e under no obligation
whatever to return those specimens of your movable property that come
hither? You have divided the Union because we would not do right with you,
as you think, upon that subject; when we cease to be under obligations to
do anything for you, how much better off do you think you will be? Will
you make war upon us and kill us all? Why, gentlemen, I think you are as
gallant and as brave men as live; that you can fight as bravely in a
good cause, man for man, as any other people living; that you have shown
yourselves capable of this upon various occasions: but, man for man, you
are not better than we are, and there are not so many of you as there are
of us. You will never make much of a hand at whipping us. If we were fewer
in numbers than you, I think that you could whip us; if we were equal, it
would likely be a drawn battle; but being inferior in numbers, you will
make nothing by attempting to master us.

But perhaps I have addressed myself as long, or longer, to the Kentuckians
than I ought to have done, inasmuch as I have said that whatever course
you take we intend in the end to beat you. I propose to address a few
remarks to our friends, by way of discussing with them the best means of
keeping that promise that I have in good faith made.

It may appear a little episodical for me to mention the topic of which
I will speak now. It is a favorite position of Douglas's that the
interference of the General Government, through the Ordinance of '87, or
through any other act of the General Government never has made or ever can
make a free State; the Ordinance of '87 did not make free States of
Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois; that these States are free upon his "great
principle" of popular sovereignty, because the people of those several
States have chosen to make them so. At Columbus, and probably here, he
undertook to compliment the people that they themselves have made the
State of Ohio free, and that the Ordinance of '87 was not entitled in any
degree to divide the honor with them. I have no doubt that the people
of the State of Ohio did make her free according to their own will and
judgment, but let the facts be remembered.

In 1802, I believe, it was you who made your first constitution, with
the clause prohibiting slavery, and you did it, I suppose, very nearly
unanimously; but you should bear in mind that you--speaking of you as
one people--that you did so unembarrassed by the actual presence of
the i