But by express statute, in the
land of Washington and Jefferson, we may soon be brought face to face
with the discreditable fact of showing to the world by our acts that we
prefer slavery to freedom--darkness to light! [Sensation.]
It is, I believe, a principle in law that when one party to a contract
violates it so grossly as to chiefly destroy the object for which it is
made, the other party may rescind it. I will ask Browning if that ain't
good law. [Voices: "Yes!"] Well, now if that be right, I go for
rescinding the whole, entire Missouri Compromise and thus turning
Missouri into a free State; and I should like to know the
difference--should like for any one to point out the difference--between
our making a free State of Missouri and their making a slave State of
Kansas. [Great applause.] There ain't one bit of difference, except that
our way would be a great mercy to humanity. But I have never said, and
the Whig party has never said, and those who oppose the Nebraska Bill do
not as a body say, that they have any intention of interfering with
slavery in the slave States. Our platform says just the contrary. We
allow slavery to exist in the slave States, not because slavery is right
or good, but from the necessities of our Union.
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