This address, Lincoln's first important direct message to the people of
the East, was very carefully prepared. The text in this volume is
taken from _The Tribune Tract_, issued as a campaign document.
The Northwestern Territory. The district comprising the present States
of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, had been ceded to
the national government by the original States.
"_Black Republicans_." Douglas constantly referred to his opponents
under this title. In the Ottawa Debate he affirmed that in 1854
Lincoln and Trumbull had arranged to form "an Abolition party, under
the name and disguise of a Republican party."
"_Popular sovereignty_." This principle is defined by Douglas as
follows: "My principle is to recognize each State of the Union as
independent, sovereign, and equal in its sovereignty."
_Harper's Ferry! John Brown!_ John Brown was a New Englander, who had
taken an active part in the Kansas disorders in 1856. During the
summer of 1859 he engaged in an attempt to free the slaves of Virginia.
After capturing the Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, he was overpowered by a
body of marines and with the survivors of his "army," was hanged. By
the extreme anti-slavery people he was regarded as a martyr, the best
expression of this spirit being given by Mrs. Julia Ward Howe's "Battle
Hymn of the Republic." In a speech in Congress of January 16, 1860,
Senator Douglas had stated his "firm and deliberate conviction that the
Harper's Ferry crime was the natural, logical, inevitable result of the
doctrines and teachings of the Republican party."
_The Southampton insurrection_. The reference is to a slave
insurrection which occurred in 1831 in Southampton, Va.
_Helper's Book_. Hinton P. Helper, a North Carolinian of the so-called
poor white class, was the author of a book on the effects of slavery,
entitled _The Impending Crisis in the South_. The special reference is
to the recent agreement among sixty-four Republican representatives to
publish a compendium of the book for circulation in doubtful States.