" The President flatters himself that the new central
idea is completely inaugurated; and so indeed it is, so far as the mere
fact of a Presidential election can inaugurate it. To us it is left to
know that the majority of the people have not yet declared for it, and to
hope that they never will.
All of us who did not vote for Mr. Buchanan, taken together, are a
majority of four hundred thousand. But in the late contest we were
divided between Fremont and Fillmore. Can we not come together for the
future? Let every one who really believes and is resolved that free
society is not and shall not be a failure, and who can conscientiously
declare that in the last contest he has done only what he thought
best--let every such one have charity to believe that every other one can
say as much. Thus let bygones be bygones; let past differences as nothing
be; and with steady eye on the real issue let us reinaugurate the good
old "central idea" of the republic. We can do it. The human heart is with
us; God is with us. We shall again be able, not to declare that "all
States as States are equal," nor yet that "all citizens as citizens are
equal," but to renew the broader, better declaration, including both
these and much more, that "all men are created equal.
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