LINCOLN'S CELEBRATED COOPER INSTITUTE SPEECH.

New York City, Feb. 27, 1860.

"This speech was an effort to put the new party, the Republican, on Constitutional ground in its attitude to slavery." (The Civil War from a Northern Standpoint, Vol. 15, p. 83)-a confession that it was not on "Constitutional ground." How could a Private Citizen place an unconstitutional party on Constitutional ground? Evidently the Constitution was regarded in a very extraordinary light to be subject to the caprice of a political party!

The Main Plank of the platform of this party was the exclusion of slavery from the common Territories. The Supreme Court in 1857, had declared this restriction unconstitutional. To place the Republican party, therefore, on Constitutional ground required no less than the reversal of this decision. And who could reverse that decision but the Court that had rendered it?

The Cooper Institute speech was not even addressed to the Supreme Court. Hence it was not an effort to induce that Court to reverse its decision. The effort, therefore, whatever it might be, was itself unconstitutional. If unconstitutional it was revolutionary. If revolutionary it was close kin to treason.

That decision had been rendered three years in advance of this speech. It had caused a nation-wide sensation. It was on every lip. Lincoln and the Republican party were thoroughly alarmed. Something had to be done, and be done at once, or the Kepublican party was dead. Mr. Thorpe, from "A Northern Standpoint," says, "the immediate need of the new party, the Republican, was to place its ideas securely on Constitutional ground, for in America no political party can be organized or kept together without it." To place its ideas securely on Constitutional ground" required one of two things: either to change its own ideas on the restriction of slavery, or to reverse the Supreme Court's decision. A political party can no more reverse

a decision of this Court without revolution than the humblest citizen of this Republic.

This new party proposed neither to reverse its ideas nor to change the decision of the Supreme Court. It assumed resources of its own, independent of the Constitution. It was now that the unwritten Constitution was called upon to do its work, viz: "To place the new party, the Republican, on Constitutional ground.” What legal authority had this great American mystery (the unwritten Constitution) to fill so high an office? Common sense answered none. The Philadelphia Constitution answered, none. The practice and history of this Republic for three-fourths or a century answered, none. The history and teachings of all governments, other than those of a despotic character, answered in thunder tones, none. But the new party replied, We have something new, something mysterious, in the way of a Constitutionwonderful in its perfections. "It expresses the state of mind in America which determines the conduct or color of public affairs.' (The Civil War from a Northern Standpoint, Vol. 15, p. 84.) Whatever else that means it evidently meant, in the Sixties, that the new party intended to establish a standard of government other than that of the Constitutional Union of the American States.

In this supreme hour all eyes of the new party turned to Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Seward excelled him in erudition, but in scheming Lincoln had no peer. If any man could give to the unwritten Constitution "the color or conduct of public affairs" Lincoln was that man. He was, therefore, singled out and invited to New York to make the all important speech, upon the success of which hung the destiny of the new party. Great was the occasion! Great the task! and great the responsibility! Correspondingly great was the conspicuous honor! Doubtless Lincoln accepted the flattering distinction with some degere of trepidation. But there was an emergency, created by the Supreme Court's decision, and, if successful, doubtless, a great reward was in store for him.

The 27th day of February, has come. Lincoln is in New York City. He stands before a vast and attentive audience seated in

the Cooper Institute. Difficult is his task. It is no less than that of annulling the decision of the Supreme Court of the nation, the final arbiter of all law-abiding citizens. As when weakness combats strength evasion is ever the best policy, so now Lincoln evades the main issue.

He waves the Constitution to one side. That is not to be his theme. He takes for his text, not any words of the Constitution, but these words of Douglas: "Our Fathers When They Framed the Constitution Under Which We Live, Understood This Question As Well As We, Or Even Better Than We Do Now."

He does not pause to explain, but shrewdly and frankly admits what Douglas says is true. This bold stroke of policy rivets the attention of his audience by its very surprise. The novelty of the occasion is also sensational. Men and women are there curious to know what tactics, what line of argument is to be used to cancel the decision of the highest judicial tribunal in the land. No man is able to guess. No other living man is bold enough to advance such an illogical line of argument.

