e no question and there ought
to be no equivocation.

Indeed, payment for the slaves had been all along in his mind. He
believed the North equally guilty with the South for the original
existence of slavery. He clearly understood that the Irrepressible
Conflict was a Conflict of systems, not a merely sectional and partisan
quarrel. He was a just man, abhorring proscription: an old Conscience
Whig, indeed, who stood in awe of the Constitution and his oath of
office. He wanted to leave the South no right to claim that the North,
finding slave labor unremunerative, had sold its negroes to the South
and then turned about and by force of arms confiscated what it had
unloaded at a profit. He fully recognized slavery as property. The
Proclamation of Emancipation was issued as a war measure. In his message
to Congress of December, 1862, he proposed payment for the slaves,
elaborating a scheme in detail and urging it with copious and cogent
argument. "The people of the South," said he, addressing a Congress at
that moment in the throes of a bloody war with the South, "are not more
responsible for the original introduction of this property than are the
people of the North, and, when it is remembered how unhesitatingly we
all use cotton and sugar and share the profits of dealing in them, it
may not be quite safe to say that the South has been more responsible
than the North for its continuance."

IV

It has been my rule, aim and effort in my newspaper career to print
nothing of a man which I would not say to his face; to print nothing
of a man in malice; to look well and think twice before consigning a
suspect to the ruin of printer's ink; to respect the old and defend the
weak; and, lastly, at work and at play, daytime and nighttime, to be
good to the girls and square with the boys, for hath it not been written
of such is the kingdom of Heaven?

There will always be in a democracy two or more sets of rival leaders
to two or more differing groups of followers. Hitherto history has
classified these as conservatives and radicals. But as society has
become more and more complex the groups have had their subdivisions. As
a consequence speculative doctrinaries and adventurous politicians are
enabled to get in their work of confusing the issues and exploiting
themselves.

"'What are these fireworks for?' asks the rustic in the parable. 'To
blind the eyes of the people,' answers the cynic."

I would not say aught in a spiri