and if it does, he stands where he stood when, in spite of him and his
opposition, you built up the Republican party. If you indorse him, you
tell him you do not care whether slavery be voted up or down, and he will
close or try to close your mouths with his declaration, repeated by the
day, the week, the month, and the year. Is that what you mean? [Cries of
"No," one voice "Yes."] Yes, I have no doubt you who have always been for
him, if you mean that. No doubt of that, soberly I have said, and I
repeat it. I think, in the position in which Judge Douglas stood in
opposing the Lecompton Constitution, he was right; he does not know that
it will return, but if it does we may know where to find him, and if it
does not, we may know where to look for him, and that is on the
Cincinnati platform. Now, I could ask the Republican party, after all the
hard names that Judge Douglas has called them by all his repeated charges
of their inclination to marry with and hug negroes; all his declarations
of Black Republicanism,--by the way, we are improving, the black has got
rubbed off,--but with all that, if he be indorsed by Republican votes,
where do you stand? Plainly, you stand ready saddled, bridled, and
harnessed, and waiting to be driven over to the slavery extension camp of
the nation,--just ready to be driven over, tied together in a lot, to be
driven over, every man with a rope around his neck, that halter being
held by Judge Douglas. That is the question. If Republican men have been
in earnest in what they have done, I think they had better not do it; but
I think that the Republican party is made up of those who, as far as they
can peaceably, will oppose the extension of slavery, and who will hope
for its ultimate extinction. If they believe it is wrong in grasping up
the new lands of the continent and keeping them from the settlement of
free white laborers, who want the land to bring up their families upon;
if they are in earnest, although they may make a mistake, they will grow
restless, and the time will come when they will come back again and
reorganize, if not by the same name, at least upon the same principles as