Page:Speeches of Carl Schurz (IA speechesofcarlsc00schu).pdf/190

180 decide the question in the committee, in favor of the admission of Kansas, and it is well known how far the action of a committee goes to determine the action of the Senate; but Douglas does not vote! [Cries of “Shame!”] The question remains in this suspended state for some time. The country looks for the action of the committee; the action of the committee is blocked by a tie; but Douglas does not vote! Douglas, who had declaimed so fiercely against the admission, under a Constitution which the people did not want, does not vote when the admission is applied for with a Constitution which the people do want. Douglas, the “true champion of freedom,” holding the fate of free Kansas in that committee in his hands; Douglas does not vote! How is this? When he opposed the Lecompton Constitution, he was a candidate for re-election to the Senate. But things have changed since. Douglas now acts as a candidate for the Presidency. The same man, who, in 1857, had to propitiate the free people of Illinois, has now to propitiate the people of the South; and instead of deciding the report of the committee in favor of the admission of Kansas as a Free State, he is busily engaged in preparing his 15th of May speech, which is to convince the slaveholders that his great principle of popular sovereignty is working favorably for the introduction of Slave States—the Free State of Kansas is kept out of the Union once more, and he is held up as the “true champion of freedom.” Poor freedom, then! The champion's belt lies like a halter around her neck. [Loud applause.]

Here I will stop. I might go on for hours, piling fact upon fact, conclusion upon conclusion, argument upon argument, until the putrid accumulation of fraud and hypocrisy exposed to the sunlight would torture your very nostrils. [Laughter.] It is enough. I will dismiss Mr. Douglas “the true champion of freedom” and devote