Are you for Freedom, or are you for Slavery? This is the question which
you are to answer at the coming election. Above all other questions,
national or local, it lifts itself directly in the path of every voter.
There it is. It cannot be avoided. It cannot be banished away. It
cannot be silenced. Forever sounding in our ears, it has a mood for
every hour,--stirring us at times as with the blast of a trumpet, then
visiting us in solemn tones, like the bell which calls to prayer, and
then again awaking us to unmistakable duty, like the same bell, when at
midnight it summons all to stay the raging conflagration.
And yet there are persons among us who seek to put this great question
aside. Some clamor for financial reform, and hold up a tax-bill; others
clamor for a modification of the elective franchise, and they hold up
the Pope; some speak in the name of old parties, calling themselves
Democrats or Whigs; others in the name of a new party, which shall be
nameless at present. Surely the people of Massachusetts will not be
diverted from the true issue, involving Freedom for broad territories
and Freedom for themselves, by holding up a tax-bill or by holding up
the Pope. The people of Massachusetts are intelligent and humane.
…
But above all these is heard the great question, which will not be
postponed, Are you for Freedom, or are you for Slavery? “Under which
king, Bezonian? Speak or die!” Are you for Freedom, with its priceless
blessings, or are you for Slavery, with its countless wrongs and woes?
Are you for God, or are you for the Devil?
Fellow-Citizens, I speak plainly; nor can words exhibiting the
enormity of Slavery be too plain, whether it be regarded simply in the
legislative and judicial decisions by which it is upheld, or in the
unquestionable facts by which its character is revealed. It has been my
fortune latterly to see Slavery face to face in its own home, in the
Slave States; and I take this early opportunity to offer my testimony
to the open barbarism which it sanctions. I have seen a human being
knocked off at auction on the steps of a court-house, and, as the
sale went on, compelled to open his mouth and show his teeth, like a
horse; I have been detained in a stage-coach, that our driver might,
in the phrase of the country, “help lick a nigger”; and I have been
constrained, at public table, to witness the revolting spectacle of a
poor slave, yet a child, almost felled to the floor by a blow on the
head from a clenched fist. Such incidents were not calculated to shake
my original convictions. The distant slaveholder, who, in generous
solicitude for that truth which makes for Freedom, feared, that, like
a certain Doctor of Divinity, I might, under influence of personal
kindness, be hastily swayed from these convictions, may be assured
that I saw nothing to change them one tittle, but much to confirm
them,--while I was entirely satisfied that here in Massachusetts,
where all read, the true character of Slavery is better known than in
the Slave States themselves, where ignorance and prejudice close the
avenues of knowledge.
And now, grateful for the attention with which you honor me, I venture
to hope that you are assembled honestly to hear the truth,--not to
gratify prejudice, to appease personal antipathies, or to indulge
a morbid appetite for excitement, but with candor and your best
discrimination to weigh facts and arguments in order to determine
the course of duty. I address myself particularly to the friends of
Freedom, Republicans, on whose invitation I appear to-night; but I make
bold to ask you of other parties, who now listen, to divest yourselves,
for the time, of partisan constraint,--to forget, for the moment, that
you are Whigs or Democrats, or however called, and to remember only
that you are _men_, with hearts to feel, with heads to understand,
and with consciences to guide. Then only will you be in condition to
receive the truth. “If men are not aware of the probable influence
of party over them, they are so much the more likely to be blindly
governed by it.” Such is the wise remark of Wilberforce.[25] And I
fear that among us there are too many unconsciously governed by such
bias. There are men, who, while professing candor, yet show that the
bitterness of party has entered into their whole character and lives,
as the bitterness of the soil in Sardinia is said to appear even in its
honey.
…
There are honorable responsibilities belonging to Massachusetts, as an
early and constant vindicator of Freedom, which she cannot renounce.
“If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself
to the battle?” The distant emigrant, the whole country, awaits the
voice of our beloved Commonwealth in answer to the question, Are you
for Freedom, or are you for Slavery? So transcendent, so exclusive, so
all-absorbing at the present juncture is this question, that it is vain
to speak of the position of candidates on other things. To be doubtful
on this is to be wrong, and to be wrong on this is to be wholly wrong.
Passing strange it is that here in Massachusetts, in this nineteenth
century, we should be constrained to put this question; passing
strange, that, when it is put, there should be any hesitation to answer
it, by voice and vote, in such way as to speak the loudest for Freedom.
