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J3EM0CRACY AND DRED SCOTT. 
 
 SPEECH DELIVERED BY 
 
 Before the Freeport Wide Awakes, at Plymouth Ball, Monday Erening, Aug. 14, 1860. 
 
 Published by Order of the Joint- Executive Committee of the Freeport Wide Awalies, and the Republican Club. 
 
 ' Mr. Atkins, being introduced to the au- 
 dience by Oapt. Mills, said : 
 Mr. Chairman and my Fellovf Citizens : 
 
 In the political discussions of 1852, the 
 Slavery issue had uo part. The Whig 
 party, and the Democratic party, r\t Bc-iUi- 
 moiv, had both resolved, that they would 
 not discuss the question in Congress or out 
 of Congress. In that canvass Franklin 
 Pierce was elected, triumphantly, and sus- 
 tained by an overwhelming Demosratic ma- 
 jority in both branches of Congress. Be- 
 fore his administration was half through, 
 it became necessary, in the ordinary course 
 of legislation, for territorial governments 
 to be organized for the territories of Kansas 
 and Nebraska. Stephen A. Douglas, of the 
 United States Senate, as chairman of the 
 committee on territories, reported fiom his 
 committee, a bill for their organization. — 
 That bill was similar in its provisions to 
 all of the previous bills under our govern- 
 ment, for the organization of Territories — 
 it contained no clause repealing the Mis- 
 souri Compromise. Senator Dixon of Ken- 
 tucky, in conjunction with Senator Atchi- 
 son of Missouri, made a proposition to Mr. 
 Douglas to introduce into those territorial 
 charters a clause repealing the Missouri 
 Compromise. Mr. Douglas took the mat- 
 ter under advisement, and in just nineteen 
 days and a half, I think, introduced other 
 bills, each containing a repealing clause, in 
 these words : 
 
 That the Ooastitution and all laws of the United 
 States which are not locally inapplicable, shall have 
 the same force and effect within the Territery of Kan- 
 sas (and Nebraska) as elsewhere within the United 
 States, except the eiahth section of the act prepara- 
 tory to the admission of Mi-ssouri into the Union, 
 approved March mxirth, eighteen hundred and. twen- 
 ty, which, being inconsistent with the principle of 
 non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the 
 States and Territories, as recognized by the legisla- 
 tion of 1&50, commonly called the compromise meas- 
 ures, is hereby declared inoperative and void ; it 
 being the true intsnt and meaning of this act not to 
 legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to 
 exclude it iherefrom, but to leave the peop'.e thereof 
 perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic in- 
 stitutions in their own way, «t<?y6ei only to the Con- 
 stitution of the Unite<l States. 
 
 The voice of this nation had not asked 
 for that repeal. No petitions had been 
 sent up to Congress praying that it migh', 
 be done. Indeed Judge Douglas himself, 
 had previously said that " the Missouri 
 Compromise had an origin akin to that of 
 the Constitution of the United States, con- 
 ceived in the spirit of fraternal affection." 
 and that it " had been canonized in the 
 hearts of the Amei-ican people as a sacred 
 thing, which no ruthless hand would ever 
 be reckless enough to disturb." Is it any 
 wonder that the nation was surprised and 
 shocked — thw.t the fires of agitation were 
 again kindled all over this Republic — that 
 during the memorable struggle on the pas- 
 sage of that bill, petitions were sent up to 
 Congress, signed by thousands upon thou- 
 sands, praying, not that the Missouri Com- 
 promise might be repealed, but that tho 
 "ruthless hand" of Judge Douglas be 
 stayed, and like the eight hundred New 
 England clergymen, protesting, solemnly 
 protesting against it ? The bill was passed, 
 on the night of July 21st, 1854. A party 
 triumph had been gained. The bells of the 
 city of Washington were rung, and bon- 
 fires were built in the streets of our na- 
 tional capital, to celebrate it — to celehratethe 
 triumph of slavery over freedom. 
 
 In the meantime there arose a law case 
 in Missouri ; an action of trespass vi ct 
 armis, by Dred Scott, a negro, against one 
 Sandford, who claimed to be his master, to 
 try the question of Dred Scott's freedom, 
 and the freedom of his wife and children, 
 which case found its way into the supreme 
 court of the United States. The facts in 
 the case were that Dred Scott was brought 
 by his master, voluntarily on the part of 
 his master, in 1834, to Rock Island, here 
 into the free State of Illinois, upon our own 
 soil, and for two years held in Rock Island 
 as a slave — forty seven years after the adop- 
 tion of the North West ordinance, that 
 threw its protecting shield of freedom over 
 all the territory from which the State of 
 Illinois was formed, and si-'iteen years after 
 
O w> 
 
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 *'^/*^ 
 
 the free State ooustitution of our State was 
 adopted. Dred Scott was then taken to the 
 military post at Ft. Sneiling, in Minnesota, 
 and there held as a slave two years longer. 
 During the time lie was at Ft. Sneiling, 
 Dred Scott was married and had two chil- 
 dren born. The case was argued in the su- 
 preme court of the United States, at De- 
 cember term, 1855, but for some reason the 
 supreme coui't held back its decision ; it 
 may have been, as 1 think, because the 
 judges of that court were afraid, if then 
 rendered, it would imperil the success of 
 the Democratic party in the then coming 
 presidential struggle. Then came the cam- 
 paign of 1856, carried, nominally, on "pop- 
 ular sovereignty," and the Democratic 
 party weie ai;ain successful, if the electioa 
 of James Buchanan can be considered a 
 success. 
 
 The President in his nessage lauded the 
 supreme court, and called upon the people 
 to sustain its decisions. This some people 
 regarded as very singular, especially as 
 their new president was elected upon the 
 Cincinnati platform, which construes the 
 Corstitution of the United States in regard 
 "o Internal improvements, differently from 
 %vhat the supreme couit had construed it, 
 and by the seventh plank of that platlorm, 
 " That Congress has no power to charter a 
 National Bank," notwithstanding the su- 
 pieme court had decided expressly to the 
 c'lntrary. Up to that time the Democratic 
 party was the only party in the country 
 tiiat was opposed to decisions of the su- 
 preme court. V7as it expected that the 
 supreme court was about to decide a case 
 in such a manner that the people's inherent 
 sense of justice would be shocked by it — 
 so far departing from the policy of the 
 fathers, and the land marks of history, that 
 the people would intuitively revolt at its 
 monstrous doctrine? Let us judge, by the 
 Dred Scott decision, which now came, and 
 to which I beg to call your attention. T 
 read from the regular report of that deci- 
 f«ion by the supreme court Reporter — from 
 the syllabus of that case : 
 
 S Every citiien has ;i right to take with him into 
 the Territory any article of (.roperty which the Con- 
 atitViUOQ of the Uuiteil States recogaizes as property. 
 
 4, Ihe Constitution of the United States recognizes 
 slaves as property, and pledges the Federal Govern- 
 ment to protect it. And Congress cannot exercise 
 any more authority over property of that descriptiun 
 than it may constitutionally exercise over property 
 of any other kind. 
 
 5. The act of Congress, therefore, prohibiting a cit- 
 izen of the United States from taking with him slaves 
 when he removed to the territory in question to re- 
 Eide, id an exercise of authority over private prop- 
 erty which is not warranted by the Constitution — and 
 
 the removai of the plaintiff, by his owner, to that ter- 
 ritory, gave him no title to freedom. 
 
 And I read from the opinion of the court, 
 delivered by Judge Taney, page 404, in 
 speaking of the Negro race, the court says : 
 
 On the contrary thpy were at that time considered 
 as a subordinate and inferior cla a of beings, who had 
 been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether 
 eviancipated or not, yet remained subject to their au- 
 thority, (iTtd had no right.i orpHvileffes e>cept such 
 as those who held the power and government might 
 choose to grant them. 
 
 And again the court says, in speaking of 
 the negroes at the time of the adoption of 
 our Constitution, on page 407 : 
 
 They had for more than a century before been re- 
 garded as beings oi an inferior order, and altogether 
 unlit t« associate with the while raee, either in social 
 or |>olitical relations, and s> far inferior, </jr(/ tJiep 
 had NO rights ickich the tuMte man was hound to 
 respect; and that che negro might j^istly and lawfully 
 be reduced to slavery for his beneBt He was bought 
 and sold, and treated as an ordinary artitile of mer- 
 chandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made 
 by it. 
 
 And on page 410, after quoting from the 
 Declaration of Independence, the court by 
 Judge Taney, says : 
 
 The general words above quoted would seem to em- 
 brace the whole human family, and if they were used 
 in a similar instrument at this day would be so un- 
 derstood. 
 
 And then Judge Taney proceeds to over- 
 rule that Declaration, and that, too, by a 
 system of pett}'' special pleading and petti- 
 toging, which, if adopted by a Freeport 
 lawyer in Judge Seem's court, would in- 
 sure for him a fine for contempt. [Laugh- 
 ter ] And Judge Taney proceeds with the 
 opinion of the Court, as follows, on pages 
 451-2 : 
 
 And if the Constitution recognizes the right of prop- 
 erty of the master in the slave, and makes no distinc- 
 tion between that description of property and other 
 property owned by a citizen. NO tribunal, acting un- 
 der the authority of the United States, whether it he 
 legislative, executive, or judicial, has a right to draw 
 such a distinction, or deny to it. the benefit of the 
 provisions and guarantees which have beea provided 
 for the protection of private property against the en- 
 croachments of the G'lvernmt-nt. 
 
 Now, we have already said in an earlier part of 
 this opinion, upon a ditferent point, that the right of 
 properly in a slave is distinctly and expressly af- 
 firmed in the Cnnstitution. 
 
 Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the 
 court that the act of Congress which prohibited a cit- 
 izen from Violding and owning property of this kind 
 in the territory of the United States north of the line 
 therein mentioned, is not warranted by the Constitu- 
 tion, and is therefore Toirf / and that neither Dred 
 Mcott himself, nor any of his family, were made free 
 by being carried into this territory, even if they had 
 been carried there by the owtjer with the intention of 
 becoming a permanent resident. 
 
 And Judge Campbell, who agreed with 
 the court, but thought the case of suflBcient 
 importance to warrant his filing a separate 
 opinion, on page 576 says : 
 
 " Wherever a master is entitled to go within the 
 United States, his slave may accompany him, without 
 any impediment from, or fear of, Congressional Leg- 
 islatian »r interf«rence." 
 
<^ We all know that a master may go anj'- 
 where within the United States that he 
 pleases, into any free State, and stay as 
 long as he may choose — he may come here 
 into the free State of Illinois, if he will ; 
 and become a " permanent 7-esident," if he 
 like ; but we never supposed —the fathers 
 of our Republic never dreamed — that he 
 could bring with him his slave property in 
 defiance of all law. 
 
 Let us see what Democrats think of this 
 decision. President James Buchanan, 
 elected alone by Democratic votes, in his 
 annual message to Congress, on December 
 19, 1859, says : 
 
 I cordially congratulate you upon the final set- 
 tlement by the Supreme Cour. of the United States of 
 the question of slavery in the territories, which had 
 presented an aspect so truly formidable at the com- 
 mencement of my administration. The right has been 
 eetablished of every citizen to take his property i f 
 any kind including Haves, into the common Terri- 
 tories beloncini; equally to all the States of the Cfm- 
 lederacy, and to have it protected there under the 
 federal constitution. Nei'her Congress, NOR A TER- 
 RITORIAL LEGISLATURE, NOR ANY HUMAN 
 POWER, has any authority to annul or impair this 
 vested right. The supreme judicial tribunal of the 
 country, which is a co-ordinate branch of the govern- 
 luent, has sanctioned and affirmed these principles 
 of C'.iustitutional law. 
 
 If this is not a total denial of popular 
 .sovereignty, I am altogether mi.staken. — 
 But lest there be some here who would not 
 be willing to take the authority of James 
 Buchanan on that question, let us see what 
 Stephen A. Douglas, who claims (?) to be 
 the father of popular sovereignty, has him- 
 self said. At New Orleans, when speaking 
 to a crowd of southerners and slaveholder.s, 
 Mr. Douglas said : 
 
 /, in common icith the Democracy of IlUnois^ ac- 
 cept the decision of the Supreme Court of the United 
 tiUitea. in the Dred Scott case, as an authoritative 
 exposition of the Constitution. Whatever limitations 
 the Constitution, as expounded by the Courts, im- 
 poses on t^e authority of a Territorial Legislature, we 
 cheerfully recognize and respect, in conformity with 
 that decision. Slaves are recognised us propertt/, 
 and placed on equal footing with all other proper- 
 ty. Hence the owner of slaves — the same as the owner 
 of any other species of property — has a right to 
 remove to a Territory and carry his slaves with 
 him." 
 
 I wonder what the followers of Stephen 
 A. D'^uglas, who are claiming to be popular 
 sovereignty men, think of that declaration 
 of his ? Was he authorized to speak for 
 the Illinois Democracy ? But, he made 
 another speech, at the invitation of the 
 United States circuit court grand jury, at 
 Springfield, in this State, on June 12, 1857, 
 in which he endorses the Dred Scott de- 
 cision, as follows : 
 
 The court did not attempt to avoid responsibility by 
 disposing of the oa»e upon technical points without 
 touching the merits, nor did they go out of their way 
 to decide questiom? cot preperly before them and di- 
 
 rectly presented by the record. Likehoncst and con - 
 scientious judges, as they are., they met and decided 
 each point as it arose, and taittifully performed ttie'r 
 whoJM duty and nothine but their duty to the country 
 by determining all the questions in the case, and 
 nothing but what was essential to the decision of the 
 case upon its merits. 
 
 And Mr. John.son, now running on the 
 same ticket with Mr. Douglas as a candi- 
 date for Vice President, speaking in regard 
 to tfie exc!u.-<ion of slavery from the terri- 
 tories, held forth as follows : 
 
 For the purpose of thi-; qut^'tion, it matters not 
 where the powKr of legislating for the territori' resides 
 — whether exc'usively in Congress, or jointly in Con- 
 gress and the inhabitants, or exclusively in the inhab- 
 itants of the territory ; the power is precisely the same 
 — no greater in the hands of one than the other. I7! 
 no event, can the slaveholder of the i-'outh be excluded 
 from settling in such territory with his pkoperty of 
 
 EVERY DESCHIPTION. 
 
 However, lest the individual .statement of 
 these men should not be taken as authori- 
 tative expositions of Democracy, let us see 
 what they say in their party platforms. On 
 the fourth day of January last, on the oc- 
 casion of election of delegates to the Na- 
 tional Democratic Convention at Charles- 
 ton, the Douglas democracy of Illinois, in 
 State convention, at Springfield, adopted 
 these two resolutions : 
 
 3. That all questions affecting the validity or con- 
 stitutionality of any territorial enactments, shall oe 
 referred for final decision to the Supreme Court of the 
 United States as the only tribunal by the Constitution 
 which s competent to determine them. 
 
 Resolved, That we recognize the paramount judi 
 cial authority of the supreme court of the United 
 States, as provided in ths Constitution, and hold it to 
 be the imperative duty of all srood citizens to re.spect 
 and obey the deci-ions of that tribunal, and to aid by 
 all lawful meai s, in carrying them into faithful execu- 
 tion. 
 
 And the Breckinridge wing of the Dem- 
 ocratic party, adopted the following resolu- 
 tions, at Baltimore, on June 23d, 1860, on 
 which Breckinridge and Lane now stand : 
 
 1. That the government of the Territory organized 
 by an act of Congress is provisional and temporary, 
 and during its existence all citizens of the United 
 States have an equal right to settle with their prop- 
 erty in the Territory, without their rights, either of 
 person or property, being destroyed or injured by 
 Congressional or Territorial legislation. 
 
 2. That it is the duty of the Federal Government, 
 in all its departments, to protect the rights of persons 
 and property in th« Territories, and wherever else its 
 constitutional authorit.y extends. 
 
