"——for lack
Of other stuff to hew and hack."
But would lie like to stand with such a fire in his rear? Set a house on fire by hot shot, and you do not know how much of it will burn down.
IV. Well, if Nebraska is made a slave territory, as I suppose it will be, the next thing is the possession of Cuba. Then the war against Spain will come, as I think, inevitably. But even if we do not get Cuba, slavery must be extended to other parts of the Union. This may be done judicially, by the Supreme Court—one of the most powerful agents to destroy local self-government and legalize centralization; or legislatively, by Congress. Already slavery is established in California. An attempt, you know, was made to establish it in Illinois. Senator Toombs, the other day, boasted to Mr John P. Hale, that it would "not be long before the slave-holder would sit down at the foot of Bunker Hill monument with his slaves." You and I may live to see it—at least to see the attempt made. A writer in a prominent Southern journal, the Charleston Courier (of March 16, 1854), declares "that domestic slavery is a constitutional institution, and cannot be prohibited in a territory by either territorial or congressional legislation. It is recognized by the Constitution as an existing and lawful institution…. and by the recognition and establishment of slavery eo nomine in the District of Columbia, under the constitutional provision for the acquisition of and exclusive legislation over such a capitoline district; and by that clause also which declares that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." "The citizens of any State … cannot be constitutionally denied the equal right … of sojourning or settling … with their man- servants and maid-servants … in any portion of the wide- spread Canaan which the Lord their God hath given them, there to dwell unmolested in person or property." Admirable exposition of the Constitution ! The free black man must be shut up in jail if he goes from Boston in a ship to Charleston, but the slave-holder may bring his slaves to Massachusetts and dwell there, unmolested with his property in men. South Carolina has a white population of
