Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/246

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS But I can not shake Judge Douglas's tooth loose from the Dred Scott decision. Like some obstinate animal (I mean no disrespect) that will hang on when he has once got his teeth fixed — ^you may cut off a leg, or you may tear away an arm, still he will not relax his hold. And so I may point out to the judge, and say that he is bespattered all over, from the beginning of his political life to the present time, with attacks upon judicial decisions, — I may cut off limb after limb of his public record, and strive to wrench from him a single dictum of the court, yet I can not divert him from it. He hangs to the last to the Dred Scott decision. These things show there is a purpose strong as death and eternity for which he adheres to this decision, and for which he will adhere to all other decisions of the same court. [A Hiber- nian: **Give us something besides Drid Scott."] Yes ; no doubt you want to hear something that does not hurt. Now, having spoken of the Dred Scott decis- ion, one more word and I am done. Henry Clay — my beau-ideal of a statesman, the man for whom I fought all my humble life — Henry Clay once said of a class of men who would repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation, that they must, if they would do this, go back to the era of our independence, and muzzle the cannon which thunders its an- nual joyous return; they must blow out the moral lights around us; they must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate there the love 236