Arkansas _and_ Missouri as one slave State. But the territory was
divided, and Arkansas came in, without serious question, as a slave
State; and afterward Missouri, not as a sort of equality, _free_, but
also as a slave State. Then we had Florida and Texas; and now Kansas is
about to be forced into the dismal procession. [Sensation.] And so it is
wherever you look. We have not forgotten--it is but six years since--how
dangerously near California came to being a slave State. Texas is a
slave State, and four other slave States may be carved from its vast
domain. And yet, in the year 1829, slavery was abolished throughout
that vast region by a royal decree of the then sovereign of Mexico. Will
you please tell me by what _right_ slavery exists in Texas to-day? By
the same right as, and no higher or greater than, slavery is seeking
dominion in Kansas: by political force--peaceful, if that will suffice;
by the torch (as in Kansas) and the bludgeon (as in the Senate chamber),
if required. And so history repeats itself; and even as slavery has kept
its course by craft, intimidation, and violence in the past, so it will
persist, in my judgment, until met and dominated by the will of a people
bent on its restriction.

We have, this very afternoon, heard bitter denunciations of Brooks in
Washington, and Titus, Stringfellow, Atchison, Jones, and Shannon in
Kansas--the battle-ground of slavery. I certainly am not going to
advocate or shield them; but they and their acts are but the necessary
outcome of the Nebraska law. We should reserve our highest censure for
the authors of the mischief, and not for the catspaws which they use. I
believe it was Shakespeare who said, "Where the offence lies, there let
the axe fall;" and, in my opinion, this man Douglas and the Northern men
in Congress who advocate "Nebraska" are more guilty than a thousand
Joneses and Stringfellows, with all their murderous practices, can be.
[Applause.]