When one has been long studying with much earnest intensity of thought a
perplexing and moving question, and at last frames a conclusion with
painstaking precision in perfectly clear language, it is not pleasant to
have that accurate utterance misstated with tireless reiteration, and
with infinite art and plausibility. But for this vexation Lincoln could
find no remedy, and it was in vain that he again and again called
attention to the fact that he had expressed neither a "doctrine," nor an
"invitation," nor any "purpose" or policy whatsoever. But as it seemed
not altogether courageous to leave his position in doubt, he said: "Now,
it is singular enough, if you will carefully read that passage over,
that I did not say in it that I was in favor of anything. I only said
what I expected would take place.... I did not even say that I desired
that slavery should be put in course of ultimate extinction. I do say so
now, however, so there need be no longer any difficulty about that." He
felt that nothing short of such extinction would surely prevent the
revival of a dispute which had so often been settled "_forever_." "We
can no more foretell," he said, "where the end of this slavery agitation
will be than we can see the end of the world itself.... There is no way
of putting an end to the slavery agitation amongst us but to put it back
upon the basis where our fathers placed it.
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