so careful, so tender of this one wrong and no other? You will not let us do a single thing as if it was wrong; there is no place where you will allow it to be even called wrong. We must not call it wrong in the free States, because it is not there, and we must not call it wrong in the slave States, because it is there; we must not call it wrong in politics, because that is bringing morality into politics, and we must not call it wrong in the pulpit, because that is bringing politics into religion; we must not bring it into the tract society, or other societies, because those are such unsuitable places, and there is no single place, according to you, where this wrong thing can properly be called wrong.

Perhaps you will plead that if the people of slave States should of themselves set on foot an effort for emancipation, you would wish them success and bid them God-speed. Let us test that! In 1858 the emancipation party of Missouri, with Frank Blair at their head, tried to get up a movement for that purpose; and, having started a party, contested the State. Blair was beaten, apparently if not truly, and when the news came to Connecticut, you, who knew that Frank Blair was taking hold of this thing by the right end, and doing the only thing that you say can properly be done to remove this wrong-did you bow your heads in sorrow because of that defeat? Do you, any of you, know one single Democrat that showed sorrow over that result? Not one! On the contrary, every man threw up his hat, and hallooed at the top of his lungs, "Hooray for Democracy!"

Now, gentlemen, the Republicans desire to place this great question of slavery on the very basis on which our fathers placed it, and no other. It is easy to demonstrate that our fathers who framed this government under which we live " looked on slavery as wrong, and so framed it and everything about it as to square with the idea that it was wrong, so far as the necessities arising from its existence permitted. In forming the Constitution they found the slave-trade existing,

capital invested in it, fields depending upon it for labor, and the whole system resting upon the importation of slave labor. They therefore did not prohibit the slavetrade at once, but they gave the power to prohibit it after twenty years. Why was this? What other

foreign trade did they treat in that way? Would they have done this if they had not thought slavery wrong?

Another thing was done by some of the same men who framed the Constitution, and afterward adopted as their own act by the first Congress held under that Constitution, of which many of the framers were members -they prohibited the spread of slavery in the Territories. Thus the same men, the framers of the Constitution, cut off the supply and prohibited the spread of slavery; and both acts show conclusively that they considered that the thing was wrong.

If additional proof is wanting, it can be found in the phraseology of the Constitution. When men are framing a supreme law and chart of government to secure blessings and prosperity to untold generations yet to come, they use language as short and direct and plain as can be found to express their meaning. In all matters but this of slavery the framers of the Constitution used the very clearest, shortest, and most direct language. But the Constitution alludes to slavery three times without mentioning it once! The language used becomes ambiguous, roundabout, and mystical. They speak of the "immigration of persons," and mean the importation of slaves, but do not say so. In establishing a basis of representation they say "all other persons," when they mean to say slaves. Why did they not use the shortest phrase? In providing for the return of fugitives they say "persons held to service or labor." If they had said "slaves," it would have been plainer and less liable to misconstruction. Why did n't they do it? We cannot doubt that it was done on purpose. Only one reason is possible, and that is supplied us by one of the framers of the Constitutionand it is not possible for man to conceive of any other.

They expected and desired that the system would come to an end, and meant that when it did the Constitution should not show that there ever had been a slave in this good free country of ours.

I will dwell on that no longer. I see the signs of the approaching triumph of the Republicans in the bearing of their political adversaries. A great deal

of this war with us nowadays is mere bushwhacking. At the battle of Waterloo, when Napoleon's cavalry had charged again and again upon the unbroken squares of British infantry, at last they were giving up the attempt, and going off in disorder, when some of the officers, in mere vexation and complete despair, fired their pistols at those solid squares. The Democrats are in that sort of extreme desperation; it is nothing else. I will take up a few of these arguments.

