were on this continent eighty-one years ago were created equal to all
British subjects born and then residing in Great Britain."
And now I appeal to all--to Democrats as well as others--are you really
willing that the Declaration shall thus be frittered away?--thus left no
more, at most, than an interesting memorial of the dead past?--thus shorn
of its vitality and practical value, and left without the germ or even the
suggestion of the individual rights of man in it?
But Judge Douglas is especially horrified at the thought of the mixing
of blood by the white and black races. Agreed for once--a thousand times
agreed. There are white men enough to marry all the white women and black
men enough to many all the black women; and so let them be married. On
this point we fully agree with the Judge, and when he shall show that his
policy is better adapted to prevent amalgamation than ours, we shall drop
ours and adopt his. Let us see. In 1850 there were in the United States
405,751 mulattoes. Very few of these are the offspring of whites and free
blacks; nearly all have sprung from black slaves and white masters. A
separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation;
but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to
keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black
people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas.
That is at least one self-evident truth. A few free colored persons
may get into the free States, in any event; but their number is too
insignificant to amount to much in the way of mixing blood. In 1850 there
were in the free States 56,649 mulattoes; but for the most part they were
not born there--they came from the slave States, ready made up. In the
same year the slave States had 348,874 mulattoes, all of home production.
The proportion of free mulattoes to free blacks--the only colored classes
in the free States is much greater in the slave than in the free States.
It is worthy of note, too, that among the free States those which make the
colored man the nearest equal to the white have proportionably the fewest
mulattoes, the least of amalgamation. In New Hampshire, the State which
goes farthest toward equality between the races, there are just 184
mulattoes, while there are in Virginia--how many do you think?--79,775,
being 23,126 more than in all the free States together.
These statistics show that slavery is the greatest source of amalgamation,
and next to it, not the elevation, but the degradation of the free
blacks. Yet Judge Douglas dreads the slightest restraints on the spread
of slavery, and the slightest human recognition of the negro, as tending
horribly to amalgamation!
The very Dred Scott case affords a strong test as to which party most
favors amalgamation, the Republicans or the dear Union-saving Democracy.
Dred Scott, his wife, and two daughters were all involved in the suit. We
desired the court to have held that they were citizens so far at least
as to entitle them to a hearing as to whether they were free or not; and
then, also, that they were in fact and in law really free. Could we have
had our way, the chances of these black girls ever mixing their blood with
that of white people would have been diminished at least to the extent
that it could not have been without their consent. But Judge Douglas is
delighted to have them decided to be slaves, and not human enough to have
a hearing, even if they were free, and thus left subject to the forced
concubinage of their masters, and liable to become the mothers of
mulattoes in spite of themselves: the very state of case that produces
nine tenths of all the mulattoes all the mixing of blood in the nation.
Of course, I state this case as an illustration only, not meaning to say
or intimate that the master of Dred Scott and his family, or any more
than a percentage of masters generally, are inclined to exercise this
particular power which they hold over their female slaves.
I have said that the separation of the races is the only perfect
preventive of amalgamation. I have no right to say all the members of the
Republican party are in favor of this, nor to say that as a party they
are in favor of it. There is nothing in their platform directly on the
subject. But I can say a very large proportion of its members are for it,
and that the chief plank in their platform--opposition to the spread of
slavery--is most favorable to that separation.
Such separation, if ever effected at all, must be effected by
colonization; and no political party, as such, is now doing anything
directly for colonization. Party operations at present only favor or
retard colonization incidentally. The enterprise is a difficult one; but
"where there is a will there is a way," and what colonization needs most
is a hearty will. Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and
self-interest. Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and
at the same time favorable to, or at least not against, our interest to
transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do
it, however great the task may be. The children of Israel, to such numbers
as to include four hundred thousand fighting men, went out of Egyptian
bondage in a body.
How differently the respective courses of the Democratic and Republican
parties incidentally, bear on the question of forming a will--a public
sentiment--for colonization, is easy to see. The Republicans inculcate,
with whatever of ability they can, that the negro is a man, that his
bondage is cruelly wrong, and that the field of his oppression ought
not to be enlarged. The Democrats deny his manhood; deny, or dwarf to
insignificance, the wrong of his bondage; so far as possible crush all
sympathy for him, and cultivate and excite hatred and disgust against
him; compliment themselves as Union-savers for doing so; and call
the indefinite outspreading of his bondage "a sacred right of
self-government."
The plainest print cannot be read through a gold eagle; and it will be
ever hard to find many men who will send a slave to Liberia, and pay
his passage, while they can send him to a new country--Kansas, for
instance--and sell him for fifteen hundred dollars, and the rise.
TO WILLIAM GRIMES.
