e operation of that
policy this agitation has not only not ceased, but it has been constantly
augmented. And this too, although, from the day of its introduction, its
friends, who promised that it would wholly end all agitation, constantly
insisted, down to the time that the Lecompton Bill was introduced, that it
was working admirably, and that its inevitable tendency was to remove the
question forever from the politics of the country. Can you call to mind
any Democratic speech, made after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise,
down to the time of the Lecompton Bill, in which it was not predicted that
the slavery agitation was just at an end, that "the abolition excitement
was played out," "the Kansas question was dead," "they have made the most
they can out of this question and it is now forever settled"? But since
the Lecompton Bill no Democrat, within my experience, has ever pretended
that he could see the end. That cry has been dropped. They themselves do
not pretend, now, that the agitation of this subject has come to an end
yet.

The truth is that this question is one of national importance, and we
cannot help dealing with it; we must do something about it, whether
we will or not. We cannot avoid it; the subject is one we cannot avoid
considering; we can no more avoid it than a man can live without eating.
It is upon us; it attaches to the body politic as much and closely as the
natural wants attach to our natural bodies. Now I think it important that
this matter should be taken up in earnest, and really settled: And one way
to bring about a true settlement of the question is to understand its true
magnitude.

There have been many efforts made to settle it. Again and again it has
been fondly hoped that it was settled; but every time it breaks out
afresh, and more violently than ever. It was settled, our fathers
hoped, by the Missouri Compromise, but it did not stay settled. Then the
compromises of 1850 were declared to be a full and final settlement of
the question. The two great parties, each in national convention, adopted
resolutions declaring that the settlement made by the Compromise of 1850
was a finality that it would last forever. Yet how long before it was
unsettled again? It broke out again in 1854, and blazed higher and raged
more furiously than ever before, and the agitation has not rested since.

These repeated settlements must have some faults about them. There must
be some inadequacy in their very