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ABE LINCOLN AND THEODORE ROOSEVELT - 1905
Lincoln Dinner Address
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Go here for more about
 Theodore
Roosevelt.
Go here for more about
Theodore
Roosevelt's Lincoln Dinner
address.
Photo above:
Print showing Presidents Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt in
cameos connected by bunting, with the White House in the
upper center between them, and respective birthplaces in the
lower center. Library of Congress. |
It follows the full text transcript of
Theodore Roosevelt's Address at the Lincoln
Dinner, delivered at
New York City, NY - February 13, 1905.
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Mr. President, |
and you, my fellow members of the Republican Club, and you, my
fellow guests of the Republican Club, before I come to the matter which I have specially
to lay before you tonight let me say a word on another subject.
Prior to receiving the invitation to address this Club on
this day I had already accepted an invitation from one who is
a guest with me tonight. Gen. Howard, who was
to give a dinner tonight in behalf of a cause which every man
who believes in the memory of Abraham Lincoln, and who believes in the union,
should have at heart.
On the last occasion when Gen. Howard spoke with the
great martyred President, President Lincoln showed himself
deeply interested in the welfare of the people of East Tennessee,
Kentucky and the Virginia mountains, and spoke so earnestly
of their welfare that Gen. Howard then pledged himself to do
all he could to promote the welfare of those people among
whom Lincoln was born, and in pursuance of that pledge he
and those associated with him have established a group of
schools, called the Lincoln Memorial University, at Cumberland Gap, for the industrial, normal and academic training of
those people. And the General has felt that he was in a peculiar way carrying
out the purpose of Abraham Lincoln in dedicating himself to that work.
I should not have felt at liberty to disregard his invitation
to me for any other invitation except that which I have accepted
this evening. But when I told the General what
this Club meant to me, and what it meant to me to come as
President of the United States among my fellow members here, the General at once
released me from my promise to him.
And now in what I have to say to you tonight I shall not
strive to entertain you. I shall try to speak to you in a manner
to express what you and I, I believe, have most at heart.
I do not I will change the form of that sentence you
here are Republicans only secondarily you are Americans first.
And I speak to you tonight as a typical gathering of my fellow
Americans. Typical in the fact that we represent different creeds, that some of
us were born here and some
abroad, that some of us live here, some in the West and some in
the South, but that we are each and all, every one of us, without regard to
creed or birthplace, good Americans and nothing
else.
I speak to you, my old friends and companions, to you,
with many of whom I have been intimately associated in political life from the
time that I cast my first vote, to you the men
of the great war to whom I looked up from the time I came to
manhood, as setting the example for every young American to
follow should ever another war call for the people of the United
States, to one or two of you beside whom I had the good fortune to fight in a
little warit wasn't a big war, but
it was all the war there was. I speak to a body of men who have rendered in the past, and are
rendering in the present, in the Army, in the Navy, on the
Bench, in the Senate, in private life, the kind of service which
makes us content, and more than content to be American citizens. And, therefore,
I intend to speak to you tonight, not as Republicans only, not as New Yorkers only, but
as good Americans, good citizens of the United States, and,
therefore, having deeply at heart the problems connected with
any and all of our fellow citizens in whatever part of the Union
they live.
In his second inaugural, in a speech which will be read as
long as the memory of this nation endures, Abraham Lincoln
closed by saying:
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with
firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us
strive on to finish the work we are in; . . . to do all which
may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all
nations.
Immediately after his re-election he had already spoken
thus. Mind you, gentlemen, speaking this within twenty-four
hours after his re-election to the presidency in the midst of a
civil war which, because of its extreme bitterness, would have
corroded with a like bitterness the soul of any man less high-minded than he
was. He said:
The strife of the election is but human nature practically
applied to the facts of the case. What has occurred in this
case must ever recur in similar cases. Human nature will not
change. In any future great national trial, compared with the
men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as
wise, as bad, and as good.
Let us, therefore, study the incidents of this as
philosophy to learn wisdom from, and none of
them as wrongs to be revenged. . . . May not all having a
common interest reunite in a common effort to serve our common
country? For my own part, I have striven and shall strive to
avoid placing any obstacle in the way.
So long as I have been
here, I have not willingly
planted a thorn in any man's bosom. While I am deeply sensible to the high
compliment of a re-election, and duly grateful,
as I trust, to Almighty God for having directed my countrymen
to a right conclusion, as I think, for their own good, it adds
nothing to my satisfaction that any other man may be disappointed or pained by
the result.
May I ask those who have not differed with me to join with
me in this same spirit toward those who
have?
