but this in substance. This was right; I see
nothing objectionable in it. I also think it probable that it had some
reference to the existence of slavery among them. I will not deny that
it had. But had it any reference to the carrying of slavery into new
countries? That is the question, and we will let the fathers themselves
answer it.

This same generation of men, and mostly the same individuals of the
generation who declared this principle, who declared independence,
who fought the war of the Revolution through, who afterward made the
Constitution under which we still live--these same men passed the
Ordinance of '87, declaring that slavery should never go to the Northwest
Territory.

I have no doubt Judge Douglas thinks they were very inconsistent in this.
It is a question of discrimination between them and him. But there is
not an inch of ground left for his claiming that their opinions, their
example, their authority, are on his side in the controversy.

Again, is not Nebraska, while a Territory, a part of us? Do we not own the
country? And if we surrender the control of it, do we not surrender the
right of self-government? It is part of ourselves. If you say we shall not
control it, because it is only part, the same is true of every other part;
and when all the parts are gone, what has become of the whole? What
is then left of us? What use for the General Government, when there is
nothing left for it to govern?

But you say this question should be left to the people of Nebraska,
because they are more particularly interested. If this be the rule, you
must leave it to each individual to say for himself whether he will have
slaves. What better moral right have thirty-one citizens of Nebraska to
say that the thirty-second shall not hold slaves than the people of
the thirty-one States have to say that slavery shall not go into the
thirty-second State at all?

But if it is a sacred right for the people of Nebraska to take and hold
slaves there, it is equally their sacred right to buy them where they can
buy them cheapest; and that, undoubtedly, will be on the coast of Africa,
provided you will consent not to hang them for going there to buy
them. You must remove this restriction, too, from the sacred right of
self-government. I am aware you say that taking slaves from the States to
Nebraska does not make slaves of freemen; but the African slave-trader can
say just as much. He does not catch free negroes and bring t