It is February 27, 1860.

Abraham Lincoln, a contender for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination, is in New York, where he will deliver an address to the Cooper Union, a private educational institution.

His topic is slavery, the current subject of all political debate.

Southerners intent on preserving their slave-holding tradition have called Lincoln and Republicans opposed to slavery ‘radical extremists.’

In his speech, Lincoln says the opposite is true:

“But you say you are conservative – eminently conservative – while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort.

What is conservatism?

Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?

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