Here is the essential and vital part of the argument, even on the question of Constitutional Law.

It is only when this is done that we can see how irrational is every effort to give it constitutional force, or to save it from the action of Congress within the national jurisdiction.

According to the claim now made, Slavery exists under the Constitution everywhere outside the States,--in other words, Slavery is National; whereas just the contrary is true.

Everywhere outside the States Freedom must prevail; in other words, Freedom is National.

If a full-blooded negro were sent in that capacity from either of those countries, by the Laws of Nations he could demand that he be received precisely on the same terms of equality with the white representatives from the powers of the…

Like the Decalogue, it would be in positive language: “Thou shalt enslave thy brother man.” It would be left to no doubtful phrase or ambiguous words, but would stand forth in appalling certainty, a “darkness visible.” It would be stuck…

But nothing is clearer than that in this well-considered instrument there is not one clause or word which maintains property in man, not one clause or word on which any such pretension can be founded.

If we have too many, let us reduce the list, but do not commence our economies on Hayti and Liberia.

So completely has this been done, that it is among boasts often made, that a stranger in a distant country or a future age, reading our Constitution, and having no other record of our history, would not know that any human being had ever…

If men find Slavery there, it is only because they make the Constitution reflect their own souls.

And yet this pretension is now the shibboleth of a great political party; this is its single inspiration; this is its only principle; this is all its stock in trade; this is its very “breath of life.” To this base use has Democracy come.

Breckinridge, you declare, first, that man can have property in his fellow-man, and, secondly, that such property is recognized by the Constitution of the United States.

Last in order of alphabet is the Douglas party, whose single cry is “Popular Sovereignty”; last also in character,--for who can respect what we know to be a deceit?

This is the grand principle, first announced in the Declaration of Independence, which is destined to regenerate the world.

Not simply national independence was here proclaimed, but also the primal rights of all mankind.

None so degraded as to be beneath its beneficent reach, none so lofty as to be above its restraining power; while before it Despotism and Oligarchy fall on their faces, like the image of Dagon, and the people everywhere begin to govern…

But this dogma is distinctly discarded in the Declaration, and it is frankly proclaimed that all sovereignty is subordinate to the rule of Right.

It is urged that a handful of squatters may rightfully decide this claim, and the time-honored traditional power of Congress over Slavery in the Territories is denied or voted down.

Laborious, studious, exemplary in private life, and fertile in pretexts, this venerable character has afforded the formula by which men have voted for Slavery, while making professions for Freedom.

He is author of the artifice--rejected by every Slave-Master, and rejected by every lover of Freedom, whose eyes are open--which, under the nickname of Squatter Sovereignty, has been the device of doughfaces, enabling them sometimes to…

Once for the Wilmot Proviso, which asserted the power of Congress over the Territories, and then for a pretended Popular Sovereignty, which denied this power, he became the pendulum between Freedom and Slavery, and, thus swinging, imparted…

According to them, Slavery went with the Constitution, and was beyond the control of squatters.

While professing Popular Sovereignty, what did his bill really confer upon the people?

Not the right to organize their own government, determining for themselves its form and character; for all this was done by Act of Congress.

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.