opinion was that Silas Wright, if he lad
lived, would have been President; and you know that he would have taken
his stand on the Proviso.

The judgment of the individual to whom I have just referred presents the
true issue. It is Policy against Right. I suppose there is not a man in
New England who does not wish for the extinction of Slavery. I suppose
there is hardly a man at the North who does not feel that the system is
wrong, that it ought to be abolished, and must eventually be abolished;
and that the only question about its abolition is a question of time.
[192] But here is the peril,--that a good many persons in Congress and
out of Congress will falter in their conviction before the determined
stand of the South,--the determination, that is to say, to break off
from the Union rather than submit to the Wilmot Proviso. And I do most
seriously fear, for my part, that they would hold to that determination.
But I am prepared, for myself, to say that, rather than yield the
national sanction to this huge and monstrous wrong, I would take the
risk of any consequences whatever. I reason for the nation as I would
for myself. I say, rather than tell a lie, I would die. I cannot
deliberately do wrong, and I cannot consent that my people shall. I
would rather consent to the dismemberment of my right hand than to lay
it in solemn mockery on the altar of injustice. As I have said in the
sermon to which I have referred you, suppose that we were called upon
to legalize polygamy or no marriage in California; would we do it?
Certainly we would not, though all the Southern States should threaten
to break off from us for our refusal, and should actually do it. I asked
a similar question with regard to legalizing theft, in my sermon on the
Annexation of Texas; and one of the stanchest opposers of the Wilmot
Proviso once told me that that was the hardest instance he had ever been
called upon to answer.

But though he felt the force of the moral parallel, still policy was
carrying it with him over the right; or rather I should say, perhaps,
that he resolved the right' of the matter into temporary expediency. He
did not mean to cross the line of conscience, but he thought it should
sway to this great emergency.

This, I say, is the great peril; and he who would raise up this
nation to the height of this great argument, must [193] lift it to the
determination to do no wrong,--must lift it high enough, in fact, to see
that the right is