This is the spirit in which mighty Lincoln sought to bind
up the nation's wounds when its soul was yet seething with
fierce hatreds, with wrath, with rancor, with all the evil and
dreadful passions provoked by civil war. Surely this is the spirit which all
Americans should show now, when there is so little
excuse for malice or rancor or hatred, when there is so little of
vital consequence to divide brother from brother.
Lincoln, himself a man of Southern birth, did not hesitate
to appeal to the sword when he became satisfied that in no
other way could the Union be saved, for high though he put
peace he put righteousness still higher. He
warred for the Union; he warred to free the slave; and when
he warred he warred in earnest, for it is a sign of weakness to
be half-hearted when blows must be struck. But
he felt only love, a love as deep as the tenderness of his great
and sad heart, for all his countrymen alike in the North and in
the South, and he longed above everything for the day when
they should once more be knit together in the unbreakable bonds
of eternal friendship.
We of today, in dealing with all our fellow citizens, white
or colored. North or South, should strive to show just the qualities that
Lincoln showed: his steadfastness in striving after
the right, and his infinite patience and forbearance with those
who saw that right less clearly than he did ; his earnest endeavor
to do what was best, and yet his readiness to accept the best
that was practicable when the ideal best was unattainable; his
unceasing effort to cure what was evil, coupled with his refusal
to make a bad situation worse by any ill-judged or ill-timed
effort to make it better.
The great Civil War, in which Lincoln towered as the
loftiest figure, left us not only a reunited country, but a country
which has the proud right to claim as its own the glory won
alike by those who wore the blue and by those who wore the
gray; by those who followed Grant and by those
who followed Lee, for both fought with equal bravery and with
equal sincerity of conviction, each striving for the light as it was
given him to see the light, though it is now clear to all that the
triumph of the cause of freedom and of the Union was essential
to the welfare of mankind. We are now
one people, a people with failings which we must not blink, but a people with
great qualities in which we have the right to
feel just pride.
All good Americans who dwell in the North must, because they are good
Americans, feel the most earnest friendship
for their fellow countrymen who dwell in the South, a friendship all the greater
because it is in the South
that we find in its most acute phase one of the gravest problems
before our people, the problem of so dealing with the man of
one color as to secure him the rights that no man would grudge
him if he were of another color. To solve
this problem it is, of course, necessary to educate him to perform the duties a
failure to perform which will render him a
curse to himself and to all around him. Mind that. And it is
true of every one. In addition to rights in every Republic there
are correlative duties. And if the man, black or white, is not
trained to do his duty he becomes necessarily a festering plague
spot in the whole body politic.
Most certainly all clear sighted and generous men in the
North appreciate the difficulty and perplexity of this problem,
sympathize with the South in the embarrassment of conditions
for which she is not alone responsible, feel an honest wish to
help her where help is practicable, and have the heartiest respect
for those brave and earnest men of the South who, in the face
of fearful difficulties, are doing all that men can do for the betterment alike
of white and of black.
The attitude of the North, I would always rather preach
about the sins prevalent in the particular congregation I am addressing, the
attitude of the North toward the negro is far from
what it should be, and there is need that the North also should
act in good faith upon the principle of giving to each man what
is justly due him, of treating him on his worth as a man, granting him no
special favors, but denying him no proper opportunity
for labor and the reward of labor. But the peculiar circumstances of the South
render the problem there far
greater and far more acute.
Neither I nor any other man can say that any given way of
approaching that problem will present in our time even an approximately perfect
solution, but we can safely say that there
can never be such solution at all unless we approach it with the
effort to do fair and equal justice among all men, and to demand
from them in return just and fair treatment for others. Our effort should be to
secure to each man, whatever
his color, equality of opportunity, equality of treatment before
the law.
And let me interject right here. It is forty years since the
Civil War came to a close within a few weeks, it is nearly forty
years, this anniversary of Lincoln's birthday, since the anniversary of
Lincoln's death, and surely in all this land there should
be no audience to whom such an appeal as that I am making
should appeal more than to this which I am now addressing.
As a people striving to shape our actions in accordance
with the great law of righteousness, we cannot afford to take
part in or be indifferent to the oppression or maltreatment of any
man who, against crushing disadvantages, has by his own industry, energy,
self-respect and perseverance struggled upward
to a position which would entitle him to the respect of his fellows if only his
skin were of a different hue.
Every generous impulse in us revolts at the thought of
thrusting down instead of helping up such a man. To deny any
man the fair treatment granted to others no better than he is to
commit a wrong upon him a wrong sure to react in the long
run upon those guilty of such denial. The only
safe principle upon which Americans can act is that of "all men
up," not that of "some men down." If in any community the
level of intelligence, morality and thrift among the colored men
can be raised, it is, humanly speaking, sure that the same level
among the whites will be raised to an even higher degree, and it
is no less sure that the debasement of the blacks will in the end
carry with it an attendant debasement of the whites.
