Now, gentlemen, that is not my argument; that is not my argu

Produced by David Widger

THE PAPERS AND WRITINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

VOLUME THREE

CONSTITUTIONAL EDITION

By Abraham Lincoln

Edited by Arthur Brooks Lapsley

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES I

POLITICAL SPEECHES & DEBATES of LINCOLN WITH DOUGLAS In the Senatorial

Campaign of 1858 in Illinois SPEECH AT SPRINGFIELD, JUNE 17, 1858

[The following speech was delivered at Springfield, Ill., at the close of

the Republican State Convention held at that time and place, and by which

Convention Mr. LINCOLN had been named as their candidate for United States

Senator. Mr. DOUGLAS was not present.]

Mr. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION:--If we could first know

where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to

do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy

was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting

an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that

agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my

opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and

passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this

government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not

expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but

I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing,

or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further

spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief

that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will

push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old

as well as new, North as well as South.

Have we no tendency to the latter condition?

Let any one who doubts, carefully contemplate that now almost complete

legal combination-piece of machinery, so to speak compounded of the

Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider, not only

what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted, but also

let him study the history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or

rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design, and concert of

action, among its chief architects, from the beginning.

The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more than half the

States by State Constitutions, and from most of the National territory by

Congressional prohibition. Four days later, commenced the struggle which

ended in repealing that Congressional prohibition. This opened all the

National territory to slavery, and was the first point gained.

But, so far, Congress only had acted, and an indorsement by the people,

real or apparent, was indispensable to save the point already gained, and

give chance for more.

This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been provided for, as well

as might be, in the notable argument of "squatter sovereignty," otherwise

called "sacred right of self-government," which latter phrase, though

expressive of the only rightful basis of any government, was so perverted

in this attempted use of it as to amount to just this: That if any one man

choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object. That

argument was incorporated into the Nebraska Bill itself, in the language

which follows:

"It being the true intent and meaning of this Act not to legislate slavery

into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave

the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic

institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the

United States."

Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor of "squatter

sovereignty," and "sacred right of self-government." "But," said

opposition members, "let us amend the bill so as to expressly declare

that the people of the Territory may exclude slavery." "Not we," said the

friends of the measure, and down they voted the amendment.

While the Nebraska Bill was passing through Congress, a law case,

involving the question of a negro's freedom, by reason of his owner having

voluntarily taken him first into a free State, and then into a territory

covered by the Congressional Prohibition, and held him as a slave for a

long time in each, was passing through the United States Circuit Court for

the District of Missouri; and both Nebraska Bill and lawsuit were brought

to a decision in the same month of May, 1854. The negro's name was "Dred

Scott," which name now designates the decision finally made in the case.

Before the then next Presidential election, the law case came to, and was

argued in, the Supreme Court of the United States; but the decision of it

was deferred until after the election. Still, before the election, Senator

Trumbull, on the floor of the Senate, requested the leading advocate of

the Nebraska Bill to state his opinion whether the people of a territory

can constitutionally exclude slavery from their limits; and the latter

answers: "That is a question for the Supreme Court."

The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorsement, such

as it was, secured. That was the second point gained. The indorsement,

however, fell short of a clear popular majority by nearly four hundred

thousand votes,(approximately 10% of the vote) and so, perhaps, was not

overwhelmingly reliable and satisfactory. The outgoing President, in his

last annual message, as impressively as possible echoed back upon the

people the weight and authority of the indorsement. The Supreme Court

met again, did not announce their decision, but ordered a reargument. The

Presidential inauguration came, and still no decision of the court; but

the incoming President, in his inaugural address, fervently exhorted the

people to abide by the forth-coming decision, whatever it might be. Then,

in a few days, came the decision.

The reputed author of the Nebraska Bill finds an early occasion to make a

speech at this capital indorsing the Dred Scott decision, and vehemently

denouncing all opposition to it. The new President, too, seizes the early

occasion of the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly construe that

decision, and to express his astonishment that any different view had ever

been entertained!

