_know_ that slavery is a detestable crime and ruinous to the nation, are
compelled, by our peculiar condition and other circumstances, to
advocate it concretely, though damning it in the raw. Henry Clay was a
brilliant example of this tendency; others of our purest statesmen are
compelled to do so; and thus slavery secures actual support from those
who detest it at heart. Yet Henry Clay perfected and forced through the
Compromise which secured to slavery a great State as well as a political
advantage. Not that he hated slavery less, but that he loved the whole
Union more. As long as slavery profited by his great Compromise, the
hosts of pro-slavery could not sufficiently cover him with praise; but
now that this Compromise stands in their way--

"...they never mention him,
His name is never heard:
Their lips are now forbid to speak
That once familiar word."

They have slaughtered one of his most cherished measures, and his ghost
would arise to rebuke them. [Great applause.]

Now, let us harmonize, my friends, and appeal to the moderation and
patriotism of the people: to the sober second thought; to the awakened
public conscience. The repeal of the sacred Missouri Compromise has
installed the weapons of violence: the bludgeon, the incendiary torch,
the death-dealing rifle, the bristling cannon--the weapons of kingcraft,
of the inquisition, of ignorance, of barbarism, of oppression. We see
its fruits in the dying bed of the heroic Sumner; in the ruins of the
"Free State" hotel; in the smoking embers of the _Herald of Freedom_; in
the free-State Governor of Kansas chained to a stake on freedom's soil
like a horse-thief, for the crime of freedom. [Applause.] We see it in