Louisville Daily Journal, October 30, 1860

The advocates of the cause of the Union, fellow-citizens, have now concluded their argument in this remarkable canvass. It remains only for you to render your verdict at the polls. We have but a closing word to add.

We have shown, by undisputed facts and by unanswerable as well as unanswered reasonings upon those facts, 1, That the Seceding movement, at the head of which John C. Breckinridge in a moment of wild ambition consented to place himself and from the sheer blindness and tenacity of pride has since continued, was designed to bring about at once the election of the Republican candidate for the Presidency and the union of the South in overthrowing the government on the ground of his election; 2, That the necessary tendency of the Seceding movement is actually to bring about this double result; 3, That the originators and leaders of the Seceding movement have resolved, if the election of the Republican candidate shall occur and a commanding vote be cast for the Seceding candidate in the South, to begin the work of overthrowing the government forthwith, in the hope and belief that the movement in question will have so inflamed and united the Southern people as to hurry them on into the pit of revolution prepared for them; and, 4, That even the defeat of the Republican candidate, if it shall be attended by the triumph of his Seceding ally, will but lead the way to the beginning of the same work of national destruction, under even more dangerous auspices, as soon as the controlling spirits of the Seceding movement can go through with the cunning mockery of demanding certain peremptory conditions of allegiance which they themselves acknowledge to be unattainable. We have shown that from these four leading established facts it follows irresistibly that the design of the Seceding movement is to unite the South with the view of destroying the Union as speedily as possible in any event of the pending election; in the event of the success of the Republican candidate, if he shall succeed, and, if not, then in the event of the rejection of the impossible conditions of allegiance to which we have referred—assuming always, be it observed, that the Seceding movement shall in the pending election unite the South in favor of the Seceding candidate. Finally, we have shown, that, as a corollary from this irresistible conclusion, the issue raised directly in the South by the Seceding movement is Union or Disunion whilst the same issue is raised indirectly by the Republican movement in the North, that, in other words, the Republican candidate and the Seceding candidate represent but different aspects of the single issue of Union or Disunion, the former presenting the negative phase of the issue, and the latter the positive. Wherefore, fellow-citizens, we have broadly and steadily pronounced the issue in the pending canvass everywhere to be Union or Disunion, and with equal earnestness have invoked the men of the North to defeat the Republican candidate and the men of the South to put down his Seceding accomplice. We now in all solemnity renew this invocation for the last time.

Men of the United States, defeat the Republican candidate and put down his Seceding accomplice, we implore you, as you love the Union and value the liberty which the Union enshrines. Rout both the Disunion candidates alike; the victory over one will be incomplete without the discomfiture of the other. Nay, such partial success will prove but an ultimate failure. If the Republican candidate alone shall be defeated, leaving his Seceding accomplice triumphant with a united South at his back, the unfeasible ultimatum of the Seceders, consisting of the repeal of the existing laws against the slave trade together with the establishment of intervention as the settled policy of the Federal Government, or some new ultimatum more specious but equally impractical, will be presented and rejected and the Union broken up before the administration of the government shall pass out of the hands of the revolutionists. The huge dense thunder-cloud of treason which now overcasts the national sky will still hang above us, spreading wider and growing blacker every instant. Perhaps the triumph of Disunion in the present election could not assume a more fatal shape than this. On the other hand, if the Seceding candidate alone shall be defeated, leaving his Republican accomplice triumphant with a united North at his back, the baffled Disunionists of the South, deriving fresh incentives from the supremacy of their Northern abettors, will recommence the strife with such augmented vigor and such increased advantages that ere another Presidential election shall draw near the Southern friends of the Union will be powerless, and, in the actual shock of that election, a united South will go down before a united and outnumbering North, and the government, though rescued now, will be lost and exterminated then. The vast thunder-cloud will grow lighter for the instant only to gather additional density and volume and break with more awful destruction upon our heads. This also would be the triumph of Disunion in a shape utterly fatal. But, men of the Union, defeat the Republican candidate and the Seceding candidate equally, rout Lincoln as well as Breckinridge and Breckinridge as well as Lincoln, and Disunion in both its aspects and in every shape will be vanquished and extinguished. Do this, and you will put an end to Disunion forever. Positive Disunion will be stifled and there will be no negative Disunion to restore it. Do this, and the frowning thundercloud will part not to discharge its red bolts of death but to melt into the sunlight of enduring peace. This and this only will constitute the triumph of the Union.

Citizens of the Union, will you not do this? Will you not achieve the triumph of the Union? Will you not, in this most tremendous crisis, trample upon the political sympathies and antipathies which fetter your patriotism, and lift up your voices and put forth your arms with an eye single to the preservation of your country? Will you not save the government? Will you not save your own liberty? Will you not save yourselves? Are you ready to set fire to the temple of freedom that Washington and his deathless compeers erected, and whose shining pillars, whilst they shelter and secure your liberties and your rights, blaze across the tumultuous ocean of human society as a beacon to the oppressed and struggling nations of the earth? As we write, your gaze, in common with that of the rest of the civilized world, is fixed with admiration and solicitude upon the efforts of the Italians under the heroic lead of Garibaldi to breast the waves of despotism, and guided alone by this beacon flaming from the citadel of your own freedom, to reach the haven of national independence. Are you prepared, whilst thus gazing with trembling anxiety upon the struggle of this gallant people for civil liberty, not only to put out the light that guides them, but to throw away the priceless boon for which they are struggling? Can you, dare you, as a free and Christian people, to say nothing of the guilt of national self-destruction involved in the act, take away the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night from before this brave but subject people, and from before all other subject peoples on the globe, that their night shall be rayless, and, if their night ever end, their day without a compass or a sign? Are you willing with one deadly blow to destroy your own freedom and to quench the hope of freedom you have kindled in the bosom of your race? It cannot be.

Yet, men of the American Union, as you would escape this immeasurable wickedness and folly, the very thought of which causes you to shudder and recoil, we beseech you to crush out by your votes next Tuesday the foul and guilty heresy of Disunion in both its forms. In no other conceivable way can you escape the dire responsibility. In no other! If you would have your consciences and your names free from the ineffaceable and damning stain of liberticide, defeat the Republican candidate for the Presidency together with his Seceding accomplice, and bury the two in one common pit of ruin and of shame. It would be unmanly to deny that we await your decision with the most anxious and profound concern.