At length a squabble springs up between the President and the author of

the Nebraska Bill, on the mere question of fact, whether the Lecompton

Constitution was or was not in any just sense made by the people of

Kansas; and in that quarrel the latter declares that all he wants is a

fair vote for the people, and that he cares not whether slavery be voted

down or voted up. I do not understand his declaration, that he cares not

whether slavery be voted down or voted up, to be intended by him other

than as an apt definition of the policy he would impress upon the public

mind,--the principle for which he declares he has suffered so much, and is

ready to suffer to the end. And well may he cling to that principle! If he

has any parental feeling, well may he cling to it. That principle is the

only shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred Scott

decision "squatter sovereignty" squatted out of existence, tumbled down

like temporary scaffolding; like the mould at the foundry, served through

one blast, and fell back into loose sand; helped to carry an election,

and then was kicked to the winds. His late joint struggle with the

Republicans, against the Lecompton Constitution, involves nothing of the

original Nebraska doctrine. That struggle was made on a point--the

right of a people to make their own constitution--upon which he and the

Republicans have never differed.

The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connection with Senator

Douglas's "care not" policy, constitute the piece of machinery, in its

present state of advancement. This was the third point gained. The working

points of that machinery are:

Firstly, That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no

descendant of such slave, can ever be a citizen of any State, in the sense

of that term as used in the Constitution of the United States. This point

is made in order to deprive the negro, in every possible event, of the

benefit of that provision of the United States Constitution which declares

that "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and

immunities of citizens in the several States."

Secondly, That, "subject to the Constitution of the United States,"

neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature can exclude slavery from

any United States Territory. This point is made in order that individual

men may fill up the Territories with slaves, without danger of losing

them as property, and thus to enhance the chances of permanency to the

institution through all the future.

Thirdly, That whether the holding a negro in actual slavery in a free

State makes him free, as against the holder, the United States courts will

not decide, but will leave to be decided by the courts of any slave State

the negro may be forced into by the master. This point is made, not to

be pressed immediately; but, if acquiesced in for a while, and apparently

indorsed by the people at an election, then to sustain the logical

conclusion that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do with Dred

Scott, in the free State of Illinois, every other master may lawfully do

with any other one, or one thousand slaves, in Illinois, or in any other

free State.

Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with it, the Nebraska

doctrine, or what is left of it, is to educate and mould public opinion,

at least Northern public opinion, not to care whether slavery is voted

down or voted up. This shows exactly where we now are; and partially,

also, wither we are tending.

It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back and run the mind

over the string of historical facts already stated. Several things

will now appear less dark and mysterious than they did when they were

transpiring. The people were to be left "perfectly free," "subject only

to the Constitution." What the Constitution had to do with it, outsiders

could not then see. Plainly enough now,--it was an exactly fitted niche,

for the Dred Scott decision to afterward come in, and declare the perfect

freedom of the people to be just no freedom at all. Why was the amendment,

expressly declaring the right of the people, voted down? Plainly enough

now,--the adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for the Dred

Scott decision. Why was the court decision held up? Why even a Senator's

individual opinion withheld, till after the Presidential election? Plainly

enough now,--the speaking out then would have damaged the "perfectly

free" argument upon which the election was to be carried. Why the

outgoing President's felicitation on the indorsement? Why the delay of a

reargument? Why the incoming President's advance exhortation in favor of

the decision? These things look like the cautious patting and petting of a

spirited horse preparatory to mounting him, when it is dreaded that he may

give the rider a fall. And why the hasty after-indorsement of the decision

by the President and others?

We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the result

of preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions

of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places and by

different workmen, Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance, and

when we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the

frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting,

and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly

adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too

few,--not omitting even scaffolding,--or, if a single piece be lacking, we

see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such

piece in,--in such a case, we find it impossible not to believe that

Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from

the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before

the first blow was struck.

