the
capital of the great Empire State of this nation while on my way to the
Federal capital. I now thank you, Mr. Governor, and you, the people of
the capital of the State of New York, for this most hearty and magnificent
welcome. If I am not at fault, the great Empire State at this time
contains a larger population than did the whole of the United States of
America at the time they achieved their national independence, and I was
proud--to be invited to visit its capital, to meet its citizens, as I now
have the honor to do. I am notified by your governor that this reception
is tendered by citizens without distinction of party. Because of this
I accept it the more gladly. In this country, and in any country where
freedom of thought is tolerated, citizens attach themselves to political
parties. It is but an ordinary degree of charity to attribute this act to
the supposition that, in thus attaching themselves to the various parties,
each man in his own judgment supposes he thereby best advances the
interests of the whole country. And when an election is past it is
altogether befitting a free people, as I suppose, that, until the next
election, they should be one people. The reception you have extended me
to-day is not given to me personally,--it should not be so,--but as the
representative, for the time being, of the majority of the nation. If the
election had fallen to any of the more distinguished citizens who received
the support of the people, this same honor should have greeted him that
greets me this day, in testimony of the universal, unanimous devotion
of the whole people to the Constitution, the Union, and to the perpetual
liberties of succeeding generations in this country.

I have neither the voice nor the strength to address you at any greater
length. I beg you will therefore accept my most grateful thanks for this
manifest devotion--not to me, but the institutions of this great and
glorious country.

ADDRESS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF NEW YORK, AT ALBANY,

FEBRUARY 18, 1861.

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF NEW
YORK:--It is with feelings of great diffidence, and, I may say, with
feelings of awe, perhaps greater than I have recently experienced, that I
meet you here in this place. The history of this great State, the renown
of those great men who have stood here, and have spoken here, and have
been heard here, all crowd around my fancy, and incline me to shrink from
any