…
But, without exposing the game of political sweepstakes which the Slave
Oligarchy has perpetually played,--interesting as it would be,--I
prefer to hold up for one moment the assumptions, aggressions, and
usurpations by which, in defiance of the Constitution, it has made
Slavery national, when it is in reality sectional. Here is a brief
catalogue.
…
Fellow-citizens, I have said enough to stir you; but this humiliating
tale is not yet finished. An oligarchy seeking to maintain an outrage
like Slavery, and drawing its inspirations from this fountain of
wickedness, is naturally base, false, and heedless of justice. It
is vain to expect that men who have brought themselves to become
propagandists of this enormity will be constrained by any compromise,
compact, bargain, or plighted faith. As the less is contained in the
greater, so there is no vileness of dishonesty, no denial of human
rights, that is not plainly involved in the support of an enormity
which begins by changing man, created in the image of God, into a
chattel, and consigns little children to the auction-block. A power
which Heaven never gave can be maintained only by means which Heaven
can never sanction. And this conclusion of reason is confirmed by late
experience.
And here I approach the special question under which the country now
shakes from side to side. The protracted struggle of 1820, known as
the Missouri Question, ended with the admission of Missouri as a
slaveholding State, and the prohibition of Slavery in all the remaining
territory west of the Mississippi and north of 36° 30´. Here was a
solemn act of legislation, called at the time a compromise, a covenant,
a compact, first brought forward by the Slave Oligarchy, vindicated
by it in debate, finally sanctioned by its votes,--also upheld at the
time by a slaveholding President, James Monroe, and his cabinet, of
whom a majority were slaveholders, including Mr. Calhoun himself,--and
made the condition of the admission of Missouri, without which that
State could not have been received into the Union. Suddenly, during the
last year, without any notice in the public press or the prayer of a
single petition, after an acquiescence of thirty-four years, and the
irreclaimable possession by the Slave Oligarchy of its special share in
the provisions of this Compromise, in violation of every obligation of
honor, compact, and good neighborhood, and in contemptuous disregard
of the outgushing sentiments of an aroused North, this time-honored
Prohibition, in itself a Landmark of Freedom, was overturned, and the
vast region now known as Kansas and Nebraska was opened to Slavery:
and this was done under the disgraceful lead of Northern politicians,
and with the undisguised complicity of a Northern President, forgetful
of Freedom, forgetful also of his reiterated pledges that during his
administration the repose of the country should receive no shock.
And all this was perpetrated under pretences of popular rights. Freedom
was betrayed by a kiss. In defiance of uninterrupted prescription
down to our day, early sustained at the South as well as the North,
leaning at once on Jefferson and Washington, sanctioned by all the
authoritative names of our history, and beginning with the great
Ordinance by which Slavery was prohibited in the Northwest,--it was
pretended that the people of the United States, who are the proprietors
of the national domain, and who, according to the Constitution,
may “make all needful rules and regulations” for its government,
nevertheless were not its sovereigns, that they had no power to
interdict Slavery there, but that this eminent dominion resided in the
few settlers, called squatters, whom chance or a desire to better their
fortunes first hurried into these places. To this precarious handful,
sprinkled over immense spaces, it was left, without any constraint
from Congress, to decide whether into these vast unsettled lands, as
into the veins of an infant, should be poured the festering poison of
Slavery, destined, as time advances, to show itself in cancers and
leprous disease, or whether they should be filled with all the glowing
life of Freedom. And this great power, transferred from Congress to
these few settlers, was hailed by the new-fangled name of _Squatter
Sovereignty_.
It was fit that the original outrage perpetrated under such pretences
should be followed by other outrages perpetrated in defiance of these
pretences. In the race of emigration the Freedom-loving citizens of
the North promised to obtain the ascendency, and, in the exercise of
the conceded sovereignty of the settlers, to prohibit Slavery. The
Slave Oligarchy was aroused to other efforts. Of course it stuck at
nothing. On the day of election, when this vaunted popular sovereignty
was first invoked, hirelings from Missouri, having no home in the
Territory, entered it in bands of fifties and hundreds, and, assuming
an electoral franchise to which they had no claim, trampled under
foot the Constitution and laws. Violently, ruthlessly, the polls were
possessed by these invaders. The same Northern President, who did not
shrink from unblushing complicity in the original outrage, now assumed
another complicity. Though prompt to lavish the Treasury, the Army,
and the Navy of the Republic in hunting a single slave through the
streets of Boston, he could see the Constitution and laws which he
was sworn to protect, and those popular rights which he had affected
to promote, all struck down in Kansas,--and then give new scope to
these invaders by the removal of the faithful Governor, who had become
obnoxious to the Slave Oligarchy because he would not become its tool,
and the substitution of another, who vindicated the dishonest choice by
making haste, on his first arrival there, to embrace the partisans of
Slavery. The Legislature, which was constituted by the overthrow of the
electoral franchise, proceeded to overthrow every safeguard of Freedom.
