SPEECH.

MR. PRESIDENT,--You are now called to redress a great wrong. Seldom

in the history of nations is such a question presented. Tariffs, army

bills, navy bills, land bills, are important, and justly occupy your

care; but these all belong to the course of ordinary legislation. As

means and instruments only, they are necessarily subordinate to the

conservation of Government itself. Grant them or deny them, in greater

or less degree, and you inflict no shock. The machinery of Government

continues to move. The State does not cease to exist. Far otherwise is

it with the eminent question now before you, involving, as it does,

Liberty in a broad Territory, and also involving the peace of the whole

country, with our good name in history forevermore.

* * * * *

Take down your map, Sir, and you will find that the Territory of

Kansas, more than any other region, occupies the middle spot of North

America, equally distant from the Atlantic on the east and the Pacific

on the west, from the frozen waters of Hudson’s Bay on the north

and the tepid Gulf Stream on the south,--constituting the precise

geographical centre of the whole vast Continent. To such advantages

of situation, on the very highway between two oceans, are added a

soil of unsurpassed richness, and a fascinating, undulating beauty

of surface, with a health-giving climate, calculated to nurture a

powerful and generous people, worthy to be a central pivot of American

institutions. A few short months have hardly passed since this spacious

mediterranean country was open only to the savage, who ran wild in its

woods and prairies; and now it has drawn to its bosom a population of

freemen larger than Athens crowded within her historic gates, when

her sons, under Miltiades, won liberty for mankind on the field of

Marathon,--more than Sparta contained, when she ruled Greece, and sent

forth her devoted children, quickened by a mother’s benediction, to

return with their shields or on them,--more than Rome gathered on her

seven hills, when, under her kings, she commenced that sovereign sway

which afterwards embraced the whole earth,--more than London held,

when, on the fields of Crécy and Agincourt, the English banner was

borne victorious over the chivalrous hosts of France.

Against this Territory, thus fortunate in position and population, a

Crime has been committed which is without example in the records of

the Past. Not in plundered provinces or in the cruelties of selfish

governors will you find its parallel; and yet there is an ancient

instance which may show at least the path of justice. In the terrible

impeachment by which the Roman Orator has blasted through all time the

name of Verres, charges were, that he had carried away productions

of Art, and had violated the sacred shrines. But, amidst charges of

robbery and sacrilege, the enormity which most aroused the indignant

voice of his accuser, and which still stands forth with strongest

distinctness, arousing the sympathetic indignation of all who read

the story, was, that away in Sicily he had scourged a citizen of

Rome,--that the cry, “I am a Roman citizen,” had been interposed in

vain against the lash of the tyrant governor. It was in the presence

of the Roman Senate that this arraignment proceeded,--in a temple of

the Forum,--amidst crowds such as no orator had ever before drawn

together, thronging the porticos and colonnades, even clinging to

the house-tops and neighboring slopes, and under the anxious gaze

of witnesses summoned from the scene of crime. But an audience

grander far, of higher dignity, of more various people, and of wider

intelligence,--the countless multitude of succeeding generations, in

every land where eloquence has been studied, or where the Roman name

has been recognized,--has listened to the accusation, and throbbed with

condemnation of the criminal. Sir, speaking in an age of light, and in

a land of constitutional liberty, where the safeguards of elections are

justly placed among the highest triumphs of civilization, I fearlessly

assert that the wrongs of much-abused Sicily, thus memorable in

history, were small by the side of the wrongs of Kansas, where the very

shrines of popular institutions, more sacred than any heathen altar,

are desecrated,--where the ballot-box, more precious than any work in

ivory or marble from the cunning hand of Art, is plundered,--and where

the cry, “I am an American citizen,” is interposed in vain against

outrage of every kind, even upon life itself. Are you against robbery?

I hold it up to your scorn. Are you against sacrilege? I present it for

your execration. Are you for the protection of American citizens? I

show you how their dearest rights are cloven down, while a Tyrannical

Usurpation seeks to install itself on their very necks!

