Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1860-05-12
SPEECH OF
HON STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS,

HON. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS,
IN renlv to Mr. Serdrd and Mr. 7ium5uU-De-
lirered in the Senate Of the United States, Feb
rua1y 90, 1860.
Mr. President: I trust shall be pardoned for
few remarks upon much of the Senator's speech
rs consists in assault on the Democratic party,
and especially with regard to the Kansas-NehraSka
bill of which was the responsible author. 1t has
become fashionable nowadays for each gentleman
making speech against the Democratic party to re-
fer to the Kansas-Nebraska act as the of all
the disturbances that have since ensued They talk
about the repeal of sacred compact that had been
undisturbed for more than quarter of century, as
If those who complained Of violated faith had been
faithful TO the provisions of the Missouri compromise.
Sir wherein consisted the necessity for the repeal or
abrocation of that act except it that the major
ity in the northern States refused to carry out the
Missouri compromise in good faith? stood willing
to extend it to the Pacific ocean, and abide by it for
ever, and the entire South. without exception in
this body was willing thus to abide by it; but the
freesoa element of the northern States strong
as to defeat that measure and thus open the slavery
question anew The men who now complain OF the
abrogation of that act were the very men who de-
nounced it and denounced all of us who were will
ling to abide by it long it stood upon the sta
tute-book Sir, it the defeat in the House of
Representatives of the enactment Of the bill TO eX-
tend the Missouri compromise to the Pacific ocean,
after it had passed the Senate on my own notion,
that opened the controversy Of 1850 which was ter
minated by the adoption of the measures of that
year.
We carried those compromise measures over the
head of the Senator from New York and his present
associates We, in those measures, established
great principle rebukng his doctrine of intervention
BY the Congress Of the United States to prohibit
slavery in the Territories. Both parties in 1852,
pledged themselves to abide by that principle, and
thus stood pledged not to prohibit slavery in the
Territories by act of Congress. The Wing party
affirmed that pledge, and so lid the Democracy In
1854 we only carried out, in the Kansas-Nebraska
act the same principle that had been affirmed in the
compromise measures of 1850. | repeat that their
resistance to carrying out in good faith the settle
ment of 1920, their defeat of the bill for extending
it to the Pacific ocean, the sole of the ag
itatioR of $780, and gave rise to the necessity of es
tabshing the principle of nonntervention by Con-
gress with slavery in the Territories.
Hence am not willing to sit here and allow the
Senator from New York, with all the weight of au-
thority he has with the powerful party of which he
is the head, to arraign and the party to which
belong with the responsibility for that agitation
which rests solely upon him and his associates Sir,
the Democratic party willing to carry out the
compromise in good faith. Having been defeated in
that for the want Of numbers and having established
the principle of nonintcrvention in the compromise
measures of 1885, in lieu of it. the Democratic party
from that day to this has been faithful to the new
principle of adjustment Whatever agitation has
grown out of the question since has been occasoned
by the resistance of the party of which that Senator
is the head, to this great principle which has been
ratified by the American people at two presidential
elections. If he was willing 10 acQuleSce in the
lemn and repeated Judgment OF that American peo-
pie to which he appeals there would be agitation
in this country now.
But sir, the whole argument of that Senator goes
far beyond the question of slavery, in the Ter
ritories His entire argument rests on The assump-
ton that the negro and the white man were equal
by Divine law. and hence that all laws and constn-
tons and governments in violation of the principle
of negro equality in violation of the law of God
That is the basis upon which his speech rests. He
quotes the Declaration of Independence 10 show
that the fathers of the Revolution understood that
the negro was placed on equality with the white
man, by quoting the clause, 1--WE hold these truths
to be selfevident that all men arc created equal and
are endowed by their Creator with certain naliena-
bic rights, among which life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness" Sir the doctrine of that Sc
nator and of his party is-and have had to meet it
for eight years-that the Declaration of Indepen-
dence intended to recognize the negro and the white
man as equal under the Divine law, and hence that
all the provisions of the Constitution of the United
States which recognize slavery are in violation oil
the Divine law. In other words, it is an argument
against The Constitution of the United States upon
the ground that it is contrary to the law of Cod
The Senator from New York has long held that doc
trine. The Senator from New York has often pro-
claimed to the world that the Constitution of the
United States was in violation of the Divine law and
that Senator will not contradict the statement
have an extract from of his speeches now before
me, in which that proposition is distinctly put forth
In speech made in the State of Ohio, in 1S4S, be
said:
slavery is the sin of not of the States only bu
of them all; of not one nationality but of all nations
of nd daan