How little that Senator knows himself, or the strength of the cause which he persecutes!

He is but mortal man; against him is immortal principle.

With finite power he wrestles with the infinite, and he must fall.

Against him are stronger battalions than any marshalled by mortal arm,--the inborn, ineradicable, invincible sentiments of the human heart; against him is Nature with all her subtile forces; against him is God.

I undertake, in the first place, to expose the CRIME AGAINST KANSAS, in origin and extent.

I say Crime, and deliberately adopt this strongest term, as better than any other denoting the consummate transgression.

It is the Crime of Crimes,--surpassing far the old Crimen Majestatis, pursued with vengeance by the laws of Rome, and containing all other crimes, as the greater contains the less.

I do not go too far, when I call it the Crime against Nature, from which the soul recoils, and which language refuses to describe.

The whole subject has become a twice-told tale, and its renewed recital will be a renewal of sorrow and shame; but I shall not hesitate.

In total disregard of history, the President, in his annual message, tells us that this compromise “was reluctantly acquiesced in by Southern States.” Just the contrary is true.

It was the work of slaveholders, and by their concurring votes was crowded upon a reluctant North.

Little did they dream that the prohibition of Slavery in the territory, which was stipulated as the price of their fatal capitulation, would also, at the very moment of its maturity, be wrested from them.

With some it was openly the extension of Slavery; and with others it was openly the establishment of Freedom, under the guise of Popular Sovereignty.

The measure, thus upheld in defiance of reason, was carried through Congress in defiance of all securities of legislation.

These things I mention that you may see in what foulness the present Crime was engendered.

I make no personal imputations, but only with frankness, such as belongs to the occasion and my own character, describe a great historical act, now enrolled in the Capitol.

On the part of those who had already completely enjoyed their share of the Missouri Compromise, it was a swindle of those whose share was yet absolutely untouched; and the plea of unconstitutionality set up--like the plea of usury after…

Urged as a bill of peace, it was a swindle of the whole country.

Urged as opening the doors to slave-masters with their slaves, it was a swindle of Popular Sovereignty in its asserted doctrine.

Urged as sanctioning Popular Sovereignty, it was a swindle of slave-masters in their asserted rights.

It was a swindle of a broad territory, thus cheated of protection against Slavery.

It was a swindle of a great cause, early espoused by Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, surrounded by the best fathers of the Republic.

Turn it over, look at it on all sides, and it is everywhere a swindle; and if the word I now employ has not the authority of classical usage, it has, on this occasion, the indubitable authority of fitness.

Amidst overflowing professions of regard for the sovereignty of the people in the Territory, they are despoiled of every essential privilege of sovereignty.

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