The problem is so to adjust the relations between two
races of different ethnic type that the rights of neither be
abridged nor jeoparded; that the backward race be trained so
that it may enter into the possession of true freedom not false
freedom true freedom, while the forward race is enabled lo
preserve unharmed the high civilization wrought out by its
forefathers. The working out of this problem must necessarily
be slow; it is not possible in off-hand fashion to obtain or to
confer the priceless boons of freedom, industrial efficiency, political capacity
and domestic morality. And that is a lesson that
some of our good friends in this country need to learn in dealing
with outside peoples. All the resolutions passed at all the anti-imperialist gatherings held in the United
States since the close or the beginning of
the war with Spain, have not availed for the welfare of the people of the
Philippines one one-hundredth part as much as what
was done by any one day's work of the present Secretary of
War, Secretary Taft.
Gentlemen, this meeting is all right. Nor is it only necessary to
train the colored man ; it is quite as necessary to train the white
man, for on his shoulders rests a well nigh unparalleled sociological
responsibility. It is a problem demanding the best thought,
the utmost patience, the most earnest effort, the broadest charity, that is the
word Lincoln used: charity toward all, the
broadest charity of the statesman, the student, the philanthropist, of the
leaders of thought in every department of our national life. The Church can be a
most important factor in solving it aright. But above all else we need for its successful
solution the sober, kindly, steadfast, unselfish performance of
duty by the average plain citizen in his every day dealings with
his fellows.
The ideal of elemental justice meted out to every man is
the ideal we should keep ever before us. It will be many a
long day before we attain to it, and unless we show not only
devotion to it, but also wisdom and self-restraint in the exhibition of that
devotion, we shall defer the time for its realization still further. In striving
to attain to so much of it as concerns
dealing with men of different colors, we must remember two
things.
In the first place, it is true of the colored man, as it is true
of the white man, that in the long run his fate must depend far
more upon his own effort than upon the efforts of any outside
friend. That applies to every man. There is not one of us that does not
occasionally stumble, and shame to each of us if he does not stretch out a hand to
help the brother who thus stumbles. Help him
if he stumbles, but remember that if he lies down, there is no use in trying to
carry him. It will hurt both of you. Every vicious, venal or ignorant colored man is an
even greater foe to his own race than to the community as a
whole. The colored man's self-respect entitles
him to do that share in the political work of the country which
is warranted by his individual ability and integrity and the position he has won
for himself. But the prime requisite of the race
is moral and industrial uplifting.
Laziness and shiftlessness, these, and, above all, vice and
criminality of every kind, are evils more potent for harm to the
black race than all acts of oppression of white men put together.
The colored man who fails to condemn crime in another colored
man, who fails to cooperate in all lawful ways in bringing colored criminals to
justice, is the worst enemy of his own people,
as well as an enemy to all the people. Law-abiding black men
should, for the sake of their race, be foremost in relentless and
unceasing warfare against lawbreaking black men. If the
standards of private morality and industrial efficiency can be
raised high enough among the black race, then its future on this
continent is secure. The stability and purity of the home are
vital to the welfare of the black race as they are to the welfare
of every race.
In the next place, the white man, who, if only he is willing,
can help the colored man more than all other white men put
together, is the white man who is his neighbor. North or South. Let me interject
there, it is a good thing to remember, that while it is occasionally proper to
join in mass meetings and call attention to our neighbor's shortcomings, it is
normally better to attend to our own. Each of
us must do his whole duty without flinching, and if that duty is
national it must be done in accordance with the immutable
principles upon which our nation stands, but in endeavoring
each to be his brother's keeper, it is wise to remember that ordinarily each can
do most for that brother who is his next door
neighbor. If we are sincere friends of the negro, let us each in
his own locality show it by his action therein, and let us each
show it also by upholding the hands of the white man in whatever locality, who
is striving to do justice to the poor and the
helpless, to be a shield to those whose need for such a shield is
great.
The heartiest acknowledgments are due to the ministers,
the judges and law officers, the grand juries, the public men,
and the great daily newspapers in the South, who have recently
done such effective work in leading the crusade against lynching
in the South; and I am glad to say that during the last three
months the returns, as far as they can be gathered, show a
smaller number of lynchings than for any other three months
during the last twenty years. Those are rather
striking figures and I take a certain satisfaction in them in view
of some of the gloomy forebodings of last summer. Let us uphold in every way the
hands of the men who have led in this work, who are striving to do all their
work in this spirit. I am about to quote from the address of the
Right Reverend Robert Strange, Bishop Co-adjutor of North
Carolina, as given in "The Southern Churchman" of October
8. 1904 October 8th last.
