Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/243

 LINCOLN abrogation of the slave-trade, thus putting the seal of legislation against its spread. The public mind did rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. But lately, I think — and in this I charge nothing on the judge's motives — lately, I think, that he, and those acting with him, have placed that institu- tion on a new basis, which looks to the per- petuity and nationalization of slavery. And while it is placed upon this new basis, I say, and I have said, that I believe we shall not have peace upon the question until the opponents of slavery arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinc- tion; or, on the other hand, that its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new. North as well as South. Now I believe if we could arrest the spread, and place it where Washington and Jefferson and Madison placed it, it would be in the course of ultimate extinc- tion, and the public mind would, as for eighty years past, believe that it was in the course of ulitmate extinction. The crisis would be past, and the institution might be let alone for a hundred years — if it should live so long — in the States where it exists, yet it would be going out of existence in the way best for both the black and the white races, I ask the attention of the people here as- sembled and elsewhere, to the course that Judge 233