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, August, 1857
DEAR SIR:--Yours of the 14th is received, and I am much obliged for the
legal information you give.
You can scarcely be more anxious than I that the next election in Iowa
should result in favor of the Republicans. I lost nearly all the working
part of last year, giving my time to the canvass; and I am altogether
too poor to lose two years together. I am engaged in a suit in the United
States Court at Chicago, in which the Rock Island Bridge Company is a
party. The trial is to commence on the 8th of September, and probably will
last two or three weeks. During the trial it is not improbable that
all hands may come over and take a look at the bridge, and, if it were
possible to make it hit right, I could then speak at Davenport. My courts
go right on without cessation till late in November. Write me again,
pointing out the more striking points of difference between your old and
new constitutions, and also whether Democratic and Republican party
lines were drawn in the adoption of it, and which were for and which were
against it. If, by possibility, I could get over among you it might be of
some advantage to know these things in advance.
Yours very truly,
A. LINCOLN.
ARGUMENT IN THE ROCK ISLAND BRIDGE CASE.
(From the Daily Press of Chicago, Sept. 24, 1857.)
Hurd et al. vs Railroad Bridge Co.
United States Circuit Court, Hon. John McLean, Presiding Judge.
13th day, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 1857.
Mr. A. Lincoln addressed the jury. He said he did not purpose to assail
anybody, that he expected to grow earnest as he proceeded but not
ill-natured. "There is some conflict of testimony in the case," he said,
"but one quarter of such a number of witnesses seldom agree, and even if
all were on one side some discrepancy might be expected. We are to try and
reconcile them, and to believe that they are not intentionally erroneous
as long as we can." He had no prejudice, he said, against steamboats or
steamboat men nor any against St. Louis, for he supposed they went about
this matter as other people would do in their situation. "St. Louis," he
continued, "as a commercial place may desire that this bridge should not
stand, as it is adverse to her commerce, diverting a portion of it from
the river; and it may be that she supposes that the additional cost of
railroad transportation upon the productions of Iowa will force them to
go to St. Louis if this bridge is removed. The meetings in St. Louis are
connected with this case only as some witnesses are in it, and thus has
some prejudice added color to their testimony." The last thing that would
be pleasing to him, Mr. Lincoln said, would be to have one of these great
channels, extending almost from where it never freezes to where it never
thaws, blocked up, but there is a travel from east to west whose demands
are not less important than those of the river. It is growing larger and
larger, building up new countries with a rapidity never before seen in the
history of the world. He alluded to the astonishing growth of Illinois,
having grown within his memory to a population of a million and a half; to
Iowa and the other young rising communities of the Northwest.
"This current of travel," said he, "has its rights as well as that of
north and south. If the river had not the advantage in priority and
legislation we could enter into free competition with it and we could
surpass it. This particular railroad line has a great importance and the
statement of its business during a little less than a year shows this
importance. It is in evidence that from September 8, 1856, to August 8,
1857, 12,586 freight cars and 74,179 passengers passed over this bridge.
Navigation was closed four days short of four months last year, and
during this time while the river was of no use this road and bridge were
valuable. There is, too, a considerable portion of time when floating or
thin ice makes the river useless while the bridge is as useful as ever.
This shows that this bridge must be treated with respect in this court and
is not to be kicked about with contempt. The other day Judge Wead alluded
to the strike of the contending interest and even a dissolution of the
Union. The proper mode for all parties in this affair is to 'live and let
live,' and then we will find a cessation of this trouble about the bridge.
What mood were the steamboat men in when this bridge was burned? Why,
there was a shouting and ringing of bells and whistling on all the boats
as it fell. It was a jubilee, a greater celebration than follows an
excited election. The first thing I will proceed to is the record of Mr.
Gurney and the complaint of Judge Wead that the record did not extend back
over all the time from the completion of the bridge. The principal part of
the navigation after the bridge was burned passed through the span. When
the bridge was repaired and the boats were a second time confined to the
draw it was provided that this record should be kept. That is the simple
history of that book.
"From April 19th, 1856, to May 6th--seventeen days--there were twenty
accidents and all the time since then there have been but twenty hits,
including seven accidents, so that the dangers of this place are tapering
off and as the boatmen get cool the accidents get less. We may soon expect
if this ratio is kept up that there will be no accidents at all.
"Judge Wead said, while admitting that the floats went straight through,
there was a difference between a float and a boat, but I do not remember
that he indulged us with an argument in support of this statement. Is it
because there is a difference in size? Will not a small body and a large
one float the same way under the same influence? True a flatboat will
float faster than an egg shell and the egg shell might be blown away by
the wind, but if under the same influence they would go the same way.
