the result in out with differential coding starting at prev. Setting prev to zero is a good default. Returns the number of integers read. 20 | size_t masked_vbyte_decode_fromcompressedsize_delta(const uint8_t* in, uint32_t* out, 21 | size_t inputsize, uint32_t prev); 22 | 23 | // assuming that the data was differentially-coded, retrieve one particular value (at location slot) 24 | uint32_t masked_vbyte_select_delta(const uint8_t *in, uint64_t length, 25 | uint32_t prev, size_t slot); 26 | 27 | // return the position of the first value >= key, assumes differential-coded values 28 | int masked_vbyte_search_delta(const uint8_t *in, uint64_t length, uint32_t prev, 29 | uint32_t key, uint32_t *presult); 30 | 31 | #endif /* VARINTDECODE_H_ */ 32 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /streamvbyte/include/varintencode.h: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | 2 | #ifndef VARINTENCODE_H_ 3 | #define VARINTENCODE_H_ 4 | 5 | #include // please use a C99-compatible compiler 6 | #include 7 | 8 | // Encode an array of a given length read from in to bout in varint format. 9 | // Returns the number of bytes written. 10 | size_t vbyte_encode(uint32_t *in, size_t length, uint8_t *bout); 11 | 12 | // Encode an array of a given length read from in to bout in varint format with differential 13 | // coding starting at value prev. (Setting prev to 0 is a good default.) 14 | // 15 | // If the input is unsorted, then the result of the differential coding will be undefined as per the C spec. 16 | // 17 | // Returns the number of bytes written. 18 | size_t vbyte_encode_delta(uint32_t *in, size_t length, uint8_t *bout, uint32_t prev); 19 | 20 | 21 | #endif /* VARINTENCODE_H_ */ 22 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /streamvbyte/makefile: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ## MODIFIED TO ALSO INCLUDE things from https://github.com/lemire/MaskedVByte 2 | ## minimalist makefile 3 | .SUFFIXES: 4 | # 5 | .SUFFIXES: .cpp .o .c .h 6 | 7 | CFLAGS = -fPIC -march=native -std=c99 -O3 -Wall -Wextra -pedantic -Wshadow 8 | LDFLAGS = -shared 9 | LIBNAME=libstreamvbyte.so.0.0.1 10 | all: unit $(LIBNAME) 11 | test: 12 | ./unit 13 | install: $(OBJECTS) 14 | cp $(LIBNAME) /usr/local/lib 15 | ln -s /usr/local/lib/$(LIBNAME) /usr/local/lib/libstreamvbyte.so 16 | ldconfig 17 | cp $(HEADERS) /usr/local/include 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | HEADERS=./include/streamvbyte.h ./include/streamvbytedelta.h ./include/varintdecode.h ./include/varintencode.h 22 | 23 | uninstall: 24 | for h in $(HEADERS) ; do rm /usr/local/$$h; done 25 | rm /usr/local/lib/$(LIBNAME) 26 | rm /usr/local/lib/libstreamvbyte.so 27 | ldconfig 28 | 29 | 30 | OBJECTS= streamvbyte.o streamvbytedelta.o varintdecode.o varintencode.o 31 | 32 | streamvbytedelta.o: ./src/streamvbytedelta.c $(HEADERS) 33 | $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c ./src/streamvbytedelta.c -Iinclude 34 | 35 | streamvbyte.o: ./src/streamvbyte.c $(HEADERS) 36 | $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c ./src/streamvbyte.c -Iinclude 37 | 38 | varintencode.o: ./src/varintencode.c $(HEADERS) 39 | $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c ./src/varintencode.c -Iinclude 40 | 41 | varintdecode.o: ./src/varintdecode.c $(HEADERS) 42 | $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c ./src/varintdecode.c -Iinclude 43 | 44 | 45 | $(LIBNAME): $(OBJECTS) 46 | $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o $(LIBNAME) $(OBJECTS) $(LDFLAGS) 47 | 48 | example: ./example.c $(HEADERS) $(OBJECTS) 49 | $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o example ./example.c -Iinclude $(OBJECTS) 50 | 51 | unit: ./tests/unit.c $(HEADERS) $(OBJECTS) 52 | $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o unit ./tests/unit.c -Iinclude $(OBJECTS) 53 | 54 | dynunit: ./tests/unit.c $(HEADERS) $(LIBNAME) 55 | $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -o dynunit ./tests/unit.c -Iinclude -lstreamvbyte 56 | 57 | clean: 58 | rm -f unit *.o $(LIBNAME) example 59 | 60 | svbcomp: ./svbcomp.c $(HEADERS) $(OBJECTS) 61 | $(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(PYFLAGS) -o svbcomp ./svbcomp.c -Iinclude $(OBJECTS) $(LDFLAGS) 62 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /streamvbyte/setup.py: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | from distutils.core import setup, Extension 2 | from Cython.Build import cythonize 3 | 4 | ext = Extension(name="svbcomp", sources=["svbcomp.pyx"], 5 | include_dirs=["include"], 6 | extra_objects=["streamvbytedelta.o","streamvbyte.o","varintdecode.o","varintencode.o"]) 7 | 8 | setup(ext_modules=cythonize(ext)) 9 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /streamvbyte/src/varintencode.c: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | #include "varintencode.h" 2 | 3 | 4 | size_t vbyte_encode_delta(uint32_t *in, size_t length, uint8_t *bout, uint32_t prev) { 5 | uint8_t *initbout = bout; 6 | for (size_t k = 0; k < length; ++k) { 7 | const uint32_t val = in[k] - prev; 8 | prev = in[k]; 9 | if (val < (1U << 7)) { 10 | *bout = val & 0x7F; 11 | ++bout; 12 | } else if (val < (1U << 14)) { 13 | *bout = (uint8_t)((val & 0x7F) | (1U << 7)); 14 | ++bout; 15 | *bout = (uint8_t)(val >> 7); 16 | ++bout; 17 | } else if (val < (1U << 21)) { 18 | *bout = (uint8_t)((val & 0x7F) | (1U << 7)); 19 | ++bout; 20 | *bout = (uint8_t)(((val >> 7) & 0x7F) | (1U << 7)); 21 | ++bout; 22 | *bout = (uint8_t)(val >> 14); 23 | ++bout; 24 | } else if (val < (1U << 28)) { 25 | *bout = (uint8_t)((val & 0x7F) | (1U << 7)); 26 | ++bout; 27 | *bout = (uint8_t)(((val >> 7) & 0x7F) | (1U << 7)); 28 | ++bout; 29 | *bout = (uint8_t)(((val >> 14) & 0x7F) | (1U << 7)); 30 | ++bout; 31 | *bout = (uint8_t)(val >> 21); 32 | ++bout; 33 | } else { 34 | *bout = (uint8_t)((val & 0x7F) | (1U << 7)); 35 | ++bout; 36 | *bout = (uint8_t)(((val >> 7) & 0x7F) | (1U << 7)); 37 | ++bout; 38 | *bout = (uint8_t)(((val >> 14) & 0x7F) | (1U << 7)); 39 | ++bout; 40 | *bout = (uint8_t)(((val >> 21) & 0x7F) | (1U << 7)); 41 | ++bout; 42 | *bout = (uint8_t)(val >> 28); 43 | ++bout; 44 | } 45 | } 46 | return bout - initbout; 47 | } 48 | 49 | size_t vbyte_encode(uint32_t *in, size_t length, uint8_t *bout) { 50 | uint8_t *initbout = bout; 51 | for (size_t k = 0; k < length; ++k) { 52 | const uint32_t val = in[k]; 53 | 54 | if (val < (1U << 7)) { 55 | *bout = val & 0x7F; 56 | ++bout; 57 | } else if (val < (1U << 14)) { 58 | *bout = (uint8_t)((val & 0x7F) | (1U << 7)); 59 | ++bout; 60 | *bout = (uint8_t)(val >> 7); 61 | ++bout; 62 | } else if (val < (1U << 21)) { 63 | *bout = (uint8_t)((val & 0x7F) | (1U << 7)); 64 | ++bout; 65 | *bout = (uint8_t)(((val >> 7) & 0x7F) | (1U << 7)); 66 | ++bout; 67 | *bout = (uint8_t)(val >> 14); 68 | ++bout; 69 | } else if (val < (1U << 28)) { 70 | *bout = (uint8_t)((val & 0x7F) | (1U << 7)); 71 | ++bout; 72 | *bout = (uint8_t)(((val >> 7) & 0x7F) | (1U << 7)); 73 | ++bout; 74 | *bout = (uint8_t)(((val >> 14) & 0x7F) | (1U << 7)); 75 | ++bout; 76 | *bout = (uint8_t)(val >> 21); 77 | ++bout; 78 | } else { 79 | *bout = (uint8_t)((val & 0x7F) | (1U << 7)); 80 | ++bout; 81 | *bout = (uint8_t)(((val >> 7) & 0x7F) | (1U << 7)); 82 | ++bout; 83 | *bout = (uint8_t)(((val >> 14) & 0x7F) | (1U << 7)); 84 | ++bout; 85 | *bout = (uint8_t)(((val >> 21) & 0x7F) | (1U << 7)); 86 | ++bout; 87 | *bout = (uint8_t)(val >> 28); 88 | ++bout; 89 | } 90 | } 91 | return bout - initbout; 92 | } 93 | 94 | 95 | 96 | 97 | 98 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /streamvbyte/svbcomp: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spitis/PyIndex/b4719440a4ff8e439d570a79067fd5e0eb66b7c0/streamvbyte/svbcomp -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /streamvbyte/svbcomp.pyx: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | from cpython cimport array 2 | import array 3 | from libc.stdlib cimport malloc, free 4 | cimport numpy as np 5 | import numpy as np 6 | 7 | cdef extern from "inttypes.h": 8 | ctypedef unsigned int uint32_t 9 | ctypedef unsigned char uint8_t 10 | ctypedef unsigned long uint64_t 11 | 12 | cdef extern from "streamvbytedelta.h": 13 | size_t streamvbyte_delta_encode(uint32_t *x, uint32_t length, uint8_t *out, uint32_t prev) 14 | size_t streamvbyte_delta_decode(uint8_t *x, uint32_t *out, uint32_t length, uint32_t prev) 15 | 16 | cdef extern from "varintdecode.h": 17 | size_t masked_vbyte_decode_delta(const uint8_t *x, uint32_t* out, uint64_t length, uint32_t prev) 18 | 19 | cdef extern from "varintencode.h": 20 | size_t vbyte_encode_delta(uint32_t *x, size_t length, uint8_t *bout, uint32_t prev) 21 | 22 | cdef uint32_t PREV = 0 23 | 24 | def dump1(array.array arr, uint32_t length): 25 | cdef uint32_t *x = arr.data.as_uints 26 | cdef uint8_t *out = malloc(length * sizeof(uint32_t)) 27 | res = streamvbyte_delta_encode(x, length, out, PREV) 28 | cdef bytes b = out[:res] 29 | free(out) 30 | return b 31 | 32 | def dump2(array.array arr, size_t length): 33 | cdef uint32_t *x = arr.data.as_uints 34 | cdef uint8_t *out = malloc(length * sizeof(uint32_t)) 35 | res = vbyte_encode_delta(x, length, out, PREV) 36 | cdef bytes b = out[:res] 37 | free(out) 38 | return b 39 | 40 | def load1(bytes b, uint32_t length): 41 | cdef size_t size = length * sizeof(uint32_t) 42 | cdef uint32_t *rec = malloc(size) 43 | streamvbyte_delta_decode(b, rec, length, PREV) 44 | a = array.array('I',[]) 45 | a.frombytes((rec)[:size]) 46 | free(rec) 47 | return a 48 | 49 | def load2(bytes b, uint64_t length): 50 | cdef size_t size = length * sizeof(uint32_t) 51 | cdef uint32_t *rec = malloc(size) 52 | masked_vbyte_decode_delta(b, rec, length, PREV) 53 | a = array.array('I',[]) 54 | a.frombytes((rec)[:size]) 55 | free(rec) 56 | return a 57 | 58 | def load1_to_np(bytes b, uint32_t length): 59 | cdef size_t size = length * sizeof(uint32_t) 60 | cdef uint32_t *rec = malloc(size) 61 | streamvbyte_delta_decode(b, rec, length, PREV) 62 | a = np.fromstring((rec)[:size], dtype=np.uint32) 63 | free(rec) 64 | return a 65 | 66 | def load2_to_np(bytes b, uint32_t length): 67 | cdef size_t size = length * sizeof(uint32_t) 68 | cdef uint32_t *rec = malloc(size) 69 | masked_vbyte_decode_delta(b, rec, length, PREV) 70 | a = np.fromstring((rec)[:size], dtype=np.uint32) 71 | free(rec) 72 | return a 73 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /streamvbyte/tests/unit.c: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | #include 2 | #include 3 | 4 | #include "streamvbyte.h" 5 | #include "streamvbytedelta.h" 6 | 7 | int main() { 8 | int N = 4096; 9 | uint32_t * datain = malloc(N * sizeof(uint32_t)); 10 | uint8_t * compressedbuffer = malloc(2 * N * sizeof(uint32_t)); 11 | uint32_t * recovdata = malloc(N * sizeof(uint32_t)); 12 | 13 | for (int length = 0; length <= N;) { 14 | printf("length = %d \n", length); 15 | for (uint32_t gap = 1; gap <= 387420489; gap *= 3) { 16 | for (int k = 0; k < length; ++k) 17 | datain[k] = gap; 18 | size_t compsize = streamvbyte_encode(datain, length, 19 | compressedbuffer); 20 | size_t usedbytes = streamvbyte_decode(compressedbuffer, recovdata, 21 | length); 22 | if (compsize != usedbytes) { 23 | printf( 24 | "[streamvbyte_decode] code is buggy gap = %d, size mismatch %d %d \n", 25 | (int) gap, (int) compsize, (int) usedbytes); 26 | return -1; 27 | } 28 | for (int k = 0; k < length; ++k) { 29 | if (recovdata[k] != datain[k]) { 30 | printf("[streamvbyte_decode] code is buggy gap = %d\n", 31 | (int) gap); 32 | return -1; 33 | } 34 | } 35 | } 36 | 37 | printf("Delta \n"); 38 | for (size_t gap = 1; gap <= 531441; gap *= 3) { 39 | for (int k = 0; k < length; ++k) 40 | datain[k] = gap * k; 41 | size_t compsize = streamvbyte_delta_encode(datain, length, 42 | compressedbuffer, 0); 43 | size_t usedbytes = streamvbyte_delta_decode(compressedbuffer, 44 | recovdata, length, 0); 45 | if (compsize != usedbytes) { 46 | printf( 47 | "[streamvbyte_delta_decode] code is buggy gap = %d, size mismatch %d %d \n", 48 | (int) gap, (int) compsize, (int) usedbytes); 49 | return -1; 50 | } 51 | for (int k = 0; k < length; ++k) { 52 | if (recovdata[k] != datain[k]) { 53 | printf( 54 | "[streamvbyte_delta_decode] code is buggy gap = %d\n", 55 | (int) gap); 56 | return -1; 57 | } 58 | } 59 | 60 | } 61 | 62 | if (length < 128) 63 | ++length; 64 | else { 65 | length *= 2; 66 | } 67 | } 68 | free(datain); 69 | free(compressedbuffer); 70 | free(recovdata); 71 | printf("Code looks good.\n"); 72 | return 0; 73 | } 74 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /streamvbyte/unit: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spitis/PyIndex/b4719440a4ff8e439d570a79067fd5e0eb66b7c0/streamvbyte/unit --------------------------------------------------------------------------------