And now a word in connection with this same principle of submission, as applicable to the people of the North in our present emergency. In accordance with the plan adopted by the founders of our Government, and practically illustrated in the election of George Washington and his successors, the people by a plurality of votes elected to office and placed at the head of our political system as its highest authority and ruler, the present Chief Magistrate. From the day of his acknowledged election, party politics settled into the calm of acquiescence, and all loyal and true States and men bowed to the arbitrament of the ballot box. That man, Abraham Lincoln, instantly became invested with the potential right of rule under the Constitution, and the great principle of constitutional liberty in his election and elevation stood justified. It mattered not then, nor matters it now, to us, what may be individual opinion of his merits or demerits, his ability or his disability. There he is, not as a private citizen, but as the head of our Government: his individuality is lost in his official embodiment. This principle being acknowledged, and party opinion being buried, in theory at least, at the foot of the altar of the Government _de facto_, whence is it that at this time creeps into our council chambers, our political cliques, our social haunts, our market places, ay, our most sacred tabernacles--a spirit adverse to the principles for which we are fighting, laboring for, and dying for? Let us--a people anxious for peace on honorable grounds, anxious for a Union which no rash hand shall ever again attempt to destroy--look, with a moment's calm reflection, at this alarming evil.