Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v6.djvu/64

42 SPEECHES [Mar. 5 right; but thinking it wrong, as we do can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this? Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet af- ford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the national Territories and to overrun us here in these free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical con- trivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored — contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong; vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man; such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about which all true men do care; such as Union appeals be- seeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sin- ners, but the righteous to repentance; such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to un- say what Washington said and undo what Wash- ington did. Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.