Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 10.djvu/263

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liant period in all legislative history. Abraham Lincoln answered it when, on that fatal journey to Washington in 1861, he announced that the doctrine of his political creed, and declared, with prophetic vision, that he was ready to be assas- sinated for it if need be. You answered it again yourselves when you said that Cuba, who had no more title than the people of the Philippine Islands had to their independence, of right ought to be free and independent.

The question will be answered again hereafter. It will be answered soberly and deliberately and quietly as the American people are wont to an- swer great questions of duty. It will be an- swered, not in any turbulent assembly, amid shouting and clapping of hands and stamping of feet, where men do their thinking with their heels and not with their brains. It will be an- swered in the churches and in the schools and in the colleges; and it will be answered in fifteen million American homes ; and it will be answered as it has always been answered. It will be an- swered right.

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