August last, he said, giving a brief but excellent definition of political equality: "I wish it might be more generally understood what the country is now engaged in. We have, as all will agree, a free government, where every man has a right to be equal with every other man. In this great struggle this form of government and every form of human right is endangered, if our enemies succeed. There is more involved in the contest than is realized by every one: there is involved in this struggle the question whether your children and my children shall enjoy the privileges we have enjoyed."

No man has seen more clearly or felt more deeply than Mr. Lincoln, that, whatever were the pretexts and motives of the Rebellion, and however we may name the cause in which we are contending, whether we call it a struggle for the integrity of the Union and the maintenance of the Constitution, or give it some other name, its essence is the defence of human rights against the attacks of those who practically deny them; and the issue is most distinctly joined on the point of the rights of labor. It is a struggle for the rights of labor, and for the form of government by which alone those rights can be securely maintained. It is on the preservation of these rights that the progress of the world in civilization depends. The freedom, the dignity, the intelligence of labor, are the tests of the true civilization of a community. Great refinement, great moral elevation, may be attained by individuals, even by classes, in a society where these rights are denied and withheld. But a society in which such a condition exists rests upon foundations that will assuredly prove insufficient, and will in time crumble away, to the destruction of whatever superstructure rests upon them. The excellence of a political society may be judged by the degree in which the rights of its humblest member are protected, and in which the benefits which flow from it may be shared by him. The true position of the laboring man in a free community, and the relations of labor to the other interests of society, have rarely been stated with more clearness than by the President in his Annual Message to Congress in December, 1861. He said:

"It continues to develop that the insurrection is largely, if not exclusively, a war upon the first principle of popular government, the rights of the people. Conclusive evidence of this is found in the most grave

and maturely considered public documents, as well as in the general tone of the insurgents. In those documents we find the abridgment of the existing right of suffrage, and the denial to the people of all right to participate in the selection of public officers, except the legislative, boldly advocated, with labored arguments to prove that large control of the people in government is the source of all political evil. Monarchy itself is sometimes hinted at as a possible refuge from the power of the people.

"In my present position I could scarcely be justified were I to omit raising a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism.

"It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions; but there is one point with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing, if not above labor, in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them, and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And, further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life. Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between capital and labor producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labor of a community exists within that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for them. A large majority belong to neither class, neither work for others, nor have others working for them. In most of the Southern States a majority of the whole people of all colors are neither slaves nor masters; while in the Northern, a large majority are neither hirers nor hired. Men with their families — wives, sons, and daughters — work for themselves, on their farms, in their houses, and in their shops,

taking the whole product to themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand nor of hired laborers or slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their own labor with capital; that is, they labor with their own hands, and also buy or hire others to labor for them; but this is only a mixed, and not a distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed class.

"Again, as has already been said, there is not, of necessity, any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life. Many independent men everywhere in these States, a few years back in their lives, were hired laborers. The prudent, penny less beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy, and progress, and improvement of condition to all. No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty, none less inclined to touch or take aught which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which, if surrendered, will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they, and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them, till all of liberty shall be lost."

In March, 1864, on receiving an address from the New York Workingmen's Democratic Republican Association, Mr. Lincoln made a reply to the committee who represented the Association, in which he said :

"You comprehend, as your address shows, that the existing Rebellion means more and tends to more than the perpetuation of African slavery; that it is, in fact, a war upon the rights of all working people. Partly to show that this view has not escaped my attention, and partly that I cannot better express myself, I read a passage from the Message to Congress in December, 1861."

After reading the extract which we have quoted, he added, in words full of good sense and wisdom, which display his characteristic skill in the art of " putting things":

"The views then expressed remain unchanged, nor have I much to add. None are so deeply interested to resist the present Rebellion as the working people. Let them beware of prejudices, working division and hostility among themselves. The most notable feature of a disturb

ance in your city last summer was the hanging of some working people by other working people. It should never be so. The strongest bond of human sympathy, outside of the family relation, should be one uniting all working people of all nations and tongues and kindreds. Nor should this lead to a war upon property or the owners of property. Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable, is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him labor diligently and build one for himself; thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built."

Such words as these, simple, pointed, sincere, address the intelligence of the plain people. They are not to be misunderstood, and the character of the speaker gives to them additional weight. He is no mere theorist, no political schemer, giving utterance to popular or acceptable truths of which he is not convinced. The very form of his expressions, so markedly original and vigorous, indicates that the thoughts contained in them are his own, both by right of moral conviction and intellectual assimilation. Mr. Lincoln represents and contends for the democracy of free labor, in opposition to those at the North, as well as at the South, who regard the laboring classes as the "very mudsills of society and political government," and assert that "you might as well attempt to build a house in the air, as to build either one or the other except on the mudsills."

"But," it may be objected, "even if Mr. Lincoln has given evidence of possessing more deeply rooted and sincere convictions in respect to the source of authority in government, the rights of man, the nature of political liberty and justice, and the claims of labor, than any other American statesman, and admitting even that by birth, by education, by experience, his instincts and his principles are alike soundly democratic, and his whole nature in hearty sympathy with the best aspirations of the American people, admitting still further that he has a thorough comprehension of the American system of government, and an unalterable determination to maintain that system in its integrity, yet all this is not sufficient to make him a wise ruler of the nation. A man may have all good

principles and desires, and yet pursue a wrong policy. Integ rity and intelligence are not enough in times of trial. To think well and to mean well are of no use, if a man knows not how to act well. Mr. Lincoln's administration for the past three years and more is the true test of his capacity and worthiness for his great office." We admit all this fully. But this only leads to the question, Has Mr. Lincoln's course of action as President, viewed broadly and estimated fairly, failed to correspond with his declared principles, or has he failed to perform the duties imposed upon him by his oath of office? And to this question the answer is to be found in the character of the specific charges brought against his administration.

In respect to many of these charges a final judgment has been rendered by the people at the polls. They have re-elected the man who, by the suspension of the habeas corpus and the suppression of newspapers, was, it is asserted, depriving them of their most precious rights, and establishing the worst despotism over them. The truth is, that however men may differ as to the necessity and policy of these and similar acts of Mr. Lincoln's administration, there is not an honest, sensible man in the Free States who considers any one of his personal or political rights to be in danger, or who can be scared with the bugbear of despotism proceeding from the President. The privileges and rights of the loyal citizens of the United States were never more secure than at this moment; and never was the determination to protect and defend them against all peril more manifest than in the election of Mr. Lincoln to a second

term of office. The good sense of the people understands the matter as Mr. Lincoln himself understands it. "Nor am I able," said he in his letter to the Hon. Erastus Corning and others, on the 13th of June, 1863, "to appreciate the danger apprehended that the American people will, by means of military arrests during the Rebellion, lose the right of public discussion, the liberty of speech and the press, the law of evidence, trial by jury, and habeas corpus, throughout the indefinite peaceful future which, I trust, lies before them, any more than I am able to believe that a man could contract so strong an appetite for emetics during temporary illness as to