who denounce us openly to their own friends, and yet
whisper us softly that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there is
with which to effect that object. They wish us to _infer_ all, from the
fact that he now has a little quarrel with the present head of the
dynasty, and that he has regularly voted with us on a single point, upon
which he and we have never differed. They remind us that he is a great
man, and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be
granted. But "a living dog is better than a dead lion." Judge Douglas,
if not a dead lion, for this work is at least a caged and toothless one.
How can he oppose the advances of slavery? He don't care anything about
it. His avowed mission is impressing the "public heart" to _care nothing
about it_. A leading Douglas Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas's
superior talent will be needed to resist the revival of the African
slave-trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to revive that trade is
approaching? He has not said so. Does he really think so? But if it is,
how can he resist it? For years he has labored to prove it a sacred
right of white men to take negro slaves into the new Territories. Can he
possibly show that it is less a sacred right to buy them where they can
be bought cheapest? And unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in
Africa than in Virginia. He has done all in his power to reduce the
whole question of slavery to one of a mere right of property; and, as
such, how can he oppose the foreign slave-trade--how can he refuse that
trade in that "property" shall be "perfectly free"--unless he does it as
a protection to the home production? And as the home producers will
probably not ask the protection, he will be wholly without a ground of
opposition.

Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser
to-day than he was yesterday; that he may rightfully change when he
finds himself wrong. But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and infer
that he will make any particular change, of which he himself has given
no intimation? Can we safely base our action upon any such vague
inference? Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge Douglas's
position, question his motives, or do aught that can be personally
offensive to him. Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on
principle so that our cause may have assistance from his great ability,
I hope to have interposed no adventitious obstacle. But clearly he is
not now with us; he d