The society goes into no household to disturb its domestic tranquillity.
It addresses itself to no slaves to weaken their obligations of obedience.
It seeks to affect no man's property. It neither has the power nor the
will to affect the property of any one contrary to his consent. The
execution of its scheme would augment instead of diminishing the value of
property left behind. The society, composed of free men, conceals itself
only with the free. Collateral consequences we are not responsible for.
It is not this society which has produced the great moral revolution which
the age exhibits. What would they who thus reproach us have done? If they
would repress all tendencies toward liberty and ultimate emancipation,
they must do more than put down the benevolent efforts of this society.
They must go back to the era of our liberty and independence, and muzzle
the cannon which thunders its annual joyous return. They must renew the
slave trade, with all its train of atrocities. They must suppress the
workings of British philanthropy, seeking to meliorate the condition of
the unfortunate West Indian slave. They must arrest the career of South
American deliverance from thraldom. They must blow out the moral lights
around us and extinguish that greatest torch of all which America presents
to a benighted world--pointing the way to their rights, their liberties,
and their happiness. And when they have achieved all those purposes their
work will be yet incomplete. They must penetrate the human soul, and
eradicate the light of reason and the love of liberty. Then, and not till
then, when universal darkness and despair prevail, can you perpetuate
slavery and repress all sympathy and all humane and benevolent efforts
among free men in behalf of the unhappy portion of our race doomed to
bondage."
The American Colonization Society was organized in 1816. Mr. Clay, though
not its projector, was one of its earliest members; and he died, as for
many preceding years he had been, its president. It was one of the
most cherished objects of his direct care and consideration, and the
association of his name with it has probably been its very greatest
collateral support. He considered it no demerit in the society that it
tended to relieve the slave-holders from the troublesome presence of
the free negroes; but this was far from being its whole merit in his
estimation. In the same speech from which we have quoted he says:
"There is a moral fitness in the idea of returning to Africa her children,
whose ancestors have been torn from her by the ruthless hand of fraud and
violence. Transplanted in a foreign land, they will carry back to their
native soil the rich fruits of religion, civilization, law, and liberty.
May it not be one of the great designs of the Ruler of the universe, whose
ways are often inscrutable by short-sighted mortals, thus to transform an
original crime into a signal blessing to that most unfortunate portion of
the globe?"
This suggestion of the possible ultimate redemption of the African race
and African continent was made twenty-five years ago. Every succeeding
year has added strength to the hope of its realization. May it indeed be
realized. Pharaoh's country was cursed with plagues, and his hosts were
lost in the Red Sea, for striving to retain a captive people who had
already served them more than four hundred years. May like disasters never
befall us! If, as the friends of colonization hope, the present and coming
generations of our countrymen shall by any means succeed in freeing our
land from the dangerous presence of slavery, and at the same time in
restoring a captive people to their long-lost fatherland with bright
prospects for the future, and this too so gradually that neither races
nor individuals shall have suffered by the change, it will indeed be a
glorious consummation. And if to such a consummation the efforts of Mr.
Clay shall have contributed, it will be what he most ardently wished, and
none of his labors will have been more valuable to his country and his
kind.
But Henry Clay is dead. His long and eventful life is closed. Our country
is prosperous and powerful; but could it have been quite all it has
been, and is, and is to be, without Henry Clay? Such a man the times have
demanded, and such in the providence of God was given us. But he is gone.
Let us strive to deserve, as far as mortals may, the continued care of
Divine Providence, trusting that in future national emergencies He will
not fail to provide us the instruments of safety and security.
NOTE. We are indebted for a copy of this speech to the courtesy of Major
Wm. H. Bailhache, formerly one of the proprietors of the Illinois State
Journal.
CHALLENGED VOTERS
OPINION ON THE ILLINOIS ELECTION LAW.