At one swoop it adopted all the legislation of Missouri, including its
Slave Code; by another act it imposed unprecedented conditions upon
the exercise of the electoral franchise; and by still another act it
denounced _the punishment of death_ no less than five times against as
many different forms of interference with the alleged property in human
flesh, while all who but write or speak against Slavery are adjudged
to be felons. Yes, fellow-citizens, should any person there presume
to print or circulate the speech in which I now express my abhorrence
of Slavery, and deny its constitutional existence anywhere within the
national jurisdiction, he would become liable under this act as a
felon. And this overthrow of all popular rights is done in the name of
Popular Sovereignty. Surely its authors follow well the example of the
earliest Squatter Sovereign,--none other than Satan,--who, stealing
into Eden, was there discovered by the celestial messengers just
beginning his work: as Milton tells us,--
“Him there they found
_Squat_ like a toad, close at the ear of Eve.”
Would you know the secret of this unprecedented endeavor, beginning
with the repeal of the Prohibition of Slavery, down to the latest
atrocity? The answer is at hand. It is not merely to provide new
markets for slaves, or even to guard Slavery in Missouri, but to build
another Slave State, and thus, by the presence of two additional
Slaveholding Senators, to give increased preponderance to the Slave
Oligarchy in the National Government. As men are murdered for the sake
of their money, so is this Territory blasted in peace and prosperity in
order to wrest its political influence to the side of Slavery.
* * * * *
But a single usurpation is not enough to employ the rapacious energies
of our Oligarchy. At this moment, while the country is pained by the
heartless conspiracy against Freedom in Kansas, we are startled by
another effort, which contemplates not merely the political subjugation
of the National Government, but the actual introduction of Slavery into
the Free States. The vaunt is made that slaves will yet be counted in
the shadow of the monument on Bunker Hill, and more than one step has
been taken towards this effrontery. A person of Virginia has asserted
his right to hold slaves in New York on the way to Texas; and this
claim is still pending before the highest judicial tribunal of the
land. A similar claim has been asserted in Pennsylvania, and thus far
been sustained by the court. A blameless citizen, who, in obedience to
generous impulses, and in harmony with received law, merely gave notice
to a person held as a slave in a Free State that she was in reality
free, has been thrust into jail, and now, after the lapse of months,
still languishes there, the victim of this pretension; while--that
no excess might be wanting in the madness of this tyranny--the great
writ of Habeas Corpus, proudly known as the writ of deliverance, has
been made the instrument of his imprisonment.[26] Outrage treads upon
outrage, and great rights pass away to perish. Alas! the needful tool
for such work is too easily found in places low and high,--in the lanes
and cellars of Boston, on the bench of the judge, in the chair of
the President. But it is the power behind which I impeach. The Slave
Oligarchy does it; the Slave Oligarchy does it all.
* * * * *
To the prostration of this Oligarchy we are bound by a threefold
cord of duty: _first_, as we would secure Freedom for ourselves;
_secondly_, as we would uphold Freedom in distant Kansas; and,
_thirdly_, as we would preserve the Union in its early strength
and integrity. The people of Kansas are, many of them, from
Massachusetts,--bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh; but as
fellow-citizens under the Constitution they are bound to us by ties
which we cannot disown; nay, more,--by the subtile cord which connects
this embryo settlement with the Republic, they are made part of us.
The outrage which touches them touches us. What galls them galls us.
The fetter which binds the slave in Kansas binds every citizen in
Massachusetts. Thus are we prompted to their rescue, not only to save
them, but also to save ourselves. The tyranny which now treads them
down has already trampled on us, and only awaits an opportunity to do
it again. In its complete overthrow is the only way of safety. Indeed,
this must be done before anything else can be done.
