tirred it up again. But was it
not understood or intimated with the "confident promise" of putting an end
to the slavery agitation? Surely it was. In every speech you heard Judge
Douglas make, until he got into this "imbroglio," as they call it, with
the Administration about the Lecompton Constitution, every speech on that
Nebraska Bill was full of his felicitations that we were just at the
end of the slavery agitation. The last tip of the last joint of the old
serpent's tail was just drawing out of view. But has it proved so? I have
asserted that under that policy that agitation "has not only not ceased,
but has constantly augmented." When was there ever a greater agitation in
Congress than last winter? When was it as great in the country as to-day?

There was a collateral object in the introduction of that Nebraska policy,
which was to clothe the people of the Territories with a superior degree
of self-government, beyond what they had ever had before. The first
object and the main one of conferring upon the people a higher degree of
"self-government" is a question of fact to be determined by you in answer
to a single question. Have you ever heard or known of a people anywhere
on earth who had as little to do as, in the first instance of its use, the
people of Kansas had with this same right of "self-government "? In
its main policy and in its collateral object, it has been nothing but a
living, creeping lie from the time of its introduction till to-day.

I have intimated that I thought the agitation would not cease until a
crisis should have been reached and passed. I have stated in what way I
thought it would be reached and passed. I have said that it might go one
way or the other. We might, by arresting the further spread of it, and
placing it where the fathers originally placed it, put it where the public
mind should rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate
extinction. Thus the agitation may cease. It may be pushed forward until
it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North
as well as South. I have said, and I repeat, my wish is that the further
spread of it may be arrested, and that it may be where the public
mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate
extinction--I have expressed that as my wish I entertain the opinion, upon
evidence sufficient to my mind, that the fathers of this government placed
that institution where the public mind did rest in