We have seen to-day that every shade of popular opinion is represented
here, with Freedom, or rather Free Soil, as the basis. We have come
together as in some sort representatives of popular opinion against the
extension of slavery into territory now free in fact as well as by law,
and the pledged word of the statesmen of the nation who are now no more.
We come--we are here assembled together--to protest as well as we can
against a great wrong, and to take measures, as well as we now can, to
make that wrong right; to place the nation, as far as it may be possible
now, as it was before the repeal of the Missouri Compromise; and the
plain way to do this is to restore the Compromise, and to demand and
determine that Kansas shall be free! [Immense applause.] While we affirm,
and reaffirm, if necessary, our devotion to the principles of the
Declaration of Independence, let our practical work here be limited to
the above. We know that there is not a perfect agreement of sentiment
here on the public questions which might be rightfully considered in this
convention, and that the indignation which we all must feel cannot be
helped; but all of us must give up something for the good of the cause.
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