tion of men's minds shall continue
to be the same, after this generation and assemblage shall sink into the
grave, and another race shall arise, with the same moral and intellectual
development we have, whether, if that institution is standing in the same
irritating position in which it now is, it will not continue an element
of division? If so, then I have a right to say that, in regard to this
question, the Union is a house divided against itself; and when the Judge
reminds me that I have often said to him that the institution of slavery
has existed for eighty years in some States, and yet it does not exist in
some others, I agree to the fact, and I account for it by looking at the
position in which our fathers originally placed it--restricting it from
the new Territories where it had not gone, and legislating to cut off
its source by the abrogation of the slave trade, thus putting the seal
of legislation against its spread. The public mind did rest in the belief
that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. But lately, I think--and
in this I charge nothing on the Judge's motives--lately, I think that he,
and those acting with him, have placed that institution on a new basis,
which looks to the perpetuity and nationalization of slavery. And while it
is placed upon this new basis, I say, and I have said, that I believe
we shall not have peace upon the question until the opponents of slavery
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,
on the other hand, that its advocates will push it forward until it shall
become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well
as South. Now, I believe if we could arrest the spread, and place it where
Washington and Jefferson and Madison placed it, it would be in the course
of ultimate extinction, and the public mind would, as for eighty years
past, believe that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. The crisis
would be past, and the institution might be let alone for a hundred years,
if it should live so long, in the States where it exists; yet it would be
going out of existence in the way best for both the black and the white
races.

[A voice: "Then do you repudiate popular sovereignty?"]

Well, then, let us talk about popular sovereignty! what is popular
sovereignty? Is it the right of the people to have slavery or not have it,
as they see fit, in the Terr