slave or all free, and though I fall early in the contest, it is nothing if I shall have contributed, in the least degree, to the final rightful result.

Respectfully yours,

A. LINCOLN.

*LETTER TO ALEXANDER SYMPSON

SPRINGFIELD, December 12, 1858.

My dear Sir: I expect the result of the elec tion went hard with you. So it did with me, too, perhaps not quite so hard as you may have supposed. I have an abiding faith that we shall beat them in the long run. Step by step the objects of the leaders will become too plain for the people to stand them. I write merely to let you know that I am neither dead nor dying. Please give my respects to your good family, and all inquiring friends.

Yours as ever,

A. LINCOLN.

*LEGAL OPINION, JANUARY 6, 1859

The 11th Section of the Act of Congress, approved Feb. 11, 1805, prescribing rules for the subdivision of Sections of land within the United States system of Surveys, standing unrepealed, in my opinion, is binding on the respective purchasers of different parts of the same section, and furnishes the true rule for Survey

ors in establishing lines between them. That law, being in force at this time each became a purchaser, becomes a condition of the purchase.

And by that law, I think the true rule for dividing into quarters, any interior Section, or Sections, which is not fractional, is to run straight lines through the Section from the opposite quarter section corners, fixing the point where such straight lines cross, or intersect each other, as the middle or center of the Section.

Nearly, perhaps quite, all the original surveys are to some extent, erroneous, and in some of the Sections, greatly so. In each of the latter, it is obvious that a more equitable mode of division than the above, might be adopted; but as error is infinitely various perhaps no better single rules can be prescribed.

At all events I think the above has been prescribed by the competent authority.

Springfield, Jany. 6, 1859.

A. LINCOLN.

LECTURE ON "DISCOVERIES, INVENTIONS, AND IMPROVEMENTS" [FEBRUARY 22 ? 1859], DELIVERED IN NEIGHBORING TOWNS IN 18 1859, AND BEFORE THE SPRINGFIELD LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, FEBRUARY 22, 18601

WR

E have all heard of Young America. He is the most current youth of the age. Some think him conceited and arrogant; but has he not reason to entertain a rather extensive opinion of himself? Is he not the inventor and owner of the present, and sole hope of the future? Men and things, everywhere, are ministering unto him. Look at his apparel, and you shall see cotton fabrics from Manchester and Lowell; flax linen from Ireland; wool cloth from Spain; silk from France; furs from the arctic region; with a buffalo-robe from the Rocky Mountains, as a general outsider. At his table, besides plain bread and meat made at home, are sugar from Louisiana, coffee and fruits from the tropics, salt from Turk's Island, fish from Newfound

'From_autograph manuscript in the Lincoln Collection of Charles F. Gunther, Esq., Chicago, Ill.-N. and H.