 And the Douglas Democracy, at Balti- 
 more, on the same day, adopted the follow- 
 ing, commonly known as the " Wickliffe 
 resolution : " 
 
 Resolved, That it is in accordance with the Cincin- 
 nati Platform, that during the existence of Territorial 
 Governments, the measure of restriction, whatever it 
 may be, imposed by the Federal Constitution on the 
 power of the Territorial Legislature over the subject 
 of the domestic relations, as the satne has he«n or 
 shall hereafter he decided by the supreme court of 
 the Uniied States, should be respected by all good 
 citizens, and enforced with promptness and fidelity hy 
 ev«ry bran^ch of the General Oovern/mfrnt. 
 
There is no claim made that the Breck- 
 inridge democracy are at all in favor of 
 popular sovereignty, and in view of this 
 Wicklifte resolution there can be less claim 
 made that the Douglas Democracy are. — 
 The only difference between the two wings 
 is, that the Breckinridge democracy are 
 satisfied with the supreme court decision, 
 as vow made, while the Douglas wing is 
 pledged to anythiiig the supreme court may 
 he-reafler decide, no matter what. How- 
 ever, as there may be, just possibly, some 
 popular sovereignty man that thinks Doug- 
 Ins does not stand upon this Wicklifie res- 
 olution, let me read what Douglas says in 
 his letter of acceptance : 
 
 Upon a careful exaniinati.m of the platform of prin- 
 ciples adopted at Charleston and reaffirmed at Balti- 
 more, with an aiiditionai resolution which is in perfect 
 harmony with the others, I find it to be a faithful em- 
 bodiment of the time honored principles of the Dem- 
 ocratic party. 
 
 The identical Wickhffe resolution being 
 the only " additional resolution which was 
 adopted at Baltimore," and the one to which 
 Mr. Douglas refers. x\nd again, near the 
 cio.se of his letter : 
 
 Every ri.tht guaranteed by the Constitution must he 
 protdcted by law in all cases where !leE;islation Is 
 necessary to its engagements. The judicial authority, 
 as provided hv the Constitution, must he sustained 
 and »7« decisions implicitly obeyed and faith fully e«- 
 ecitted. 
 
 Remembering what the Dred Scott case 
 decides, even as Douglas himself renders 
 that decision in his speech at New Or- 
 leans, what man in his sober senses can 
 pretend to believe that there is a single 
 .shred of popular sovereignty left in the 
 Democratic party. 
 
 Let us now resume the Dred Scott case, 
 and see to what the Democratic party, and 
 both wings of it, by the declarations of 
 their leaders, and . their platforms, are 
 pledged. The Dred Scott Case decides : 
 
 1st, That "Negroes have NO rights which 
 white men are bound to respect," and con- 
 sequently that no person that has the first 
 particle of African blood in his veins, can 
 be a citizen of the United States, even to 
 the extent of being aMe to stie in its courts 
 for his liberty, or the liberty of his child 
 that has been hidnnpjjed. 
 
 2d, That the right of propeity in human 
 beings is distinctly affirmed in the Con- 
 stitution. 
 
 8d That consequently Slavery cannot be 
 prohibited in the territories by any author- 
 ity iphatever, nor any where else where the 
 Constitution is the paramount law. 
 
 4th That Dred Scott was lawfully held as 
 a slave both at Rock Island in Jllinois, and 
 
 ai Ft. Sii ell ing ; and that it would have 
 made no difference had he been taken 
 there with the intention of a permanent 
 residence. 
 
 That IS Democracy. That is Breckin- 
 ridge Democracy, and it is Douglas Democ- 
 racy. Slavery Natioiiai; Liberty Sectional. 
 Slavery the rule; Liberty the exception. 
 S'avery first ; Liberty afterwards. "To 
 this complexion has it come at last." 
 
 Let us see what the Republican party 
 say. I read the seventh plarik in their plat- 
 form, adopted unanimously by the Repub- 
 lican party, in National Convention, at Chi- 
 cago, May 17th ISGO: 
 
 "• That the new dogma that the Coii8tituUoH,o/"?7/i 
 ovjTi force, cuTrita Slavery into any or all of the Ter- 
 rit<u-ie8 of the United States, is a dangerous political 
 heresy, at variance with the explicit proyisionsof that 
 instrument itself, with cotemporaneous exposition, 
 and with legislative and judicial precedent ; is revo- 
 lutionary in Its tendency, and subversive of the peace 
 and harmony of the country 
 
 Now I hope I have clearly presented one 
 of the political issues of the campaign — the 
 main one. Need I do more i* Is not a plain 
 statement of the case suflBcient to lead every 
 lover of Free Labor to choose the Republi- 
 can creed? Should I stop here, have I not 
 already produced in my speech a convinc- 
 ing argument? (Applause) 
 
 But I will not stop here. I am going to 
 call your attention for a little while to what 
 the Fathers of this Republic have done 
 and said about this matter. Stephen A. 
 Douglas, in his speech at Columbus, Ohio, 
 said "our fathers when they framed the 
 Government under which we live, under- 
 stood this question just as well, and even 
 better than we do now." I think so too. 
 And Patrick Henry has left the declaration 
 upon record that he had "no lamp by which 
 his feet were guided, except the lamp of the 
 past." I have not. Have you ? Has the 
 world? Let us then turn our eyes to the 
 past and see how far the modern Democra- 
 cy have departed from the policy of the 
 fathers — how much has been uprooted, 
 overturned and overruled by the Dred Scott 
 decision. And for the sake of a little 
 method I will trace the legislation that is 
 overruled and abrogated by the Dred Scott 
 case ; and second, the decisions of the Su- 
 preme Covrfs of various States, where pre- 
 cisely similar facts to the Dred Scott case 
 have been passed upon ; and third the 
 decisions overruled by this Dred Scott 
 case heretofore made by the Supreme Cotirt 
 of the United States, when Marshall and 
 Story were on the bench. 
 
 First then the Legislation ; and first of all 
 
the Declaration of Independence, that 
 grandest act of legislation in all the history 
 of the world — upon which our subsequent 
 Constitutions and Statutes rest — I read : 
 
 We hold th«8e truths to be self evident — that all 
 men are created equal ; that they are eniiowed by 
 their Creator with certain inalienable rightp; that 
 among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
 piness; that to secure these rights, governments are 
 instituted among men, deriving theirjust powers from 
 the consent of the governed ; that whenever any form 
 of government becomes destructiveof these emis, it is 
 the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to in- 
 stitute new a government, laying its foundation upon 
 such principles, and organizing its power? in such 
 form, as to them shall seem most liicely to effect their 
 safety and happiness. 
 
 And who were some of the Fathers that 
 so declared ? Among them I find John 
 Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, 
 Elbridge Gerry, Stephen Hopkins, William 
 EUery, Roger Sherman, John Witherspoon, 
 Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, Charles 
 Carroll, George Wythe, Richard Henry 
 Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Francis Lightfoot 
 Lee and Edward Rutledge — great and im- 
 mortal names, and great and immortal too 
 were the truths they told in that old Dec- 
 laration of American Independence —it 
 has come down to us from their hands em- 
 balmed in the best blood of our fathers. — 
 Judge Taney, in the Dred Scott decision 
 that I havejust read to you, overrules it, 
 and fritters away the meaning of its glori- 
 ous words ; Democrats, since 1854, grow 
 red in the face when you remind them of 
 it ; Judge Douglas tells you that our fath- 
 ers, who understood these matters better 
 than we do ourselves, did not know the 
 meaning of the terms they were using, that 
 they only meant to say that Englishmen on 
 this side of the Atlantic were equal to 
 Englishmen on the other side ; Rufus 
 Choatein making a Democratic speech tells 
 his audience sneeringly that it is a ''string 
 of meaningless phrases and glittering gen- 
 eralities;" and Democratic Senator Pettit 
 stands up in the Senate Chamber of this 
 Republic, and denounces this declaration of 
 self-evident truths as a "self-evident lie" — 
 and when the people of his own State hare 
 repudiated him, the Democratic party give 
 him his reward by appointing him to ajudg- 
 ship in a federal territory. Are there any of 
 my hearers that would be willing to adopt 
 any one of those opinions ? Go back with 
 me to those dark and troubleous times of 
 1776 — witness those thirteen dismembered 
 Colonies, j ust beginning their feeble existence 
 — without an army, without a navy, with- 
 out tried leaders, without the equipments 
 of warfare, without money, and without or- 
 ganization among themselves ; — step into 
 
 the old State House, in Philadelphia, and 
 look around you upon those sober earnest 
 men, the members of the Continental Con- 
 gress on the morning of the fourth day of 
 July 1776, when the committee of five be- 
 fore appointed to draft the Declaration of 
 Independence bring in their report — with 
 what breathless attention they listen to the 
 reading of it, their hearts throbbing like 
 mufHed drums at the announcement of 
 those immortal truths "that all men are cre- 
 ated equal; that they are endowed by their 
 Creator with certain inalienable rights: that 
 among these are life, liberty and the pur- 
 suit of happiness." And then they go for- 
 ward, one by one, to sign it, every one of 
 them knowing full well that if they fail in 
 their unequal struggle with England — the 
 most powerful nation on the face of the 
 globe, the beating of whose morning reveille 
 kept equal pace with the sun in his journey 
 around the world, whose victorious navies 
 rode triumphantly the waves of every sea — 
 then that Declaration they were signing 
 would prove the death warrant of every one 
 of them upon the scaffold. Yet they go for- 
 ward. John Hancock writes his name 
 
 " Dashine and bold, as if th« writer meant 
 A double daring in his mind's intent." 
 
 And the others — Stephen Hopkins with 
 a palsied hand, but with a fearless and a 
 patriotic heart, writes his name plain 
 enough for the mmions of King George to 
 read it; and Charles Carroll, of CarroUton; 
 and Adams, and Gerry, and Sherman, and 
 Morris, and Lee, Rutledge, and Jefferson — 
 "there were giants in those days" — and re- 
 lying upon the intrinsic justness of their 
 cause, and the self-evident truths of the 
 rights of human nature that they were de- 
 claring, to their maintainance they mutu- 
 ally pledged their "lives, their fortunes, 
 and their sacred honor." The glories of the 
 Cross of Calvary shall pale away and fade 
 from the remembrance of men, as soon as 
 the moral grandeur and sublimity of that 
 old Declaration shall be dimmed. Pile upon 
 it, pyramid high, the decisions of cor- 
 rupt and venal courts — beslime it %vith the 
 mouthings of your Wigfalls, and your 
 Keitts, and your Douglas, and your Pettits, 
 and yet, while there is one man to honor 
 the memories of John Hampden and Al- 
 gernon Sidney — while there is one human 
 heart groaning beneath oppression, or 
 throbbing with the love of freedom, that 
 old Declaration of American Independence 
 by our fathers, will stand, a beacon light to 
 beckon on to liberty. (Applause.) 
 
6 
 
 Let us see what our fathers said less than 
 two years after the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence — I read from a venerable old book, 
 entitled ''Secret Journals of Congress, Do- 
 mestic affair s — 1775 — 1 778" — published by 
 authority of Congress ; on April 29, 1778, 
 page 70 : 
 
 '' The committee appointed te prepare proposals to 
 Buch foreign officers ami soldiers as incline to become 
 citizens of America, brought in a report, which being 
 read and amended, was agreed to as follows : 
 
 To the officers and soldiers in the service of the 
 King of Great Britain, not subjects of the said King : 
 
 The citizens of the United States of America are 
 engaged in a just and necessary war — a war in which 
 they are not the ouly pers-.ns interested. They con- 
 tend/or the i-iglits of human nature, and therefore 
 merit the patronage and assistance of all mankind. 
 Their success will secure a refuge from persecution 
 and tyr inny to those who wish to pursue the dictates 
 of their own consciences, and to reap the fruits of 
 their own industry, Ac. 
 
 And among those who put forth this lan- 
 guage there are at least 16 of the original 
 signers of the Declaration of Independence. 
 Our fathers then were " contending for the 
 rights of human nature," and were "not 
 the only persons interested." Well might 
 they say so — otherwise why should Lafay- 
 ette, have " taken up his sword in defence 
 of America ? " But on June 25, 1778, 
 the adoption of the articles of confedera- 
 tion being under consideration, I find anoth- 
 er record, in the same book, page 331 : 
 
 The delegates from South Carolina, being called en, 
 moved the following amendments in behalf of their 
 State : 
 
 1st. In article fourth, between the words " free in- 
 habitants," insert " white." 
 
 Passed in the negative. Two ayes, eight noes, one 
 divided. 
 
 8d. After the words "several States," insert-' ac- 
 cording to the law of such States reKptctively for the 
 government of their own free white inhabitants." 
 
 Passed in the negative. Two ayes, eight noes, one 
 divided. 
 
 The better to undei-stand these amend- 
 ments, I now read the fourth article of the 
 Articles of Confederation, ati it icould have 
 read hac? these amendments offered by 
 South Carolina been adopted : 
 
 ■ ARTICLE IV. 
 The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friend- 
 ship among t'le people of the different States of this 
 Union, the free ( " WHITE " ) inhabitants of each of 
 these States, paupers, vagabonds and fugitives from 
 justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and 
 immunities of free citizens of the several States ; ( "ac- 
 cording to the law of such JStates reisptctively for 
 the government of their own free WHITE inhab- 
 itants,") and the people of each State shall have free 
 ingress and egress to and from any other State, Ac. 
 
 Here our fathers had an opportunity, at 
 the motion of the Slave State of South Car- 
 olina — a State that has always been kicking 
 out of the traces ; that " Old Hickory " 
 taught some things ; the legislative So- 
 lons of which last winter stood on the steps 
 oj their State Capito! and cheered and de- 
 
 rided the brutal mobbing of the Irishman 
 Powers because he had declared that in his 
 opinion "white laborers were degraded by 
 being associated with slaves ; " that enter- 
 tained serious intentions of mobbing the 
 pro-slavery Democratic JSTational Conven- 
 tion last spring, which may have been the 
 reason why their second session was ad- 
 journed to Baltimore — to restrict the Ar- 
 ticles of Confederation to the white race 
 alone. And this was on June 25, 1778, 
 not yet two years after the adoption of the 
 Declaration of Independence — if our fath- 
 ers had made a mistake in the Declaration, 
 here was an excellent opportunity offered 
 to correct it — did they adopt the restriction? 
 Not by any manner of means. The record 
 is a short one, but very conclusive. — 
 " Passed in the negative. Two ayes, eight 
 noes, one divided." At that time the vote 
 was taken by States, and only eleven States 
 represented in convention. I cannot cer- 
 tainly tell who voted against the restriction, 
 but when the Articles of Confederation 
 were finally adopted without the restriction 
 the}' were signed by at least si.xteen of 
 the original signers of the Declaration of 
 Independence; Josiah Bqrtlett, John Han- 
 cock, Samuel Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Wil- 
 liam Ellery, Roger Sherman, Oliver Wol- 
 cott, Samuel Huntington, Francis Lewis, 
 John Witherspoon, Robert Morris, Thomas 
 McKeap, John Penn, Thomas Hey ward, Jr., 
 Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot 
 Lee. 
 
