nothing in defence of the abstract right of slavery. Within a few
years essays have been written, books have been published, by northern
as well as by southern men, and with the increase of information,
there has been a subsidence of prejudice, and a preparation of the
mind to receive truth. Our friends are still in a minority. It would
be vain to speculate as to the period when their position will be
reversed. Whether sooner or later, or never, they are still entitled
to our regard and respect. A few years ago those who maintained our
constitutional right, and to secure it voted for the Kansas and
Nebraska bill, went home to meet reproach and expulsions from public
employment.

Even their social position was affected by that political act. The few
years, however, which have elapsed, have produced a great change. They
have recovered all except their political position. That bill which
was considered when it was enacted, a Southern measure, for which
Northern men bravely sacrificed their political prospects, has of late
been denounced at the South as a cheat and a humbug. A poor return
certainly, to those who conscientiously maintaining our rights,
surrendered their popularity to secure what the men for whom they made
the sacrifice now pronounce to have been a cheat. It is true that bill
has recently received in some quarters a construction which its
friends did not place upon it when it was enacted. But it should be
judged by its terms and by contemporaneous construction.

When I visited the people of Mississippi last year, the question of
greatest public excitement, was connected with the action of the
Executive in relation to the admission of Kansas as a State of the
Union. You had been led to suppose that the President would attempt to
control the action of the convention, and if the constitution was not