We will consider, in the first place, the condition of the country when the Republican party was born. When this Republican party was born there was upon the statute books of the United States of America a law known as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, by which every man in the State of New York was made by law a bloodhound, and could be set and hissed upon a negro, who was simply attempting to obtain his birthright of freedom, just as you would set a dog upon a wolf. That was the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Around the neck of every man it put a collar as on a dog, but it had not the decency to put the man's name on the collar. I said in the State of Maine, and several other States, and expect to say it again although I hurt the religious sentiment of the Democratic party, and shocked the piety of that organization by saying it, but I did say then, and now say, that the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 would have disgraced hell in its palmiest days. I tell you, my friends, you do not know how easy it is to shock the religious sentiments of the Democratic party; there is a deep and pure vein of piety running through that organization; it has been for years spiritually inclined; there is probably no organization in the world that really will stand by any thing of a spiritual character, at least until it is gone, as that Democratic party will. Everywhere I have been I have crushed their religious hopes. You have no idea how sorry I am that I hurt their feelings so upon the subject of religion. Why, I did not suppose that they cared anything about Christianity, but I have been deceived. I now find that they do, and I have done what no other man in the United States ever did--I have made the Democratic party come to the defence of Christianity. I have made the Democratic party use what time they could spare between drinks in quoting Scripture. But notwithstanding the fact that I have shocked the religious sentiment of that party, I do not want them to defend Christianity any more; they will bring it into universal contempt if they do. Yes, yes, they will make the words honesty and reform a stench in the nostrils of honest men. They made the words of the Constitution stand almost for treason, during the entire war, and every decent word that passes the ignorant, leprous, malignant lips of the Democratic party, becomes dishonored from that day forth. At the same time, in 1850, when the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, in nearly all of the Western States, there was a law by which the virtues of pity and hospitality became indictable offences. There was a law by which the virtue of charity became a crime, and the man who performed a kindness could be indicted, imprisoned, and fined. It was the law of Illinois--of my own State--that if one gave a drop of cold water, or a crust of bread, to a fugitive from slavery, he could be indicted, fined and imprisoned, under the infamous slave law of 1850, under the infamous black laws of the Western States.