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Speech at Bloomington, Illinois1Jump to section
Hon. A. LINCOLN addressed the audience in a speech of great eloquence and power. He showed up the position of the Fillmore party in fine style, both as to its prospects of success, and as to the propriety of supporting a candidate whose greatest recommendation, as urged by his supporters themselves, is that he is neutral upon the one only great political question of the times. He pointed out in regular succession, the several steps taken by the Administration in regard to slavery in the Territories, from the repeal of the Missouri Compromise down to the latest Border Ruffian invasion of Kansas, and the inevitable tendency of each and all of them to effect the spread of slavery over that country; showed the official endorsement of the Administration by the Democratic party in the Cincinnati Convention, and the openly avowed position of the Southern wing of the party on the subject of slavery-extension; contrasting all this with the assertion of our Northern Democratic speakers, that they are not in favor of the extension of slavery, with a clearness and force we have never heard excelled, and which must have made the honest Democrats, if any such there were present, feel as if they had received an eye-opener.
Annotation
[1] Bloomington Weekly Pantagraph, September 17, 1856.