Page images
PDF
EPUB

PARTY POLICY.

191

(1861, Interview with Senator Maynard-Herndon, p. 508.)

I shall go just as fast and only as fast as I think I'm right and the people are ready for the step.

192

(November 20, 1863, In letter to Z. Chandler-Complete Works, Vol. II, p. 440.)

I hope to "stand firm" enough not to go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country's cause.

193

(July 28, 1859, From letter to S. Galloway-Complete Works, Vol. I, p. 537.)

No party can command respect which sustains this year what it opposed last.

194

(Hapgood, p. 351-In regard to political quarrels.)

I am in favor of short statutes of limitations in politics.

195

(June 6, 1864, Indorsement on Letter-Complete Works, Vol. II, p. 528.)

I wish not to interfere about vice-president.

Cannot interfere about platform. Convention must judge for itself.

196

(September 17, 1858, Answer to friends who advised him not to use the famous sentence, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."-Herndon, p. 400.)

If it is decreed that I should go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to the truth-let me die in the advocacy of what is just and right.

197

(June, 1856, Speech at Springfield, Ill., in ratification meeting of the Bloomington Convention-two other persons only, being present.-Herndon, p. 386.)

While all seems dead, the age itself is not. It liveth as sure as our Maker liveth. Under all this seeming want of life and motion, the world does move nevertheless. Be hopeful, and now let us adjourn and appeal to the people.

198

(1855, Advice to Free-Soilers of Springfield, Ill., who talked of using force.-Herndon, p. 380.)

You can better succeed with the ballot. You can peaceably then redeem the government and preserve the liberties of mankind through your votes and voice and moral influence. * * * Let there be peace. Revolutionize through the ballot-box, and restore the government once more to the affections and hearts of men by making it express, as it

was intended to do, the highest spirit of justice and liberty.

199

(May 29, 1856, Speech at Bloomington Convention-Life of Lincoln, Tarbell, Vol. I, p. 298.)

In grave emergencies moderation is generally safer than radicalism. * * * As it now stands we must appeal to the sober sense and patriotism of the people. We will make converts day by day; we will grow stronger by calmness and moderation; we will grow strong by the violence and injustice of our adversaries; and unless truth be a mockery and justice a hollow lie we will be in the majority after awhile, and then the revolution which we will accomplish will be none the less radical from being the result of pacific measures.

200

(March 6, 1860, Speech at New Haven, Conn.-Complete Works, Vol. I, p. 620.)

If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any man would say I might seize the nearest stick and kill it; but if I found that snake in bed with my children, that would be another question. I might hurt the children more than the snake, and it might bite them. Much more, if I found it in bed with my neighbor's children, and I had bound myself by a solemn compact not to meddle with his children under any circumstances, it would become

me to let that particular mode of getting rid of the gentleman alone. But if there was a bed newly made up, to which the children were to be taken, and it was proposed to take a batch of young snakes and put them there with them, I take it no man would say there was any question how I ought to decide.

201

(In Regard to Appointments-Hapgood, p. 349.)

I suppose that if the twelve apostles were to be chosen nowadays, the shrieks of locality would have to be heeded.

202

(March 1, 1859, Speech at Chicago, Ill.-Complete Works, Vol. I, p. 528.)

I am afraid of the result upon organized action where great results are in view, if any of us allow ourselves to seek out minor or separate points, on which there may be difference of views as to policy and right, and let them keep us from uniting in action upon a great principle in a cause on which we all agree; or are deluded into the belief that all can be brought to consider alike and agree upon every minor point before we unite and press forward in organization, asking the co-operation of all good men in that resistance to slavery upon which we all agree. I am afraid that such methods would

result in keeping the friends of liberty waiting longer than we ought to. I say this for the purpose of suggesting that we consider whether it would not be better and wiser, so long as we all agree that this matter of slavery is a moral, political and social wrong, and ought to be treated as a wrong, not to let anything minor or subsidiary to that main principle and purpose make us fail to co-operate.

203

(February 27, 1860, Speech at Cooper Institute, New York-Howells, p. 213.)

Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored-contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong; vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man; such as a policy of 'don't care' on a question about which all true men do care; such as union appeals beseeching true men to yield to disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling not the sinners but the righteous to repentance; such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did. Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right

« PreviousContinue »