It should not be overlooked that by the Nebraska Bill the people of a

State as well as Territory were to be left "perfectly free," "subject

only to the Constitution." Why mention a State? They were legislating for

Territories, and not for or about States. Certainly the people of a State

are and ought to be subject to the Constitution of the United States; but

why is mention of this lugged into this merely Territorial law? Why

are the people of a Territory and the people of a State therein lumped

together, and their relation to the Constitution therefore treated as

being precisely the same? While the opinion of the court, by Chief Justice

Taney, in the Dred Scott case, and the separate opinions of all the

concurring Judges, expressly declare that the Constitution of the United

States neither permits Congress nor a Territorial Legislature to exclude

slavery from any United States Territory, they all omit to declare whether

or not the same Constitution permits a State, or the people of a State, to

exclude it. Possibly, this is a mere omission; but who can be quite sure,

if McLean or Curtis had sought to get into the opinion a declaration of

unlimited power in the people of a State to exclude slavery from their

limits, just as Chase and Mace sought to get such declaration, in behalf

of the people of a Territory, into the Nebraska Bill,--I ask, who can be

quite sure that it would not have been voted down in the one case as it

had been in the other? The nearest approach to the point of declaring the

power of a State over slavery is made by Judge Nelson. He approaches it

more than once, Using the precise idea, and almost the language, too, of

the Nebraska Act. On one occasion, his exact language is, "Except in cases

where the power is restrained by the Constitution of the United States,

the law of the State is supreme over the subject of slavery within its

jurisdiction." In what cases the power of the States is so restrained by

the United States Constitution, is left an open question, precisely as the

same question, as to the restraint on the power of the Territories, was

left open in the Nebraska Act. Put this and that together, and we have

another nice little niche, which we may, ere long, see filled with another

Supreme Court decision, declaring that the Constitution of the United

States does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits. And

this may especially be expected if the doctrine of "care not whether

slavery be voted down or voted up" shall gain upon the public mind

sufficiently to give promise that such a decision can be maintained when

made.

Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in all

the States. Welcome or unwelcome, such decision is probably coming, and

will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present political dynasty

shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that

the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free, and

we shall awake to the reality instead that the Supreme Court has made

Illinois a slave State. To meet and overthrow the power of that dynasty is

the work now before all those who would prevent that consummation. That is

what we have to do. How can we best do it?

There are those who denounce us openly to their friends, and yet whisper

to us softly that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with

which to effect that object. They wish us to infer all, from the fact that

he now has a little quarrel with the present head of the dynasty, and that

he has regularly voted with us on a single point, upon which he and we

have never differed. They remind us that he is a great man, and that the

largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted. But "a living dog

is better than a dead lion." Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion, for this

work is at least a caged and toothless one. How can he oppose the advances

of slavery? He don't care anything about it. His avowed mission is

impressing the "public heart" to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas

Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas's superior talent will be needed to

resist the revival of the African slave trade. Does Douglas believe an

effort to revive that trade is approaching? He has not said so. Does he

really think so? But if it is, how can he resist it? For years he has

labored to prove it a sacred right of white men to take negro slaves into

the new Territories. Can he possibly show that it is less a sacred right

to buy them where they can be bought cheapest? And unquestionably they can

be bought cheaper in Africa than in Virginia. He has done all in his

power to reduce the whole question of slavery to one of a mere right of

property; and, as such, how can he oppose the foreign slave trade, how can

he refuse that trade in that "property" shall be "perfectly free,"--unless

he does it as a protection to the home production? And as the home

producers will probably not ask the protection, he will be wholly without

a ground of opposition.

Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser to-day

than he was yesterday; that he may rightfully change when he finds himself

wrong. But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and infer that he will make

any particular change, of which he himself has given no intimation? Can we

safely base our action upon any such vague inference? Now, as ever, I wish

not to misrepresent Judge Douglas's position, question his motives, or do

aught that can be personally offensive to him. Whenever, if ever, he and

we can come together on principle so that our cause may have assistance

from his great ability, I hope to have interposed no adventitious

obstacles. But clearly he is not now with us; he does not pretend to

be,--he does not promise ever to be.

Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted

friends,--those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work, who do

care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered

over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single

impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance

against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements we gathered

from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the

constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we

brave all then to falter now,--now, when that same enemy is wavering,

dissevered, and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not

fail; if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate,

or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come.

SPEECH AT CHICAGO, JULY 10, 1858.

IN REPLY TO SENATOR DOUGLAS

DELIVERED AT CHICAGO, SATURDAY EVENING, JULY 10, 1858.

(Mr. DOUGLAS WAS NOT PRESENT.)

[Mr. LINCOLN was introduced by C. L. Wilson, Esq., and as he made his

appearance he was greeted with a perfect storm of applause. For some

moments the enthusiasm continued unabated. At last, when by a wave of his

hand partial silence was restored, Mr. LINCOLN said,]

MY FELLOW-CITIZENS:--On yesterday evening, upon the occasion of the

reception given to Senator Douglas, I was furnished with a seat very

convenient for hearing him, and was otherwise very courteously treated by

him and his friends, and for which I thank him and them. During the course

of his remarks my name was mentioned in such a way as, I suppose, renders

it at least not improper that I should make some sort of reply to him. I

shall not attempt to follow him in the precise order in which he addressed

the assembled multitude upon that occasion, though I shall perhaps do so

in the main.

