from the field, the vanquished will then come back, and the battle will not be won. Why should the victor withdraw and surrender all his conquests to the conquered enemy? Why should he invite the enemy back upon the field, and withdraw his own legions into the far distance, to give him a chance to reestablish the line that has been broken up?

The republican party will now complete this great revolution. I know it will, because, in the first place, it clearly perceives its duties. It is unanimous upon this subject. We have had hesitation heretofore, but the creed to which I have already adverted, which issued from that council chamber now before me, announces the true determination, and embodies that great, living, national idea of freedom, with which I began. I know that the republican party will do it, because it finds the necessary forces in all the free states adequate, I trust, to achieve success, and has forces in reserve, and increasing in every slave state in the Union, and only waiting until the success of the republican party in the free states shall be such as to warrant protection to debate, and free suffrage in the slave states. But, above all, I know it, because the republican party has, what is necessary in every revolution, chosen the right line of policy. It is the policy of peace and moral suasion; of freedom and suffrage; the policy, not of force, but of reason. It returns kindness for unkindness, fervently increased loyalty for demonstrations of disloyalty; patience as becomes the strong, in contention with the weak.

It leaves the subject of slavery in the slave states to the care and responsibility of the slave states alone, abiding by the constitution of the country, which makes the slave states on this subject sovereign; and, trusting that the end cannot be wrong, provided that it shall confine itself within its legitimate line of duty, thereby making freedom paramount in the federal government, and making it the interest of every American citizen to sustain it as such. I know that the republican party will succeed in this, because it is a positive and an active party. It is the only party in the country that is or can be positive in its action. You have three other parties, or forms of parties, but each of them without the characteristics of a party. You are to choose. The citizen is to choose between the republican party and one of these.

Try them now by their candidates. Mr. Lincoln represents the republican party. He represents a party which has determined that

not one more slave shall be imported from Africa, or transferred from any slave state, domestic or foreign, and placed upon the common soil of the United States. If you elect him, you know, and the world knows, what you have got. Take the case of Mr. John Bell, an honorable man; a kind man, and a very learned man, a very patriotic man; a man whom I respect, and in social intercourse quite as much as everywhere else, as here where my word may be regarded as simply complimentary; but what does Mr. John Bell, and his constitutional Union-what is the name of his party? Constitutional Union, is it not? What do Mr. Bell and his constitutional Union party propose on this question? He proposes to ignore it altogether; not to know that there is such a question. If we can suppose such a thing possible as Mr. Bell's election by the people, what then? He ignored the question until the day of election came, but it will not stay ignored. Kansas comes and asks or demands to be admitted into the Union. The Indian territory, also, south of Kansas, must be vacated by the Indians, and here at once the slaveholders present the question as they will also do in the case of New Mexico. It will not stay ignored. You have postponed the decision for four years, and that is all. Postponing does not settle it. When defending law suits, I have seen times when I thought I won a great advantage by getting an adjournment, but I always found, nevertheless, that it was a great deal better to be beaten in the first instance, and try it again, than to hang my hopes upon an adjournment.

It will not rest. It cannot rest.

It will not rest.

Take the other: Mr. Breckinridge represents a party that proposes a policy the very opposite of ours. They propose to extend slavery and to use the federal government to do it. Let us suppose him elected. Will that satisfy the American people? Will that settle the question? That is only what Mr. Buchanan has already done. And if I should put a vote to this audience, I am sure I should get no vote of confidence in Mr. Buchanan. That is of course. But if I were to go into a Bell-and-Everett national Union party meeting, as vast as this, and ask for a vote of confidence in James Buchanan, they would say no, just as emphatically as you do. In the demonstration for Mr. Douglas, which is to be made here day after to-morrow-I shall not be here, and would not have the right to appear if I were-but any of you have the right, by their leave, and you ought not to do it without, to offer and put to vote a resolution

of confidence in James Buchanan, and you would get precisely the same negative response that you get here, only a little louder. Then the people are not going to elect Mr. Breckinridge, because he proposes to follow in the footsteps of Mr. Buchanan, who is rejected. Grant, however, that owing to some misapprehension, or some strange combination, they may obtain all they hope, and indirectly, if not directly, make Mr. Breckinridge president. Suppose Mr. Breckinridge elected. Does that settle the question in favor of slavery? Then you have the combination, not only of the republicans, and the constitutional Union party, but even of the Douglas party also, to drive him out again. So in that case, too, you have only postponed the question for four years more, under circumstances far more serious, possibly fatal.

