But 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 all 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 abroad; when the national government shall be divorced in every way from slavery, and according to the true intention of our fathers, freedom shall be established by Congress everywhere, at least beyond the local limits of the states.

Thus, sir, now standing at the very grave of freedom in Kansas and Nebraska, I lift myself to the vision of that happy resurrection, by which freedom will be secured, not only in these territories, but everywhere under the national government.  More clearly than ever before, I now penetrate that “All-Hail-Hereafter” when slavery must disappear.  Proudly I discern the flag of my country, as it ripples in every breeze, at last become 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 are about to commit.  Joyfully I welcome all the promises of the future.

* * * * *

From the “Speech for Union against the Slave Power,” June 8, 1848.

=_97._= HEROIC EFFORTS CANNOT FAIL.

There are occasions of political difference, I admit, when it may become expedient to vote for a person who does not completely represent our sentiments.  There are some matters that come legitimately within the range of expediency and compromise.  The Tariff and the Currency are unquestionably of this character.  If a candidate differs from me, more or less, on these, I may yet be disposed to vote for him.  But the question now before the country is of another character.  This will not admit of compromise.  It is not within the domain of expediency. To be wrong on this is to be wholly wrong. It is not merely expedient for us to defend Freedom, when assailed, but our duty so to do, unreservedly, and careless of consequences.  Who is there in this assembly that would help to fasten a fetter upon Oregon or Mexico?  Who is there that would not oppose every effort for this purpose?  Nobody.  Who is there, then, that can vote for Taylor or Cass?