November 4, 1860
Fellow Citizens,—In thanking you for the honor which you have conferred upon me, I cannot refrain from addressing you a few brief remarks at this critical juncture of our political affairs.
In less than four days you will be called upon to record your votes at an election, upon the result of which depends not only the preservation of your property, and the prosperity of your native city, but also the very existence of this great and vast Republic.
Whatever the Republican leaders may say to the contrary, I fear that the election of Mr. Lincoln to the presidential chair must prove the forerunner of a dissolution of this confederacy amid all the horrors of civil strife and bloodshed.
I know that Mr. Lincoln’s friends claim for him sentiments of patriotic and conservative attachment to the Union. But of what avail can these sentiments be, even if they do exist, from the moment that he consents to become the standard-bearer of a sectional party holding principles incompatible with the sacred obligations of the Constitution, and arrayed in open and unrelenting hostility against the property and the institutions of the fairest portion of our common country.
But, my friends and fellow-laborers in the cause of the Union, with God’s blessing we must not give our opponents a chance to carry out their fair promises, or their boasting taunts.
I do not believe the great State of New York, which under the beneficent influences of our institutions has grown up to a mighty empire in herself, will ever give her casting vote in favor of fanatical sectionalism.
I will not believe that the City of New York, which owes her proud position as the first commercial emporium of the world to the blessings of our Union, can ever be unmindful of her duty to the Union. I have an abiding faith in the unflinching courage of our indomitable Democracy, which has carried its victorious banner through many a hard-fought battle. And last, though not least, my friends, I place implicit trust in the energetic co-operation of those patriotic and conservative men, the members of the time-honored Whig party, who, forgetting all past differences, and only mindful of their unwavering attachment to the Union, have united with us to fight the common enemy.
When in 1850 the hydra of sectionalism and disunion first raised her hideous head, we saw the great statesmen of the Republic lay aside all differences on minor topics of internal or foreign policy, and by one united effort crush the treasonable monster. Then the immortal Webster stood side by side with the eloquent and Union-loving Henry S. Foote; then the patriot and statesman, John Bell, fought shoulder to shoulder with the honored veteran of Democracy, Lewis Cass; and the cherished idol of the American heart, the great Henry Clay, was linked hand in hand with the unflinching and patriotic champion of the Constitution, Stephen A. Douglas.
The work then so nobly begun by our great leaders is now to be completed by the united efforts of the American people. From the snow-clad hills of the far North to the blooming savannahs of the sunny South, from the rolling waves of the Atlantic to the golden shores of our empire on the Pacific, the hopes and fears of every American patriot are centred at this moment in New York. Will you allow these hopes to be disappointed? No ! before another week shall have passed away I trust that the mighty Empire State will have redeemed herself from Republican misrule, and preserved the Union from the calamities of a sectional administration.