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sees that this wealth and strength and greatness are to be acquired by human labor, guided by human intelligence and human purpose. Every man knows that the slave, even if he be a white man, will have neither the strength, nor the intelligence, nor the virtue, nor even the purpose to create wealth; for the slave has a simple line of interest before him-it is to effect the least and consume the most. But I seem to myself to have fallen below the dignity and greatness of this question, in discussing a proposition whether free labor or slave labor is more expedient, or more necessary. Let me rise once more, and remind you that we are building a new and great empire; not building it as modern Rome and Paris and Naples stand, upon the ruins and over the graves of tenfold greater multitudes of men than those who now occupy their sites; but upon a soil where we are the first possessors and the first architects. The tomb and the catacomb in Rome and Paris and Naples are filled with relics and implements of human torture and bondage, showing the ignorance and barbarity of their former occupants. Let us, on the other hand, while we build up an empire, take care that we leave no monument or relic in our graves, and no trace in our history, to prove that we were false to the great interests of humanity. Human nature is entitled to a home on this earth somewhere. Where else shall it be if it be not here? Human nature is entitled, among all the nations of the earth, to have a nation that will truly represent, defend and vindicate it. What other nation shall it be, if it be not ours?

People of Illinois! People of the great west! You are all youthful, vigorous, generous. Your states are youthful, vigorous and virtuous. The destinies of our country, the hopes of mankind, the hopes of humanity rest upon you. Ascend, I pray, I conjure you, to the dignity of that high responsibility! Thus acting, you will have peace and harmony and happiness in your future years. The world, looking on, will applaud you, and future generations in all ages and in all regions will rise up and call you blessed.

THE REPUBLICAN POLICY AND THE ONE IDEA.

DUBUQUE, SEPTEMBER 21, 1860.

I PROPOSE to speak to you on this occasion of what concerns us all; a great political question which is to be the subject of decision by the American people in the coming canvass. The policy of the federal government for forty years has been to extend and fortify African slave labor in the United States.

Many who have maintained the administration and the party who have carried out this policy, have been unconscious, doubtless, of the nature of the policy they maintained. But it is not a subject of dispute or cavil what has been the policy of the government of the country for forty years. I will give but one illustration. No man in the nation would have objected or could have objected to the admission of Texas into the Federal Union, provided it had been a free state. No man who objected could have objected but for the reason that she was not a slave state. When the question of annexing Texas tried all the existing parties, and puzzled, bewildered and confounded the statesmen of the country, the question was finally decided, in a short and simple way, by the declaration of the administration of John Tyler, made by Mr. Calhoun, his secretary of state, that Texas must be annexed because it was a slaveholding country —it must be annexed with the condition of subdividing it into four slave states. Texas must be annexed for the purpose of fortifying and defending the institution of slavery in the United States. This one single fact upon which the parties joined issue, is conclusive.

Now, it is our purpose to reverse this policy. Our policy, stated as simply as I have stated that of our adversaries, is, to circumscribe slavery, and to fortify and extend free labor or freedom. Many preliminary objections are raised by those among you and us, who are not prepared to go with us to the acceptance of this issue. They say

that they are tired of a hobby and of men of one idea; that the country is too great a country, and has too many interests to be occupied with one idea alone; besides that it is repulsive, offensive, disgusting to have "this eternal negro question" forever forced upon their consideration when they desire to think of white men and what belongs to them only. It is well, perhaps, to remove these preliminary objections before we go into an argument.

Granting for a moment that there is wisdom in the objection to this eternal negro question, pray, let us ask, who raised, who has kept up this eternal negro question?

The negro question was put at rest in 1787 by the fathers of the. republic, and it slept, leaving only for moralists and humanitarians the question of emancipation, a question within the states, and by no means a federal question. Who lifted it up from the states into the area of federal politics? Who but the slaveholders, in 1820? They demanded that not only Missouri should be admitted as a slave state, located within the Louisiana purchase, but that slavery should be declared forever, and even that, without declaration of law, it was forever established and should prevail until the end of time, in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and in every foot of the then newly acquired domain of the United States? It was the slaveholding power which raised the negro question, and it was the democratic party which made an alliance with that power, and which, in the north and in congress, raised this very offensive legislation about negroes, instead of legislation about white men.

