You say men ought to be hung for the way they are executing the law; I say that the way it is being executed is quite as good as any of its antecedents.  It is being executed in the precise way which was intended from the first, else why does no Nebraska man express astonishment or condemnation?  Poor Reeder is the only public man who has been silly enough to believe that anything like fairness was ever intended, and he has been bravely undeceived.

That Kansas will form a slave constitution, and with it ask to be admitted into the Union, I take to be already a settled question, and so settled by the very means you so pointedly condemn.  By every principle of law ever held by any court North or South, every negro taken to Kansas is free; yet in utter disregard of this—­in the spirit of violence merely—­that beautiful Legislature gravely passes a law to hang any man who shall venture to inform a negro of his legal rights.  This is the subject and real object of the law.  If, like Haman, they should hang upon the gallows of their own building, I shall not be among the mourners for their fate.  In my humble sphere, I shall advocate the restoration of the Missouri Compromise so long as Kansas remains a Territory; and when, by all these foul means, it seeks to come into the Union as a slave State, I shall oppose it.  I am very loath in any case to withhold my assent to the enjoyment of property acquired or located in good faith; but I do not admit that good faith in taking a negro to Kansas to be held in slavery is a probability with any man.  Any man who has sense enough to be the controller of his own property has too much sense to misunderstand the outrageous character of the whole Nebraska business.  But I digress.  In my opposition to the admission of Kansas, I shall have some company, but we may be beaten.  If we are, I shall not, on that account, attempt to dissolve the Union.  I think it probable, however, we shall be beaten.  Standing as a unit among yourselves, you can, directly and indirectly, bribe enough of our men to carry the day, as you could on the open proposition to establish a monarchy.  Get hold of some man in the North whose position and ability are such that he can make the support of your measure, whatever it may be, a Democratic-party necessity, and the thing is done.  Apropos of this, let me tell you an anecdote.  Douglas introduced the Nebraska Bill in January.  In February afterward, there was a called session of the Illinois Legislature.  Of the one hundred members composing the two branches of that body, about seventy were Democrats.  These latter held a caucus, in which the Nebraska Bill was talked of, if not formally discussed.  It was thereby discovered that just three, and no more, were in favour of the measure.  In a day or two Douglas’s orders came on to have resolutions passed approving the bill; and they were passed by large majorities!  The truth of this is vouched for by a bolting Democratic member.  The masses too, Democratic as well as Whig, were even nearer unanimous against it; but as soon as the party necessity of supporting it became apparent, the way the Democrats began to see the wisdom and justice of it was perfectly astonishing.