f any Sections of this Act.

The party lash and the fear of ridicule will overawe justice and liberty;
for it is a singular fact, but none the less a fact, and well known by the
most common experience, that men will do things under the terror of the
party lash that they would not on any account or for any consideration
do otherwise; while men who will march up to the mouth of a loaded cannon
without shrinking will run from the terrible name of "Abolitionist,"
even when pronounced by a worthless creature whom they, with good reason,
despise. For instance--to press this point a little--Judge Douglas
introduced his Nebraska Bill in January; and we had an extra session of
our Legislature in the succeeding February, in which were seventy-five
Democrats; and at a party caucus, fully attended, there were just three
votes, out of the whole seventy-five, for the measure. But in a few days
orders came on from Washington, commanding them to approve the measure;
the party lash was applied, and it was brought up again in caucus,
and passed by a large majority. The masses were against it, but party
necessity carried it; and it was passed through the lower house of
Congress against the will of the people, for the same reason. Here is
where the greatest danger lies that, while we profess to be a government
of law and reason, law will give way to violence on demand of this
awful and crushing power. Like the great Juggernaut--I think that is the
name--the great idol, it crushes everything that comes in its way, and
makes a [?]--or, as I read once, in a blackletter law book, "a slave is
a human being who is legally not a person but a thing." And if the
safeguards to liberty are broken down, as is now attempted, when they have
made things of all the free negroes, how long, think you, before they
will begin to make things of poor white men? [Applause.] Be not deceived.
Revolutions do not go backward. The founder of the Democratic party
declared that all men were created equal. His successor in the leadership
has written the word "white" before men, making it read "all white men are
created equal." Pray, will or may not the Know-Nothings, if they should
get in power, add the word "Protestant," making it read "all Protestant
white men...?"

Meanwhile the hapless negro is the fruitful subject of reprisals in other
quarters. John Pettit, whom Tom Benton paid his respects to, you will
recollect, calls the immortal Declaration "a self-evident lie