He laid his spear in rest and went forth with armor on, the champion of freedom. He claimed she should walk the world everywhere, untrammeled and free to bless the lowest as well as the highest. It was not right and never could be made right, to forbid working lawfully that all men might be free. Slavery debased--freedom lifted up. Slavery corrupted, freedom purified. Freedom might be abused, but slavery was itself a colossal abuse. He was no dreaming visionary, but stated with commanding clearness the doctrine of equality before the law, or political equality, distinguishing it from social equality. In old Independence Hall, in 1861, he said of the Colonies: "I have often enquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the mother land, but the sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but I hope to the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight should be lifted from the shoulders of all men." He held that instrument to teach that "nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, degraded and imbruted by its fellows." We search vainly for a clearer and terser statement of the true theory of equality than he gave last autumn in an address to a Western regiment. "We have, as all will agree, a free government, where _every man has a right to be equal with every other man_." Has a _right to be!_ Take the fetters from his limbs, take the load of disability from his shoulders, give him room in the arena, and then if he cannot succeed with others, the failure is his. _But he has the right_ TO TRY. You have no right to forbid the trial. If he will try for wealth, fame, political position, he has the right. Let him exercise it and enjoy what he lawfully wins. With such views he came to the presidency. Here he was an executive officer, bound by the Constitution, and charged with its maintenance and defense. He was to take the nation as the people placed it in his hands, rule it under the Constitution and surrender it unbroken to his successor. Accordingly he made to the Southern States all conceivable propositions for peace. Slavery should be left without federal interference. They madly rejected all. War came. He saw at the outset that slavery was our bane. It confronted each regiment, perplexed each commander. It was the Southern commisariat, dug Southern trenches and piled Southern breastworks.