and if he is brought into the field he will be triumphantly elected.
THAT MUST NOT BE DONE, because THE ORGANIZATION FOR SECESSION IS
MATURED. EVERYTHING IS PREPARED, and the election of Mr. Douglas would
only postpone it for four years; and Now when we are PREPARED to carry
out these things WE MUST INDULGE IN STRATAGEM, and the nomination of Mr.
Breckinridge is a mere strategic movement to divide the great
conservative Party of the Nation into two, so as to elect a Republican
candidate AND CONSOLIDATE THE SOUTH BY THE CRY OF 'ABOLITIONIST!'

"That is a mere simple statement of the truth, and it cannot be
contradicted. Now, in that scheme all the men of counsel of that Party
were engaged. * * * I, on the far shores of the Pacific understood
those things as long ago as a year last September (1860). I was advised
about this policy and well informed of it. * * *

"I was at war, in California, in January (1861) last; in the maintenance
of the opinions that I am now maintaining, I had to go armed to protect
myself from violence. The country, whenever there was controversy, was
agitated to its deepest foundations. That is known, perhaps, not to
gentlemen who live up in Maine or Massachusetts, or where you are
foreign to all this agitation; but known to all people where disturbance
might have been effective in consequences. I felt it, and had to carry
my life in my hand by the month, as did my friends surrounding me.

"I say that all through last winter (that of 1860-61) War had been
inaugurated in all those parts of the Country where disturbed elements
could have efficient result. In January (1861), a year ago, I stood in
the hall of the House of Representatives of my State, and there was War
then, and angry faces and hostile men were gathered; and we knew then
well that the Southern States had determined to withdraw themselves from