at Seward for that
saying! They repeat it constantly; and, although the proof has been thrust
under their noses again and again that almost every good man since the
formation of our Government has uttered that same sentiment, from General
Washington, who "trusted that we should yet have a confederacy of free
States," with Jefferson, Jay, Monroe, down to the latest days, yet they
refuse to notice that at all, and persist in railing at Seward for saying
it. Even Roger A. Pryor, editor of the Richmond Enquirer, uttered the same
sentiment in almost the same language, and yet so little offence did
it give the Democrats that he was sent for to Washington to edit the
States--the Douglas organ there--while Douglas goes into hydrophobia and
spasms of rage because Seward dared to repeat it. This is what I call
bushwhacking, a sort of argument that they must know any child can see
through.

Another is John Brown: "You stir up insurrections, you invade the South;
John Brown! Harper's Ferry!" Why, John Brown was not a Republican!
You have never implicated a single Republican in that Harper's Ferry
enterprise. We tell you that if any member of the Republican party is
guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it. If you do know
it, you are inexcusable not to designate the man and prove the fact. If
you do not know it, you are inexcusable to assert it, and especially
to persist in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the
proof. You need not be told that persisting in a charge which one does
not know to be true is simply malicious slander. Some of you admit that no
Republican designedly aided or encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair, but
still insist that our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to such
results. We do not believe it. We know we hold to no doctrines, and make
no declarations, which were not held to and made by our fathers who framed
the Government 'under which we live, and we cannot see how declarations
that were patriotic when they made them are villainous when we make them.
You never dealt fairly by us in relation to that affair--and I will say
frankly that I know of nothing in your character that should lead us to
suppose that you would. You had just been soundly thrashed in elections
in several States, and others were soon to come. You rejoiced at the
occasion, and only were troubled that there were not three times as many
killed in the affair. You were in evident glee; there was no