Memo to the Party of Lincoln.

On this day, one hundred sixty-one years ago, Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to his friend, Joshua Speed.  Though he and Mr. Speed disagreed on politics, they remained friends throughout their lives.  In an eerily relevant passage of the letter, Lincoln comments on the nativist party of the 1850s, the "Know-Nothings".  Pardon this future president's spelling—his sentiment is worth consideration.

I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor or degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes" When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.