…
In the choice of men we are driven to the organization of parties;
and here occurs the practical question on which hinges immediate
duty,--By what political party can our desire be accomplished? There
are individuals in all parties, even the Democratic, who hate Slavery,
and say so; but a political party cannot be judged by the private
opinions of some of its members. Something else, more solid and
tangible, must appear. The party that we select to bear the burden and
honor of our great controversy should be adapted to the work. It must
be a perfect machine. Wedded to Freedom for better or for worse, and
clinging to it with a grasp never to be unloosed, it must be clear,
open, and unequivocal in its declarations, and should admit no other
question to divert its energies. It must be all for Freedom, and, like
Cæsar’s wife, above suspicion. But besides this character which it
should sustain in Massachusetts, it must be prepared to take its place
in close phalanx with the united masses of the North, now organizing
through all the Free States, _junctæque umbone phalanges_, for the
protection of Freedom and the overthrow of the Slave Oligarchy.
Bearing these conditions in mind, there are three parties which we may
dismiss, one by one, as they pass in review. Men do not gather grapes
from thorns, nor figs from thistles; nor do they expect patriotism from
Benedict Arnold. A party which sustains the tyrannies and perfidies of
the Slave Oligarchy, and is represented by the President, through whom
has come so much of all our woe, need not occupy our time; and such is
the Democratic party. If there be within the sound of my voice a single
person, professing sympathy with Freedom, who still votes with this
party, to him I would say: The name of Democrat is a tower of strength;
let it not be the bulwark of Slavery; for the sake of a name do not
sacrifice the thing; for the sake of party do not surrender Freedom.
According to familiar rule, handed down from distant antiquity, we are
to say nothing but good of the dead. How, then, shall I speak of the
late powerful Whig party, by whose giant contests the whole country was
once upheaved, but which has now ceased to exist, except as the shadow
of a name? Here in Massachusetts, a few who do not yet know that it is
dead have met together and proffered the old allegiance. They are the
Rip Van Winkles of our politics. This respectable character, falling
asleep in the mountains, drowsed undisturbed throughout the war of the
Revolution, and then, returning to his native village, ignorant of all
that had passed, made haste to declare himself “a loyal subject of
the King, God bless him!” But our Whigs are less tolerant and urbane
than this awakened sleeper. In petulant and irrational assumption
they are like the unfortunate judge, who, being aroused from slumber
on the bench by a sudden crash of thunder, exclaimed, “Mr. Crier,
stop the noise in Court!” The thunder would not be hushed; nor will
the voice of Freedom, now reverberating throughout the land. Some
there are among these who openly espouse the part of Slavery, while
others, by indifference, place themselves in the same unhappy company.
If their position at this moment were of sufficient importance to
justify grave remark, they should be exhibited as kindred in spirit and
isolation to the Tories of our Revolution, or at least as the Bourbons
of Massachusetts,--always claiming everything, learning nothing,
forgetting nothing, and at last condemned by an aroused people for
disloyalty to Freedom. Let no person who truly loves Freedom join this
company, tempted by its name and old associations.
There is still another party claiming your votes, but permit me to
say, at this crisis, with little reason. I am at a loss to determine
the name by which it may be called. It is sometimes styled the Know
Nothing party, sometimes the American party; but it cannot be entitled
to these designations,--if they be of any value,--for it does not claim
to belong to the organization which first assumed and still retains
them. It is an isolated combination, peculiar to Massachusetts, which,
while professing certain political sentiments, is bound together by
the support of one of the candidates for Governor.[27] At this moment
this is its controlling idea. It is therefore a _personal_ party;
and I trust that I shall not be considered as departing from that
courtesy which is with me a law, if I say, that, in the absence of any
appropriate name, expressive of principles, it may properly take its
designation from the candidate it supports.
Of course such a party wants the first essential condition of the
organization which we seek. It is a _personal_ party, whose controlling
idea is predilection for a man, and not a principle. Whatever may
be the private sentiments of some of its members, clearly it is not
a party wedded to Freedom for better and for worse, and clinging to
it with a grasp never to be unloosed. While professing opposition to
Slavery, it also arraigns Catholics and foreigners, and allows the
question of their privileges to disturb its energies. It is not all
for Freedom; nor is it, like Cæsar’s wife, above suspicion. Besides,
even as party of Freedom, it is powerless from its isolation; for it
stands by itself, and is in no way associated with that great phalanx
now rallying throughout the North. In this condition should it continue
to exist, it will, in the coming Presidential contest, from natural
affinity, lapse back into the American party of the country, which
is ranged on the side of Slavery. Of course, as a separate party, it
is necessarily short-lived. Cut off from the main body, it may show
a brief vitality, as the head of a tortoise still bites for some
days after it is severed from the neck; but it can have no permanent
existence. Surely this is not the party of Freedom which we seek.
