t, as yet, in terms, demanded the
overthrow of our Free-State Constitutions.[39] Yet those
Constitutions declare the wrong of slavery, with more solemn
emphasis, than do all other sayings against it; and when all these
other sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow of these
Constitutions will be demanded, and nothing be left to resist the
demand. It is nothing to the contrary, that they do not demand the
whole of this just now. Demanding what they do, and for the reason
they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this
consummation. Holding, as they do, that slavery is morally right,
and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national
recognition of it, as a legal right, and a social blessing.[40]

Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground save our
conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words,
acts, laws, and constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and
should be silenced, and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly
object to its nationality--its universality; if it is wrong, they
cannot justly insist upon its extension--its enlargement. All they
ask, we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we
ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong.[41]
Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise
fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as
they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as
being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them?
Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view
of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do
this?

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone
where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from
its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will
prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to
overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids
this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let
us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith
we are so industriously plied and belabored--contrivances such as
groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong,
vain as the search for a man who should