tion. Already they have done much good in moving the country. They will not be idle. In the days of the Revolution, John Adams, yearning for independence, said, "Let the pulpits thunder against oppression!" And the pulpits thundered. The time has come for them to thunder again. So famous was John Knox for power in prayer, that Queen Mary used to say she feared his prayers more than all the armies of Europe. But our clergy have prayers to be feared by the upholders of wrong.

There are lessons taught by these remonstrances, which, at this moment, should not pass unheeded. The Senator from Ohio (Mr. Wade), on the other side of the Chamber, has openly declared that Northern Whigs can never again combine with their Southern brethren in support of slavery. This is a good augury. The clergy of New England, some of whom, forgetful of the traditions of other days, once made their pulpits vocal for the Fugitive Slave Bill, now, by the voices of learned divines, eminent bishops, accomplished professors, and faithful pastors, uttered in solemn remonstrance, unite at last in putting a permanent brand upon this hateful wrong. Surely, from this time forward, they can never more render it any support. Thank God for this! Here is a sign full of promise for freedom.

These remonstrances have especial significance, when it is urged, as has been often done in this debate, that the proposition still pending proceeds from the North. Yes, sir, proceeds from the North; for that is its excuse and apology. The ostrich is reputed to hide its head in the sand, and then vainly imagine its coward body beyond the reach of pursuers. In similar spirit, honorable Senators seem to shelter themselves behind scanty Northern votes, and then vainly imagine that they are protected from the judgment of the country. The pul· pits of New England, representing in unprecedented extent the popular voice there, now proclaim that six states, with all the fervor of religious conviction, protest against your outrage. To this extent, at least, I maintain it does not come from the North.

From these expressions, and other tokens which daily greet us, it is evident that at last the religious sentiment of the country is touched, and through this sentiment, I rejoice to believe that the whole North will be quickened with the true life of freedom. Sir Philip Sidney, speaking to Queen Elizabeth of the spirit in the Netherlands, anima ting every man, woman, and child against the Spanish power, 'exclaimed, "It is the spirit of the Lord, and is irresistible." A kindred spirit now animates the free states against the slave power, breathing everywhere its involuntary inspiration, and forbidding repose under the attempted usurpation. It is the spirit of the Lord, and is irresistible. The threat of disunion, too often sounded in our ears, will be disregarded by an aroused and indignant people. Ah, sir, Senators vainly expect peace. Not in this way can peace come. In passing such a bill as is now threatened, you scatter from this dark

midnight hour no seeds of harmony ari goodwill, but, broadcast through the land, dragon's teeth, which haply may not spring up in direful crops of armed men, yet, I am assured, sir, will fructify in civil strife and feud.

From the depths of my soul, as loyal citizen and as Senator, I plead, remonstrate, protest against the passage of this bill. I struggle against it as against death; but, as in death itself corruption puts on incorruption, and this mortal body puts on immortality, so from the sting of this hour I find assurance of that triumph by which freedom will be restored to her immortal birthright in the Republic.

Sir, the bill you are about to pass is at once the worst and the best on which Congress ever acted. Yes, sir, worst and best at the same time.

The

It is the worst bill, inasmuch as it is a present victory of slavery. In a Christian land, and in an age of civilization, a time-honored statute of freedom is struck down, opening the way to all the countless woes and wrongs of human bondage. Among the crimes of history, another is soon to be recorded, which no tears can blot out, and which in better days will be read with universal shame. Do not start. Tea Tax and Stamp Act, which roused the patriot rage of our fathers, were virtues by the side of your transgression; nor would it be easy to imagine, at this day, any measure which more openly and wantonly defied every sentiment of justice, humanity, and Christianity. Am I not right, then, in calling it the worst bill on which Congress ever acted?

There is another side, to which I gladly turn. Sir, it is the best bill on which Congress ever acted, for it annuls all past compromises with slavery, and makes any future compromises impossible. Thus, it puts freedom and slavery face to face, and bids them grapple. Who can doubt the result? It opens wide the door of the future, when, at last, there will really be a North, and the slave power will be broken-when this wretched despotism will cease to dominate over our government, no longer impressing itself upon everything at home and abroadwhen the National Government will be divorced in every way from slavery, and, according to the true intention of our fathers, freedom will be established by Congress everywhere, at least beyond the local limits of the states.

Slavery will then be driven from usurped foothold here in the District of Columbia, in the national territories, and elsewhere beneath the national flag; the Fugitive Slave Bill, as vile as it is unconstitutional, will become a dead letter; and the domestic slave trade, so far as it can be reached, but especially on the high seas, will be basted by Congressional prohibition. Everywhere within the sphere of Congress, the great Northern hammer will descend to smite the wrong; and the irresistible cry will break forth, "No more slave states!"

