Lincoln Sends Letter Re: Fair To Raise Funds For Wounded, Where He Spoke About Slavery
Abraham Lincoln
Washington, DC, April 18, 1864
Lincoln Sends Letter Re: Fair To Raise Funds For Wounded, Where He Spoke About Slavery
Free Frank
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Free Frank Signed, on Envelope Addressed by Schuyler Colfax to Samuel M. Shoemaker, April 18, 1864, Washington, D.C. 1 p., 6.125" x 3.375", mounted to cardstock, 6.375" x 3.5".
President Abraham Lincoln signed his name to authorize the free franking of this envelope addressed by Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax and its contents [not included] to Samuel M. Shoemaker in Baltimore on April 18, 1864. The contents of the letter likely concerned Lincoln's visit to the Baltimore Sanitary Fair on that day and Colfax's plans to stay with Shoemaker.
Complete Transcript
A. Lincoln.
S. W. Shoemaker Esq
Adams Exp. Co
Baltimore / Md.
Deliver immediately
[Postmark:] WASHINGTON D.C FREE / APR 18 '64
Historical Background
In April 1864, Baltimore hosted the Maryland State Fair for the U.S. Sanitary Commission (Baltimore Sanitary Fair) to raise money for wounded Union soldiers. On April 15, 1864, Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax wrote to President Lincoln: "I gladdened the hearts of the officers of the Maryland State Fair by informing them of your promise to me to attend next Monday evening at its opening.... The trains go up at 3 P.M., 4.30 P.M & 5.20. I suppose they would prefer your coming at 3. I shall go over with my family, & stop at a friend's, Mr. Shoemaker.... Please advise them of the time when you will come that they may make the necessary arrangements."
The fair opened on Monday, April 18, and Democratic Maryland Governor Augustus W. Bradford (1806-1881) delivered an address to a crowd of 6,000 to 8,000 people. President Abraham Lincoln followed Bradford's address with a fifteen-minute speech. He referred to the change in Union sentiment in Baltimore since 1861, when soldiers were attacked passing through the city, and he had to travel in disguise in the middle of the night to reach Washington. Lincoln observed that "The change within Baltimore is part only of a far wider change. When the war began, three years ago, neither party, nor any man, expected it would last till now.... Neither did any anticipate that domestic slavery would be much affected by the war. But here we are; the war has not ended, and slavery has been much affected—how much needs not now to be recounted. So true is it that man proposes, and God disposes."
Lincoln continued with reflections on the concept of liberty: "The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatable things, called by the same name—liberty." He continued with a homely metaphor: "The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty.... Recently, as it seems, the people of Maryland have been doing something to define liberty; and thanks to them that, in what they have done, the wolf's dictionary, has been repudiated."
Lincoln also addressed the rumors of a massacre of African American soldiers and their white officers at Fort Pillow along the Mississippi River in Tennessee: "A painful rumor, true I fear, has reached us of the massacre, by the rebel forces, at Fort Pillow, in the West end of Tennessee, on the Mississippi river, of some three hundred colored soldiers and whi
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Abraham Lincoln
Washington, DC, April 18, 1864
Lincoln Sends Letter Re: Fair To Raise Funds For Wounded, Where He Spoke About Slavery
Free Frank
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Free Frank Signed, on Envelope Addressed by Schuyler Colfax to Samuel M. Shoemaker, April 18, 1864, Washington, D.C. 1 p., 6.125" x 3.375", mounted to cardstock, 6.375" x 3.5".
President Abraham Lincoln signed his name to authorize the free franking of this envelope addressed by Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax and its contents [not included] to Samuel M. Shoemaker in Baltimore on April 18, 1864. The contents of the letter likely concerned Lincoln's visit to the Baltimore Sanitary Fair on that day and Colfax's plans to stay with Shoemaker.
Complete Transcript
A. Lincoln.
S. W. Shoemaker Esq
Adams Exp. Co
Baltimore / Md.
Deliver immediately
[Postmark:] WASHINGTON D.C FREE / APR 18 '64
Historical Background
In April 1864, Baltimore hosted the Maryland State Fair for the U.S. Sanitary Commission (Baltimore Sanitary Fair) to raise money for wounded Union soldiers. On April 15, 1864, Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax wrote to President Lincoln: "I gladdened the hearts of the officers of the Maryland State Fair by informing them of your promise to me to attend next Monday evening at its opening.... The trains go up at 3 P.M., 4.30 P.M & 5.20. I suppose they would prefer your coming at 3. I shall go over with my family, & stop at a friend's, Mr. Shoemaker.... Please advise them of the time when you will come that they may make the necessary arrangements."
The fair opened on Monday, April 18, and Democratic Maryland Governor Augustus W. Bradford (1806-1881) delivered an address to a crowd of 6,000 to 8,000 people. President Abraham Lincoln followed Bradford's address with a fifteen-minute speech. He referred to the change in Union sentiment in Baltimore since 1861, when soldiers were attacked passing through the city, and he had to travel in disguise in the middle of the night to reach Washington. Lincoln observed that "The change within Baltimore is part only of a far wider change. When the war began, three years ago, neither party, nor any man, expected it would last till now.... Neither did any anticipate that domestic slavery would be much affected by the war. But here we are; the war has not ended, and slavery has been much affected—how much needs not now to be recounted. So true is it that man proposes, and God disposes."
Lincoln continued with reflections on the concept of liberty: "The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatable things, called by the same name—liberty." He continued with a homely metaphor: "The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty.... Recently, as it seems, the people of Maryland have been doing something to define liberty; and thanks to them that, in what they have done, the wolf's dictionary, has been repudiated."
Lincoln also addressed the rumors of a massacre of African American soldiers and their white officers at Fort Pillow along the Mississippi River in Tennessee: "A painful rumor, true I fear, has reached us of the massacre, by the rebel forces, at Fort Pillow, in the West end of Tennessee, on the Mississippi river, of some three hundred colored soldiers and whi
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