You have now disposed of them all except the Douglas party. Mr. Douglas' party is not a positive party. It proposes just what the Bell party proposes-to ignore the question in congress. That is just what we find the people will not do, and will not be content to do under John Bell. Why should they like it better under Mr. Douglas? Mr. Douglas and his party say there is a better way. They don't want it ignored, but that it belongs to the territories, and the inhabitants there can settle it better and more wisely than we What can they do? Have they settled it in their territories in favor of slavery? Are you, the people of the free states, going to consent to that? If you were, why did you not consent to the proposition of the president, that the people of Kansas should be subjected to slavery under the Lecompton constitution? dent then said, that was the act of the people of Kansas. people of the territory should decide in favor of freedom, are the slave states going to acquiesce? No, because they have their candidate in the person of Mr. Breckinridge to continue the war until they shall regain the lost battle.

The presi

But if the

But Mr. Douglas' proposition may result in a different way. He says, if I understand him rightly, that it is immaterial to him, at least he has no right and does not propose to decide upon the question, being indifferent whether they vote slavery up or down. Then they will vote slavery up in some territories, and vote it down in some other territories. That, fellow citizens, will be compromise; are you going to be satisfied with a new compromise? You have

tried compromises, and found that they are never kept. On the whole, you are very sorry that they were ever made.

But is a compromise that is brought about in that way, the irresponsible act of squatter sovereignty in the territories, to satisfy the slave states? They have repudiated Mr. Douglas, the ablest man among all their friends; they have repudiated him altogether, because they will not be satisfied with a squatter sovereignty that gives any territory whatever to the free states.

inent.

I have now demonstrated to you, I think, that the republican party is the only positive party. But I can show it by another arguThe republican party has one faith, one creed, one baptism, one candidate, and will have but one victory. The power of slavery has three creeds, three faiths, and is to have three victories. They have openly confessed, or rather the secret leaks out, through conversations and consultations, that they do not expect to get a single victory, any more than you expect they will. All their hope and endeavor is to defeat the republican party, and leave to chance the fruits to result from your defeat.

Suppose they should, by combinations and coalitions, secure the defeat of the republican party, are you going to stay defeated? You have been defeated once, have you not? Can you not bear another defeat? You will not have to, I am sure. But I am supposing for the purpose of argument that we are defeated by a coalition. Did any one ever know a cause that was lost when it was defeated by a coalition? There was a coalition in Europe five years ago, in which Hungary was defeated by the coalition of Austria with Russia; but Hungary has risen up again to-day, and the coalition is understood to be dissolved. There was a coalition two or three years later, in which Russia was defeated by the combination of France and England; but Russia is just as strong, just as steadily pressing on toward Constantinople to-day as she has been every day from the time of the Czar Peter until now. And while she has abated nothing of her purposes, and nothing of hope, she has gained strength. So, all the efforts of the statesmen of both France and England are required to keep them from falling out with each other before the renewed battle begins. There is no danger and not much disgrace in being beaten by coalitions; and there is no danger, because they are coalitions. The more that coalitions are necessary, the less are they effectual. One party is always stronger than two other

parties in a contest, unless the whole result is staked upon a single battle.

But the explanation of the whole matter is, that there is a time when the nation needs and will require and demand the settlement of subjects of contention. That time has come at last, which the parties in this country, both of the slaveholding states and of the free states, both the slaveholder and the free laboring man, will require an end-a settlement of the conflict. It must be repressed. The time has come to repress it. The people will have it repressed. They are not to be forever disputing upon old issues and controversies. New subjects for national action will come up. This controversy must be settled and ended. The republican party is the agent, and its success will terminate the contest about slavery in the new states. Let this battle be decided in favor of freedom in the territories, and not one slave will ever be carried into the territories of the United States, and that will end the irrepressible conflict.

And the fact that it is necessary that it should be done, is exactly the reason why it will be done. It cannot be settled otherwise, because it involves a question of justice and of conscience. It is for us not merely a question of policy, but a question of moral right and duty. It is wrong, in our judgment, to perpetuate by our votes or to extend slavery. It is a very different thing when the slaveholder proposes to extend slavery; for that is, with him, only a question of merchandise. Men, of whatever race or nation, in our estimation, are men, not merchandise. According to our faith, they all have a natural right to be men, but in the estimation of the other party, African slaves are not men, but merchandise. It is, therefore, nothing more or less with them than a tariff question; a question of protecting commerce. With us it is a question of human rights, and therefore when it is settled, and settled in favor of the right, it will stay settled just as every question that is settled in favor of the right always does.

But if it be taken merely as a question of policy, it is equally plain that it will be settled in favor of the republican side, because our highest policy is the development of the resources and the increase of the population, wealth and strength of the republic. Every man sees for himself, and no man need be told that the coal, the iron, the lead, the copper, the silver and the gold in our mountains and plains are to be dug out by the human hand, and that the only hand that can dig them is the hand of a freeman. Every man