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So, if Mikkelson's claim is true: that the Elkin letter was denounced as a forgery around 1888, then at least we know there was a letter extant -- whether real or forged -- around 1888. However, you, DiogenesLamp, described Mikkelson's words as "liberal lying sacks of sh*t, and you automatically lose the argument if you cite those liars,"

Don't be dishonest. I said nothing about Mikkelson. I was referring to Snopes, and you know it. I don't know what lying Snopes quoted, because *I WILL NOT GO TO SNOPES*.

That means Jack London's 1908 book quote is the earliest source I can confirm and everything earlier must be written off as mere speculations.

Ah, so you finally came to the same point I made in the first place. The Quote is at least as old as 1908, else it could never have appeared in the book.

Therefore, Jack London got it from somewhere, and it is actually older than 1908.

DiogenesLamp: "Don't be dishonest.
I said nothing about Mikkelson.
I was referring to Snopes, and you know it.
I don't know what lying Snopes quoted, because *I WILL NOT GO TO SNOPES*."

Sorry, I was not being dishonest, only possibly a little too clever.
I invite you again to click on my link to David Mikkelson's article titled: "Did Abraham Lincoln Warn of the Tyranny of Capitalism?" and dated June 30, 2002.

Notice first that the date in 2002 is years before the article posted by Buhler (2016, no date for Crawford's article), so it's possible that Crawford and Buhler knew things that Mikkelson did not.
However, neither Crawford nor Buhler repeated Mikkelson's claim that, when it first appeared around 1888, the alleged Elkens letter was denounced as a "bold, unflushing forgery" by John Nicolay, Lincoln's private secretary.
This would have at least confirmed that the letter existed -- whether genuine or forged -- in 1888, but since they don't repeat Mikkelson's claim, the earliest confirmed record of the Elkins letter quote I can find is from Jack London's "The Iron Heel" book in 1908.

Finally, the "too clever" part -- now notice that Mikkelson's article is published as a Snopes "Fact Check".
So, given your categorical denunciations of Snopes, I should feel compelled to discount whatever Mikkelson said in 2002.

DiogenesLamp: "Ah, so you finally came to the same point I made in the first place.
The Quote is at least as old as 1908, else it could never have appeared in the book.
Therefore, Jack London got it from somewhere, and it is actually older than 1908."

I agree that Jack London published the alleged quote in 1908, but I can confirm no evidence that it existed in any form before that.

So, here again is what Mikkelson said about it:

"This spurious Lincoln warning gained currency during the 1896 presidential election season (when economic policy, particularly the USA's adherence to the gold standard, was the major campaign issue), and ever since then it has been cited and quoted by innumerable journalists, clergymen, congressmen, and compilers of encyclopedias."

So, here Mikkelson claims the alleged quote was used politically in 1896, but then goes to claim it originated in 1888:

"These words did not originate with Abraham Lincoln, however — they appear in none of his collected writings or speeches, and they did not surface until more than twenty years after his death (and were immediately denounced as a "bold, unflushing forgery" by John Nicolay, Lincoln's private secretary)...
...However, this source [Hertz] is fraudulent: the Elkins letter reproduced by Hertz [in 1931] was a forgery, and Shaw [in 1950], a sloppy compiler, added the bogus letter to his encyclopedia (along with several other pieces of Lincoln apocrypha) without verifying its authenticity."

So again, there are two problems with Mikkelson's report:

I can't personally confirm any of it earlier than Hertz's 1931 book which reproduced the Elkins letter.
DiogenesLamp claims that anything from Snopes is a "lying sack of sh*t" and Mikkelson posted in Snopes.

All of which returns us to the fact that the earliest appearance of the alleged Elkins letter is in Jack London's 1908 book, "The Iron Heel".
Jack London was a fiction writer, a self-described socialist, a fascist according to George Orwell and also a racist, which would put London in the category with Nazis.
Is such a man to be taken seriously?