ken;
but I had believed, and now believe, that the whole public mind, that is,
the mind of the great majority, had rested in that belief up to the repeal
of the Missouri Compromise. But upon that event I became convinced that
either I had been resting in a delusion, or the institution was being
placed on a new basis, a basis for making it perpetual, national, and
universal. Subsequent events have greatly confirmed me in that belief. I
believe that bill to be the beginning of a conspiracy for that purpose. So
believing, I have since then considered that question a paramount one.
So believing, I thought the public mind will never rest till the power
of Congress to restrict the spread of it shall again be acknowledged and
exercised on the one hand or, on the other, all resistance be entirely
crushed out. I have expressed that opinion, and I entertain it to-night.
It is denied that there is any tendency to the nationalization of slavery
in these States.

Mr. Brooks, of South Carolina, in one of his speeches, when they were
presenting him canes, silver plate, gold pitchers, and the like, for
assaulting Senator Sumner, distinctly affirmed his opinion that when this
Constitution was formed it was the belief of no man that slavery would
last to the present day. He said, what I think, that the framers of our
Constitution placed the institution of slavery where the public mind
rested in the hope that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. But
he went on to say that the men of the present age, by their experience,
have become wiser than the framers of the Constitution, and the invention
of the cotton gin had made the perpetuity of slavery a necessity in this
country.

As another piece of evidence tending to this same point: Quite recently in
Virginia, a man--the owner of slaves--made a will providing that after his
death certain of his slaves should have their freedom if they should so
choose, and go to Liberia, rather than remain in slavery. They chose to be
liberated. But the persons to whom they would descend as property claimed
them as slaves. A suit was instituted, which finally came to the Supreme
Court of Virginia, and was therein decided against the slaves upon the
ground that a negro cannot make a choice; that they had no legal power to
choose, could not perform the condition upon which their freedom depended.

I do not mention this with any purpose of criticizing it, but to connect
it with the arguments as afford