to a soldier returning wounded and weary from the field of
battle.

But it is said we must first see whether we have a Government. We must
try the strength of the Government. We must know whether the
Government can assert its supremacy and compel obedience to its laws.
Sir, that is just what I do not want to try. What, try the strength of
the Government! and do so at the end of an administration in which
corruption and treason and every evil principle have been contending
for the mastery, when our ships are all away beyond sea, when our arms
and our fortifications are out of our hands, when our treasury is
bankrupt, our people divided, insolvency and ruin threatening our
country, and all the Gulf States defying the authority of the
Government? No, sir! this is no time to try the strength of the
Government. When we do that, let us select some more auspicious
period.

But another says these proposals of amendment contravene the Chicago
platform. What if they do? Is the Chicago platform a law to us? Is it
a law to any one? It was passed upon ten minutes' consideration in a
convention of five thousand people. If it was a law, the convention
should have been perpetual and never dissolved, in order that the law
might have been subject to requisite modifications without a change of
circumstances. A strange manner in which to enact such a law! But
things have changed since the Chicago Convention. In fifty days, fifty
years of history have transpired. This is enough to release us from
the obligation, if any existed. It is not a law; it is a doctrine, the
spirit, the policy of the party that it undertakes to enunciate. It is
not a law, because a majority of the people have never given it their
sanction. Mr. Lincoln was elected by less than a majority. And in his
vote how many old Whigs and Democrats may be counted who did not
support him _because_ he stood upon the Chicago platform, but because
they preferred him to either of the opposing candidates. And even if
it is a law, I call upon the North to support the proposals of
amendment here submitted. Let us, as Republicans, be honest, and when
the opportunity offers are we not bound so to change the Constitution
that three-fourths of all our present territory, now open to slavery,
shall be consecrated to freedom? Yes, we are bound to relieve that
three-fourths from slavery. All we need to do to secure this, is not
to carry slavery where it is not, but to secure it where it is. I