Mr. President, an immense space has been traversed, and I stand now at the goal. The argument in its various parts is here closed. The Crime against Kansas has been displayed in its origin and extent, beginning with the overthrow of the Prohibition of Slavery, next cropping out in conspiracy on the borders of Missouri, then hardening into continuity of outrage through organized invasion and miscellaneous assaults where all security was destroyed, and ending at last in the perfect subjugation of a generous people to an unprecedented Usurpation. Turning aghast from the Crime, which, like murder, confesses itself “with most miraculous organ,” we have looked with mingled shame and indignation upon the four Apologies, whether of Tyranny, Imbecility, Absurdity, or Infamy, in which it is wrapped, marking especially false testimony, congenial with the original Crime, against the Emigrant Aid Company. Then were noted, in succession, the four Remedies, whether of Tyranny, Folly, Injustice and Civil War, or of Justice and Peace, which last bids Kansas, in conformity with past precedents and under exigencies of the hour, for redemption from Usurpation, to take her place as a State of the Union; and this is the True Remedy. If in this argument I have not unworthily vindicated Truth, then have I spoken according to my desires,—if imperfectly, then only according to my powers. But there are other things, not belonging to the argument, which still press for utterance.
Sir, the people of Kansas, bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, with the education of freemen and the rights of American citizens, now stand at your door. Will you send them away, or bid them enter? Will you push them back to renew their struggle with a deadly foe, or will you preserve them in security and peace? Will you cast them again into the den of Tyranny, or will you help their despairing efforts to escape? These questions I put with no common solicitude, for I feel that on their just determination depend all the most precious interests of the Republic; and I perceive too clearly the prejudices in the way, and the accumulating bitterness against this distant people, now claiming a simple birthright, while I am bowed with mortification, as I recognize the President of the United States, who should have been a staff to the weak and a shield to the innocent, at the head of this strange oppression.
At every stage the similitude between the wrongs of Kansas and those other wrongs against which our fathers rose becomes more apparent. Read the Declaration of Independence, and there is hardly an accusation against the British Monarch which may not now be hurled with increased force against the American President. The parallel has fearful particularity. Our fathers complained, that the King had “sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance,”—that he had “combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation,”—that he had “abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us,”—that he had “excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless savages,”—that “our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.” And this arraignment was aptly followed by the damning words, that “a Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” And surely the President who does all these things cannot be less unfit than a Prince. At every stage the responsibility is brought directly to him. His offence is of commission and omission. He has done that which he ought not to have done, and has left undone that which he ought to have done. By his activity the Prohibition of Slavery was overturned. By his failure to act the honest emigrants in Kansas are left a prey to wrong of all kinds. His activity and inactivity are alike fatal. And now he stands forth the most conspicuous enemy of that unhappy Territory.
As the tyranny of the British King is all renewed in the President, so are renewed on this floor the old indignities which embittered and fomented the troubles of our fathers. The early petition of the American Congress to Parliament, long before any suggestion of Independence, was opposed—like the petitions of Kansas—because that body “was assembled without any requisition on the part of the Supreme Power.” Another petition from New York, presented by Edmund Burke, was flatly rejected, as claiming rights derogatory to Parliament. And still another petition from Massachusetts Bay was dismissed as “vexatious and scandalous,” while the patriot philosopher who bore it was exposed to peculiar contumely. Throughout the debates our fathers were made the butt of sorry jest and supercilious assumption. And now these scenes, with these precise objections, are renewed in the American Senate.
With regret I come again upon the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Butler], who, omnipresent in this debate,[126] overflows with rage at the simple suggestion that Kansas has applied for admission as a State, and, with incoherent phrase, discharges the loose expectoration of his speech, now upon her representative, and then upon her people. There was no extravagance of the ancient Parliamentary debate which he did not repeat; nor was there any possible deviation from truth which he did not make,—with so much of passion, I gladly add, as to save him from the suspicion of intentional aberration. But the Senator touches nothing which he does not disfigure—with error, sometimes of principle, sometimes of fact. He shows an incapacity of accuracy, whether in stating the Constitution or in stating the law, whether in details of statistics or diversions of scholarship. He cannot ope his mouth, but out there flies a blunder. Surely he ought to be familiar with the life of Franklin; and yet he referred to this household character, while acting as agent of our fathers in England, as above suspicion: and this was done that he might give point to a false contrast with the agent of Kansas,[127]—not knowing, that, however the two may differ in genius and fame, they are absolutely alike in this experience: that Franklin, when intrusted with the petition of Massachusetts Bay, was assaulted by a foul-mouthed speaker where he could not be heard in defence, and denounced as “thief,” even as the agent of Kansas is assaulted on this floor, and denounced as “forger.” And let not the vanity of the Senator be inspired by parallel with the British statesmen of that day; for it is only in hostility to Freedom that any parallel can be found.
