s overwhelming majority should be potential." He
repelled in strong language the wrongfulness of allowing the South to
multiply the votes of those freemen by the master's right to count three
for every five slaves, "because it is absurd and anti-republican to
suffer property to be represented as men, and _vice versa_, because it
gives the South an unjust ascendancy over other portions of territory,
and a power which may be perverted on every occasion."

He looked without shrinking upon the possibility of disunion even then.

"Now I say that, on the broad system of equal rights," he declared,
"this inequality should no longer be tolerated. If it cannot be speedily
put down--not by force but by fair persuasion--if we are always to
remain shackled by unjust, constitutional provisions, when the emergency
that imposed them has long since passed away; if we must share in the
guilt and danger of destroying the bodies and souls of men _as the price
of our Union_; if the slave States will haughtily spurn our assistance,
and refuse to consult the general welfare, then the fault is not ours if
a separation eventually takes place."

Considering that he was in his twenty-fourth year, and that the
Abolition movement had then no actual existence, the orator evinced
surprising prescience in his forecast of the future, and of the strife
and hostility which the agitation was destined to engender.

"But the plea is prevalent," he said, "that any interference by the free
States, however benevolent or cautious it might be, would only irritate
and inflame the jealousies of the South, and retard the cause of
emancipation. If any man believes that slavery can be abolished without
a struggle with the worst passions of human nature, quietly,
harmoniously, he cherishes a delusion. It can never be done, unless the
age of miracles returns. No; we must expect a collision, full of sharp
asperities and bitterness. We shall have to contend with the insolence,
and pride, and selfishness of many a heartless being.

"Sirs, the prejudices of the North are stronger than those of the South;
they bristle like so many bayonets around the slaves; they forge and
rivet the chains of the nation. Conquer them and the victory is won. The
enemies of emancipation take courage from our criminal timidity.... We
are ... afraid of our own shadows, who have been driven back to the wall
again and again; who stand trembling under their whips; who turn pale,
retreat, and