You must remove this restriction, too, from the sacred right of
self-government. I am aware you say that taking slaves from the States to
Nebraska does not make slaves of freemen; but the African slave-trader
can say just as much. He does not catch free negroes and bring them here.
He finds them already slaves in the hands of their black captors, and he
honestly buys them at the rate of a red cotton handkerchief a head. This
is very cheap, and it is a great abridgment of the sacred right of
self-government to hang men for engaging in this profitable trade.
Another important objection to this application of the right of
self-government is that it enables the first few to deprive the
succeeding many of a free exercise of the right of self-government. The
first few may get slavery in, and the subsequent many cannot easily get
it out. How common is the remark now in the slave States, "If we were
only clear of our slaves, how much better it would be for us." They are
actually deprived of the privilege of governing themselves as they would,
by the action of a very few in the beginning. The same thing was true of
the whole nation at the time our Constitution was formed.
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