still the gad waves, and the voice grows more distinct, and sharper still" back, sir!" "back, I say!" "further back!" and back he goes to the position of December, 1847, at which the gad is still, and the voice soothingly says-"So!" "Stand still at that."

Have no fears, gentlemen, of your candidate; he exactly suits you, and we congratulate you upon it. However much you may be distressed about our candidate, you have all cause to be contented and happy with your own. If elected, he may not maintain all, or even any of his positions previously taken; but he will be sure to do whatever the party exigency, for the time being, may require; and that is precisely what you want. He and Van Buren are the same manner of men; and like Van Buren, he will never desert you till you first desert him.

[After referring at some length to extra "charges" of Gen. Cass upon the Treasury, Mr. Lincoln continued:--]

WONDERFUL PHYSICAL CAPACITIES.

But I have introduced Gen. Cass's accounts here, chiefly to show the wonderful physical capacities of the man. They show that he not only did the labor of several men at the same time, but that he often did it, at several places many hundred miles apart, at the same time. And at eating, too, his capacities are shown to be quite as wonderful. From October, 1821, to May, 1822, he ate ten rations a day in Michigan, ten rations a day here, in Washington, and near five dollar's worth a day. besides, partly on the road between the two placés. And then there is an important discovery in his example-the art of being paid for what one eats, instead of having to pay for it. Hereafter, if any nice young man shall owe a bill which he can not pay in any other way, he can just board it out. Mr. Speaker, we have all heard of the animal standing in doubt between two stacks of hay, and starving to death; the like of that would never happen to Gen. Cass. Place the stacks a thousand miles apart, he would stand stock-still, midway between them, and eat them both at once; and the green grass along the line would be apt to suffer some too, at the same time. By all means, make him President, gentlemen. He will feed you bounteously-if-if there is any left after he shall have helped himself.

THE WHIGS AND THE MEXICAN WAR.

But as Gen. Taylor, is, par excellence, the hero of the Mexican war; and, as you Democrats say we Whigs have always

opposed the war, you think it must be very awkward and embarrassing for us to go for Gen. Taylor. The declaration that we have always opposed the war, is true or false accordingly as one may understand the term "opposing the war." If to saythe war was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President," be opposing the war, then the Whigs have very generally opposed it. Whenever they have spoken at all, they have said this; and they have said it on what has appeared good reason to them: The marching an army into the midst of a peaceful Mexican settlement, frightening the inhabitants away, leaving their growing crops and other property to destruction, to you may appear a perfectly amiable, peaceful, unprovoking procedure; but it does not appear so to us. So to call such an act, to us appears no other than a naked, impudent absurdity, and we speak of it accordingly. But if, when the war had begun, and had become the cause of the country, the giving of our money and our blood, in common with yours, was support of the war, then it is not true that we have always opposed the war. With few individual exceptions, you have constantly had our votes here for all the necessary supplies. And, more than this, you have had the services, the blood, and the lives of our political brethren in every trial, and on every field. The beardless boy and the mature man-the humble and the distinguished, you have had them. Through suffering and death, by disease and in battle, they have endured, and fought, and fallen with you. Clay and Webster each gave a son, never to be returned. From the State of my own residence, besides other worthy but less known Whig names, we sent Marshall, Morrison, Baker, and Hardin; they all fought, and one fell, and in the fall of that one, we lost our best Whig man. Nor were the Whigs few in number, or laggard in the day of danger. In that fearful, bloody, breathless struggle at Buena Vista, where each man's bard task was to beat back five foes, or die himself, of the five high officers who perished, four were Whigs.

In speaking of this, I mean no odious comparison between the lion-hearted Whigs and Democrats who fought there. On other occasions, and among the lower officers and privates on that occasion, I doubt not the proportion was different. I wish to do justice to all. I think of all those brave men as Americans, in whose proud fame, as an American, I too have a share. Many of them, Whigs and Democrats, are my constituents and personal friends; and I thank them-more than thank them-one and all, for the high, imperishable honor they have conferred on our common State.

AN IMPORTANT DISTINCTION.

But the distinction between the cause of the President in beginning the war, and the cause of the country after it was begun, is a distinction which you can not perceive. To you, the President and the country seem to be all one. You are interested to see no distinction between them; and I venture to suggest that possibly your interest blinds you a little. We see the distinction, as we think, clearly enough; and our friends, who have fought in the war, have no difficulty in seeing it also. What those who have fallen would say, were they alive and here, of course we can never know; but with those who have returned there is no difficulty. Col. Haskell and Maj. Gaines, members here, both fought in the war; and one of them underwent extraordinary perils and hardships; still they, like all other Whigs here, vote on the record that the war was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President. And even Gen. Taylor himself, the noblest Roman of them all, has declared that, as a citizen, and particularly as a soldier, it is sufficient for him to know that his country is at war with a foreign nation, to do all in his power to bring it to a speedy and honorable termination, by the most vigorous and energetic operations, without inquiring about its justice, or anything else connected with it.

