“Have no fears, gentlemen, of your candidate; he exactly suits you, and we congratulate you upon it. However much you may be distressed about _our_ candidate, you have all cause to be contented and happy with your own. If elected, he may not maintain all, or even any of his positions previously taken; but he will be sure to do whatever the party exigency, for the time being, may require; and that is precisely what you want. He and Van Buren are the same ‘manner of men;’ and like Van Buren, he will never desert _you_ till you first desert _him_.” After referring at some length to extra “charges” of General Cass upon the Treasury, Mr. Lincoln continued:-- “But I have introduced General Cass’s accounts here, chiefly to show the wonderful physical capacities of the man. They show that he not only did the labor of several men at the same _time_, but that he often did it, at several _places_ many hundred miles apart, _at the same time_. And at eating, too, his capacities are shown to be quite as wonderful. From October, 1821, to May, 1822, he ate ten rations a day in Michigan, ten rations a day here, in Washington, and nearly five dollar’s worth a day besides, partly on the road between the two places. And then there is an important discovery in his example--the art of being paid for what one eats, instead of having to pay for it. Hereafter, if any nice young man shall owe a bill which he can not pay in any other way, he can just board it out. Mr. Speaker, we have all heard of the animal standing in doubt between two stacks of hay, and starving to death; the like of that would never happen to General Cass. Place the stacks a thousand miles apart, he would stand stock-still, midway between them, and eat them both at once; and the green grass along the line would be apt to suffer some too, at the same time. By all means make him President, gentlemen. He will feed you bounteously--if if--there is any left after he shall have helped himself.