law than the Bible, the Constitution, and the laws of the land. This
higher-law doctrine, it strikes me, is the most convenient one I ever
heard of for the _criminal_. You, no doubt, have a law which punishes
a man for stealing a horse or a bale of goods. But the thief would
find more convenient a higher law which would justify him in keeping
the stolen goods. The doctrine is now advanced to you only in its
relation to property of the Southern States, thus it is the pill
gilded, to conceal its bitterness; but it will re-act deeply upon
yourselves if you accept it. What security have you for your own
safety if every man of vile temper, of low instincts, of base purpose,
can find in his own heart a higher law than that which is the rule of
society, the Constitution, and the Bible? _These higher-law preachers
should be tarred and feathered, and whipped by those they have thus
instigated. This, my friends, is what was called in good old
revolutionary times. Lynch Law._ It is sometimes the very best law,
because it deals summary justice upon those who would otherwise escape
from all other kinds of punishment. The man who with sycophantic face
and studied phrase, and with assumed philosophic morality, preaches
treason to the Constitution and the dictates of all human society, is
a fit object for a Lynch law that would be higher than any he could
urge. [Applause.]

My democratic friends, I am deeply gratified by the exhibition which
is before me. I see here a field of faces, assembled in the name of
Democracy, and over it high, bright and multiplied for the occasion,
as stars have been added by Democracy to the flag of our country,
blaze the lights which typify democratic principles, pointing upward,
to guide our country to that haven of prosperity which our fathers saw
in the distant future, and which they left it for their sons to
attain. It we are true to ourselves, true to the obligations which the