On the close of the address resolutions were passed requesting the
author to furnish a copy to the press, but for some unexplained reason
it was not published until a year later. The present text is taken
from the Sangamon Journal. Lincoln was one of the organizers of the
Lyceum.
All through his life Lincoln showed a marked respect for the law, and
the present warning against the consequences of lawlessness, so
rhetorically sounded by the young orator of twenty-eight, was a
perfectly sincere expression of a profound conviction.
"_The gates of hell_." Matthew xvi. 18. This quotation was repeated
in a speech delivered at Indianapolis twenty-four years later, when
civil war was threatening.