A little water to make it weak,
A little brandy to give it power. (Laughter.)

As a Northern argument against us, it is a mass of lead so heavy that it
weighed down even the strong shoulders of Judge Jessup. For, sir, when he
closed his speech, I asked him a single question I had made ready for him.
It was this:--"Do you allow that Mr. Aiken, of South Carolina, may, under
the claims of humanity, hold three thousand slaves, or must he emancipate
them?" The Judge staggered, and stammered, and said, "No man could rightly
hold so many." I then asked, "How many may he hold, in humanity?" The
Judge saw his fatal dilemma. He recovered himself handsomely, and fairly
said, "Mr. Aiken might hold three thousand slaves, in harmony with the
Detroit action." I replied, "Then, sir, you have surrendered the whole
question of Southern slavery." And, sir, the Judge looked as if he felt he
had surrendered it. And every man in this house, capable of understanding
the force of that question, felt it had shivered the whole anti-slavery
argument, on those resolutions, to atoms. Why, sir, if a man can hold
three slaves, with a right heart and the approbation of God, he may hold
thirty, three hundred, three thousand, or thirty thousand. It is a mere
question of heart, and capacity to govern. The Emperor of Russia holds
sixty millions of slaves: and is there a man in this house so much of a
fool as to say that God regards the Emperor of Russia a sinner because he
is the master of sixty millions of slaves? Sir, that Emperor has certainly
a high and awful responsibility upon him. But, if he is good as he is
great, he is a god of benevolence on earth. And so is every Southern
master. His obligation is high, and great, and glorious. It is the same
obligation, in kind, he is under to his wife and children, and in some
respects immensely higher, by reason of the number and the tremendous
interests involved for time and eternity in connection with this great
country, Africa, and the world. Yes, sir, _I know_, whether Southern