SPRINGFIELD, November 1, 1852
A leading article in the Daily Register of this morning has induced some
of our friends to request our opinion on the election laws as applicable
to challenged voters. We have examined the present constitution of the
State, the election law of 1849, and the unrepealed parts of the election
law in the revised code of 1845; and we are of the opinion that any person
taking the oath prescribed in the act of 1849 is entitled to vote unless
counter-proof be made satisfactory to a majority of the judges that such
oath is untrue; and that for the purpose of obtaining such counter-proof,
the proposed voter may be asked questions in the way of cross-examination,
and other independent testimony may be received. We base our opinion as
to receiving counter-proof upon the unrepealed Section nineteen of the
election law in the revised code.
A. LINCOLN,
B. S. EDWARDS
S. T. LOGAN.
S. H. TREAT
1853
LEGAL OFFICE WORK
TO JOSHUA R. STANFORD.
PEKIN, MAY 12, 1853
Mr. JOSHUA R. STANFORD.
SIR:--I hope the subject-matter of this letter will appear a sufficient
apology to you for the liberty I, a total stranger, take in addressing
you. The persons here holding two lots under a conveyance made by you, as
the attorney of Daniel M. Baily, now nearly twenty-two years ago, are in
great danger of losing the lots, and very much, perhaps all, is to depend
on the testimony you give as to whether you did or did not account to
Baily for the proceeds received by you on this sale of the lots. I,
therefore, as one of the counsel, beg of you to fully refresh your
recollection by any means in your power before the time you may be called
on to testify. If persons should come about you, and show a disposition to
pump you on the subject, it may be no more than prudent to remember that
it may be possible they design to misrepresent you and embarrass the real
testimony you may ultimately give. It may be six months or a year before
you are called on to testify.
Respectfully,
A. LINCOLN.
1854
TO O. L. DAVIS.
SPRINGFIELD, June 22, 1854.
O. L. DAVIS, ESQ.
DEAR SIR:--You, no doubt, remember the enclosed memorandum being handed me
in your office. I have just made the desired search, and find that no such
deed has ever been here. Campbell, the auditor, says that if it were here,
it would be in his office, and that he has hunted for it a dozen times,
and could never find it. He says that one time and another, he has heard
much about the matter, that it was not a deed for Right of Way, but a
deed, outright, for Depot-ground--at least, a sale for Depot-ground, and
there may never have been a deed. He says, if there is a deed, it is most
probable General Alexander, of Paris, has it.
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN.
NEBRASKA MEASURE
TO J. M. PALMER
[Confidential]
SPRINGFIELD, Sept. 7, 1854.
HON. J. M. PALMER.
DEAR SIR:--You know how anxious I am that this Nebraska measure shall be
rebuked and condemned everywhere. Of course I hope something from your
position; yet I do not expect you to do anything which may be wrong in
your own judgment; nor would I have you do anything personally injurious
to yourself. You are, and always have been, honestly and sincerely a
Democrat; and I know how painful it must be to an honest, sincere man to
be urged by his party to the support of a measure which in his conscience
he believes to be wrong. You have had a severe struggle with yourself, and
you have determined not to swallow the wrong. Is it not just to yourself
that you should, in a few public speeches, state your reasons, and thus
justify yourself? I wish you would; and yet I say, don't do it, if you
think it will injure you. You may have given your word to vote for Major
Harris; and if so, of course you will stick to it. But allow me to suggest
that you should avoid speaking of this; for it probably would induce some
of your friends in like manner to cast their votes. You understand. And
now let me beg your pardon for obtruding this letter upon you, to whom
I have ever been opposed in politics. Had your party omitted to make
Nebraska a test of party fidelity, you probably would have been the
Democratic candidate for Congress in the district. You deserved it, and
I believe it would have been given you. In that case I should have been
quite happy that Nebraska was to be rebuked at all events. I still should
have voted for the Whig candidate; but I should have made no speeches,
written no letters; and you would have been elected by at least a thousand
majority.
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN.
TO A. B. MOREAU.
SPRINGFIELD, September 7, 1854
A. B. MOREAU, ESQ.
SIR:--Stranger though I am, personally, being a brother in the faith, I
venture to write you. Yates can not come to your court next week. He
is obliged to be at Pike court where he has a case, with a fee of five
hundred dollars, two hundred dollars already paid. To neglect it would be
unjust to himself, and dishonest to his client. Harris will be with you,
head up and tail up, for Nebraska. You must have some one to make an
anti-Nebraska speech. Palmer is the best, if you can get him, I think. Jo.
