to the Constitution, and act in accordance with those sober convictions, and the clouds now on the horizon will be dispelled, and we shall have a bright and glorious future; and when this generation has passed away, tens of thousands will inhabit this country where only thousands inhabit it now.  I do not propose to address you at length; I have no voice for it.  Allow me again to thank you for this magnificent reception, and bid you farewell.

ADDRESS AT ROCHESTER, NEW YORK,

FEBRUARY 18, 1861

I confess myself, after having seen many large audiences since leaving home, overwhelmed with this vast number of faces at this hour of the morning.  I am not vain enough to believe that you are here from any wish to see me as an individual, but because I am for the time being the representative of the American people.  I could not, if I would, address you at any length.  I have not the strength, even if I had the time, for a speech at each of these many interviews that are afforded me on my way to Washington.  I appear merely to see you, and to let you see me, and to bid you. farewell.  I hope it will be understood that it is from no disinclination to oblige anybody that I do not address you at greater length.

ADDRESS AT SYRACUSE, NEW YORK,

February 18, 1861.

Ladies and gentlemen:—­I See you have erected a very fine and handsome platform here for me, and I presume you expected me to speak from it.  If I should go upon it, you would imagine that I was about to deliver you a much longer speech than I am.  I wish you to understand that I mean no discourtesy to you by thus declining.  I intend discourtesy to no one.  But I wish you to understand that, though I am unwilling to go upon this platform, you are not at liberty to draw inferences concerning any other platform with which my name has been or is connected.  I wish you long life and prosperity individually, and pray that with the perpetuity of those institutions under which we have all so long lived and prospered, our happiness may be secured, our future made brilliant, and the glorious destiny of our country established forever.  I bid you a kind farewell.

ADDRESS AT UTICA, NEW YORK,

FEBRUARY 18, 1860

Ladies and gentlemen:—­I have no speech to make to you; and no time to speak in.  I appear before you that I may see you, and that you may see me; and I am willing to admit that so far as the ladies are concerned I have the best of the bargain, though I wish it to be understood that I do not make the same acknowledgment concerning the men.

REPLY TO THE MAYOR OF ALBANY, NEW YORK

February 18, 1861.