If it is right, we cannot justly
object to its nationality--its universality; if it is wrong, they
cannot justly insist upon its extension--its enlargement. All they
ask, we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we
ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong.[41]
Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise
fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as
they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as
being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them?
Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view
of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do
this?
Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone
where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from
its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will
prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to
overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids
this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let
us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith
we are so industriously plied and belabored--contrivances such as
groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong,
vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor
a dead man--such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about
which all true men do care--such as Union appeals beseeching true
Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and
calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance--such as
invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington
said, and undo what Washington did.
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