Every Republican paper takes ground with my Lecompton enemies, encouraging them, stimulating them in their opposition to me and styling my friends bolters from the Democratic party, and their Lecompton allies the true Democratic party of the country. If they think that they can mislead and deceive the people of Illinois, or the Democracy of Illinois, by that sort of an unnatural and unholy alliance, I think they show very little sagacity, or give the people very little credit for intelligence. It must be a contest of principle. Either the radical abolition principles of Mr. Lincoln must be maintained, or the strong, constitutional, national Democratic principles with which I am identified must be carried out.

There can be but two great political parties in this country. The contest this year and in 1860 must necessarily be between the Democracy and the Republicans, if we can judge from present indications. My whole life has been identified with the Democratic party. I have devoted all of my energies to advocating its principles and sustaining its organization. In this State the party was never better united or more harmonious than at this time. The State Convention which assembled on the 2d of April, and nominated FONDEY and FRENCH, was regularly called by the State Central Committee, appointed by the previous State Convention for that purpose. The meetings in each county in the State for the appointment of delegates to the Convention were regularly called by the county committees, and the proceedings in every county in the State, as well as in the State Convention, were regular in all respects. No Convention was ever more harmonious in its action, or showed a more tolerant and just spirit toward brother Democrats. The leaders of the party there assembled declared their unalterable attachment to the timehonored principles and organization of the Democratic party, and to the Cincinnati platform. They declared that that platform was the only authoritative exposition of Democratic principles, and that it must so stand until changed by another National Convention; that in the meantime they would make no new tests, and submit to none; that they would proscribe no Democrat or permit the proscription of Democrats because of their opinion upon Lecomptonism, or upon any other issue which has arisen; but would recognize all men as Democrats who remained inside of the organization, preserved the usages of the party, and supported its nominees. These bolting Democrats who now claim to be the peculiar friends of the National Administration, and have formed an alliance with Mr. Lincoln and the Republicans for the purpose of defeating the Democratic party, have ceased to claim fellowship with the Demoocratic organization; have entirely separated themselves from it, and are endeavorring to build up a faction in the State, not with the hope or expectation of electing any one man who professes to be a Democrat to office in any county in the State, but merely to secure the defeat of the Democratic nominees and the election of Republicans in their places. What excuse can any honest Democrat have for abandoning the Democratic organization and joining with the Republicans to defeat our nominees, in view of the platform established by the State Convention? They cannot pretend that they were proscribed because of their opinions upon Lecompton or any other question, for the Convention expressly declared that they recognized all as good Democrats who remained inside of the organization, and abided by the nominations. If the question is settled or is to be considered as finally disposed of by the vote on the 3d of August, what possible excuse can any good Democrat make for keeping up a division for the purpose of prostrating his party, after that election is over and the controversy has terminated? It is evident that all who shall keep up this warfare for the purpose of dividing and destroying the party, have made up their minds to abandon the Democratic organization for ever, and to join those for whose benefit they are now trying to distract our party, and elect Republicans in the place of the Democratic nominees.

I submit the question to you whether I have been right or wrong in the course I have pursued in Congress. And I submit, also, whether I have not redeemed in good faith every pledge I have made to you? Then, my friends, the question recurs, whether I shall be sustained or rejected? If you are of opinion that Mr.

Lincoln will advance the interests of Illinois better than I can; that he will sustain her honor and her dignity higher than it has been in my power to do; that your interests, and the interests of your children, require his election instead of mine, it is your duty to give him your support. If, on the contrary, you think that my adherence to these great fundamental principles upon which our Government is founded is the true mode of sustaining the peace and harmony of the country, and maintaining the perpetuity of the Republic, I then ask you to stand by me in the efforts I have made to that end.

And this brings me to the consideration of the two points at issue between Mr. Lincoln and myself. The Republican Convention, when it assembled at Springfield, did me and the country the honor of indicating the man who was to be their standardbearer, and the embodiment of their principles, in this State. I owe them my gratitude for thus making up a direct issue between Mr. Lincoln and myself. I shall have no controversies of a personal character with Mr. Lincoln. I have known him well for a quarter of a century. I have known him, as you all know him, a kindhearted, amiable gentleman, a right good fellow, a worthy citizen, of eminent ability as a lawyer, and I have no doubt, sufficient ability to make a good Senator. The question, then, for you to decide is, whether his principles are more in accordance with the genius of our free institutions, the peace and harmony of the Republic, than those which I advocate. He tells you, in his speech made at Springfield, before the Convention which gave him his unanimous nomination, that:

"A house divided against itself cannot stand."

"I believe this Government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free.” "I do not expect the Union to be dissolved-I don't expect the house to fall-but I do expect it will cease to be divided."

"It will become all one thing or all the other."

That is the fundamental principle upon which he sets out in this campaign. Well, I do not suppose you will believe one word of it when you come to examine it carefully, and see its consequences. Although the Republic has existed from 1789 to this day, divided into free States and slave States, yet we are told that in the future it cannot endure unless they shall become all free or all slave. For that reason he says, as the gentleman in the crowd says, that they must be all free. He wishes to go to the Senate of the United States in order to carry out that line of public policy which will compel all the States in the South to become free. How is he going to do it? Has Congress any power over the subject of slavery in Kentucky, or Virginia, or any other State of this Union? How, then, is Mr. Lincoln going to carry out that principle which he says is essential to the existence of this Union, to wit: That slavery must be abolished in all the States of the Union, or must be established in them all? You convince the South that they must either establish slavery in Illinois, and in every other free State, or submit to its abolition in every Southern State, and you invite them to make a warfare upon the Northern States in order to establish slavery, for the sake of perpetuating it at home. Thus, Mr. Lincoln invites, by his proposition, a war of sections, a war between Illinois and Kentucky, a war between the free States and the slave States, a war between the North and the South, for the purpose of either exterminating slavery in every Southern State, or planting it in every Northern State. He tells you that the safety of this Republic, that the existence of this Union, depends upon that warfare being carried on until one section or the other shall be entirely subdued. The States must all be free or slave, for a house divided against itself cannot stand. That is Mr. Lincoln's argument upon that question. My friends, is it possible to preserve peace between the North and the South if such a doctrine shall prevail in either section of the Union? Will you ever submit to a warfare waged by the Southern States to establish slavery in Illinois? What man in Illinois would not lose the last drop of his heart's blood before he would submit to the institution of slavery being forced upon us by the other States, against our will? And if that be true of us, what Southern man would not shed the last drop of his heart's blood to prevent Illi

nois, or any other Northern State, from interfering to abolish slavery in his State? Each of these States is sovereign under the Constitution; and if we wish to preserve our liberties, the reserved rights and sovereignty of each and every State must be maintained. I have said on a former occasion, and I here repeat, that it is neither desirable nor possible to establish uniformity in the local and domestic institutions of all the States of this Confederacy. And why? Because the Constitution of the United States rests upon the right of every State to decide all its local and domestic institutions for itself. It is not possible, therefore, to make them conform to each other unless we subvert the Constitution of the United States. No, sir, that cannot be done. God forbid that any man should ever make the attempt. Let that Constitution ever be trodden under foot and destroyed, and there will not be wisdom and patriotism enough left to make another that will work half so well. Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it, inviolate, at the same time maintaining the reserved rights and the sovereignty of each State over its local and domestic institutions, against Federal authority, or any outside interference.