There was one question to which he asked the attention of the crowd, which

I deem of somewhat less importance--at least of propriety--for me to dwell

upon than the others, which he brought in near the close of his speech,

and which I think it would not be entirely proper for me to omit attending

to, and yet if I were not to give some attention to it now, I should

probably forget it altogether. While I am upon this subject, allow me to

say that I do not intend to indulge in that inconvenient mode sometimes

adopted in public speaking, of reading from documents; but I shall depart

from that rule so far as to read a little scrap from his speech, which

notices this first topic of which I shall speak,--that is, provided I can

find it in the paper:

"I have made up my mind to appeal to the people against the combination

that has been made against me; the Republican leaders having formed an

alliance, an unholy and unnatural alliance, with a portion of unscrupulous

Federal office-holders. I intend to fight that allied army wherever I meet

them. I know they deny the alliance; but yet these men who are trying

to divide the Democratic party for the purpose of electing a Republican

Senator in my place are just as much the agents and tools of the

supporters of Mr. Lincoln. Hence I shall deal with this allied army

just as the Russians dealt with the Allies at Sebastopol,--that is, the

Russians did not stop to inquire, when they fired a broadside, whether it

hit an Englishman, a Frenchman, or a Turk. Nor will I stop to inquire,

nor shall I hesitate, whether my blows shall hit the Republican leaders

or their allies, who are holding the Federal offices, and yet acting in

concert with them."

Well, now, gentlemen, is not that very alarming? Just to think of it!

right at the outset of his canvass, I, a poor, kind, amiable, intelligent

gentleman,--I am to be slain in this way! Why, my friend the Judge is not

only, as it turns out, not a dead lion, nor even a living one,--he is the

rugged Russian Bear!

But if they will have it--for he says that we deny it--that there is any

such alliance, as he says there is,--and I don't propose hanging very much

upon this question of veracity,--but if he will have it that there is such

an alliance, that the Administration men and we are allied, and we stand

in the attitude of English, French, and Turk, he occupying the position

of the Russian, in that case I beg that he will indulge us while we barely

suggest to him that these allies took Sebastopol.

Gentlemen, only a few more words as to this alliance. For my part, I have

to say that whether there be such an alliance depends, so far as I know,

upon what may be a right definition of the term alliance. If for the

Republican party to see the other great party to which they are opposed

divided among themselves, and not try to stop the division, and rather be

glad of it,--if that is an alliance, I confess I am in; but if it is meant

to be said that the Republicans had formed an alliance going beyond that,

by which there is contribution of money or sacrifice of principle on the

one side or the other, so far as the Republican party is concerned,--if

there be any such thing, I protest that I neither know anything of it,

nor do I believe it. I will, however, say,--as I think this branch of the

argument is lugged in,--I would before I leave it state, for the benefit

of those concerned, that one of those same Buchanan men did once tell me

of an argument that he made for his opposition to Judge Douglas. He said

that a friend of our Senator Douglas had been talking to him, and had,

among other things, said to him:

"...why, you don't want to beat Douglas?" "Yes," said he, "I do want to

beat him, and I will tell you why. I believe his original Nebraska Bill

was right in the abstract, but it was wrong in the time that it was

brought forward. It was wrong in the application to a Territory in regard

to which the question had been settled; it was brought forward at a time

when nobody asked him; it was tendered to the South when the South had not

asked for it, but when they could not well refuse it; and for this same

reason he forced that question upon our party. It has sunk the best men

all over the nation, everywhere; and now, when our President, struggling

with the difficulties of this man's getting up, has reached the very

hardest point to turn in the case, he deserts him and I am for putting him

where he will trouble us no more."

Now, gentlemen, that is not my argument; that is not my argument at all.

I have only been stating to you the argument of a Buchanan man. You will

judge if there is any force in it.

