so, if you doubt
the other branch of the proposition, whether he is for you--whether he is
really for you, as I have expressed it,--I propose asking your attention
for a while to a few facts.

The issue between you and me, understand, is, that I think slavery is
wrong, and ought not to be outspread; and you think it is right, and
ought to be extended and perpetuated. [A voice, "Oh, Lord!"] That is my
Kentuckian I am talking to now.

I now proceed to try to show you that Douglas is as sincerely for you and
more wisely for you than you are for yourselves.

In the first place, we know that in a government like this, in a
government of the people, where the voice of all the men of the country,
substantially, enters into the execution--or administration, rather--of
the government, in such a government, what lies at the bottom of all of it
is public opinion. I lay down the proposition, that Judge Douglas is
not only the man that promises you in advance a hold upon the North, and
support in the North, but he constantly moulds public opinion to your
ends; that in every possible way he can he constantly moulds the public
opinion of the North to your ends; and if there are a few things in which
he seems to be against you,--a few things which he says that appear to
be against you, and a few that he forbears to say which you would like
to have him say you ought to remember that the saying of the one, or the
forbearing to say the other, would lose his hold upon the North, and, by
consequence, would lose his capacity to serve you.

Upon this subject of moulding public opinion I call your attention to the
fact--for a well established fact it is--that the Judge never says your
institution of slavery is wrong. There is not a public man in the United
States, I believe, with the exception of Senator Douglas, who has not, at
some time in his life, declared his opinion whether the thing is right or
wrong; but Senator Douglas never declares it is wrong. He leaves himself
at perfect liberty to do all in your favor which he would be hindered from
doing if he were to declare the thing to be wrong. On the contrary, he
takes all the chances that he has for inveigling the sentiment of the
North, opposed to slavery, into your support, by never saying it is right.
This you ought to set down to his credit: You ought to give him full
credit for this much; little though it be, in comparison to the whole
which he does for you.

Some other, things