philanthropists and abolished it, just as our British friends across the ocean did. They established slavery in all their colonies, and when they found they could not make any more money out of it, abolished it. I hold that the question of slavery is one of political economy, governed by the laws of climate, soil, productions, and self-interest, and not by mere statutory provision. I repudiate the doctrine, that because free institutions may be best in one climate, they are, necessarily, the best every where; or that because slavery may be indispensable in one locality, therefore it is desirable every where. I hold that a wise statesman will always adapt his legislation to the wants, interests, condition and necessities of the people to be governed by it. One people will bear different institutions from another. One climate demands different institutions from another. I repeat, then, what I have often had occasion to say, that I do not think uniformity is either possible or desirable. I wish to see no two states precisely alike in their domestic institutions in this Union. Our system rests on the supposition that each state has something in her condition or climate, or her circumstances, requiring laws and institutions different from every other state of the Union. Hence I answer the question of the senator from Wisconsin, that I am willing that a territory settled by white men shall have negroes, free or slave, just as the white men shall determine, but not as the negro shall prescribe.

The senator from New York has coined a new definition of the states of the Union-labor states and capital states. The capital states, I believe, are the slaveholding states; the labor states are the non-slaveholding states. It has taken that senator a good many years to coin that phrase and bring it into use. I have heard him discuss these favorite theories of his for the last ten years, I think, and I never heard of capital states and labor states before. It strikes me that something has recently occurred up in New England that makes it politic to get up a question between capital and labor, and take the side of the numbers against the few. Wo have seen some accounts in the newspapers of combinations and strikes among the journeymen shoemakers in the towns there—labor against capital. The senator has a new word ready coined to suit their case, and make the laborers believe that he is on the side of the most numerous class of voters.

What produced that strike among the journeymen shoemakers? Why are the mechanics of New England, the laborers and the employees, now reduced to the starvation point? Simply because, by your treason, by your sectional agitation, you have created a strife between the North and the South, have driven away your southern customers, and thus deprive the laborers of the means of support. This is the fruit of your Republican dogmas. It is another step, following John Brown, of the "irrepressible conflict." Therefore, we now get this new coinage of "labor states"-he is on the side of the shoemakers, (laughter), and "capital states"-he is against those that furnish the hides. (Laughter.) I think those shoemakers will understand this business. They know why it is that they do not get so many orders as they did a few months ago. It is not confined to the shoemakers; it reaches every mechanic's shop and every factory. All the large laboring establishments of the North feel the pressure produced by the doctrine of the "irrepressible conflict." This new coinage of words will not save them from the just responsibility that follows the doctrines they have been inculcating. If they had abandoned the doctrine of the "irrepressible conflict," and proclaimed the true doctrine of the Constitution, that each state is entirely free to do just as it pleases, have slavery as long as it chooses, and abolish it when it wishes, there would be no conflict; the northern and southern states would be brethren; there would be fraternity between us, and your shoemakers would not strike for higher prices.

Mr. Clark. Will the senator pardon me for interrupting him a moment?

Mr. Douglas. I will not give way for a speech; I will for a suggestion. Mr. Clark. I desire simply to make one single suggestion in regard to what the senator from Illinois said in reference to the condition of the laboring classes in the factories. I come from a city where there are three thousand operatives, and there never was a time when they were more contented and better paid in the factories than now, and when their business was better than at this present time.

Mr. Douglas. I was speaking of the scarcity of labor growing up in our northern manufacturing towns, as a legitimate and natural consequence of the diminution of the demand for the manufactured article; and then the question is, what cause has reduced this demand, except the "irrepressible conflict" that has turned the southern trade away from northern cities into southern towns and southern cities? Sir, the feeling among the masses of the south we find typified in the dress of the senator from Virginia, (Mr. Mason); they are determined to wear the homespun of their own productions rather than trade with the north. That is the feeling which has produced this state of distress in our manufacturing towns.

The senator from New York has also referred to the recent action of the people of New Mexico, in establishing a code for the protection of property in slaves, and he congratulates the country upon the final success of the advocates of free institutions in Kansas. He could not fail, however, to say, in order to preserve what he thought was a striking antithesis, that popular sovereignty in Kansas meant state sovereignty in Missouri. No, sir; popular sovereignty in Kansas was stricken down by unholy combination in New England to ship men to Kansas-rowdies and vagabonds-with the Bible in one hand and Sharpe's rifle in the other, to shoot down the friends of self-government. Popular sovereignty in Kansas was stricken down by the combinations in the northern states to carry elections under pretence of emigrant aid societies. In retaliation, Missouri formed aid societies too; and she, following your example, sent men into Kansas and then occurred the conflict. Now, you throw the blame upon Missouri merely because she followed your example, and attempted to resist its consequences. I condemn both; but I condemn a thousand-fold more those who set the example and struck the first blow, than those who thought they would act upon the principle of fighting the devil with his own weapons, and resorted to the same means that you had employed.

