Louisiana, with whom they were successful. Such were the remote
results of their conduct; the immediate evils they produced have
already been alluded to. They bore considerable
resemblance--except that after all they really did have a
principle to contend for--to the political Prohibitionists of the
present day, who go into the third party organization, and are,
not even excepting the saloon-keepers themselves, the most
efficient allies on whom intemperance and the liquor traffic can
count.

"Anti-Slavery men like Giddings, who supported Clay, were doing a
thousandfold more effective work for the cause they had at heart
than all the voters who supported Birney; or, to speak more
accurately, they were doing all they could to advance the cause,
while the others were doing all they could to hold it back.
Lincoln in 1860 occupied more nearly the ground held by Clay than
that held by Birney; and the men who supported the latter in 1844
were the prototypes of those who worked to oppose Lincoln in 1860,
and only worked less hard because they had less chance. The ultra
Abolitionists discarded expediency, and claimed to act for
abstract right on principle, no matter what the results might be;
in consequence they accomplished very little, and that as much
for harm as for good, until they ate their words, and went
counter to their previous course, thereby acknowledging it to be
bad, and supported in the Republican party the men and principles
they had so fiercely condemned. The Liberty party was not in any
sense the precursor of the Republican party, which was based as
much on expediency as on abstract right, and was, therefore, able
to accomplish good instead of harm. To say that extreme
Abolitionists triumphed in Republican success and were causes of