Gillespie, if you can not get Palmer, and somebody anyhow, if you can
get neither. But press Palmer hard. It is in his Senatorial district, I
believe.
Yours etc.,
A. LINCOLN.
REPLY TO SENATOR DOUGLAS--PEORIA SPEECH
SPEECH AT PEORIA, ILLINOIS, IN REPLY TO SENATOR DOUGLAS,
OCTOBER 16, 1854.
I do not rise to speak now, if I can stipulate with the audience to meet
me here at half-past six or at seven o'clock. It is now several minutes
past five, and Judge Douglas has spoken over three hours. If you hear me
at all, I wish you to hear me through. It will take me as long as it has
taken him. That will carry us beyond eight o'clock at night. Now, every
one of you who can remain that long can just as well get his supper,
meet me at seven, and remain an hour or two later. The Judge has already
informed you that he is to have an hour to reply to me. I doubt not but
you have been a little surprised to learn that I have consented to give
one of his high reputation and known ability this advantage of me. Indeed,
my consenting to it, though reluctant, was not wholly unselfish, for I
suspected, if it were understood that the Judge was entirely done, you
Democrats would leave and not hear me; but by giving him the close, I felt
confident you would stay for the fun of hearing him skin me.
The audience signified their assent to the arrangement, and adjourned to
seven o'clock P.M., at which time they reassembled, and Mr. Lincoln spoke
substantially as follows:
The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the propriety of its
restoration, constitute the subject of what I am about to say. As I desire
to present my own connected view of this subject, my remarks will not
be specifically an answer to Judge Douglas; yet, as I proceed, the main
points he has presented will arise, and will receive such respectful
attention as I may be able to give them. I wish further to say that I do
not propose to question the patriotism or to assail the motives of any man
or class of men, but rather to confine myself strictly to the naked
merits of the question. I also wish to be no less than national in all
the positions I may take, and whenever I take ground which others have
thought, or may think, narrow, sectional, and dangerous to the Union, I
hope to give a reason which will appear sufficient, at least to some, why
I think differently.
And as this subject is no other than part and parcel of the larger general
question of domestic slavery, I wish to make and to keep the distinction
between the existing institution and the extension of it so broad and
so clear that no honest man can misunderstand me, and no dishonest one
successfully misrepresent me.
In order to a clear understanding of what the Missouri Compromise is, a
short history of the preceding kindred subjects will perhaps be proper.
When we established our independence, we did not own or claim the
country to which this compromise applies. Indeed, strictly speaking, the
Confederacy then owned no country at all; the States respectively owned
the country within their limits, and some of them owned territory
beyond their strict State limits. Virginia thus owned the Northwestern
Territory--the country out of which the principal part of Ohio, all
Indiana, all Illinois, all Michigan, and all Wisconsin have since been
formed. She also owned (perhaps within her then limits) what has since
been formed into the State of Kentucky. North Carolina thus owned what
is now the State of Tennessee; and South Carolina and Georgia owned,
in separate parts, what are now Mississippi and Alabama. Connecticut, I
think, owned the little remaining part of Ohio, being the same where they
now send Giddings to Congress and beat all creation in making cheese.
These territories, together with the States themselves, constitute all the
country over which the Confederacy then claimed any sort of jurisdiction.
We were then living under the Articles of Confederation, which were
superseded by the Constitution several years afterward. The question of
ceding the territories to the General Government was set on foot. Mr.
