It has been said of me by several democratic
papers, that my opinions are unknown
to the public and that people in voting for
me will do so without knowing what they are
voting for. I will do all I can to prevent
mistakes in that respect. I know I might
receive the votes of a good many men out of
personal friendship or sympathy, and it would
perhaps be better policy for me to leave our
opponents alone. But after the election it shall
not be said of me that I have craved and
obtained the support of one single man by
concealing my opinions.
As the Democratic papers are particularly anxious to know my opinions, I will tell you as a good thing to commence with, what opinions I entertain respecting the Democratic party.
What are the great issues before the people? What are the great questions that divide the people and draw distinct party lines? It is no longer an United States Bank. That has been put upon the shelf of history. It is no longer the High Tariff or Free Trade question. That has been settled by compromises. It is not the question how the public lands are to be disposed of; that has not yet become a party issue. Even in our State policy — there is neither a question of banks, nor a question concerning railroads before the people; the whole political struggle is narrowed down to two issues — the Slavery question, as far as the whole Republic is concerned, and the question of political honesty, as far as State politics are concerned.
Besides, it will do no longer to keep off the Slavery question from our State politics, for the Dred Scott decision and Mr. Buchanan's recent letter have laid the issue to our own doors.
Nobody can doubt, that the natural instinct of the people of the free States is against Slavery, and no political party can gain a decided and lasting preponderance in the North unless it professes to be opposed to Slavery. Knowing this, the Democratic party have done so, and this question has been the main pillar and the principal source of their popularity. The future of the Democratic party depends upon the sincerity of that profession. Is the Democratic party opposed to Slavery? This is the vital question. Let history answer it.
In 1820 the Missouri Compromise was framed, admitting Missouri into the Union, as a Slave State, on the express condition that a certain line be run across the territory acquired from Louisiana, and that all the land north of that line be forever consecrated to Freedom. This compact was a solemn one, and when the first popular excitement was over, all political parties, the Democratic foremost, acquiesced in it and held it as sacred as the Constitution itself.
Mark well, by virtue of that sacred
compact Missouri was admitted as a Slave State,
and Arkansas was admitted as a Slave State,
and as long as the Missouri Compromise served
to introduce Slave States into the Union,
the Democratic party did not find the least
fault with it and considered it an excellent
arrangement. Nobody doubted its perfect
constitutionality, and the most prominent
statesmen of the Democratic party, Buchanan
included, called it openly and emphatically
a sacred and involiiolable instrument, as
sacred and involiiolable as the Constitution
itself. Nor did they stop there. When after
the Mexican war, the territories acquired
from Mexico were to be organized and their
character to be determined, the most prominent
men of the Democratic party, Douglas
foremost, considered the Missouri line to be
so excellent an arrangement, that they
proposed to extend it beyond the limits of the
Territory of Louisiana across the whole
continent to the Pacific Ocean. But mark well
what the consequences of the extension of
that line would have been. It would have
determined the character and the future
institutions of the newly acquired territory,
and as most of it lay south of the Missouri
line, the most valuable part of it would have
been doomed to Slavery, and Southern California
would have been a Slave State now.
And then nobody doubted the constitutionality
of the Missouri Compromise, it was
still as sacred as the Constitution itself.
But now the time arrives when free States are to spring up under the guarantees of the same Missouri Compromise. The Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, consecrated to free labor, are to receive a Territorial organization. And now, suddenly, a Northern Democrat rises in the Senate of the United States, and asserts that the territory north of the Missouri line can no longer be exempt from Slavery, because the exclusion of Slavery by Congressional legislation would be incompatible with the principle of popular sovereignty, and that the spirit of the Constitution is in opposition to the existence of a boundary line that guarantees freedom to a square foot of land. The whole North bounds up against the atrocity of that doctrine, but Douglas whips in Gen. Pierce, the national administration throws the whole weight of its patronage into the balance, the principle laid down in the Nebraska Bill is made a test of Democracy throughout the United States, and the whole Democratic party is suddenly convinced of the unconstitutionality of the Missouri Compromise.