The difference between Mr. Lincoln and myself upon this point is, that he goes for a combination of the Northern States, or the organization of a sectional political party in the free States to make war on the domestic institutions of the Southern States, and to prosecute that war until they shall all be subdued, and made to conform to such rules as the North shall dictate to them. I am aware that Mr. Lincoln, on Saturday night last, made a speech at Chicago for the purpose, as he said, of explaining his position on this question. I have read that speech with great care, and will do him the justice to say that it is marked by eminent ability and great success in concealing what he did mean to say in his Springfield speech. His answer to this point, which I have been arguing, is, that he never did mean, and that I ought to know that he never intended to convey the idea, that he wished the "people of the free States to enter into the Southern States and interfere with slavery." Well, I never did suppose that he ever dreamed of entering into Kentucky, to make war upon her institutions; nor will any Abolitionist ever enter into Kentucky to wage such war. Their mode of making war is not to enter into those States where slavery exists, and there interfere, and render themselves responsible for the consequences. Oh no! They stand on this side of the Ohio river and shoot across. They stand in Bloomington, and shake their fists at the people of Lexington; they threaten South Carolina from Chicago. And they call that bravery! But they are very particular, as Mr. Lincoln says, not to enter into those States for the purpose of interfering with the institution of slavery there. I am not only opposed to entering into the slave States, for the purpose of interfering with their institutions, but I am opposed to a sectional agitation to control the institutions of other States. I am opposed to organizing a sectional party, which appeals to Northern pride, and Northern passion and prejudice, against Southern institutions, thus stirring up ill feeling and hot blood between brethren of the same Republic. I am opposed to that whole system of sectional agitation, which can produce nothing but strife, but discord, but hostility, and, finally, disunion. And yet Mr. Lincoln asks you to send him to the Senate of the United States, in order that he may carry out that great principle of his, that all the States must be slave or all must be free. I repeat, how is he to carry it out when he gets to the Senate? Does he intend to introduce a bill to abolish slavery in Kentucky? Does he intend to introduce a bill to interfere with slavery in Virginia? How is he to accomplish what he professes must be done in order to save the Union? Mr. Lincoln is a lawyer, sagacious and able enough to tell you how he proposes to do it. I ask Mr. Lincoln how it is that he proposes ultimately to bring about this uniformity in each and all the States of the Union. There is but one possible mode which I can see, and perhaps Mr. Lincoln intends to pursue it; that is, to introduce a proposition into the Senate to change the Constitution of the United States, in order that all the State Legislatures may be abolished, State sovereignty blotted out, and the power conferred upon Con

gress to make local laws and establish the domestic institutions and police regulations uniformly throughout the United States. Are you prepared for such a change in the institutions of your country? Whenever you shall have blotted out the State sovereignties, abolished the State Legislatures, and consolidated all the power in the Federal Government, you will have established a consolidated Empire as destructive to the liberties of the people and the rights of the citizen as that of Austria, or Russia, or any other despotism that rests upon the necks of the people. How is it possible for Mr. Lincoln to carry out his cherished principle of abolishing slavery everywhere or establishing it everywhere, except by the mode which I have pointed out-by an amendment to the Constitution to the effect that I have suggested? There is no other possible mode. Mr. Lincoln intends resorting to that, or else he means nothing by the great principle upon which he desires to be elected. My friends, I trust that we will be able to get him to define what he does mean by this Scriptural quotation that "A house divided against itself cannot stand;" that the Government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free; that it must be all one thing or all the other. Who among you expects to live, or have his children live, until slavery shall be established in Illinois or abolished in South Carolina? Who expects to see that occur during the lifetime of ourselves or our children?

There is but one possible way in which slavery can be abolished, and that is by leaving a State, according to the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, perfectly free to form and regulate its institutions in its own way. That was the principle upon which this Republic was founded, and it is under the operation of that principle that we have been able to preserve the Union thus far. Under its operations, slavery disappeared from New Hampshire, from Rhode Island, from Connecticut, from New York, from New Jersey, from Pennsylvania, from six of the twelve original slaveholding States; and this gradual system of emancipation went on quietly, peacefully and steadily, so long as we in the free States minded our own business, and left our neighbors alone. But the moment the Abolition Societies were organized throughout the North, preaching a violent crusade against slavery in the Southern States, this combination necessarily caused a counter-combination in the South, and a sectional line was drawn which was a barrier to any further emancipation. Bear in mind that emancipation has not taken place in any one State since the Freesoil party was organized as a political party in this country. Emancipation went on gradually in State after State so long as the free States were content with managing their own affairs and leaving the South perfectly free to do as they pleased; but the moment the North said we are powerful enough to control you of the South, the moment the North proclaimed itself the determined master of the South, that moment the South combined to resist the attack, and thus sectional parties were formed and gradual emancipation ceased in all the Northern slaveholding States. And yet Mr. Lincoln, in view of these historical facts, proposes to keep up this sectional agitation, band all the Northern States together in one political party, elect a President by Northern votes alone, and then, of course, make a Cabinet composed of Northern men, and administer the Government by Northern men only, denying all the Southern States of this Union any participation in the administration of affairs whatsoever. I submit to you, my fellow-citizens, whether such a line of policy is consistent with the peace and harmony of the country? Can the Union endure under such a system of policy? He has taken his position in favor of sectional agitation and sectional warfare. I have taken mine in favor of securing peace, harmony and good-will among all the States, by permitting each to mind its own business, and discountenancing any attempt at interference on the part of one State with the domestic concerns of the others.

