rself a slave State unfairly; that
is, by the very means for which you say you would hang men? Must she
still be admitted, or the Union dissolved? That will be the phase of the
question when it first becomes a practical one. In your assumption that
there may be a fair decision of the slavery question in Kansas, I
plainly see that you and I would differ about the Nebraska law. I look
upon that enactment, not as a law, but as a violence from the beginning.
It was conceived in violence, is maintained in violence, and is being
executed in violence. I say it was conceived in violence, because the
destruction of the Missouri Compromise, under the circumstances, was
nothing less than violence. It was passed in violence, because it could
not have passed at all but for the votes of many members in violence of
the known will of their constituents. It is maintained in violence,
because the elections since clearly demand its repeal, and the demand is
openly disregarded.

You say men ought to be hung for the way they are executing the law; I
say that the way it is being executed is quite as good as any of its
antecedents. It is being executed in the precise way which was intended
from the first, else why does no Nebraska man express astonishment or
condemnation? Poor Reeder is the only public man who has been silly
enough to believe that anything like fairness was ever intended, and he
has been bravely undeceived.

That Kansas will form a slave constitution, and with it ask to be
admitted into the Union, I take to be already a settled question, and so
settled by the very means you so pointedly condemn. By every principle
of law ever held by any court North or South, every negro taken to
Kansas _is_ free; yet in utter disregard of this--in the spirit of
violence merely--that beautiful Legislature gravely passes a law to hang
any man who shall venture to inform a negro of his legal rights. This is
the subject and real object of the law. If, like Haman, they should hang
upon the gallows of their own building, I shall not be among the
mourners for their fate. In my humble sphere, I shall advocate the
restoration of the Missouri Compromise so long as Kansas remains a
Territory; and when, by all these foul means, it seeks to come into the
Union as a slave State, I shall oppose it. I am very loath in any case
to withhold my assent to the enjoyment of property acquired or located
in good faith; but I do not admit that good faith in taking