The incompetency of this party, as organ of our cause, is enhanced by
the uncongenial secrecy in which it had its origin and yet shrouds
itself. For myself let me say, that on the floor of the Senate I have
striven by vote and speech, in conjunction with my distinguished friend
Mr. Chase, to limit the secret sessions of that body, under shelter of
which so much of the public business is transacted; and I have there
presented, as the fit model for American institutions, the example of
that ancient Roman who bade his architect so construct his house that
all that he did might be seen by the world.[28] What I urged there I
now urge here. But the special aims which this party proposes are in
harmony with the darkness in which it begins. Even if justifiable on
any ground of public policy, they should not be associated with our
cause: but I am unwilling to allude to them without expressing my frank
dissent.
It is proposed to attaint men for religion, and also for birth. If
this object can prevail, vain are the triumphs of Civil Freedom in its
many hard-fought fields, vain is that religious toleration which we
profess. The fires of Smithfield, the tortures of the Inquisition, the
proscriptions of Non-Conformists may all be revived. Mainly to escape
these outrages, dictated by a dominant religious sect, was our country
early settled: in one place by Pilgrims, who sought independence; in
another by Puritans, who disowned bishops; in another by Episcopalians,
who take their name from bishops; in another by Quakers, who set
at nought all forms; and in yet another by Catholics, who look to
the Pope as spiritual father. Slowly among the struggling sects was
evolved that great idea of the equality of all men before the law
without regard to religious belief; nor can any party now organize a
proscription merely for religious belief, without calling in question
this well-established principle.
But Catholics are mostly foreigners, and on this account are condemned.
Let us see if there be any reason in this; and here indulge me with one
word on foreigners.
With the ancient Greeks a foreigner was _a barbarian_, and with the
ancient Romans he was _an enemy_. In early modern times the austerity
of this judgment was relaxed; but, under the influence of feudalism,
different sovereignties, whether provinces or nations, were kept in a
condition of isolation, from which they have gradually passed, until
now provinces are merged in nations, and nations are giving signs
that they too will yet combine in one. In our country a new example
is already displayed. From all nations people commingle here. As in
ancient Corinth, by accidental fusion of all metals, accumulated in
the sacred temples, a peculiar metal was produced, better than any
individual metal, even silver or gold,--so, perhaps, in the order of
Providence, by fusion of all races here, there will be a better race
than any individual race, even Saxon or Celt. Originally settled from
England, the Republic has been strengthened and enriched by generous
contributions of population from Scotland, Ireland, Switzerland,
Sweden, France, and Germany; and the cry is, Still they come! At no
time since the discovery of the New World has the army of emigrants
pressed so strongly upon us. More than one quarter of a million are
annually landed on our shores. The manner in which they shall be
received is a problem of national policy.
All will admit that any influence which they bring, hostile to our
institutions, calculated to substitute priestcraft for religion and
bigotry for Christianity, must be deprecated and opposed. All will
admit, too, that there must be some assurance of their purpose to
become not merely consumers of the fruits of our soil, but useful,
loyal, and permanent members of our community, upholders of the general
welfare. With this simple explanation, I cannot place any check upon
the welcome to foreigners. There are our broad lands, stretching
towards the setting sun; let them come and take them. Ourselves
children of the Pilgrims of a former generation, let us not turn from
the Pilgrims of the present. Let the home founded by our emigrant
fathers continue open in its many mansions to the emigrants of to-day.
The history of our country, in its humblest as well as most exalted
spheres, testifies to the merit of foreigners. Their strong arms
have helped furrow our broad territory with canals, and stretch in
every direction the iron rail. They fill our workshops, navigate
our ships, and even till our fields. Go where you will among the
hardy sons of toil on land or sea, and there you find industrious
and faithful foreigners bending their muscles to the work. At the
bar and in the high places of commerce you find them. Enter the
retreats of learning, and there too you find them, shedding upon our
country the glory of science.[29] Nor can any reflection be cast upon
foreigners, coming for hospitality now, which will not glance at once
upon the distinguished living and the illustrious dead,--upon the
Irish Montgomery, who perished for us at the gates of Quebec,--upon
Pulaski the Pole, who perished for us at Savannah,--upon De Kalb and
Steuben, the generous Germans, who aided our weakness by their military
experience,--upon Paul Jones, the Scotchman, who lent his unsurpassed
courage to the infant thunders of our navy,--also upon those great
European liberators, Kosciusko of Poland, and Lafayette of France, each
of whom paid his earliest vows to Liberty in our cause. Nor should
this list be confined to military characters, so long as we gratefully
cherish the name of Alexander Hamilton, who was born in the West
Indies, and the name of Albert Gallatin, who was born in Switzerland,
and never, to the close of his octogenarian career, lost the French
accent of his boyhood,--both of whom rendered civic services to be
commemorated among the victories of peace.
