Lincoln on Slavery and the Union
By Editor
We print this week an extract from a speech by Abraham Lincoln, at the State Convention of Ills. It will be of interest to the readers of the REVIEW, as it shows, on the authority of one who is capable of judging, and whose business it is to watch the design and tendency of legislative action the position which our government at present occupies with regard to the diabolical institution of American Slavery, and the direction in which it is tending on this question. He who looks for good, or hopes for reform in the legislative or executive departments of this government, is doomed, we think, to utter and hopeless disappointment. Says Mr. Lincoln, "I do not expect the house to fall; I do not look for a dissolution of the Union; but it will cease to be divided; it will become one thing or the other; for Slavery or against." But if the house does not fall, what reason have we to look for a nation whose tendency is so manifestly downward, to become hostile to the spirit and encroachments of Slavery? If it shall cease to maintain its dragonic character, then we mistake the import of the prophetic delineation.