have been given had Kansas also been secured for slavery? [A voice:  “A majority the other way.”] “A majority the other way,” is answered.  Do you think it would have been safe for a Northern man to have confronted his constituents after having voted to consign both Missouri and Kansas to hopeless slavery?  And yet this man Douglas, who misrepresents his constituents, and who has exerted his highest talents in that direction, will be carried in triumph through the State, and hailed with honour while applauding that act. [Three groans for “Dug!”] And this shows whither we are tending.  This thing of slavery is more powerful than its supporters—­even than the high priests that minister at its altar.  It debauches even our greatest men.  It gathers strength, like a rolling snow-ball, by its own infamy.  Monstrous crimes are committed in its name by persons collectively which they would not dare to commit as individuals.  Its aggressions and encroachments almost surpass belief.  In a despotism, one might not wonder to see slavery advance steadily and remorselessly into new dominions; but is it not wonderful, is it not even alarming, to see its steady advance in a land dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal”? [Sensation.]

It yields nothing itself; it keeps all it has, and gets all it can besides.  It really came dangerously near securing Illinois in 1824; it did get Missouri in 1821.  The first proposition was to admit what is now Arkansas and Missouri as one slave State.  But the territory was divided, and Arkansas came in, without serious question, as a slave State; and afterward Missouri, not as a sort of equality, free, but also as a slave State.  Then we had Florida and Texas; and now Kansas is about to be forced into the dismal procession. [Sensation.] And so it is wherever you look.  We have not forgotten—­it is but six years since—­how dangerously near California came to being a slave State.  Texas is a slave State, and four other slave States may be carved from its vast domain.  And yet, in the year 1829, slavery was abolished throughout that vast region by a royal decree of the then sovereign of Mexico.  Will you please tell me by what right slavery exists in Texas to-day?  By the same right as, and no higher or greater than, slavery is seeking dominion in Kansas:  by political force—­peaceful, if that will suffice; by the torch (as in Kansas) and the bludgeon (as in the Senate chamber), if required.  And so history repeats itself; and even as slavery has kept its course by craft, intimidation, and violence in the past, so it will persist, in my judgment, until met and dominated by the will of a people bent on its restriction.