ur young orators all proclaim this to be "the land
of the _free_ and the home of the brave!" Well, now, when you orators
get that off next year, and, may be, this very year, how would you like
some old grizzled farmer to get up in the grove and deny it? [Laughter.]
How would you like that? But suppose Kansas comes in as a slave State,
and all the "border ruffians" have barbecues about it, and free-State
men come trailing back to the dishonoured North, like whipped dogs with
their tails between their legs, it is--ain't it?--evident that this is
no more the "land of the free;" and if we let it go so, we won't dare to
say "home of the brave" out loud. [Sensation and confusion.]

Can any man doubt that, even in spite of the people's will, slavery will
triumph through violence, unless that will be made manifest and
enforced? Even Governor Reeder claimed at the outset that the contest in
Kansas was to be fair, but he got his eyes open at last; and I believe
that, as a result of this moral and physical violence, Kansas will soon
apply for admission as a slave State. And yet we can't mistake that the
people don't want it so, and that it is a land which is free both by
natural and political law. _No law is free law!_ Such is the
understanding of all Christendom. In the Somerset case, decided nearly a
century ago, the great Lord Mansfield held that slavery was of such a
nature that it must take its rise in _positive_ (as distinguished from
_natural_) law; and that in no country or age could it be traced back to
any other source. Will some one please tell me where is the _positive_
law that establishes slavery in Kansas? [A voice: "The _bogus_ laws."]
Aye, the _bogus_ laws! And, on the same principle, a gang of Missouri
horse-thieves could come into Illinois and declare horse-stealing to be
legal [Laughter], and it would be just as legal as slavery is in Kansas.
But by express statute, in the land of Washington and Jefferson, we may
soon be brought face to face with the discreditable fact of showing to
the world by our acts that we prefer slavery to freedom--darkness to
light! [Sensation.]

It is, I believe, a principle in law that when one party to a contract
violates it so grossly as to chiefly destroy the object for which it is
made, the other party may rescind it. I will ask Browning if that ain't
good law. [Voices: "Yes!"] Well, now if that be right, I go for
rescinding the whole, entire Missouri Compromise and thus turning