"
I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those
matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety
or excitement.
Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern
States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their
property and their peace and personal security are to be
endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such
apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has
all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is
found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now
addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I
declare that--
I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the
institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I
have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.
Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that
I had made this and many similar declarations and had never
recanted them; and more than this, they placed in the platform for
my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and
emphatic resolution which I now read:
Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the
States, and especially the right of each State to order and
control its own domestic institutions according to its own
judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on
which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend;
and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of
any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the
gravest of crimes.
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