h might join for the last time to elect a "Northern man with
Southern principles."

Again, in this campaign, as in several former presidential elections,
Mr. Lincoln was placed upon the electoral ticket of Illinois, and he
made over fifty speeches in his own and adjoining States in behalf of
Fremont and Dayton. Not one of these speeches was reported in full, but
the few fragments which have been preserved show that he occupied no
doubtful ground on the pending issues. Already the Democrats were
raising the potent alarm cry that the Republican party was sectional,
and that its success would dissolve the Union. Mr. Lincoln did not then
dream that he would ever have to deal practically with such a
contingency, but his mind was very clear as to the method of meeting it.
Speaking for the Republican party, he said:

"But the Union in any event will not be dissolved. We don't want to
dissolve it, and if you attempt it, we won't let you. With the purse and
sword, the army and navy and treasury, in our hands and at our command,
you could not do it. This government would be very weak, indeed, if a
majority, with a disciplined army and navy and a well-filled treasury,
could not preserve itself when attacked by an unarmed, undisciplined,
unorganized minority. All this talk about the dissolution of the Union
is humbug, nothing but folly. We do not want to dissolve the Union; you
shall not."

While the Republican party was much cast down by the election of
Buchanan in November, the Democrats found significant cause for
apprehension in the unexpected strength with which the Fremont ticket
had been supported in the free States. Especially was this true in
Illinois, where the adherents of Fremont and Fillmore had formed a
fusion, and thereby elected a Republican governor and State officers.
One of the strong elements of Mr. Lincoln's leadership was the cheerful
hope he was always able to inspire in his followers, and his abiding
faith in the correct political instincts of popular majorities. This
trait was happily exemplified in a speech he made at a Republican
banquet in Chicago about a month after the presidential election.
Recalling the pregnant fact that though Buchanan gained a majority of
the electoral vote, he was in a minority of about four hundred thousand
of the popular vote for President, Mr. Lincoln thus summed up the
chances of Republican success in the future:

"Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can chang