er's grandest."[511]

[Footnote 510: New York _Tribune_, February 28, 1860.]

[Footnote 511: _Century Magazine_, July, 1891, p. 373. An address of
Greeley written in 1868.]

Lincoln had carefully prepared for the occasion. He came East to show
what manner of man he was, and while he evidenced deep moral feeling
which kept his audience in a glow, he combined with it rare political
sagacity, notably in omitting the "house divided against itself"
declaration. He argued that the Republican party was not
revolutionary, but conservative, since it maintained the doctrine of
the fathers who held and acted upon the opinion that Congress had the
power to prohibit slavery in the territories. "Some of you," he said,
addressing himself to the Southern people, "are for reviving the
foreign slave trade; some for Congress forbidding the territories to
prohibit slavery within their limits; some for maintaining slavery in
the territories through the judiciary; some for the 'great principle'
that if one man would enslave another, no third man should object,
fantastically called popular sovereignty; but never a man among you is
in favour of federal prohibition of slavery in federal territories,
according to the practice of our fathers who formed the government
under which we live. You say we have made the slavery question more
prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. We admit that it is more
prominent, but we deny that we made it so. It was not we, but you who
discarded the old policy of the fathers." Of Southern threats of
disunion, he said: "Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you
will destroy the government unless you be allowed to construe and
enforce the Constitution as you please on all points in dispute
between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events." Referring to
the Harper's Ferry episode, he said: "That affair in its philosophy
corresponds with the many attempts related in history at the
assassination of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the
oppression of a people, until he fancies himself commissioned by
heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt which ends in little
else than his own execution."

Lincoln's lecture did not disappoint. He had entertained and
interested the vast assemblage, which frequently rang with cheers and
shouts of applause as the gestures and the mirth-provoking look
emphasised the racy hits that punctuated the address. "No man," said
the _Tribune_, "ever before ma