anything. In that passage I indicated no wish or purpose of my own; I
simply expressed my expectation. Cannot the Judge perceive a distinction
between a purpose and an expectation? I have often expressed an
expectation to die, but I have never expressed a wish to die. I said at
Chicago, and now repeat, that I am quite aware this government has
endured, half slave and half free, for eighty-two years. I understand
that little bit of history. I expressed the opinion I did because I
perceived--or thought I perceived--a new set of causes introduced. I did
say at Chicago, in my speech there, that I do wish to see the spread of
slavery arrested, and to see it placed where the public mind shall rest
in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction. I said
that because I supposed, when the public mind shall rest in that belief,
we shall have peace on the slavery question. I have believed--and now
believe--the public mind did rest on that belief up to the introduction
of the Nebraska Bill.

Although I have ever been opposed to slavery, so far I rested in the hope
and belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. For that
reason it had been a minor question with me. I might have been mistaken;
but I had believed, and now believe, that the whole public mind, that is,
the mind of the great majority, had rested in that belief up to the
repeal of the Missouri Compromise. But upon that event I became convinced
that either I had been resting in a delusion, or the institution was
being placed on a new basis, a basis for making it perpetual, national,
and universal. Subsequent events have greatly confirmed me in that
belief. I believe that bill to be the beginning of a conspiracy for that
purpose. So believing, I have since then considered that question a
paramount one. So believing, I thought the public mind will never rest
till the power of Congress to restrict the spread of it shall again be
acknowledged and exercised on the one hand or, on the other, all