berately taken negroes from the class of
men and put them in the class of brutes. Turn it as you will it is simply
the truth! Don't be too hasty, then, in saying that the people cannot be
brought to this new doctrine, but note that long stride. One more as long
completes the journey from where negroes are estimated as men to where
they are estimated as mere brutes--as rightful property!

That saying "In the struggle between white men and the negro," etc., which
I know came from the same source as this policy--that saying marks another
step. There is a falsehood wrapped up in that statement. "In the struggle
between the white man and the negro" assumes that there is a struggle,
in which either the white man must enslave the negro or the negro must
enslave the white. There is no such struggle! It is merely the ingenious
falsehood to degrade and brutalize the negro. Let each let the other
alone, and there is no struggle about it. If it was like two wrecked
seamen on a narrow plank, when each must push the other off or drown
himself, I would push the negro off or a white man either, but it is not;
the plank is large enough for both. This good earth is plenty broad enough
for white man and negro both, and there is no need of either pushing the
other off.

So that saying, "In the struggle between the negro and the crocodile,"
etc., is made up from the idea that down where the crocodile inhabits, a
white man can't labor; it must be nothing else but crocodile or negro; if
the negro does not the crocodile must possess the earth; in that case he
declares for the negro. The meaning of the whole is just this: As a white
man is to a negro, so is a negro to a crocodile; and as the negro may
rightfully treat the crocodile, so may the white man rightfully treat the
negro. This very dear phrase coined by its author, and so dear that he
deliberately repeats it in many speeches, has a tendency to still further
brutalize the negro, and to bring public opinion to the point of utter
indifference whether men so brutalized are enslaved or not. When that time
shall come, if ever, I think that policy to which I refer may prevail. But
I hope the good freemen of this country will never allow it to come, and
until then the policy can never be maintained.

Now consider the effect of this policy. We in the States are not to
care whether freedom or slavery gets the better, but the people in the
Territories may care. They are to decide, and they may t