 Under those articles of confederation, 
 thus adopted by our fathers, the eight long 
 years of our revolutionary struggle were 
 passed — the declaration of independence 
 was made good, and our liberties placed 
 upon a secure foundation. When the smoke 
 of the battle had rolled away, and the 
 United States of America were recognized 
 a " nation among nations," there arose 
 among ourselves many questions of inter- 
 nal govermental policy ; and among them 
 all there was none so important as the ter- 
 ritorial question. Some of the States were 
 claiming the title to immense tracts of un- 
 settled country lying west of them, which 
 had been secured to them by the revolution- 
 ary war, and which others of the original 
 thirteen States, that had no claim under 
 their charters to the unoccupied territory, 
 justly thought should be ceded to the gov- 
 ernment of the United States at large, as so 
 much of a fund to retrieve from ruin the 
 national treasury. The tenth Continental 
 congress, under the articles of confedera- 
 
tion, assembled at Philadelphia, Nov. o, 
 1783, but adjourned next day to Annapo- 
 lis, Marj'land. The House was soon left 
 without a quorum, and so continued most 
 of the time, of couri^e doing no business, 
 till the 1st of March 1784, when the dele- 
 gates from Virginia, in pursuance of in- 
 structions from the legislature of that 
 State, signed the conditional deed of cession 
 to the confederation of all claim to the terri- 
 tory northwest of the Ohio river. New 
 Y«rk, Connecticut and Massachusetts had 
 already made similar concessions to the 
 confederation of their claims to the terri- 
 tory westward of their present limits. — 
 Congress hereupon appointed Messrs. Jef- 
 ferson of Virginia, Chase of Maryland, and 
 Howell of Rhode Island, a select commit- 
 tee to report a plan of government for the 
 western territory. Upon this committee, 
 all were from States that were then and are 
 now slave States. That committee report- 
 ed, through Thomas Jefferson, the God- 
 father of old time democracy, a plan, drawn 
 up by Jefferson himself, which provided 
 for the Government of all of the western 
 territory, already ceded by the more aorth- 
 ern States, and including that portion which 
 had not yet been, but which, it was rea- 
 sonably expected soon would be, surren- 
 dered to the confederation by the States of 
 North Carolina and Georgia, and which now 
 forms the States of Tennessee, Alabama and 
 Mississippi. I read from that famous re- 
 port of 178-i so much as is necessary to 
 show that it included all of the territory 
 then owned by the United States, and all 
 they expected to own by the cession of the 
 various States, and that it excluded slavery, 
 as follows : 
 
 JResplved, That the territory ceded or to be ceded 
 hy individiuU States, whensoever Ac. 
 
 Provided, That both the temporaky and pkrva- 
 NENT gorernmenta be established on these princi- 
 ples as their basis : 
 
 1. That they shall forever 'remain a part of the 
 United States of Amer ca. 
 
 2. That in their person?, property and territory, 
 they shall be subject t» the government of the United 
 States in Congress assembled, and to the articles of 
 confederation in all thuse cases in which the original 
 States shall be so subject. 
 
 8 That they shall oe subject to pa/ a part of the 
 federt^l debts, contracted or to be contracted, to be 
 apportioned on them by Congress, according to the 
 same common rule and manner by which the appor- 
 uonoient thereof shall be made on the other States. 
 
 4. That their respective governments shall be in Re 
 publican forms, and shall admit no person to be a cit- 
 izen who holds a hereditary title. 
 
 5. That after the year ISOO of the christian era, 
 there shall be neither slavkry nor involuntary ser- 
 viTUDK in any of the said States, otherwise than in 
 the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall 
 have been duly convicted to have been personally 
 guilty. 
 
 On the 19th day of April 1784, this plan 
 for the government of the western territory 
 came up for consideration in the old con- 
 tinental congres.^i. Mr. Spaight of North 
 Carolina moved that the fifth proposi'ion, 
 excluding slavery after the year 1800, be 
 stricken out of the plan of ordinance, and 
 Mr. Read of South Carolina seconded 
 the motion. The question was put in this 
 form : " Shall the words moved to be strick- 
 en out stand V " and on this question the 
 vote was as follows : 
 
 New Hampshire, Mr. Foster, Mr. Blanchard — sye. 
 
 Massachusetts, Mr. Gerry, Mr. Partridge — aye. 
 
 Khoae Island, Mr. Eltery, Mr. Howell — aye. 
 
 Connecticut, Mr. Sherman. Mr. Wadsworth — aye. 
 
 New York. Mr. Dewitt, Mr. Paine — aye. 
 
 New Jersey. Mr. Dick — aye. No quorum. 
 
 Pennijlvania, Mr. Mifflin, Mr. Montgomery, Mr. 
 Hand — aye. 
 
 Maryland, Mr. McHenry, Mr. Stone — no. 
 
 Virginia, Mr. jEFFSRSON-aye, Mr. Hardy-no, Mr. 
 Mercer-no — no. 
 
 North Carolina, Mr. Williamson-aye, Mr. Spaight- 
 no — Divided. 
 
 South Carolina. Mr. Reed, Mr. Beresford — no. 
 
 It is well to leok into this vote, for this is 
 the first time in the history of the United 
 States where an attempt was made to torm 
 a territorial government ; and here we find 
 sixteen in favor of Mr. Jeffeuson's restric- 
 tion, to barely seren against it ; and the 
 States divided six in favor of it to tJu^ee 
 against it. But the articles of confedera- 
 tion, by article nine, required an affirma- 
 tive vote of all the States — that is, a vote 
 of seven States — to cairy a propositior ; so 
 this clause was defeated by the absence of 
 one delegate from New Jersey, in spite of a 
 vote of mo7-e than two to one in its/aror. — 
 Had the New Jersey delegation been full, 
 it must, to a moral certainty, have pre- 
 vailed ; had Delaware then been repre- 
 sented, it would probably have been car- 
 ried, even without New Jersey. And in 
 this vote we find at least three men who 
 eight years before had signed the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, William Ellerv, 
 Roger Sherman, and Thom.\s Jefferson 
 voting in favor of Jefferson's restriction, 
 and only one voting against it, a Mr. Stone 
 of Maryland, not a very famous man in 
 history ; and these four were all of the men 
 who had signed the Declaration in 1776, 
 that voted on this measure in 1784, being 
 three to one in favor of Jefferson's restric- 
 tion. We also find that three men. El- 
 bridge Gerry, William Ellery and Roger 
 Sherman, voted on this measure in 175^4, 
 who had six years before signed the articles 
 of confederation, after the amendment of- 
 fered by North Carolina proposing to re- 
 strict those articles to the white race alone, 
 
had been so decidedly \oted down — and 
 that every one of these men voted in favor 
 of Jefferson's restriction. What kind of a 
 pohcy do you suppose our fathers were en- 
 deavoring to inaugurate in regard to the 
 extension of slavery in the territories ? In 
 view of the history of this matter I hope 
 that no Democrat will ever again say that 
 the slavery restriction was voted down in 
 1784 — especially if he be a shrieker for the 
 rule of the majority, yelcpt "popular sov- 
 ereignty " — voted down by more than two 
 voting in favor of -it to one against it. 
 
 But the question came up again 3 years 
 afterwards, in the last Congress held under 
 the articles of confederation, which held its 
 session at New York, at the same time the 
 convention that framed the federal constitu- 
 tion was in session at Philadelphia. The 
 States of North Carolina and Georgia, did 
 not, as it was supposed they would do, cede 
 their territory to the general government ; 
 and it became necessary to organize a ter- 
 ritorial government for the territory north- 
 west of the Ohio river, at that time every 
 foot of territory owned by the United 
 States. The famous northwest ordinance 
 of July 13, 1787, was passed by that Con- 
 gress unanimously, from which I now read. 
 Purple's Statute of Illinois, page 28, as 
 follows : 
 
 Article VI. — There thaJl he neither slavery nor in- 
 volwntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise 
 than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party 
 shall have been duly convicted. 
 
 This great territorial charter, comprised 
 in territorial organization all the immense 
 tract of country north of the Ohio and east 
 of the Mississippi rivers, out of which five 
 of the noblest States of this Union, Ohio, 
 Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan, 
 have since been formed; and, mark you, 
 this territorial bill did not, like the one of 
 1784, propose to abolish slavery after the 
 year 1800 merely, but throttled the monster 
 instantly — the slavery restriction took ef- 
 fect on the very day of the passage of the 
 territorial bill — ther&. could be neither 
 slavery nor involuntary servitude in all that 
 territory after the 13th day of July 1787, 
 and the vote on the passage of the bill was 
 unanimous. All honor to the fathers, who 
 by this legislative act in our early history, 
 set aside as the patrimony of freedom for- 
 ever that vast territorial domain, which was 
 every foot then owned by the Republic. — 
 (Applause.) 
 
 Time will not permit me to examine the 
 debates in the Constitutional Conveintion. 
 They drafted a Constitution and submitted 
 
 it to the people, and the people in their 
 various State conventions approved of it — 
 adopted it as the great charter, to map out, 
 direct and control, all the future legislation 
 of our country. It begins with a preamble, 
 and the preamble begins, " we the people," 
 and I have not learned that the delegates 
 from South Carolina proposed to amend it 
 so as to make it read " we the ichite peo- 
 ple," (laughter) for I presume they were 
 pretty well satisfied with their decisive and 
 memorable defeat in an effort of that na- 
 ture eleven years before. I read from the 
 Uiiited States Constitution, Freeman's Il- 
 linois digest, pages 60-7. 
 
 We, the people of the United States, in order to 
 form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure 
 domestic tyanquility, provide for the common defence, 
 promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings 
 of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain 
 and establish this Osnstitution for the United States 
 of America. 
 
 ARTICLE IV, SECTION 3. 
 
 1. New States may be admitted by the Congress into 
 this Unicjn ; but no new State shall be formed or erec- 
 ted witbin the jurisdiction of any other State, nor any 
 State be formed by the junction of two or more States, 
 or parts of States, without the consent of the Legisla- 
 tures of the States concerned, as well as of the Con- 
 gress. 
 
 2. The Congress shall have power to dispose of, 
 and make all needful roles and regulations re- 
 specting the territgry or other property belonging to 
 the United States ; and nothinfj in this Constitution 
 shall be 30 construed as to prejudice any claims of the 
 United States, or of any particular State. 
 
 The preamble shows the reasons for the 
 adoption of the Constitution " to secure the 
 blessings of lilerty to ourselves and our 
 posterity," said our fathers ; and in ar- 
 ticle fourth they give Congress the power 
 to admit new States, and " make all need- 
 ful rules and regulations respecting the 
 territory," out of which new States were to 
 be carved. Here is a direct grant of pow- 
 er to the Congress of the United States in 
 the Constitution, clearly expressed, to 
 " make all needful rules and regulations 
 respecting the territory." And what does 
 that mean ? Can Congress make a " rule " 
 or a " regulation " except it be a law ? — 
 Certainly not. Well then, if the grant of 
 power had been to " make all laws respect- 
 ing the territory," it would have been no 
 broader than it now is, for Congress can 
 make no " rule " or " regulation " except it 
 take the form of " law." So thought our 
 fathers, for the very first Congress, after 
 the adoption of the Constitution, in pur- 
 suance of that grant of power re-adopted 
 by a law the north-west ordinance of 1787. 
 "'jim Allen," the Douglas democratic can- 
 didate for Governor of this State, in his 
 joint debate with Senator Trurabuil the 
 
9 
 
 other day at Bloomington, argued that the 
 North-west ordinance of 1787 was adopted 
 under the Articles of Confederation,, and 
 by tlie adoption of the Constitution was 
 abrogated, and therefore had no application 
 to the Northwestern Territory at all. But 
 "Jiui Alien" knew — he could not help 
 knowing when he made that argument, 
 that the fathers of this republic were care- 
 ful to see to it that the very first Congress, 
 that convened after the adoption of the 
 Constitution of the United States should 
 pass a law adapting the ordinance of 1787 
 to the Constitution. Iftherei.sa Douglas 
 Democrat in my audience, let me ask him, 
 in all sober earnestness, " what do you 
 think of a man, who, as Democratic can- 
 didate for Governor of Illinois, will stan<l 
 up before an intelligent audience of free- 
 men, and wilfully pervert the plain truths 
 oi history, as Mr. Allen did at Blooming- 
 ton V Will you sustiin him in it ? Has 
 your party sunk to that low depth of in- 
 famy where your leaders must turn their 
 backs upon the fathers of this Republic, 
 and deny their action, and if so, will you 
 longer cling to the failing fortunes of 
 such a party ? Listen while I read 
 from the United States statute at large, 
 volume one, (and I have been to the 
 trouble of looking these matters up from 
 original sources, and bringing in these 
 venerable old law books to read to this au- 
 dience, lest, possibh', some wavering Dem- 
 ocrat might "doubt my authority,") (ap- 
 plause) on page 50, as follows : 
 
 Chap. VIII- — An act to provide for the Govern- 
 ment of the Territory Kortli west of t7ie river Ohio. 
 
 Wherea/i, In order that the ordinance of the United 
 StatfS in Congress assembled, for the government of 
 the territory Northwest of the river Ohio mai/ con- 
 tinue to have full effect it is requisite that certain 
 provision;, should be made, so an to adapt the sam,e 
 to the present Constitution of the United States, Ac. 
 
 And then the act goes on to make those 
 provisions necessary to adapt the ordinance 
 to the Constitution. And this law of the 
 first Congress under the Constitution was 
 approved on August 7, 1789, by George 
 Washington as President of the United 
 States, (applause) the very man who was 
 president of the Convention that framed 
 the Constitution. The bill was presented 
 by Hon. Thos. FiTZsiM3f0N>;, M. C, from 
 Pennsylvania, on July 16, 178'.), when it 
 was read for the first time, who was also a 
 member of the Constitutional Convention, 
 r do not find that the ayes and nayes were 
 ever taken upon the passage of the law ; 
 but I do find that there were at least eight 
 
 men, Klbridge Gerry, Roger Sherman, 
 William Floyd, Robert Mori'is, George 
 Clymer, George Read, Charles Carroll anl 
 Richard Henry Lee, who had thirteen years 
 before signed tlie Declaration of American 
 Independence ; and /ice men who had 
 eleven years before signed the Articles of 
 Confederation ; and jij'teea men who were 
 members of the Constitutional Convention, 
 all of whom, at the time of the approval oi 
 that law, had taken their »e<its in that first 
 Congress of the United States under the 
 Constitution, and I do not find that aj;y 
 one of them ever voted or spoke against its 
 pas.sage. And this law excluded slavery 
 from all the northwestern territory— can ycm 
 longer doubt what the territorial policy of 
 the fathers was V Did these men, the fatr,- 
 ers of the Republic, the framers of those 
 fundamental laws upon which all our Ijo- 
 erties rest, know what they were doing "r — 
 Did they, from whose hands the Constitu- 
 tion had just come, freshly framed, know 
 the powers granted by that Constitution ? 
 No man in his sober senses can deny but 
 that they did — neither can he deny but 
 that those powers we^e wisely and justly 
 exercised. ( ipplause.) 
 
 However, notwithstanding the fact that 
 slavery had been excluded by law from the 
 torritories, there was a Convention held by 
 the people of the territory of Indiana ia 
 180o, which Convention adopted a petition, 
 in which they petitioned Congress among 
 other things, to suspend for ten years the 
 prohibition of slavery contained in their 
 territorial charter ; and William H. IIak- 
 KisoN, at that time their territorial Gover- 
 nor, afterwards President of the United 
 States, submitted their petition to Congress. 
 Now, if in the history of our government, 
 there ever teas a time when slavery should 
 be extended into a territory, that time was 
 in 1803. The government was heavily in 
 debt ; the country was a wilderness, and 
 at that time farther out on the western 
 frontier than Pike's P^k is now ; business 
 was stagnant and dull ; the commerce of 
 the Mississippi valley was carried on by 
 clumsy barges and flat boats, instead of the 
 magnificent steamers of the pi'esent day ; 
 the thrill whistle of the " iron horse" had 
 not yet resounded through the western 
 wilderness ; the harvests were gathered by 
 the handsickle or scythe, instead ot the pat- 
 ent reaper ; in the fall, the drumming of 
 the flail was heard, instead of the humming 
 of a patent thresher; in short, the mate- 
 rialistic progress of the ago was then in its 
 
10 
 
 earliet;t infancy. But what did our flnthers 
 do with the petition of the people of In- 
 diana 'i They appointed a special Cora- 
 raittee of three to consider it, and John 
 Randolph of Roanoke, himself a slavehold- 
 er, who wa8 chairman of that Committee, 
 reported thereon, on the 2d dav of March, 
 1803, in the following language : 
 
 " The rapid population of the State of Ohio suffic- 
 iently evinces, in the opinion of your Committee, that 
 tlie labor of slaves is not necessary to promote the 
 growth and settlement of colonies in that region ; that 
 this labor — demonsiral)ly the dearest of any — can 
 only be unployed in the cultiva ion of products more 
 valuable thaa any known to that quarter of the Unit- 
 e J States ; that the Committpw deem it higlily dnn- 
 gerouH and inexpedient to impair a jirovisiov) 
 fT'isili/ calculated to promote th". happiness and 
 prosperity of the northwatern country, and to give 
 strength and securit> to that extensive frontier. In 
 the salutary operation of this xagucioits and benevo- 
 lent /'esirai/ii, it is believed that the inhabiiants of 
 Indiana will, at no very distant day. find ample re- 
 'numeration tor a temporary privation of labor, and 
 OJ' emigration." 
 