Popular sovereignty! Everlasting popular sovereignty! Let us for a moment

inquire into this vast matter of popular sovereignty. What is popular

sovereignty? We recollect that at an early period in the history of

this struggle there was another name for the same thing,--"squatter

sovereignty." It was not exactly popular sovereignty, but squatter

sovereignty. What do those terms mean? What do those terms mean when used

now? And vast credit is taken by our friend the Judge in regard to his

support of it, when he declares the last years of his life have been,

and all the future years of his life shall be, devoted to this matter of

popular sovereignty. What is it? Why, it is the sovereignty of the people!

What was squatter sovereignty? I suppose, if it had any significance at

all, it was the right of the people to govern themselves, to be sovereign

in their own affairs while they were squatted down in a country not their

own, while they had squatted on a Territory that did not belong to them,

in the sense that a State belongs to the people who inhabit it, when

it belonged to the nation; such right to govern themselves was called

"squatter sovereignty."

Now, I wish you to mark: What has become of that squatter sovereignty?

what has become of it? Can you get anybody to tell you now that the people

of a Territory have any authority to govern themselves, in regard to this

mooted question of slavery, before they form a State constitution? No such

thing at all; although there is a general running fire, and although there

has been a hurrah made in every speech on that side, assuming that policy

had given the people of a Territory the right to govern themselves upon

this question, yet the point is dodged. To-day it has been decided--no

more than a year ago it was decided--by the Supreme Court of the United

States, and is insisted upon to-day that the people of a Territory have no

right to exclude slavery from a Territory; that if any one man chooses to

take slaves into a Territory, all the rest of the people have no right

to keep them out. This being so, and this decision being made one of the

points that the Judge approved, and one in the approval of which he says

he means to keep me down,--put me down I should not say, for I have never

been up,--he says he is in favor of it, and sticks to it, and expects to

win his battle on that decision, which says that there is no such thing

as squatter sovereignty, but that any one man may take slaves into a

Territory, and all the other men in the Territory may be opposed to it,

and yet by reason of the Constitution they cannot prohibit it. When that

is so, how much is left of this vast matter of squatter sovereignty, I

should like to know?

When we get back, we get to the point of the right of the people to make a

constitution. Kansas was settled, for example, in 1854. It was a Territory

yet, without having formed a constitution, in a very regular way, for

three years. All this time negro slavery could be taken in by any few

individuals, and by that decision of the Supreme Court, which the Judge

approves, all the rest of the people cannot keep it out; but when they

come to make a constitution, they may say they will not have slavery. But

it is there; they are obliged to tolerate it some way, and all experience

shows it will be so, for they will not take the negro slaves and

absolutely deprive the owners of them. All experience shows this to be so.

All that space of time that runs from the beginning of the settlement

of the Territory until there is sufficiency of people to make a State

constitution,--all that portion of time popular sovereignty is given up.

The seal is absolutely put down upon it by the court decision, and Judge

Douglas puts his own upon the top of that; yet he is appealing to the

people to give him vast credit for his devotion to popular sovereignty.

Again, when we get to the question of the right of the people to form

a State constitution as they please, to form it with slavery or without

slavery, if that is anything new, I confess I don't know it. Has there

ever been a time when anybody said that any other than the people of a

Territory itself should form a constitution? What is now in it that Judge

Douglas should have fought several years of his life, and pledge himself

to fight all the remaining years of his life for? Can Judge Douglas find

anybody on earth that said that anybody else should form a constitution

for a people? [A voice, "Yes."] Well, I should like you to name him; I

should like to know who he was. [Same voice, "John Calhoun."]

No, sir, I never heard of even John Calhoun saying such a thing. He

insisted on the same principle as Judge Douglas; but his mode of applying

it, in fact, was wrong. It is enough for my purpose to ask this crowd

whenever a Republican said anything against it. They never said anything

against it, but they have constantly spoken for it; and whoever will

undertake to examine the platform, and the speeches of responsible men of

the party, and of irresponsible men, too, if you please, will be unable to

find one word from anybody in the Republican ranks opposed to that popular

sovereignty which Judge Douglas thinks that he has invented. I suppose

that Judge Douglas will claim, in a little while, that he is the inventor

of the idea that the people should govern themselves; that nobody ever

thought of such a thing until he brought it forward. We do not remember

that in that old Declaration of Independence it is said that:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal;

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights;

that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to

secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their

just powers from the consent of the governed."

There is the origin of popular sovereignty. Who, then, shall come in at

this day and claim that he invented it?

