society must and will have. Order is just as compatible with
constitutional government as it is with despotic government; but to have
it in connection with freedom, in other words, with the existence of a
constitutional polity, the people must do their whole duty. They must
rise above the prejudices of party and of faction, and see nothing but
their country and liberty. They must show that they are worthy of
freedom, or they cannot long have it. Now is the time to prove that the
American people know the difference between liberty and license, by
their support of the party of order and constitutional government, and
by administering a thorough rebuke to those licentious men who are
seeking to overwhelm the country and its Constitution in a common ruin.

Of President Lincoln's reelection no doubt can be entertained, whether
we judge of the issue by the condition of the country, or by the
sentiments that should animate the great majority of the people, and by
which, we are convinced, that majority is animated. The Union candidate,
no matter what his name or antecedents, should be elected by a majority
so great as to "coerce" the turbulent portion of the Democracy into
submission to the laws of the land, and into respect for the popular
will, the last thing for which Democrats have any respect. Had the Union
National Convention seen fit to place a new man in nomination, it would
have been the duty of the voters to support him with all the means
honestly at their command; but we must say that there is a peculiar
obligation upon Americans to reelect Mr. Lincoln, and to reelect him by
a vote that should surprise even the most sanguine and hopeful of his
friends. The war from which the nation, and the whole world, have been
made to suffer so much, and from the effects of which mankind will be
long in recovering, was made because of Mr. Lincoln's election to the
Presidency. The North was to be punished for having had the audacity to
elect him even when the Democracy were divided, and the success of the
Republican candidate was a thing of course. He, a mere man of the
people, should never become _President of the United States_! The most
good-natured of men, it is known that his success made him an object of
personal aversion to the Southern leaders. They did their worst to
prevent his becoming President of the Republic, and in that way they
wronged and insulted the people far more than they wronged and insulted
the man whom the