Against the Republican party are arrayed three factions, differing in name, differing superficially in professions, but all concurring in hostility to the Prohibition of Slavery in the Territories, and therefore all three Proslavery. As the Republican party represents the Mayflower, so do these three factions, whether fused or apart, represent the original Slave-Ship,—and you, fellow-citizens, are here to choose between them.
In this contest we appeal to all good citizens. We appeal alike to the Conservative and to the Reformer; for our reasonable and most moderate purpose commends itself alike to both. To the Conservative it says, “Join us to preserve the work of our fathers, and to maintain the time-honored policy of Massachusetts.” To the Reformer it says, “Join us to improve the human family, to support free labor, and to save the Territories from that deplorable condition where ‘one man ruleth over another to his own hurt,’ and human character suffers as much from the arrogance of the master as from the abasement of the slave,—a condition which is founded on nothing else but force,—
‘the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can.’”[16]
Our course is commended also by our candidates. Of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Hamlin I have already elsewhere spoken, and know that in this presence it is needless to speak of Mr. Andrew. You all anticipate his praise before it can be uttered. Of unquestioned abilities, extensive attainments, and rare aptitude for affairs, his integrity has already passed into a proverb, and his broad sympathies cause us to forget the lawyer in the man. Nobody questions his intelligence, or the happy faculties which make him at home in all that he attempts. But it is sometimes complained that he has a “heart,” as if this were dangerous in a Massachusetts Governor; and fears are excited because he is “honest,” as if such a character could not be trusted. Thank God, he has a heart, and is an honest man. In these respects, and in his well-matured convictions, always expressed with honorable frankness, he embodies the historic idea of Massachusetts, and treads in the footsteps of the Fathers.
Fellow-citizens, if I have dwelt exclusively on our duties as citizens of Massachusetts, it is because I seek to impress these especially upon your minds. On other occasions I have treated other parts of the argument; but to-day my hope is to make you feel that you cannot turn from the Republican party without turning also from those principles by which Massachusetts has won her place in history, and without turning from the Mayflower, and its promise of “just and equal laws,” to embark on that dismal Slave-Ship which in the same year first let loose upon our country all the cruel wrongs and woes of Human Bondage.