A spirit from on high”;
but the orphans of this war must heap curses heaven-high upon the man who consents to see its blood and treasure end in nought.
Such are the grounds for the repudiation of all surrender to Slavery in the Union. I have also shown that there can be no surrender to Slavery out of the Union. In either alternative surrender is impossible; but even if possible, it would be most perilous and degrading.
Thus far I have said nothing of platforms or candidates. I desired to present the issue of principle, so that the patriot could choose without embarrassment from party association. Pardon me now, if for one moment I bring platforms and candidates to the touch-stone.
There is the Baltimore platform, with Abraham Lincoln as candidate. No surrender here. In one resolution it is declared that the war must be prosecuted “with the utmost possible vigor to the complete suppression of the Rebellion.” In another it is declared, “that, as Slavery was the cause, and now constitutes the strength of this Rebellion, and as it must be always and everywhere hostile to the principles of republican government, justice and the national safety demand its utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the Republic.”[411] There is salvation in these words, pronouncing the doom of Slavery in the name of justice and the national safety. The candidate has solemnly accepted them, not only when he accepted his nomination, but yet again, when, in the discharge of official duties, he said briefly, “to whom it may concern,” that there could be no terms of peace, except on the condition of “the integrity of the whole Union and the abandonment of Slavery.”[412] In this letter of the President, unquestionably the best he ever wrote, it is practically declared, in conformity with the Baltimore platform, that there can be no surrender to Slavery in the Union or out of the Union.
Turn to the Chicago platform and its candidate, and what a contrast! There is surrender in both forms. The platform surrenders to Slavery out of the Union, and, in proposing a “cessation of hostilities,” prepares the way for recognition of the Rebel States. The candidate, in a letter accepting the nomination, surrenders to Slavery in the Union. The platform plainly looks to disunion. The letter seemingly looks to union; but whether looking to union or not, it plainly surrenders to Slavery.
There is still another surrender in the Chicago platform. While professing formal devotion to the Union, it declines to insist upon “National unity,” or “a union on the basis of the Constitution of the United States.” No such terms are employed; but we are invited to seek peace “on the basis of the Federal Union of the States”: so that, according to this platform, it is not the National Union, that union of the people accepted by Washington and defended by Webster, which we are to have, but a “Federal Union of the States,” where State Sovereignty, as accepted by John C. Calhoun and defended by Jefferson Davis, will be supreme; and all this simply for the sake of Slavery.
Look at the Chicago platform or candidate as you will, and you are constantly brought back to Slavery as the animating impulse. Look at the Baltimore platform or candidate, and you are constantly brought back to Liberty as the animating impulse. And thus again Slavery and Liberty stand face to face,—the slave-ship against the Mayflower.
There is another contrast between the two platforms, which ought not to be forgotten. That of Chicago, while saying nothing against the Rebellion, uses ambiguous language, interpreted differently by different persons; while that of Baltimore is so plain and unequivocal that it leaves no room for question. This contrast is greater still, when we turn to the two candidates. Perhaps never between two candidates was it presented to the same extent. The Chicago candidate has written a subtle letter, which is interpreted according to the desires of its readers,—some finding peace, and others finding war. And this double-faced proceeding is his bid for the Presidency. I need not remind you that our candidate has never uttered a word of duplicity, and that his speeches and letters can be interpreted only in one way. And these are the two representatives of Slavery and Liberty.