I acknowledge the right of two million and a half of white people in the seven seceding states to organize their government as they choose. Just as freely I acknowledge the right of four million of black people to organize their government, and to vindicate that right by arms.
Original passage & context
"But let an arrogant and besotted minority curb the majority by tricks like these, and when you have compromised away Lincoln, you revive John Brown. [...] Strictly speaking, I repudiate the term “insurrection.” The slaves are not a herd of vassals. They are a nation, four millions strong; having the same right of revolution that Hungary and Florence have. I acknowledge the right of two million and a half of white people in the seven seceding states to organize their government as they choose. Just as freely I acknowledge the right of four million of black people to organize their government, and to vindicate that right by arms."
Ten days after Montgomery, Phillips grants the seceding states the right to organize their government as they choose — and in the same breath grants four million enslaved people the identical right, by arms. The symmetry IS the argument. This is the SECOND of the two Music Hall discourses (Feb 17); the first is Jan 20, in chapter 3 (se-025). Non-contiguous passages from the one discourse joined with [...]; each verified against the archive.org scan. OCR line-wrap hyphens rejoined ("arro-gant", "seced-ing").
Read it in the original — "Progress," Music Hall, Feb 17, 1861 ↗