"Topers!" said a voice, and there were yells.
"Nor for topers," resumed Douglas.
"I want results. What have you done with prohibition of slavery in the North by Federal law? You who want negro equality, why don't you repeal the laws of Illinois that forbid the intermarriage of white and blacks, that forbid a negro from testifying against a white man, that allow indentures of apprenticeship, and that require registration of negroes brought into the state, the same as you license a dog? The Federal government does not prevent you. The Ordinance of 1787 gave you the start that you want for Kansas and Nebraska. Yet you have these things; and you don't have slavery. Why? Not because the Federal government says you can't have it, but because you yourself do not want it. I say that this northern country is dedicated by God to freedom, law or no law; if it hadn't been, General Harrison, who introduced slavery into Indiana against the Ordinance of 1787 would have introduced something that would be there now. So much for you Whigs who voted for Harrison in 1840."
A voice:
"How about Kansas and Nebraska?" There were more yells. "I am telling you, if you will hear me. You old Whigs who followed Henry Clay to the end, why do you denounce me when the Kansas-Nebraska bill is the same in principle as Clay's Compromises of 1850 ..."
"How about California?"
"It was a compromise. And as I have said before if the people of California had wanted a slave state they would have had it, any law to the ..."
Voices crying: "Benedict Arnold! Judas!" Douglas' voice rose to its fullest power. He was fulminating Black Republicans, Know-nothings, Anti-Catholics, humbug Whigs. I felt sure that he would be attacked. For two hours he fought with this wild and wicked audience. He appealed to their sense of fairness. If he was wrong, what harm to hear him through, the better to see the wrong? If he was right, why condemn him unheard? I could only make out a few sentences from time to time. He grew weary at last. He drew out his watch. The audience quieted to hear what he would say. "It is now Sunday morning. I will go to church and you may go to hell."
He stepped from the platform, walked boldly through the angry mob, ready to assault him. Without a tremor, fearlessly he edged his way along to his carriage, got into it, and was driven away, the mob hooting, bolder rowdies running after him, and covering him with vile epithets.
We walked away slowly without speaking to each other. We were too shamed, too sympathetic with Douglas to tolerate this exhibition of lawlessness. We were disgraced by an American audience which had tried to disgrace an American Senator, who asked for nothing except for the privilege of being heard.