[268]In a strong speech at the State Convention of the Republican party at Worcester, Aug. 29, he laid open the fallacy of the double-headed doctrine of popular sovereignty proposed by Mr. Douglas, “who was ready to vote slavery up, or vote it down.” So in open-air meetings at Myrick's Station, Sept. 18, and at Framingham, Oct. 11, he made an admirable vindication of the policy of the Republican party. At the latter place he said,-- “Freedom, which is the breath of God, is a great leveller; but it raises where it levels. Slavery, which is the breath of Satan, is also a great leveller; but it degrades every thing, carrying with it master as well as slave. Choose ye between them; and remember that your first duty is to stand up straight, and not bend before absurd threats, whether uttered at the South or repeated here in Massachusetts. Let people cry ‘Disunion!’ We know what the cry means; and we answer back, ‘The Union shall be preserved, and made more precious by its consecration to freedom.’ ” On the evening (Nov. 5), before the grand triumph of the Republican party in the election of Mr. Lincoln, he said with rapturous emotion, in oldWith mean complacence ne'er betray our trust,
Nor be so civil as to prove unjust.
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B. B. Russell, 1874.
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