 And in theii report recommended the 
 passage of the following resolution : 
 
 " Resolved, That it is ineerpedient to suspend for 
 a limited /tme. the operation of the sixth article of 
 the compact between the original States and the peo- 
 ple and States northwest of the river Ohio." 
 
 And so the people of Indiana had to do 
 without Slavery. Our fathers thought it 
 "highly dangerous and inexpedient to im- 
 pair a provision wi,sely calculated to pro- 
 mote the happiness and prosperity of the 
 North Western country." Honor them for 
 it, (applause) for they saved Irom the curse 
 of human bondage the soil of our own State 
 of Illinois, then included within the territo- 
 rial district of Indiana. 
 
 Yet the people of that territory vi^ro, not 
 satisfied, and five times, for five years in 
 succession, from 1803 to 1807, they went 
 up to Congress with a similar petition, and 
 never once was their petition granted. And 
 every time they thus petitioned, they ac- 
 knowledged the authority of Congress to 
 legislate in the premises; for if the law that 
 they were petitioning to have repealed was 
 unconstitutional, then it was no law, and 
 the people of the then territory of Indiana 
 might have wholly cfisregarded it. 
 
 I find some amusing things in looking 
 up this old record, and I think I have dis- 
 covered the author of Squatter Sovereignty, 
 notwithstanding Mr. Douglas speaks of it as 
 "ray great principle" — at least it is the 
 earliest mention of it that I have found. 
 When Gen. Arthur St. Clair was governor 
 of the northwestern territory, he made a 
 speech before the territorial legislature, at 
 Chilicothe, in which he said : 
 
 For all internal affairs we have a complete Legisla- 
 ture ef our own, and in f hem ar« n/3 aiore bound by 
 
 an act of Coaeress than by ao Edict of the ?irst Con- 
 sul of France, 
 
 I hope Mr. Douglas in the next speech 
 he makes down East, will acknowledge 
 his indebtedness to Gen. St. Clair. (Laugh- 
 ter). Well, at that time Thomas Jefferson 
 was President of the United States, and 
 J.\MES Madison, the father of the Constitu- 
 tion, was his Secretary of State. When 
 this clause of Gen. St. Clair's speech was 
 shown to Jeffekson and his cabinet, what 
 do you suppose they did? They wrote a 
 "love-letter" (laughter) to the "father of 
 Squatter Sovereignty, in these words : 
 
 Sis : The President obesrving in an address lately- 
 delivered by you to the Convention at Chilicothe, an 
 intemperate and Indecorum of language towards 
 the Legislature of the United States, and it 
 disorginiziug spirit and tendency of every evil exam- 
 ple, and gro^sly violating the rules of conduct enjoined 
 k>y your public station, determines that your commis- 
 sion of Governor of the Northwestern Territory shall 
 cease on the receipt of this notification. 
 I am, &c., 
 
 James Madisom. 
 
 Arthur St Clair, Esq., Chilicothe. 
 
 Thus thought the good old democratic 
 administration of Thomas Jeffekson, and 
 they cut off the head of Gen. St Clair (ap- 
 plause.) The modern democratic Presidents, 
 Frank Pierce and "Jeems" Buchanan, have 
 never doubted their constitutional authori- 
 ty to cut off the heads of Territorial Gov- 
 ernors, as attested in the long list of Kan- 
 sas Governors that have been decapitated. 
 But there is this difference between the 
 modern democracy and the old time de- 
 mocracy — Buchanan cuts off the heads of 
 territorial Governors because they do not 
 favor Slavery, but Jefferson applied the 
 executive executionary guillotine because 
 St. Clair did not favor liberty, (applause.) 
 When "Honest Old Abe" is elected Presi- 
 dent of these United States, and the Gov- 
 ernor of some territory shall be insisting 
 that he may curse the soil of the infant State 
 with slavery, we expect Abraham Lincoln 
 to direct his Secretary of State to write him 
 just such a "love letter" as Thomas Jeffer- 
 son directed his Secretary of State to write 
 to Gen. St. Clair. (Laughter and applause.) 
 
 Not long ago, a democrat, with an air of 
 conscious triumph put this question to me, 
 "why did Jefferson, and Madison and the 
 fathers of this Republic, permit Slavery in 
 the territory of Kentucky?" My answer 
 was, that they did not, for Kentucky never 
 passed through a territorial organization at 
 all ; at no time in the history of this Repub- 
 lic has the jurisdiction of the U. S. extended 
 over Kentucky in other capacity than as a 
 State— our fathers did not suppose, nor 
 
11 
 
 does the Repubiican party today suppose, 
 that there is any Jiulliority in Congress to 
 exclude Slavery /Vf/rt a SUite ; the Republi 
 can partj', however, believes that Congress 
 has the authority to exclude Slavery from a 
 territory — and so thought our fathers, and 
 so they acted. Kentucky was formed with- 
 in the limits of one of the original States, in 
 which Slavery existed, and it was in that 
 way that Slavery was entailed upon Ken- 
 tucky. 
 
 But what about Tennessee and Mississip- 
 pi, in the Southwestern territory ? Let us 
 look into the iiistoiy of that matter. I read 
 Irom 1st U. S. Statute at Large, page 12t]: 
 
 Chap. xiii. — An Aci for the Gocermnentofthe Tet- 
 ritory oj the United iitates, Svuth of the Riner Ohio. 
 
 Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate "itc &c"Aud 
 tht! goveriimeut of the said Territory South of the 
 Ohio, shall be aimilar to that which is now exercised 
 in the territory northwest of the Ohio; eo:cept go far as 
 is otherwise provided in tl e conditions expressed in 
 an Act of Congress of the present .session, entitled"an 
 let to accept the Cession of claims of thR State of 
 North Carolina, to a certain district of Western terri- 
 tory." 
 
 Now let us turn to the Deed of Cession 
 by North Carolina, and see what the excep- 
 tio/i,, above referred to LS. In same book, 
 page 108, I read as follows; 
 
 Provided ahcayn, That no regulation made or to 
 he made by Congress, shall tend to emancipate Slaves. 
 
 The Deed of Cession by the State of 
 <jeorgia contained a similar provision to 
 this one in the Deed of Cession from North 
 Carolina. The reason why our fathers did 
 not exclude Slavery from the Southwestern 
 territory is now plainly apparent. The very 
 deeds of Cession through which the U. S. 
 acquired jurisdiction over that territory, 
 had special clauses prohibiting Congress 
 from exercising that authority — not deny- 
 ing but that Congress had authority to 
 make such a regulation for a territory, but 
 saying, that if Congress accepts of our 
 Deeds of Cession, Congress shall do so 7ipon 
 the conditioTt, not to exclude Slavery. By 
 putting these conditions in their deeds of 
 cession, the people of North Carolina and 
 Georgia plainly admitted the authority of 
 Congress, without those conditions, to have 
 excluded Slavery. And more than that, 
 they plainly admitted that they well knew 
 what the territorial policy of our fathers 
 was, and that they were afraid that Con- 
 gress would, in pursuance of their power 
 under the Constitution, exclude Slavery 
 from that territory, if they should, in good 
 faith, as the more northern States had be- 
 fore done, cede to the United States their 
 territory untrammelled by such a condi- 
 tion. History wili not permit us to lay the 
 
 blame of Slavery in the Southwestern ter- 
 itory at the doors of Congress. The odiura 
 must rest alone upon the people ofNjrth 
 Carolina and (reorgia. 
 
 Meiely remarking that preparatory to 
 the admission of all five of the Northwest- 
 ern States, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wiscon- 
 sin and Michigan, Congress, by a law, refer- 
 red to and acknowledged the binding au- 
 thority of the ordinance of 1787, similar to 
 the Act of Congress prtparaiory to the ad- 
 mission of Illinois ; I now read that act, 3d 
 U. S. Statute at large, pages 429 3o : 
 
 Be it enacted by the Senate and House o' Represen- 
 tatives of the United States of America, in Congress 
 Rsacmbled, That the inhabitants of the territory of 
 Illinois be, and they are hereby, authorized to form 
 for themselves a coustitutiou and State governrascl 
 Ac , itc. 
 
 P! ovided.Tha.l the same, whenever formed, shall 
 be Republican, and not >'epu(/iiant to the ordinance 
 of the thirteenth of July, seventeen hundrttd and eighty 
 seven, between the original Statet; and the people ami 
 states of the territory northwest of the Rivtr Ohio. 
 
 Approved, April 18, 1813. 
 
 So you see that when the people of our 
 own State of Illinois wished to adopt a 
 Constitution, Congress passed an ennabling 
 act, just as Congress did in the case of 
 Kansas, in which Congress was careful to 
 provide that no "provision wisely calculat- 
 ed to promote the happiness and prosperi- 
 ty of the Northwestern country" contained 
 in the old ordinance of 1787 should in any 
 way be abrogated or impaired. Do you 
 rememoer the provision of the "English 
 Bill" — the ennabling act for Kansas — offer- 
 ing to admit her immediately, and bribing 
 her with a land grant, if she would come 
 in as a Slave State, but denying her admis- 
 sion under her free State constitution? 
 Compare that effort of the Democracy, to 
 force Slavery upon a new State, with the 
 careful action of our fathers to keep Slavery 
 ©ut. 
 
 Illinois adopted a free State Constitution 
 and came into the Union. It was long after 
 the adoption of this constitution that Dred 
 Scott was held at Rock Island, in this State, 
 for two years, as a slave. I read from the 
 old constitution of Illinois, 1st Purple's 
 Statute, 31 : 
 
 The people of the Illinois territory, having the 
 right of admipsion into the general government as a 
 member of the Union, consistent with the Constitu- 
 tion of the United Statics, the ordinance of Congress 
 of 1787, and the law of Congress approved April 18, 
 1S18, entitled " An act to enal)le the people of the Ill- 
 inois territory to form a constitution and state gov- 
 ernment, and for the admission of euch State into tlie 
 Union, on an equal footing with the original States, 
 and for other purposes, '• in order to establish justice, 
 promote the welfare and secure the blessings of liber- 
 ty to themselves and their posterity, do, by their rep- 
 resentatives in convention, ordain and establish the 
 following Constitution or form of government, and do 
 
\2 
 
 mutually atTco with each other to form Ihfinselves 
 into » FREE aud indepenJent State by the iiaHie of 
 the State of Illinois. 
 
 Article VHI. — That the general, great and essen- 
 tial principles of liberty and free government may be 
 recognized and unalterably established we dkclark: 
 
 See. 1. — That all men are born equally free and in- 
 dependent, and have certain inherent and indefcafi- 
 Me rights; among which aie those of enjoying and 
 defending life and liberty, and of acquiring, possess- 
 i.^g and protecting property and reputation, and of 
 pursuing their own happiness. 
 
 Who will say that with such a constitu- 
 tion a slave may be held for one hour upon 
 the soil of Illinois •, and yet Dred Scott was 
 i.eld as a slave in our State two years, and 
 the supreme court of the United States has 
 decided that it gave him no title to his free- 
 dom. 
 
 Now came the compromise of 1820, fa- 
 mous in the history of our countrj' ; that 
 Stephen A. Doue;las first '' canonized in the 
 hearts ot the American people " and de- 
 clared "no ruthle.ss hand could be found 
 reckless enough to disturb," and then with 
 his own " ruthless hand " tore down, and 
 trampled into the dust. I read from the 
 act of Congress, approved Mnrch 6, 1820, 
 3d U. S. Stat, at laige, page 548: 
 
 Sec S.—And be it fvrthtr e-nacUd , That in ALL 
 THAT TERRITORY ceded by France to the United 
 States, under the name of Louisiana, which lies north 
 of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north lati- 
 tude, not included within the limits of the S'ate con- 
 templated by this act, slavery and iHvoluutary servi- 
 tuiie, otherwise than in the punishment of "crimf's, 
 wliereof the party .shall have been duly convicted, 
 gnsll be, and is hereby, FOKEVEK PROHIBITED. 
 
 Thus said our fathers in 1820, and by 
 that law, as with a shield of freedom, they 
 covered all of the territory then owned by 
 the United States west of the Mississippi 
 river and north of the line of thirty-six de- 
 grees and thirty minutes, except the State 
 of Missouri ; and that was the " Comprom- 
 ise" — upon condition that Missouri came 
 in a slave State, the balance, stretching 
 westward as far as our possessions went, 
 and northward to the British possessions, 
 was dedicated to liberty forever. By the 
 articles of Cession of this Louisiana territo- 
 ry it was stipulated that no rights of prop- 
 erty of the citizens of that country should 
 he-impaired after the cession, and it was 
 claimed, inasmuch a.s slaves were held by 
 the old French settUrs in the settlement of 
 St. Louis before the cession of the territory 
 to the United States, that if Congress exclu- 
 ded slavery from the territory within the 
 limits ol the proposed State of Missouri, 
 those rights of property would be impaired. 
 However, no such objection could be made 
 to excluding slaver^' from that part of the 
 territory which our fathers did exclude it 
 from, for every slave held within the Louis- 
 
 iana purchiise before it was ceded to the 
 United States would be included within 
 the limits of the State of Missouri. The 
 territory from which slavery was "forever 
 prohibited" by this Compromise of 1820, in- 
 cluded both Kansas and Nebraska, and al- 
 so that " degree and a half, being more 
 than five times the size of the State of 
 New York " which Mr. Douglas, in the 
 Senate on the 16th of May la<t, boastfully 
 proclaimed to the South, that his principle 
 of " nonintervention " had given to sla- 
 very. The witty and talented Talleyrand 
 was once asked the meaning of the word 
 non intervention ; his reply was, " it is a 
 word frequently used in European diplo- 
 macy and means much the same thing as 
 intervention." Should the principle of 
 Mr. Douglas prevail, the verdict of the 
 coming generation must be, " non inter- 
 vention means intervention to extend sla- 
 very over the soil from which our fathers 
 had excluded it." 
 
 It is claimed that the Compromise meas- 
 ures of 1850 were settled by, and adopted 
 upon Mr. Douglas' principle of "popular 
 sovereignty ; " and I myself have heard 
 "Dick Richardson," now running for Cjd- 
 gres,«;, on the Democratic ticket in the fifth 
 District, when Democratic candidate for 
 Governor of Illinois, and Stephen A. Doug- 
 las in his speech here in Freeport, in front 
 of Mayers' Hotel, on October 27th, 1854, 
 in support of that proposition, read the 
 clause I now read from the bill establi.shing 
 a Territorial Government for New Mexico ; 
 United States Statute at large, 31st Con- 
 gress, page 447 : 
 
 And provided, fiirtJie.)-, That, WHEN ADMITTED 
 AS A STATE, the said territory, or any portion of 
 the same, shall be received into the Union, with or 
 without slavery, as their Constitution may prescribe 
 at the time ofihei'' adttiin/iion. 
 
 But in 1854, I doubted the fact that 
 any "popular sovereignty" was conferred 
 upon the people of that territory by that 
 clause put into their territorial bill in 1850, 
 and I have been growing more and more 
 doubtful upon that point ever since. It 
 confers no power whatever upon the peo- 
 [ile of the territory, it is confined, by its 
 plain terms, to their action as a STATE. — 
 Mr. Douglas claims that he has a precedent 
 for his Kansas Nebraska Bill in the legisla- 
 tion of 1850; but his claiming so does not 
 mahe it so ; and I defy any man to place 
 his finger upon a single line or word in all 
 the legislation of 1850, that will in any 
 manner sustain the pretensions of Mr, 
 Douglas. 
 
