legislature makes it an infamous crime to tell him that he is free!

The party lash and the fear of ridicule will overawe justice and
liberty; for it is a singular fact, but none the less a fact, and well
known by the most common experience, that men will do things under the
terror of the party lash that they would not on any account or for any
consideration do otherwise; while men who will march up to the mouth of
a loaded cannon without shrinking, will run from the terrible name of
"Abolitionist," even when pronounced by a worthless creature whom they,
with good reason, despise. For instance--to press this point a
little--Judge Douglas introduced his anti-Nebraska bill in January; and
we had an extra session of our legislature in the succeeding February,
in which were seventy-five Democrats; and at a party caucus, fully
attended, there were just three votes out of the whole seventy-five, for
the measure. But in a few days orders came on from Washington,
commanding them to approve the measure; the party lash was applied, and
it was brought up again in caucus, and passed by a large majority. The
masses were against it, but party necessity carried it; and it was
passed through the lower house of Congress against the will of the
people, for the same reason. Here is where the greatest danger
lies--that, while we profess to be a government of law and reason, law
will give way to violence on demand of this awful and crushing power.
Like the great Juggernaut--I think that is the name--the great idol, it
crushes everything that comes in its way, and makes a--or as I read
once, in a black-letter law book, "a slave is a human being who is
legally not a _person_, but a _thing_." And if the safeguards to liberty
are broken down, as is now attempted, when they have made _things_ of
all the free negroes, how long, think you, before they will begin to
make _things_ of poor white men? [Applause.] Be not deceived.
Revolutions do not go backward. The founder of the Democratic party
declared that _all_ men were created equal. His successor in the
leadership has written the word "white" before men, making it read "all
_white_ men are created equal." Pray, will or may not the Know-nothings,
if they should get in power, add the word "protestant," making it read
"_all protestant white men_"?

Meanwhile the hapless negro is the fruitful subject of reprisals in
other quarters. John Pettit, whom Tom Benton paid his respects to, you
will recoll