Year: 1860

possessed with one idea, and he could NOT


rest, but kept continually putting this


idea before the minister and the rest of


the guests, saying, If you only make up


for me a purse, or show me bank that


will lend me FIVE thousand dollars, will


put a boat on the Hudson river which


will make the passage from New York to


Albany at four miles an hour, without


being driven by cars or sails" He was


an offensive monUmaniac, that Robert
4 Fulton. But still had it not been for his


one idea, Iowa would have slept the last
/ sixty years, and down to the twentieth
century, and not one human being before


me or within the boundaries of this State


would have resided here. What I uu-


derstand by one idea is this 1t simply
means that man, or people, or State,
IS in earnest. They get an idea which
they think is useful, and they are in


earnest. God save US when we are to


abandon confidence In earnest men and


take to following trivial men of light


minds, confused and scattered ideas, and


weak purposes.


Felow-ci citizens, there is no such thing as


government carried out without the inter-
vention, the rising, the exaltation of one


idea, and without the activity, guidance


and influence of earnest men. You may


be listless, indifferent, indoent, each one


of you; do you therefore get other people


to 90 to sleep? No. You 90 to sleep,
and you Will find somebody that has got
one idea that you don't like, who will be


wide awake. They want to be wideawako
on the negro question as long as it pays,
and it pays just as long as you will be


content to follow their guidance and take
several ideas


Fellow citizens, industry is the result


Of one idea. ! have never heard of idle
Cnes in the beavers camp, hut | do know
there are drones in the beehive Neyers
theless, the beavers camp and the bees
hive all give evidence of TIE denotnina-
tion of one idea The Almighty Power
himself could never have made the world;
and never govern it, if he had not bent
the force and application Of the one idea
to make it perfect An0 when at o'clock
IN the morning three months ago, with
the almanac in my hand, | stood with
my smoked glass between me and the sun
TO see whether the almanac maker was
correct or whether nature vascilated be-
tween one idea and another, | was astou4
lshed to see that, at the very second in
diCatcd by the astronomer, the shadow of
the moon entered the disk of the sum-
There was one idea only in the mind of
the OmnipOtent Creator that, six thou.
sand, or ten thousand, or twenty thousand,
Or hundreds of thousands of years ago.
set that sun, that moon and this earth in
their places, and subjected them to laws
which brought that shadow exactly at
this point at that instant of time. Earth
is serious; heaven is serious; earth is ear
nest hea7en is earnest There is no
place for men of scattered and confused
ideas in the earth below, or in the heav-
ems above, whatever there may be in the
places under the earth.


Every one idea has its negative. To
has It's destines, its purpose, and it has
its negative. So it is with the idea of
slavery; it means nothing less, nothing
more, nothing different from the extension
of commerce or trading in slaves and in
our national system it means the extea-
sion Of commerce in slaves into regions
vi here that commerce has no right to ex-
lst. The negative Of that is our right
which we are endeayoring to inculcate in
your minds, opposition to trading in
slaves within those portions of the Terri
tory where slaves are not lawfully SUBJ
iect Of merchandise.


At the time Of the compromise of 1890
.hc Democratic Party saw. for they arJ
wise men, and their opponents, Rufus
King, John W. Taylor and others in
Congress, saw, that there vas an ire
2resslble conflict between the two ideas
If slavery and freedom, or rather between
he two sides of one idea. The alterna-
i've offered to the Democracy and to all
he people of the United States, was
2lain one the slave holders are stronat
ire united there are many slave States
md they are agreed in their policy there
re as many Free States, but they are d.
'ided in opinion. Lend your support to
he Slave States and you shall have the
'ower, patronage, honors and glory of
dminis.ering the government of the
lnited States. Some asked for how
ong? Wise men cast the horoscope and
aid forty just about that time an infant
State shall grow up north Of Missouri
within the Louisiana purchases and auoths
r shall grow up in Kansas. These for
y years the great men have named
eemed few and feeble in numbers, still
Ie would rather have quiet consciences
urng all the time and postpone honors
nd rewards for forty years, rather than