Abraham Lincoln's Cooper Union Speech

Orin Hargraves (United States of America) Vocabulary.com Contributor
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. framed
    provided with a frame
    In his speech last autumn, at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in "The New-York Times," Senator Douglas said:

    "Our fathers, when they framed the Government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now."
  2. slavery
    the state of being in forced servitude to another person
    It is this: Does the proper division of local from federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid our Federal Government to control as to slavery in our Federal Territories?
  3. Constitution
    the constitution written at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 and subsequently ratified by the original thirteen states
    The answer must be: "The Constitution of the United States."
  4. federal
    of a government with central and regional authorities
    It is this: Does the proper division of local from federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid our Federal Government to control as to slavery in our Federal Territories?
  5. territory
    a region marked off for administrative or other purposes
    It is this: Does the proper division of local from federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid our Federal Government to control as to slavery in our Federal Territories?
  6. sectionalism
    excessive devotion to the interests of a particular region
    Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has since arisen upon this same subject, is that warning a weapon in your hands against us, or in our hands against you?
  7. John Brown
    abolitionist who was hanged after leading an unsuccessful raid at Harper's Ferry, Virginia (1800-1859)
    John Brown!!
  8. insurrection
    organized opposition to authority
    You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves.
  9. slave
    a person who is forcibly held in servitude
    In the act of organization, they prohibited the bringing of slaves into the Territory, from any place without the United States, by fine, and giving freedom to slaves so bought.
  10. republicanism
    belief in government by the people's elected representatives
    In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an unconditional condemnation of "Black Republicanism" as the first thing to be attended to.
  11. affirm
    declare solemnly and formally as true
    Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our thirty-nine fathers "who framed the government under which we live," who have, upon their official responsibility and their corporal oaths, acted upon the very question which the text affirms they "understood just as well, and even better than we do now;" and twenty-one of them - a clear majority of the whole "thirty-nine" - so acting upon it as to make them guilty of gross political impropriety and willful perjury, if, in their understandin...
  12. government
    the system or form by which a community is ruled
    In his speech last autumn, at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in "The New-York Times," Senator Douglas said:

    "Our fathers, when they framed the Government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now."
  13. Robert Morris
    leader of the American Revolution who signed the Declaration of Independence and raised money for the Continental Army (1734-1806)
    They were John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman, Wm. S. Johnson, Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, Thos.
  14. constitutional
    existing as an essential characteristic
    No one who has sworn to support the Constitution can conscientiously vote for what he understands to be an unconstitutional measure, however expedient he may think it; but one may and ought to vote against a measure which he deems constitutional, if, at the same time, he deems it inexpedient.
  15. republican
    having the supreme power lying in citizens entitled to vote
    I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed starting point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas.
  16. James Madison
    4th President of the United States
    Fitzsimmons, William Few, Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William Paterson, George Clymer, Richard Bassett, George Read, Pierce Butler, Daniel Carroll, James Madison.
  17. free state
    any state prohibiting slavery prior to the American Civil War
    Less than eight years before Washington gave that warning, he had, as President of the United States, approved and signed an act of Congress, enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory, which act embodied the policy of the Government upon that subject up to and at the very moment he penned that warning; and about one year after he penned it, he wrote LaFayette that he considered that prohibition a wise measure, expressing in the same connection his hope that we should...
  18. palliate
    lessen or to try to lessen the seriousness or extent of
    That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be palliated, if not fully justified, were we proposing, by the mere force of numbers, to deprive you of some right, plainly written down in the Constitution.
  19. Dred Scott
    United States slave who sued for liberty after living in a non-slave state; caused the Supreme Court to declare the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional (1795?-1858)
    The Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case, plant themselves upon the fifth amendment, which provides that no person shall be deprived of "life, liberty or property without due process of law;" while Senator Douglas and his peculiar adherents plant themselves upon the tenth amendment, providing that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution" "are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
  20. due process
    administration of justice according to rules and principles
    The Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case, plant themselves upon the fifth amendment, which provides that no person shall be deprived of "life, liberty or property without due process of law;" while Senator Douglas and his peculiar adherents plant themselves upon the tenth amendment, providing that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution" "are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
  21. Black
    British chemist who identified carbon dioxide and who formulated the concepts of specific heat and latent heat (1728-1799)
    You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to "Black Republicans."
  22. Confederacy
    a group of Southern states that broke away from the U.S. in 1860–61
    It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at peace, and in harmony, one with another.
Created on Sat Dec 12 13:01:42 EST 2009

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