no need of either pushing the
other off.

So that saying, "In the struggle between the negro and the crocodile,"
etc., is made up from the idea that down where the crocodile inhabits, a
white man can't labor; it must be nothing else but crocodile or negro; if
the negro does not the crocodile must possess the earth; in that case he
declares for the negro. The meaning of the whole is just this: As a white
man is to a negro, so is a negro to a crocodile; and as the negro may
rightfully treat the crocodile, so may the white man rightfully treat the
negro. This very dear phrase coined by its author, and so dear that he
deliberately repeats it in many speeches, has a tendency to still further
brutalize the negro, and to bring public opinion to the point of utter
indifference whether men so brutalized are enslaved or not. When that time
shall come, if ever, I think that policy to which I refer may prevail. But
I hope the good freemen of this country will never allow it to come, and
until then the policy can never be maintained.

Now consider the effect of this policy. We in the States are not to
care whether freedom or slavery gets the better, but the people in the
Territories may care. They are to decide, and they may think what they
please; it is a matter of dollars and cents! But are not the people of the
Territories detailed from the States? If this feeling of indifference this
absence of moral sense about the question prevails in the States, will
it not be carried into the Territories? Will not every man say, "I don't
care, it is nothing to me"? If any one comes that wants slavery, must they
not say, "I don't care whether freedom or slavery be voted up or voted
down"? It results at last in nationalizing the institution of slavery.
Even if fairly carried out, that policy is just as certain to nationalize
slavery as the doctrine of Jeff Davis himself. These are only two roads
to the same goal, and "popular sovereignty" is just as sure and almost as
short as the other.

What we want, and all we want, is to have with us the men who think
slavery wrong. But those who say they hate slavery, and are opposed to it,
but yet act with the Democratic party--where are they? Let us apply a
few tests. You say that you think slavery is wrong, but you denounce all
attempts to restrain it. Is there anything else that you think wrong that
you are not willing to deal with as wrong? Why are you so careful, so
tender, of this one wrong and n