But, sir, notwithstanding the efforts of the emigrant aid societies, the people of Kansas have had their own way, and the people of New Mexico have had their own way. Kansas had adopted a free state; New Mexico has established a slave territory. I am content with both. If the people of New Mexico want slavery, let them have it, and I never will vote to repeal their slave code. If Kansas does not want slavery, I will not help anybody to force it on her. Let each do as it pleases. When Kansas comes to the conclusion that slavery will suit her, and promote her interest better than the prohibition, let her pass her own slave code; I will not pass it for her. Whenever New Mexico gets tired of her code, she must repeal it for herself; I will not repeal it for her. Non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the territories is the platform on which I stand.

But I want to know why will not the senator from New York carry out his principles to their logical conclusion? Why is there not a man in that whole party, in this body or in the House of Representatives, bold enough to redeem the pledges which that party has made to the country? I believe you said, in your Philadelphia platform, that Congress had sovereign power over the territories for their government, and that it was the duty of Congress to prohibit in the territories those twin relics of barbarism, slavery and polygamy. Why do you not carry out your pledges? Why do you not in

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The senator from New York says they have no new troduce your bill? measures to originate; no new movement to make; no new bill to bring forward. Then what confidence shall the American people repose in your faith and sincerity, when, having the power in one house, you do not bring orward a bill to carry out your principles? The fact is, these principles are avowed to get votes in the North, but not to be carried into effect by acts of Congress. You are afraid of hurting your party if you bring in your bill to repeal the slave code of New Mexico; afraid of driving off the conservative men; you think it is wise to wait until after the election. I should be glad to have confidence enough in the sincerity of the other side of the chamber to suppose they had courage to bring forward a law to carry out their principles to their logical conclusions. I find nothing of that. They wish to agitate, to excite the people of the North against the South to get votes for the Presidential election; but they shrink from carrying out their measures, lest they might throw off some conservative voters who do not like the Democratic party.

But, sir, if the senator from New York, in the event that he is made President, intends to carry out his principles to their logical conclusion, let us see In the same speech that I read from a few minwhere they will lead him. utes ago, I find the following. Addressing the people of Ohio, he said: "You blush not at these things, because they have become as familiar as household words; and your pretended free-soil allies claim peculiar merit for maintaining these miscalled guarantees of slavery, which they find in the national compact. Does not all this prove that the Whig party have kept up with the spirit of the age; that it is as true and faithful to human freedom as the inert conscience of the American people will permit it to be? What then, you say, can nothing be done for freedom, because the public conscience remains inert? Yes, much can be done, everything can be done. Slavery can be limited to its present bounds."

That is the first thing that can be done-slavery can be limited to its What else? present bounds. IT CAN AND MUST BE ABOLISHED, AND YOU

"IT CAN BE AMELIORATED. AND I CAN AND MUST DO IT."

There you find our two propositions; first, slavery was to be limited to the states in which it was then situated. It did not then exist in any territory. The first proposition was that slavery Slavery was confined to the states. The second was that he, as must be restricted and confined to those states. a New Yorker, and they, the people of Ohio, must and would abolish it; that is to say abolish it in the states. They could abolish it no where else. Every appeal they make to northern prejudice and passion is against the institution of slavery everywhere, and they would not be able to retain their Abolition allies, the rank and file, unless they held out the hope that it was the mission of the Republican party, if successful, to abolish slavery in the states as well as in the territories of the Union.

And again, in the same speech, the senator from New York advised the people to disregard constitutional obligations in these words:

"But we must begin deeper and lower than the composition and combination of factions or parties, wherein the strength and security of slavery lie. You answer that it lies in the Constitution of the United States and the Constitutions and laws of slaveholding states. Not at all. It is in the erroneous sentiment of the American people. Constitutions and laws can no more rise above the virtue of the people than the limpid stream can climb above its native spring. Inculcate the love of freedom and the equal rights of man under the paternal roof; see to it that they are taught in the schools and in the churches; reform your own code; extend a cordial welcome to the fugitive who lays his weary limbs at your door, and defend him as you would your paternal

gods; correct your own error that slavery is a constitutional guarantee which may not be released, and ought not to be relinquished."

