o take their negroes into the Territories, but they claim to take
laws there that will deny to every man the freedom of speech and the
liberty of the press. They claim the right to seal every man's lips, and
stop every man's mouth, on questions of great national interest. They
claim to take with them the right to condemn as a felon the man who may
utter and maintain the Declaration of Independence, or the opinions of
the conscript fathers of the Republic. They claim to take with them the
right to condemn as a felon the man who dares proclaim the precepts of
our holy religion. They claim to take with them the right to strip naked
and cut into gashes the back of the man who utters opinions that do not
exactly "square and corner" with the interests of the aristocratic
slaveholders.

A negro population is one by no means desirable, but a free white man
could live where there are negroes, and maintain his freedom; but no
white non-slaveholder can live where slave laws, customs, and habits,
pertain, and retain the rights that belong to free men in free States.

A man may live in the swamps of the torrid zone, and escape the
crocodiles, alligators, and other slimy and creeping things, but he
cannot escape the miasma and poison of the atmosphere.

If the slaveholder is permitted to go into the Territories, and take his
slave laws, habits, and customs, the people of the free States are to a
great extent excluded therefrom, and deprived of all rights therein.

But slaveholders say they will go; they will take their slaves, and
their slave code; they will establish there such a despotism as reigns
in some of the slave States; they will poison the air that surrounds the
fertile plains of the West, until freedom shall sicken and die; and we
are constantly told, that if we do not yield to their unreasonable
demands, this Union shall be dissolved.

But these threats do not move or alarm me, and for the best of all
possible reasons; I do not believe that the gentlemen who make these
threats intend to leave their places on this floor--nor, if they should,
would the country suffer any loss. The section they represent would
still remain under the Constitution and laws of the United States, and
our glorious flag would still wave over its fertile plains and lofty
mountains, its woody dells and shelving rocks, its gurgling fountains
and rippling rills. Good, loyal, and patriotic men would come here to
fill the vacant places, ready and ab