ew uses. As the fisherman's wife, whose drowned husband was
brought home with his body full of eels, said, when she was asked what
was to be done with him, 'Take out the eels and set him again,' so
Harris and Douglas have shown a disposition to take the eels out of that
stale fraud by which they gained Harris's election, and set the fraud
again, more than once.... And now that it has been discovered publicly
to be a fraud, we find that Judge Douglas manifests no surprise at
all.... But meanwhile the three are agreed that each is a most
honourable man.

_Notes for Speeches. October 1858_

Suppose it is true that the negro is inferior to the white in the gifts
of nature; is it not the exact reverse of justice that the white should
for that reason take from the negro any part of the little which he has
had given him? "Give to him that is needy" is the Christian rule of
charity; but "Take from him that is needy" is the rule of slavery.

The sum of pro-slavery theology seems to be this: "Slavery is not
universally right, nor yet universally wrong; it is better for some
people to be slaves; and, in such cases, it is the will of God that they
be such."

Certainly there is no contending against the will of God; but still
there is some difficulty in ascertaining and applying it to particular
cases. For instance, we will suppose the Rev. Dr. Ross has a slave named
Sambo, and the question is, "Is it the will of God that Sambo shall
remain a slave, or be set free?" The Almighty gives no audible answer to
the question, and his revelation, the Bible, gives none--or at most none
but such as admits of a squabble as to its meaning; no one thinks of
asking Sambo's opinion on it. So at last it comes to this, that Dr. Ross
is to decide the question; and while he considers it, he sits in the
shade, with gloves on his hands, and subsists on the bread that Sambo is
earning in the burning sun. If he decides that God wills Sambo to
continue a slave, he thereby retains his own comfortable position; but
if he decides that God wills Sambo to be free, he thereby has to walk
out of the shade, throw off his gloves, and delve for his own bread.
Will Dr. Ross be actuated by the perfect impartiality which has ever
been considered most favourable to correct decisions?

We have in this nation the element of domestic slavery. It is a matter
of absolute certainty that it is a disturbing element. It is the opinion
of all the great men who have e