Logs, floats, boards, various things the witnesses say all show the same
current. Then is not this test reliable? At all depths too the direction
of the current is the same. A series of these floats would make a line as
long as a boat and would show any influence upon any part and all parts of
the boat.
"I will now speak of the angular position of the piers. What is the amount
of the angle? The course of the river is a curve and the pier is straight.
If a line is produced from the upper end of the long pier straight with
the pier to a distance of 350 feet, and a line is drawn from a point in
the channel opposite this point to the head of the pier, Colonel Nason
says they will form an angle of twenty degrees. But the angle if measured
at the pier is seven degrees; that is, we would have to move the pier
seven degrees to make it exactly straight with the current. Would that
make the navigation better or worse? The witnesses of the plaintiff seem
to think it was only necessary to say that the pier formed an angle with
the current and that settled the matter. Our more careful and accurate
witnesses say that, though they had been accustomed to seeing the piers
placed straight with the current, yet they could see that here the current
had been made straight by us in having made this slight angle; that the
water now runs just right, that it is straight and cannot be improved.
They think that if the pier was changed the eddy would be divided and the
navigation improved.
"I am not now going to discuss the question what is a material
obstruction. We do not greatly differ about the law. The cases produced
here are, I suppose, proper to be taken into consideration by the court in
instructing a jury. Some of them I think are not exactly in point, but
I am still willing to trust his honor, Judge McLean, and take his
instructions as law. What is reasonable skill and care? This is a thing
of which the jury are to judge. I differ from the other side when it says
that they are bound to exercise no more care than was taken before the
building of the bridge. If we are allowed by the Legislature to build the
bridge which will require them to do more than before, when a pilot comes
along, it is unreasonable for him to dash on heedless of this structure
which has been legally put there. The Afton came there on the 5th and lay
at Rock Island until next morning. When a boat lies up the pilot has a
holiday, and would not any of these jurors have then gone around to the
bridge and gotten acquainted with the place? Pilot Parker has shown here
that he does not understand the draw. I heard him say that the fall from
the head to the foot of the pier was four feet; he needs information. He
could have gone there that day and seen there was no such fall. He should
have discarded passion and the chances are that he would have had no
disaster at all. He was bound to make himself acquainted with the place.
"McCammon says that the current and the swell coming from the long pier
drove her against the long pier. In other words drove her toward the very
pier from which the current came! It is an absurdity, an impossibility.
The only recollection I can find for this contradiction is in a current
which White says strikes out from the long pier and then like a ram's horn
turns back, and this might have acted somehow in this manner.
"It is agreed by all that the plaintiff's boat was destroyed and that it
was destroyed upon the head of the short pier; that she moved from the
channel where she was with her bow above the head of the long pier, till
she struck the short one, swung around under the bridge and there was
crowded and destroyed.
"I shall try to prove that the average velocity of the current through the
draw with the boat in it should be five and a half miles an hour; that it
is slowest at the head of the pier and swiftest at the foot of the pier.
Their lowest estimate in evidence is six miles an hour, their highest
twelve miles. This was the testimony of men who had made no experiment,
only conjecture. We have adopted the most exact means. The water runs
swiftest in high water and we have taken the point of nine feet above low
water. The water when the Afton was lost was seven feet above low water,
or at least a foot lower than our time. Brayton and his assistants timed
the instruments, the best instruments known in measuring currents. They
timed them under various circumstances and they found the current five
miles an hour and no more. They found that the water at the upper end ran
slower than five miles; that below it was swifter than five miles, but
that the average was five miles. Shall men who have taken no care, who
conjecture, some of whom speak of twenty miles an hour, be believed
against those who have had such a favorable and well improved opportunity?
They should not even qualify the result. Several men have given their
opinion as to the distance of the steamboat Carson, and I suppose if one
should go and measure that distance you would believe him in preference to
all of them.
"These measurements were made when the boat was not in the draw. It has
been ascertained what is the area of the cross section of this stream and
the area of the face of the piers, and the engineers say that the piers
being put there will increase the current proportionally as the space
is decreased. So with the boat in the draw. The depth of the channel was
twenty-two feet, the width one hundred and sixteen feet; multiply these
and you have the square-feet across the water of the draw, viz.: 2552
feet. The Afton was 35 feet wide and drew 5 feet, making a fourteenth
of the sum. Now, one-fourteenth of five miles is five-fourteenths of one
mile--about one third of a mile--the increase of the current. We will call
the current five and a half miles per hour. The next thing I will try to
prove is that the plaintiff's (?) boat had power to run six miles an hour
in that current. It had been testified that she was a strong, swift boat,
able to run eight miles an hour up stream in a current of four miles an
hour, and fifteen miles down stream. Strike the average and you will find
what is her average--about eleven and a half miles. Take the five and a
half miles which is the speed of the current in the draw and it leaves the
power of that boat in that draw at six miles an hour, 528 feet per minute
and 8 4/5 feet to the second.
