eighty-two years. I understand
that little bit of history. I expressed the opinion I did because I
perceived--or thought I perceived--a new set of causes introduced. I did
say at Chicago, in my speech there, that I do wish to see the spread of
slavery arrested, and to see it placed where the public mind shall rest
in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction. I said that
because I supposed, when the public mind shall rest in that belief,
we shall have peace on the slavery question. I have believed--and now
believe--the public mind did rest on that belief up to the introduction of
the Nebraska Bill.

Although I have ever been opposed to slavery, so far I rested in the hope
and belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. For that
reason it had been a minor question with me. I might have been mistaken;
but I had believed, and now believe, that the whole public mind, that is,
the mind of the great majority, had rested in that belief up to the repeal
of the Missouri Compromise. But upon that event I became convinced that
either I had been resting in a delusion, or the institution was being
placed on a new basis, a basis for making it perpetual, national, and
universal. Subsequent events have greatly confirmed me in that belief. I
believe that bill to be the beginning of a conspiracy for that purpose. So
believing, I have since then considered that question a paramount one.
So believing, I thought the public mind will never rest till the power
of Congress to restrict the spread of it shall again be acknowledged and
exercised on the one hand or, on the other, all resistance be entirely
crushed out. I have expressed that opinion, and I entertain it to-night.
It is denied that there is any tendency to the nationalization of slavery
in these States.

Mr. Brooks, of South Carolina, in one of his speeches, when they were
presenting him canes, silver plate, gold pitchers, and the like, for
assaulting Senator Sumner, distinctly affirmed his opinion that when this
Constitution was formed it was the belief of no man that slavery would
last to the present day. He said, what I think, that the framers of our
Constitution placed the institution of slavery where the public mind
rested in the hope that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. But
he went on to say that the men of the present age, by their experience,
have become wiser than the framers of the Constitution, and the invention
of the cotton gi