Statutes of Kansas, 1555, chapter 151, Sec. 12:  If any free person, by speaking or by writing, assert or maintain that persons have not the right to hold slaves in this Territory, or shall introduce into this Territory, print, publish, write, circulate . . . any book, paper, magazine, pamphlet, or circular containing any denial of the right of persons to hold slaves in this Territory such person shall be deemed guilty of felony, and punished by imprisonment at hard labor for a term of not less than two years.  Sec. 13.  No person who is conscientiously opposed to holding slaves, or who does not admit the right to hold slaves in this Territory, shall sit as a juror on the trial of any prosecution for any violation of any Sections of this Act.

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 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 measure.  But in a few days orders came on from Washington, commanding them to approve the measure; the party lash was applied, and it was brought up again in caucus, and passed by a large majority.  The masses were against it, but party necessity carried it; and it was passed through the lower house of Congress against the will of the people, for the same reason.  Here is where the greatest danger lies that, while we profess to be a government of law and reason, law will give way to violence on demand of this awful and crushing power.  Like the great Juggernaut—­I think that is the name—­the great idol, it crushes everything that comes in its way, and makes a [?]—­or, as I read once, in a blackletter law book, “a slave is a human being who is legally not a person but a thing.”  And if the safeguards to liberty are broken down, as is now attempted, when they have made things of all the free negroes, how long, think you, before they will begin to make things of poor white men? [Applause.] Be not deceived.  Revolutions do not go backward.  The founder of the Democratic party declared that all men were created equal.  His successor in the leadership has written the word “white” before men, making it read “all white men are created equal.”  Pray, will or may not the Know-Nothings, if they should get in power, add the word “Protestant,” making it read “all Protestant white men...?”