It is now what Jefferson
foresaw and intended--the happy home of teeming millions of free, white,
prosperous people, and no slave among them.
Thus, with the author of the Declaration of Independence, the policy of
prohibiting slavery in new territory originated. Thus, away back to the
Constitution, in the pure, fresh, free breath of the Revolution, the
State of Virginia and the national Congress put that policy into
practice. Thus, through more than sixty of the best years of the
republic, did that policy steadily work to its great and beneficent end.
And thus, in those five States, and in five millions of free,
enterprising people, we have before us the rich fruits of this policy.
But now new light breaks upon us. Now Congress declares this ought never
to have been, and the like of it must never be again. The sacred right of
self-government is grossly violated by it. We even find some men who drew
their first breath--and every other breath of their lives--under this
very restriction, now live in dread of absolute suffocation if they
should be restricted in the "sacred right" of taking slaves to Nebraska.
That perfect liberty they sigh for--the liberty of making slaves of other
people, Jefferson never thought of, their own fathers never thought of,
they never thought of themselves, a year ago.
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