rest in politics when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise
aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known.

If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be said I
am, in height, six feet four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on
an average one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse
black hair and gray eyes. No other marks or brands recollected.

_From an Address delivered at Cooper Institute, New York. February 27,
1860_

... Now, and hear, let me guard a little against being misunderstood. I
do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our
fathers did. To do so, would be to discard all the lights of current
experience--to reject all progress, all improvement. What I do say is,
that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers in any
case, we should do so on evidence so conclusive, and argument so clear,
that even their great authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot
stand; and most surely not in a case whereof we ourselves declare they
understood the question better than we.

If any man at this day sincerely believes that the proper division of
local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbids
the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal
Territories, he is right to say so, and to enforce his position by all
truthful evidence and fair argument he can. But he has no right to
mislead others who have less access to history, and less leisure to
study it, into the false belief that "our fathers who framed the
government under which we live" were of the same opinion--thus
substituting falsehood and deception for truthful evidence and fair
argument. If any man at this day sincerely believes "our fathers who
framed the government under which we live" used and applied principles,
in other cases, which ought to have led them to understand that a proper
division of local from Federal authority, or some part of the
Constitution, forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in
the Federal Territories, he is right to say so. But he should, at the
same time, have the responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he
understands their principles better than they did themselves; and
especially should he not shirk the responsibility by asserting that they
understood the question just as well and even better than we do now.

But enough! Let all who believe that "our father