Book Description

Excerpt from Great Speech of Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, at New London, Conn., October 18: The Principles and Interests of the Republican Party Against the Union And let me say, in the first place, my friends, that I should have come to this conclusion, as I think, without any regard to the peculiar policy which the Ad ministration has adopted during the last two years. I should have come to this conclusion upon the same plain; common sense views which President Lincoln himself seems to have expressed upon a somewhat similar state of facts. Some of you may remember, perhaps, to have seen an account of an interview which certain very earnest anti-slavery gentlemen, of Massachusetts, held with the President not a great while ago, on the subject of substituting Gen. Fre mont for my old and valued friend Edward Stanley, now of California, as the Provisional Governor of North Carolina. The account is given in a letter written by the Rev. Mr. Conway, dated London, July 20, 1864, and published in the Boston Commonwealth. In that letter President Lincoln is represented as say ing, in his most characteristic style, Gentlemen, it is generally the case that a man who begins a. Work is net the best man to carry it on to a successi'ni termination. (laughter.) I believe it was so (he proceeded to say) in the case of Moses. Wasn't it? He got the children of Israel out of Egypt, but the Lord selected somebody else to bring them to their journey's end. A poineer (continued President Lincoln) has hard work to do, and gener ally gets so battered and spattered that people o refer another, even though they may accept the principle. (continued laughter.) Now, the letter of Mr. Con way gives us the application of these remarks in a manner that could hardly be mended. It quietly suggests that Mr. Lincoln is averse to seeing the application of whatever truth there is in his theory to the one to whom it particularly applies - himself, and Mr. Conway most pertinently adds: Under him the war was begun; he had to deal with the dis attested; is it not possible that he has become so battered and sputtered as to make it well for him to give up the leadership to some Joshua? (loud laughter and cheering.) It would seem, 'my friends, that nothing was said at this inter view about the danger of swapping horses in crossing a stream. (laughter.) On the contrary, the President emphatically appealed to that memor able precedent in Holy Writ when the children of Israel, being themselves about to cross a stream, were compelled to follow a new leader, in order to get safely over. I believe it was so (said he) in the case of Moses, wasn't it? We all know it was so. We all know that the children of Israel could never have crossed the Jordan and entered into the prom ised land, had they refused to accept Joshua as their leader. And some of us are not a little afraid that the same fatality which attended the ancient Moses, is about to find a fresh illustration in the case of our modern Abraham. (laughter and cheers?) About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.