Jefferson,--the author of the Declaration of Independence, and otherwise
a chief actor in the Revolution; then a delegate in Congress; afterward,
twice President; who was, is, and perhaps will continue to be, the
most distinguished politician of our history; a Virginian by birth and
continued residence, and withal a slaveholder,--conceived the idea of
taking that occasion to prevent slavery ever going into the Northwestern
Territory. He prevailed on the Virginia Legislature to adopt his views,
and to cede the Territory, making the prohibition of slavery therein
a condition of the deed. (Jefferson got only an understanding, not a
condition of the deed to this wish.) Congress accepted the cession with
the condition; and the first ordinance (which the acts of Congress were
then called) for the government of the Territory provided that slavery
should never be permitted therein. This is the famed "Ordinance of '87,"
so often spoken of.
Thenceforward for sixty-one years, and until, in 1848, the last scrap of
this Territory came into the Union as the State of Wisconsin, all parties
acted in quiet obedience to this ordinance. It is now what Jefferson
foresaw and intended--the happy home of teeming millions of free, white,
prosperous people, and no slave among them.
Thus, with the author of the Declaration of Independence, the policy of
prohibiting slavery in new territory originated. Thus, away back to the
Constitution, in the pure, fresh, free breath of the Revolution, the State
of Virginia and the national Congress put that policy into practice. Thus,
through more than sixty of the best years of the republic, did that policy
steadily work to its great and beneficent end. And thus, in those five
States, and in five millions of free, enterprising people, we have before
us the rich fruits of this policy.
But now new light breaks upon us. Now Congress declares this ought never
to have been, and the like of it must never be again. The sacred right of
self-government is grossly violated by it. We even find some men who drew
their first breath--and every other breath of their lives--under this very
restriction, now live in dread of absolute suffocation if they should
be restricted in the "sacred right" of taking slaves to Nebraska. That
perfect liberty they sigh for--the liberty of making slaves of other
people, Jefferson never thought of, their own fathers never thought of,
they never thought of themselves, a year ago. How fortunate for them they
did not sooner become sensible of their great misery! Oh, how difficult it
is to treat with respect such assaults upon all we have ever really held
sacred!
But to return to history. In 1803 we purchased what was then called
Louisiana, of France. It included the present States of Louisiana,
Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa; also the Territory of Minnesota, and the
present bone of contention, Kansas and Nebraska. Slavery already existed
among the French at New Orleans, and to some extent at St. Louis. In 1812
Louisiana came into the Union as a slave State, without controversy. In
1818 or '19, Missouri showed signs of a wish to come in with slavery. This
was resisted by Northern members of Congress; and thus began the first
great slavery agitation in the nation. This controversy lasted several
months, and became very angry and exciting--the House of Representatives
voting steadily for the prohibition of slavery in Missouri, and the Senate
voting as steadily against it. Threats of the breaking up of the Union
were freely made, and the ablest public men of the day became seriously
alarmed. At length a compromise was made, in which, as in all compromises,
both sides yielded something. It was a law, passed on the 6th of March,
1820, providing that Missouri might come into the Union with slavery, but
that in all the remaining part of the territory purchased of France
which lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude,
slavery should never be permitted. This provision of law is the "Missouri
Compromise." In excluding slavery north of the line, the same language
is employed as in the Ordinance of 1787. It directly applied to Iowa,
Minnesota, and to the present bone of contention, Kansas and Nebraska.
Whether there should or should not be slavery south of that line, nothing
was said in the law. But Arkansas constituted the principal remaining
part south of the line; and it has since been admitted as a slave State,
without serious controversy. More recently, Iowa, north of the line, came
in as a free State without controversy. Still later, Minnesota, north
of the line, had a territorial organization without controversy. Texas,
principally south of the line, and west of Arkansas, though originally
within the purchase from France, had, in 1819, been traded off to Spain
in our treaty for the acquisition of Florida. It had thus become a part
of Mexico. Mexico revolutionized and became independent of Spain. American
citizens began settling rapidly with their slaves in the southern part
of Texas. Soon they revolutionized against Mexico, and established an
independent government of their own, adopting a constitution with slavery,
strongly resembling the constitutions of our slave States. By still
another rapid move, Texas, claiming a boundary much farther west than when
we parted with her in 1819, was brought back to the United States, and
admitted into the Union as a slave State. Then there was little or no
settlement in the northern part of Texas, a considerable portion of which
lay north of the Missouri line; and in the resolutions admitting her into
the Union, the Missouri restriction was expressly extended westward across
her territory. This was in 1845, only nine years ago.
