the whole of this just now. Demanding what they do, and for the reason they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this consummation. Holding, as they do, that slavery is morally right and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of it as a legal right and a social blessing.

Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground save our conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions against it are themselves wrong, and should be silenced and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to its nationality-its universality; if it is wrong they cannot justly insist upon its extension-its enlargement. All they ask we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right and our thinking it wrong is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition as being right; but thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this?

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the national Territories, and to overrun us here in these free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical controversies wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored, contrivances such as groping from 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 Union 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 makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.

Compare Lincoln's style in this speech with the style of his shorter masterpieces.

Discuss the argumentative and persuasive value of the phrase our fathers who framed the government under which we live." What evidence is furnished by this speech to show that Lincoln was a shrewd debater?

What effect would you expect this speech to have on an audience in New York City in Lincoln's day?

What is the significance of the expression "black Republican "?

Compare the "opposition" against which Lincoln contended with that encountered by earlier American orators.

What circumstances in the situation entitle Lincoln to be called heroic because of his delivery of this speech?

In what respects is the question discussed by Lincoln in this speech the same as that discussed by Webster in his Reply to Hayne?

What were Lincoln's views concerning the constitutionality of slavery?

In what respects was Lincoln, in this speech, conservative and in what respects revolutionary?

How did this speech assist in extending and enlarging America's conception of democracy?

BRECKENRIDGE-BAKER DEBATE ON THE

WAR

August 1, 1861

THIS debate, it is said, produced the most dramatic scene that ever occurred in Congress. It took place in a period of deepest depression at the beginning of the Civil War, when the Confederacy was most defiant, and most successful. Although disaster had followed disappointment and the rebel army was but twenty miles from Washington, the war was being fought in an aimless and half-hearted way, for men with Southern sympathies were still powerful in Congress.

Such was the condition on August 1, 1861, when there was taken up for discussion the Insurrection and Sedition Bill, an act that provided for martial instead of civil law in such districts as were designated by the President as in a state of insurrection. On the day set for the debate, when it was learned that Senator Breckenridge of Kentucky was about to deliver in opposition to this bill the speech he had been preparing, the Republican senators conferred as who should be selected to make the reply. They agreed that the task should be given to Baker, who at the time was drilling his regiment at the foot of Meridan Hill, about a mile from the Senate Chamber.

On receiving the summons, Baker sprang at once into the saddle and without change of clothes rode to the Capitol. In his colonel's uniform he entered the eastern door while Breckenridge was still speaking.

Advancing to his seat, he laid his sword across his desk and listened restlessly to the speech. As soon as the Senator from Kentucky had concluded, he sprang to the floor his face aglow with excitement.

At the conclusion of his impromptu speech, he remounted his horse and rode back to his regiment. He died heroically a few weeks later at the battle of Ball's Bluff. Breckenridge became a major-general in the Confederate army, and finally was made secretary of war for the Confederate States.

DEBATE ON THE WAR

JOHN C. BRECKENRIDGE

MR. PRESIDENT: Gentlemen talk about the Union as if it was an end instead of a means. They talk about it as if it was the Union of these states which alone had brought into life the principles of public and of personal liberty. Sir, they existed before, and they may survive it. Take care that in destroying one idea you do not destroy not only the Constitution of your country, but sever what reImains of the Federal Union. These external and sacred principles of public men and of personal liberty, which lived before the Union and will live forever and ever somewhere, must be respected; they cannot with impunity be overthrown; and if you force the people to the issue between any form of government and these priceless principles, that form of government will perish; they will tear it asunder as the irrepressible forces of nature rend whatever opposes them.

Mr. President, we are on the wrong tack; we have been from the beginning. The people begin to see it. Here we

have been hurling gallant fellows on to death, and the blood of Americans has been shed-for what? They have shown their prowess, respectively-that which belongs to the race and shown it like men. But for what have the United States soldiers, according to the exposition we have here to-day, been shedding their blood and displaying their dauntless courage? It has been to carry out principles that three-fourths of them abhor; for the principles contained in this bill and continually avowed on the floor of the Senate, are not shared, I venture to say, by one-fourth of the army.

to

I have said, sir, that we are on the wrong tack. Nothing but ruin, utter ruin, to the North, to the South, to the East, to the West will follow the prosecution of this contest. You may look forward to countless treasures all spent for the purpose of desolating and ravaging this continent; at the end leaving us just where we are now; or if the forces of the United States are successful in ravaging the whole South, what on earth will be done with it after that is accomplished? Are not gentlemen now perfectly. satisfied that they have mistaken a people for a faction? Are they not perfectly satisfied that to accomplish their object, it is necessary to subjugate to conquer-ay, exterminate-nearly ten millions of people? Do you not know it? Does not everybody know it? Does not the world know it? Let us pause, and let the Congress of the United States respond to the rising feeling all over this land in favor of peace.2 War is separation; in the language of an eminent gentleman now no more, it is disunion, eternal and final disunion. We have separation now; it is only made worse by war, and an utter extinction of all those sentiments of common interest and feeling which might lead to political reunion founded upon consent and upon a conviction of its advantages. Let the war go on, however, and soon in addition to the moans

1