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Writings of Abraham Lincoln, the — Volume 2: 1843-1858 by Abraham Lincoln
page 76 of 301 (25%)
denied. Still it is no more difficult in Congress than in the State
Legislatures, in the counties, or in the smallest municipal districts
which anywhere exist. All can recur to instances of this difficulty in
the case of county roads, bridges, and the like. One man is offended
because a road passes over his land, and another is offended because it
does not pass over his; one is dissatisfied because the bridge for which
he is taxed crosses the river on a different road from that which leads
from his house to town; another cannot bear that the county should be got
in debt for these same roads and bridges; while not a few struggle hard
to have roads located over their lands, and then stoutly refuse to let
them be opened until they are first paid the damages. Even between the
different wards and streets of towns and cities we find this same
wrangling and difficulty. Now these are no other than the very
difficulties against which, and out of which, the President constructs
his objections of "inequality," "speculation," and "crushing the
treasury." There is but a single alternative about them: they are
sufficient, or they are not. If sufficient, they are sufficient out of
Congress as well as in it, and there is the end. We must reject them as
insufficient, or lie down and do nothing by any authority. Then,
difficulty though there be, let us meet and encounter it. "Attempt the
end, and never stand to doubt; nothing so hard, but search will find it
out." Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall
find the way. The tendency to undue expansion is unquestionably the chief
difficulty.

How to do something, and still not do too much, is the desideratum. Let
each contribute his mite in the way of suggestion. The late Silas Wright,
in a letter to the Chicago convention, contributed his, which was worth
something; and I now contribute mine, which may be worth nothing. At all
events, it will mislead nobody, and therefore will do no harm. I would
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