decision. Like some obstinate animal (I mean no disrespect) that will
hang on when he has once got his teeth fixed, you may cut off a leg, or
you may tear away an arm, still he will not relax his hold. And so I may
point out to the Judge, and say that he is bespattered all over, from the
beginning of his political life to the present time, with attacks upon
judicial decisions; I may cut off limb after limb of his public record,
and strive to wrench him from a single dictum of the court,--yet I cannot
divert him from it. He hangs, to the last, to the Dred Scott decision.
These things show there is a purpose strong as death and eternity for
which he adheres to this decision, and for which he will adhere to all
other decisions of the same court.

[A HIBERNIAN: "Give us something besides Dred Scott."]

Yes; no doubt you want to hear something that don't hurt. Now, having
spoken of the Dred Scott decision, one more word, and I am done. Henry
Clay, my beau-ideal of a statesman, the man for whom I fought all my
humble life, Henry Clay once said of a class of men who would repress all
tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation that they must, if they
would do this, go back to the era of our Independence, and muzzle the
cannon which thunders its annual joyous return; they must blow out the
moral lights around us; they must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate
there the love of liberty; and then, and not till then, could they
perpetuate slavery in this country! To my thinking, Judge Douglas is, by
his example and vast influence, doing that very thing in this community,
when he says that the negro has nothing in the Declaration of
Independence. Henry Clay plainly understood the contrary. Judge Douglas
is going back to the era of our Revolution, and, to the extent of his
ability, muzzling the cannon which thunders its annual joyous return.
When he invites any people, willing to have slavery, to establish it, he