Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/247

 Slavery Question in Oregon. 223 slavery is a menace to all of them and a bar to human progress, it is easy to see how void of material for evoking enthusiasm the covert advocates and apologists of slavery were in that notable and inspiring revival of 1856. They were, from the first, completely on the defensive. Indeed, slavery never had any defense except the fact of its existence and the difficulties in the way of its abolition, and when its supporters left this ground and desired its extension, they placed themselves in destructive antagonism to our form of government. To the allegation of the Republicans that slavery is a relic of barbarism and an outlaw in the domain of morals, no reply could be given by the supporters of Buchanan and Fillmore. Senator Douglas did not defend the institution; the most he could say was that he did not care whether it was voted up or voted down by the people of the territories. What he and the Democrats were contending for was the squatter sover- eignty method of settling the vexing question, and thus avoid- ing a dissolution of the Union. The arguments of both Whigs and Democrats were addressed to the fears and prej- udices of the Northern people, and they laid great stress upon the fnct that the Republican party was a sectional party, as though it were a condition the Republicans desired and for which they should be held accountable, instead of its being the direct and inevitable result of, and the severest indictment of the diabolical institution they were coddling. At this time, and looking backward, does it not seem incredible that a man of education and admitted refinement, a former President of the United States, could make such a denunciation and keep his face? Heated partisans might do it, or people not given to thinking, but that it should be adopted as a war cry, among an intelligent people, is almost past belief. Certainly it was a sectional party and Avhereforel Even accepting the Dred Scott decision, that the negro is not a citizen, not a man, and the Constitution did not rec- ognize him as anything more than a chattel, yet it cannot be even supposed that white men must surrender their rights