Part 15

A. LINCOLN.

The Address of

THE HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN,

In Vindication of the Policy of the Framers of the

Constitution and the Principles of the

Republican Party.

Delivered at Cooper Institute, February 27th, 1860.

Issued by the Young Men's Republican Union.

With Notes by

CHARLES C. NOTT and CEPHAS BRAINERD,

Members of the Board of Control.

OFFICERS OF THE UNION

CHARLES T. RODGERS, President. DEXTER A. HAWKINS, Vice-President. ERASMUS STERLING, Secretary. WILLIAM M. FRANKLIN, Treasurer.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

CEPHAS BRAINERD, Chairman. BENJAMIN P. MANIERRE, RICHARD C. McCORMICK, CHARLES C. NOTT, CHARLES H. COOPER, P.G. DEGRAW, JAMES H. WELSH, E.C. JOHNSON, LEWIS M. PECK.

ADVISORY BOARD

WM. CULLEN BRYANT, DANIEL DREW, HIRAM BARNEY, WILLIAM V. BRADY, JOHN JAY, GEORGE W. BLUNT, HENRY A. HURLBUT, ABIJAH MANN, JR., HAMILTON FISH, FRANCIS HALL, HORACE GREELEY, CHARLES A. PEABODY, EDGAR KETCHUM, JAMES KELLY, GEORGE FOLSOM, WILLIAM CURTIS NOYES, BENJAMIN F. MANIERRE.

PREFACE

This edition of Mr. Lincoln's address has been prepared and published by the Young Men's Republican Union of New York, to exemplify its wisdom, truthfulness, and learning. No one who has not actually attempted to verify its details can understand the patient research and historical labor which it embodies. The history of our earlier politics is scattered through numerous journals, statutes, pamphlets, and letters; and these are defective in completeness and accuracy of statement, and in indices and tables of contents. Neither can any one who has not travelled over this precise ground appreciate the accuracy of every trivial detail, or the self-denying impartiality with which Mr. Lincoln has turned from the testimony of "the Fathers," on the general question of slavery, to present the single question which he discusses. From the first line to the last--from his premises to his conclusion, he travels with swift, unerring directness which no logician ever excelled--an argument complete and full, without the affectation of learning, and without the stiffness which usually accompanies dates and details. A single, easy, simple sentence of plain Anglo-Saxon words contains a chapter of history that, in some instances, has taken days of labor to verify and which must have cost the author months of investigation to acquire. And, though the public should justly estimate the labor bestowed on the facts which are stated, they cannot estimate the greater labor involved on those which are omitted--how many pages have been read--how many works examined--what numerous statutes, resolutions, speeches, letters, and biographies have been looked through. Commencing with this address as a political pamphlet, the reader will leave it as an historical work--brief, complete, profound, impartial, truthful--which will survive the time and the occasion that called it forth, and be esteemed hereafter, no less for its intrinsic worth than its unpretending modesty.

NEW YORK, September, 1860.

ADDRESS

MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF NEW YORK:--The facts with which I shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there anything new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall be any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and the inferences and observations following that presentation.

In his speech last autumn, at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New York Times, Senator Douglas said:

"Our fathers, when they framed the Government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better than we do now."

I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed starting-point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry: "What was the understanding those fathers had of the question mentioned?"

What is the frame of Government under which we live?

The answer must be: "The Constitution of the United States." That Constitution consists of the original, framed in 1787, (and under which the present Government first went into operation,) and twelve subsequently framed amendments, the first ten of which were framed in 1789.

Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution? I suppose the "thirty-nine" who signed the original instrument may be fairly called our fathers who framed that part of the present Government. It is almost exactly true to say they framed it, and it is altogether true to say they fairly represented the opinion and sentiment of the whole nation at that time. Their names, being familiar to nearly all, and accessible to quite all, need not now be repeated.