The question was put at rest by the compromise of 1820, when, God be praised, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska were saved for freedom, and only Arkansas and Missouri, out of the Louisiana purchase, surrendered to slavery. It slept again for fifteen or twenty years, and then the negro question was again introduced into the councils of the federal government-and by whom? By the slave power, when it said that "since you have taken Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska, and left us only Missouri, Arkansas and Florida, out of our newly acquired possessions, you must now go on and annex Texas, so that we shall have a balance and counterpoise in this government." Then the democratic party again were seized with a sudden desire to extend the area of slavery along the gulf of Mexico, and by way of balancing the triumph of liberty they even went so far as to hang manacles and chains on the claws of the conquering eagle of the country!

VOL. IV.

47

Who, then, is responsible for the eternal negro question? Still such was the forbearance, the patience, the hope without reason and without justice, of the friends of freedom throughout the United States, that the eternal negro question would have been left at rest then, if it had not again been brought into the federal councils in the years 1848 and 1850, when the slave power forced us into a war with Mexico, by which we acquired Upper California and New Mexico, and for no other purpose but that, notwithstanding all the advantages which slavery had gained since the Atlantic states were free, now, as a balance, slavery must have the Pacific coast.

Thus, on these three different occasions, when the public mind was at rest on the subject of the negro, the slave power forced it upon public consideration and demanded aggressive action. When they had at last secured the consent of the people of the free states to a compromise in 1850, by which it was agreed that California alone. might be free, and that New Mexico should be remanded back into a territorial condition because she had not established slavery-then there was but one man in the United States Senate that would vote to accept New Mexico as a free state when she came with her constitution in her hands, and that man the humble individual who stands before you. Aye, you applaud me for it now, but where were your votes in 1850? Ah! well, that is past.

When they had agreed on a compromise, and had driven out of the senate every man but some half dozen representatives who had opposed the aggressions of slavery, were they content to let the negro question rest? No, in 1854 the democracy raised the negro question to force slavery finally and forever throughout the whole republic, by abrogating the Missouri compromise. They abandoned the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to slave labor, and actually assisted aud encouraged the armies sent there by the slaveholders, to take forcible possession of regions which, until then, had been free.

O! what pleasure shall I have, in telling the people of Kansas, three days hence, how that when all others were faithless, and false, and timid, they renewed this battle of liberty, and expelled the intruding slaveholder, and established forever amongst themselves the freedom of labor and the freedom of men on the plains of

Kansas.

Were the democracy then content? Not at all. They determined in 1858, to raise the negro question once more and to admit

Kansas into the Union, if she would come in as a slave state, and to keep her out indefinitely if she should elect freedom. And only one year later, when they found that Kansas was slipping from their clutches, who then raised once more the eternal negro question? The slave power and the administration took it up by demanding the annexation of Cuba, a slaveholding island of Spain, to be acquired at a cost of one hundred and fifty million dollars, peaceably, if it could be obtained for that sum, and forcibly if it should not be surrendered, for the purpose of adding two slave states, well manned and well appointed, to balance the votes of Kansas and Minnesota, then expected to come into the Union as free states.

Who has brought this issue and entered it on the record of this canvass? The slaveholding party-the democratic party. They held their convention first in this campaign at Charleston. They pre sented again the everlasting negro question, nothing more, nothing less. They differed about the form, but they gave us, nevertheless, the everlasting negro question in two different parts, giving us our choice to take one or the other, as they gave the people of Kansas the choice, whether they would take slavery pure and simple, or take it anyhow and get rid of it afterward if they could. Of one part, Mr. Breckinridge is the representative. It is presented plainly and distinctly; it is that slaves are merchandise and property in the territories under the constitution of the United States, and that the national legislatures and the courts must protect it in the territories, and no power on earth can discharge them of the responsibility Of the other, Mr. Douglas is the representative, and the form in which it is presented by those who support him is: What is the best way not to keep slavery out of the territories?

I doubt very much whether slaveholders have so great a repugnance to the negro and to the eternal negro question as they affect. On the other hand, being accustomed to sit in the federal councils, with grave and reverend senators, and to mingle with representatives of the people from slaveholding states, I find a great difference between myself and them on the subject. God knows, I should find it hard to consent to be the unbidden, the unchosen representative of bondmen! They must be freemen that I volunteer to represent; every man of them must be a whole man. But my respected friends who represent the slave states are willing, and do most cheerfully, most gladly consent to represent three-fifths of all

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