democratic theories; and there are those who would a thousand
times rather see these shattered into hopeless fragments than any
other result which could possibly transpire in the national
affairs of all Christendom. Let our democracy prove shallow,
weak, inefficient, unfitted for emergencies, and incapable of
sustaining itself under the test of determined opposition, to
them it is enough. Our great national axiom, is, _per se_, the
eternal foe of all monarchies, aristocracies, oligarchies, of all
possible despotism, because it is the fulcrum of a mighty lever
which must one day overturn them all, if it be not itself jostled
from its resting-place.

What are we to do with our conquered provinces of the South? Give
them all the franchises which we hold ourselves, assuredly--as
many personal rights and as many State rights--provided always
that they cease to encroach upon our liberties, and are no longer
rebels against the common Government. Now that the issue is
forced upon us, let us apply our principles unsparingly to all,
and conclude by making the slaves, men and women too, as free and
equal in all civil and political functions as their male masters.
Secretary Chase has seized the occasion of our heavy financial
troubles to give us a general national banking system; so out of
the nettle Danger to our liberal institutions let us pluck the
flower Safety to the interest of the feeblest subject. It is thus
that the darkest evil is often made nurse to the brightest good.
The black mud at its roots nourishes the pure white water-lily.
When the Southern people, white and black, male and female, are
all voters together, by simple virtue of their human needs and
rights, then, but not till then, will I consent to their freely
voting themselves into an independent nation, if they are so
disposed. Even then, democracy requires that the question shall
be decided by the suffrage of the whole country, North as well as
South. A republic can never be dismembered except by the consent
of a majority of all its citizens....

ERNESTINE L. ROSE, a native of Poland, was next introduced; she
said: Louis Kossuth told us it is not well to look back for
regret, but only for instruction. I therefore intend slightly to
cast my mind's eye back for the purpose of enab