There is no instance of exact equality; and the
disadvantage is against us the whole chapter through. This principle, in
the aggregate, gives the slave States in the present Congress twenty
additional representatives, being seven more than the whole majority by
which they passed the Nebraska Bill.
Now all this is manifestly unfair; yet I do not mention it to complain of
it, in so far as it is already settled. It is in the Constitution, and I
do not for that cause, or any other cause, propose to destroy, or alter,
or disregard the Constitution. I stand to it, fairly, fully, and firmly.
But when I am told I must leave it altogether to other people to say
whether new partners are to be bred up and brought into the firm, on the
same degrading terms against me, I respectfully demur. I insist that
whether I shall be a whole man or only the half of one, in comparison
with others is a question in which I am somewhat concerned, and one which
no other man can have a sacred right of deciding for me. If I am wrong in
this, if it really be a sacred right of self-government in the man who
shall go to Nebraska to decide whether he will be the equal of me or the
double of me, then, after he shall have exercised that right, and thereby
shall have reduced me to a still smaller fraction of a man than I already
am, I should like for some gentleman, deeply skilled in the mysteries of
sacred rights, to provide himself with a microscope, and peep about, and
find out, if he can, what has become of my sacred rights.
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