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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: every conclusion he drew, that his listeners followed him,
spellbound. He spoke on the subject that he had so thoroughly
mastered and that was now uppermost in men's minds--the right or
wrong of slavery. He laid bare the complaints and demands of the
Southern leaders, pointed out the injustice of their threat to
break up the Union if their claims were not granted, stated
forcibly the stand taken by the Republican party, and brought his
speech to a close with the short and telling appeal:
"Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let
us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."
The attention with which it was followed, the applause that
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