The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-04-29
LINCOLN TAKES A HAND.
Writes Letter Regarding His Father
and Criticizing Roosevelt.

anu OrIL4C1ZIH@ INOOSONSll'
Newark. N. J., April 29.-On his
way north to carry the fight into
Massa chusetts, President Taft made
| public a letter from Robert T. Lin
| coin, son of President Lincoln, in
which Colonel Theodore Roosevelt is
! criticized and condemned for what Mr..
Lincoln declares is perversion of the
| truth.
my personal feelings the letter
read, "are unimportant, but L am not
only impatient but indignant that
| President Lincolns words and plain
views should be perverted and misap-
| piled before trusting people into sup
| port of doctrines which 1 believe he
would abhor, living"
Mr.. Lincoln'S letter was written, he
says, in answer to a request for an
opinion of repeated assertions by the
recorded view" of the martyred presi-
dent.
The letter in part follows:
The government under which my
father lived was. as it is now, re-
public, or representative democracy
checked by the constitution which can
be changed by the people, but only
when acting by methods which COM
pei deliberation and exclude so far as
is possible the effect of passionate and
short sighted impulse.
President Lincoln wrote many let
tiers, made many public addresses and
was the author of many documents. 1
do not know of the existence in any
complaint of or government or Of
the methods by which it was carried
on. He was sincerely and faithfully
. obedient to our constitution In the
single act for which he is most re-
membered-the issuance of the eman-
I cipation proclamation-he expressly
supported it as an act warranted by
the constitution upon military neces-
sity.
ION one public occasion he de-
scribed the effect of the counting of
slaves in the congressional and cleo
toral representation. In comment he
said:
Now all this is manifestly unfair;
yet do not mention it to complain of
it insofar as it is already settled. 1t
is in the constitution and l do not for
that cause, or any other cause, pro-
pose to destroy or alter or disregard
the constitution I stand on it fairly,
fully and firmly
His attitude toward the Dred-S Scott
decision is urged as in support of the
pernicious project for the recall by
decisions. He thought it an erron-
, eous decision but his chief point in
reference to it was not its error, but
that it indicated a scheme and was
a part of it, for the naturalization
of human slavery.
He never suggested a change in
our government under which the
judges who made it should be recalled
litically by voting. if in his power,
for an act prohibiting slavery in
United States territory and then en-
deavor to have the act sustained in a
new proceeding by the same court re-
versing itself.
rs there to be found here or any
| where else, support for a project to
abolish the essential elements or any
elements of our constitution? And yet
he is cited in support of such action.
HE loved the government under
which he lived and when at Gettys-
burg he prayed Gf I may that
word) that a government of the peo-
pie, by the people. and for the people
may not perish from the earth, he
meant and could only mean that gov
eminent under which he lived, a rep
resentative government of balanced
executive, legislative and judicial
parts, and not something entirely diff
ferent-an unchecked democracy.
These often quoted words of Pres
ident Lincoln are now deliberately al
tered and argument founded on their
oIf