The Life of Stephen A. Douglas [58]
many respects--certainly not in color--perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas and the equal of every living man. * * *
"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.
"I ask the attention of the people here assembled to the course that Judge Douglas is pursuing every day as bearing upon this question of making slavery national. In the first place what is necessary to make slavery national? Not war. There is no danger that the people of Kentucky will shoulder their muskets, and, with a young nigger stuck on every bayonet, march into Illinois and force them upon us. There is no danger of our going over there and making war upon them. Then what is necessary for the nationalization of slavery? It is simply the next Dred Scott decision. It is merely for the Supreme Court to decide that no State under the Constitution can exclude it, just as they have already decided that Congress nor the territorial legislature can do it. When that is decided and acquiesced in the whole thing is done. * * * Let us consider what Judge Douglas is doing every day to that end. What influence is he exerting on public sentiment? With public sentiment nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who moulds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes possible or impossible to be executed. * * *
"Judge Douglas is a man of vast influence. Consider the attitude he occupies at the head of a large party. This man sticks to a decision which forbids the people of a
"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.
"I ask the attention of the people here assembled to the course that Judge Douglas is pursuing every day as bearing upon this question of making slavery national. In the first place what is necessary to make slavery national? Not war. There is no danger that the people of Kentucky will shoulder their muskets, and, with a young nigger stuck on every bayonet, march into Illinois and force them upon us. There is no danger of our going over there and making war upon them. Then what is necessary for the nationalization of slavery? It is simply the next Dred Scott decision. It is merely for the Supreme Court to decide that no State under the Constitution can exclude it, just as they have already decided that Congress nor the territorial legislature can do it. When that is decided and acquiesced in the whole thing is done. * * * Let us consider what Judge Douglas is doing every day to that end. What influence is he exerting on public sentiment? With public sentiment nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who moulds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes possible or impossible to be executed. * * *
"Judge Douglas is a man of vast influence. Consider the attitude he occupies at the head of a large party. This man sticks to a decision which forbids the people of a