The bishop first enters an emphatic plea against any social
intermingling of the races, a question which must, of course, be
left to the people of each community to settle for themselves, as
in such a matter no one community, and indeed no one individual, can dictate to
any other; always provided that in each locality men keep in mind the fact that
there must be no confusing of civil privileges with social intercourse.
Civil law cannot regulate social practices. Society, as such, is
a law unto itself, and will always regulate its own practices and
habits. Full recognition of the fundamental fact that all men
should stand on an equal footing as regards civil privileges in no
way interferes with recognition of the further fact that all reflecting men of
both races are united in feeling that race purity must be maintained.
The bishop continues, I am quoting what this Southern Bishop says:
"What should the white men of the South do for the
negro? They must give him a free hand, a fair field and a
cordial godspeed, the two races working together for their
mutual benefit and for the development of our common country.
He must have liberty, equal opportunity to make his living, to
earn his bread, to build his home. He must have justice, equal
rights, and protection before the law. He must have the same
political privileges; the suffrage should be based on character
and intelligence for white and black alike. He must have the
same public advantages of education; the public schools are for
all the people, whatever their color or condition. The white
men of the South should give hearty and respectful consideration to the
exceptional men of the negro race, to those who have
the character, the ability and the desire to be lawyers, physicians,
teachers, preachers, leaders of thought and conduct among their
own men and women. We should give them cheer and opportunity to gratify every
laudable ambition, and to seek every innocent satisfaction among their own
people. Finally the best white men of the South should have frequent conferences with
the best colored men, where, in frank, earnest and sympathetic
discussion, they might understand each other better, smooth
difficulties, and so guide and encourage the weaker race."
Surely we can all of us join in expressing our substantial
agreement with the principles thus laid down by this North
Carolina bishop, this representative of the Christian thought of
the South.
I am speaking on the occasion of the celebration of the
birthday of Abraham Lincoln, and to men who count it their
peculiar privilege that they have the right to hold Lincoln's
memory dear and the duty to strive to work along the lines that
he laid down. We can pay most fitting homage to his memory
by doing the tasks allotted to us in the spirit in which he did the
infinitely greater and more terrible tasks allotted to him.
Let us be steadfast for the right, but let us err on the
side of generosity rather than on the side of vindictiveness toward
those who differ from us as to the method of attaining the right.
Let us never forget our duty to help in uplifting the lowly, to
shield from wrong the humble, and let us likewise act in a
spirit of the broadest and frankest generosity toward all our
brothers, all our fellow countrymen; in a spirit proceeding not
from weakness, but from strength, a spirit which takes no more
account of locality than it does of class or of creed, a spirit
which is resolutely bent on seeing that the Union which Washington founded and
which Lincoln saved from destruction shall
grow nobler and greater throughout the ages for evermore.
I believe in this country with all my heart and soul. I
believe that our people will in the end rise level to every need,
will in the end triumph over every difficulty that rises before
them. I could not have such confident faith in the destiny of
this mighty people if I had it merely as regards one portion of
that people. Throughout our land
things on the whole have grown better and not worse, and this
is as true of one part of the country as it is of another. I believe
in the Southerner as I believe in the Northerner. I claim the
right to feel pride in his great qualities and in his great deeds
exactly as I feel pride in the great qualities and deeds of every
other American. For weal or for woe we are
knit together, and we shall go up or go down together, and I believe that we
shall go up and not down, that
we shall go forward instead of halting and falling back, because
I have an abiding faith in the generosity, the courage, the resolution and the
common sense of all my countrymen.
The Southern States face difficult problems, and so do the
Northern States. Some of the problems are the same for the
entire country. Others exist in greater intensity in one section,
and yet others exist in greater intensity in another section. But
in the end they will all be solved, for fundamentally our people
are the same throughout this land, the same in the qualities of
heart and brain and hand which have made this Republic what
it is in the great today ; which will make it what it is to be in the
infinitely greater tomorrow. I admire and respect and believe in and have faith
in the men and women of the South as I admire and respect and believe in and have faith
in the men and women of the North. All of us alike. Northerners and Southerners, Easterners and Westerners,
can best prove our fealty to the nation's past by the way in
which we do the nation's work in the present, for only thus can
we be sure that our children's children shall inherit Abraham
Lincoln's single-hearted devotion to the great unchanging creed
that "righteousness exalteth a nation."
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