I need scarcely say to you that your speech before the Republican State Convention gave me infinite satisfaction.2 It cannot fail to do great good in our state, and will aid materially in opening the eyes of many to the truth. I trust it may be read by every citizen of the North west, and ^we^ shall ^aid^ somewhat to that end by publishing it in the three editions of the Press.3 There is one part of your speech, however, to which I desire to direct your attention. Some of my Kentucky friends who want to be Republican, but who are afraid we are not

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sufficiently conservative, who are also somewhat afraid of our name, but who hate "Locofocosim" most cordially, have objected to the following, on the ground of its "ultraism":

This they hold is an implied pledge on behalf of the Republican party to make war upon the institution in the States where it now exists. They do not perceive that you refer to ^a^ the moral tendency, but insist that your meaning goes to a political warfar under legal forms against slavery in the states. Nor will they admit that your meaning is limited by the declaration of principles adopted

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by the Convention before the delivery of your speech. "The declaration", they say "is right, but the speech, in this one particular, is not."

I call your attention to the fact, not with the expectation that you will make public explanations. That I do not believe would be advisable. But I take the liberty to suggest that on some subsequent occasion, it may be advisable for you to state your views specifically relative to the general question of federal interference with slavery in the states, and also as to the policy of the Republican party, as a national political organization, meddling with the subject any further than Congress has the Constitutional right of controlling it.5