indirectly attempts a deception, by implying that Whigs were not Free
Soil men. Declaring that they would "do their duty and leave the
consequences to God" merely gave an excuse for taking a course they were
not able to maintain by a fair and full argument. To make this
declaration did not show what their duty was. If it did we should have no
use for judgment, we might as well be made without intellect; and when
divine or human law does not clearly point out what is our duty, we have
no means of finding out what it is but by using our most intelligent
judgment of the consequences. If there were divine law or human law for
voting for Martin Van Buren, or if a, fair examination of the
consequences and just reasoning would show that voting for him would
bring about the ends they pretended to wish--then he would give up the
argument. But since there was no fixed law on the subject, and since the
whole probable result of their action would be an assistance in electing
Gen. Cass, he must say that they were behind the Whigs in their advocacy
of the freedom of the soil.

Mr. Lincoln proceeded to rally the Buffalo convention for forbearing to
say anything--after all the previous declarations of those members who
were formerly Whigs--on the subject of the Mexican War, because the Van
Burens had been known to have supported it. He declared that of all the
parties asking the confidence of the country, this new one had less of
principle than any other.

He wondered whether it was still the opinion of these Free Soil
gentlemen, as declared in the "whereas" at Buffalo, that the Whig and
Democratic parties were both entirely dissolved and absorbed into their
own body. Had the Vermont election given them any light? They had
calculated on making as great an impression in that State as in any part
of the Union, and there their attempts had been wholly ineffectual. Their