10 overseer, in. his brutal efforts to subdue some refractory slave. “We mean to subdue you,” is the ebullition of a vulgar nature, elevated by means of some “villain service,” to an Unexpected height; and it is the mingling of this base spirit with executive power in Kansas, which has been at the root of all these shameful scenes. But before going further on this subject, I wish to say a few words, sir, on this new-fangled doctrine of squatter or popular sovereignty, as applicable to the promiscuous settlement of new territories, by slaveholders and persons opposed, either on conscientious, economical, or any other grounds, to the holding of slaves. As a simple question of statesmanship, waiving for the time, the moral question involved in the extension and perpetuity of slavery, no congregation of blockheads, ever committed a more egregious, or a more shallow blunder. Why, popular sovereignty implies, not only the right, but imposes the necessity for the most absolutely free discussion by the press, and by the exercise of perfect freedom of speech by the people. How can popular institutions be rightly established, without the exercise of those fundamental rights ? The negative of this question, strikes at the root of democratic institutions. The free state popular sovereign must have the same right to discuss the slaveholder’s right to his slave, as a moral, religious, and economical question, as he has to discuss the policy of incorporating banks, granting city charters, or establishing the legal height and strength of a division fence. The moment this right is taken from him, that moment, he ceases to be a “popular sovereign.” But slavery can bear no such discussion. The slave must not be told that he has, by the law of nature, the right to seek his own well-being in his own way, doing no harm to others—that he has a right to labor, and to receive, use, and dispose of the fruits of his labor— that his wife and children are his own, and not another’s. Sir, the single free state squatter sovereign, who is able to plant himself down in a territory, and exercise these undoubted rights of squatter sovereignty, would, by this simple process of truth-telling, expel every slave and slaveholder from 100,000 square miles of territory. But the slaveholding squatter sovereign must be authorized to silence all such “ damnable heresies,” coming from his free state brother sovereign; or slavery must slink away from the territories, like ghosts at the dawn of morning. But the statesmanship of the Nebraska bill is, to set free state squatter sovereign, against slave- holding squatter sovereign, contending for freedom against slavery and slavery against freedom, in the territories, openly, with free speech and a free press. The slaveholders understand this perfectly; and hence, the inherent and fundamental right of freedom of speech and the press, does not, and cannot exist in slaveholding communities. This is a necessity of despotic governments, it is more than a necessity of despotism, it is in itself, the essence of despotism. And, sir, there is not a more morbidly suspicious, cruel, revengeful, or lawless despotism oh the face of the earth, than the nightmare of slavery, which has settled down upon the people of the slaveholding states, with the exception of perhaps two or three of these states. Why sir, there is more freedom of speech and of the press to-day, and more personal safety in the exercise of such freedom, at Vienna, St. Petersburg, Paris, or Rome, in an attack and exposure of the despotism which reigns supreme over those cities, than there is at Richmond. Charleston, Milledgeville, or Mobile, to attack and expose the slaveholding despotisms which rule over these cities with a rod of iron. Sir, there are probably more citizens, born and nurtured in the slave states, now in exile from their native states for the exercise of freedom of speech and the press, against the despotism of slaveholding, than there are from Austria, Russia, France, or the Two Sicilies, for the exercise of the sama rights, against the despotisms which crush those nations. Why, sir, free speech and a free press, would, in less than a decade, drive slavery from every slave state in the union. It would exclude slavery from every territory belonging to the United States, in half that time. This truth, the men of 1820 saw clearly; and they saw that slavery and liberty could not dwell together on the same soil, that these two must separate or fight. They therefore drew a line of separation between them, and instantly their territorial dissensions ceased. But the slave democracy of our times, could not rest, while a foot of soil was dedicated to freedom. So they threw down the bars which our fathers had raised between freedom and slavery, and instantly, these two mortal foes are at each other’s throats, just as every sensible* and honest man knew they must be. This is th® finale of the squatter-sovereignty humbug, as a stroke of statesmanship; and it is but another illustration of the maxim, that a child or a fool may destroy in an hour, what it required the wisdom and the labor of ages to construct. The great procuring cause of these troubles, we all know to have been, the repeal of the Mis- sruri compromise ; and the cause of this repeal was, the lust of slavery propagandism, operating on mercenary northern politicians. But the efforts of the slave democracy, are now directed to the finding of some pretext by which, they may extricate themselves, by diverting the public attention to matters whicfi may seem to implicate others. To accomplish this unworthy object, this slave democracy has made the Massachusetts emigrant aid society its “ harp of a thousand strings.” Venting execrations on this never-quieted ghost, constitutes the staple of the presidential proclamations and messages, as well as of all the harangues, tirades, speeches, and reports, of the slave democracy, in and out of congress. The president also, expresses his regrets that Governor Reeder, in his Reading speech, had not dwelt “ a little more at large on the emigrant aid societies.” All the outrages of the Missouri borderers, their forays into Kansas, seizing ballot-boxes, expulsion of free-state voters from the polls, and from the territory; the election of a bogus legislature of Missourians by a Missouri mob ; the sacking and burning of Law-
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