13 
 
 I have not time to look into the debates 
 of 1850 — and if I had, our brother Wide 
 Aa-ake, Mr. Ingalls, did it 30 well two 
 weeks ago that I would desist. It was 
 sought at that time to apply the " Wilmot 
 proviso " to the territory then organized. 
 Clay and Webster, and their compatriots, 
 regarded it as unnecessary, and only calcu- 
 lated to breed bad feelings, for the laws of 
 Mexico had already, as early as 1829, 
 abolished slavery in that territory ; and 
 Clay and Webster well knew that after 
 Mexico was annexed to the United States, 
 all Mexican laws which were not contrary 
 to the Constitution of the United States, 
 nor repealed by some proper authority, 
 would be just as much in force as they ev- 
 er were. Should Illinois be subjugated 
 and annexed to Canada, every law upon 
 our Statute book, not contrary to the Brit- 
 ish Constitution, would remain in force 
 until repealed. And so it was with Mex- 
 ico. She had abolished slavery. Let me 
 read the law : 
 
 The President of the United Mexican States, to the 
 inhabitants of the Republic — 
 
 Be it known : That in the year IS'29, being desirous 
 of 6is;nalizing the anniversary of our Iniiependence 
 by an act of national Justice and Beneficence, which 
 may contribute to the strength and support of sucti 
 inestimable welfare, as to secure more and more the 
 public tranquility, and reinstate an unfortunate por- 
 tion of our inhabitants in the sacred rights granted 
 them by nature, and may be protected by the nation, 
 under wise asd just laws, according to the provisioH 
 in article 30 of the Oonstitutive act ; availing myself 
 of the extraordinary facilities granted me. I have 
 thought proper to decree : 
 
 1. That slavery be exterminated in the republic. 
 
 2. Consequently those are free, who, up to this day, 
 have been looked upon as slaves. 
 
 ti. Whenever the circumstances of the public treas- 
 ury will allow it, the owners of slaves shall be ideni- 
 nified, in the manner which the laws shall provide. 
 
 Mexico, lath Sept. 1329, A. D. 
 
 JOSE MARIA de BOCANEGRA. 
 
 Was there not sufficient reason why the 
 Wilmot Proviso should not be applied to 
 the territory acquired of Mexico ? Slavery 
 does not exist by the law of nature — nor 
 has it any foundation whatever in common 
 law — it can exist only by positive statute 
 law — and in the territory acquired of Mex- 
 ico, a law to establish it was not only lack- 
 ing, but, by positive law, slavery had been 
 actually abolished. 
 
 But in looking over the legislation of 
 1850, I find a clause in all the territorial 
 bills then passed, simular to the one in the 
 Territorial Bill of New Mexico, which I do 
 not remember to have ever heard read by 
 Senator Dougla.s, or any other Democrat, 
 in support of " popular sovereignty ; " it 
 reads as follows. U. S. laws, 31st Con- 
 gress, page 449 : 
 
 AH thf, laws passed by the Ugitilanve asHemhly 
 end OoTe.rnor »haU be xubmttted to the Congreis of 
 the Cnited Hates, and, ij DISAPPROVKD, nhali b» 
 aVhh and of tiO EFFECT. 
 
 So you see that Clay and Webster voted 
 against applying the Wilmot Proviso to 
 New Mexico, because slavery was already 
 abolished th^re ; but for fear that the ter- 
 ritorial legislature should undertake to in- 
 troduce slavery, they specially provided, as 
 our fathers were always careful to do, that 
 all territorial laics should be submitted to 
 Congress, and if " disapproved should be 
 null and of ro effect." How much " pop- 
 ular sovereignty " did that bill contain ? — 
 To show you that territorial laws have 
 been disapproved, and that too by our 
 fathers, I read you from a law passed by 
 Congress, as early as May 8, 1792 ; 1st U. 
 S. Statute at large, page 286 : 
 
 Sec. 6. And be iifitrther enacted. That the limita- 
 tion act passed by the Governor and Judges of the 
 said territory, the twenty-eighth day of December, 
 one thousand seven hundred and eightyeiyht, be and 
 hereby is disapproved. 
 
 Our fathers were only exercising over 
 the territories the guardian care conferred 
 upon Congress by the Constitution — ^just 
 as the Democratic administration of Thomas 
 Jefferson exercised it in the removal of 
 Govf-rnor St. Clair. 
 
 I have now traced the legislation of our 
 country from 1776 up to 1854, and I find 
 it uniformly and always in favor of liberty 
 — never for once departing from the policy 
 inaugurated by the fathers. The claim 
 set up by the followers of Mr. Douglas 
 that theirs is the old time policy, is wholly 
 without foundation in fact. The Kansas 
 Nebraska Bill has no precedent in all the 
 history of our Republic. The Democratic 
 party in 1854 took a new shoot, not veering 
 off sideways fiom the course laid down by 
 the founders of the government, but wheel- 
 ing squarely around and going straight 
 backwards. Our fathers were marching 
 straight forward, with " liberty " inscribed 
 upon all their banners ! But the Democ- 
 racy is marching directly backwards 
 toward slavery and bondage. It is un- 
 necessary to add that the Nebraska Bill 
 and Dred Scott decision utterly overruled 
 and overrides all of the previous legislation 
 of our country. 
 
 I now come to the second division, to the 
 decisions of the supreme courts of various 
 States, in cases where questions similar to 
 those in the Dred Scott case have been de- 
 cided, and where this legislation of our 
 fathers has been, not declared to be un- 
 constitutional, but sustmned and enforced. 
 
14 
 
 I read first from a case decided by the su- 
 preme court of the State of Massachusetts 
 in 1836. The facts in this case were that a 
 resident of New Orleans went to Massachu- 
 setts and took with him a slave servant, in- 
 tending soon to return to New Orleans. A 
 writ of Habeas Corpus was brought, and 
 the court held that the slave could not be 
 taken back — his being brought into a free 
 State by his master made him free. Com- 
 monwealth vs. Aves, 18 Pickering, 219, the 
 court, in considering the clause in the 
 United States constitution for the rendition 
 of fugitives from justice, say : 
 
 The constitution and law manifestly refer to a slave 
 escaping from a State where he oweafierviue or labor 
 into another State or Territory. He is termed a fugi- 
 tive from labor ; the proof to be made is, ihat he owed 
 Bervice or labor, under the laws of the State or T«rri- 
 tory /r»m which, he Jled. This language can, by no 
 reasonable construction, be applied to the case of a 
 slave who has not _fied from the State, but who has 
 been brought into the State by his manter. 
 
 It will be remembered that Dred Scott 
 had not Jied from a State, but that he was 
 brought by his master to the State of Illi- 
 nois and held two yeais, and taken by his 
 master to Ft. Snelling. Democrats tell 
 you that Judge Taney did not decide that 
 slaveholders could hold their slaves in Illi- 
 nois. Well, if he did not decide quite that, 
 he did decide that holding Dred Scott a 
 slave in this State two years did not make 
 him free. But the court on page 210 say : 
 
 Without pursuing this inquiry further, it is sufficient 
 for the purposes of the case before us, that by the Con- 
 stitution adopted in 1780, slavery was abolished in 
 Massachusetts, upon the ground that it is contrary to 
 natural right and the plain principles of justice. The 
 terms of the first article of the declaration of rights 
 are plain and explicit. " All men are born free and 
 equal, and have certain natural, essential and ina- 
 lienable rights, which are, the right of enjoying and 
 defending their lives and liberties, and that of acquir- 
 ing, possessing and protecting property." It would be 
 difficult to select words more precisely adapted to the 
 abolition of ne^ro slavery. 
 
 That is the only abolition of slavery, I 
 think, that ever took place in Massachusetts. 
 And the Constitution of Illinois is almost 
 precisely similar to the Constitution of 
 Massachusetts. It is a noticeable fact, too, 
 that the Constitution of Massachusetts was 
 adopted in 1780, and the Constitution of 
 the United States was not framed until 
 seven years afterwards, in 1787 ; so that by 
 the plain law of Massachusetts negroes did 
 have " rights which white men were bound 
 to respect." Who can believe that it was 
 intended that the Constitution of the United 
 States would make chattel property of a 
 class of people who were freemen in the 
 commonwealth of Massachusetts? 
 
 And I read from the case of Merry vs. Chex- 
 Baider, by the supreme court of the slave 
 
 State of Louisiana, in 1 830, reported in 20 
 Martin's Louisiana Reports, page 699 : 
 
 The plaintiff sues in this action to recover his free- 
 dom, and from the evidence wn record, is clearly en- 
 titled to it. He was born in the North Western Terri- 
 tory, since the enactment by Congress, in 1787, of the 
 ordinance for the government of that country, accor- 
 ding to the sixth article of which, " there could be 
 neither slavery nor involuntary servitude." This or- 
 dinance fixed forever the character of the population 
 in the region over which it extended, and takes away 
 all foundation from the claim set up in this instance by 
 the defendant. The act of cession by Virginia did 
 no)t deprive Congress of the power to maks such a reg- 
 ulation. The plaintiff accordingly is free. 
 
 The Supreme Court of Louisiana did not 
 doubt the authority of Congress to exclud»» 
 slavery from the territory, and when a 
 black man was suing in their courts, claim- 
 ing his liberty under that*-act of Congress, 
 just as Dred Scott did in Missouri, they en- 
 forced the law, and let the slave go free. 
 
 Let us see what the Supreme Court of 
 Mississipi have said. I read from the case 
 of Harvey vs. Decker and Hopkins, decided 
 by the Supreme Court of Mississippi, at the 
 June term, 1818, Walker's Mi.ss. R. 36 : 
 
 The facts in this case are not controverted. The 
 three negroes were slaves in Virginia ; in 1784, they 
 Were taken by John Decker to the t eighborheod of 
 Vincennes ; they remained there until July, 1816 ; the 
 Ordinance of Congress was passed in 1787, and the 
 Constitution of Indiana was adopted on the 29lh day 
 of June, 1816. It is contended on the one side, that 
 by the cession act of Virginia, these negroes are 
 slaves ; and on the other, that by the Ordinance of 
 1787, and the Constitution of Indiana they are free. 
 The services of the negroes are claimed as a vested 
 right. What is a vested right * Slavery is condemaed 
 by reason and the laws of nature. It can only exist 
 through municipal regulations, and in matters of 
 doubt, the courts must lean infavnrem. mice et liber- 
 tatis. [In favor ef life and liberty .] * * * 
 
 The treaty of cession by Virginia to the United 
 States, which guarantees to the inhabitants of the 
 northwestern territory, their titles, rights and liber- 
 ties, does not render void that article of the Ordinance 
 of Congress of 1787, which prohibits slavery in that 
 territory ; that slaves within the limits of the north- 
 western territory becpiTaelfreemenby virtue of the O?'- 
 dinance 0/1131, and can assert their claims to 
 freedom in the courts of the State of Mississippi. 
 
 Compare that decision with the Dred 
 Scott case. The slave State of Mississippi 
 leaning " in favor of life and liberty," and 
 deciding that Congress could prohibit sla- 
 very in the northwestern territory, and that 
 the Supreme Court of Mississippi would 
 enforce that act of Congress, and would 
 set at liberty the three negroes then held 
 in slavery in Mississippi, because they had 
 once resided in the northwestern territory, 
 f.-om which Congress had prohibited sla- 
 very — the negroes being taken to the ter- 
 ritory before the passage of the Ordinance 
 of 1787, but held there after its passage. 
 
 I now read from the case of the State of 
 Indiana vs. Lasselle, decided by the Su- 
 preme Court of Indiana in 1820, 1st Black- 
 fords Ind. Reports, page 60 : 
 
15 
 
 The qaestion is as to the legality of Lassell's claim 
 to hold Polly as a slave. It is contended for Polly, 
 that by the Ordinance of 1787. and the Constitution 
 of Indiana, which was adopted in 1816, she is eatiiled 
 to her freedom. In the eleventh article of our Con- 
 gtitution, section 7. it is decided, that, " there shall be 
 neither slavery nor unvoluntary servitude in this 
 State, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, 
 whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." It 
 is evident from this provision, that the framers of our 
 Constitution intended a total and entire prohibition 
 of slavery in this State ; and we can conceive of no 
 words in which that intention could have been more 
 clearly expressed. The judgment of the Circuit Court 
 is reversed, and Polly discharged. 
 
 I do not own a copy of ihe Missouri Re- 
 ports, and do not know of a copy being 
 owned in town ; but in 2d Gillraan's Illi- 
 nois Reports, I find that Judge Scates, 
 who delivered the opinion of the court in 
 the case of Jarrot vs. Jarrot, quoted the 
 prior decisions of the Supreme Court of 
 Missouri, as follows : 
 
 In the case of Wintiey vs. Whiteside, 1st Mo. Re- 
 ports, page 472. it was held that the negro woman, 
 who had been taken into the Illinois territory since 
 the Ordinance of 1787 by ht- r owners, who resided 
 there four years, thereby became free, and upon be- 
 ing taken afterwards to the State of Missouri, was not 
 remitted again to the State of slavery, and that C(m- 
 gress under the Confederation had the power to pass 
 th- Ordinance. 
 
 In the case of John Merry vs. TifBn k Menard, 1st 
 Mo. 725, the mother of the plaintiff had been held as 
 a slave in Virginia and taken into the Illinois before 
 the Ordinance of 1787, and held in slavery there before 
 and after its passaije, and the plaintiff was born 
 there after the Ordinance. It was held that he was 
 free. 
 
 These two cases were decided in the Su- 
 preme Court of Missouri in the year 1827, 
 before the " Blue Lodges " had been or- 
 ganized all over that State, and the insane 
 effort made on the part of the people of Mis- 
 souri to force slaver}' upon the unwilling 
 people of Kansas. They were made at a 
 lime when there was no undue excitement 
 or agitation upon the slavery question,and it 
 may fairly be presumed that the Judges of 
 the Supreme Court of Missouri gave these 
 important questions their careful considera- 
 tion before rendering their decisions. — 
 These two decisions were made, too, upon 
 the same principles, and precisely in ac- 
 cordance with every decision rendered by 
 any civilized tribunal upon the face of the 
 globe, from the decision of Lord Mansfield, 
 in the Somersett case, in 1772, up to the 
 time of those decisions. And in these two 
 cases we have precisely the same facts of 
 the Dred Scott case. Dred Scott was taken 
 into territory and for six years held as a 
 slave, from which Congress had excluded 
 slavery ; but Judge Taney says the Consti- 
 tution carries slavery into the territory, and 
 Congress could not exclude it, and that 
 Dred Scott is still a slave. In the first case 
 in the Supreme Court of Missouri, Winny 
 
 vs. Whiteside, the negro woman was taken 
 into the territory from which Congress had 
 excluded slavery and held as a slave four 
 years ; and the Supreme Court of Missouri 
 in 1826 say. Congress had the right to ex- 
 clude slavery, and therefore the negro wo- 
 man is free. The two children of Dred 
 Scott were born in territory from which 
 Congress had excluded slavery; but Judge 
 Taney says Congress had no right to ex- 
 clude slavery, and dooms the children of 
 Dred Scott to bondage forever. In the 
 second case in the Supreme Court of Mis- 
 souri, John Merry vs. Tiffin and Menard, 
 John Merry, the plaintiff, was born in ter- 
 ritory from which Congress had excluded 
 slavery, and the Supreme Court of Missouri 
 say, Congress had the right to exclude sla- 
 very, and John Merry is therefore free. 
 
