ence—the countless multitude of succeeding | the calm determination of their opponents, are enerations, in every land where eloquence 1 *’ ............. * 1 as been studied or where the Roman name as been recognized—has listened to the ac- usation, and throbbed with condemnation of ne criminal. I Sir, speaking in an age of light, and in a md of constitutional liberty, where the safe- uards of elections are justly placed among he highest triumphs of civilization, I fearless- Y assert that the wrongs of much abused icily, thus memorable in history, were small ►y the side of the wrongs of Kansas, where he very shrines of popular institutions, more acred than any heathen altar, have been esecrated; where the ballot-box, more pre- mus than any work, in ivory or marble, from he cunning hand of art, has been plundered; nd where the cry, “ I am an American citi- en,” has been interposed in vain against utrage of every kind, even upon life itself, ire you against sacrilege? I present it for our execration. Are you against robbery? hold it up to your scorn. Are you for the rotection of American citizens ? I show you ow their dearest rights have been cloven own, while a tyrannical usurpation has sought o install itself on their very necks ! But the wickedness which I now begin to xpose is immeasurably aggravated by the notive which prompted it. Notin any common lust for power did this uncommon tragedy ave its origin. It is the rape of a virgin ter- itory, compelling it to the hateful embrace of lavery; and it may be clearly traced to a epraved longing for a new slave State, the ideous offspring of such a crime, in the hope f adding to the power of slavery in the ational government. sir: when the Hiole world, alike Christian and Turk, is ising up to condemn this wrong, and to make t a hissing to the nations, here in our repub- ic, force, aye, sir, FORCE—has been openly mployed in compelling Kansas to the pollu- ion of slavery, all for the sake of political ower. There is a simple fact, which you rill vainly attempt to deny, but which in tself presents an essential wickedness that nakes other public crimes seem like public irtues. But this enormity, vast beyond comparison, wells to dimensions of wickedness which the nagination toils in vain to grasp, when it is nderstood that for this purpose are hazarded he horrors of intestine feud, not only in this istant territory, but everywhere throughout io country. Already the muster has begun, he strife is no longer local, but national. wen now, while I speak, portents hang on all le arches of the horizon, threatening to 1 • o arken the broad land, which already yawns rith the mutterings of civil war. The fury of the propagandists of slavery, and now diffused from the distant territory over wide-spread communities, and the whole country, in all its extent—marshalling hostile divisions, and foreshadowing a strife, which, unless happily averted by the triumph of Freedom, will become war—fratricidal, parricidal war—with an accumulated wickedness beyond the wickedness of any war in human annals; justly provoking the avenging judgment of Providence and the avenging pen of history, and constituting a strife, in the language of the ancient writer, more than foreign, more than social, more than civil; but something compounded of all these strifes, and in itself more than war; sed potius commune quoddam ex omnibus et plus quam bellum. Such is the crime which you are to judge. But the criminal also must be dragged into day, that you may see and measure the power by which all this wrong is sustained. From no common source could it proceed. In its perpetration was needed a spirit of vaulting ambition which would hesitate at nothing; a hardihood of purpose which was insensible to the judgment of mankind; a madness for slavery which should disregard the Constitution, the laws, and all the great examples of our history; also a consciousness of power such as comes from the habit of power; a combination of energies found only in a hundred arms directed by a hundred eyes; a control of public opinion, through venal pens and a prostituted press; an ability to subsidize crowds in every vocation of life—the politician with his local importance, the lawyer with his subtle tongue, and even the authority of the judge on the bench ; and a familiar use of men in places high and low, so that none, from the President to the lowest border postmaster, should decline to be its tool; all these things and more were needed; and they wen found in the slave power of our republic There, sir, stands the criminal—all unmasked before you—heartless, grasping, and tyrannical—with an audacity beyond that of Verres, a subtlety beyond that of Machiavel, a meanness beyond that of Bacon, and an ability beyond that of Hastings. Justice to Kansas xjan be secured only by the prostration of this influence; for this is the power behind—greater than any President—which succors and sustains the crime. Nay, the proceedings I now arraign derive their fearful consequence only from this connection. In now opening this great matter, I am not insensible to the austere demands of the occasion ; but the dependence of the crime against Kansas upon theslave power is so peculiar and important, that I trust to be pardoned while I impress it by an illustration, which to some may seem trivial. It is related in Northern mythology, that the god of Force, visiting an
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