31 selves—may be dismissed with the other kindred pretensions for Slavery, while the Senator from Illinois, [Mr. Douglas,] who, if not its inventor, has been its boldest defender, will learn that Slave-masters for whom he has done so much cannot afford to be generous; that their gratitude is founded on what they expect, and not on what they have received; and, that having its root in desire rather than in fruition, it necessarily withers and dies with the power to serve them. The Senator, revolving these things in his mind, may confess the difficulty of his position, and, perhaps, -----------remember Milo’s end, Wedged in that Timber which he strove to rend. And here I close this branch of the argument, which I have treated less fully than the first, partly because time and strength fail me, but chiefly because the Barbarism of Slavery, when fully established, supersedes all other inquiry. But enough has been done on this head. At the risk of repetition, I now gather it together. The assumption that Slave masters, under the Constitution, may take their slaves into the Territories, and continue to hold them as in the States, stands on two pretensions—first that man may hold property in man, and secondly that this property is recognised in the Constitution. But we have seen that the pretended property in man stands on no reason, while the two special arguments by which it has been asserted, first an alleged inferiority of race, and secondly the ancient curse of Ham, are grossly insufficient to uphold such a pretension. And we have next seen that this pretension has as little support in the Constitution as in reason; that Slavery is of such an offensive character, that it can find support only in “ positive ” sanction, and words of “ irresistible clearness; ’’ that this benign rule, questioned in the Senate, is consistent with the principles of an advanced civilization; that no such “ positive ” sanction, in' words of “ irresistible clearness,” can be found in the Constitution, while, in harmony with the Declaration of Independence, and the Address of the Continental Congress, the contemporaneous declarations in the Convention, and especially the act of the Convention in substituting “ service ” for “ servitude,” on the ground that the latter expressed “ the condition of slaves,” all attest that the pretension that man can hold property in man was carefully, scrupulously, and completely excluded from the Constitution, so that it has no semblance of support in that sacred text; nor is this pretension, which is unsupported in the Constitution, helped by the two arguments, one in the name of State Equality, and the other in the name of Popular Sovereignty, both of which are properly put aside. Sir, the true principle, which, reversing the assumptions of Slave-masters, makes Freedom national and Slavery sectional, while every just claim of the Slave States is harmonized with the irresistible predominance of Freedom under the Constitution, has been declared at Chicago. Not questioning the right of each State, whether South Carolina or Turkey, Virginia or Russia, to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, the Convention there assembled has explicitly announced Freedom to be “ the normal condition of all the Territory of the United States,” and has explicitly denied “the authority of Congress, of a Territorial Legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to Slavery in any Territory of the United States.” Such is the triumphant response, by the aroused millions of the North, alike to the assumption of Slave-masters that the Constitution, of its own force, carries Slavery into the Territories, and also to the device of politicians, that the people of the Territories, in the exercise of a dishonest Popular Sovereignty, may plant Slavery there. This re^ sponse is complete at all points, whether the Constitution acts upon the Territories before their organization, or only afterward; for, in the absence of a Territorial Government, there can be no “positive” law in words of “irresistible clearness ” for Slavery, as there can be no such law, when a Territorial Government is organized, under the Constitution. Thus the normal condition of the Territories is confirmed by the Constitution, which, when extended over them, renders Slavery impossible, while it writes upon the soil and engraves upon the rock everywhere the law of impartial Freedom, without distinction of color or race. Mr. President, this argument is now closed. Pardon me for the time I have occupied. It is long since I have made any such claim upon your attention. Pardon me, also, if I have said anything which I ought not to have said. I have spoken frankly, and from the heart 5 if severely, yet only with the severity of a sorrowful candor, calling things by their right names, and letting historic facts tell their unimpeachable story. I have spoken in the patriotic hope of contributing to the welfare of my country, and also in the assured conviction that what I have said will find a response in generous souls. I believe that I have said nothing which is not sustained by well-founded argument or well-founded testimony, nothing which can be controverted without a direct assault upon reason or upon truth. The two assumptions of Slave-masters have been answered. But this is not enough. Let the answer become a legislative act, by the admission of Kansas as a Free State. Then will the Barbarism of Slavery be repelled, and the pretension of property in man be rebuked. Such an act, closing this long struggle by the assurance of peace to the Territory, if not of tranquillity to the whole country, will be more grateful still as the herald of that better day, near at hand, when Freedom shall be installed
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