The Lecompton Constitution connects itself with this question, for it is

in this matter of the Lecompton Constitution that our friend Judge

Douglas claims such vast credit. I agree that in opposing the Lecompton

Constitution, so far as I can perceive, he was right. I do not deny that

at all; and, gentlemen, you will readily see why I could not deny it,

even if I wanted to. But I do not wish to; for all the Republicans in the

nation opposed it, and they would have opposed it just as much without

Judge Douglas's aid as with it. They had all taken ground against it long

before he did. Why, the reason that he urges against that constitution I

urged against him a year before. I have the printed speech in my hand. The

argument that he makes, why that constitution should not be adopted, that

the people were not fairly represented nor allowed to vote, I pointed out

in a speech a year ago, which I hold in my hand now, that no fair chance

was to be given to the people. ["Read it, Read it."] I shall not waste

your time by trying to read it. ["Read it, Read it."] Gentlemen, reading

from speeches is a very tedious business, particularly for an old man that

has to put on spectacles, and more so if the man be so tall that he has to

bend over to the light.

A little more, now, as to this matter of popular sovereignty and the

Lecompton Constitution. The Lecompton Constitution, as the Judge tells us,

was defeated. The defeat of it was a good thing or it was not. He thinks

the defeat of it was a good thing, and so do I, and we agree in that. Who

defeated it?

[A voice: Judge Douglas.]

Yes, he furnished himself, and if you suppose he controlled the other

Democrats that went with him, he furnished three votes; while the

Republicans furnished twenty.

That is what he did to defeat it. In the House of Representatives he and

his friends furnished some twenty votes, and the Republicans furnished

ninety odd. Now, who was it that did the work?

[A voice: Douglas.]

Why, yes, Douglas did it! To be sure he did.

Let us, however, put that proposition another way. The Republicans could

not have done it without Judge Douglas. Could he have done it without

them? Which could have come the nearest to doing it without the other?

[A voice: Who killed the bill?]

[Another voice: Douglas.]

Ground was taken against it by the Republicans long before Douglas did it.

The proportion of opposition to that measure is about five to one.

[A voice: Why don't they come out on it?]

You don't know what you are talking about, my friend. I am quite willing

to answer any gentleman in the crowd who asks an intelligent question.

Now, who in all this country has ever found any of our friends of Judge

Douglas's way of thinking, and who have acted upon this main question,

that has ever thought of uttering a word in behalf of Judge Trumbull?

[A voice: We have.]

I defy you to show a printed resolution passed in a Democratic meeting--I

take it upon myself to defy any man to show a printed resolution of a

Democratic meeting, large or small--in favor of Judge Trumbull, or any of

the five to one Republicans who beat that bill. Everything must be for the

Democrats! They did everything, and the five to the one that really did

the thing they snub over, and they do not seem to remember that they have

an existence upon the face of the earth.

Gentlemen, I fear that I shall become tedious. I leave this branch of the

subject to take hold of another. I take up that part of Judge Douglas's

speech in which he respectfully attended to me.

Judge Douglas made two points upon my recent speech at Springfield. He

says they are to be the issues of this campaign. The first one of these

points he bases upon the language in a speech which I delivered at

Springfield, which I believe I can quote correctly from memory. I

said there that "we are now far into the fifth year since a policy was

instituted for the avowed object, and with the confident promise, of

putting an end to slavery agitation; under the operation of that policy,

that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented."

"I believe it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and

passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this

government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free." "I do not

expect the Union to be dissolved,"--I am quoting from my speech, "--I do

not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided.

It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of

slavery will arrest the spread of it and place it where the public mind

shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction,

or its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful

in all the States, north as well as south."

What is the paragraph? In this paragraph, which I have quoted in your

hearing, and to which I ask the attention of all, Judge Douglas thinks he

discovers great political heresy. I want your attention particularly to

what he has inferred from it. He says I am in favor of making all the

States of this Union uniform in all their internal regulations; that in

all their domestic concerns I am in favor of making them entirely uniform.

He draws this inference from the language I have quoted to you. He says

that I am in favor of making war by the North upon the South for the

extinction of slavery; that I am also in favor of inviting (as he

expresses it) the South to a war upon the North for the purpose of

nationalizing slavery. Now, it is singular enough, if you will carefully

read that passage over, that I did not say that I was in favor of anything

in it. I only said what I expected would take place. I made a prediction

only,--it may have been a foolish one, perhaps. I did not even say that I

desired that slavery should be put in course of ultimate extinction. I do

say so now, however, so there need be no longer any difficulty about that.