Thus, sir, standing at the very grave of freedom in Nebraska and

Kansas, I lift myself to the vision of that happy resurrection by which freedom will be assured, not only in these territories, but everywhere under the national government. More clearly than ever before, I now penetrate that great future when slavery must disappear. Proudly I discern the flag of my country, as it ripples in every breeze, at last in reality, as in name, the flag of freedom-undoubted, pure and irresistible. Am I not right, then, in calling this bill the best on which Congress ever acted?

Sorrowfully I bend before the wrong you commit. Joyfully I welcome the promises of the future.

DEBATE WITH DOUGLAS.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Springfield, Illinois, June 17, 1858.

MR. PRESIDENT, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION:-If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South.

Have we no tendency to the latter condition?

Let any one who doubts carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination-piece of machinery, so to speak-compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not only what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted; but also let him study the history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design and concert of action among its chief architects from the beginning.

The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more than half the States by State Constitutions, and from most of the national terri

tory by Congressional prohibition. Four days later commenced the struggle which ended in repealing that Congressional prohibition. This opened all the national territory to slavery, and was the first point gained.

But so far Congress only had acted; and an indorsement by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable, to save the point already gained and give chance for more.

This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argument of "squatter sovereignty, otherwise called "sacred right of self-government,' which latter phrase, though expressive of the only rightful basis of any government, was so perverted in this attempted use of it as to amount to just this: That if any one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object. That argument was incorporated into the Nebraska bill itself, in the language which follows: "It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any territory or state, nor to exclude it therefrom; but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor of " squatter sovereignty," and "sacred right of self-government." 'But," said opposition members, "let us amend the bill so as to expressly declare that the people of the territory may exclude slavery.' "Not we, said the friends of the measure; and down they voted the amend

ment.

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While the Nebraska bill was passing through Congress, a law-case, involving the question of a negro's freedom, by reason of his owner having voluntarily taken him first into a free state and then into a territory covered by the Congressional prohibition, and held him as a slave for a long time in each, was passing through the United States Circuit Court for the District of Missouri; and both Nebraska bill and lawsuit were brought to a decision in the same month of May, 1854. The negro's name was "Dred Scott," which name now designates the decision finally made in the case. Before the then next presidential election, the law-case came to, and was argued in, the Supreme Court of the United States; but the decision of it was deferred until after the election. Still, before the election, Senator Trumbull, on the floor of the Senate, requested the leading advocate of the Nebraska bill to state his opinion whether the people of a territory can constitutionally exclude slavery from their limits; and the latter answers: That is a question for the Supreme Court."

The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorsement, such as it was, secured. That was the second point gained. The indorsement, however, fell short of a clear popular majority by nearly four hundred thousand votes, and so, perhaps, was not overwhelmingly reliable and satisfactory. The outgoing President, in his

last annual message, as impressively as possible echoed back upon the people the weight and authority of the indorsement. The Supreme Court met again; did not announce their decision, but ordered a reargument. The presidential inauguration came, and still no decision of the court; but the incoming President, in his inaugural address, fervently exhorted the people to abide by the forthcoming decision, whatever it might be. Then, in a few days, came the decision.

The reputed author of the Nebraska bill finds an early occasion to make a speech at this capital, indorsing the Dred Scott decision, and vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The new President, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly construe that decision and to express his astonishment that any different view had ever been entertained.

At length a squabble springs up between the President and the author of the Nebraska bill, on the mere question of fact, whether the Lecompton Constitution was or was not, in any just sense, made by the people of Kansas; and in that quarrel the latter declares that all he wants is a fair vote for the people, and that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up. I do not understand his declaration that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or voted up, to be intended by him other than as an apt definition of the policy he would impress upon the public mind-the principle for which he declares he has suffered so much, and is ready to suffer to the end. And well may he cling to that principle. If he has any parental feeling. well may he cling to it. That principle is the only shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred Scott decision " squatter sovereignty" squatted out of existence, tumbled down, like temporary scaffolding-like the mould at the foundry served through one blast and fell back into loose sand-helped to carry an election, and then was kicked to the winds. His late joint struggle with the Republicans, against the Lecompton Constitution, involves nothing of the original Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was made on a point-the right of a people to make their own constitution-upon which he and the Republicans have never differed.

The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connection with Senator Douglas's "care not" policy, constitute the piece of machinery, in its present state of advancement. This was the third point gained. The working points of that machinery are:

First. That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no descendant of such slave, can ever be a citizen of any state, in the sense of that term as used in the Constitution of the United States. This point is made in order to deprive the negro, in every possible event, of the benefit of that provision of the United States Constitution, which declares that "The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states."

Secondly. That, "subject to the Constitution of the United States,*