with all that is truly practical and constitutional in politics. Unlike the other questions, it is not temporary or local in its character. It belongs to all times and to all countries. Though long kept in check, it now, by your introduction, confronts the people, demanding to be heard. To every man in the land it says, with clear, penetrating voice, "Are you for freedom, or are you for slavery?" And every man in the land must answer this question when he votes.
Pass this bill, and it will be in vain that you say, the slavery question is settled. Sir, nothing can be settled which is not right. Nothing can be settled which is adverse to freedom. God, nature, and all the holy sentiments of the heart, repudiate any such false seeming settlement.
Now, Sir, mark the clear line of our duty. And here let me speak for those with whom in minority and defeat, I am proud to be associated, the Independent Democrats, who espouse that Democracy which is transfigured in the Declaration of Independence, and the injunctions of Christianity. The testimony which we bear against slavery, as against all other wrong, is in different ways, according to our position. The slavery, which exists under other governments—as in Russia, or Turkey—or in other States of the Union, as in Virginia and Carolina, we can oppose only through the influence of literature, morals, and religion, without in any way invoking
