Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v6.djvu/69

1860]      AT HARTFORD           47 This only applies to those who think slavery is wrong. Those who think it right would con- sider the snake a jewel and the wen an ornament. We want those Democrats who think slavery wrong, to quit voting with those who think it right. They don't treat it as they do other wrongs — they won't oppose it in the free States, for it isn't there; nor in the slave States, for it is there; — don't want it in politics, for it makes agitation ; not in the pulpit, for it isn't religion ; not in a tract society, for it makes a fuss — there is no place for its discussion. Are they quite consistent in this? If those Democrats really think slavery wrong, they will be much pleased when earnest men in the slave States take up a plan of gradual eman- cipation, and go to work energetically and very kindly to get rid of the evil. Now let us test them. Frank Blair tried it; and he ran for Congress in '58, and got beaten. Did the Democracy feel bad about it? I reckon not. I guess you all flung up your hats and shouted, "Hurrah for the Democracy!"

He went on to speak of the manner in which slavery was treated by the Constitution. The word "slave" is nowhere used; the supply of slaves was to be prohibited after 1808; they stopped the spread of it in the Territories; seven of the States abolished it. He argued very con- clusively that it was then regarded as an evil which would eventually be got rid of, and that they desired, once rid of it, to have nothing in the Constitution to remind them of it. The Repub- licans go back to first principles, and deal with it as a wrong. Mason, of Virginia, said openly that