Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v6.djvu/48

 26 SPEECHES [Feb. 27

eral Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories, he is right to say so, and to enforce his position by all truthful evidence and fair argument which he can. But he has no right to mislead others who have less access to history, and less leisure to study it, into the false belief that "our fathers who framed the govern- ment under which we live" were of the same opinion — thus substituting falsehood and decep- tion for truthful evidence and fair argument. If any man at this day sincerely believes "our fathers who framed the government under which we live" used and applied principles, in other cases, which ought to have led them to under- stand that a proper division of local from Federal authority, or some part of the Constitution, for- bids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories, he is right to say so. But he should, at the same time, brave the responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he unclerstands their principles better than they did themselves ; and especially should he not shirk that responsibility by asserting that they "under- stood the question just as well, and even better, than we do now."

But enough ! Let all who believe that "our fathers who framed the government under which we live understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now," speak as they spoke, and act as they acted upon it. This is all Republicans ask — all Republicans desire — in rela- tion to slavery. As those fathers marked it, so let it be again marked, as an evil not to be ex- tended, but to be tolerated and protected only because of and so far as its actual presence among us makes that toleration and protection a neces-