In Kentucky—­my State—­in 1849, on a test vote, the mighty influence of Henry Clay and many other good then there could not get a symptom of expression in favor of gradual emancipation on a plain issue of marching toward the light of civilization with Ohio and Illinois; but the State of Boone and Hardin and Henry Clay, with a nigger under each arm, took the black trail toward the deadly swamps of barbarism.  Is there—­can there be—­any doubt about this thing?  And is there any doubt that we must all lay aside our prejudices and march, shoulder to shoulder, in the great army of Freedom? [Applause.]

Every Fourth of July our young orators all proclaim this to be “the land of the free and the home of the brave!” Well, now, when you orators get that off next year, and, may be, this very year, how would you like some old grizzled farmer to get up in the grove and deny it? [Laughter.] How would you like that?  But suppose Kansas comes in as a slave State, and all the “border ruffians” have barbecues about it, and free-State men come trailing back to the dishonored North, like whipped dogs with their tails between their legs, it is—­ain’t it?—­evident that this is no more the “land of the free”; and if we let it go so, we won’t dare to say “home of the brave” out loud. [Sensation and confusion.]

Can any man doubt that, even in spite of the people’s will, slavery will triumph through violence, unless that will be made manifest and enforced?  Even Governor Reeder claimed at the outset that the contest in Kansas was to be fair, but he got his eyes open at last; and I believe that, as a result of this moral and physical violence, Kansas will soon apply for admission as a slave State.  And yet we can’t mistake that the people don’t want it so, and that it is a land which is free both by natural and political law.  No law, is free law!  Such is the understanding of all Christendom.  In the Somerset case, decided nearly a century ago, the great Lord Mansfield held that slavery was of such a nature that it must take its rise in positive (as distinguished from natural) law; and that in no country or age could it be traced back to any other source.  Will some one please tell me where is the positive law that establishes slavery in Kansas? [A voice:  “The bogus laws.”] Aye, the bogus laws!  And, on the same principle, a gang of Missouri horse-thieves could come into Illinois and declare horse-stealing to be legal [Laughter], and it would be just as legal as slavery is in Kansas.  But by express statute, in the land of Washington and Jefferson, we may soon be brought face to face with the discreditable fact of showing to the world by our acts that we prefer slavery to freedom—­darkness to light! [Sensation.]