This allusion was called out by two letters which Lincoln had written during the year; one declaring his opposition to the waning fallacy of know-nothingism, in which he also defined his position on “fusion.”  Referring to a provision lately adopted by Massachusetts to restrict naturalization, he wrote:  “Massachusetts is a sovereign and independent State; and it is no privilege of mine to scold her for what she does.  Still, if from what she has done, an inference is sought to be drawn as to what I would do, I may, without impropriety, speak out, I say then, that, as I understand the Massachusetts provision, I am against its adoption in Illinois, or in any other place where I have a right to oppose it.  Understanding the spirit of our institutions to aim at the elevation of men, I am opposed to whatever tends to degrade them.  I have some little notoriety for commiserating the oppressed condition of the negro; and I should be strangely inconsistent if I could favor any project for curtailing the existing rights of white men, even though born in different lands, and speaking different languages from myself.  As to the matter of fusion, I am for it, if it can be had on Republican grounds; and I am not for it on any other terms.  A fusion on any other terms would be as foolish and unprincipled.  It would lose the whole North, while the common enemy would still carry the whole South.  The question of men is a different one.  There are good patriotic men and able statesmen in the South whom I would cheerfully support, if they would now place themselves on Republican ground, but I am against letting down the Republican standard a hair’s breadth.”

The other was a somewhat longer letter, to a Boston committee which had invited him to a festival in honor of Jefferson’s birthday.  “Bearing in mind that about seventy years ago two great political parties were first formed in this country; that Thomas Jefferson was the head of one of them, and Boston the headquarters of the other, it is both curious and interesting that those supposed to descend politically from the party opposed to Jefferson, should now be celebrating his birthday, in their own original seat of empire, while those claiming political descent from him have nearly ceased to breathe his name everywhere....”

  [Sidenote] Lincoln to Pierce and others, April 6, 1859.

“But, soberly, it is now no child’s play to save the principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation.  One would state with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but nevertheless he would fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms.  The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society.  And yet they are denied and evaded, with no small show of success.  One dashingly calls them ‘glittering generalities.’  Another bluntly calls them ‘self-evident lies.’  And others insidiously