Emergency Help Needed

[L Verge]

I have a gentleman who is big in the collecting world with a specialty in Lincoln, but he's bedridden now and needs an answer quickly. He needs to know the source for this Lincoln quote:

"I do the very best I know how -- the very best I can: I mean to keep doing so until the end. ..."

The full quote is even lengthier, but this should be all you detectives need. He was obviously reading from a handwritten version also.

[RJNorton]

"If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference."

The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln: Six Months at the White House by Francis B. Carpenter (Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1995), pp. 258-259.

Laurie, this is the copy of Carpenter's book I have; the original was published in the 1860s.

According to Carpenter, Lincoln uttered the quote in reaction to a verbal attack on him from the Committee on the Conduct of War.

[L Verge]

(09-20-2017 09:48 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  "If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference."

The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln: Six Months at the White House by Francis B. Carpenter (Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1995), pp. 258-259.

Laurie, this is the copy of Carpenter's book I have; the original was published in the 1860s.

According to Carpenter, Lincoln uttered the quote in reaction to a verbal attack on him from the Committee on the Conduct of War.

Thank you so much, Roger. I just called this gentleman, and he sends his thanks also. He doesn't have email, so I am downloading this and mailing it to him tomorrow.