We shall lie down, pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free, and we shall awake to the reality instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State.
Lincoln uses a vivid metaphor to warn that complacency about slavery's future could lead to its imposition even in free states by judicial decree.
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As a general rule I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I cannot properly offer an answer.
If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything.
The question is, will it be wiser to take it as it is and help to improve it, or to reject and disperse it?
If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business.
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