But one great argument in support of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise is still to come.  That argument is “the sacred right of self-government.” ...  Some poet has said,—­

     “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

At the hazard of being thought one of the fools of this quotation, I meet that argument,—­I rush in,—­I take that bull by the horns....  My faith in the proposition that each man should do precisely as he pleases with all which is exclusively his own, lies at the foundation of the sense of justice there is in me.  I extend the principle to communities of men as well as to individuals.  I so extend it because it is politically wise as well as naturally just,—­politically wise in saving us from broils about matters which do not concern us.  Here, or at Washington, I would not trouble myself with the oyster laws of Virginia, or the cranberry laws of Indiana.  The doctrine of self-government is right,—­absolutely and internally right; but it has no just application as here attempted.  Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has any application here depends upon whether a negro is not or is a man.  If he is not a man, in that case he who is a man may, as a matter of self-government, do just what he pleases with him.  But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent a total destruction of self-government to say that he, too, shall not govern himself?  When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government,—­that is despotism.  If the negro is a man, then my ancient faith teaches me that “all men are created equal,” and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man’s making a slave of another.

Judge Douglas frequently, with bitter irony and sarcasm, paraphrases our argument by saying:  “The white people of Nebraska are good enough to govern themselves, but they are not good enough to govern a few miserable negroes!”

Well, I doubt not that the people of Nebraska are and will continue to be as good as the average of people elsewhere.  I do not say the contrary.  What I do say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.  I say this is the leading principle,—­the sheet-anchor of American republicanism.

Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man’s nature,—­opposition to it in his love of justice.  These principles are in eternal antagonism, and when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.  Repeal the Missouri Compromise; repeal all compromises; repeal the Declaration of Independence; repeal all past history,—­you still cannot repeal human nature.  It still will be the abundance of man’s heart that slavery extension is wrong, and out of the abundance of his heart his mouth will continue to speak....