"Now it so happens--and there, I presume, is the foundation of this
mistake--that the Judge thinks thus; and it so happens that there is a
vast portion of the American People that do not look upon that matter as
being this very little thing. They look upon it as a vast moral evil;
they can prove it as such by the writings of those who gave us the
blessings of Liberty which we enjoy, and that they so looked upon it,
and not as an evil merely confining itself to the States where it is
situated; while we agree that, by the Constitution we assented to, in
the States where it exists we have no right to interfere with it,
because it is in the Constitution; and we are by both duty and
inclination to stick by that Constitution in all its letter and spirit,
from beginning to end. * * * The Judge can have no issue with me on a
question of establishing uniformity in the domestic regulations of the
States. * * *
"Another of the issues he says that is to be made with me, is upon his
devotion to the Dred Scott decision, and my opposition to it. I have
expressed heretofore, and I now repeat, my opposition to the Dred Scott
decision; but I should be allowed to state the nature of that
opposition.
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