overlooked some words printed in smaller letters, "at New Haven," and that the sign was rightly to be read: "Wagons, carts and wheelbarrows made at New Haven and sold here." Fellow citizens, this is not a reproach. It is not spoken reproachfully, it would ill become me to so speak it. But it is their system. They employ slaves, and in New York-I was going to say that we employ, but I think I will reverse it and say that freemen employ their masters, the manufacturers. This is but an illustration. The principle is the same in every department of industry and manufacture.

Now the slave states not only build no great cities, but they build no great states, compared with these states-these free states. There is one other distinction, and that is, the free states multiply and replenish the continent with free states, but the slave states fail to multiply and replenish the continent with slave states. And they say that the reason is not in the nature of slavery and freedom, relatively, themselves, but in the injustice of not allowing them to establish slave territory; and they are going to say next, as they logically must, that they should reöpen the African slave trade, and so furnish the supplies for slavery. The opposition is founded upon these facts; is it reasonable to concede to it? We cannot concede to it unless we are willing to wreck the prosperity, and growth, and greatness of our city, of our state and of our country. That would seem an end of the argument, but they then resort to terror and to menace. They tell us that they will withdraw their trade from the city of New York, unless she will vote-unless her citizens will vote -as they require them to vote-as their supposed interest dictates. Is it best to yield to that? Why, New York is not a province of Virginia or of Carolina, any more than it is a province of New Jersey or Connecticut. New York is the metropolis of the country. New York must be the metropolis of the continent. Her commerce, like her principles, must be elevated, equal, just, impartial toward every state. Toward freedom, at least, if it must be tolerant of slavery. But they proceed to tell us that if we do not concede to their demands they will secede and dissolve the Union. Will they? Shall we then surrender? That involves the question whether they will secede and dissolve the Union if we do not. What then is it we propose to do which they require us not to do? Why, it is simply to vote for the man we prefer over the three men, or the no man which they prefer. Is there any offense in that? That is just

what the constitution says we may do, and insomuch as there must necessarily be differences of opinion among men, the constitution requires every man to vote, not for the person somebody else has selected, but the man he himself prefers to have elected. Well, they say that they must nevertheless take offense, and we ask them why, if this is right? Why, yes, so far you are all right," say they. "Why, then, will you dissolve?" They reply: "We will dissolve because that Mr. Lincoln and a republican congress will commit aggressions upon us after they are elected." "Very well," we say, "but is it not prudent-is it not reasonableto wait for them to be elected first, and then to commit the aggressions, or attempt to commit them ?" They answer, "No; we cannot afford to wait for the overt act, because that overt act may never be committed, and if it shall be committed we shall have become so much demoralized that we cannot resist after that." Well, I will not argue the latter point, for I do believe better of them than they proclaim of themselves. I know their humanity, their spirit, their courage and their chivalry, and I know enough of human nature to know also, that he that waits until an overt act is committed before he strikes back, will be able to recover his rights a thousand times sooner than he who strikes before any overt act is committed.

But why shall we expect that the president, Mr. Lincoln, and his cabinet, and the congress, will commit aggressions against the slave states? They cannot do it constitutionally, and what they cannot constitutionally do cannot be done. Besides, who are these men who are destined to commit these unconstitutional aggressions? They are citizens of the United States, chosen by their fellow citizens, as, if not altogether the best, yet from the best of every part of these United States. Are they less likely to be honest, and just, and wise, and prudent statesmen than the men selected from the same constituency who have heretofore been chosen to fill the same places? Aye, they tell us this republican party is driven on by enthusiasts, and madmen, and fanatics, and these will control instead of being restrained by their associates. This republican party that next Tuesday is to elect Abraham Lincoln president of the United States, what will it be but a majority of the American people? If it is less than that it cannot elect anybody, and if it elects anybody it will be precisely the same American people that has tolerated the government in the abuse of constitutional powers, out of tenderness

to the south and to the slave states, for a period of fifty years. It will be as forbearing still as it can be, and maintain the principles of freedom, and to maintain those principles as I have already shown you, involves no action of the government in any unconstitutional mode.

