Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/662

 of no new ones in favor of slavery; and thus to turn away the thoughts of the states which tolerate slavery, from political efforts to perpetuate what in its nature cannot be perpetual, to the more wise and benign policy of emancipation.

This, in my humble judgment, is the simple, easy path of duty for the American statesman. I will not contemplate that other alternative—the greater ascendency of the slave power. I believe that if it shall ever come, the voice of freedom will cease to be heard in these halls, whatever may be the evils and dangers which slavery shall produce. I say this without disrespect for representatives of slave states, and I say it because the rights of petition and of debate on that are effectually suppressed—necessarily suppressed—in all the slave states, and because they are not always held in reverence, even now, in the two houses of congress. When freedom of speech on a subject of such vital interest shall have ceased to exist in congress, then I shall expect to see slavery not only luxuriating in all new territories, but stealthily creeping even into the free states themselves-Believing this, and believing, also, that complete responsibility of the government to the people is essential to public and private safety, and that decline and ruin are sure to follow always in the train of slavery, I am sure that this will be no longer a land of freedom and constitutional liberty when slavery shall have thus become paramount.

Sir, I have always said that I should not despond, even if this fearful measure should be effected; nor do I now despond. Although, reasoning from my present convictions, I should not have voted for the compromise of 1820, I have labored, in the very spirit of those who established it, to save the landmark of freedom which it assigned. I have not spoken irreverently even of the compromise of 1850, which, as all men know, I opposed earnestly and with diligence. Nevertheless, I have always preferred the compromises of the [sic]contitution, and have wanted no others. I feared all others. This was a leading principle of the great statesman of the south, (Mr. Calhoun). Said he:

"I see my way in the constitution; I cannot in a compromise. A compromise is but an act of congress. It may be overruled at any time. It gives us no security. But the constitution is stable. It is a rock on which we can stand, and on which we can meet our friends from the non-slaveholding states. It is a firm and stable ground, on which we can better stand in opposition to fanaticism than on the shifting sands of compromise. Let us be done with compromises. Let us go back and stand upon the constitution."

I stood upon this ground in 1850, defending freedom upon it as Mr. Calhoun did in defending slavery. I was overruled then, and I have waited since without proposing to abrogate any compromises.

It has been no proposition of mine to abrogate them now; but the proposition has come from another quarter—from an adverse one. It is about to prevail. The shifting sands of compromise are passing from under my feet, and they are now, without agency of ray own, taking hold again on the rock of the constitution. It shall be no fault of mine if they do not remain firm. This seems to me auspicious of better days and wiser legislation. Through all the