It may be written down in the great speech.

Gentlemen, Judge Douglas informed you that this speech of mine was

probably carefully prepared. I admit that it was. I am not master of

language; I have not a fine education; I am not capable of entering into

a disquisition upon dialectics, as I believe you call it; but I do not

believe the language I employed bears any such construction as Judge

Douglas puts upon it. But I don't care about a quibble in regard to words.

I know what I meant, and I will not leave this crowd in doubt, if I can

explain it to them, what I really meant in the use of that paragraph.

I am not, in the first place, unaware that this government has endured

eighty-two years half slave and half free. I know that. I am tolerably

well acquainted with the history of the country, and I know that it has

endured eighty-two years half slave and half free. I believe--and that is

what I meant to allude to there--I believe it has endured because during

all that time, until the introduction of the Nebraska Bill, the public

mind did rest all the time in the belief that slavery was in course of

ultimate extinction. That was what gave us the rest that we had through

that period of eighty-two years,--at least, so I believe. I have always

hated slavery, I think, as much as any Abolitionist,--I have been an Old

Line Whig,--I have always hated it; but I have always been quiet about

it until this new era of the introduction of the Nebraska Bill began. I

always believed that everybody was against it, and that it was in course

of ultimate extinction. [Pointing to Mr. Browning, who stood near by.]

Browning thought so; the great mass of the nation have rested in the

belief that slavery was in course of ultimate extinction. They had reason

so to believe.

The adoption of the Constitution and its attendant history led the

people to believe so; and that such was the belief of the framers of the

Constitution itself, why did those old men, about the time of the adoption

of the Constitution, decree that slavery should not go into the new

Territory, where it had not already gone? Why declare that within twenty

years the African slave trade, by which slaves are supplied, might be cut

off by Congress? Why were all these acts? I might enumerate more of these

acts; but enough. What were they but a clear indication that the framers

of the Constitution intended and expected the ultimate extinction of

that institution? And now, when I say, as I said in my speech that Judge

Douglas has quoted from, when I say that I think the opponents of slavery

will resist the farther spread of it, and place it where the public mind

shall rest with the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction,

I only mean to say that they will place it where the founders of this

government originally placed it.

I have said a hundred times, and I have now no inclination to take it

back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination, in

the people of the free States to enter into the slave States and interfere

with the question of slavery at all. I have said that always; Judge

Douglas has heard me say it, if not quite a hundred times, at least

as good as a hundred times; and when it is said that I am in favor of

interfering with slavery where it exists, I know it is unwarranted by

anything I have ever intended, and, as I believe, by anything I have ever

said. If, by any means, I have ever used language which could fairly be so

construed (as, however, I believe I never have), I now correct it.

So much, then, for the inference that Judge Douglas draws, that I am in

favor of setting the sections at war with one another. I know that I never

meant any such thing, and I believe that no fair mind can infer any such

thing from anything I have ever said.

Now, in relation to his inference that I am in favor of a general

consolidation of all the local institutions of the various States. I will

attend to that for a little while, and try to inquire, if I can, how on

earth it could be that any man could draw such an inference from anything

I said. I have said, very many times, in Judge Douglas's hearing, that no

man believed more than I in the principle of self-government; that it lies

at the bottom of all my ideas of just government, from beginning to end. I

have denied that his use of that term applies properly. But for the thing

itself, I deny that any man has ever gone ahead of me in his devotion to

the principle, whatever he may have done in efficiency in advocating it. I

think that I have said it in your hearing, that I believe each individual

is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of

his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other man's rights;

that each community as a State has a right to do exactly as it pleases

with all the concerns within that State that interfere with the right of

no other State; and that the General Government, upon principle, has no

right to interfere with anything other than that general class of things

that does concern the whole. I have said that at all times. I have said,

as illustrations, that I do not believe in the right of Illinois to

interfere with the cranberry laws of Indiana, the oyster laws of Virginia,

or the liquor laws of Maine. I have said these things over and over again,

and I repeat them here as my sentiments.

How is it, then, that Judge Douglas infers, because I hope to see slavery

put where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the

course of ultimate extinction, that I am in favor of Illinois going over

and interfering with the cranberry laws of Indiana? What can authorize him

to draw any such inference?