Without being Constitutional in the least, with a matchless shrewdness, he played well the part of one altogether Constitutional. Mr. Thorpe from " ANorthern Standpoint," writing forty years later, says, "It was not a discussion of the Constitutionality of slavery, for that had been settled." It was simply a feigned attempt to show that "A majority of the signers of the Constitution had disclosed their real sentiments by the records they had made whenever the question had come before them." (The Civil War from a Northern Standpoint. Vol. 15, p. 102). (Italics ours.)

We call upon the American people in this age of enlightenment to know if this line of argument, in such a crisis as that of the Sixties, yea in any crisis, is not a surprise to them? The writer confesses it is to him. If this line of argument, advanced in 1860, is a surprise to the people of to-day, we have to remind them that equally as great, if not greater, surprises await them in the development of that argument. We are confident that we shall show, beyond the possibility of successful contradiction,

that Lincoln was not justified in the counting of one of all the signers of the Constitution he named as having "disclosed" their sentiments in favor of excluding slavery from the commen territories. We are also confident that had he "disclosed" the votes of all the signers of that matchless instrument of the Philadelphia Convention, his argument would have been absolutely worthless from the standpoint of logic and justice.

That we may be clear in our statement of facts we now give Lincoln's position on this occasion in a nutshell. There were 39 signers of the Philadelphia Constitution, He assumed that if he could show that a majority of the 39 signers on different occasions, under different circumstances, and influenced by different motives, had disclosed their opposition to the admission of slaves into the common Territory of all the States, he would thereby prove the Dred Scott decision was nul and void. Was ever a proposition more absurd? Yet this proposition is on a par with his. method of counting that majority.

We now appeal to the facts. Under the first Confederation, and for at least twenty-five years under the Philadelphia Constitution, there was no slave-question in a political sense. Up to that time slavery was treated as an established institution. It was discussed as dispationately as any other question. The first political anti-slavery party was organized in Convention at Albany, New York, in November, 1838, and was called the Liberty party. It nominated James C. Birney of New York for president, and Francis Lemoyne of Pennsylvania for vice president. These nominations were made two full years in advance of the regular presidential election, yet Birney and Lemoyne received the very small vote of 7,059 throughout all the States. Thus, even as late as 1838, the question of slavery, as a political factor was absolutely insignificant. How much less significant a few years earlier! All the signers of the Constitution counted by Lincoln in this speech, except three, "disclosed" their votes between the years 1784 and 1789, from 49 to 54 years earlier than 1838, when Birney and Lemoyne were nominated, and 51 to 56 years earlier than when these candidates could muster but 7,059 votes.

We now come to Lincoln's "disclosures." (?) In 1784, during the first Confederation, three years before the Philadelphia Convention that framed the Constitution, and five years before the States had ratified it, Virginia, a slave State, ceded to the Union her vast possessions, north of the Ohio river, known as the Northwest Territory, on condition “that slavery should be forever excluded from the same." Here we have a slave-holding State, believing in the absolute right of any citizen of any State to take any species of his property to any one of all the Territories belonging to all the States in common, donating to the States United this vast Territory, making but one condition, and that condition was that slavery should be forever excluded from within its limits. If a vote to accept the gift of this great domain, out of which five States and a part of another have since been formed, was a vote against slavery, then Virginia was anti-slavery. But who does not know this contradicts fact? It therefore follows that a vote for this measure did not disclose that the voter was anti-slavery. If it disclosed any fact at all it was that there was then no slavery question in Congress, or among the American people. But Lincoln declared the question was that of slavery; and that "four of the 39," who, three years later, signed the Philadelphia Constitution, "were members of this Congress and voted; and that three of these voted for this measure." Are we surprised when history informs us that Lincoln counted these three signers as anti-slavery men? men who advocated the control of slavery by the Federal Government? Yes, for history also declares that the measure was discussed as one in the house of its friends-dispassionately. Not only was the measure considered dispassionately but the very atmosphere of the times was dispassionate.

But if the utmost stretch of the imagination could find the question of slavery involved in this measure, even then it could be nothing more than a special case confined to a special Territory, and based on a special condition. Hence from whatever standpoint the question is viewed Lincoln had not the shadow of an excuse to count these three names.