hink what they
please; it is a matter of dollars and cents! But are not the people of the
Territories detailed from the States? If this feeling of indifference this
absence of moral sense about the question prevails in the States, will
it not be carried into the Territories? Will not every man say, "I don't
care, it is nothing to me"? If any one comes that wants slavery, must they
not say, "I don't care whether freedom or slavery be voted up or voted
down"? It results at last in nationalizing the institution of slavery.
Even if fairly carried out, that policy is just as certain to nationalize
slavery as the doctrine of Jeff Davis himself. These are only two roads
to the same goal, and "popular sovereignty" is just as sure and almost as
short as the other.

What we want, and all we want, is to have with us the men who think
slavery wrong. But those who say they hate slavery, and are opposed to it,
but yet act with the Democratic party--where are they? Let us apply a
few tests. You say that you think slavery is wrong, but you denounce all
attempts to restrain it. Is there anything else that you think wrong that
you are not willing to deal with as wrong? Why are you so careful, so
tender, of this one wrong and no other? You will not let us do a single
thing as if it was wrong; there is no place where you will even allow it
to be called wrong! We must not call it wrong in the free States, because
it is not there, and we must not call it wrong in the slave States,
because it is there; we must not call it wrong in politics because that
is bringing morality into politics, and we must not call it wrong in the
pulpit because that is bringing politics into religion; we must not bring
it into the Tract Society or the other societies, because those are such
unsuitable places--and there is no single place, according to you, where
this wrong thing can properly be called wrong!

Perhaps you will plead that if the people of the slave States should
themselves set on foot an effort for emancipation, you would wish
them success, and bid them God-speed. Let us test that: In 1858 the
emancipation party of Missouri, with Frank Blair at their head, tried to
get up a movement for that purpose, and having started a party contested
the State. Blair was beaten, apparently if not truly, and when the news
came to Connecticut, you, who knew that Frank Blair was taking hold of
this thing by the right end, and doing the only thing that you say can
pr