Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/242

THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS If they produce in one section of the country what is called for by the wants of another sec- tion, and this other section can supply the wants of the first, they are not matters of discord but bonds of union, true bonds of union. . But can this question of slavery be consid- ered as among these varieties in the institutions of the country ? I leave it to you to say whether, in the history of our government, this institu- tion of slavery has not always failed to be a bond of union, and, on the contrary, been an apple of discord and an element of division in the house. I ask you to consider whether, so long as the moral constitution of men's minds shall continue to be the same, after this generation and assemblage shall sink into the grave, and another race shall arise with the same moral and intellectual development we have — ^whether, if that institution is standing in the same irri- tating position in which it now is, it will not continue an element of division? If so, then I have a right to say that, in re- gard to this question, the Union is a house divided against itself; and when the judge re- minds me that I have often said to him that the institution of slavery has existed for eighty years in some States, and yet it does not exist in some others, I agree to the fact, and I ac- count for it by looking at the position in which our fathers originally - placed it — restricting it from the new Territories where it had not gone, and legislating to cut off its source by the 232