know
where to find him, and if it does not, we may know where to look for him,
and that is on the Cincinnati platform. Now, I could ask the Republican
party, after all the hard names that Judge Douglas has called them by all
his repeated charges of their inclination to marry with and hug negroes;
all his declarations of Black Republicanism,--by the way, we are
improving, the black has got rubbed off,--but with all that, if he be
indorsed by Republican votes, where do you stand? Plainly, you stand ready
saddled, bridled, and harnessed, and waiting to be driven over to the
slavery extension camp of the nation,--just ready to be driven over, tied
together in a lot, to be driven over, every man with a rope around his
neck, that halter being held by Judge Douglas. That is the question. If
Republican men have been in earnest in what they have done, I think they
had better not do it; but I think that the Republican party is made up
of those who, as far as they can peaceably, will oppose the extension of
slavery, and who will hope for its ultimate extinction. If they believe
it is wrong in grasping up the new lands of the continent and keeping them
from the settlement of free white laborers, who want the land to bring
up their families upon; if they are in earnest, although they may make a
mistake, they will grow restless, and the time will come when they will
come back again and reorganize, if not by the same name, at least upon the
same principles as their party now has. It is better, then, to save the
work while it is begun. You have done the labor; maintain it, keep it.
If men choose to serve you, go with them; but as you have made up your
organization upon principle, stand by it; for, as surely as God reigns
over you, and has inspired your mind, and given you a sense of propriety,
and continues to give you hope, so surely will you still cling to these
ideas, and you will at last come back again after your wanderings, merely
to do your work over again.
We were often,--more than once, at least,--in the course of Judge
Douglas's speech last night, reminded that this government was made for
white men; that he believed it was made for white men. Well, that is
putting it into a shape in which no one wants to deny it; but the Judge
then goes into his passion for drawing inferences that are not warranted.
I protest, now and forever, against that counterfeit logic which presumes
that because I did not want a negro woman for a slav
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