The wickedness which I now begin to expose is immeasurably aggravated

by the motive which prompted it. Not in any common lust for power did

this uncommon tragedy have its origin. It is the rape of a virgin

Territory, compelling it to the hateful embrace of Slavery;[63] and

it may be clearly traced to a depraved desire for a new Slave State,

hideous offspring of such a crime, in the hope of adding to the power

of Slavery in the National Government. Yes, Sir, when the whole world,

alike Christian and Turk, is rising up to condemn this wrong, making

it a hissing to the nations, here in our Republic, _force_--ay, Sir,

FORCE--is openly employed in compelling Kansas to this pollution, and

all for the sake of political power. There is the simple fact, which

you will vainly attempt to deny, but which in itself presents an

essential wickedness that makes other public crimes seem like public

virtues.

This enormity, vast beyond comparison, swells to dimensions of crime

which the imagination toils in vain to grasp, when it is understood

that for this purpose are hazarded the horrors of intestine feud, not

only in this distant Territory, but everywhere throughout the country.

The muster has begun. The strife is no longer local, but national.

Even now, while I speak, portents lower in the horizon, threatening to

darken the land, which already palpitates with the mutterings of civil

war. The fury of the propagandists, and the calm determination of their

opponents, are diffused from the distant Territory over wide-spread

communities, and the whole country, in all its extent, marshalling

hostile divisions, and foreshadowing a conflict which, unless happily

averted by the triumph of Freedom, will become war,--fratricidal,

parricidal war,--with an accumulated wickedness beyond that of any war

in human annals, justly provoking the avenging judgment of Providence

and the avenging pen of History, and constituting a strife such as

was pictured by the Roman historian, more than _foreign_, more than

_social_, more than _civil_, being something compounded of all these,

and in itself more than war,--“_sed potius commune quoddam ex omnibus,

et plus quam bellum_.”[64]

* * * * *

Such is the Crime which you are to judge. The criminal also must be

dragged into day, that you may see and measure the power by which all

this wrong is sustained. From no common source could it proceed. In

its perpetration was needed a spirit of vaulting ambition which would

hesitate at nothing; a hardihood of purpose insensible to the judgment

of mankind; a madness for Slavery, in spite of Constitution, laws,

and all the great examples of our history; also a consciousness of

power such as comes from the habit of power; a combination of energies

found only in a hundred arms directed by a hundred eyes; a control of

Public Opinion through venal pens and a prostituted press; an ability

to subsidize crowds in every vocation of life,--the politician with

his local importance, the lawyer with his subtle tongue, and even the

authority of the judge on the bench,--with a familiar use of men in

places high and low, so that none, from the President to the lowest

border postmaster, should decline to be its tool: all these things,

and more, were needed, and they were found in the Slave Power of our

Republic. There, Sir, stands the criminal, all unmasked before you,

heartless, grasping, and tyrannical, with an audacity beyond that of

Verres, a subtlety beyond that of Machiavel, a meanness beyond that of

Bacon, and an ability beyond that of Hastings. Justice to Kansas can

be secured only by the prostration of this influence: for this is the

Power behind--greater than any President--which succors and sustains

the Crime. Nay, the proceedings I now arraign derive their fearful

consequence only from this connection.

