unmistakable spirit of that age toward slavery was hostility to the
principle and toleration only by necessity.

But now it is to be transformed into a "sacred right." Nebraska brings it
forth, places it on the highroad to extension and perpetuity, and with a
pat on its back says to it, "Go, and God speed you." Henceforth it is to
be the chief jewel of the nation the very figure-head of the ship of
state. Little by little, but steadily as man's march to the grave, we
have been giving up the old for the new faith. Near eighty years ago we
began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that
beginning we have run down to the other declaration, that for some men to
enslave others is a "sacred right of self-government." These principles
cannot stand together. They are as opposite as God and Mammon; and who
ever holds to the one must despise the other. When Pettit, in connection
with his support of the Nebraska Bill, called the Declaration of
Independence "a self-evident lie," he only did what consistency and
candor require all other Nebraska men to do. Of the forty-odd Nebraska
senators who sat present and heard him, no one rebuked him. Nor am I
apprised that any Nebraska newspaper, or any Nebraska orator, in the
whole nation has ever yet rebuked him. If this had been said among
Marion's men, Southerners though they were, what would have become of the
man who said it? If this had been said to the men who captured Andre, the
man who said it would probably have been hung sooner than Andre was. If
it had been said in old Independence Hall seventy-eight years ago, the
very doorkeeper would have throttled the man and thrust him into the
street. Let no one be deceived. The spirit of seventy-six and the spirit
of Nebraska are utter antagonisms; and the former is being rapidly
displaced by the latter.

Fellow-countrymen, Americans, South as well as North, shall we make no