ty, and are only looking about for some excuse to stick to it, but
nevertheless hate slavery, that Douglas's popular sovereignty is as good
a way as any to oppose slavery. They allow themselves to be persuaded
easily, in accordance with their previous dispositions, into this belief,
that it is about as good a way of opposing slavery as any, and we can do
that without straining our old party ties or breaking up old political
associations. We can do so without being called negro-worshipers. We
can do that without being subjected to the jibes and sneers that are so
readily thrown out in place of argument where no argument can be found.
So let us stick to this popular sovereignty,--this insidious popular
sovereignty.

Now let me call your attention to one thing that has really happened,
which shows this gradual and steady debauching of public opinion,
this course of preparation for the revival of the slave trade, for the
Territorial slave code, and the new Dred Scott decision that is to carry
slavery into the Free States. Did you ever, five years ago, hear of
anybody in the world saying that the negro had no share in the Declaration
of National Independence; that it does not mean negroes at all; and when
"all men" were spoken of, negroes were not included?

I am satisfied that five years ago that proposition was not put upon paper
by any living being anywhere. I have been unable at any time to find a man
in an audience who would declare that he had ever known of anybody saying
so five years ago. But last year there was not a Douglas popular sovereign
in Illinois who did not say it. Is there one in Ohio but declares his firm
belief that the Declaration of Independence did not mean negroes at all? I
do not know how this is; I have not been here much; but I presume you are
very much alike everywhere. Then I suppose that all now express the belief
that the Declaration of Independence never did mean negroes. I call upon
one of them to say that he said it five years ago.

If you think that now, and did not think it then, the next thing that
strikes me is to remark that there has been a change wrought in you,--and
a very significant change it is, being no less than changing the negro,
in your estimation, from the rank of a man to that of a brute. They
are taking him down and placing him, when spoken of, among reptiles and
crocodiles, as Judge Douglas himself expresses it.

Is not this change wrought in your minds a very importan