In opening this great matter, I am not insensible to the austere

demands of the occasion; but the dependence of the Crime against Kansas

upon the Slave Power is so peculiar and important that I trust to be

pardoned while I impress it by an illustration which to some may seem

trivial. It is related in Northern Mythology, that the God of Force,

visiting an enchanted region, was challenged by his royal entertainer

to what seemed a humble feat of strength,--merely, Sir, to lift a cat

from the ground. The god smiled at the challenge, and, calmly placing

his hand under the belly of the animal, with superhuman strength

strove, while the back of the feline monster arched far upwards, even

beyond reach, and one paw actually forsook the earth, when at last

the discomfited divinity desisted; but he was little surprised at his

defeat, when he learned that this creature, which seemed to be a cat,

and nothing more, was not merely a cat, but that it belonged to and

was part of the great Terrestrial Serpent which in its innumerable

folds encircled the whole globe. Even so the creature whose paws are

now fastened upon Kansas, whatever it may seem to be, constitutes

in reality part of the Slave Power, which, with loathsome folds, is

now coiled about the whole land. Thus do I exhibit the extent of the

present contest, where we encounter not merely local resistance, but

also the unconquered sustaining arm behind. But from the vastness of

the Crime attempted, with all its woe and shame, I derive well-founded

assurance of commensurate effort by the aroused masses of the country,

determined not only to vindicate Right against Wrong, but to redeem the

Republic from the thraldom of that Oligarchy which prompts, directs,

and concentrates the distant wrong.

* * * * *

Such is the Crime and such the criminal which it is my duty to expose;

and, by the blessing of God, this duty shall be done completely to the

end. But this will not be enough. The Apologies which, with strange

hardihood, are offered for the Crime must be torn away, so that it

shall stand forth without a single rag or fig-leaf to cover its

vileness. And, finally, the True Remedy must be shown. The subject is

complex in relations, as it is transcendent in importance; and yet, if

I am honored by your attention, I hope to present it clearly in all its

parts, while I conduct you to the inevitable conclusion that Kansas

must be admitted at once, with her present Constitution, as a State of

this Union, and give a new star to the blue field of our National Flag.

And here I derive satisfaction from the thought, that the cause is so

strong in itself as to bear even the infirmities of its advocates;

nor can it require anything beyond that simplicity of treatment and

moderation of manner which I desire to cultivate. Its true character

is such, that, like Hercules, it will conquer just so soon as it is

recognized.

My task will be divided under three different heads: _first_, THE CRIME

AGAINST KANSAS, in its origin and extent; _secondly_, THE APOLOGIES FOR

THE CRIME; and, _thirdly_, THE TRUE REMEDY.

* * * * *

Before entering upon the argument, I must say something of a general

character, particularly in response to what has fallen from Senators

who have raised themselves to eminence on this floor in championship

of human wrong: I mean the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. BUTLER]

and the Senator from Illinois [Mr. DOUGLAS], who, though unlike as Don

Quixote and Sancho Panza, yet, like this couple, sally forth together

in the same adventure. I regret much to miss the elder Senator from

his seat; but the cause against which he has run a tilt, with such

ebullition of animosity, demands that the opportunity of exposing him

should not be lost; and it is for the cause that I speak. The Senator

from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes

himself a chivalrous knight, with sentiments of honor and courage.

Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and

who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him,--though polluted

in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight: I mean the harlot

Slavery. For her his tongue is always profuse in words. Let her be

impeached in character, or any proposition be made to shut her out

from the extension of her wantonness, and no extravagance of manner

or hardihood of assertion is then too great for this Senator. The

frenzy of Don Quixote in behalf of his wench Dulcinea del Toboso is

all surpassed. The asserted rights of Slavery, which shock equality

of all kinds, are cloaked by a fantastic claim of equality. If the

Slave States cannot enjoy what, in mockery of the great fathers of the

Republic, he misnames Equality under the Constitution,--in other words,

the full power in the National Territories to compel fellow-men to

unpaid toil, to separate husband and wife, and to sell little children

at the auction-block,--then, Sir, the chivalric Senator will conduct

the State of South Carolina out of the Union! Heroic knight! Exalted

Senator! A second Moses come for a second exodus!

Not content with this poor menace, which we have been twice told

was “measured,” the Senator, in the unrestrained chivalry of his

nature, has undertaken to apply opprobrious words to those who differ

from him on this floor. He calls them “sectional and fanatical”;

and resistance to the Usurpation of Kansas he denounces as “an

uncalculating fanaticism.” To be sure, these charges lack all grace of

originality and all sentiment of truth; but the adventurous Senator

does not hesitate. He is the uncompromising, unblushing representative

on this floor of a flagrant _sectionalism_, now domineering over the

Republic,--and yet, with a ludicrous ignorance of his own position,

unable to see himself as others see him, or with an effrontery which

even his white head ought not to protect from rebuke, he applies

to those here who resist his _sectionalism_ the very epithet which

designates himself. The men who strive to bring back the Government to

its original policy, when Freedom and not Slavery was national, while

Slavery and not Freedom was sectional, he arraigns as _sectional_.

This will not do. It involves too great a perversion of terms. I tell

that Senator that it is to himself, and to the “organization” of which

he is the “committed advocate,” that this epithet belongs. I now

fasten it upon them. For myself, I care little for names; but, since

the question is raised here, I affirm that the Republican party of the

Union is in no just sense _sectional_, but, more than any other party,

_national_,--and that it now goes forth to dislodge from the high

places that tyrannical sectionalism of which the Senator from South

Carolina is one of the maddest zealots.

To the charge of fanaticism I also reply. Sir, fanaticism is found in

an enthusiasm or exaggeration of opinion, particularly on religious

subjects; but there may be fanaticism for evil as well as for good.

Now I will not deny that there are persons among us loving Liberty too

well for personal good in a selfish generation. Such there may be; and,

for the sake of their example, would that there were more! In calling

them “fanatics,” you cast contumely upon the noble army of martyrs,

from the earliest day down to this hour,--upon the great tribunes of

human rights, by whom life, liberty, and happiness on earth have been

secured,--upon the long line of devoted patriots, who, throughout

history, have truly loved their country,--and upon all who, in noble

aspiration for the general good, and in forgetfulness of self, have

stood out before their age, and gathered into their generous bosoms the

shafts of tyranny and wrong, in order to make a pathway for Truth;--you

discredit Luther, when alone he nailed his articles to the door of the

church at Wittenberg, and then to the imperial demand that he should

retract firmly replied, “Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help

me God!” you discredit Hampden, when alone he refused to pay the few

shillings of ship money, and shook the throne of Charles the First;

you discredit Milton, when, amidst the corruptions of a heartless

court, he lived on, the lofty friend of Liberty, above question or

suspicion; you discredit Russell and Sidney, when, for the sake of

country, they calmly turned from family and friends, to tread the

steps of the scaffold; you discredit those early founders of American

institutions, who preferred the hardships of a wilderness, surrounded

by a savage foe, to injustice on beds of ease; you discredit our later

fathers, who, few in numbers and weak in resources, yet strong in their

cause, did not hesitate to brave the mighty power of England, already

encircling the globe with her morning drumbeats. Yes, Sir, of such

are the fanatics, according to the Senator. But I tell the Senator

that there are characters, badly eminent, of whose fanaticism there

can be no question. Such were the ancient Egyptians, who worshipped

divinities in brutish forms; the Druids, who darkened the forests of

oak, in which they lived, by sacrifices of blood; the Mexicans, who

surrendered countless victims to the propitiation of obscene idols;

the Spaniards, who, under Alva, sought to force the Inquisition upon

Holland, by a tyranny kindred to that now employed to force Slavery

upon Kansas; and such were the Algerines, when, in solemn conclave,

after listening to a speech not unlike that of the Senator from South

Carolina, they resolved to continue the slavery of white Christians,

and to extend it over countrymen of Washington,--ay, Sir, extend it!

And in this same dreary catalogue faithful History must record all who

now, in an enlightened age, and in a land of boasted Freedom, stand

up, in perversion of the Constitution, and in denial of immortal truth,

to fasten a new shackle upon their fellow-man. If the Senator wishes

to see fanatics, let him look round among his own associates,--let him

look at himself.

But I have not done with the Senator. There is another matter regarded

by him of such consequence that he interpolated it into the speech

of the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. HALE], and also announced

that he had prepared himself with it, to take in his pocket all the

way to Boston, when he expected to address the people there.[65]

On this account, and for the sake of truth, I stop for one moment

and tread it to the earth. The North, according to the Senator, was

engaged in the slave-trade, and helped to introduce slaves into the

Southern States; and this undeniable fact he proposed to establish

by statistics, in giving which his errors exceeded his sentences in

number. I let these pass for the present, that I may deal with his

argument. Pray, Sir, is acknowledged turpitude in a departed generation

to become the example for us? And yet the suggestion, if entitled

to any consideration in this discussion, must have this extent. I

join my friend from New Hampshire in thanking the Senator from South

Carolina for this instance, since it gives me opportunity to say that

the Northern merchants, with homes in Boston, Bristol, Newport, New

York, and Philadelphia, who catered for Slavery during the years of

the slave-trade, are lineal progenitors of the Northern men, with

homes in these places, who lend themselves to Slavery in our day,--and

especially that all, whether North or South, who take part, directly

or indirectly, in the conspiracy against Kansas, do but continue the

work of the slave-traders, which you condemn. It is true, too true,

alas! that our fathers were engaged in this traffic; but that is

no apology for it. And in repelling the authority of this example,

I repel also the trite argument founded on the earlier example of

England. It is true that our mother country, at the Peace of Utrecht,

extorted from Spain the shameful Asiento, securing the monopoly of

the slave-trade with the Spanish Colonies, as part pay for the blood

of great victories,--that she higgled at Aix-la-Chapelle for another

lease of this exclusive traffic,--and again at the Treaty of Madrid

bartered the wretched piracy for money. It is true that in this spirit

the power of the mother country was prostituted to the same base ends

in her American Colonies, against indignant protests from our fathers.

All these things now rise in judgment against her. Let us not follow

the Senator from South Carolina to do the very evil which in another

generation we condemn.

As the Senator from South Carolina is the Don Quixote, so the Senator

from Illinois [Mr. DOUGLAS] is the squire of Slavery, its very Sancho

Panza, ready to do its humiliating offices. This Senator, in his

labored address vindicating his labored report,--piling one mass of

elaborate error upon another mass,--constrained himself, as you will

remember, to unfamiliar decencies of speech. Of that address I have

nothing to say at this moment, though before I sit down I shall show

something of its fallacies. But I go back now to an earlier occasion,

when, true to native impulses, he threw into this discussion, “for a

charm of powerful trouble,” personalities most discreditable to this

body. I will not stop to repel imputations which he cast upon myself;

but I mention them to remind you of the “sweltered venom sleeping

got,” which, with other poisoned ingredients, he cast into the caldron

of this debate. Of other things I speak. Standing on this floor, the

Senator issued his rescript requiring submission to the Usurped Power

of Kansas; and this was accompanied by a manner--all his own--befitting

the tyrannical threat. Very well. Let the Senator try. I tell him now

that he cannot enforce any such submission. The Senator, with the Slave

Power at his back, is strong; but he is not strong enough for this

purpose. He is bold. He shrinks from nothing. Like Danton, he may cry,

“_De l’audace! encore de l’audace! et toujours de l’audace!_” but even

his audacity cannot compass this work. The Senator copies the British

officer who with boastful swagger said that with the end of his sword

he would cram the “stamps” down the throats of the American people;

and he will meet a similar failure. He may convulse this country with

civil feud. Like the ancient madman, he may set fire to this Temple

of Constitutional Liberty, grander than Ephesian dome; but he cannot

enforce obedience to that tyrannical Usurpation.

The Senator dreams that he can subdue the North. He disclaims the

open threat, but his conduct implies it. How little that Senator

knows himself, or the strength of the cause which he persecutes! He

is but mortal man; against him is immortal principle. With finite

power he wrestles with the infinite, and he must fall. Against him are

stronger battalions than any marshalled by mortal arm,--the inborn,

ineradicable, invincible sentiments of the human heart; against him is

Nature with all her subtile forces; against him is God. Let him try to

subdue these.

Passing from things which, though touching the very heart of the

discussion, are yet preliminary, I press at once to the main question.