he head
of one of them, and Boston the headquarters of the other, it is both
curious and interesting that those supposed to descend politically from
the party opposed to Jefferson should now be celebrating his birthday,
in their own original seat of empire, while those claiming political
descent from him have nearly ceased to breathe his name everywhere.
But soberly, it is now no child's play to save the principles of
Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation. One would state with
great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler
propositions of Euclid are true; but nevertheless he would fail,
utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms.

"The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free
society. And yet they are denied and evaded, with no small show of
success. One dashingly calls them 'evident lies.' And others
insidiously argue that they apply only to 'superior races.'

"These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and
effect--the supplanting the principles of free government, and
restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would
delight a convocation of crowned heads plotting against the people.
They are the vanguard--the sappers and miners of returning despotism.
We must repulse them, or they will subjugate us. This is a world of
compensation; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no
slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for
themselves, and under a just God cannot long retain it. All honor to
Jefferson--to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for
national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast
and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an
abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm
it there, that to-day and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and
a stumbling block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and
oppression."

In the canvass of 1860 I made a speech at Cambridge in reply to a
speech made in Faneuil Hall by Mr. Yancey. I again gave my opinion
that war was impending. I then saw that the preliminary incidental
conspiracy was in the Democratic Party, by which the party was to be
divided, and by which the Republican Party was assured of success. Had
the government been continued in the hands of the Democrats there could
have been no pretext for rebellion. The first necessary ste