The masses were against
it, but party necessity carried it; and it was passed through the lower
house of Congress against the will of the people, for the same reason.
Here is where the greatest danger lies that, while we profess to be a
government of law and reason, law will give way to violence on demand of
this awful and crushing power. Like the great Juggernaut--I think that is
the name--the great idol, it crushes everything that comes in its way,
and makes a [?]--or, as I read once, in a blackletter law book, "a slave
is a human being who is legally not a person but a thing." And if the
safeguards to liberty are broken down, as is now attempted, when they
have made things of all the free negroes, how long, think you, before
they will begin to make things of poor white men? [Applause.] Be not
deceived. Revolutions do not go backward. The founder of the Democratic
party declared that all men were created equal. His successor in the
leadership has written the word "white" before men, making it read "all
white men are created equal." Pray, will or may not the Know-Nothings, if
they should get in power, add the word "Protestant," making it read "all
Protestant white men.
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