ited States is the tribunal to decide such a
question, and we will submit to its decisions; and if you do also,
there will be an end of the matter. Will you? If not, who are the
disunionists, you or we? We, the majority, would not strive to
dissolve the Union; and if any attempt is made it must be by you,
who so loudly stigmatize us as disunionists.

But the Union, in any event, will not be dissolved. We don't want
to dissolve it, and if you attempt it we won't let you. With the
purse and sword, the army and navy and treasury in our hands and at
our command, you could not do it. This government would be very
weak indeed if a majority with a disciplined army and navy and a
well-filled treasury could not preserve itself, when attacked by an
unarmed, undisciplined, unorganized minority. All this talk about
the dissolution of the Union is humbug, nothing but folly. We do
not want to dissolve the Union; you shall not.

With three presidential tickets in the field--with the Democrats
seeking the election of Buchanan and Breckinridge, the Americans, or
Know-Nothings, asking votes for Fillmore and Donelson, and the
Republicans making proselytes for Fremont and Dayton--the political
campaign of 1856 was one of unabated activity and excitement. In the
State of Illinois the contest resulted in a drawn battle. The American
party held together with tolerable firmness in its vote for President,
but was largely disintegrated in its vote on the ticket for State
officers. The consequence was that Illinois gave a plurality of 9164
for Buchanan, the Democratic candidate for President, while at the
same time it gave a plurality of 4729 for Bissell, the Republican
candidate for Governor.[5]

Half victory as it was, it furnished the Illinois Republicans a
substantial hope of the full triumph which they achieved four years
later. About a month after this election, at a Republican banquet
given in Chicago on the 10th of December, 1856, Abraham Lincoln spoke
as follows, partly in criticism of the last annual message of
President Pierce, but more especially pointing out the rising star of
promise:

We have another annual presidential message. Like a rejected
lover making merry at the wedding of his rival, the President
felicitates himself hugely over the late presidential election.
He considers the result a signal triumph of good principles and
good men, and a very