Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/234

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS almost complete legal combination-piece of machinery, so to speak — compounded of the Ne- braska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Put this and that together, and we have an- other nice little niche, which we may, ere long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision, declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits. And this may especially be expected if the doctrine of *'care not whether slavery be voted do-wTi or voted up,'* shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give promise that such a decision can be maintained when made. Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in all the States. Wel- come or unwelcome, such decision is probably coming, and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present political dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie down pleas- antly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free, and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State. To meet and overthrow that dynasty is the work before all those who would prevent that consum- mation. That is what we have to do. How can we best do it ? There are those who denounce us openly to their own friends, and yet whisper to us softly that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with which to effect that object. They 224