extension to all countries and colors. Less than a year ago the
Richmond "Enquirer," an avowed advocate of slavery, regardless of
color, in order to favor his views, invented the phrase "State
equality," and now the President, in his message, adopts the
"Enquirer's" catch-phrase, telling us the people "have asserted
the constitutional equality of each and all of the States of the
Union as States." The President flatters himself that the new
central idea is completely inaugurated; and so indeed it is, so
far as the mere fact of a presidential election can inaugurate
it. To us it is left to know that the majority of the people have
not yet declared for it, and to hope that they never will. All of
us who did not vote for Mr. Buchanan, taken together, are a
majority of four hundred thousand. But in the late contest we
were divided between Fremont and Fillmore. Can we not come
together for the future? Let every one who really believes, and
is resolved, that free society is not and shall not be a failure,
and who can conscientiously declare that in the past contest he
has done only what he thought best, let every such one have
charity to believe that every other one can say as much. Thus let
bygones be bygones; let past differences as nothing be; and with
steady eye on the real issue, let us reinaugurate the good old
"central ideas" of the republic. We can do it. The human heart is
with us; God is with us. We shall again be able not to declare
that "all States as States are equal," nor yet that "all citizens
as citizens are equal," but to renew the broader, better
declaration, including both these and much more, that "all men
are created equal."

Though these fragments of addresses give us only an imperfect
reflection of the style of Mr. Lincoln's oratory during this period,
they nevertheless show its essential characteristics, a pervading
clearness of analysis, and that strong tendency to axiomatic
definition which gives so many of his sentences their convincing force
and durable value. They also show us the combination, not often found
in such happy balance, of the politician's discernment of fact with
the statesman's wisdom of theory--how present forces of national life
are likely to be moved by future impulses of national will. The
politician could see the four hundred thousand voters who would give
victory to some par