Abraham Lincoln's Speech to the Indiana Volunteers

[David Lockmiller]

(05-09-2020 02:00 AM)Steve Wrote:  David, I only looked for the speech in the Collected Works - I didn't know it had already been somewhere else.

According to John Surratt's Rockville lecture it was actually Chief Justice Salmon Chase who attended the performance of Still Waters Run Deep at the hospital on March 17th 1865.

Here's an article about Gen. Forrest's pre-war slave trading I think anybody reading the above posted article should also read:

https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/o...926292001/

Steve

After reading your post, I recalled that I had made a post on the same subject sometime in the past. I used the excellent Search feature on this website to find my post. I saw that I made the response to a post made by Laurie. I read her post and immediately made the connection once again between her post and the speech President Lincoln made to the Indiana regiment. I had completely forgotten about Laurie’s post, and I then thought if I had forgotten the post, many others here would have forgotten as well.

The connection with Lincoln’s speech is the following:

"I may incidentally remark, however, that having, in my life, heard many arguments,---or strings of words meant to pass for arguments,---intended to show that the negro ought to be a slave, that if he shall now really fight to keep himself a slave, it will be a far better argument why [he] should remain a slave than I have ever before heard. He, perhaps, ought to be a slave, if he desires it ardently enough to fight for it. Or, if one out of four will, for his own freedom, fight to keep the other three in slavery, he ought to be a slave for his selfish meanness. I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others.

Perhaps those black men who fought with General Forrest thought that the South would win the Civil War and that these men and their families would remain forever slaves. And, I do not know if President Lincoln was aware at the time that negro soldiers were already fighting for the South.

Great credit goes to Laurie that she provided this information to the Lincoln Discussion Symposium.

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(05-09-2020 11:30 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  

(05-09-2020 02:00 AM)Steve Wrote:  David, I only looked for the speech in the Collected Works - I didn't know it had already been somewhere else.

According to John Surratt's Rockville lecture it was actually Chief Justice Salmon Chase who attended the performance of Still Waters Run Deep at the hospital on March 17th 1865.

Here's an article about Gen. Forrest's pre-war slave trading I think anybody reading the above posted article should also read:

https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/o...926292001/

Steve

After reading your post, I recalled that I had made a post on the same subject sometime in the past. I used the excellent Search feature on this website to find my post. I saw that I made the response to a post made by Laurie. I read her post and immediately made the connection once again between her post and the speech President Lincoln made to the Indiana regiment. I had completely forgotten about Laurie’s post, and I then thought if I had forgotten the post, many others here would have forgotten as well.

The connection with Lincoln’s speech is the following:

"I may incidentally remark, however, that having, in my life, heard many arguments,---or strings of words meant to pass for arguments,---intended to show that the negro ought to be a slave, that if he shall now really fight to keep himself a slave, it will be a far better argument why [he] should remain a slave than I have ever before heard. He, perhaps, ought to be a slave, if he desires it ardently enough to fight for it. Or, if one out of four will, for his own freedom, fight to keep the other three in slavery, he ought to be a slave for his selfish meanness. I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others.

Perhaps those black men who fought with General Forrest thought that the South would win the Civil War and that these men and their families would remain forever slaves. And, I do not know if President Lincoln was aware at the time that negro soldiers were already fighting for the South.

Great credit goes to Laurie that she provided this information to the Lincoln Discussion Symposium.

I wanted to add another observation.

"There is an important first part of President Lincoln’s speech, contained in Steve’s newspaper article post, which was not covered in the source of my post:

"I was born in Kentucky; raised in Indiana, and live in Illinois, [laughter] and I am now here, where it is my business to be, to care equally for the good people of all the States. I am glad to see an Indiana regiment on this day able to present this captured flag to the Governor of the State of Indiana. [Applause] I am not disposed, in saying this, to make a distinction between the States, for all have done equally well." [Applause.]

That last statement made by President Lincoln cut short any possible claim to the contrary.