ave the power to make a negro a citizen under the
Constitution of the United States, if they choose. The Dred Scott
decision decides that they have not that power. If the State of Illinois
had that power, I should be opposed to the exercise of it. That is all I
have to say about it.

Judge Douglas has told me that he heard my speeches north and my
speeches south, ... and there was a very different cast of sentiment in
the speeches made at the different points. I will not charge upon Judge
Douglas that he wilfully misrepresents me, but I call upon every
fair-minded man to take these speeches and read them, and I dare him to
point out any difference between my speeches north and south. While I am
here, perhaps I ought to say a word, if I have the time, in regard to
the latter portion of the Judge's speech, which was a sort of
declamation in reference to my having said that I entertained the belief
that this government would not endure, half slave and half free. I have
said so, and I did not say it without what seemed to me good reasons. It
perhaps would require more time than I have now to set forth those
reasons in detail; but let me ask you a few questions. Have we ever had
any peace on this slavery question? When are we to have peace upon it if
it is kept in the position it now occupies? How are we ever to have
peace upon it? That is an important question. To be sure, if we will all
stop and allow Judge Douglas and his friends to march on in their
present career until they plant the institution all over the nation,
here and wherever else our flag waves, and we acquiesce in it, there
will be peace. But let me ask Judge Douglas how he is going to get the
people to do that? They have been wrangling over this question for forty
years. This was the cause of the agitation resulting in the Missouri
Compromise; this produced the troubles at the annexation of Texas, in
the acquisition of the territory acquired in the Mexican War. Again,
this was the trouble quieted by the Compromise of 1850, when it was
settled "for ever," as both the great political parties declared in
their national conventions. That "for ever" turned out to be just four
years, when Judge Douglas himself reopened it.

When is it likely to come to an end? He introduced the Nebraska bill in
1854, to put another end to the slavery agitation. He promised that it
would finish it all up immediately, and he has never made a speech
since, until he got into a quarrel