Nor is the experience of our Republic peculiar. Where is the country or
power which does not inscribe the names of foreigners on its historic
scroll? It was Christopher Columbus, of Genoa, who disclosed to Spain
the New World; it was Magellan, of Portugal, sailing in the service of
Spain, who first passed with adventurous keel through those distant
Southern straits which now bear his name, and opened the way to the
vast Pacific Sea; and it was Cabot, the Venetian, who first conducted
English enterprise to this North American continent. As in triumphs
of discovery, so also in other fields have foreigners excelled, while
serving states to which they were bound by no tie of birth. The Dutch
Grotius, author of the great work, “Laws of War and Peace,” an exile
from his own country, became Ambassador of Sweden; and, in our own day,
the Italian Pozzo di Borgo, turning his back upon his own country,
reached the most exalted diplomatic trust in the jealous service of
Russia. In the list of monarchs on the throne of England, not one
has been more truly English than the Dutch William. In Holland no
ruler has equalled in renown the German William, Prince of Orange.
In Russia the German Catharine the Second takes place among the most
commanding sovereigns. And who of Swedish monarchs was a better Swede
than Bernadotte, the Frenchman? and what Frenchman was ever filled with
aspiration for France more than the Italian Napoleon Bonaparte?
* * * * *
I pass from these things, which have occupied me too long. A party,
which, beginning in secrecy, interferes with religious belief, and
founds a discrimination on the accident of birth, is not the party for
us.
* * * * *
“Where Liberty is, there is my country,” was the sentiment of that
great Apostle of Freedom, Benjamin Franklin, uttered during the trials
of the Revolution. In similar strain, I would say, “Where Liberty is,
there is my party.” Such an organization is now happily constituted
here in Massachusetts, and in all the Free States, under the name of
REPUBLICAN PARTY.
In assuming our place as a distinct party, we simply give form
and direction, in harmony with the usage and genius of popular
governments, to a movement which stirs the whole country, and does
not find adequate and constant organ in either of the other existing
parties. The early opposition to Slavery was simply a sentiment,
outgushing from the hearts of the sensitive and humane. In the lapse
of time it became a determined principle, inspiring larger numbers,
and showing itself first in an organized endeavor to resist the
annexation of slaveholding Texas; next, to prohibit Slavery in newly
acquired territories; and now, alarmed by the overthrow of all rights
in Kansas, and the domination of the Slave Oligarchy throughout the
Republic, it breaks forth in a stronger effort, a wider union, and
a deeper channel, inspiring yet larger numbers and firmer resolves,
while opposite quarters contribute to its power,--even as the fountain,
first outgushing from the weeping sides of its pure mountain home,
trickles in the rill, leaps in the torrent, and flows in the river,
till, at last, swollen with accumulated waters, it presses onward, in
irresistible, beneficent current, fertilizing and uniting the spaces
which it traverses, washing the feet of cities, and wooing states to
repose upon its banks.
…
Our party has its origin in the exigencies of the hour. Vowing
ourselves against Slavery, wherever it exists, whether enforced by
Russian knout, Turkish bastinado, or lash of Carolina planter, we
do not seek to interfere with it at Petersburg, Constantinople, or
Charleston; nor does any such grave duty rest upon us. Political duties
are properly limited by political responsibilities; and we are in
no just sense responsible for the local law or usage by which human
bondage in these places is upheld. But wherever we are responsible for
the wrong, there our duty begins. The object to which, as a party, we
are pledged, is all contained in acceptance of the issue which the
Slave Oligarchy tenders. To its repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and
its imperious demand that Kansas shall be surrendered to Slavery, we
reply, that Freedom shall be made the universal law of all the national
domain, without compromise, and that hereafter no Slave State shall be
admitted into the Union. To its tyrannical assumption of supremacy in
the National Government we reply, that the Slave Oligarchy shall be
overthrown. Such is the practical purpose of the Republican Party.