Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v5.djvu/31

1858] month after, to nominate General Pierce, we adopted the same platform so far as those compromise measures were concerned, agreeing that we would stand by those glorious measures as a cardinal article in the Democratic faith. Thus you see that in 1852 all the Old Whigs and all the old Democrats stood on a common plank so far as this slavery question was concerned, differing on other questions.

Now, let me ask, how is it that since that time so many of you Whigs have wandered from the true path marked out by Clay and carried out broad and wide by the great Webster? How is it that so many old-line Democrats have abandoned the old faith of their party, and joined with Abolitionism and Free-soilism to overturn the platform of the old Democrats, and the platform of the Old Whigs? You cannot deny that since 1854 there has been a great revolution on this one question. How has it been brought about? I answer that no sooner was the sod grown green over the grave of the immortal Clay, no sooner was the rose planted on the tomb of the godlike Webster, than many of the leaders of the Whig party, such as Seward, of New York, and his followers, led off and attempted to Abolitionize the Whig party, and transfer all your Old Whigs, bound hand and foot, into the Abolition camp. Seizing hold of the temporary excitement produced in this country by the introduction of the Nebraska bill, the disappointed politicians in the Democratic party united with the disappointed politicians in the Whig party, and endeavored to form a new party composed of all the Abolitionists, of Abolitionized Democrats and Abolitionized Whigs, banded together in an Abolition platform.

And who led that crusade against national principles in this State? I answer, Abraham Lincoln on behalf of the Whigs, and Lyman Trumbull on behalf of the Democrats, formed a scheme by which they would Abolitionize the two great parties in this State on condition that Lincoln should be sent to the United States Senate in place of General Shields, and that Trumbull should go to Congress from the Belleville district, until I would be accommodating enough either to die or resign for his benefit, and then he was to go to the Senate in my place. You all remember that during the year 1854 these two worthy gentlemen, Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Trumbull, one an old-line Whig and the other an