Abraham Lincoln

– That demand has since been made. Says MR. O'CONOR, counsel for the State of Virginia in the Lemon Case, page 44: "We claim that under these various provisions of the Federal Constitution, a citizen of Virginia has an immunity against the operation of any law which the State of New York can enact, whilst he is a stranger and wayfarer, or whilst passing through our territory; and that he has absolute protection for all his domestic rights, and for all his rights of property, which under the laws of the United States, and the laws of his own State, he was entitled to, whilst in his own State. We claim this, and neither more NOR LESS."

Throughout the whole of that case, in which the right to pass through New York with slaves at the pleasure of the slave owners is maintained, it is nowhere contended that the statute is contrary to the Constitution of New York; but that the statute and the Constitution of the State are both contrary to the Constitution of the United States.

The State of Virginia, not content with the decision of our own courts upon the right claimed by them, is now engaged in carrying this, the Lemon case, to the Supreme Court of the United States, hoping by a decision there, in accordance with the intimations in the Dred Scott case, to overthrow the Constitution of New York.

Senator Toombs, of Georgia, has claimed, in the Senate, that laws of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin, for the exclusion of slavery, conceded to be warranted by the State Constitutions, are contrary to the Constitution of the United States, and has asked for the enactment of laws by the General Government which shall override the laws of those States and the Constitutions which authorize them.

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– "Policy, humanity, and Christianity, alike forbid the extension of the evils of free society to new people and coming generations." —Richmond Enquirer, Jan. 22, 1856.

"I am satisfied that the mind of the South has undergone a change to this great extent, that it is now the almost universal belief in the South, not only that the condition of African slavery in their midst, is the best condition to which the African race has ever been subjected, but that it has the effect of ennobling both races, the white and the black." —Senator Mason, of Virginia.

"I declare again, as I did in reply to the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Doolittle), that, in my opinion, slavery is a great moral, social, and political blessing – a blessing to the slave, and a blessing to the master." —Mr. Brown, in the Senate, March 6, 1860.

"I am a Southern States' Rights man; I am an African slave-trader. I am one of those Southern men who believe that slavery is right – morally, religiously, socially, and politically." (Applause.) … "I represent the African Slave-trade interests of that section. (Applause.) I am proud of the position I occupy in that respect. I believe the African Slave-trader is a true missionary and a true Christian." (Applause.) —Mr. Gaulden, a delegate from First Congressional District of Georgia, in the Charleston Convention, now a supporter of Mr. Douglas.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I would gladly speak again, but you see from the tones of my voice that I am unable to. This has been a happy, a glorious day. I shall never forget it. There is a charm about this beautiful day, about this sea air, and especially about that peculiar institution of yours – a clam bake. I think you have the advantage, in that respect, of Southerners. For my own part, I have much more fondness for your clams than I have for their niggers. But every man to his taste." —HonStephen A. Douglas's Address at Rocky Point, R.I., Aug. 2, 1860.

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– It is interesting to observe how two profoundly logical minds, though holding extreme, opposite views, have deduced this common conclusion. Says Mr. O'Conor, the eminent leader of the New York Bar, and the counsel for the State of Virginia in the Lemon case, in his speech at Cooper Institute, December 19th, 1859:

"That is the point to which this great argument must come – Is negro slavery unjust? If it is unjust, it violates that first rule of human conduct – 'Render to every man his due.' If it is unjust, it violates the law of God which says, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself,' for that requires that we should perpetrate no injustice. Gentlemen, if it could be maintained that negro slavery was unjust, perhaps I might be prepared – perhaps we all ought to be prepared – to go with that distinguished man to whom allusion is frequently made, and say, 'There is a higher law which compels us to trample beneath our feet the Constitution established by our fathers, with all the blessings it secures to their children.' But I insist – and that is the argument which we must meet, and on which we must come to a conclusion that shall govern our actions in the future selection of representatives in the Congress of the United States – insist that negro slavery is not unjust."