"The adoption of this platform commits the American party unconditionally to the policy of slavery--to the iron dominion of the Black Power. I tell you, sir, I tell this convention, that we cannot stand upon this platform in a single free State of the North. The people of the North will repudiate it, spurn it, spit upon it. For myself, sir, I here and now tell you to your faces, that I will trample with disdain on your platform. I will not support it. I will support no man who stands upon it. Adopt that platform, and you array against you everything that is pure and holy--everything that has the elements of permanency in it--the noblest pulsations of the human heart--the holiest convictions of the human soul--the profoundest ideas of the human intellect and the attributes of Almighty God! Your party will be withered and consumed by the blasting breath of the people's wrath! There is an old Spanish proverb, which says that 'the feet of the avenging deities are shod with wool.' Softly and silently these avenging deities are advancing upon you. You will find that 'the mills of God grind slowly, but they grind to powder.' "When I united with the American organization in March, 1854, in its hour of weakness--I told the men with whom I acted that my anti-slavery opinions were the matured convictions of years, and that I would not modify or qualify my opinions or suppress my sentiments for any consideration on earth. From that hour to this, in public and in private, I have freely uttered my anti-slavery sentiments, and labored to promote the anti-slavery cause, and I tell you now, that I will continue to do so. You shall not proscribe anti-slavery principles, measures or men, without receiving from me the most determined and unrelenting hostility. It is a painful thing to differ from our associates and friends--but when duty, a stern sense of duty, demands it, I shall do so. Reject this majority platform--adopt the proposition to restore freedom to Kansas and Nebraska, and to protect the actual settlers from violence and outrage--simplify your rules--make an open organization--banish all bigotry and intolerance from your ranks--place your movement in harmony with the humane progressive spirit of the age, and you may win and retain power, and elevate and improve the political character of the country. Adopt this majority platform--commit the American movement to the slave perpetualists and the slave propagandists, and you will go down before the burning indignation and withering scorn of American freemen."