"1. That the late election[31] was not a verdict of the Northern States on the theoretic questions urged by the Republicans. Masses went for Lincoln, from habit and association, as a lineal succession from Whiggism. Masses from mere opposition to the Democratic party, and from all the causes which gradually operate to make a revolution between the ins and the outs. The drift created by the disorganization of the Democratic party, and our inability to present any single candidate as a point of union to the conservative sentiment, and the concession from April till October that we must inevitably be beaten; I say this drift alone might fairly be 24,000 out of 675,000 voters, or 3-1/2 per cent., which would have changed the result in N. Y. and in the Union. "2. That a very important reaction has already taken place. "3. That, even if we had not had our present difficulties to bring men to consider, Lincoln's administration must necessarily go utterly to pieces when it came either to _present affirmative measures_ or to _distribute the patronage_. "4th. That, on the whole, through all these struggles and much apparent increase of the anti-slavery element, there is growing a larger and stronger party, capable of doing the Southern States full justice, than ever has existed for half a century past; I mean, capable of recognizing, on reason and principle, the right and the necessity the Southern States have to grow in the natural expansion of their industrial and social systems. In 1820 the North was unanimous in claiming the right to attack conditions operating after a State should be admitted. That idea is now abandoned by a vast majority of our people. It is natural that when a new question arises, assumed to be within our constitutional jurisdiction, our people should all start to apply to it the ideas on which they have acted at home. To see that it cannot be wisely disposed of by their merely voting in respect to it as if it were a purely domestic question; that they must calculate for the co-existence and expansion of the two systems; that they must partition the Territories--is a later stage in their political education. "I am of opinion that prevalent errors have, in the main, run their course; and we need only to give our people a fair chance to secure the adoption of a wiser and better system than they have ever before understandingly accepted. "If the present Congress continues unable to do anything adequate, I think the next best thing will be a convention of all the States to propose amendments to the Constitution, with an arrangement, if practicable, to keep the parties in _status quo_ while those amendments are being perfected and submitted. The convention should be elected in districts on the basis of the House of Rep. The submission should be to conventions.