d in the very attitude where the framers of this
government placed it and left it. I do not understand that the framers
of our Constitution left the people of the free States in the attitude of
firing bombs or shells into the slave States. I was not using that passage
for the purpose for which he infers I did use it. I said:

"We are now far advanced into the fifth year since a policy was created
for the avowed object and with the confident promise of putting an end to
slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy that agitation has
not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion it will
not cease till a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 'A house
divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe that this government
cannot endure permanently half slave and half free; it will become all one
thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the
further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the
belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates
will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States,
old as well as new, North as well as South."

Now, you all see, from that quotation, I did not express my wish on
anything. In that passage I indicated no wish or purpose of my own; I
simply expressed my expectation. Cannot the Judge perceive a distinction
between a purpose and an expectation? I have often expressed an
expectation to die, but I have never expressed a wish to die. I said
at Chicago, and now repeat, that I am quite aware this government has
endured, half slave and half free, for eighty-two years. I understand
that little bit of history. I expressed the opinion I did because I
perceived--or thought I perceived--a new set of causes introduced. I did
say at Chicago, in my speech there, that I do wish to see the spread of
slavery arrested, and to see it placed where the public mind shall rest
in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction. I said that
because I supposed, when the public mind shall rest in that belief,
we shall have peace on the slavery question. I have believed--and now
believe--the public mind did rest on that belief up to the introduction of
the Nebraska Bill.

Although I have ever been opposed to slavery, so far I rested in the hope
and belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. For that
reason it had been a minor question with me. I might have been mista