"all men are created equal," and that there can be no moral right in
connection with one man's making a slave of another.

Judge Douglas frequently, with bitter irony and sarcasm, paraphrases
our argument by saying: "The white people of Nebraska are good enough to
govern themselves, but they are not good enough to govern a few
miserable negroes!"

Well, I doubt not that the people of Nebraska are and will continue to
be as good as the average of people elsewhere. I do not say the
contrary. What I do say is that no man is good enough to govern another
man without that other's consent. I say this is the leading
principle,--the sheet-anchor of American republicanism.

Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature,--opposition to it
in his love of justice. These principles are in eternal antagonism, and
when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings
them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow. Repeal
the Missouri Compromise; repeal all compromises; repeal the Declaration
of Independence; repeal all past history,--you still cannot repeal human
nature. It still will be the abundance of man's heart that slavery
extension is wrong, and out of the abundance of his heart his mouth will
continue to speak....

The Missouri Compromise ought to be restored. Slavery may or may not be
established in Nebraska. But whether it be or not, we shall have
repudiated--discarded from the councils of the nation--the spirit of
compromise; for who, after this, will ever trust in a national
compromise? The spirit of mutual concession--that spirit which first
gave us the Constitution, and has thrice saved the Union--we shall have