The question of men is a different one.

There are good patriotic men and able statesmen in the South whom I would cheerfully support, if they would now place themselves on Republican ground, but I am against letting down the Republican standard a hair's breadth." The other was a somewhat longer letter, to a Boston committee which had invited him to a festival in honor of Jefferson's birthday.
"Bearing in mind that about seventy years ago two great political parties were first formed in this country; that Thomas Jefferson was the head of one of them, and Boston the headquarters of the other, it is both curious and interesting that those supposed to descend politically from the party opposed to Jefferson, should now be celebrating his birthday, in their own original seat of empire, while those claiming political descent from him have nearly ceased to breathe his name everywhere...." [Sidenote] Lincoln to Pierce and others, April 6, 1859.
"But, soberly, it is now no child's play to save the principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation.

One would state with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but nevertheless he would fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms.
The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society.

And yet they are denied and evaded, with no small show of success.

One dashingly calls them 'glittering generalities.' Another bluntly calls them 'self-evident lies.' And others insidiously argue that they apply only to 'superior races.' These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and effect--the supplanting the principles of free government, and restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy.