In the Constitutional Convention, George Mason of Virginia made a more violent abolition speech than my friends Lovejoy or Codding would desire to make here to-day--a speech which could not be safely repeated anywhere on Southern soil in this enlightened year. But while there were some differences of opinion on this subject even then, discussion was allowed; but as you see by the Kansas slave code, which, as you know, is the Missouri slave code merely ferried across the river, it is a felony to even express an opinion hostile to that foul blot in the land of Washington and the Declaration of Independence. [Sensation.] In Kentucky--my State--in 1849, on a test vote, the mighty influence of Henry Clay and many other good men there could not get a symptom of expression in favor of gradual emancipation on a plain issue of marching toward the light of civilization with Ohio and Illinois; but the State of Boone and Hardin and Henry Clay, with a _nigger_ under each arm, took the black trail toward the deadly swamps of barbarism. Is there--can there be--any doubt about this thing? And is there any doubt that we must all lay aside our prejudices and march, shoulder to shoulder, in the great army of Freedom? [Applause.] Every Fourth of July our young orators all proclaim this to be “the land of the _free_ and the home of the brave!” Well, now, when you orators get that off next year, and maybe this very year, how would you like some old grizzled farmer to get up in the grove and deny it? [Laughter.] How would you like that? But suppose Kansas comes in as a slave State, and all the “border ruffians” have barbecues about it, and free-State men come trailing back to the dishonored North, like whipped dogs with their tails between their legs, it is--ain’t it?--evident that this is no more the “land of the free”; and if we let it go so, we won’t dare to say “home of the brave” out loud. [Sensation and confusion.]