Getting to the Core of the 'Apple of Gold'

By William F. Walsh

April 14, 2026

While preparing his first inaugural address, a newspaper article summarizing a speech by Alexander H. Stephens on Nov. 14, 1860 to the legislature of his home state of Georgia caught the attention of President-elect Abraham Lincoln. Talk of the south’s secession was very much in the air. Stephens’ speech was notable because it cautioned against disunion on constitutional grounds.

Alexander H. Stephens of Gerorgia

Lincoln reached out to Stephens on Nov. 30, 1860, wanting to know if the media had covered his speech accurately.  A brief correspondence ensued. The two had met in the late 1840s, as congressmen. In a “for-your-own-eye--only” letter of Dec. 22, 1860 Lincoln succinctly stated the insurmountable divide between north and south on the issue of slavery: “You think slavery is right and ought to be extended, while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted.”  

Stephen’s response on Dec. 30 began with the assurance that he was writing as a mutual friend, not an enemy, who shared “an earnest desire to preserve and maintain the Union…” In closing his defense of the south’s position on the unrestricted expansion of slavery in the territories, Stephens paraphrased Solomon’s wise advice in Proverbs 25:11, suggesting “A word ‘fitly spoken’ by you now would indeed be like ‘apples of gold in pictures of silver.’” The ball was in Lincoln’s court.

Lincoln’s reflection on Stephen’s biblically couched suggestion is captured in a rough draft dated January 1861. He seemed to think that a phrase like, “Liberty to all,’” inspired by the Declaration of Independence, might be inserted as fitly spoken words in his inaugural address. To increase the phrase’s impact on southerners, Lincoln stressed that the Declaration, with its promise of universal freedom, was the “primary cause” of the success of the American Revolution and the benefits that followed. As such, both words and source were portrayed as an “apple of gold.” Lincoln expanded his image by using the Constitution and the Union to frame the golden apple. As accent pieces, the Constitution and the Union functioned, “not to conceal or destroy the apple,” but to highlight and protect its promise of liberty to all.  

It seems Lincoln could not figure out where to hang his complex picture, as it does not appear in the final text of his first inaugural address. However, allusions to his correspondence with Stephens can be found in how he framed the difference between north and south as a case in which “One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and out not be extended.” and in his poignant conclusion, which reminded both sides that “We are not enemies, but friends” united by “mystic chords or memory…”

The unused image sparked by an improbable correspondence between Lincoln and the future vice president of the Confederacy provides insight into Lincoln’s thinking about the relationship between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Image from the National Park Service