4 did you suffer your Lecompton bill to be debated here day after day, week after week, and I do not know but I might say month after month, without suggesting the great difficulty which must interrupt the whole proceedings, and lead you to surrender all you had done, and set up a scheme entirely new ? You did not apprehend any such thing, as you went on with your Lecompton bill. The Senator from Virginia never suggested then that there was any trouble about the land grants that were provided for in that bill. You voted it through this body. It ran as smooth as oil. No man said there was any difficulty about that, nor could it be said; because so far as the ordinance was concerned, and the land grant was involved, the bill stood on exactly the same principles as every other Territorial bill, and granted no more, no less. Why, then, seek to cover up this enormity under so plain a proposition as that? Sir, the people will understand it, whether gentlemen here will understand it or not. It is in the nature of a bribe. It is not expected that the unsophisticated people, through the whole wilderness of Kansas, will be able, like lawyers, to scan closely, and understand critically, the import of this grant. I will not say that the fact that it was known they would not understand it, constituted the reason why a question so simple as the adoption or the rejection of the Lecompton Constitution is made to turn on the fact whether the people •will accept a donation of lands; but it looks very much like it. It would be out of order for me to. say it was so intended ; but that will be its effect. Well, sir, that is the nature of the proposition. I have said it is humiliating to the high-minded South, because it is a total surrender of the position upon which they planted themselves, and swore in their councils they would stake their institutions. You have given it up; you have surrendered Lecompton, in this miserable way to be sure, into the hands I of the people of Kansas, to reject it if they please, and as I trust in God they they will. Therein, sir, you lie in the dust. Southern chivalry is here in these ■ .Halls, begging men to vote for a miserable proposition, well calculated to mislead the people. I am sorry for it. I have respected their highmindedness. I have always hoped heretofore that they were above consenting to arrangements that could riot stand out in open day. 1 do not say that anything sinister is intended in this proposition, but I know it is well calculated in itself to deceive the people, and therefore I pronounce it humiliating to the South. I say, further, it is unjust, if not an open insult, to the North. Why 1 I can tell you nothing new, after the proposition has been so ably handled by the honorable Senator from Kentucky and the honorable Senator from Vermont, who have preceded me. They have made it too palpably plain for me to stand here long in elaborating this point. Here stands out before the whole world the most glaring injustice, the most palpable wrong; and no man dare face me down here, and say that you place Slavery and Liberty upon equal foundations by this measure. You talk of the equality of the States. Why, sir, you are trampling the free States into the dust, and offering bribes to Slavery. It will not do. Whether we understand it or not, God knows the people of the United States, the honest people, will understand it. I have said, and I still say, that this proposition is flagrantly unjust to the North, and, I think, an open insult. Well might the Senator from Kentucky ask, what would the South think of a proposition like this on the other side ? I have too good an opinion of you to believe that you would bear it as meekly as we shall. I believe that you would conduct yourselves, in reference to such a nefarious proposition, in a manner more fraught with honor to your section than I fear we shall. I wish to God we had men as fearless to stand up for the right, as you have to stand up for the wrong. I honor you for the manner in which you stand up to what you say you regard as your rights. Well might the Senator from Kentucky ask, what would you think of such a proposition, if the case were reversed? There is not a Southern
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=