Wendell Phillips, Theodore C. Pease, Speeches, Lectures and Letters of Wendell Phillips: Volume 1

[555] in four volumes of seven hundred pages each? The first volume contains an account of the mineralogy of his native country, the trees that grow there, the flowers, the average length of human life, the color of the ha:r, how much rain falls, the range of the thermometer, &c., and in the second volume Luther is born. That was laying the foundation of Luther's character. Lincoln was born in Kentucky, and laid the foundation of his honesty in Kentucky. He is honest, with that allowance. He means to do his duty, and within the limit of the capacity God has given him he has struggled on, and has led the people struggling on, up to this weapon, partial emancipation, which they now hold glittering in their right hand. But we must remember the very prejudices and moral callousness which made him in 1860 an available candidate, when angry and half-educated parties were struggling for victory, necessarily makes him a poor leader,--rather no leader at all,--in a crisis like this. I have no confidence in the counsels about him. I have no confidence in the views of your son of York who stands at his right hand to guide the vessel of state in this tremendous storm. [Hisses.] That is right. I honor every man who expresses his opinion. I express mine; I would have every man express his dissent. I am saying nothing of the motives of Mr. Seward, nothing. When a man is dying, an honest mistake in the medicine is as bad as poison. The question is whether his is the statesmanship of the hour, and if it is not, then, on every theory of parliamentary government, he is bound to retire from his position and let another man occupy it. He has never uttered a prophecy which events have not falsified, nor initiated a policy which he has not himself been obliged to forego.

If the hope of the nation rested on the Cabinet he leads, I should despair; but our government is not at Washington, neither the brains nor the vigor of Washington