Judge Douglas ignores altogether the very well-known fact that we have never had a serious menace to our political existence except it sprang from this thing, which he chooses to regard as only upon a par with onions and potatoes.

If public sentiment has not been debauched already to this point, a new turn of the screw in that direction is all that is wanting; and this is constantly being done by the teachers of this insidious popular sovereignty.

Public opinion in this country is everything.

I think a definition of genuine popular sovereignty in the abstract would be about this: that each man shall do precisely as he pleases with himself, and with all those things which exclusively concern him.

It is, as a principle, no other than that if one man chooses to make a slave of another man, neither that other man nor anybody else has a right to object.

If you think that now, and did not think it then, the next thing that strikes me is to remark that there has been a change wrought in you, and a very significant change it is, being no less than changing the negro, in your estimation, from…

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under a just God, cannot long retain it.

That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent.

You will find that every time, with the single exception of the nullification question, they sprung from an endeavour to spread this institution.

There never was a party in the history of this country, and there probably never will be, of sufficient strength to disturb the general peace of the country.

Parties themselves may be divided and quarrel on minor questions, yet it extends not beyond the parties themselves.

Is it not this same mighty, deep-seated power, that somehow operates on the minds of men, exciting and stirring them up in every avenue of society, in politics, in religion, in literature, in morals, in all the manifold relations of life?

Is that irresistible power which for fifty years has shaken the government and agitated the people, to be stilled and subdued by pretending that it is an exceedingly simple thing, and we ought not to talk about it?

If you will get everybody else to stop talking about it, I assure you that I will quit before they have half done so.

But where is the philosophy or statesmanship which assumes that you can quiet that disturbing element in our society, which has disturbed us for more than half a century, which has been the only serious danger that has threatened our…

I say where is the philosophy or the statesmanship, based on the assumption that we are to quit talking about it, and that the public mind is all at once to cease being agitated by it?

They look upon it as being a moral, social, and political wrong; and while they contemplate it as such, they nevertheless have due regard for its actual existence among us, and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way…

They insist that it, as far as may be, be treated as a wrong; and one of the methods of treating it as a wrong is to make provision that it shall grow no larger.

They also desire a policy that looks to a peaceful end of slavery some time, as being a wrong.

And if there be a man amongst us who is so impatient of it as a wrong as to disregard its actual presence among us, and the difficulty of getting rid of it suddenly in a satisfactory way, and to disregard the constitutional obligations…

Has anything ever threatened the existence of this Union save and except this very institution of slavery?

What has ever threatened our liberty and prosperity save and except this institution of slavery?

You may have a wen or a cancer upon your person, and not be able to cut it out lest you bleed to death; but surely it is no way to cure it, to engraft it and spread it over your whole body.

What other thing that you consider a wrong do you deal with as you deal with that?

Is it not a false statesmanship that undertakes to build up a system of policy upon the basis of caring nothing about the very thing that everybody does care the most about,--a thing which all experience has shown we care a very great deal…