In the second place, I suggest to him that if he will examine the policy
proposed to be carried forward, he will find that he carefully excludes
the idea that there is anything wrong in it. If you will examine the
arguments that are made on it, you will find that every one carefully
excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in slavery.
Perhaps that Democrat who says he is as much opposed to slavery as I am
will tell me that I am wrong about this. I wish him to examine his own
course in regard to this matter a moment, and then see if his opinion
will not be changed a little. You say it is wrong; but don't you
constantly object to anybody else saying so? Do you not constantly argue
that this is not the right place to oppose it? You say it must not be
opposed in the free States, because slavery is not there; it must not be
opposed in the slave States, because it is there; it must not be opposed
in politics, because that will make a fuss; it must not be opposed in
the pulpit, because it is not religion. Then where is the place to
oppose it? There is no suitable place to oppose it. There is no plan in
the country to oppose this evil overspreading the continent, which you
say yourself is coming. Frank Blair and Gratz Brown tried to get up a
system of gradual emancipation in Missouri, had an election in August,
and got beat; and you, Mr. Democrat, threw up your hat and hallooed,
"Hurrah for Democracy!"
So I say again, that in regard to the arguments that are made, when
Judge Douglas says he "don't care whether slavery is voted up or voted
down," whether he means that as an individual expression of sentiment,
or only as a sort of statement of his views on national policy, it is
alike true to say that he can thus argue logically if he don't see
anything wrong in it; but he cannot say so logically if he admits that
slavery is wrong. He cannot say that he would as soon see a wrong voted
up as voted down. When Judge Douglas says that whoever or whatever
community wants slaves, they have a right to have them, he is perfectly
logical if there is nothing wrong in the institution; but if you admit
that it is wrong, he cannot logically say that anybody has a right to do
wrong. When he says that slave property and horse and hog property are
alike to be allowed to go into the Territories, upon the principles of
equality, he is reasoning truly if there is no difference between them
as property; but if the one is property, held rightfully, and the other
is wrong, then there is no equality between the right and wrong; so
that, turn it in any way you can, in all the arguments sustaining the
Democratic policy, and in that policy itself, there is a careful,
studied exclusion of the idea that there is anything wrong in slavery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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