entitled to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
[Applause.]

And not only so, but the framers of the Constitution were particular
to keep out of that instrument the word "slave," the reason being that
slavery would ultimately come to an end, and they did not wish to have any
reminder that in this free country human beings were ever prostituted to
slavery. [Applause.] Nor is it any argument that we are superior and the
negro inferior--that he has but one talent while we have ten. Let the
negro possess the little he has in independence; if he has but one talent,
he should be permitted to keep the little he has. [Applause:] But slavery
will endure no test of reason or logic; and yet its advocates, like
Douglas, use a sort of bastard logic, or noisy assumption it might better
be termed, like the above, in order to prepare the mind for the gradual,
but none the less certain, encroachments of the Moloch of slavery upon the
fair domain of freedom. But however much you may argue upon it, or smother
it in soft phrase, slavery can only be maintained by force--by violence.
The repeal of the Missouri Compromise was by violence. It was a violation
of both law and the sacred obligations of honor, to overthrow and trample
under foot a solemn compromise, obtained by the fearful loss to freedom of
one of the fairest of our Western domains. Congress violated the will and
confidence of its constituents in voting for the bill; and while public
sentiment, as shown by the elections of 1854, demanded the restoration of
this compromise, Congress violated its trust by refusing simply because it
had the force of numbers to hold on to it. And murderous violence is being
used now, in order to force slavery on to Kansas; for it cannot be done in
any other way. [Sensation.]

The necessary result was to establish the rule of violence--force, instead
of the rule of law and reason; to perpetuate and spread slavery, and
in time to make it general. We see it at both ends of the line. In
Washington, on the very spot where the outrage was started, the fearless
Sumner is beaten to insensibility, and is now slowly dying; while senators
who claim to be gentlemen and Christians stood by, countenancing the
act, and even applauding it afterward in their places in the Senate. Even
Douglas, our man, saw it all and was within helping distance, yet let the
murderous blows fall unopposed. Then, at the other end of the line, at the
very time Sumner was bein