 But let us see what the Supreme Court 
 of our own State of Illinois have said. I 
 read from thecase of Choisser vs. Hargrave, 
 decided by the Supreme Court of Illinois, 
 at December term, 1836, 1st Scam — 317- 
 18 ; from the syllabus : 
 
 The act of 18S7, of the territory of Indiana, in rela- 
 tion to the indenturing and registering negroes and 
 mnlattoes, is clearly in violation of the Ordinance of 
 1787, and ii therefore void. , 
 
 And from the opinion of the Court : 
 
 This action, for assault and false imprisonment, was 
 broncht by the defendant in error, Barney Hargrave, 
 a colored man, against John Choisser, (who claimed 
 the defendant in error as an indentured servant,) to 
 try his right to freedom. By the Ordinance of Con- 
 gress for the government of the territory northwest of 
 the Ohio, passed in 1787, it is declared, " there shall be 
 neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said 
 territory, otherwise than for the punishment of 
 crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly con- 
 victed." 
 
 And after reviewing the indentured ser- 
 vant act of the territory of Indiana, at 
 some length, which was passed at a time 
 when Illinois was part of that territory, the 
 court says : 
 
 This act of the Territorial Legislature, is clearly in 
 violation of the Ordinance of 1787, and consequently 
 void. 
 
 So you see that the Supreme Court of 
 this State were clearly of the opinion, and 
 so decided, that Congress had authority to 
 pass the Ordinance of 1787, and that no 
 territorial laws in any way violating that 
 Ordinance, was of any force, but v!&?,void. 
 
 But I find another case decided by the 
 Supreme Court of Illinois, at December 
 term, 1845, Jarrot vs. Jarrot, 2d Gilman 1. 
 I read from the syllabus : 
 
 An actisn of assumpsit for services rendered may 
 be maintained by a colored man, and thereby try the 
 question of his right to freedom. 
 
 The descendants of the slaves of the old French set- 
 tlers, born since the adoption of the Ordinance of 
 17S7, and before or since the Constitution of the State 
 
16 
 
 of Illinois was adopted, cannot be held in slavery in 
 this State. 
 
 And from Judge Scates who delivered 
 the opinion of the court : 
 
 After so many, and such uniformity of judicial de- 
 terminHtioBs upon the meaning, and the application 
 of the Constitution and Ordinance to facts and cir- 
 cumstances like these beiore the court, made in so 
 henignaj't a spirit of humanity and justice, 1 cannot 
 allow my mind to doubt of the plaintiff's " inherent 
 and indefeasible rights," to become " equally free and 
 independent " with other citizens, " and of enjoying 
 and defending life and liberty and of acquiring, pos- 
 sessing and protecting property and reputation, and 
 of pursuing " his " own happiness," except so far as 
 he may, by the Constitution and laws, be restricted or 
 denied the right of suffrage, Jtc. All philanthrojiists 
 unite in deprecating the evils of slavery, and it affords 
 me sincere pleasure, when mv duty undor the Con- 
 stitution and laws requires me to break the fetters of 
 the slave, and declare the captive free. 
 
 The law presumes every man to tis icnocent of 
 crime. The benefit of every doubt is given to ihe ac- 
 cused, and the presumption allowed to ])reVHil. Should 
 less force and elTicacy be allowed the presumption of 
 treedom in rebutting such doubls, as contemporaneous 
 constructions are admissible to remove? The con- 
 viction of a crime may doom the accused to tempor- 
 ary loss of liberty ; the solution of a doubt against 
 the plaintiff will doom him to slavery, to bondage for 
 life. If the scales of justice are equally balanced, the 
 law inclines to mercy. If 1 entertained a doubt I 
 should be compelled to decide in favor of iibei ty. But 
 as the Courts of Massachusetts and Mississippi de- 
 clared, so it appears to my mind too r^lainto admit of 
 construction, " there shall be neitiier slavery nor in- 
 voluntary servitude in the said Territory," as de- 
 clared by the Ordinance. 
 
 This Court decided at the December l»>rm 1840, in 
 the case oi Kinney vs. Cuoi-,2 Scara. 233, and again 
 at the July term 1841, in the case of Bailey ts. Crom- 
 icell, &do. 71, " that the presumption of law in this 
 State was, that every person was free, without regard 
 to color. 
 
 I have now quoted sufBcientlj' from the 
 decisions of the Supreme Courts of the var- 
 ious States to show you clearly the current 
 of those decisions. Indiana, Mississippi, 
 Louisiana, Missouri and Illinois, have in- 
 variably sustained the legislation of the 
 fathers. I do not believe that one single 
 decision can be produced, made by the Su- 
 preme Court of any State in the Union, 
 up to the Dred Scott case, where a con- 
 trary opinion has ever been held. 
 
 I now pass to the third and la? t division 
 • — to an examination of the decisions of the 
 supreme court of the United States, when 
 Marshall and Story were upon the bench. 
 I here remark that there is not a respecta- 
 ble court in the civilized world, in which 
 the decisions of those judges would not be 
 taken as binding authority. Should I read 
 in the English Parliament, the highest 
 court of appeal in England, from an 
 opinion delivered by Judge Stuky, the a'l- 
 thoritjT would be considered of as great 
 weight, and entitled to as much respect, as 
 any authorityl might read from Lord Bacon 
 or Sir William Blackstone. By their ac- 
 knowledged purity and honesty, their ripe 
 
 and schollarlyeradition,they have so inter- 
 woven their names in the jurisprudence of 
 the age in which they lived, as to render 
 them immortal. Tell me that Taney can 
 override Marshall and Stouv, and that his 
 decision must be & ^finality ! As well tell me 
 that the latest lie must be followed instead 
 of the earlier truth — that Wrong will tri- 
 umph over Right. 
 
 1 read first from the case of the Ameri- 
 can Insurance Company, et al. vs. Canter, 
 1st Peters United States Supreme Court 
 Reports, page 542, decided at January 
 term 1828, when John Marshall was Chitf 
 Justice, and the associate judges were 
 Burshrod Washington, William Johnson, 
 (iabriel Duval, Joseph Story, Smith Thomp- 
 son, and Robert Trimble. This case was 
 not decided by a divided court, like the 
 Dred Scott case, but the associate judges 
 all agreed with Chief Justice Marshall, 
 who, in delivering the opinion of the Court 
 says : 
 
 They do not, however, participate in political pow- 
 er ; they do not share the government until Florida 
 shall become a State. In tVie meantime, Florida con- 
 tinues to he a territory of the United States ; governed 
 hij virtue of that clause in ihe Constitution, which 
 empowers Congress " to make all needful rules and 
 regulations respecting the territory, or other proper- 
 ty belonging to the United States." 
 
 Perhpps the power of governing a territory belong- 
 ing to thf United States, which has not by becoming a 
 8tate acquired the means of self-government, may re- 
 sult necessarily from the facts, that it is not within 
 the jurisdiction of any particular State, and is 
 within the jurisdiction of the United States. The 
 right to govern may be the inevitable consequence of 
 the right to acquire territory. Whichever may be the 
 source whence the power is derived iAe possession of 
 it is unquestioned. 
 
 What do you Douglasites think of this 
 decision made by the Supreme Court of the 
 United States ip 1828, by an unanimous 
 Court? Do you think that Judges Marshall 
 and Story were not capable of deeiding a 
 question of Constitutional law ? We Repub- 
 licans say that Congress has the right to 
 exclude Slavery from the territories; and 
 to sustain us in that position we point you 
 to the legislation of the country for seven- 
 ty-fight years; to the North West ordinance 
 of 1787, by which our fathers excluded 
 Slavery from the territory of our own State 
 of Illinois, and kept it for us, their children, 
 an inheritance of freedom ; to the com- 
 promise of 1820, which excluded Slavery 
 from the young State of Iowa and the terri- 
 tory West,including Kansas and Nebraska, 
 that the "ruthless hand" of Judge Doug- 
 las "impared"; and to the Supreme Court 
 of the United States in the days of its pres- 
 tine glory. You declaim for popular sov- 
 ereignty, and to what can you point? You 
 
17 
 
 cannot place your finger upon a single law 
 in all the Statute books of America, up to 
 July 21st 1854, that will maintain you in 
 year position. Among all of the decisions 
 that have ever been rendered by the Su- 
 preme Court of the United States, you can 
 not find a single decision by which you 
 are sustained. Even the Dred Scott case, 
 to which you are so firmly bound by the 
 Wickliffe resolution, "crushes out" all idea 
 of popular sovereignty, and places tlie right 
 to hold slaves above and beyond every other 
 right of the people of America. How much 
 longer will you cling to that hollow mock- 
 ery ? 
 
 I now read from the case of LeGrand vs. 
 Darnall, decided in 1829, 2d Peters, 664. 
 This case came up from Maryland, on the 
 following facts : "Bennett Darnall, of Ann 
 Arundel County, State of Maryland, by 
 his will, dated August 4th 1810, devised to 
 hu son, Nicholas Darnall, the defendant in 
 this case,certain lands lying in the county 
 and State aforesaid. The mother of the 
 said Nicholas was the Slave of the testator, 
 and Nicholas was born a Slave to his fath- 
 er.''' You all know a slave follows the con- 
 dition of the mother. 
 
 LeGrand the White man, purchased of 
 Nicholas Darnall, the negro, the land de- 
 vised to him for which he gave the negro 
 his notes. When the notes became due 
 LeGrand would not pay, and the negro sued 
 him. LeGrand obtained an injunction, on 
 the ground that the Negro could not con- 
 vey real estate, (had "no rights which 
 a white man was bound to respect,") 
 but the courts of Maryland so far 
 favored the negro, that the injunction 
 was dissolved. LeGrand the White man, 
 appealed to the Supreme Court of the 
 United States ; and that Court constituted 
 precisely as it was one year before, in the 
 case I have just read you, with John Mar- 
 shall, and Joseph Story on the bench, by 
 an unanimous opinion, not a single judge 
 dissenting, in rendering the opinion of the 
 Court, use the following language; 
 
 The time ai the fre&dom of the appellee commenced 
 immediately after the death of the testator, when, ac- 
 cordinK to the evidence, he was about eleven years 
 old. Four respectable witnesses of the neighborhood 
 were examined. They all agree in their testimony 
 that Nicholas was well grown, healthy, and inteligent, 
 and of geod bodily and mental capacity ; that he and 
 his brother Henry could readily have feund employ- 
 ment, either as bouse servant boys, or on a farm, or 
 as apprintices ; and that they were able to work and 
 and gain a livelihood. The testator devised to each 
 of them real and personal estate to a considerable 
 amount. They had guardians appointed, were well 
 educated, and Nicholas is now living In atHnence Ex- 
 perience has proved that be was able to work, and 
 
 gain a sufficient maintainancc ar.d livelihood. No 
 donbt has even been entertained as to the fact by any 
 who know him. OF COURSE, hewaa capable in lata 
 to (tell and dispone of the wholt or part of his eataU), 
 and to execute the iiecesnary instruments of writitig 
 to convey a /sufficient title to the purchaser. 
 
 The Court ol appeaU of Maryland , in the ciige ot 
 Hale vs MuUin, decided, that a dici.se of prrypertj, 
 real or personal by a master to his slave, entitles the 
 slave to hia/reedoTn, hy iieceHnary iinplication,. This 
 Court entertains the name opinion. 
 
 Here we find the Supreme Court of the 
 United States deciding that a negro has 
 rights which a white man is bound to re- 
 spect — that when a wkite man buys prop- 
 erty of a negro in Maryland, and gives his 
 note, he must pay the note. More than 
 that, that the negro was entitled to hisjree- 
 dorn liy necessary iinplication, because his 
 master had devised to him real estate ; and 
 that he could hold and sell real estate, and 
 make a sufficient title therefor, and was, 
 withal "inteligenc and living in atfluence." 
 At that early day the Supreme Court of 
 the United States was willing to lend its 
 aid to assist a negro to collect a note that 
 was due to him by a white man. 
 
 There is one thing in this case of Le- 
 Grand vs. Darnall, that to me is a little 
 amusing. At that time, in 182!t, Roger 
 B. Taney was not a judge of the Supreme 
 Court of the Unittd States, but he was 
 practicing, as an attorney at law, in Mary- 
 land , and when this white man LeGrand, 
 was trying to cheat the negro Darnall, out 
 of the pay for his farm, Chief Justice Roger 
 B. Taney, was the attorney of Mr LeGrand. 
 (Laughter.) It is a fact — the book says, 
 "Mr Taney, for the appellant." So you see 
 that Mr. Taney himself, at that time, en- 
 tertained the opinion that a negro "could be 
 sued" in the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, for he sued him — Chief Justice 
 Taney sued a "nigger". (Laughter) our 
 fathers went to war upon the principle of 
 "no taxation without representation." Thac 
 maxim, however, has some exceptions. I 
 do not know of any exception to the legal 
 rule that the "liability" of any person to be 
 sued in a court, carries with it the corres- 
 ponding "privilege" of that person to sue in 
 that court. But Taney would reverse all 
 that. When he would sue a negro, he 
 would have the court open to him for that 
 purpose; but when a negro would bring a 
 suit, and that, too, to try the most import- 
 ant question that ever judicial tribunal, 
 passed upon — the question of Dred Scott's 
 liberty and the liberty of his children, Mr. 
 Taney meets him at the very threshold with 
 the declaration, "you cant bring a suit — 
 negroes have no rights which white men 
 are bound to respect." The United States 
 
!8 
 
 Supreme Court thought differently in 1829, 
 and in this case Mr. Roger B, Taney was 
 **cleancd out" by the negro. (Laughter and 
 applause.) 
 
 The next case I read is Groves et al vs 
 Slaughter, 15 Peters 449, decided by the 
 Supreme Court in 1841. This case was upon 
 the construction of Miss, constitution adopt- 
 ed in 1732, by which the introduction of 
 .slaves into that State for sale or merchan- 
 dise was prohibited after May 1st 1833. 
 Notwithstanding the prohibition, Slaughter 
 took slaves to Mississippi after that, and 
 sold them, taking notes for them, and this 
 i? a suit on the collection of the notes. — 
 Hknrv Clay, hs the attorney of Slaughter, 
 made an argument in this case, from which 
 I read the following paragraph : 
 
 In considering this question, it is necessary to look 
 lit the situation of the slaves *n Mississippi, carried 
 into the State after May, 1833, for sale or merchan- 
 dise. Are they free? If they were free, it would be 
 some consolation. But there is no freedom for those 
 persons in Mississippi ; and those who purchased them, 
 and seek now to escape from paying for them, and 
 against moral rectitude insist on their ownership, ac- 
 fjuired by a violation of the Constitution of Mississippi, 
 it would be gratifying ts those who love freedom, if 
 the negroes were free. And who does not love free- 
 dom ? 
 
 Such is the language used by Henry 
 Cl \y in the argument of a law case. Who 
 shall say that he did not love freedom Y — 
 f read from the opinion of the Court: 
 
 By the laws of certain States, slaves are treated as 
 property; and the Constitution of Mississi jpi prohib- 
 !t« their being brought into that State by citizens of 
 other States, for sale, or as merchandise. Merchan- 
 Oise is a comprehensive term, and may include every 
 article of traffic, whether foreign or domestic, which 
 is properly embraced by a commercial regulation. 
 But if slaves are considered in f<07ne of the t^tates as 
 Merchandise, that cannot divest them of the leading 
 and controling qunlity of PERSONS hy which they 
 are dexiff noted in the ConMitv.tion. The character 
 of property is given them by the local law. This 
 law is respected, and all rights under it are protectei 
 *>y the federal authorities ; btit the Conntitution acts 
 upon slaven as PERSONS and JfO T as property. 
 
 The power over slavery belongs to the STATES 
 respectively. It is local in its character, and in its 
 effects. 
 
 And Roger B. Taney, who at that time 
 was on the bench, in delivering a seperate 
 opinion in this case, on page 508, says : 
 
 In my judgement, the power over this subject is 
 EXCLUSIVELY with the several States. 
 
