they may not, as in ancient fable, spring up armed men, yet will they fructify in civil strife and feud. From the depths of my soul, as a loyal citizen and as a Senator, I plead, remonstrate, protest against the passage of this bill. I struggle against it as against death; but, as in death itself corruption puts on incorruption, and this mortal body puts on immortality, so from the sting of this hour I find assurance of that triumph by which freedom will be restored to her immortal birthright in the Republic. Sir, the bill, which you are now about to pass is at once the worst and the best bill on which Congress ever acted. It is the worst bill, inasmuch as it is a present victory of slavery. In a Christian land, and in an age of civilization, a time-honored statute of freedom is struck down, opening the way to all the countless woes and wrongs of human bondage. Among the crimes of history a new one is about to be recorded, which, in better days, I will be read with universal shame. The tea tax and stamp act, which aroused the patriotic rage of our fathers, were virtues by the side of this enormity; nor would it be easy to imagine, at this day, any measure which more openly defied every sentiment of justice, humanity, and Christianity. Am I not right, then, in calling it the worst bill on which Congress ever acted? But there is another side to which I gladly turn. Sir, it is the best bill on which Congress ever acted; for it prepares the way for that "All hail hereafter," when slavery must disappear. It annuls all past compromises with slavery, and makes all future compromises impossible. Thus it puts freedom and slavery face to face, and bids them grapple. Who can doubt the result? It opens wide the door of the future, when, at last, there will really be a North, and the slave power will be broken; when this wretched despotism will cease to dominate over our Government, no longer impressing itself upon all that it does, at home and abroad; when the National Government shall be divorced in every way from slavery, and, according to the true intention of our fathers, freedom shall be established by Congress everywhere, at least beyond the local limits of the States. Slavery will then be driven from its usurped foothold here in the District of Columbia; in the national Territories, and elsewhere beneath the national flag; the fugitive-slave bill, as odious as it is unconstitutional, will become a dead letter; and the domestic slave-trade, so far as it can be reached, but especially on the high seas, will be blasted by Congressional prohibition. Everywhere within the sphere of Congress, the great Northern Hammer will descend to smite the wrong; and the irresistible cry will break forth, "No more slave States!" Thus, sir, now standing at the very grave of freedom in Kansas and Nebraska, I find assurances of that happy resurrection, by which freedom will be secured hereafter, not only in these Territories, but everywhere under the National Government, More clearly than ever beginning of the end" before, I now see "the of slavery. Am I not right, then, in calling this measure the best bill on which Congress ever acted? Sorrowfully I bend before the wrong you are about to perpetrate. Joyfully I welcome all the promises of the future. STEPHEN ARNOLD DOUGLAS, OF ILLINOIS. (BORN 1813, DIED 1861.) ON THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA BILL; SENATE, IT has been urged in debate that there is no necessity for these Territorial organizations; and I have been called upon to point out any public and national considerations which require action at this time. Senators seem to forget that our immense and valuable possessions on the Pacific are separated from the States and organized Territories on this side of the Rocky Mountains by a vast wilderness, filled by hostile savages-that nearly a hundred thousand emigrants pass through this barbarous wilderness every year, on their way to California and Oregon—that these emigrants are American citizens, our own constituents, who are entitled to the protection of law and government, and that they are left to make their way, as best they may, without the protection or aid of law or government. The United States mails for New Mexico and Utah, and official communications between this Government and the authorities of those Territories, are required to be carried over these wild plains, and through the gorges of the mountains, where you have made no provisions for roads, bridges, or ferries to facilitate travel, or forts or other means of safety to protect life. As often as I have brought forward and urged the adoption of measures to remedy these evils, and afford security against the damages to which our people are constantly exposed, they have been promptly voted down as not being of sufficient importance to command the favorable consideration of Congress. Now, when I propose to organize the Territories, and allow the people to do for themselves what you have so often refused to do for them, I am told that there are not white inhabitants enough permanently settled in the country to require and sustain a government. True; there is not a very large population there, for the very reason that your Indian code and intercourse laws exclude the settlers, and forbid their remaining there to cultivate the soil. You refuse to throw the country open to set |