"In the history of our Government this institution of slavery
has always been an apple of discord and an element of division in
the house. I have a right to say that in regard to this question
the Union is a house divided against itself. The public mind
did formerly rest in the belief that slavery was in the course of
ultimate extinction. But lately Douglas and those acting with him
have placed it on a new basis which looks to the perpetuity and
nationalization of slavery. * * * * I believe we shall not have
peace upon the question until the opponents of slavery arrest the
further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest
in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or,
on the other hand, that its advocates will push it forward until
it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new,
North as well as South.
"Now, I believe if we could arrest the spread and place it where
Washington and Jefferson and Madison paced it, it would be in the
course of ultimate extinction and the public mind would, as for
eighty years past, believe that it was in the course of ultimate
extinction. The crisis would be passed and the institution might
be let alone for a hundred years, if it should live so long, in the
States where it exists; yet it would be going out of existence in
the way best for both the black and the white races. * * * Popular
sovereignty as now applied to the question of slavery, does allow
the people of a Territory to have slavery if they want it, but
does not allow them not to have it if they do not want it. * * *
As I understand the Dred Scott decision, if any one man wants slaves
all the rest have no way of keeping that one man from holding them. * * *
"The Nebraska bill contains this clause: 'It being the true intent
and meaning of this bill not to legislate slavery into any Territory
or STATE.' I have always been puzzled to know what business the
word State had in that connection. Judge Douglas knows. He put
it there. * * * What was it placed there for? After seeing the
Dred Scott decision, which holds that the people cannot exclude
slavery from a Territory, if another Dred Scott decision shall come
holding that they cannot exclude it from a State, we shall discover
that when the word was originally put there it was in view of
something that was to come in due time, we shall see that it was
the other half of something.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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