see it so.”  He opened a Bible and pointed him a passage, but the orthodox minister replied, “I can’t see it so.”  Then he showed him a single word—­“Can you see that?” “Yes, I see it,” was the reply.  The dissenter laid a guinea over the word and asked, “Do you see it now?” So here.  Whether the owners of this species of property do really see it as it is, it is not for me to say, but if they do, they see it as it is through two thousand millions of dollars, and that is a pretty thick coating.  Certain it is that they do not see it as we see it.  Certain it is that this two thousand millions of dollars, invested in this species of property, all so concentrated that the mind can grasp it at once—­this immense pecuniary interest—­has its influence upon their minds.

But here in Connecticut and at the North slavery does not exist, and we see it through no such medium.

To us it appears natural to think that slaves are human beings; men, not property; that some of the things, at least, stated about men in the Declaration of Independence apply to them as well as to us.  I say we think, most of us, that this charter of freedom applies to the slaves as well as to ourselves; that the class of arguments put forward to batter down that idea are also calculated to break down the very idea of a free government, even for white men, and to undermine the very foundations of free society.  We think slavery a great moral wrong, and, while we do not claim the right to touch it where it exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the Territories, where our votes will reach it.  We think that a respect for ourselves, a regard for future generations and for the God that made us, require that we put down this wrong where our votes will properly reach it.  We think that species of labor an injury to free white men—­in short, we think slavery a great moral, social, and political evil, tolerable only because, and so far as, its actual existence makes it necessary to tolerate it, and that beyond that it ought to be treated as a wrong.

Now these two ideas, the property idea that slavery is right, and the idea that it is wrong, come into collision, and do actually produce that irrepressible conflict which Mr. Seward has been so roundly abused for mentioning.  The two ideas conflict, and must conflict.

Again, in its political aspect, does anything in any way endanger the perpetuity of this Union but that single thing, slavery?  Many of our adversaries are anxious to claim that they are specially devoted to the Union, and take pains to charge upon us hostility to the Union.  Now we claim that we are the only true Union men, and we put to them this one proposition:  Whatever endangers this Union, save and except slavery?  Did any other thing ever cause a moment’s fear?  All men must agree that this thing alone has ever endangered the perpetuity of the Union.  But if it was threatened by any other influence, would not all men say that the best thing that could be done, if we could not or ought not to destroy it, would be at least to keep it from growing any larger?  Can any man believe, that the way to save the Union is to extend and increase the only thing that threatens the Union, and to suffer it to grow bigger and bigger?