[DiogenesLamp]

I had to search all the way back to April 26, 2023 to find where we discussed this, at great length, the last time -- here, and here and here:

*YOU* may have discussed it. When I see you getting all long winded and wordy, I just skip the comment and go look for something else to read.

The only part of all this I can verify is that the alleged quote first appeared in Emanuel Hertz's 1931 book "Abraham Lincoln: A New Portrait" Everything else is very murky and uncorroborated.

As I said when I first mentioned it, you can find the quote in "Iron Heel" written by Jack London and published in 1908. So the quote is clearly older than 1931.

Also, Lincoln's secretaries are not proof he didn't say that. In *their* opinion he wouldn't say such a thing, but that's just an opinion, and people occasionally do things contrary to their usual behavior, such as RFK Junior dropping out and endorsing Trump.

I'm sure RFK's secretaries would say he would never endorse a Republican, yet here we are!

[BroJoeK]

alleged Lincoln quote:

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow..."

DiogenesLamp: "As I said when I first mentioned it, you can find the quote in "Iron Heel" written by Jack London and published in 1908.
So the quote is clearly older than 1931."

We also discussed Jack London's book before, here.

I found the book and quote, here.
The alleged quote appears on page 121.
London was a radical progressive socialist, who wrote fiction, not history, and may well have wished Lincoln said something like the words in London's fiction book.

This then becomes the earliest actual evidence we can find of the alleged quote.
Other claimed evidence consists of:

1. Lincoln's alcoholic lawyer William Herndon and Jessie Weik's 1888 Biography of Lincoln, which Crawford & Buhler imply includes the quote, others say it doesn't.
   I've searched Volumes 1 & 2, and that quote is not in either of them.

2. A posited 1888 political pamphlet (Mikkelson) said to include the quote.
   I can't find the actual pamphlet, or any certain reference to it.

3. An alleged denunciation by Lincoln's secretaries Hay and Nicolay, saying the quote is a "bold, unflushing forgery", and suggesting the quote was a public item in 1888.
   But I can't confirm that Hay and Nicolay denounced the quote as a forgery.

So, the key point is: there is no original evidence of the alleged letter to Col. William F. Elkins dated Nov. 21, 1864, and so everything reported about it is at least second hand, and comes from people with a decided ideological ax to grind, wishing to use Lincoln as their whetstone.

DiogenesLamp: "When I see you getting all long winded and wordy, I just skip the comment and go look for something else to read."

Naw... the truth is you are perfectly capable of writing and responding to long posts, so long as they agree with your own views.
It's only when they disagree that you become intolerant and dismissive.