TO JOHN D. JOHNSTON.
       January 2, 1851
       DEAR JOHNSTON:--Your request for eighty dollars I do not think it best to comply with now. At the various times when I have helped you a little you have said to me, "We can get along very well now"; but in a very short time I find you in the same difficulty again. Now, this can only happen by some defect in your conduct. What that defect is, I think I know. You are not lazy, and still you are an idler. I doubt whether, since I saw you, you have done a good whole day's work in any one day. You do not very much dislike to work, and still you do not work much merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for it. This habit of uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty; it is vastly important to you, and still more so to your children, that you should break the habit. It is more important to them, because they have longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it, easier than they can get out after they are in.
       You are now in need of some money; and what I propose is, that you shall go to work, "tooth and nail," for somebody who will give you money for it. Let father and your boys take charge of your things at home, prepare for a crop, and make the crop, and you go to work for the best money wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get; and, to secure you a fair reward for your labor, I now promise you, that for every dollar you will, between this and the first of May, get for your own labor, either in money or as your own indebtedness, I will then give you one other dollar. By this, if you hire yourself at ten dollars a month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty dollars a month for your work. In this I do not mean you shall go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines, or the gold mines in California, but I mean for you to go at it for the best wages you can get close to home in Coles County. Now, if you will do this, you will be soon out of debt, and, what is better, you will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt again. But, if I should now clear you out of debt, next year you would be just as deep in as ever. You say you would almost give your place in heaven for seventy or eighty dollars. Then you value your place in heaven very cheap, for I am sure you can, with the offer I make, get the seventy or eighty dollars for four or five months' work. You say if I will furnish you the money you will deed me the land, and, if you don't pay the money back, you will deliver possession. Nonsense! If you can't now live with the land, how will you then live without it? You have always been kind to me, and I do not mean to be unkind to you. On the contrary, if you will but follow my advice, you will find it worth more than eighty times eighty dollars to you.
       Affectionately your brother,
       A. LINCOLN.

First Child
To Gen. J. J. Hardin.
Selection of Congressional Candidates
To _________ Williams,
Abolition Movement
Request for Political Support
To John Bennett.
To N. J. Rockwell.
To James Berdan.
To James Berdan.
Verses Written by Lincoln After a Visit to His Old Home in Indiana-(A Fragment).
Second Child
To Morris and Brown
To William H. Herndon
To William H. Herndon.
Resolutions in the United States House of Representatives, December 22, 1847
Remarks in the United States House of Representatives, January 5, 1848.
Desire for Second Term in Congress to William H. Herndon.
Speech on Declaration of War on Mexico
Report in the House of Representatives
To William H. Herndon--Legal Work
Regarding Speech on Mexican War
To William H. Herndon.
On the Mexican War
Report in the House of Representatives, March 9, 1848.
Report in the House of Representatives, March 9, 1848.
To Archibald Williams.
Remarks in the House of REpresentatives, May 11, 1848.
On Taylor's Nomination
Defense of Mexican War Position
On Zachary Taylor Nomination
Speech in the House of Representatives, June 20, 1848.
Opportunities for Young Politicians
Salary of Judge in Western Virginia
National Bank
Young v.s. Old--Political Jealousy
General Taylor and the Veto
Speech Delivered at Worcester, Mass., on Sept. 12, 1848.
His Father's Request for Money
Bill to Abolish Slavery in the District of Columbia
Bill Granting Lands to the States to Make Railways and Canals
On Federal Political Appointments
More Political Patronage Requests
To the Secretary of the Interior
To the Secretary of the Interior.
To the Postmaster-General.
To the Secretary of the Interior.
To the Secretary of the Interior.
To J. Gillespie.
Request for General Land-Office Appointment
Request for a Patent
To the Secretary of Interior.
To W. H. Herndon.
To J. Gillespie.
Resolutions of Sympathy with the Cause of Hungarian Freedom, September [12??], 1849.
To Dr. William Fithian.
Springfield, Dec. 15, 1849.
Resolutions on the Death of Judge Nathaniel Pope.
Notes for Law Lecture
Letters to Family Members
To C. Hoyt.
To John D. Johnston.
Petition on Behalf of One Joshua Gipson
To J. D. Johnston.
To J. D. Johnston.
Nov. 4, 1851
To John D. Johnston.
To John D. Johnston.
Eulogy on Henry Clay, Delivered in the State House at Springfield, Illinois, July 16, 1852.
Challenged Voters
Legal Office Work
To O. L. Davis.
Nebraska Measure
To A. B. Moreau.
Reply to Senator Douglas--Peoria Speech
Request for Senate Support
To T. J. Henderson.
To J. Gillespie.
Political References
To T. J. Henderson.
Loss of Primary for Senator
Return to Law Profession
To O. H. Browning.
To H. C. Whitney.
Response to a Pro-Slavery Friend
Request for a Railway Pass
Speech Delivered Before the First Republican State Convention of Illinois, Held at Bloomington, on May 29, 1856.
Political Correspondence
On Out-of-State Campaigners
Republican Campaign Speech
On the Danger of Third-Parties
To Jesse K. Dubois.
To Harrison Maltby.
To Dr. R. Boal.
To Henry O'Conner, Muscatine, Iowa.
After the Democratic Victory of Buchanan
To Dr. R. Boal.
To John E. Rosette. Private.
Response to a Douglas Speech
To William Grimes.
Argument in the Rock Island Bridge Case.
To Jesse K. Dubois.
To Joseph Gillespie.
To J. Gillespie.
To H. C. Whitney.
Another Political Patronage Reference
Political Communication
Brief Autobiography