being wrong. That is the Democratic sentiment of this day. I do not mean
to say that every man who stands within that range positively asserts that
it is right. That class will include all who positively assert that it is
right, and all who, like Judge Douglas, treat it as indifferent and do not
say it is either right or wrong. These two classes of men fall within the
general class of those who do not look upon it as a wrong. And if there
be among you anybody who supposes that he, as a Democrat, can consider
himself "as much opposed to slavery as anybody," I would like to reason
with him. You never treat it as a wrong. What other thing that you
consider as a wrong do you deal with as you deal with that? Perhaps you
say it is wrong--but your leader never does, and you quarrel with anybody
who says it is wrong. Although you pretend to say so yourself, you can
find no fit place to deal with it as a wrong. You must not say anything
about it in the free States, because it is not here. You must not say
anything about it in the slave States, because it is there. You must not
say anything about it in the pulpit, because that is religion, and has
nothing to do with it. You must not say anything about it in politics,
because that will disturb the security of "my place." There is no place to
talk about it as being a wrong, although you say yourself it is a wrong.
But, finally, you will screw yourself up to the belief that if the people
of the slave States should adopt a system of gradual emancipation on the
slavery question, you would be in favor of it. You would be in favor of
it. You say that is getting it in the right place, and you would be glad
to see it succeed. But you are deceiving yourself. You all know that Frank
Blair and Gratz Brown, down there in St. Louis, undertook to introduce
that system in Missouri. They fought as valiantly as they could for the
system of gradual emancipation which you pretend you would be glad to see
succeed. Now, I will bring you to the test. After a hard fight they were
beaten, and when the news came over here, you threw up your hats and
hurrahed for Democracy. More than that, take all the argument made in
favor of the system you have proposed, and it carefully excludes the idea
that there is anything wrong in the institution of slavery. The arguments
to sustain that policy carefully exclude it. Even here to-day you heard
Judge Douglas quarrel with me because I uttered a wish that it might
sometime come to an end. Although Henry Clay could say he wished every
slave in the United States was in the country of his ancestors, I am
denounced by those pretending to respect Henry Clay for uttering a
wish that it might sometime, in some peaceful way, come to an end. The
Democratic policy in regard to that institution will not tolerate the
merest breath, the slightest hint, of the least degree of wrong about
it. Try it by some of Judge Douglas's arguments. He says he "don't care
whether it is voted up or voted down" in the Territories. I do not care
myself, in dealing with that expression, whether it is intended to be
expressive of his individual sentiments on the subject, or only of the
national policy he desires to have established. It is alike valuable
for my purpose. Any man can say that who does not see anything wrong
in slavery; but no man can logically say it who does see a wrong in it,
because no man can logically say he don't care whether a wrong is voted
up or voted down. He may say he don't care whether an indifferent thing
is voted up or down, but he must logically have a choice between a right
thing and a wrong thing. He contends that whatever community wants slaves
has a right to have them. So they have, if it is not a wrong. But if it is
a wrong, he cannot say people have a right to do wrong. He says that upon
the score of equality slaves should be allowed to go in a new Territory,
like other property. This is strictly logical if there is no difference
between it and other property. If it and other property are equal, this
argument is entirely logical. But if you insist that one is wrong and the
other right, there is no use to institute a comparison between right
and wrong. You may turn over everything in the Democratic policy from
beginning to end, whether in the shape it takes on the statute book, in
the shape it takes in the Dred Scott decision, in the shape it takes in
conversation, or the shape it takes in short maxim-like arguments,--it
everywhere carefully excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in it.
That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this
country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be
silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles--right and
wrong--throughout the world. They are the two principles that have
stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue
to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the
divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it
develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and
earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether
from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own
nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an
apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.
I was glad to express my gratitude at Quincy, and I re-express it here,
to Judge Douglas,--that he looks to no end of the institution of slavery.
That will help the people to see where the struggle really is. It will
hereafter place with us all men who really do wish the wrong may have
an end. And whenever we can get rid of the fog which obscures the real
question, when we can get Judge Douglas and his friends to avow a policy
looking to its perpetuation,--we can get out from among that class of men
and bring them to the side of those who treat it as a wrong. Then there
will soon be an end of it, and that end will be its "ultimate extinction."
Whenever the issue can be distinctly made, and all extraneous matter
thrown out so that men can fairly see the real difference between the
parties, this controversy will soon be settled, and it will be done
peaceably too. There will be no war, no violence. It will be placed again
where the wisest and best men of the world placed it. Brooks of South
Carolina once declared that when this Constitution was framed its framers
did not look to the institution existing until this day. When he said
this, I think he stated a fact that is fully borne out by the history of
the times. But he also said they were better and wiser men than the men of
these days, yet the men of these days had experience which they had not,
and by the invention of the cotton-gin it became a necessity in this
country that slavery should be perpetual. I now say that, willingly or
unwillingly--purposely or without purpose, Judge Douglas has been the
most prominent instrument in changing the position of the institution of
slavery,--which the fathers of the government expected to come to an end
ere this, and putting it upon Brooks's cotton-gin basis; placing it where
he openly confesses he has no desire there shall ever be an end of it.
