lent
about that as it is silent, personally, about myself. There is absolutely
nothing in it about that subject; there is only the expectation of the
framers of the Constitution that the slave trade would be abolished at the
end of that time; and they expected it would be abolished, owing to public
sentiment, before that time; and the put that provision in, in order that
it should not be abolished before that time, for reasons which I suppose
they thought to be sound ones, but which I will not now try to enumerate
before you.

But while, they expected the slave trade would be abolished at that time,
they expected that the spread of slavery into the new Territories should
also be restricted. It is as easy to prove that the framers of the
Constitution of the United States expected that slavery should be
prohibited from extending into the new Territories, as it is to prove
that it was expected that the slave trade should be abolished. Both these
things were expected. One was no more expected than the other, and one was
no more a compromise of the Constitution than the other. There was nothing
said in the Constitution in regard to the spread of slavery into the
Territory. I grant that; but there was something very important said about
it by the same generation of men in the adoption of the old Ordinance of
'87, through the influence of which you here in Ohio, our neighbors in
Indiana, we in Illinois, our neighbors in Michigan and Wisconsin, are
happy, prosperous, teeming millions of free men. That generation of men,
though not to the full extent members of the convention that framed the
Constitution, were to some extent members of that convention, holding
seats at the same time in one body and the other, so that if there was any
compromise on either of these subjects, the strong evidence is that
that compromise was in favor of the restriction of slavery from the new
Territories.

But Douglas says that he is unalterably opposed to the repeal of those
laws because, in his view, it is a compromise of the Constitution. You
Kentuckians, no doubt, are somewhat offended with that. You ought not to
be! You ought to be patient! You ought to know that if he said less than
that, he would lose the power of "lugging" the Northern States to your
support. Really, what you would push him to do would take from him
his entire power to serve you. And you ought to remember how long, by
precedent, Judge Douglas holds himself obliged to stick b