I suppose there might be one thing that at least enabled him to draw

such an inference that would not be true with me or many others: that is,

because he looks upon all this matter of slavery as an exceedingly little

thing,--this matter of keeping one sixth of the population of the whole

nation in a state of oppression and tyranny unequaled in the world. He

looks upon it as being an exceedingly little thing,--only equal to the

question of the cranberry laws of Indiana; as something having no moral

question in it; as something on a par with the question of whether a man

shall pasture his land with cattle, or plant it with tobacco; so little

and so small a thing that he concludes, if I could desire that anything

should be done to bring about the ultimate extinction of that little

thing, I must be in favor of bringing about an amalgamation of all

the other little things in the Union. 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; and 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.

So much, then, as to my disposition--my wish to have all the State

legislatures blotted out, and to have one consolidated government, and a

uniformity of domestic regulations in all the States, by which I suppose

it is meant, if we raise corn here, we must make sugar-cane grow here

too, and we must make those which grow North grow in the South. All this

I suppose he understands I am in favor of doing. Now, so much for all this

nonsense; for I must call it so. The Judge can have no issue with me on

a question of establishing uniformity in the domestic regulations of the

States.

A little now on the other point,--the Dred Scott decision. 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, and I ask your indulgence while I do so. What is fairly

implied by the term Judge Douglas has used, "resistance to the decision"?

I do not resist it. If I wanted to take Dred Scott from his master, I

would be interfering with property, and that terrible difficulty that

Judge Douglas speaks of, of interfering with property, would arise. But

I am doing no such thing as that, but all that I am doing is refusing to

obey it as a political rule. If I were in Congress, and a vote should come

up on a question whether slavery should be prohibited in a new Territory,

in spite of the Dred Scott decision, I would vote that it should.

That is what I should do. Judge Douglas said last night that before the

decision he might advance his opinion, and it might be contrary to the

decision when it was made; but after it was made he would abide by

it until it was reversed. Just so! We let this property abide by the

decision, but we will try to reverse that decision. We will try to put it

where Judge Douglas would not object, for he says he will obey it until it

is reversed. Somebody has to reverse that decision, since it is made, and

we mean to reverse it, and we mean to do it peaceably.

What are the uses of decisions of courts? They have two uses. As rules of

property they have two uses. First, they decide upon the question before

the court. They decide in this case that Dred Scott is a slave. Nobody

resists that, not only that, but they say to everybody else that persons

standing just as Dred Scott stands are as he is. That is, they say that

when a question comes up upon another person, it will be so decided again,

unless the court decides in another way, unless the court overrules its

decision. Well, we mean to do what we can to have the court decide the

other way. That is one thing we mean to try to do.

The sacredness that Judge Douglas throws around this decision is a degree

of sacredness that has never been before thrown around any other decision.

I have never heard of such a thing. Why, decisions apparently contrary

to that decision, or that good lawyers thought were contrary to that

decision, have been made by that very court before. It is the first of

its kind; it is an astonisher in legal history. It is a new wonder of the

world. It is based upon falsehood in the main as to the facts; allegations

of facts upon which it stands are not facts at all in many instances, and

no decision made on any question--the first instance of a decision made

under so many unfavorable circumstances--thus placed, has ever been held

by the profession as law, and it has always needed confirmation before the

lawyers regarded it as settled law. But Judge Douglas will have it

that all hands must take this extraordinary decision, made under these

extraordinary circumstances, and give their vote in Congress in accordance

with it, yield to it, and obey it in every possible sense. Circumstances

alter cases. Do not gentlemen here remember the case of that same Supreme

Court some twenty-five or thirty years ago deciding that a National Bank

was constitutional? I ask, if somebody does not remember that a National

Bank was declared to be constitutional? Such is the truth, whether it be

remembered or not. The Bank charter ran out, and a recharter was granted

by Congress. That recharter was laid before General Jackson. It was urged

upon him, when he denied the constitutionality of the Bank, that the

Supreme Court had decided that it was constitutional; and General Jackson

then said that the Supreme Court had no right to lay down a rule to govern

a coordinate branch of the government, the members of which had sworn

to support the Constitution; that each member had sworn to support that

Constitution as he understood it. I will venture here to say that I have

heard Judge Douglas say that he approved of General Jackson for that act.

What has now become of all his tirade about "resistance of the Supreme

Court"?