Chicago Daily Democrat, November 5, 1860

The greatest political battle which has been fought in America since the formation of this Government, is to be decided to-morrow. Issues the most momentous hang upon the result. Let us enumerate them, briefly and simply:

In the first place, if the pro-slavery party triumph to-morrow throughout the Union, one of two things will be inevitable, to wit:

Either the slave power will go on from conquering to conquer, driving every vestige of freedom before it, planting the institution of slavery on every foot of our land, degrading free labor, and erecting an oligarchy of capital and an aristocracy of wealth, the way for all which is already marked out by the decisions of the Supreme Court and the construction of existing laws; or else, driven to desperation, and deprived of the hope of obtaining redress through the ballot-box, the people of the North will rise against the oppressors and sweep them away forever. True, the defeat of Mr. Lincoln to-morrow may not prevent the election of an anti-slavery President four years hence, or eight years hence; but it will be easier and safer to elect one now. Nothing but embarrassment and dangers can arise from any further delays. The irrepressible conflict must be decided sooner or later, and the sooner the better. The Union cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. We do not expect the Union to be dissolved—if a Republican President is elected it cannot be dissolved—but we do expect it will cease to be divided. If Mr. Lincoln is elected, the Administration of which he will be the head, will arrest the further spread of slavery, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief of its ultimate extinction. If he is defeated, its advocates will push it forward until it reigns over all the land.

Secondly, If Mr. Lincoln be elected to-morrow we may consider the question of the suppression of the slave trade fully settled. During Mr. Buchanan's Administration the slave trade has flourished to an almost unprecedented extent. Thousands of negroes have been stolen from Africa and landed on our shores. Some of them have been reclaimed and sent back; a far larger number have died; still more are now toiling in the cotton fields and rice swamps of the far South. All this will be put to a sudden and complete stop, under Mr. Lincoln's government.

Thirdly, The pro-slavery interpretations of the Constitution of the United States which have been so freely and continually disseminated and enforced will be reversed, and that glorious instrument will be construed, as its framers intended it should, as a charter of freedom, and not as a bulwark of slavery.

Fourthly, The present infamous Fugitive Slave Law will be repealed, and a law substituted in its place which will give the slave owners only what the Constitution provides, not a jot more. Their pound of flesh they may have, but not a drop of blood.

In a word, the whole policy of the government will be a policy of freedom. The spirit that will actuate all its departments will be a spirit of liberty. The patronage and the influence of the government, at home and abroad, will be exerted on the side of freedom. The rights of all the citizens of the United States will be made as secure in South Carolina as it is in Massachusetts. The sanctity of the mails will not be invaded, and the postmasters of the southern States will no longer be allowed to decide what newspapers their neighbors may read. Liberty shall be proclaimed through all the land and to all the inhabitants thereof. The slave States will be surrounded by a cordon of free States, and slavery, confined to its present limits—limits, too, speedily to be still further circumscribed by Delaware and Missouri becoming free—will become unprofitable, and a pecuniary, as well as a moral curse. Then emancipation societies will spring up in all the slave States, and the blessed work will go on, until the last slave is free, and America is redeemed from the foul stain that now degrades her in the eyes of all mankind.

Such are the issues depending on the result of the great battle to be fought to-morrow. In view of these, who that loves his country, his race, the rights of man, and the blessings of a free government, will hesitate to do his duty at the polls? The weather to-morrow may be unpleasant; it may be rainy and cold, and very disagreeable. But we had better endure every privation and make every sacrifice, rather than by our failure to do our duty, lose the inestimable blessings which the election of Abraham Lincoln will confer upon us and our posterity.