Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/663

 darkness and gloom of the present hour, bright stars are breaking, that inspire me with hope, and excite me to perseverance. They show that the day of compromises has past forever, and that henceforward all great questions between freedom and slavery legitimately coming here—and none other ean come—shall be decided, as they ought to be, upon their merits, by a fair exercise of legislative power, and not by bargains of equivocal prudence, if not of doubtful morality.

The house of representatives has, and it always will have, an increasing majority of members from the free states. On this occasion, that house has not been altogether faithless to the interests of the free states; for, although it has taken away the charter of freedom from Kansas and Nebraska, it has, at the same time, told this proud body, in language which compels acquiescence, that in submitting the question of its restoration, it would submit it not merely to interested citizens, but to the alien inhabitants of the territories also. So the great interests of humanity are, after all, thanks to the house of representatives, and thanks to God, submitted to the voice of human nature.

Sir, I see one more sign of hope. The great support of slavery in the south has been its alliance with the democratic party of the north. By means of that alliance, it obtained paramount influence in this government about the year 1800, which from that time to this, with but few and slight interruptions, it has maintained. While democracy in the north has thus been supporting slavery in the south, the people of the north have been learning more profoundly the principles of republicanism and of free government. It is an extraordinary circumstance, which you, sir, the present occupant of the chair, (Mr. Stuart,) I am sure will not gainsay, that at this moment, when there seems to be a more complete divergence of the federal government in favor of slavery than ever before, the sentiment of universal liberty is stronger in all free states than it ever was before. With that principle, the present democratic party must now come into a closer contest. Their prestige of democracy is fast waning, by reason of the hard service which their alliance with their slaveholding brethren has imposed upon them. That party perseveres, as indeed it must, by reason of its very constitution, in that service, and thus comes into closer conflict with elements of true democracy, and for that reason is destined to lose, and is fast losing, the power which it has held so firmly and long. That power will not be restored until the principle established here now shall be reversed, and a constitution shall be given, not only to Kansas and Nebraska, but also to every other national territory, which will be not a tabula rasa, but a constitution securing equal, universal, and perpetual freedom.

Mr. Douglas closed the debate; the vote was taken, and the bill passed; yeas 31, nays 14.

In the house, a bill had been reported on the 31st of January, by Richardson, of Illinois, for which, on the 8th of May, he offered as a substitute the senate bill, leaving out Clayton's amendment. On the 22d the substitute was adopted, and finally passed by a vote of 113 yeas to 100 nays, as follows: