Of course, such an anarchical pretension, so instinct with all the lawlessness of Slavery, must be encountered peremptorily.

Instead of scouting this pretension, and utterly spurning it, new concessions to Slavery were gravely propounded as the means of pacification,--like a new sacrifice offered to an obscene divinity.

Against all such propositions, without considering their character, stands on the threshold one obvious and imperative objection.

If Slavery be unconstitutional in the national capital, and if it be a Christian duty, sustained by constitutional examples, to ransom slaves, then your swift desires will not hesitate to adopt the present bill.

It is clear that the very bargain or understanding, whether express or implied, is a recognition of this pretended right, and that a State yielding only to such appeal, and detained through concessions, practically asserts the claim, and…

Thus a concession called small becomes infinite; for it concedes the pretended right of secession, and makes the permanence of the National Government impossible.

Amidst all the grave responsibilities of the hour, we must take care that the life of the Republic is sacredly preserved.

But this would be sacrificed at once, did we submit its existence to the conditions proposed.

Looking at these concessions, I have always found them utterly unreasonable and indefensible.

I should not expose them now, if they did not testify constantly to the Origin and Mainspring of this Rebellion.

Slavery was always the single subject-matter, and nothing else.

Slavery was not only an integral part of every concession, but the single integer.

The one idea was to give some new security, in some form, to Slavery.

He proposed nothing short of general surrender; and thus did he proclaim Slavery as the head and front, the very causa causans, of the whole crime.

At a moment when frankness was needed above all things, we were treated to phrases pregnant with doubt and controversy, and were gravely asked, in the name of Slavery, to embody them in the National Constitution.

But even in their ignorance they bore witness to Slavery, while the propositions were the familiar voice of Slavery, crying, “Give! give!

If you read this proposition, you will find it crude and ill-shaped,--a jargon of bad grammar, a jumble and hodge-podge of words,--harmonizing poorly with the accurate text of our Constitution.

No concession to Slavery can be “small.” Freedom is priceless, and in this simple rule alike of morals and jurisprudence you find the just measure of any concession, how small soever it may seem, by which Freedom is sacrificed.

By such examples let me be guided, rather than by the suggestion, that Human Freedom, whether in many or in few, is of so little value that it may be put in the market to appease a traitorous conspiracy, or soothe accessories, who, without…

Timid counsels always are an encouragement to sedition and rebellion.

If the glove be of velvet, the hand must be of iron.

To expect to tranquillize and benefit a country by gratifying its agitators would be like the practice of the superstitious of old with their sympathetic powders and ointments, who, instead of applying medicaments to the wound, contented…

To humor the present disposition, and temporize, is a certain, absolutely certain, confirmation of the evil.

Pardon me, if I express regret, profound and heartfelt, that the pretensions of Slavery, whether in claim of privilege or in doctrine of secession, were not always encountered boldly and austerely.

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