There is one desire which is uppermost in the mind, one wish common to us all—­to which no dissent will be made; and I counsel you earnestly to bury all resentment, to sink all personal feeling, make all things work to a common purpose in which we are united and agreed about, and which all present will agree is absolutely necessary—­which must be done by any rightful mode if there be such:  Slavery must be kept out of Kansas! [Applause.] The test—­the pinch—­is right there.  If we lose Kansas to freedom, an example will be set which will prove fatal to freedom in the end.  We, therefore, in the language of the Bible, must “lay the axe to the root of the tree.”  Temporizing will not do longer; now is the time for decision—­for firm, persistent, resolute action. [Applause.]

The Nebraska bill, or rather Nebraska law, is not one of wholesome legislation, but was and is an act of legislative usurpation, whose result, if not indeed intention, is to make slavery national; and unless headed off in some effective way, we are in a fair way to see this land of boasted freedom converted into a land of slavery in fact. [Sensation.] Just open your two eyes, and see if this be not so.  I need do no more than state, to command universal approval, that almost the entire North, as well as a large following in the border States, is radically opposed to the planting of slavery in free territory.  Probably in a popular vote throughout the nation nine-tenths of the voters in the free States, and at least one-half in the border States, if they could express their sentiments freely, would vote NO on such an issue; and it is safe to say that two-thirds of the votes of the entire nation would be opposed to it.  And yet, in spite of this overbalancing of sentiment in this free country, we are in a fair way to see Kansas present itself for admission as a slave State.  Indeed, it is a felony, by the local law of Kansas, to deny that slavery exists there even now.  By every principle of law, a negro in Kansas is free; yet the bogus legislature makes it an infamous crime to tell him that he is free!

The party lash and the fear of ridicule will overawe justice and liberty; for it is a singular fact, but none the less a fact, and well known by the most common experience, that men will do things under the terror of the party lash that they would not on any account or for any consideration do otherwise; while men who will march up to the mouth of a loaded cannon without shrinking, will run from the terrible name of “Abolitionist,” even when pronounced by a worthless creature whom they, with good reason, despise.  For instance—­to press this point a little—­Judge Douglas introduced his anti-Nebraska bill in January; and we had an extra session of our legislature in the succeeding February, in which were seventy-five Democrats; and at a party caucus, fully attended, there were just three votes out of the whole seventy-five, for the