will be to have this door-plate in the house!” I doubt if any person really familiar with affairs can consider this nomination for the Vice-Presidency of more practical value than Mrs. Toodles’s brass door-plate, with the name of Thompson spelled with a p, picked up at an auction. But then, in a certain most difficult contingency at the end of a long line of contingencies, how handy it must be to have it in the house! * * * * * In speaking of the Breckinridge party, I confess myself at the outset perplexed between abhorrence of its dogma and respect for its frankness. No plausible generality is put forward, as by the Bell party, under which good and evil may alike find shelter; nor is any plausible invention announced, as in the case of yet another party, under which the real issue is avoided. But the insufferable claim, first made by Mr. Calhoun, is unequivocally promulgated, that under the Constitution the master may at all times carry his slaves into the Territories, and neither Congress nor Territorial Legislature can prohibit the outrage. This at least is plain. There is something even in criminal boldness which we are disposed to admire. We like an open foe, who scorns to hide in deceit, and meets us in daylight. But we do not like a foe who dodges and hides so that we cannot find him. Nor do we like a man who gives us only something counterfeit in exchange for our votes. We do not like the double-faced prevaricator, who cozens both sides, and deals in words “that palter in a double sense.” It is praise to be frank, even on a bad side; and I have no reason to question this merit of the Breckinridge party. And yet this very frankness reveals an insensibility to reason and humanity, which, when recognized, must add to our abhorrence. That men calling themselves Christians, calling themselves Americans, in this nineteenth century, should without a blush assert such a dogma may well excite our wonder. Fully to appreciate this dogma, you must know and feel what Slavery is. And here I content myself simply with reminding you of what elsewhere I have demonstrated, that Slavery, as defined by existing law, is a _five-headed_ Barbarism, composed of five different wrongs, each of which you must indignantly reject: first, the impudent claim of property in man; secondly, the gross mockery of the marriage-tie; thirdly, the absolute nullification of the parental relation; fourthly, the denial of instruction; and, fifthly, the robbery of another’s labor, and of all its fruits: that this whole five-headed Barbarism, sustained by existing law, and enforced by the lash, is simply _to compel labor without wages_; and that to this end all great rights of freedom, marriage, family, instruction, and property are trampled down. This is Slavery. Turn it over, look at it as you will, such it is, and such it must be seen to be by every honest mind.