spoken as if he did not know or think that the Supreme Court had decided
that a Territorial Legislature cannot exclude slavery. Precisely what the
Judge would say upon the subject--whether he would say definitely that he
does not understand they have so decided, or whether he would say he does
understand that the court have so decided,--I do not know; but I know
that in his speech at Springfield he spoke of it as a thing they had not
decided yet; and in his answer to me at Freeport, he spoke of it, so far,
again, as I can comprehend it, as a thing that had not yet been decided.
Now, I hold that if the Judge does entertain that view, I think that he
is not mistaken in so far as it can be said that the court has not
decided anything save the mere question of jurisdiction. I know the legal
arguments that can be made,--that after a court has decided that it cannot
take jurisdiction in a case, it then has decided all that is before it,
and that is the end of it. A plausible argument can be made in favor of
that proposition; but I know that Judge Douglas has said in one of his
speeches that the court went forward, like honest men as they were,
and decided all the points in the case. If any points are really
extra-judicially decided, because not necessarily before them, then this
one as to the power of the Territorial Legislature, to exclude slavery
is one of them, as also the one that the Missouri Compromise was null and
void. They are both extra-judicial, or neither is, according as the
court held that they had no jurisdiction in the case between the parties,
because of want of capacity of one party to maintain a suit in that court.
I want, if I have sufficient time, to show that the court did pass its
opinion; but that is the only thing actually done in the case. If they did
not decide, they showed what they were ready to decide whenever the matter
was before them. What is that opinion? After having argued that Congress
had no power to pass a law excluding slavery from a United States
Territory, they then used language to this effect: That inasmuch as
Congress itself could not exercise such a power, it followed as a matter
of course that it could not authorize a Territorial government to exercise
it; for the Territorial Legislature can do no more than Congress could
do. Thus it expressed its opinion emphatically against the power of a
Territorial Legislature to exclude slavery, leaving us in just as little
doubt on that point as upon any other point they really decided.
Now, my fellow-citizens, I will detain you only a little while longer; my
time is nearly out. I find a report of a speech made by Judge Douglas
at Joliet, since we last met at Freeport,--published, I believe, in the
Missouri Republican, on the 9th of this month, in which Judge Douglas
says:
"You know at Ottawa I read this platform, and asked him if he concurred in
each and all of the principles set forth in it. He would not answer these
questions. At last I said frankly, I wish you to answer them, because when
I get them up here where the color of your principles are a little darker
than in Egypt, I intend to trot you down to Jonesboro. The very notice
that I was going to take him down to Egypt made him tremble in his knees
so that he had to be carried from the platform. He laid up seven days, and
in the meantime held a consultation with his political physicians; they
had Lovejoy and Farnsworth and all the leaders of the Abolition party,
they consulted it all over, and at last Lincoln came to the conclusion
that he would answer, so he came up to Freeport last Friday."
Now, that statement altogether furnishes a subject for philosophical
contemplation. I have been treating it in that way, and I have really come
to the conclusion that I can explain it in no other way than by believing
the Judge is crazy. If he was in his right mind I cannot conceive how he
would have risked disgusting the four or five thousand of his own friends
who stood there and knew, as to my having been carried from the platform,
that there was not a word of truth in it.
[Judge DOUGLAS: Did n't they carry you off?]
There that question illustrates the character of this man Douglas exactly.
He smiles now, and says, "Did n't they carry you off?" but he said then
"he had to be carried off"; and he said it to convince the country that
he had so completely broken me down by his speech that I had to be carried
away. Now he seeks to dodge it, and asks, "Did n't they carry you off?"
Yes, they did. But, Judge Douglas, why didn't you tell the truth? I would
like to know why you did n't tell the truth about it. And then again "He
laid up seven days." He put this in print for the people of the country to
read as a serious document. I think if he had been in his sober senses he
would not have risked that barefacedness in the presence of thousands of
his own friends who knew that I made speeches within six of the seven days
at Henry, Marshall County, Augusta, Hancock County, and Macomb, McDonough
County, including all the necessary travel to meet him again at Freeport
at the end of the six days. Now I say there is no charitable way to look
at that statement, except to conclude that he is actually crazy. There is
another thing in that statement that alarmed me very greatly as he states
it, that he was going to "trot me down to Egypt." Thereby he would have
you infer that I would not come to Egypt unless he forced me--that I
could not be got here unless he, giant-like, had hauled me down here. That
statement he makes, too, in the teeth of the knowledge that I had made the
stipulation to come down here and that he himself had been very reluctant
to enter into the stipulation. More than all this: Judge Douglas, when
he made that statement, must have been crazy and wholly out of his sober
senses, or else he would have known that when he got me down here, that
promise--that windy promise--of his powers to annihilate me, would n't
amount to anything. Now, how little do I look like being carried away
trembling? Let the Judge go on; and after he is done with his half-hour, I
want you all, if I can't go home myself, to let me stay and rot here; and
if anything happens to the Judge, if I cannot carry him to the hotel and
put him to bed, let me stay here and rot. I say, then, here is something
extraordinary in this statement. I ask you if you know any other living
man who would make such a statement? I will ask my friend Casey, over
there, if he would do such a thing? Would he send that out and have his
men take it as the truth? Did the Judge talk of trotting me down to Egypt
to scare me to death? Why, I know this people better than he does. I was
raised just a little east of here. I am a part of this people. But the
Judge was raised farther north, and perhaps he has some horrid idea of
what this people might be induced to do. But really I have talked about
this matter perhaps longer than I ought, for it is no great thing; and yet
the smallest are often the most difficult things to deal with. The Judge
has set about seriously trying to make the impression that when we meet
at different places I am literally in his clutches--that I am a poor,
helpless, decrepit mouse, and that I can do nothing at all. This is one
of the ways he has taken to create that impression. I don't know any other
way to meet it except this. I don't want to quarrel with him--to call him
a liar; but when I come square up to him I don't know what else to call
him if I must tell the truth out. I want to be at peace, and reserve all
my fighting powers for necessary occasions. My time now is very nearly
out, and I give up the trifle that is left to the Judge, to let him set my
knees trembling again, if he can. set my knees trembling again, if he can.