The Ordinance of 1787 gave you the
start that you want for Kansas and Nebraska. Yet you have these things;
and you don't have slavery. Why? Not because the Federal government says
you can't have it, but because you yourself do not want it. I say that
this northern country is dedicated by God to freedom, law or no law; if
it hadn't been, General Harrison, who introduced slavery into Indiana
against the Ordinance of 1787 would have introduced something that would
be there now. So much for you Whigs who voted for Harrison in 1840."
A voice:
"How about Kansas and Nebraska?" There were more yells. "I am telling
you, if you will hear me. You old Whigs who followed Henry Clay to the
end, why do you denounce me when the Kansas-Nebraska bill is the same in
principle as Clay's Compromises of 1850 ..."
"How about California?"
"It was a compromise. And as I have said before if the people of
California had wanted a slave state they would have had it, any law to
the ..."
Voices crying: "Benedict Arnold! Judas!" Douglas' voice rose to its
fullest power. He was fulminating Black Republicans, Know-nothings,
Anti-Catholics, humbug Whigs. I felt sure that he would be attacked. For
two hours he fought with this wild and wicked audience. He appealed to
their sense of fairness. If he was wrong, what harm to hear him through,
the better to see the wrong? If he was right, why condemn him unheard? I
could only make out a few sentences from time to time.
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