 Even judge Taney did not at that time 
 believe that the Constitution carried Slavery 
 anywhere — he thought the power over the 
 subject was '■'' excluidrely 'with iJie several 
 States.^'' Slavery being a matter for the 
 States to regulate, it can only exist by a 
 State law. State laws can have no force 
 outside of the State which make them. If 
 the State of Maryland by a law makes lot- 
 teries legal in that State, whoever would 
 have a lottery and be protected by that law, 
 must stay in the State of Maryland — he 
 
 cariHot go to any other State, or io any ter- 
 ritory, or anywhere out of Maryland with 
 his lottery. If the State of Virginia shall 
 by a law, aay that in that State negroes 
 may be held in slavery, he who would hold 
 a slave, and be protected by that law, must 
 stay in the State of Virginia — he cannot go 
 into any other state, or into a territory, or 
 anywhere out of Virginia. The State law 
 of Virginia, by which he holds his Slave, 
 cannot be extended beyond the limits of 
 that state. 
 
 I have one more case to read — 16th Pe- 
 ters, 538 — Prigg vs. The Commonwealth 
 ol Pennsylvania. Judge Story, who deliv- 
 ered the opinion of the Court, says : 
 
 By the general law of nations, no nation is bound 
 to recognise the state of slavery, as to foreign slav es 
 found within its territorial dominions, when it is in op- 
 position to its own policy and institutions, in favor of 
 '.he. subjects of other nations where slavery is recog- 
 nised, If it does it, it is as a matter of courtesy, and 
 not as a matter of international right. The state of 
 slavery is deemed to be a MERE MUNICIPIAL REG- 
 ULATION, founded upon and limited to the range of 
 the territorial laws. This was fully recognised in Som- 
 erseit's case, Lofft's Rep. 1 ; which was decided before 
 the American revolution. 
 
 Having read to you so many decisions of 
 both the supreme courts of different states, 
 and of the supreme court of the United 
 States, some of them rendered soon after 
 the adoption of the Constitution, and 
 various acts of Congress, all consistent with 
 one another, and all of them uniformly in 
 favor of liberty, let me ask any Democrat 
 here, " What do you candidly think about 
 this record? Were the fathers all wron^? 
 Were none of them capable of putting a 
 proper construction upon the Constitution 
 of the United States — they who themselves 
 had made it ? And since our fathers have 
 so thought and acted for seventy-eight 
 years, had we not better let their construc- 
 tion of the Constitution stand, than to turn 
 and twist it into favoring slavery ? Let me 
 read you what Judge Stort says in this 
 same case, page 621 : 
 
 Under such circumstances, if the question were one 
 of doubtful construction, such long acquiescense in it, 
 such cotemporaneous expositions it it, and such eav 
 tensive and uniform recognition of its validity, 
 would in eur judgment entitle the question to be con- 
 sidered at rest ; unless Indeed the interpretation of 
 the Constitution is to be delivered over to intermina- 
 ble doubt throughout the whole progress of legislation 
 and ef national operation. Congress, the Executive, 
 and the Judiciary, have, upon various occasions acted 
 upon this, as a sound and reasonable doctrine. 
 
 I am now done reading authorities. I 
 know, that in speaking before a popular au- 
 dience, it is very annoying and disagreea- 
 ble for a speaker to be compelled to inter- 
 rupt the flow of his discourse by dull and 
 proFy readings ; and more especially so, 
 when his readings are drawn from dry stat- 
 
ij) 
 
 utes and legaJ decisions , ancl I fear that I 
 have already presumed too much upon your 
 indulgence and wearied you. I have en- 
 deavored, in each instance, to read just as 
 little as I could, and convey the meaning I 
 desired. I apprehend that what I have 
 read to you has a direct bearing upon the 
 issues of this political campaign. And now 
 that it is done, lam glad of it ; for, perhaps 
 no one else could have been found, willing, 
 at the risk of being thought dull and prosy, 
 to have gone searching around among the 
 law books, and dished up to you what I have 
 been dishing up. 1 have shown to you by 
 the Nebraska Bill, Dred Scott decision, and 
 Democratic platforms, that both wings of 
 the Democratic party are pledged to a sys- 
 tem of slavery e.\tension, which has already 
 judicially covered the vast territorial do- 
 main of this Republic with the black pall 
 of slavery, and when carried out to its log- 
 ical conclusions, to that extent to which the 
 Democratic party, are pledged to carry 
 it, will spread the terrible curse of human 
 bondage, over every foot of soil, both State 
 and terrritorial, over which the Hag of our 
 common country waves ; for I defy any man 
 upon the plain principles of constitutional 
 construction, upon the principles of com- 
 mon sense, of reason, and of logic, to begin 
 by admitting the justice and binding force 
 of the Dred Scott decision — that slavery is 
 recognized by the Constitution, and that 
 the Constitution acts upon that unfortunate 
 class of God's children as pro'perty merely^ 
 and not as persons, and then demonstrate 
 the authority of any State in this Union 
 to set aside and abrogate that Constitution, 
 and demonstrate by what authority the 
 States of New York, Pennsylvania, and 
 Massachusetts, have purged themselves of 
 that relic of barbarism. It cannot be done. 
 It is only by adopting the old time honored 
 construction that our fathers gave it, that 
 the Constitution acts upon the negro race 
 (IS persoi^s^ leaving the question of slavery 
 to be determined by the State laws — hold- 
 ing that nothing can be permitted to sup- 
 port slavery but positive State law — that 
 any State has a right to abolish it. I have 
 shown you, too, I trust, that the supreme 
 court, and both wings of the Democratic 
 party, in adopting the new dogma that the 
 Constitution, perse, carries slavery into the 
 territories, they have been compelled wholly 
 to cut loose from the policy of the fathers. 
 I now put the question fairly to any 
 Democrat here, which do love best, freedom 
 or slavery ? Which do yoa prefer should 
 be the ruling idea of our nation ? Which 
 
 construction do you wish should be placed 
 upon the Constitution of our country, that 
 which our fathers have given it for seventy 
 eight years in favor of freedom, or that 
 which the slave oligarchy of the south, 
 when they had obtained a ruling majority 
 of your party, gave it, in favor of slavery ? 
 Which V If you love liberty, if your hearts 
 are throbbing with a genuine love of free- 
 dom, come, join the RcpubHcan ranks, and 
 help us to swell liberty's acclaim — come, 
 you shall be welcome here, and you sha:l 
 be fortified in your position by the history 
 of this Republic, in an unbroken line, from 
 1776 up to 1854. (Applause.) ^ 
 
 Sometimes Democrats say to me : "I ara 
 just as much opposed to the Dred Scott 
 Decision as you are — but the Court has 
 made the decision, and I must now abide 
 by it." Why did not Judge Taney abide 
 by the decisions of John Marshall and 
 Joseph Story ? If he could overrule their 
 decisions, sustained as they are by every 
 decision ever made by any court of a civ- 
 ilized people; — by all the history of this Re- 
 pubHc up to 1854 — founded in the immu- 
 table principles of truth, and " leaning in 
 favor of life and liberty," how happens it 
 that whatever Taney may ^ay, must stand 
 as " eternal as the rock-ribbed hills," even 
 when Taney's decision has not a single 
 precedent in all the jurisprudence of the 
 world, and is falsified by every fact of his- 
 tory ? Do you not see where a blind 
 adhesion to anything the court may say 
 will lead you ? Suppose Taney should de- 
 cide that all laboring white men should be 
 sold into slavery. Would you " abide " by 
 that decision too ? Such a decission would 
 have just as much foundation in truth as 
 the Dred Scott decision has. Decisions 
 were at one time rendered by the infamous 
 court of Star Chamber, m England, and the 
 blood of the innocent Lord Stafibrd was 
 shed undei a judicial decision. " The King 
 can do no wrong " is a maxim of tyranny, 
 but what is the difference between it and 
 " the court can do no wrong? " You point 
 me to one decision, and say, " here, abide 
 by this." I point you to an unbroken line 
 of decisions, all one way, during the whole 
 history of our Republic, rendered by Mar- 
 shall and Story, and say, "this ie the 
 law, T will abide by these." 
 
 It may be uniiccessary before this au- 
 dience for me to say, that in this contest 1 
 am unalterably attached to the principles 
 of liberty and unalterably opposed to sla- 
 very ; and ranging myself, not only with 
 the fathers of this F.epubUc, bat with the 
 
20 
 
 great and good of all time, I am ready to 
 cry out against human bondage in any and 
 • n every form. I hate slavery, and lean 
 adept the language of George Washington, 
 the father of his country, and say, " that 
 there is not a man living who wishes more 
 sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted 
 for the abolition of it-," and with John 
 iiandolph, who said in Congress, in the ear- 
 lier and better days of this republic, " Sir, 
 i envy neither the heart nor the head of 
 that man from the north, who rises here to 
 defend slavery from principle," and I be- 
 lieve with James Mod ""oe, and can adopt 
 i^i* language and say, " we have found that 
 this evil has preyed upon the very vitals of 
 this Union, and been prejudicial to all of 
 the States in which it has existed ; " and 
 with George W. Summers, of Virginia, 
 " that the evils of slavery cannot be enu 
 merated ; " and with Judge Gaston, of 
 North Carolina, *' that slavery impairs our 
 strength as a community, and poisons our 
 rroralsat the fountain head;" and with 
 IjUther Martin, an other Virginian of the 
 oiden time, that " slavery is inconsistent 
 with the genius of Republicanism — it les- 
 sens the sense of the equal rights of man- 
 Kind, and habituates us to tyranny and op- 
 pression;" and with Lord Mansfield, that 
 " slavery is so odious that nothing can sup- 
 port it but positive law •, " and with the 
 r hilosopher Plato, " slavery is a system of 
 the most complete injustice;" and with 
 Socrates, that " slavery is a system of out- 
 rage and robbery;"and with LordBrougham, 
 " while men despise fraud, and loathe 
 rapine and blood, they will reject, with in- 
 dignation, the wild and guilty phantasy 
 that man can hold property in man ; " and 
 with Burke, the great English Statesman, 
 that " slavery is a state so improper, so de- 
 grading, so ruinous to the feelings and 
 capacities of human nature, that it ought 
 not to be sutTered to exist ; " and with Dr. 
 Johnson, that " no man is by nature the 
 property of another ; " and with Baron 
 Von Humboldt, " that slavery is a system 
 which is not only opposed to all of the 
 principles of morality, but, as it appears to 
 cne is pregnant with appalling and inevi- 
 table danger to the Republic ; " and I be- 
 Heve with that eminent writer Locke, " ev- 
 ery man has a property in his own person ; 
 this nobody has a right to but himself ; " 
 and with John Jay, that eminent Judge, of 
 the purest patriotism and deepest erudi- 
 tion, one of the fathers of our Republic, 
 " slavery ought not to be introduced or 
 permitted in any of the new States; " and 
 
 with John Quincy Adams, the " old man 
 eloquent," whose language uttered long ago 
 has a special significance when we remem - 
 ber that slav'ery is now defended by the 
 Southern wing of the Democracy on bible 
 ground, he said "it perverts human rea- 
 son, and induces men endowed with logical 
 powers to maintain that slavery is sanc- 
 tioned by the christian religion ; " and with 
 Alexander Hamilton, "natural liberty is 
 the gift of the beneficent Creator of the 
 whole human race ; " and with Benj. 
 Franklin, " slavery is an atrocious abase- 
 ment of human nature ; " and with Owen 
 Lovejoy in his late speech, "if you fuse to- 
 gether polygamy, and everything that is 
 bad, the resultant amalgam is slavery ; " and 
 with Beattie, " that slavery is detrimental 
 to virtue and industry ; " I believe, too, 
 with Daniel Webster, and in his language 
 say, " I never would consent, and never 
 have consented, that there should be one 
 foot of slave territory beyond what the old 
 thirteen States had at the formation of the 
 Union, never, never ; " (applause,) and I 
 believe, too, with Henry Clay, and mark 
 it, you old line Whigs, you who have fol- 
 lowed the leadership of the gallant Harry 
 of the west ; you, who in 1844, with Clay 
 and Frelinghusysen for your standard 
 bearers, here in Illinois, made a most glo- 
 rious fight against the Democracy then lead 
 by Stephen A. Douglas, and suffered de- 
 feat with Clay ; who heard the vitupera- 
 tion and slanders then heaped upon the 
 head of your chosen and beloved leader, 
 by this same man Douglas, who is now 
 perambulating New England, shedding 
 crocodile tears over the grave of the sage 
 of Ashland, and singing disgusting and ful- 
 some peans to his memory; Clay, who 
 never wrote a letter declaring he would ac- 
 cept the nomination of his party only upon 
 certain conditions, and then when the Con- 
 vention had met, telegraphing that he 
 would accept the nomination even with the 
 odious Wickliffe Resolution that his own 
 party organs dare not publish ; who never 
 was disgraced by his party, by being dis- 
 placed from the chairmanship of a commit- 
 tee that he had held for years, and who, if 
 he had been, would never have went cring- 
 ing back into the caucuses of a party that 
 had thus disgraced him — your Clay never 
 did any of these mean things, but in the 
 proud consciousness of his manhood de- 
 clared he would "rather be right than be 
 President." (Applause.) Could you have 
 seen Henry Clay in his old age, full of hon- 
 ors as he was, coming out of his retirement 
 
21 
 
 at Ashland and making a pilgrimage to 
 Washington in 1850, to cast the oil of tem- 
 perate debate upon the turbulent agitation 
 there— the great Pacificator; — could you 
 have watched his course through all that 
 struggle — his action on the celebrated com- 
 mittee of thirteen ; — could you have been 
 there, in Washington, and saw him as he 
 rose in Congress, lifting his tall form to its 
 full height — could you have heard the 
 thrilling, tremulous earnestness of that old 
 man's silvery voice, as he uttered those 
 truthful burning words, which, with Ben- 
 ton, I can say, " I could have wished that I 
 had spoken those same words. I speak 
 them now, telling you they were his, and 
 adopting them as my own," — he said " so 
 long as God allows the vital current to flow 
 through my veins, I will never, never, nev- 
 er, by word or thought, by mind or will, 
 aid in submitting one rood of free territory 
 to the curse of human bondage ; " (ap- 
 plause,) here will I found my faith, and if 
 these great and good men vere right, then 
 am I right ; here will I build my house, 
 without fear that when the wind and the 
 rains shall beat upon that house it will fall, 
 for it will be founded upon the " Rock of 
 Ages " — firmly rooted in the principles of 
 immutable and eternal truth. 
 
 My lespects are due to the ladies here, 
 who have enlivened this occasion with their 
 presence, and who have so heroically re- 
 mained, listening to my dry readings from 
 these musty law books. I always had a 
 sort of "liking " for the ladies, and I can- 
 not shake it off even in political matters ; 
 and I should like on this occasion to say 
 something entertaining to you, but I dare 
 not undertake it, I am always so awk- 
 ward and bungling whenever I undertake 
 to be complimentary and gallant. I will, 
 however, venture to remark that the ladies 
 have made this meeting a much pleasanter 
 one than it would have been without their 
 presence ; and venture a hope that during 
 this canvass our meetings may many times 
 be enlivened and cheered by the light of 
 their beautiful eyes, and many a blushing 
 young orator made happy by the clapping 
 of their delicate hands, and why not — why 
 should woman not be interested in the 
 questions we discuss ? They are deep and 
 broad questions, as deep and broad as 
 man's destiny is — and when we speak of 
 man's destiny, do we not always speak of 
 it in that broad, biblical sense, that " em- 
 braces" woman ? Where is the woman 
 that would be willing to admit that her 
 sex is excluded from that glorious old 
 
 declaration that "all men are created equal" 
 &c., and that because she is a woman, she 
 should be excluded from those "self evi- 
 dent " privileges of " life, liberty," and es- 
 pecially the " pursuit of happiness." — 
 (Laughter.) A few days ago I was talking 
 to a Democrat about this Dred Scott decis- 
 sion, and putting on considerable dignity, 
 he came at me with this poser : " Why, 
 you might as well claim that woman are 
 citizens, as to claim that negroes may be." 
 I coi'fess that I was somewhat surprised to 
 find even the " progressive democratic par- 
 ty " getting along quite so fast, and I sup- 
 pose that the next decision that we shall get 
 from the Supreme Court will be that " wo- 
 man have no rights which white men are 
 bound to respect." (Laughter.) Ladies, 
 I have pleasure this evening in assuring 
 you that the Constitution of our country 
 regards you as " persons," and that you 
 are citizens, known to our laws, and have 
 rights which everybody are "bound to le- 
 spect." The courts of our country are yet 
 open to you, to bring suits, if you will, for 
 instance, for breach of promise, (laughter,) 
 but I hope none of you will be suing 
 me for that, (renewed laughter,) howev- 
 er, if any of you want to sue any body 
 else, I will gladly beat your service, as at- 
 torney, (laughter) and if I should not be 
 successful, and the " gay deceiver" should 
 happen to reside in another State, I will 
 take your case up to the Supreme Court, 
 and see what sort of a decision old Taney 
 would make. (Laughter and applause.) 
 
