Speech at Beloit, Wisconsin1Jump to section
He opened with a statement of the different positions taken by the different political parties of the country. He named 4 existing dem. parties, or, rather, sub-divisions of the great Democratic party. These were united on one point, viz: their opposition to the Republican organization and to Republican principles. At the South, the hostility to organization proceeded, in a great measure, from ignorance and misapprehension of the principles and aims of that organization. The Democratic leaders there sedulously strive, by misrepresentation and falsehood, to produce the impression that the Republicans desire to meddle with their existing institutions.
Mr. Lincoln then went on to state the real position of the Republican party. Its underlying principle is hatred to the institution of Slavery; hatred to it in all its aspects, moral, social, and political. This is the foundation of the Republican party---its active, life-giving principle. The expression, by words and deeds, of this hatred to Slavery, is the policy of the party; and this expression, is, and should be, made in every legitimate, Constitutional way. With Slavery in the States they had nothing to do; but when it attempts to overleap its present limits, and fasten itself upon free territory, they would resist and force it back. This, he said, was what the Republican party was now trying to do. On this point he clashed with the popular sovereignty doctrine, and accordingly, he proceeded to pay his respects to the author of that stupendous humbug. This he did in a way that must have convinced every