We've got another nominee coming up, well qualified, Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owens has a tremendous reputation, tremendous record, but they are already marshalling their forces to try to stop that nomination.
What if you threw a protest and no one showed up? The lack of angst and anger and emotion is a big positive.
I do not mean that you could continue to do this with propriety or even with safety; I merely assert that the power is, in point of fact, in your hands. And for such a power, what a responsibility to God and man!
It has always been a great wrong that these men and their families should be held in bondage. We of the North have hitherto acquiesced in it, lest, in the endeavor to redress it in violation of the Constitution, greater evils might ensue.
Our enemies, like the Grecian hero, have one vulnerable point. You have not touched it yet. What should have been their element of weakness has been suffered to remain an element of strength.
You are the first President to whom the opportunity was ever offered constitutionally to inaugurate such a day. If you fail us now, you may be the last.
