But in one speech, I think last
winter, he did say that he didn't quite see when the end of the slavery
agitation would come. Now he tells us again that it is all over, and the
people of Kansas have voted down the Lecompton constitution. How is it
over? That was only one of the attempts to put an end to the slavery
agitation,--one of these "final settlements." Is Kansas in the Union?
Has she formed a constitution that she is likely to come in under? Is
not the slavery agitation still an open question in that Territory?...
If Kansas should sink to-day, and leave a great vacant space in the
earth's surface, this vexed question would still be among us. I say,
then, there is no way of putting an end to the slavery agitation amongst
us, but to put it back upon the basis where our fathers placed it; no
way but to keep it out of our new Territories,--to restrict it for ever
to the old States where it now exists. Then the public mind will rest in
the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction. That is one
way of putting an end to the slavery agitation.
The other way is for us to surrender, and let Judge Douglas and his
friends have their way, and plant slavery over all the States,--cease
speaking of it as in any way a wrong--regard slavery as one of the
common matters of property, and speak of our negroes as we do of our
horse and cattle.
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