"Next I propose to show that there are no cross currents. I know their
witnesses say that there are cross currents--that, as one witness says,
there were three cross currents and two eddies; so far as mere statement,
without experiment, and mingled with mistakes, can go, they have proved.
But can these men's testimony be compared with the nice, exact, thorough
experiments of our witnesses? Can you believe that these floats go across
the currents? It is inconceivable that they could not have discovered
every possible current. How do boats find currents that floats cannot
discover? We assume the position then that those cross currents are not
there. My next proposition is that the Afton passed between the S. B.
Carson and the Iowa shore. That is undisputed.
"Next I shall show that she struck first the short pier, then the long
pier, then the short one again and there she stopped." Mr. Lincoln then
cited the testimony of eighteen witnesses on this point.
"How did the boat strike when she went in? Here is an endless variety of
opinion. But ten of them say what pier she struck; three of them testify
that she struck first the short, then the long and then the short for the
last time. None of the rest substantially contradict this. I assume that
these men have got the truth because I believe it an established fact.
My next proposition is that after she struck the short and long pier and
before she got back to the short pier the boat got right with her bow
up. So says the pilot Parker--that he got her through until her starboard
wheel passed the short pier. This would make her head about even with the
head of the long pier. He says her head was as high or higher than the
head of the long pier. Other witnesses confirmed this one. The final
stroke was in the splash door aft the wheel. Witnesses differ, but the
majority say that she struck thus."
Court adjourned.
14th day, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 1857.
Mr. A. LINCOLN resumed. He said he should conclude as soon as possible.
He said the colored map of the plaintiff which was brought in during one
stage of the trial showed itself that the cross currents alleged did not
exist. That the current as represented would drive an ascending boat to
the long pier but not to the short pier, as they urge. He explained from a
model of a boat where the splash door is, just behind the wheel. The boat
struck on the lower shoulder of the short pier as she swung around in the
splash door; then as she went on around she struck the point or end of
the pier, where she rested. "Her engineers," said Mr. Lincoln, "say the
starboard wheel then was rushing around rapidly. Then the boat must have
struck the upper point of the pier so far back as not to disturb the
wheel. It is forty feet from the stern of the Afton to the splash door,
and thus it appears that she had but forty feet to go to clear the pier.
How was it that the Afton with all her power flanked over from the channel
to the short pier without moving one foot ahead? Suppose she was in the
middle of the draw, her wheel would have been 31 feet from the short pier.
The reason she went over thus is her starboard wheel was not working. I
shall try to establish the fact that the wheel was not running and that
after she struck she went ahead strong on this same wheel. Upon the last
point the witnesses agree, that the starboard wheel was running after she
struck, and no witnesses say that it was running while she was out in the
draw flanking over."
Mr. Lincoln read from the testimonies of various witnesses to prove that
the starboard wheel was not working while the Afton was out in the stream.
"Other witnesses show that the captain said something of the machinery of
the wheel, and the inference is that he knew the wheel was not working.
The fact is undisputed that she did not move one inch ahead while she was
moving this 31 feet sideways. There is evidence proving that the current
there is only five miles an hour, and the only explanation is that her
power was not all used--that only one wheel was working. The pilot says
he ordered the engineers to back her up. The engineers differ from him
and said they kept on going ahead. The bow was so swung that the current
pressed it over; the pilot pressed the stern over with the rudder, though
not so fast but that the bow gained on it, and only one wheel being
in motion the boat nearly stood still so far as motion up and down is
concerned, and thus she was thrown upon this pier. The Afton came into the
draw after she had just passed the Carson, and as the Carson no doubt kept
the true course the Afton going around her got out of the proper way, got
across the current into the eddy which is west of a straight line drawn
down from the long pier, was compelled to resort to these changes of
wheels, which she did not do with sufficient adroitness to save her. Was
it not her own fault that she entered wrong, so far wrong that she never
got right? Is the defence to blame for that?
"For several days we were entertained with depositions about boats
'smelling a bar.' Why did the Afton then, after she had come up smelling
so close to the long pier sheer off so strangely. When she got to the
centre of the very nose she was smelling she seemed suddenly to have lost
her sense of smell and to have flanked over to the short pier."
Mr. Lincoln said there was no practicability in the project of building
a tunnel under the river, for there "is not a tunnel that is a successful
project in this world. A suspension bridge cannot be built so high but
that the chimneys of the boats will grow up till they cannot pass. The
steamboat men will take pains to make them grow. The cars of a railroad
cannot without immense expense rise high enough to get even with a
suspension bridge or go low enough to get through a tunnel; such expense
is unreasonable.