Page:He Knew Lincoln and Other Billy Brown Stories.djvu/103

 prevent the Supreme Court decidin' that Congress couldn't keep slaves out of a state just as it had decided that Congress couldn't keep 'em out of a territory. The more I thought of it the more I see there wa'n't anything to prevent men like Douglas and Buchanan tryin' some day to apply the same line of argument to Illinois or Pennsylvania or New York or any other free state that they was usin' now.

I wa'n't goin' to stand for that. I don't pretend I ever felt like Mr. Lincoln did about niggers. No, sir, I was a Democrat, and I wanted the South let alone. I didn't want to hear no abolition talk. But I was dead agin' havin' any more slaves than we could help, and what's more I wa'n't myself willin' to live in a state where they was. I'd seen enough for that. Back in the '40's, when I first started up this store, I used to go to New