g you that
the poor negro has some natural right to himself--that those who deny it
and make mere merchandise of him deserve kickings, contempt, and death.

And now why will you ask us to deny the humanity of the slave, and
estimate him as only the equal of the hog? Why ask us to do what you will
not do yourselves? Why ask us to do for nothing what two hundred millions
of dollars could not induce you to do?

But one great argument in support of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise
is still to come. That argument is "the sacred right of self-government."
It seems our distinguished Senator has found great difficulty in getting
his antagonists, even in the Senate, to meet him fairly on this argument.
Some poet has said:

"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

At the hazard of being thought one of the fools of this quotation, I
meet that argument--I rush in--I take that bull by the horns. I trust I
understand and truly estimate the right of self-government. My faith in
the proposition that each man should do precisely as he pleases with
all which is exclusively his own lies at the foundation of the sense of
justice there is in me. I extend the principle to communities of men as
well as to individuals. I so extend it because it is politically wise, as
well as naturally just; politically wise in saving us from broils about
matters which do not concern us. Here, or at Washington, I would not
trouble myself with the oyster laws of Virginia, or the cranberry laws
of Indiana. The doctrine of self-government is right,--absolutely and
eternally right,--but it has no just application as here attempted. Or
perhaps I should rather say that whether it has such application depends
upon whether a negro is or is not a man. If he is not a man, in that case
he who is a man may as a matter of self-government do just what he pleases
with him. But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent a total
destruction of self-government to say that he too shall not govern
himself? When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but
when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than
self-government--that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why, then, my
ancient faith teaches me that "all men are created equal," and that there
can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of
another.

Judge Douglas frequently, with bitter irony and sarcasm, paraphrases
our argument by saying: "The wh