We do not propose that, when any other one, or
one thousand, shall be decided by that court to be slaves, we will in
any violent way disturb the rights of property thus settled; but we
nevertheless do oppose that decision as a political rule, which shall be
binding on the voter to vote for nobody who thinks it wrong, which shall
be binding on the members of Congress or the President to favour no
measure that does not actually concur with the principles of that
decision. We do not propose to be bound by it as a political rule in
that way, because we think it lays the foundation not merely of
enlarging and spreading out what we consider an evil, but it lays the
foundation for spreading that evil into the States themselves. We
propose so resisting it as to have it reversed if we can, and a new
judicial rule established upon this subject.
I will add this, that if there be any man who does not believe that
slavery is wrong in the three aspects which I have mentioned, or in any
one of them, that man is misplaced and ought to leave us. While, on the
other hand, if there be any man in the Republican party who is impatient
over the necessity springing from its actual presence, and is impatient
of the constitutional guaranties thrown around it, and would act in
disregard of these, he too is misplaced, standing with us.
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