Mr. Lincoln makes anothor issue with me, and he wishes to confine the contest to these two issues. I accept the other as readily as the one to which I have already referred. The other issue is a crusade against the Supreme Court of the United States, because of its decision in the Dred Scott case. My fellow-citizens, I have no

issue to make with the Supreme Court. I have no crusade to preach against that august body. I have no warfare to make upon it. I receive the decision of the Judges of that Court, when pronounced, as the final adjudication upon all questions within their jurisdiction. It would be perfectly legitimate and proper for Mr. Lincoln, myself, or any other lawyer, to go before the Supreme Court and argue any question that might arise there, taking either side of it, and enforcing it with all our ability, zeal, and energy, but when the decision is pronounced, that decision becomes the law of the land, and he, and you, and myself, and every other good citizen, must bow to it, and yield obedience to it. Unless we respect and bow in deference to the final decisions of the highest judicial tribunal in our country, we are driven at once to anarchy, to violence, to mob law, and there is no security left for our property, or our own civil rights. What protects your property but the law, and who expounds the law but the judicial tribunals; and if an appeal is to be taken from the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, in all cases where a person does not like the adjudication, to whom is that appeal to be taken? Are we to appeal from the Supreme Court to a county meeting like this? And shall we here re-argue the question and reverse the decision? If so, how are we to enforce our decrees after we have pronounced them? Does Mr. Lincoln intend to appeal from the decision of the Supreme Court to a Republican caucus, or a town meeting? To whom is he going to appeal? ["To Lovejoy," and shouts of laughter.] Why, if I understand aright, Lincoln and Lovejoy are co-appellants in a joint suit, and inasmuch as they are so, he would not certainly appeal from the Supreme Court to his own partner to decide the case for him. Mr. Lincoln tells you that he is opposed to the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case. Well, suppose he is; what is he going to do about it? I never got beat in a law suit in my life that I was not opposed to the decision, and if I had it before the Circuit Court I took it up to the Supreme Court, where, if I got beat again, I thought it better to say no more about it, as I did not know of any lawful mode of reversing the decision of the highest tribunal on earth. To whom is Mr. Lincoln going to appeal? Why, he says he is going to appeal to Congress. Let us see how he will appeal to Congress. He tells us that on the 8th of March, 1820, Congress passed a law called the Missouri Compromise, prohibiting slavery forever in all the territory West of the Mississippi and North of the Missouri line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, that Dred Scott, a slave in Missouri, was taken by his master to Fort Snelling, in the present State of Minnesota, situated on the West branch of the Mississippi river, and consequently in the Territory where slavery was prohibited by the Act of 1820, and that when Dred Scott appealed for his freedom in consequence of having been taken into a free Territory, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that Dred Scott did not become free by being taken into that Territory, but that having been carried back to Missouri, was yet a slave. Mr. Lincoln is going to appeal from that decision and reverse it. He does not intend to reverse it as to Dred Scott. Oh, no! But he will reverse it so that it shall not stand as a rule in the future. How will he do it? He says that if he is elected to the Senate, he will introduce and pass a law just like the Missouri Compromise, prohibiting slavery again in all the Territories. Suppose he does reenact the same law which the Court has pronounced unconstitutional, will that make it constitutional? If the Act of 1820 was unconstitutional in consequence of Congress having no power to pass it, will Mr. Lincoln make it constitutional by passing it again? What clause of the Constitution of the United States provides for an appeal from the decision of the Supreme Court to Congress? If my reading of that instrument is correct, it is to the effect that that Constitution and all laws made in pursuance of it are of the supreme law of the land, anything in the Constitution or laws of a State to the contrary notwithstanding. Hence, you will find that only such acts of Congress are laws as are made in pursuance of the Constitution. When Congress has passed an act, and put it on the statute book as law, who is to decide whether that act is in conformity with the Constitution or not? The Constitution of