Writings of Abraham Lincoln, the — Volume 3: the Lincoln-Douglas debates by Abraham Lincoln
page 13 of 138 (09%)
page 13 of 138 (09%)
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Well, now, gentlemen, is not that very alarming? Just to think of it! right at the outset of his canvass, I, a poor, kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman,--I am to be slain in this way! Why, my friend the Judge is not only, as it turns out, not a dead lion, nor even a living one,--he is the rugged Russian Bear! But if they will have it--for he says that we deny it--that there is any such alliance, as he says there is,--and I don't propose hanging very much upon this question of veracity,--but if he will have it that there is such an alliance, that the Administration men and we are allied, and we stand in the attitude of English, French, and Turk, he occupying the position of the Russian, in that case I beg that he will indulge us while we barely suggest to him that these allies took Sebastopol. Gentlemen, only a few more words as to this alliance. For my part, I have to say that whether there be such an alliance depends, so far as I know, upon what may be a right definition of the term alliance. If for the Republican party to see the other great party to which they are opposed divided among themselves, and not try to stop the division, and rather be glad of it,--if that is an alliance, I confess I am in; but if it is meant to be said that the Republicans had formed an alliance going beyond that, by which there is contribution of money or sacrifice of principle on the one side or the other, so far as the Republican party is concerned,--if there be any such thing, I protest that I neither know anything of it, nor do I believe it. I will, however, say,--as I think this branch of the argument is lugged in,--I would before I leave it state, for the benefit of those concerned, that one of those same Buchanan men did once tell me of an argument that he made for his opposition to Judge Douglas. He said that a friend of our Senator Douglas |
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