ssed by the Richmond Enquirer, in Virginia, in 1856,--quite two
years before it was expressed by the first of us. And while Douglas was
pluming himself that in his conflict with my humble self, last year, he
had "squelched out" that fatal heresy, as he delighted to call it, and
had suggested that if he only had had a chance to be in New York and meet
Seward he would have "squelched" it there also, it never occurred to him
to breathe a word against Pryor. I don't think that you can discover that
Douglas ever talked of going to Virginia to "squelch" out that idea there.
No. More than that. That same Roger A. Pryor was brought to Washington
City and made the editor of the par excellence Douglas paper, after making
use of that expression, which, in us, is so unpatriotic and heretical.
From all this, my Kentucky friends may see that this opinion is heretical
in his view only when it is expressed by men suspected of a desire that
the country shall all become free, and not when expressed by those fairly
known to entertain the desire that the whole country shall become slave.
When expressed by that class of men, it is in nowise offensive to him. In
this again, my friends of Kentucky, you have Judge Douglas with you.
There is another reason why you Southern people ought to nominate Douglas
at your convention at Charleston. That reason is the wonderful capacity of
the man,--the power he has of doing what would seem to be impossible. Let
me call your attention to one of these apparently impossible things:
Douglas had three or four very distinguished men of the most extreme
anti-slavery views of any men in the Republican party expressing their
desire for his re-election to the Senate last year. That would, of itself,
have seemed to be a little wonderful; but that wonder is heightened when
we see that Wise of Virginia, a man exactly opposed to them, a man who
believes in the divine right of slavery, was also expressing his desire
that Douglas should be reelected; that another man that may be said to
be kindred to Wise, Mr. Breckinridge, the Vice-President, and of your
own State, was also agreeing with the anti-slavery men in the North that
Douglas ought to be re-elected. Still to heighten the wonder, a senator
from Kentucky, whom I have always loved with an affection as tender
and endearing as I have ever loved any man, who was opposed to the
anti-slavery men for reasons which seemed sufficient to him, and equally
opposed to Wise a
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