Robertson County George Robertson
- A Representative from Kentucky;
- born near Harrodsburg, Mercer County, Ky., November 18, 1790;
- pursued preparatory studies and attended Transylvania University, Lexington, Ky., until 1806;
- studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1809 and commenced practice in Lancaster, Ky.;
- elected as a Republican to the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Congresses
- and served from March 4, 1817, until his resignation in 1821,
- before the convening of the Seventeenth Congress; chairman,
- Committee on Private Land Claims (Fifteenth Congress);
- member of the State house of representatives 1822-1827,
- serving four years as speaker;
- declined the appointment as Governor of Arkansas Territory tendered by President Monroe
- and the diplomatic posts of United States Minister to Colombia in 1824 and to Peru in 1828;
- secretary of state of Kentucky in 1828;
- appointed associate justice of the court of appeals of Kentucky in 1829
- and served as chief justice from 1829 to 1834, when he resigned;
- resumed the practice of law in Lexington, Ky.;
- professor of law in Transylvania University 1834-1857;
- elected as a Whig a member of the State house of representatives in 1848, 1851, and 1852,
- and served as speaker in the two last-named years;
- justice of the court of appeals for the second district of Kentucky 1864-1871
- and acting chief justice part of the time; died in Lexington, Ky., May 16, 1874;
- interment in Lexington Cemetery.
Letter to George Robertson, 1855
- Judge George Robertson was a lawyer,
- professor of law, and former Congressman from Kentucky,
- who had once served as legal counsel for Lincoln in the matter of his father-in-law's will.
- Robertson at one point gave Lincoln
- a copy of his speeches and writings on slavery and other topics,
- and that precipitated this letter.
- Text taken from Roy Basler (editor),
- The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. II, pp. 317-319.
-
- Springfield, Illinois
- August 15, 1855
- Hon: Geo. Robertson
- Lexington, Ky
My Dear Sir:
- The volume you left for me has been received.
- I am really grateful for the honor of your kind remembrance, as well as for the book.
- The partial reading I have already given it,
- has afforded me much of both pleasure and instruction.
- It was new to me that the exact question which led to the Missouri compromise,
- had arisen before it arose in regard to Missouri;
- and that you had taken so prominent a part in it.
- Your short, but able and patriotic speech upon that occasion,
- has not been improved upon since, by those holding the same views;
- and, with all the lights you then had, the views you took appear to me as very reasonable.
- You are not a friend of slavery in the abstract.
- In that speech you spoke of "the peaceful extinction of slavery"
- and used other expressions indicating your belief that the thing was, at some time,
- to have an end[.]
- Since then we have had thirty six years of experience; and this experience has demonstrated,
- I think, that there is no peaceful extinction of slavery in prospect for us.
- The signal failure of Henry Clay, and other good and great men, in 1849,
- to effect any thing in favor of gradual emancipation in Kentucky,
- together with a thousand other signs, extinguishes that hope utterly.
- On the question of liberty, as a principle, we are not what we have been.
- When we were the political slaves of King George,
- and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that "all men are created equal"
- a self evident truth; but now when we have grown fat,
- and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves,
- we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim
- "a self evident lie" The fourth of July has not quite dwindled away;
- it is still a great day�for burning fire-crackers!!!
- That spirit which desired the peaceful extinction of slavery,
- has itself become extinct, with the occasion, and the men of the Revolution.
- Under the impulse of that occasion,
- nearly half the states adopted systems of emancipation at once;
- and it is a significant fact, that not a single state has done the like since.
- So far as peaceful, voluntary emancipation is concerned,
- the condition of the negro slave in America,
- scarcely less terrible to the contemplation of a free mind,
- is now as fixed, and hopeless of change for the better,
- as that of the lost souls of the finally impenitent.
- The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown,
- and proclaim his subjects free republicans sooner than will our
- American masters voluntarily give up their slaves.
- Our political problem now is "Can we, as a nation,
- continue together permanently -- forever -- half slave, and half free?"
- The problem is too mighty for me. May God, in his mercy, superintend the solution.
- Your much obliged friend, and humble servant
Abraham Lincoln