il to believe that
it is not by the conflict of sectional parties and their triumph, but by
the defeat of sectional parties by a stronger and more patriotic
national party, that the divided house can be reconciled and the house
itself made to stand in safety. The safety of the Union depends upon
maintaining the Federal government in the hands of a national party,
which shall carry out the spirit of the Federal Constitution. A solemn
responsibility rests upon every citizen in this regard.

I propose then to inquire--

1st--What is the true spirit of the Constitution, and what the true
policy of the Federal government on the subject of slavery? and,

2d--How do the parties and the candidates now before the people stand in
regard to it?

I wish distinctly to say that I do not propose to consider the question
of slavery in its moral or religious aspects, but as a political
question under the Federal Constitution.

As to my personal opinion in regard to slavery, I am free to say I
consider it an evil, which I hope will be eradicated from the earth, but
I do not regard it as the greatest of evils, nor do I consider that it
requires political action from the Federal government. On the contrary,
I believe that while the question of slavery might be safely agitated,
with a view to political action, in a consolidated or imperial
government, or even in an American Federal State, it cannot under our
Federal system of government be safely or rightly agitated as a national
question. Its agitation as such has done more to alienate and embitter
the two sections of our Union--more to rouse the spirit of slavery
aggression and extension, and to tighten the bonds and increase the
burdens of the slave, than it has done to effect emancipation. Slavery
is an evil permitted by Providence for ends that time will reveal. From
this form of social evil, he is still educing good, far more good to the
slaves, as a class, than to the masters as a class. It must not be
suddenly nor rashly dealt with. Like a disease that pervades the blood
or the whole constitution of a man, it needs not, for it cannot be
reached by, the exterminating knife or cautery of the surgeon; it
requires the gradual, purifying and alterative influences of gentle
medicines, that work their way almost imperceptibly to the very
principle and seat of the malady.

For my part, while I yield to no man in my love of liberty and the
rights of man, I frankly say I had rather tha