But it is against the people of Kansas that the sensibilities of the Senator are particularly aroused. Coming, as he announces, “from a State,”—ay, Sir, from South Carolina,—he turns with lordly disgust from this newly formed community, which he will not recognize even as “a member of the body politic.”[128] Pray, Sir, by what title does he indulge in this egotism? Has he read the history of the “State” which he represents? He cannot, surely, forget its shameful imbecility from Slavery, confessed throughout the Revolution, followed by its more shameful assumptions for Slavery since. He cannot forget its wretched persistence in the slave-trade, as the very apple of its eye, and the condition of its participation in the Union. He cannot forget its Constitution, which is republican only in name, confirming power in the hands of the few, and founding the qualifications of its legislators on “a settled freehold estate of five hundred acres of land and ten negroes.”[129] And yet the Senator to whom this “State” has in part committed the guardianship of its good name, instead of moving with backward-treading steps to cover its nakedness, rushes forward, in the very ecstasy of madness, to expose it, by provoking comparison with Kansas. South Carolina is old; Kansas is young. South Carolina counts by centuries, where Kansas counts by years. But a beneficent example may be born in a day; and I venture to declare, that against the two centuries of the older “State” may be set already the two years of trial, evolving corresponding virtue, in the younger community. In the one is the long wail of Slavery; in the other, the hymn of Freedom. And if we glance at special achievement, it will be difficult to find anything in the history of South Carolina which presents so much of heroic spirit in an heroic cause as shines in that repulse of the Missouri invaders by the beleaguered town of Lawrence, where even the women gave their effective efforts to Freedom. The matrons of Rome who poured their jewels into the treasury for the public defence, the wives of Prussia who with delicate fingers clothed their defenders against French invasion, the mothers of our own Revolution who sent forth their sons covered over with prayers and blessings to combat for Human Rights, did nothing of self-sacrifice truer than did these women on this occasion. Were the whole history of South Carolina blotted out of existence, from its very beginning down to the day of the last election of the Senator to his present seat on this floor, civilization might lose—I do not say how little, but surely less than it has already gained by the example of Kansas, in that valiant struggle against oppression, and in the development of a new science of emigration. Already in Lawrence alone are newspapers and schools, including a High School,—and throughout this infant Territory there is more of educated talent, in proportion to its inhabitants, than in his vaunted “State.” Ah, Sir, I tell the Senator, that Kansas, welcomed as a Free State, “a ministering angel shall be” to the Republic, when South Carolina, in the cloak of darkness which she hugs, “lies howling.”[130]
The Senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas] naturally joins the Senator from South Carolina, and gives to this warfare the superior intensity of his nature. He thinks that the National Government has not completely proved its power, as it has never hanged a traitor,—but, if occasion requires, he hopes there will be no hesitation; and this threat is directed at Kansas, and even at the friends of Kansas throughout the country. Again occurs a parallel with the struggles of our fathers; and I borrow the language of Patrick Henry, when, to the cry from the Senator of “Treason! treason!” I reply, “If this be treason, make the most of it.” Sir, it is easy to call names; but I beg to tell the Senator, that, if the word “traitor” is in any way applicable to those who reject a tyrannical Usurpation, whether in Kansas or elsewhere, then must some new word, of deeper color, be invented to designate those mad spirits who would endanger and degrade the Republic, while they betray all the cherished sentiments of the Fathers and the spirit of the Constitution, that Slavery may have new spread. Let the Senator proceed. Not the first time in history will a scaffold become the pedestal of honor. Out of death comes life, and the “traitor” whom he blindly executes will live immortal in the cause.
“For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr stands,