He will find
his place somewhere else; for we have a due regard, so far as we are
capable of understanding them, for all these things. This, gentlemen, as
well as I can give it, is a plain statement of our principles in all
their enormity.
I will say now that there is a sentiment in the country contrary to
me--a sentiment which holds that slavery is not wrong, and therefore
goes for the policy that does not propose dealing with it as a wrong.
That policy is the Democratic policy, and that sentiment is the
Democratic sentiment. If there be a doubt in the mind of any one of this
vast audience that this is really the central idea of the Democratic
party, in relation to this subject, I ask him to bear with me while I
state a few things tending, as I think, to prove that proposition.
In the first place, the leading man,--I think I may do my friend Judge
Douglas the honour of calling him such,--advocating the present
Democratic policy, never himself says it is wrong. He has the high
distinction, so far as I know, of never having said slavery is either
right or wrong. Almost everybody else says one or the other, but the
Judge never does.
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