he Union with it. I speak of that
assumed primary right of a State to rule all which is _less_ than
itself, and ruin all which is larger than itself. If a State and a
county in a given case should be equal in extent of territory, and equal
in number of inhabitants, in what, as a matter of principle, is the
State better than the county? Would an exchange of _names_ be an
exchange of _rights_ upon principle? On what rightful principle may a
State, being not more than one-fiftieth part of the nation in soil and
population, break up the nation, and then coerce a proportionally larger
subdivision of itself in the most arbitrary way? What mysterious right
to play tyrant is conferred on a district of country, with its people,
by merely calling it a State?

Fellow-citizens, I am not asserting anything: I am merely asking
questions for you to consider. And now allow me to bid you farewell.

_From his Address to the Legislature at Columbus, Ohio. February 13,
1861_

It is true, as has been said by the president of the Senate, that a very
great responsibility rests upon me in the position to which the votes of
the American people have called me. I am deeply sensible of that weighty
responsibility. I cannot but know, what you all know, that without a
name, perhaps without a reason why I should have a name, there has
fallen upon me a task such as did not rest even upon the Father of his
Country; and so feeling, I cannot but turn and look for that support
without which it will be impossible for me to perform that great task. I
turn then, and look to the great American people, and to that God who
has never forsaken them. Allusion has been made to the interest felt in
relation to the policy of the new Administration. In this I have
received from some a degree of credit for having kept silence, and from
others, some deprecation. I still think I was right.

In the varying and repeatedly shifting scenes of the present, and
without a precedent which could enable me to judge by the past, it has
seemed fitting that before speaking upon the difficulties of the
country, I should have gained a view of the whole field, being at
liberty to modify and change the course of policy as future events may
make a change necessary.

I have not maintained silence from any want of real anxiety. It is a
good thing that there is no more than anxiety, for there is nothing
going wrong. It is a consoling circumstance that when we look out, there
is