right, we restrain ourselves
in reference to the actual existence of the institution and the
difficulties thrown about it. We also oppose it as an evil so far as it
seeks to spread itself. We insist on the policy that shall restrict it
to its present limits. We don't suppose that in doing this we violate
anything due to the actual presence of the institution, or anything due to
the constitutional guaranties thrown around it.

We oppose the Dred Scott decision in a certain way, upon which I ought
perhaps to address you a few words. We do not propose that when Dred Scott
has been decided to be a slave by the court, we, as a mob, will decide him
to be free. We do not propose that, when any other one, or one thousand,
shall be decided by that court to be slaves, we will in any violent way
disturb the rights of property thus settled; but we nevertheless do oppose
that decision as a political rule which shall be binding on the voter to
vote for nobody who thinks it wrong, which shall be binding on the members
of Congress or the President to favor no measure that does not actually
concur with the principles of that decision. We do not propose to be
bound by it as a political rule in that way, because we think it lays the
foundation, not merely of enlarging and spreading out what we consider an
evil, but it lays the foundation for spreading that evil into the States
themselves. We propose so resisting it as to have it reversed if we can,
and a new judicial rule established upon this subject.

I will add this: that if there be any man who does not believe that
slavery is wrong in the three aspects which I have mentioned, or in any
one of them, that man is misplaced, and ought to leave us; while on the
other hand, if there be any man in the Republican party who is impatient
over the necessity springing from its actual presence, and is impatient of
the constitutional guaranties thrown around it, and would act in disregard
of these, he too is misplaced, standing with us. He will find his place
somewhere else; for we have a due regard, so far as we are capable of
understanding them, for all these things. This, gentlemen, as well as I
can give it, is a plain statement of our principles in all their enormity.
I will say now that there is a sentiment in the country contrary to me,--a
sentiment which holds that slavery is not wrong, and therefore it goes for
the policy that does not propose dealing with it as a wrong. That policy
is the