Thus originated the Missouri Compromise; and thus has it been respected
down to 1845. And even four years later, in 1849, our distinguished
Senator, in a public address, held the following language in relation to
it:
"The Missouri Compromise has been in practical operation for about a
quarter of a century, and has received the sanction and approbation of men
of all parties in every section of the Union. It has allayed all sectional
jealousies and irritations growing out of this vexed question, and
harmonized and tranquillized the whole country. It has given to Henry
Clay, as its prominent champion, the proud sobriquet of the 'Great
Pacificator,' and by that title, and for that service, his political
friends had repeatedly appealed to the people to rally under his standard
as a Presidential candidate, as the man who had exhibited the patriotism
and power to suppress an unholy and treasonable agitation, and preserve
the Union. He was not aware that any man or any party, from any section
of the Union, had ever urged as an objection to Mr. Clay that he was the
great champion of the Missouri Compromise. On the contrary, the effort was
made by the opponents of Mr. Clay to prove that he was not entitled to the
exclusive merit of that great patriotic measure, and that the honor was
equally due to others, as well as to him, for securing its adoption;
that it had its origin in the hearts of all patriotic men, who desired
to preserve and perpetuate the blessings of our glorious Union--an origin
akin to that of the Constitution of the United States, conceived in the
same spirit of fraternal affection, and calculated to remove forever the
only danger which seemed to threaten, at some distant day, to sever the
social bond of union. All the evidences of public opinion at that day
seemed to indicate that this compromise had been canonized in the hearts
of the American people, as a sacred thing which no ruthless hand would
ever be reckless enough to disturb."
I do not read this extract to involve Judge Douglas in an inconsistency.
If he afterward thought he had been wrong, it was right for him to change.
I bring this forward merely to show the high estimate placed on the
Missouri Compromise by all parties up to so late as the year 1849.
But going back a little in point of time. Our war with Mexico broke out
in 1846. When Congress was about adjourning that session, President Polk
asked them to place two millions of dollars under his control, to be used
by him in the recess, if found practicable and expedient, in negotiating
a treaty of peace with Mexico, and acquiring some part of her territory. A
bill was duly gotten up for the purpose, and was progressing swimmingly in
the House of Representatives, when a member by the name of David Wilmot, a
Democrat from Pennsylvania, moved as an amendment, "Provided, that in any
territory thus acquired there never shall be slavery."
This is the origin of the far-famed Wilmot Proviso. It created a great
flutter; but it stuck like wax, was voted into the bill, and the bill
passed with it through the House. The Senate, however, adjourned without
final action on it, and so both appropriation and proviso were lost for
the time. The war continued, and at the next session the President renewed
his request for the appropriation, enlarging the amount, I think, to
three millions. Again came the proviso, and defeated the measure. Congress
adjourned again, and the war went on. In December, 1847, the new Congress
assembled. I was in the lower House that term. The Wilmot Proviso, or the
principle of it, was constantly coming up in some shape or other, and I
think I may venture to say I voted for it at least forty times during
the short time I was there. The Senate, however, held it in check, and it
never became a law. In the spring of 1848 a treaty of peace was made
with Mexico, by which we obtained that portion of her country which now
constitutes the Territories of New Mexico and Utah and the present State
of California. By this treaty the Wilmot Proviso was defeated, in so far
as it was intended to be a condition of the acquisition of territory.
Its friends, however, were still determined to find some way to restrain
slavery from getting into the new country. This new acquisition lay
directly west of our old purchase from France, and extended west to the
Pacific Ocean, and was so situated that if the Missouri line should be
extended straight west, the new country would be divided by such extended
line, leaving some north and some south of it. On Judge Douglas's motion,
a bill, or provision of a bill, passed the Senate to so extend the
Missouri line. The proviso men in the House, including myself, voted it
down, because, by implication, it gave up the southern part to slavery,
while we were bent on having it all free.