And when this new principle--this new proposition that no human being
ever thought of three years ago--is brought forward, I combat it as
having an evil tendency, if not an evil design. I combat it as having a
tendency to dehumanize the negro, to take away from him the right of ever
striving to be a man. I combat it as being one of the thousand things
constantly done in these days to prepare the public mind to make
property, and nothing but property, of the negro in all the States of
this Union.

But there is a point that I wish, before leaving this part of the
discussion, to ask attention to. I have read and I repeat the words of
Henry Clay:

"I desire no concealment of my opinions in regard to the institution of
slavery. I look upon it as a great evil, and deeply lament that we have
derived it from the parental government and from our ancestors. I wish
every slave in the United States was in the country of his ancestors. But
here they are, and the question is, How can they be best dealt with? If a
state of nature existed, and we were about to lay the foundations of
society, no man would be more strongly opposed than I should be to
incorporate the institution of slavery amongst its elements."

The principle upon which I have insisted in this canvass is in relation
to laying the foundations of new societies. I have never sought to apply
these principles to the old States for the purpose of abolishing slavery
in those States. It is nothing but a miserable perversion of what I have
said, to assume that I have declared Missouri, or any other slave State,
shall emancipate her slaves; I have proposed no such thing. But when Mr.
Clay says that in laying the foundations of society in our Territories