hen I pointed out to him that by that rule he excludes the Germans, the
Irish, the Portuguese, and all the other people who have come among us
since the revolution, he reconstructs his construction. In his last speech
he tells us it meant Europeans.

I press him a little further, and ask if it meant to include the Russians
in Asia; or does he mean to exclude that vast population from the
principles of our Declaration of Independence? I expect ere long he
will introduce another amendment to his definition. He is not at all
particular. He is satisfied with anything which does not endanger the
nationalizing of negro slavery. It may draw white men down, but it must
not lift negroes up.

Who shall say, "I am the superior, and you are the inferior"?

My declarations upon this subject of negro slavery may be misrepresented,
but cannot be misunderstood. I have said that I do not understand the
Declaration to mean that all men were created equal in all respects. They
are not our equal in color; but I suppose that it does mean to declare
that all men are equal in some respects; they are equal in their right to
"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Certainly the negro is
not our equal in color, perhaps not in many other respects; still, in the
right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he
is the equal of every other man, white or black. In pointing out that
more has been given you, you cannot be justified in taking away the little
which has been given him. All I ask for the negro is that if you do not
like him, let him alone. If God gave him but little, that little let him
enjoy.

When our government was established we had the institution of slavery
among us. We were in a certain sense compelled to tolerate its existence.
It was a sort of necessity. We had gone through our struggle and
secured our own independence. The framers of the Constitution found the
institution of slavery amongst their own institutions at the time. They
found that by an effort to eradicate it they might lose much of what they
had already gained. They were obliged to bow to the necessity. They gave
power to Congress to abolish the slave trade at the end of twenty years.
They also prohibited it in the Territories where it did not exist. They
did what they could, and yielded to the necessity for the rest. I also
yield to all which follows from that necessity. What I would most desire
would be the separation of the white a