Lincoln replies to letter of consolation from H. D. Sharpe: "I think we have fairly entered upon a durable struggle as to whether this nation is to ultimately become all slave or all free, and though I fall early in the contest, it is nothing if I shall have contributed, in the least degree, to the final rightful result." Abraham Lincoln to H. D. Sharpe, 8 December 1858, CW, 3:344.