Mr. Speaker, let our Democratic friends be comforted with the assurance that we are content with our position, content with our company, and content with our candidate; and that although they, in their generous sympathy, think we ought to be miserable, we really are not, and that they may dismiss the great anxiety they have on our account.

Mr. Lincoln concluded with some allusions to the then divided condition of the New York Democracy.

This session of Congress came to a close on the 14th day of August. The chief points of Mr. Lincoln's Congressional record, thus far, have been noticed, and his principal speeches given at length. He stood firmly by the side of John Quincy Adams, in favor of the unrestricted right of petition, as will be seen by his vote, among others, against laying on the table a petition presented by Caleb B. Smith (December 27, 1847) praying for the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. He favored a liberal policy toward the people in disposing of the public lands, as indicated by

his imperfectly reported remarks (May 11, 1848), at the time of the passage of the bill admitting Wisconsin into the Union as a State. He was careful to scrutinize particular claims, to satisfy which he was asked to vote for an appropriation, as in the case of the proposition to pay the Texas volunteers for lost horses (May 4, 1848). All his acts show a purpose to do his duty to the country, no less than to his immediate constituents, without fear or favor.

After the session closed, Mr. Lincoln made a visit to New England, where he delivered some effective campaign speeches, which were enthusiastically received by his large audiences, as appears from the reports in the journals of those days, and as will be remembered by thousands. His time, however, was chiefly given, during the Congressional recess, to the canvass in the West, where, through the personal strength of Mr. Cass as a North-western man, the contest was more severe and exciting than in any other part of the country. The final triumph of Gen. Taylor, over all the odds against him, did much to counterbalance, in Mr. Lincoln's mind, the disheartening defeat of four years previous. As before stated, he had declined to be a candidate for re-election to Congress, yet he had the satisfaction of aiding to secure, in his own district, a majority of 1,500 for the Whig Presidential candidates.

Mr. Lincoln again took his seat in the House in December, on the reassembling of the thirtieth Congress for its second session. Coming between the Presidential election, which had effected a political revolution, and the inauguration of the new Government, this session was generally a quiet one, passing away without any very important measures of general legislation being acted upon. A calm had followed the recent storms. There were, indeed, certain movements in regard to slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, which produced some temporary excitement, but resulted in no serious commotion. On the 21st of December, Mr. Gott, a representative from New York, introduced a resolution, accompanied by a strong preamble instructing the Committee on the District of Columbia to report a bill prohibiting the slave-trade in the District. The language used was as follows:

WHEREAS, The traffic now prosecuted in this metropolis of the Republic in human beings, as chattels, is contrary to natural justice and the fundamental principles of our political system, and is notoriously a reproach to our country throughout Christendom, and a serious hindrance to the progress of republican liberty among the nations of the earth: Therefore,

Resolved, That the Committee for the District of Columbia be instructed to report a bill, as soon as practicable, prohibiting the slave-trade in said District.

Mr. Haralson, of Georgia, moved to lay the same on the table, and the yeas and nays were taken on his motion. Mr. Lincoln, Joseph R. Ingersoll, Richard W. Thompson, and George G. Dunn, were nearly or quite the only Northern Whigs who voted in the affirmative. The motion was lost, and the resolution, under pressure of the previous question, was adopted, ninety-eight to eighty-eight, Mr. Lincoln voting in the negative. A motion to reconsider this vote came up for action on the 27th of the same month. A motion to lay on the table the motion to reconsider having been lost, (yeas 58, nays 107-Mr. Lincoln voting in the negative), the subject was postponed until the 10th of January. At that date, Mr. Lincoln read a substitute which he proposed to offer for the resolution, in case of a reconsideration. This substitute contained the form of a bill enacting that no person not already within the District should be held in slavery therein, and providing for the gradual emancipation of the slaves already within the District, with compensation to the owners, if a majority of the legal voters of the District should assent to the act, at an election to be holden for the purpose. It made an exception of the right of citizens of the slaveholding States, coming to the District on public business, to "be attended into and out of said District, and while there, by the necessary servants of themselves and their families." These were the chief provisions of the measure contemplated by Mr. Lincoln, which compared favorably with the act prohibiting the slave-trade in the District, included among the Compromise measures of 1850. After rehearsing the details of his bill, according to the report in the Congressional Globe

Mr. Lincoln then said, that he was authorized to say, that