The masses, too, Democratic as well as Whig, were even nearer
unanimous against it; but, as soon as the party necessity of supporting
it became apparent, the way the Democrats began to see the wisdom and
justice of it was perfectly astonishing.
You say that if Kansas fairly votes herself a free State, as a Christian
you will rejoice at it. All decent slaveholders talk that way, and I do
not doubt their candor. But they never vote that way. Although in a
private letter or conversation you will express your preference that
Kansas shall be free, you would vote for no man for Congress who would
say the same thing publicly. No such man could be elected from any
district in a slave State. You think Stringfellow and company ought to be
hung; and yet at the next Presidential election you will vote for the
exact type and representative of Stringfellow. The slave-breeders and
slave-traders are a small, odious, and detested class among you; and yet
in politics they dictate the course of all of you, and are as completely
your masters as you are the master of your own negroes. You inquire where
I now stand. That is a disputed point. I think I am a Whig; but others
say there are no Whigs, and that I am an Abolitionist.
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