oward the practical equality of all
men. The late Presidential election was a struggle by one party to discard
that central idea and to substitute for it the opposite idea that slavery
is right in the abstract, the workings of which as a central idea may be
the perpetuity of human slavery and its extension to all countries and
colors. Less than a year ago the Richmond Enquirer, an avowed advocate of
slavery, regardless of color, in order to favor his views, invented the
phrase "State equality," and now the President, in his message, adopts
the Enquirer's catch-phrase, telling us the people "have asserted the
constitutional equality of each and all of the States of the Union as
States." The President flatters himself that the new central idea is
completely inaugurated; and so indeed it is, so far as the mere fact of a
Presidential election can inaugurate it. To us it is left to know that the
majority of the people have not yet declared for it, and to hope that they
never will.

All of us who did not vote for Mr. Buchanan, taken together, are a
majority of four hundred thousand. But in the late contest we were divided
between Fremont and Fillmore. Can we not come together for the future? Let
every one who really believes and is resolved that free society is not and
shall not be a failure, and who can conscientiously declare that in the
last contest he has done only what he thought best--let every such one
have charity to believe that every other one can say as much. Thus let
bygones be bygones; let past differences as nothing be; and with steady
eye on the real issue let us reinaugurate the good old "central idea" of
the republic. We can do it. The human heart is with us; God is with us. We
shall again be able, not to declare that "all States as States are equal,"
nor yet that "all citizens as citizens are equal," but to renew the
broader, better declaration, including both these and much more, that "all
men are created equal."

TO Dr. R. BOAL.

SPRINGFIELD, Dec. 25, 1856.

DEAR SIR:-When I was at Chicago two weeks ago I saw Mr. Arnold, and from
a remark of his I inferred he was thinking of the speakership, though
I think he was not anxious about it. He seemed most anxious for harmony
generally, and particularly that the contested seats from Peoria and
McDonough might be rightly determined. Since I came home I had a talk with
Cullom, one of our American representatives here, and he says he is for
you for Speaker