1860] AT HARTFORD 47
This only applies to those who think slavery is
wrong. Those who think it right would con-
sider the snake a jewel and the wen an ornament.
We want those Democrats who think slavery
wrong, to quit voting with those who think it
right. They don't treat it as they do other
wrongs — they won't oppose it in the free States,
for it isn't there; nor in the slave States, for it
is there; — don't want it in politics, for it makes
agitation ; not in the pulpit, for it isn't religion ;
not in a tract society, for it makes a fuss — there
is no place for its discussion. Are they quite
consistent in this?
If those Democrats really think slavery wrong,
they will be much pleased when earnest men in
the slave States take up a plan of gradual eman-
cipation, and go to work energetically and very
kindly to get rid of the evil. Now let us test
them. Frank Blair tried it; and he ran for
Congress in '58, and got beaten. Did the
Democracy feel bad about it? I reckon not. I
guess you all flung up your hats and shouted,
"Hurrah for the Democracy!"
He went on to speak of the manner in which
slavery was treated by the Constitution. The
word "slave" is nowhere used; the supply of
slaves was to be prohibited after 1808; they
stopped the spread of it in the Territories; seven
of the States abolished it. He argued very con-
clusively that it was then regarded as an evil
which would eventually be got rid of, and that
they desired, once rid of it, to have nothing in the
Constitution to remind them of it. The Repub-
licans go back to first principles, and deal with it
as a wrong. Mason, of Virginia, said openly that
