Lincoln on Democracy

"UNIVERSAL AMNESTY ... WITHUNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE"

Lincoln and Democracy, 1863-1865 313 The President last night had a dream. He was in a party of plain people and as it became known who he was they began to comment on his appearance. One of them said, "He is a very common looking man." The President replied, "Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them." Waking, he remembered it, and told it as rather a neat thing. "UNIVERSAL AMNESTY ... WITH UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE" From a Letter to General James S. Wadsworth [JANUARY 1864?] The original ofthis letter has never been located. It was published in the New York Tribune five months after Lincoln's death, along with a questionable concluding paragraph most likely not from Lincoln's pen-and not included here. To the Southern Advocate, commenting in September 1865, the letter showed that Lincoln "desired the bestowal of the elective franchise upon the blacks. ... " You desire to know, in the event of our complete success in the field, the same being followed by a loyal and cheerful submission on the part of the South, if universal amnesty should not be accompanied with universal suffrage. Now, since you know my private inclinations as to what terms should be granted to the South in the contingency mentioned, I will here add, that if our success should thus be realized, followed by such desired results, I cannot see, if universal amnesty is granted, how, under the circumstances, I can avoid exacting in return universal suffrage, or, at least, suffrage on the basis of intelligence and military service.... ...