There is "the irrepressible conflict." How they rail at Seward for that saying! They repeat it constantly; and although the proof has been thrust under their noses again and again that almost every good man since the formation of our government has uttered that same sentiment, from General Washington, who "trusted that we should yet have a confederacy of free States," with Jefferson, Jay, Monroe, down to the latest days, yet they refuse to notice that at all, and persist in railing at Seward for saying it. Even Roger A. Pryor, editor of the Richmond "Enquirer," uttered the same sentiment in almost the same language, and yet so little offense did it give the Democrats that he was sent for to Washington to edit the "States "-the Douglas organ there, while Douglas goes into hydrophobia and spasms of rage because Seward dared to repeat it. That is what I call bushwhacking-a sort of argument that they must know any child can see through.

Another is John Brown! You stir up insurrections; you invade the South! John Brown! Harper's Ferry! Why, John Brown was not a Republican! You have never implicated a single Republican in that Harper's

Ferry enterprise. We tell you if any member of the Republican party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable not to designate the man and prove the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable to assert it, and especially to persist in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need not be told that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true is simply malicious slander. Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair; but still insist that our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to such results. We do not believe it. We know we hold to no doctrines and make no declarations which were not held to and made by our fathers who framed the government under which we live, and we cannot see how declarations that were patriotic when they made them are villainous when we make them. You never dealt fairly by us in relation to that affair—and I will say frankly that I know of nothing in your character that should lead us to suppose that you would. You had just been soundly thrashed in elections in several States, and others were soon to come. You rejoiced at the occasion, and only were troubled that there were not three times as many killed in the affair. You were in evident glee; there was no sorrow for the killed nor for the peace of Virginia disturbed; you were rejoicing that by charging Republicans with this thing you might get an advantage of us in New York and the other States. You pulled that string as tightly as you could, but your very generous and worthy expectations were not quite fulfilled. Each Republican knew that the charge was a slander as to himself at least, and was not inclined by it to cast his vote in your favor. It was mere bushwhacking, because you had nothing else to do. You are still on that track, and I say, Go on! If you think you can slander a woman into loving you, or a man into voting for you, try it till you are satis fied.

LINCOLN'S NOMINATION AND ELECTION AS

PRESIDENT.

[On his return from the East, in the early Spring of 1860, Lincoln, though he had hitherto no aspiration for the Presidency, was greeted enthusiastically in many quarters in the West as a possible candidate for the high office; and after his Cooper Institute speech at New York, his name was, even in the East, favorably considered. At Decatur, in his own State, the railsplitter," "Honest Old Abe," was publicly brought forward in the Republican State Convention of Illinois. Finally, in May, 1860, at the great rally of the Republican National Convention, which met at Chicago, Lincoln's name was coupled with those of Seward and Chase as the prominent candidates for nomination. After two or three ballots had been cast, the issue which has be come historic gave Mr. Lincoln the unanimous nomination of the convention, and the election, following in order, sustained the choice, with that of the people at large, and the humble, unpretentious 'rail-splitter' of early days became President of the United States, with Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, as vice-president].

ADDRESS AT PITTSBURG, PENN., FEB. 15, 1861.

[The following speech was one among many others delivered by Mr. Lincoln, after his election to the Presidency, on his triumphal progress from Springfield, Ill., to assume the reins of govern ment at Washington. When the Republican victory was won, in the choice of Mr. Lincoln, the South, making the excuse of the election of "a sectional and minority President," seceded from the Union, organized a confederate government, and seized upon Federal property. At this crisis, the President's journey to the Capital began, stops being made here and there to allow Mr. Lincoln to receive addresses of welcome, and, with some brief remarks, to acknowledge them. The subjoined is one of these addresses, in reply to the Mayor and citizens of Pittsburg, Pa. Naturally, allusion was made in his replies to the then distracted state of the country, and here, at Pittsburg, he specially gives expression to his optimism in regard to events, and commends all to retain their self-possession and calmly abide the issues of things. The subject of the tariff, it will be seen, comes in for some remarks on the occasion].

I MOST Cordially thank his Honor Mayor Wilson, and