The election of a chief magistrate of a great republic of thirty millions brings every party and every interest to use the best arguments to sustain its cause that it has. We give them the arguments which have been submitted to you so often here, and which I have attempted to renew to-night. They give us in return-what? Denunciation and threat. Well, these are not a very effective, they are not a very logical form of argument, but they are not to be blamed who use them for that they are all the arguments they have. And what is it our duty to do? To threaten back again? To fulminate menace for menace and denunciation for denunciation? No; but to listen and hear with patience, with kindness, with fraternal feeling and sympathy. For we do expect them to hear our arguments, and our arguments are much harder to bear than theirs. I do not think these threats before election are evidences of revolu tion or disunion after the election, for the simple reason that I have always found that the man who does intend to strike a fatal blow does not give notice so long beforehand. And for ten, aye, twenty years, these threats have been renewed, in the same language and in the same form, about the first day of November every four years, when it happened to come before the day of the presidential election.

I do not doubt but that these southern statesmen and politicians think they are going to dissolve the Union, but I think they are going to do no such thing; and I will tell you in a very few words why. He who in this country thinks that this government and this constitution can be torn down, and that this Union of states can be dissolved, has no faith-first, in the constitution; he has no faith in the Union, no faith in the people of the states, no faith in the people of the Union, no faith in their loyalty, no faith in reason, no faith in justice, no faith in truth, no faith in virtue. I am not unwilling to see the members of that class of the American people brought up, so that we may see them altogether. For my part, I, on the contrary, have faith in the constitution, faith in the Union, faith in the people of the states, faith in the people of the Union, faith in freedom, faith in justice, faith in virtue, and faith in humanity. The

constitution and the Union have stood eighty years only upon the foundation of such a faith existing among the American people. It will stand and survive this presidential election, and forty presidential elections after; aye, I trust a hundred and a thousand, because the people, since the government was established, have grown wiser, more just, humane and virtuous than they were when it was established.

SECESSION AND DISUNION.1

It has been said that Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana and Florida and South Carolina will go out, and then the Union will be dissolved. They say, "you will not try to take us back; you will not dare to imbrue your hands in brothers' blood to reestablish by force of conquest a Union which we have repudiated and dis solved." They are right. We do not propose to do any such thing. If it were possible I should like to see the experiment of old Massachusetts going out and endeavoring to carry Plymouth rock with her, or I would like to see New York go out and carry the harbor and Catskill mountains with her. What do you think the rest of the states would say? I think they would fold their arms and see whether they behaved themselves, and they would let them stay out just as long as they behaved themselves. Well, what would they do if they got out and did not behave themselves? If New York should levy taxes and imposts, and instead of paying them into the national exchequer should keep them on her own account, that would not be behaving well. Those who think that for nothing or for any imaginary cause, the Union is to be dissolved or destroyed, have no idea of the nature of the government under which they live, or of the character of the people. Go on, then, and do your duty. The lesson of public life is one that is easy to be learned. It resolves itself simply into this-to ascertain, as you always can, what, in the day in which you live, is the great work for the welfare of mankind; do that work fearlessly, in the love of your fellow. men and in the fear of God, and the Union will survive you and me and your posterity for a thousand years.

1 Extract from a speech at La Crosse, Wis., Sept. 14, 1860.

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE ELECTION.

AUBURN, NOVEMBER 5, 1860.

THE question, looking through this election to-morrow, and forward through many elections, presses home upon us,-whatever may be the result, auspicious as I am almost sure it will be,-shall freedom, justice and humanity ultimately and in the end prevail; are these republican institutions of ours safe and permanent? I have sought and entered the hall of prophecy. I may not tell you just where it stands, but this much I can say, that its entrance is through native forest shades, from the water's edge of a deep and flowing river. I entered it, not irreverently, not unconscious of the presumption of attempting to explore the will of the God whose rule, however men may deny or profess, is higher law. The two gigantic figures, Time and Destiny, which guarded the approach to the altar, seemed to relax their grim features as I passed, and the one dropped his scythe, and the other balanced for a moment the hour glass which he held in his hand. I learned from the oracle that the powers above favor the perpetuation of these institutions, and that they are never to fall by the hand of any foreign enemy; that they are to be saved or to be lost by the action of the American people; that a great danger, a danger that has been long gathering, is at this very moment being passed, and that this danger once passed, there is assurance of long life, ave, of immortality to the institutions of American freedom. I asked for a sign, but the oracle replied to me, "why do this generation look for a sign? I say unto you that no sign shall be given to this generation, but a rule shall be given to them adequate to every emergency, and that rule is, let the American people rule their own spirit."

This people are human, and because they are human, they have accidental and temporary interests and passions and prejudices to mislead them; but also, because they are human, they have reason to conduct them through all temptations and all perils, in the way