I know they tell us that all this is to be done according to the Constitution; they would not violate the Constitution except so far as the Constitution violates the law of God-that is all-and they are to be the judges of how far the Constitution does violate the law of God. They say that every clause of the Constitution that recognizes property in slaves is in violation of the Divine law, and hence should not be made; and with that interpretation of the Constitution they turn to the South and say, "We will give you all your rights under the Constitution as we explain it !"

Then the senator devoted about a third of his speech to a very beautiful homily on the glories of our Union. All that he has said, all that any other man has ever said, all that the most eloquent tongue can ever utter, in behalf of the blessings and the advantages of this glorious Union, I fully indorse. But still, sir, I am prepared to say that the Union is glorious only when the Constitution is preserved inviolate. He eulogized the Union. I, too, am for the Union; I indorse the eulogies; but still, what is the Union worth, unless the Constitution is preserved and maintained inviolate in all its provisions?

Sir, I have no faith in the Union loving sentiments of those will not carry out the Constitution in good faith, as our fathers made it. Professions of fidelity to the Union will be taken for naught, unless they are accompanied by obedience to the Constitution upon which the Union rests. I have a right to insist that the Constitution shall be maintained inviolate in all its parts, not only that which suits the temper of the North, but every clause of that Constitution, whether you like it or dislike it. Your oath to support the Constitution binds you to every line, word, and syllable of the instrument. You have no right to say that any given clause is in violation of the Divine law, and that, therefore, you will not observe it. The man who disobeys any one clause on the pretext that it violates the Divine law, or on any other pretext, violates his oath of office.

But, sir, what a commentary is this pretext that the Constitution is a violation of the Divine law upon those revolutionary fathers whose eulogies we have heard here to-day! Did the framers of that instrument make a Constitution in violation of the law of God? If so, how do your consciences allow you to take the oath of office? If the senator from New York still holds to his declaration that the clause in the Constitution relative to fugitive slaves is a violation of the Divine law, how dare he, as an honest man, take an oath to support the instrument? Did he understand that he was defying the authority of Heaven when he took the oath to support that ininstrument?

Thus, we see, the radical difference between the Republican party and the Democratic party, is this: we stand by the Constitution as our fathers made it, and by the decisions of the constituted authorities as they are pronounced in obedience to the Constitution. They repudiate the instrument, substitute their own will for that of the constituted authorities, annul such provisions as their fanaticism, or prejudice, or policy, may declare to be in violation of God's law, and then say, "We will protect all your rights under the Constitution as expounded by ourselves; but not as expounded by the tribunal created for that purpose."

Mr. President, I shall not occupy further time in the discussion of this question to-night. I did not intend to utter a word; and I should not have uttered a word upon the subject, if the senator from New York had not made a broad arraignment of the Democratic party, and especially of that portion of the action of the party for which I was most immediately responsible. Everybody knows that I brought forward and helped to carry through the

Kansas-Nebraska Act, and that I was active in support of the Compromise measures of 1850. I have heard bad faith attached to the Democratic party for that act too long to be willing to remain silent and seem to sanction it by tacit acquiescence.

CHAPTER XXIII.

PUBLIC DEMONSTRATIONS-COMMITTEE SERVICE-PUBLIC LANDS.

IMMEDIATELY after the election in 1858, Judge Douglas, for the purpose of recruiting his health, le Chicago with his family for Washington by the way of the Mississippi river. When in St. Louis he was the recipient of many public honors and courtesies. On his way South, he was met some fifty miles north of Memphis by a delegation of the citizens of that prosperous city, who earnestly invited him to remain over there and partake of the hospitalities which it would be their pride as well as pleasure to extend to him and his family. Gratified beyond measure by this most unexpected greeting at the hands of the people of a southern city, he accepted the cordial invitation, and on the day after his arrival, addressed a very large assemblage of citizens, to whom he repeated the policy and principles he had advocated in the campaign that had just closed in Illinois. He declared that he could speak no sentiments in Tennessee that he could not speak as freely in Illinois, and that any opinions that could not be uttered in the one state as acceptably as in the other were necessarily unsound and anti-Democratic.

He on the next day proceeded down the river to New Orleans, where a grand reception awaited him. He reached there at night, and as the steamer neared the city he was greeted with a salute and an illumination. He was escorted to the hotel by the military and a vast concourse of people. At the hotel he was welcomed by the mayor as the guest of the city, and also welcomed by the Hon. Pierre Soulé on the part of the citizens. To these addresses, in which he was congratulated upon his recent victory in Illinois, he responded in a suitable manner.

On the 6th of December he addressed a mass meeting in Odd Fellows Hall, in a speech of which we have already given some extracts, and in which he repeated the famous doctrines so often defended by him in the Illinois campaign.

After leaving New Orleans he staid some days at Havana,