very. The arguments
to sustain that policy carefully exclude it. Even here to-day you heard
Judge Douglas quarrel with me because I uttered a wish that it might
sometime come to an end. Although Henry Clay could say he wished every
slave in the United States was in the country of his ancestors, I am
denounced by those pretending to respect Henry Clay for uttering a
wish that it might sometime, in some peaceful way, come to an end. The
Democratic policy in regard to that institution will not tolerate the
merest breath, the slightest hint, of the least degree of wrong about
it. Try it by some of Judge Douglas's arguments. He says he "don't care
whether it is voted up or voted down" in the Territories. I do not care
myself, in dealing with that expression, whether it is intended to be
expressive of his individual sentiments on the subject, or only of the
national policy he desires to have established. It is alike valuable
for my purpose. Any man can say that who does not see anything wrong
in slavery; but no man can logically say it who does see a wrong in it,
because no man can logically say he don't care whether a wrong is voted
up or voted down. He may say he don't care whether an indifferent thing
is voted up or down, but he must logically have a choice between a right
thing and a wrong thing. He contends that whatever community wants slaves
has a right to have them. So they have, if it is not a wrong. But if it is
a wrong, he cannot say people have a right to do wrong. He says that upon
the score of equality slaves should be allowed to go in a new Territory,
like other property. This is strictly logical if there is no difference
between it and other property. If it and other property are equal, this
argument is entirely logical. But if you insist that one is wrong and the
other right, there is no use to institute a comparison between right
and wrong. You may turn over everything in the Democratic policy from
beginning to end, whether in the shape it takes on the statute book, in
the shape it takes in the Dred Scott decision, in the shape it takes in
conversation, or the shape it takes in short maxim-like arguments,--it
everywhere carefully excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in it.

That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this
country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be
silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles--right and
wrong--throughou