ught that can be personally offensive to
him. Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on principle, so
that our cause may have assistance from his great ability, I hope to
have interposed no adventitious obstacle. But, clearly, he is not now
with us--he does not pretend to be--he does not promise ever to be.

Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own
undoubted friends--those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the
work, who do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the
nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under
the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external
circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile
elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the
battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and
pampered enemy. Did we brave all then to falter now?--now, when that
same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? The result is not
doubtful. We shall not fail. If we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise
counsels may accelerate or mistakes delay it; but sooner or later the
victory is sure to come.

_Lincoln's Reply to Judge Douglas at Chicago on Popular Sovereignty, the
Nebraska Bill, etc. July 10, 1858_

... Popular sovereignty! everlasting popular sovereignty! Let us for a
moment inquire into this vast matter of popular sovereignty. What is
popular sovereignty? We recollect that at an early period in the history
of this struggle, there was another name for the same thing,--_squatter
sovereignty_. It was not exactly popular sovereignty, but squatter
sovereignty. What do these terms mean? What do those terms mean when
used now? And vast credit is taken by our friend, the Judge, in regard
to his support of it, when he declares the last years of his life have
been, and all the future years of his life shall be, devoted to this
matter of popular sovereignty. What is it? Why, it is the sovereignty of
the people! What was squatter sovereignty? I suppose, if it had any
signification at all, it was the right of the people to govern
themselves, to be sovereign in their own affairs, while they were
squatted down in a country not their own,--while they had squatted on a
territory that did not belong to them, in the sense that a State belongs
to the people who inhabit it,--when it belonged to the nation; such
right to govern themselves was called "squa