I understand I have ten minutes yet. I will employ it in saying something
about this argument Judge Douglas uses, while he sustains the Dred Scott
decision, that the people of the Territories can still somehow exclude
slavery. The first thing I ask attention to is the fact that Judge Douglas
constantly said, before the decision, that whether they could or not,
was a question for the Supreme Court. But after the court had made the
decision he virtually says it is not a question for the Supreme Court, but
for the people. And how is it he tells us they can exclude it? He says it
needs "police regulations," and that admits of "unfriendly legislation."
Although it is a right established by the Constitution of the United
States to take a slave into a Territory of the United States and hold him
as property, yet unless the Territorial Legislature will give friendly
legislation, and more especially if they adopt unfriendly legislation,
they can practically exclude him. Now, without meeting this proposition as
a matter of fact, I pass to consider the real constitutional obligation.
Let me take the gentleman who looks me in the face before me, and let
us suppose that he is a member of the Territorial Legislature. The first
thing he will do will be to swear that he will support the Constitution
of the United States. His neighbor by his side in the Territory has
slaves and needs Territorial legislation to enable him to enjoy that
constitutional right. Can he withhold the legislation which his neighbor
needs for the enjoyment of a right which is fixed in his favor in the
Constitution of the United States which he has sworn to support? Can he
withhold it without violating his oath? And, more especially, can he pass
unfriendly legislation to violate his oath? Why, this is a monstrous sort
of talk about the Constitution of the United States! There has never been
as outlandish or lawless a doctrine from the mouth of any respectable man
on earth. I do not believe it is a constitutional right to hold slaves in
a Territory of the United States. I believe the decision was improperly
made and I go for reversing it. Judge Douglas is furious against those who
go for reversing a decision. But he is for legislating it out of all
force while the law itself stands. I repeat that there has never been so
monstrous a doctrine uttered from the mouth of a respectable man.
I suppose most of us (I know it of myself) believe that the people of the
Southern States are entitled to a Congressional Fugitive Slave law,--that
is a right fixed in the Constitution. But it cannot be made available to
them without Congressional legislation. In the Judge's language, it is a
"barren right," which needs legislation before it can become efficient
and valuable to the persons to whom it is guaranteed. And as the right is
constitutional, I agree that the legislation shall be granted to it, and
that not that we like the institution of slavery. We profess to have no
taste for running and catching niggers, at least, I profess no taste for
that job at all. Why then do I yield support to a Fugitive Slave law?
Because I do not understand that the Constitution, which guarantees that
right, can be supported without it. And if I believed that the right to
hold a slave in a Territory was equally fixed in the Constitution with the
right to reclaim fugitives, I should be bound to give it the legislation
necessary to support it. I say that no man can deny his obligation to give
the necessary legislation to support slavery in a Territory, who believes
it is a constitutional right to have it there. No man can, who does not
give the Abolitionists an argument to deny the obligation enjoined by
the Constitution to enact a Fugitive State law. Try it now. It is the
strongest Abolition argument ever made. I say if that Dred Scott decision
is correct, then the right to hold slaves in a Territory is equally a
constitutional right with the right of a slaveholder to have his runaway
returned. No one can show the distinction between them. The one is
express, so that we cannot deny it. The other is construed to be in the
Constitution, so that he who believes the decision to be correct believes
in the right. And the man who argues that by unfriendly legislation,
in spite of that constitutional right, slavery may be driven from the
Territories, cannot avoid furnishing an argument by which Abolitionists
may deny the obligation to return fugitives, and claim the power to pass
laws unfriendly to the right of the slaveholder to reclaim his fugitive. I
do not know how such an arguement may strike a popular assembly like this,
but I defy anybody to go before a body of men whose minds are educated
to estimating evidence and reasoning, and show that there is an iota of
difference between the constitutional right to reclaim a fugitive and the
constitutional right to hold a slave, in a Territory, provided this Dred
Scott decision is correct, I defy any man to make an argument that will
justify unfriendly legislation to deprive a slaveholder of his right to
hold his slave in a Territory, that will not equally, in all its length,
breadth, and thickness, furnish an argument for nullifying the Fugitive
Slave law. Why, there is not such an Abolitionist in the nation as
Douglas, after all! such an Abolitionist in the nation as Douglas, after
all!