' And now if the Judge claims the benefit of this
parable, let him repent. Let him not come up here and say: 'I am the
only just person; and you are the ninety-nine sinners!' Repentance
before forgiveness is a provision of the Christian system, and on that
condition alone will the Republicans grant his forgiveness."
After complaining that Judge Douglas misrepresented his attitude as
indicated in his 16th of June speech at Springfield, in charging that he
invited "a War of Sections;"--that he proposed that "all the local
institutions of the different States shall become consolidated and
uniform," Mr. Lincoln denied that that speech could fairly bear such
construction.
In that speech he (Mr. L.) had simply expressed an expectation that
"either the opponents of Slavery will arrest the further spread of it,
and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is
in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it
forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well
as new, North as well as South." Since then, at Chicago, he had also
expressed a "wish to see the spread of Slavery arrested, and to see it
placed where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the
course of ultimate extinction"--and, said he: "I said that, because I
supposed, when the public mind shall rest in that belief, we shall have
Peace on the Slavery question.
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