In the game of office and legislation the South has always won.

Amid the well-arranged machinery which seemed to move the victorious chess-player is a living force,--only recently discovered,--being none other than the Slave Power.

It is not sectional; for it simply aims to establish under the National Government those great principles of Justice and Humanity which are broad and universal as Man.

And yet there is an attempt to suppress this cause, and to stifle its discussion.

There it is, in towering colossal proportions, filling the very halls of the Capitol, while it overshadows and darkens all other subjects.

The barriers of Human Rights are broken down.

Statesmen, writers, scholars, speakers, once their uncompromising professors, have become professors of compromise.

The policy of Slavery, which has so long prevailed, must give place to the policy of Freedom.

The Slave Power, fruitful parent of national ills, must be driven from its supremacy.

Until all this is done, the friends of the Constitution and of Human Rights cannot cease from labor, nor can the Republic hope for any repose but the repose of submission.

Men of all parties and pursuits, who wish well to their country, and would preserve its good name, must join now.

In seeking the reform of existing evils, we seek also the conservation of the principles handed down by our fathers.

At the same time, in the loftiness of pharisaic pride, they have nothing but condemnation, reproach, or contempt for the earnest souls that have striven long years in this struggle.

Thus, without any interference with the States which are beyond this jurisdiction, may you help to efface the blot of Slavery from the National brow.

Banished from its usurped foothold under the National Government, Slavery will no longer enter, with distracting force, into national politics, making and unmaking laws, making and unmaking Presidents.

Confined to the States, where it is left by the Constitution, it will take its place as a local institution,--if, alas! continue it must,--for which we are in no sense responsible, and against which we cannot exert any political power.

To every laborer in a cause like this there are satisfactions unknown to the common political partisan.

Amidst all apparent reverses, notwithstanding the hatred of enemies or the coldness of friends, he has the consciousness of duty done.

The language of jubilee, which, amidst reverse and discouragement, burst from the soul of Milton, as he thought of sacrifice for the Church, will be echoed by every one who toils and suffers for Freedom.

The vote is the seed planted; without it there can be no sure fruit.

He is a foolish husbandman who neglects to sow his seed; and he is an unwise citizen, who, desiring the spread of good principles, neglects to deposit his vote for the candidate who is the representative of those principles.

Admonished by experience of timidity, irresolution, and weakness in our public men, particularly at Washington, amidst the temptations of ambition and power, the friends of Freedom cannot lightly bestow their confidence.

They can put trust only in men of tried character and inflexible will.

When I see a person of upright character and pure soul yielding to a temporizing policy, I cannot but say, He wants backbone.

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.