SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, July 4, 1842.
       DEAR SPEED:--Yours of the 16th June was received only a day or two since. It was not mailed at Louisville till the 25th. You speak of the great time that has elapsed since I wrote you. Let me explain that. Your letter reached here a day or two after I started on the circuit. I was gone five or six weeks, so that I got the letters only a few weeks before Butler started to your country. I thought it scarcely worth while to write you the news which he could and would tell you more in detail. On his return he told me you would write me soon, and so I waited for your letter. As to my having been displeased with your advice, surely you know better than that. I know you do, and therefore will not labor to convince you. True, that subject is painful to me; but it is not your silence, or the silence of all the world, that can make me forget it. I acknowledge the correctness of your advice too; but before I resolve to do the one thing or the other, I must gain my confidence in my own ability to keep my resolves when they are made. In that ability you know I once prided myself as the only or chief gem of my character; that gem I lost--how and where you know too well. I have not yet regained it; and until I do, I cannot trust myself in any matter of much importance. I believe now that had you understood my case at the time as well as I understand yours afterward, by the aid you would have given me I should have sailed through clear, but that does not now afford me sufficient confidence to begin that or the like of that again.
       You make a kind acknowledgment of your obligations to me for your present happiness. I am pleased with that acknowledgment. But a thousand times more am I pleased to know that you enjoy a degree of happiness worthy of an acknowledgment. The truth is, I am not sure that there was any merit with me in the part I took in your difficulty; I was drawn to it by a fate. If I would I could not have done less than I did. I always was superstitious; I believe God made me one of the instruments of bringing your Fanny and you together, which union I have no doubt He had fore-ordained. Whatever He designs He will do for me yet. "Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord" is my text just now. If, as you say, you have told Fanny all, I should have no objection to her seeing this letter, but for its reference to our friend here: let her seeing it depend upon whether she has ever known anything of my affairs; and if she has not, do not let her.
       I do not think I can come to Kentucky this season. I am so poor and make so little headway in the world, that I drop back in a month of idleness as much as I gain in a year's sowing. I should like to visit you again. I should like to see that "sis" of yours that was absent when I was there, though I suppose she would run away again if she were to hear I was coming.
       My respects and esteem to all your friends there, and, by your permission, my love to your Fanny.
       Ever yours,
       LINCOLN.

Introductory
Introductory Note
Abraham Lincoln: An Essay by Carl Shurz
Abraham Lincoln, by Joseph H. Choate
Address to the People of Sangamon County.
To E. C. Blankenship.
Response to Request for Postage Receipt
Announcement of Political Views.
Response to Political Smear
To Miss Mary Owens.
Speech in Illinois Legislature.
Opposition to Mob-Rule. Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois.
Protest in the Illinois Legislature on the Subject of Slavery.
To Miss Mary Owens.
To John Bennett.
To Mary Owens.
Legal Suit of Widow v.s. Gen. Adams
Lincoln and Talbott in Reply to Gen. Adams.
Gen. Adams Controversy--continued
To Mrs. O. H. Browning--A Farce
Remarks on Sale of Public Lands
To _________ Row.
Speech on National Bank
To John T. Stuart.
Circular From Whig Committee.
To John T. Stuart.
Resolution in the Illinois Legislature.
Resolution in the Illinois Legislature.
Remarks in the Illinois Legislature.
Remarks in the Illinois Legislature.
To John T. Stuart--On Depression
Remarks in the Illinois Legislature.
Circular From Whig Committee.
Extract From a Protest in the Illinois Legislature Against the Reorganization of the Judiciary.
To Joshua F. Speed--Murder Case
Statement About Harry Wilton.
To Miss Mary Speed--Practical Slavery
To Joshua F. Speed--On Marriage
To Joshua F. Speed.
To Joshua F. Speed--On Depression
To G. B. Sheledy.
To George E. Pickett--Advice to Youth
Address Before the Springfield Washingtonian Temperance Society, February 22, 1842.
To Joshua F. Speed.
To Joshua F. Speed--On Marriage Concerns
To Joshua F. Speed.
To Joshua F. Speed.
A Letter From the Lost Townships
Lost Townships
Invitation to Henry Clay.
Correspondence About the Lincoln-Shields Duel.
To J. Shields.
To A. Lincoln From Jas. Shields
Memorandum of Instructions to E. H. Merryman, Lincoln's Second,
To Joshua F. Speed.
To James S. Irwin.
Resolutions at a Whig Meeting at Springfield, Illinois, March 1, 1843.
Circular From Whig Committee.
To John Bennett.
To Joshua F. Speed.
To Martin M. Morris.
To Martin M. Morris.
To Gen. J. J. Hardin.