Josiah Gilbert Holland

“ You have become, by the controversy with Mr. Douglas, one of our leaders in this great struggle with slavery, which is undoubtedly the struggle of the nation and the age. What I would like to say is this, and I say it with a full heart: Be true to your principles, and we will be true to you, and God will be true to us all." Mr. Lincoln, touched by the earnestness of his interlocutor, took his hand in both of his own, and, with his face full of sympathetic light, exclaimed: "I say amen to that! ”

“ When you attempt it, you will find that our policy is exactly the policy of the men who made the Union--nothing more, nothing less. Do you really think you are justified to break up the government rather than have it administered as it was by Washington? If you do, you are very unreasonable, and more reasonable men cannot and will not submit to you. While you elect presidents, we submit, neither breaking nor attempting to break up the Union. If we shall constitutionally elect a president, it will be our duty to see that you also submit. ”

“ You will never make much of a hand at whipping us. If we were fewer in numbers than you, I think that you could whip us; if we were equal it would likely be a drawn battle; but being inferior in numbers, you will make nothing by attempting to master us."
It is proper to say of Mr. Lincoln and Judge Douglas that no two men in the nation better apprehended the real nature of the struggle between the North and South than they. Mr. Douglas, so far back as the date of the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise, foresaw the coming conflict, and by that measure attempted to avert it. ”

“ One thing, at least, he had learned by this visit: that the people of the older states judge a man by the same rule that prevails on an Illinois prairie--by what he is, and what he can do, and not by the cloth he wears, the knowledge he has acquired, the wealth he possesses, or the blood that flows in his veins. He had been accepted as an honest, fresh, original and powerful man ”

“ He told them that nothing would satisfy the South but to cease calling slavery wrong, and to join with them in calling it right, and to do it thoroughly by acts as well as words. "We must arrest and return their slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our free state constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us." ”

“ Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where is 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? ”

“ Most of them would probably say to us, 'let us alone, do nothing to us, and say what you please about slavery.' But we do let them alone--have never disturbed them--so that, after all, it is what we say that dissatisfies them. They will continue to accuse us of doing until we cease saying. ”

“ Will you make war upon us and kill us all? Why, gentlemen, I think you are as gallant and as brave men as live; that you can fight as bravely in a good cause, man for man, as any other people living; that you have shown yourselves capable of this upon various occasions; but man for man, you are not better than we are, and there are not so many of you as there are of us. ”

“ The papers of the city were full of his address and with comments upon it the next day. The Illinois lawyer was a lion. Critics read the speech, and marveled at its pure and compact English, its felicity of statement and its faultless logic. It was read during the day not only by New York but by nearly all New England. ”

“ Splitting rails was in no way allied to the duties of the presidency. The ability to split rails did not add to moral or intellectual power. The fact that Mr. Lincoln had split rails did not increase his qualifications for office. Mr. Lincoln himself regretted that, while he was splitting these rails, he had not been in school or college. He felt that he should have been very much better fitted for the great duties that had been devolved upon him if, instead having devoted the best of his youth to splitting rails and other manual labor, he had enjoyed the advantages of a thorough education. ”

“ Lincoln replied that, while he had no right to advise the sovereign and independent state of Massachusetts, concerning her policy, he would say that so far as he understood the provision she had consummated, he was against its adoption in Illinois, and in every other place where he had a right to oppose it. "As I understand the spirit of our institutions," said Mr. Lincoln, "it is designed to promote the elevation of men. ”

“ Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the century within which our government originated. Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism for yourselves, and your charge of destructiveness against us, are based on the most clear and stable foundations.
"Again, you say we have made the slavery question more prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded the old policy of the fathers. We resisted, and still resist, your innovation ”

“ We mean to remember that you are as good as we; that there is no difference between us other than the difference of circumstances. We mean to recognize and bear in mind always that you have as good hearts in your bosoms as other people, or as we claim to have, and treat you accordingly. ”

“ He was a representative man, and was already regarded by the great masses of the new party at the West as their best man for the next presidential campaign. His senatorial contest had done much to make his name known to the politicians of the nation. Political men everywhere had read his masterly debates with Senator Douglas, and had given him his position among the best politicians and most notable political orators of the time. ”

“ Popular sovereignty, the Dred Scott decision, the right and wrong of slavery, negro equality, the nationalization of slavery--these subjects, presented and illustrated in every possible way already, were again made the themes of discussion by these two men; and the people of Ohio gave them abundant audience. ”

“ Lincoln was called upon to explain the matter of the rails, which he did, repeating the story already in the reader's possession--the story of his first work in Illinois, when he helped to build a cabin for his father, and to fence in a field of corn.
It is the misfortune of great men who are candidates for office, that appeals must be made by them, or on their behalf, to the groundlings. ”

“ In this article, the Senator had contrived to spread throughout the country his views touching the relations of slavery to the Constitution. It was the old talk of the senatorial campaign repeated with unimportant variations, though with some new illustrations. It was familiar ground with Mr. Lincoln; and, while his speech was a new one, it would convey but few new ideas to those who had read his speeches of the previous autumn. Mr. Douglas had preceded him at Cincinnati, and had alluded to him there. It was the battle of Illinois repeated upon the soil of Ohio. ”

“ It is well known that I deplore the depressed condition of the blacks, and it would, therefore, be very inconsistent for me to look with approval upon any measure that infringes upon the inalienable rights of white men, whether or not they are born in another land, or speak a different language from our own. ”

“ If you are, you will probably soon find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in your section this very year. You will then begin to discover, as the truth plainly is, that your proof does not touch the issue. The fact that we get no votes in your section is a fact of your making, and not of ours. And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is primarily yours, and remains so until you show that we repel you by some wrong principle or practice. If we do repel you by any wrong principle or practice, the fault is ours ”

“ The Leavenworth Register, in its notice of the occasion, said:--"never did man receive such honors at the hands of our people, and never did our people pay honors to a better man, or one who has been a truer friend of Kansas." ”

“ If our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or for any other object, then our principle, and we with it, are sectional, and are justly opposed and denounced as such. ”

“ Lincoln from many places in New England, to speak on political questions. On the fifth of March, he spoke at Hartford, in the city hall, and was escorted to the hall by the first company of "Wide-Awakes" ever organized in the country. This organization became universal throughout the free states, but was intended only for campaign service. He had an immense audience in Hartford, and produced a powerful impression. ”

“ Many who had entered the hall in doubt as to their duty, went away with their path bright before them. Most of all were the New York politicians affected; and it is not to be doubted that the impressions of that evening left them convinced that if Mr. Seward, the man of their choice, should be set aside, as the republican candidate for the presidency, Mr. Lincoln, the favorite of the West, would be abundantly worthy of their support.
At the conclusion of the speech, a few friends took the speaker to the rooms of the Atheneum Club for supper. Mr. ”