declare; if your words are not merely lip-service; if in your hearts you are entirely willing to join in any practical efforts against slavery, then by your lives, by your conversation, by your influence, by your votes—disregarding "the ancient forms of party strife"—seek to carry the principles of freedom into the National Government, wherever its jurisdiction is acknowledged and its power can be felt. Thus, without any interference with the States, which are beyond this jurisdiction, may you help to erase the blot of slavery from our national brow.
Do this and you will most truly promote the harmony which you so much desire. You will establish tranquillity throughout the country. Then at last, Sir, the Slavery Question will be settled. Banished from its usurped foothold under the National Government, slavery will no longer enter, with distracting force, into the National politics—making and unmaking laws, making and unmaking Presidents. Confined to the States, where it was left by the Constitution, it will take its place as a local institution—if, alas! continue it must!—for which we are in no sense responsible, and against which we cannot exert any political power. We shall be relieved from our present painful and irritating connection with it. The existing antagonism between the North and South will be softened; crimination and recrimination will cease; the wishes of the Fathers will be fulfilled, and this great evil be left to the kindly in-