 My brother Wide Awakes, a word to you. 
 To older men I can only address myself in 
 the inexorable logic of the facts of history, 
 but to you, young men, of whom I am, and 
 with whom I am in sympathy, may I not 
 offer some words of encouragement. The 
 battle that we are waging turns upon no 
 party measures ; we are battling upon 
 PRINCIPLE — upon the fundemental prin- 
 ciples of free government itself. And upon 
 the young men of this nation, the burden 
 of the struggle must fall ; as it did in the 
 revolutionary times. Jefferson was a young 
 man when he drafted the Declaration of 
 American Independence — Washington was 
 a young man when he was first Command- 
 er-in-Cbief of the Continental army. — 
 Young men, let us be earnest and faithful, 
 our lamps " trimed and burning " for 
 "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." 
 When we have placed "Honest Old Abe" 
 in the Presidential chair, as we will, our 
 task will not be done ; for which time shall 
 last there must be advocates for Truth, 
 
22 
 
 there must be laborers for the eternal prin- 
 ciples of Right and Jdstick. When the 
 years shall have rolled away — when the 
 last Wide Awake of our band, after a ripe 
 old age, and full of honors, as I trust, stark 
 and cold in death, is borne upon his bier to 
 " God's Acre ; " after the clods of the val- 
 ley have rattled upon his cofBn ; after the 
 defacing hand of Time has removed every 
 memorial of his last resting place, and the 
 white daisies are blossoming, and the green 
 sward growing smooth above his grave, the 
 fundamental principles for which we are 
 contending in this canvass, will be just as 
 truthful, and just as vital as now. Let us 
 " hang our banners on the outward walls " 
 — " gird on our armor," and " press for- 
 ward the column " — " enlisted for life ! " — 
 In such a contest, a contest upon principle, 
 it matters very little who our leaders aie ; 
 and yet, young men, we have been highly 
 complimented in the choosing of Abraham 
 Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin as our 
 standard bearers — free labor and individual 
 effort have been honored. It was one of the 
 features of the law, in the ancient Repub- 
 lic of Athens, that all children born were 
 the children of the Republic, and at a very 
 young and tender age they were taken out 
 of the care of their natural parents, and 
 placed under the control of the government 
 at large. Their education and training was 
 wholly attended to by the government, and 
 at its expense. Thus it happened that 
 there was no aristocracy in Athens. All 
 children born set out in the race of life up- 
 on an equal footing. Lycurgus, the old 
 Athenian law giver, never caught from the 
 inspirations of the Delphic Oracle a more 
 beautiful thought. If, in this Republican 
 form of government of ours there be one 
 feature that shines with a brighter lustre 
 than another, it is that feature of equality 
 which allows the humblest boy of all our 
 land to attain to the highest and most hon- 
 ored position. Lincoln and Hamlin both 
 started poor ; their biographers will write 
 of either of them, as is written of the most 
 honored names in history, " he was born ef 
 humble, but honest parents." Lincoln was 
 a farmers son, a backwoodsman, a rail-maul- 
 er, a flat-boatman, a school teacher, a sur- 
 veyor, and a lawyer. In Lincoln and Ham- 
 lin two more bright stars are added to the 
 glorious galaxy of self-made men. George 
 Washington was a surveyor ; Daniel Web- 
 ster a farmers son, and a coppying clerk in 
 a county clerks office ; Henry Clay — gal- 
 lant Henry of the West, wil! alwaye be 
 
 best known as the *'Mili boy of the Slash- 
 es; " when the "Wagon Boy " is name<i, 
 the venerable and Honorable Thomas Cor- 
 win, of Ohio, is always recognized ; Ben 
 Franklin was a tallow chandlers son, and a 
 " typo ; " Patrick Henry and Andrew Jack- 
 son fought their own way upward — so has 
 Lincoln. On the scroll of fame his name 
 will blaze for-ever bright by the side of 
 theirs. Boys, let us sustain Abraham Lin- 
 coln, " lock-step, shoulder to shoulder, and 
 breast to back." [Applause.] Already we 
 hear coming up from the South an ac- 
 knowledgment of his success, mingled with 
 mutterings and threats of disunion. Let 
 us not be frightened by it Let us teach 
 these men, that we have determined, in 
 dead-earnest, to wrest this government from 
 the hands of corrupt conspirators, and place 
 an *' honest man " in the presidential chair, 
 who will administer this government on the 
 principles of our fathers. Let the word go 
 back to them, shouted by the stentorian 
 voices of millions of freemen, for it is time 
 that they should know it, that when, in a 
 constitutional and proper way, we have 
 elected Abraham Lincoln, he shall be in- 
 augurated. I do not believe that there will 
 be any trouble — I do most sincerely hope 
 that there may not be. I do not believe 
 that there are many people in the south 
 willing to accept of the leadership of a Keitt, 
 and in the event of the election of Lincoln 
 make an effort to " rend this Union from 
 turret to foundation Stone." I do not be- 
 lieve that many would be found there wil- 
 ling to accept of the advice of Governor 
 Wise, and in the event of the election of a 
 Republican president, '* march up to the 
 capital, take possession of the archives of 
 government, and prevent his inauguration." 
 I do not believe that the South have already 
 "sent agents to Europe to make an argu- 
 ment for a Southern Confederacy." I do not 
 believe that William L. Yancey has already 
 " organized a secret order m the South, 
 that in the event of the election of Lincoln 
 are sworn to dissolve this Union." I do 
 believe that all these are only put forward 
 as electioneering schemes to frighten us oat 
 of our votes. But I tell you, Wide Awakes, 
 if they undertake to play a game of that 
 kind, if they will not listen to the teachings 
 of the fathers, nor the voice of reason, we 
 must change our lamps for Sharpe's rifiles, 
 and to what we have already said, we must 
 add the eloquent language of gunpowder, 
 and the inexorable convincing argument of 
 lead. [Applaus*.] 
 
JE3 lAT 
 
 2^» 
 
 Then what is necessary for the nation- 
 alization of slavery ? It is simply the next 
 Dred Scott decision. It is merely for the 
 Supreme Court to decide that no State un- 
 der the Constitution can exclude it, just as 
 they have already decided that under the 
 Constitution neither Congress nor the Ter- 
 ritorial Legislature can do it. When that 
 is decided and acquiesced in, the whole 
 thing is done. This being true, and this 
 being the way, as I think, that slavery is 
 10 be made national, let us consider what 
 Judge Douglas is doing every day to that 
 end. In the first place, let us see what in- 
 fluence he is exerting on public sentiment. 
 In this and like c immunities, public senti- 
 ment is everything. With public senti- 
 ment, 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 and decisions possible 
 or impossible to be executed. This must 
 be borne in mind, as also the additional 
 fact that Judge Douglas is a man of vast 
 influence, so great that it is enough for 
 many men to profess to believe anything, 
 when they once find out that Judge Doug- 
 las professes to believe it. Consider also 
 the attitude he occupies at the head of a 
 large party — a party which he claims has a 
 majority of all the voters in the country. — 
 This man sticks to a decision which forbids 
 the people of a Territory from excluding 
 slavery, and he does so not because he says 
 it is right in itself — he does not give any 
 opinion on that — but because it has been 
 decided by the court, and being decided by 
 the court, he is, and you are bound to take 
 it in your political action as law — not that 
 he judges at all of its merits, but because a 
 decision of the court is to him a " TTitis 
 saith the Lord.^' He places it on that 
 ground alone, and you will bear in mind 
 that, thus committing himself unreservedly 
 to this decision, commits him to the next 
 owe just as firmly as to this. He did not 
 commit himself on account of the merit or 
 demerit of the decision, but it is a TTius 
 saith the Loi'd,. The next decision, as much 
 as this, will be a Thiis saith the Lord. — 
 There is nothing that can divert or turn 
 him away from this decision. It is nothing 
 that I point out to him that his great pro- 
 totype, Gen. Jackson, did not believe in 
 the binding force of decisions. It is noth- 
 ing to him that Jefferson did not so believe. 
 I have said that I hare often heard him 
 
 approve of Jackson's course in disregarding 
 the decision of the Supreme Court pro- 
 nouncing a National Bank constitutional. — 
 He says, I did not hear him say so. He 
 denies the accuracy of my recollection. I 
 say he ought to know better (han I, but I 
 will make no question about this thing, 
 though it still seems to me that I heard 
 him say it twenty times. I will tell him 
 though, that he now claims to stand on the 
 Cincinnati platform, which affirms that 
 Congress cannot charter a bank. And 1 
 remind him of another piece of history on 
 the question of respectforjudicial decisions, 
 and it is a piece of Illinois history, belong- 
 ing to a time when the large party to which 
 Judge Douglas belonged, were displeased 
 with a decision of the Supreme Court of Il- 
 linois, because they had decided that a 
 Governor could not remove a Secretary of 
 State. You will find the whole story in 
 Ford's History of Illinois, and I know that 
 Judge Douglas will not deny that he was 
 then in favor of overslaughing that decis- 
 ion by the mode of adding five new Judges, 
 so as to vote down th« four old ones. Not 
 only so, but it ended in the Judge's sitting 
 down on that very bench as one of the five 
 new Judges to break dotcn the four old ones. 
 It was in this way precisely that he got his 
 title of Judge. Now, when the Judge tells 
 me that men appointed conditionally to sit 
 as members of a court, will have to be 
 catechised beforehand upon some subject, 
 I say, "You know. Judge; you have tried 
 it." When he says a court of this kind 
 will loose the confidence of all men, will 
 be prostituted and disgraced by such a pro- 
 ceeding, I say, " You know best. Judge , 
 you have been through the mill." But I 
 cannot shake Judge Douglas' teeth loose 
 from the Dred Scott decision. Like some 
 obstinate animal (I mean no disrespect,) 
 that will hang on when he has once got his 
 teeth fixed ; you may cut off a leg, or 
 you may tear away an arm, still he will not 
 relax his hold. And so I may point out to 
 the Judge, and say that he is bespattered 
 all over, from the beginning of his polit- 
 ical life to the present time, with attacks 
 upon judicial decisions — I may cut off limb 
 after limb of his public record, and strive 
 to wrench him from a single dictum of the 
 court — yet I cannot divert him from it. — 
 He hangs, to the last, to the Dred Scott de- 
 cision. These things show there is a pur- 
 pose strong as death and eternity for which 
 he adheres to this decision, and for which 
 
24 
 
 he will adhere to all other decisions of the 
 same court — Abraham Lincolrts Speech, in 
 reply to Judge Douglas at Ottaica, Aug. 
 21, 186^. r> (i 
 
 If the opinion of the Supreme Ccurt 
 covers the whole ground of this act it ought 
 not to control the Co-ordinate authority of 
 this government. The Congress, the Exe- 
 cutive and the Court must each for itself 
 be guided by its own opinion of the Con- 
 stitution. Each public officer who takes an 
 oath to support the Constitution, swears 
 that he will support it as he understands it, 
 and not as it is understood by others. It 
 is as much the duty of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives of the Senate and of the Presi- 
 dent to decide upon the constitutionality of 
 any bill or resolution which may be pre- 
 sented to them for passage or approval, as 
 it is of the supreme judges when it may be 
 brought before them for judicial decision. 
 THE AUTHORITY OF THE SUPREME 
 COURT MUST NOT THEREFORE BE 
 PERMITTED TO CONTROL THE CON- 
 GRESS OR THE EXECUTIVE.— ^m^/ew 
 Jackso7i. 
 
 YOU SEEM TO CONSIDER THE 
 JUDGES AS THE ULTIMATE ARBI- 
 TERS OF ALL CONSTITUTIONAL 
 QUESTIONS, A VERY DANGEROUS 
 DOCTRINE INDEED, AND ONE WHICH 
 WOULD PLACE US UNDER THE DES- 
 POTISM OF AN OLIGARCHY. OUR 
 JUDGES ARE AS HONEST AS OTHER 
 MEN, AND NOT MORE SO, THEY HAVE 
 WITH OTHERS THE SAME PASSIONS 
 FOR PARTY, FOR POWER AND THE 
 PRIVILEGE OF THEIR CORPS. THE 
 JUDICIARY OP THE UNITED STATES 
 IS THE SUBTILE CORPS OF SAPPERS 
 AND MINERS, CONSTANTLY WORK- 
 ING UNDER GROUND TO UNDERMINE 
 THE FOUNDATION OF OUR CONFED- 
 ERATED FABRIC— Thomas Jefferson. 
 
 History is philosophy teaching by exam- 
 ple. From what judges have attempted and 
 have done in times past, and in England, we 
 may draw some pretty shrewd conclusions as 
 to what, if unchecked, they may attempt, 
 and may do, in times present, and in Amer- 
 ica. Nor let any man say that the following 
 pages present a collection of judicial por- 
 traits distorted and caricatured to a^we an 
 occasion. They have been borrowed, word 
 for word, from the Lives of the Chief Jus- 
 ices and the Chancellors of England, by 
 Lord Campell, himself a lawyer and a 
 judge, and though a liberal-minded and 
 free spoken man, by no means without 
 
 quite a sufficient share of the esprit du 
 corps of the profession. Derived from such 
 a source, not only may the facts stated in 
 the following be relied upon, but the ex- 
 pressions of opinion upon points of law are 
 entitled to all the weight of high profes- 
 sional authority. 
 
 Nor let it be sn,id that these biographies 
 relate to ancient times, and can have no 
 parallelism, or but little, to the present state 
 of affairs among us here in America. The 
 times which they include are the times of 
 the the struggle in Great Britain hetween 
 the ideas of free government and attempts 
 at the establishment of despotism; and that 
 is precisely the one now going on among us 
 here in Amiricu, with this sole difference, 
 that over the water, among our Britfsh fore- 
 fathers, it was the despotism of a monarch 
 that was sought to be established ; here in 
 America, the despotism of some two hun- 
 dred petty tyrants, more or less, in the 
 shape of so many slaveholders, who, not 
 content with lording it over their several 
 plantations, are now attempting, by com- 
 bination among themselves, and by the aid 
 of northern tools and mercenaries, such as 
 despots always find, to lord it over the 
 Union, and to establish the policy of slave- 
 holding as that of the nation. In Great 
 Britain, the struggle between despotism and 
 free institutions closed with the revolution 
 of 1688, with which these biographies ter- 
 minate. Since that time the politics of 
 that country have consisted of hardly more 
 than of jostlings between the Ins and the 
 Outs, with no very material variance be- 
 tween them in their social ideas. Among 
 us the great struggle between slaveholding 
 despotism and republican equality has but 
 lately come to a head, and yet remains un- 
 determined. It exhibits, especially in the 
 conduct of the courts and the lawyers, 
 many parallels to the similar struggle for- 
 merly carried on in Great Britain. That 
 struggle terminated at last with the deposi- 
 tion and banishment of the Stuart family, 
 and the reestablishment in full vigor of the 
 ancient liberties of England, as embodied 
 in the Bill of Eights. And so may ours 
 terminate, in the reduction ef those who, 
 not content to be brethren seek to be mas- 
 ters, to the republican level of equal and 
 common citizenship, and in the reestablish- 
 ment of emancipation, freedom, and the 
 Rights of Man proclaimed in our Declara- 
 tion of Independence, as the national and 
 eternal policy of these United States ! — In- 
 troduction to Lives of Atrocipvs Judges. 
 
 §4 
 

 
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