Sect. 5. That the municipal authorities of Washington and Georgetown, within their respective jurisdictional limits, are hereby empowered and required to provide active and efficient means to arrest and deliver up to their owners all fugitive slaves escaping into said District.

Sect. 6. That the elective officers within said District of Columbia are hereby empowered and required to open polls at all. the usual places of holding elections, on the first Monday of April next, and receive the vote of every free male white citizen above the age of twenty-one years, having resided within said District for the period of one year or more next preceding the time of such voting for or against this act, to proceed in taking said votes in all respects not herein specified, as at elections under the municipal laws, and with as little delay as possible to transmit correct statements of the votes so cast to the President of the United States; and it shall be the duty of the President to count such votes immediately, and if a majority of them be found to be for this act, to forthwith issue his proclamation giving notice of the fact; and this act shall only be in full force and effect on and after the day of such proclamation.

Sect. 7. That involuntary servitude for the punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall in no wise be prohibited by this act.

Sect. 8. That for all purposes of this act, the jurisdictional limits of Washington are extended to all parts of the District of Columbia not included within the present limits of George

town.

Mr. Lincoln then said, "that he was authorized to say that of about fifteen of the leading citizens of the District of Columbia to whom this proposition had been submitted, there was not one but approved of such a proposition. He did not wish to be misunderstood. He did not know whether or not they would vote for his bill on the first Monday of April; but he repeated that out of fifteen persons to whom it had been submitted, he had authority to say that every one of them desired that some such proposition as this should pass.'

The Illinois Staats-Anzeiger publishes a letter of Abraham Lincoln, written just a year since, on the Naturalization question and the Massachusetts amendment, as well as on the propriety of a fusion of the Republican with other parties. The following is the letter.

DR. THEODORE CANISIUS:

SPRINGFIELD, MAY 17, 1859.

DEAR SIR: I have received your letter, in which you ask, for yourself and other German citizens, whether I am for or against the constitutional provision, in relation to naturalized citizens, which has lately been adopted by Massachusetts; and whether I am for or against a fusion of the Republican and other opposition elements for the election campaign of 1860.

Massachusetts is a sovereign and independent State, and I have no title to advise or admonish her as to her course, what she shall do. But when any one, from that which she has done, seeks to draw a conclusion as to what I shall do, I may, without being charged with presumption, speak my mind. I say, then,, that, so far as I understand the Massachusetts amendment, I am against the adoption of the same, as well in Illinois as in all other places where I have the right to oppose it. Since I interpret the spirit of our institutions as tending to the elevation of man, I am opposed to everything which leads to his degradation. Since, as is pretty well known, I commiserate the oppressed condition of the negroes, I should be guilty of a remarkable inconsistency, were I to favor any measure, whose tendency is to abridge the existing rights of

308 THE SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

white men, whether born in another country, or speaking another language than my own.

As regards the question of a fusion of parties, I am for it, if it can be effected upon a Republican basis; upon no other terms am I in favor of it. A fusion upon any other terms would be as unwise as it would be unprincipled. Its effect would be to lose thereby the whole North, while the common enemy would certainly carry the entire South. The question in relation to men is a different one. There are good and patriotic men, and able statesmen in the South, whom I would cheerfully support, if they stood upon Republican ground; but I am opposed to lowering the Republican standard by so much as a hair's-breadth.

I have written this in haste, but I believe that it substantially answers your questions.

Respectfully yours,

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

LINCOLN'S VOTE IN THE ILLINOIS SENATORIAL CANVASS OF

1858.

The following table shows the popular vote of Mr. Lincoln's supporters in the Legislature elected at the termination of the memorable struggle between Mr. Lincoln and Judge Douglas. The figures show how rascally must have been the apportionment by which Mr. Lincoln was defeated:

For Members of the Legislature.

Lincoln, 125,275;

Miller, 125,430;

Lecompton, 5,071; Douglas, 121,090.
For Treasurer.

Dougherty, 5,071; Fondey, 121,609.

For Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Bateman, 124,556;

Reynolds, 5,173;' French, 122,413.

SPEECH

OF

ΗΟΝ. ΠΑΝNIBAL ΗΛMLIN

OF MAINE.