What is our present condition? We have just carried an election on principles fairly stated to the people. Now we are told in advance, the government shall be broken up, unless we surrender to those we have beaten, before we take the offices.

In great contests, each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong.

I am sorry any republican inclines to dally with Pop. Sov. [popular sovereignty] of any sort. It acknowledges that slavery has equal rights with liberty, and surrenders all we have contended for.

I am glad I made the late race. It gave me a hearing on the great and durable question of the age, which I could have had in no other way.

Stand by your principles; stand by your guns; and victory complete and permanent is sure at the last.

While I hold myself without mock modesty, the humblest of all individuals that have ever been elevated to the Presidency, I have a more difficult task to perform than any one of them.