Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v6.djvu/47

 i860] at cooper union 25

ing, any proper division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, for- bade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories. I go a step further. I defy any one to show that any living man in the whole world ever did, prior to the be- ginning of the present century (and I might al- most say prior to the beginning of the last half of the present century), declare that, in his under- standing, any proper division of local from Fed- eral authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories, To those who now so declare I give not only "our fathers who framed the government under which we live," but with them all other living men within the century in which it was framed, among whom to search, and they shall not be able to find the evidence of a single man agreeing with them.

Now, and here, 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 upon evidence so conclusive, and argument so clear, that even their great authority, fairly considered and weigh, 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 a proper division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbids the Fed-