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Show 68 took nine great steps towards absolute rule over the United States. These I have spol\en of before."' It now lifts its foot to take a tenth step,- to stamp bondage on all the Territories of this Union, and then organize them into Slave States. Look at the facts. We have now one million four hundred thousand square miles of territory not organized into States (1,400,934 ). 0 this, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Utah make nine hundred and twenty-six thousalld (926,857). Now, THE SoUTH AIMS TO MAKE IT ALL SLAVE TERRITORY, to deliver it over to this regressive force, and establish therein such institutions that a few men shall at first. own all the land; next own the bulk of the worl<ing people; and, thirdly, shall control the rest of the whites; then themselves monopolize education, and yet get very little of it; repress freedom of speech, and enact laws for the advantage of the vuJgarest of all oligarchies,- a band of men-~tealers. Let me suppose that there is no immediate danger that slavery will go to Oregon or Wa:::hington Territory, - rather a gratuitous admission : there are still NINE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIX THOUSAND SQUARE MILES of land to plant it on; that is, about one-third of all the country which the United States own! The South is endeavoring to establi~h it there. Within three years, the great battle is to be fought; for, before the 4th of March, 1859, all that territory of fourteen hundred thousand square miles will be either free territory or else sJa ve territory. The battle is first for Kansas. Sh;ll it be free, as the majority of its own inhabitants have voted; or :slave, as the Federal Government and the Slave Power- the general regressive force of America-have determined by violence to make it? This is the question, Sltalt tlte nine hundred • Additional Speeches, Vol. I. p. 342, et &eq. 69 and twenty-six thousand miles of tetritor.1J belong to tltree hundred andJifty tlww;and Slaveholders, or to tlte whole People of the United States? This js a question which directly concerns the Material Interest of ev~ry working-man in the nation, and especially every Northern Working-man. Before the 1st of January, 1858, perhaps before next January, Kansas, with its one hundred and fourteen thousand seven hundred and ninety square miles, will be a Free State or a Slave State. See what follow s, immediately or ultimately, if we let the slaveholders have their way, and make KANSAS A SLAVE STATE. Look, first, at the effect on the Welfare and Progress of Individuals. 1. A Privil~ged Class, an oligarchy of slaveholders, will be founded therP, such as exists in the present Slave States. They will own all the Jand, almost all the laborers; will make laws, for the advantage of the slavt>holuer, against the interest of the slave and the non-slaveholder. That is the eflect on the Southern man. 2. Next see the effect on the Working-men of the North who emigrate to that quarter. They must go as slaveholders or as non-slaveholders. Some will go as Slaveholders, such as take a South-Side view of human wici\Cdness in general. You know what the effect will be on them. Compare the condition, the intellectual and moral character, of New-EnglanJ men who have settled in Georgia, and become slaveholders, with others of the same families -their brothers and cousinswho have remained at home, and engaged in agriculture, commerce, and manufactures. But not many Northern men will go there and become Slaveholders. Some will go as Non-slaveholders; and you will see under what disadvantage they must labor. 1. They must live by their work, and in a place where |