We
have--besides these, men descended by blood from our ancestors--among us
perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men;
they are men who have come from Europe, German, Irish, French, and
Scandinavian,--men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose
ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals
in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their
connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot
carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel
that they are part of us; but when they look through that old Declaration
of Independence, they find that those old men say that "We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal"; and then
they feel that that moral sentiment, taught in that day, evidences their
relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in
them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of
the blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who wrote that Declaration;
and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links
the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link
those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds
of men throughout the world.

Now, sirs, for the purpose of squaring things with this idea of "don't
care if slavery is voted up or voted down," for sustaining the Dred Scott
decision, for holding that the Declaration of Independence did not mean
anything at all, we have Judge Douglas giving his exposition of what the
Declaration of Independence means, and we have him saying that the
people of America are equal to the people of England. According to his
construction, you Germans are not connected with it. Now, I ask you in all
soberness if all these things, if indulged in, if ratified, if confirmed
and indorsed, if taught to our children, and repeated to them, do not tend
to rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and to transform this
government into a government of some other form. Those arguments that are
made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as
they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their
condition will allow,--what are these arguments? They are the arguments
that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world.
You will find that all the arguments in favor of