aid:

Let all who believe that our fathers understood this question just
as well as, and even better than, we do now, speak as they spoke
and act as they acted upon it. This is all Republicans ask--all
Republicans desire--in relation to slavery. As those fathers marked
it, so let it be again marked, as an evil not to be extended, but
to be tolerated and protected only because, and so far as, its
actual presence among us makes that toleration and protection a
necessity. Let all the guarantees those fathers gave it be not
grudgingly but fully and fairly maintained.

His counsel to the young Republican party was timely and full of wisdom.

A few words now to Republicans: It is exceedingly desirable that
all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at peace, and in
harmony one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it
so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion
and ill-temper. Even though the Southern people will not so much as
listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to
them, if in our deliberate view of our duty we possibly can.

The address closed with the following impressive words:

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
contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and
belabored--contrivances such as groping for 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 of
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