on assumed historical facts which were not really true, and I ought not to
leave the subject without giving some reasons for saying this; I therefore
give an instance or two, which I think fully sustain me. Chief Justice
Taney, in delivering the opinion of the majority of the court, insists at
great length that negroes were no part of the people who made, or for
whom was made, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution of the
United States.
On the contrary, Judge Curtis, in his dissenting opinion, shows that in
five of the then thirteen States--to wit, New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina--free negroes were voters, and in
proportion to their numbers had the same part in making the Constitution
that the white people had. He shows this with so much particularity as to
leave no doubt of its truth; and as a sort of conclusion on that point,
holds the following language:
"The Constitution was ordained and established by the people of the United
States, through the action, in each State, of those persons who were
qualified by its laws to act thereon in behalf of themselves and all other
citizens of the State. In some of the States, as we have seen, colored
persons were among those qualified by law to act on the subject. These
colored persons were not only included in the body of 'the people of the
United States' by whom the Constitution was ordained and established; but
in at least five of the States they had the power to act, and doubtless
did act, by their suffrages, upon the question of its adoption."
Again, Chief Justice Taney says:
"It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion, in
relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized
and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of
Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed
and adopted."
And again, after quoting from the Declaration, he says:
"The general words above quoted would seem to include the whole human
family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day, would
be so understood."
In these the Chief Justice does not directly assert, but plainly assumes
as a fact, that the public estimate of the black man is more favorable now
than it was in the days of the Revolution. This assumption is a mistake.
In some trifling particulars the condition of that race has been
ameliorated; but as a whole, in this country, the change between then
and now is decidedly the other way, and their ultimate destiny has never
appeared so hopeless as in the last three or four years. In two of the
five States--New Jersey and North Carolina--that then gave the free
negro the right of voting, the right has since been taken away, and in
a third--New York--it has been greatly abridged; while it has not been
extended, so far as I know, to a single additional State, though
the number of the States has more than doubled. In those days, as I
understand, masters could, at their own pleasure, emancipate their slaves;
but since then such legal restraints have been made upon emancipation
as to amount almost to prohibition. In those days Legislatures held the
unquestioned power to abolish slavery in their respective States, but now
it is becoming quite fashionable for State constitutions to withhold that
power from the Legislatures. In those days, by common consent, the spread
of the black man's bondage to the new countries was prohibited, but
now Congress decides that it will not continue the prohibition, and the
Supreme Court decides that it could not if it would. In those days our
Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all, and thought to include
all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the negro universal and
eternal, it is assailed and sneered at and construed and hawked at and
torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at
all recognize it. All the powers of earth seem rapidly combining against
him. Mammon is after him, ambition follows, philosophy follows, and the
theology of the day fast joining the cry. They have him in his prison
house; they have searched his person, and left no prying instrument with
him. One after another they have closed the heavy iron doors upon him;
and now they have him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of hundred keys,
which can never be unlocked without the concurrence of every key--the keys
in the hands of a hundred different men, and they scattered to hundred
different and distant places; and they stand musing as to what invention,
in all the dominions of mind and matter, can be produced to make the
impossibility of his escape more complete than it is.
It is grossly incorrect to say or assume that the public estimate of the
negro is more favorable now than it was at the origin of the government.
Three years and a half ago, Judge Douglas brought forward his famous
Nebraska Bill. The country was at once in a blaze. He scorned all
opposition, and carried it through Congress. Since then he has seen
himself superseded in a Presidential nomination by one indorsing the
general doctrine of his measure, but at the same time standing clear
of the odium of its untimely agitation and its gross breach of national
faith; and he has seen that successful rival constitutionally elected, not
by the strength of friends, but by the division of adversaries, being in
a popular minority of nearly four hundred thousand votes. He has seen his
chief aids in his own State, Shields and Richardson, politically speaking,
successively tried, convicted, and executed for an offence not their own
but his. And now he sees his own case standing next on the docket for
trial.
There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people at the
idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races; and
Judge Douglas evidently is basing his chief hope upon the chances of his
being able to appropriate the benefit of this disgust to himself. If he
can, by much drumming and repeating, fasten the odium of that idea upon
his adversaries, he thinks he can struggle through the storm. He therefore
clings to this hope, as a drowning man to the last plank. He makes an
occasion for lugging it in from the opposition to the Dred Scott decision.
He finds the Republicans insisting that the Declaration of Independence
includes all men, black as well as white, and forthwith he boldly denies
that it includes negroes at all, and proceeds to argue gravely that all
who contend it does, do so only because they want to vote, and eat,
and sleep, and marry with negroes. He will have it that they cannot
be consistent else. Now I protest against the counterfeit logic which
concludes that, because I do not want a black woman for a slave I must
necessarily want her for a wife. I need not have her for either. I can
just leave her alone. In some respects she certainly is not my equal;
but in her natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands,
without asking leave of any one else, she is my equal and the equal of all
others.
Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the Dred Scott case, admits that
the language of the Declaration is broad enough to include the whole human
family, but he and Judge Douglas argue that the authors of that instrument
did not intend to include negroes, by the fact that they did not at
once actually place them on an equality with the whites. Now this grave
argument comes to just nothing at all, by the other fact that they did not
at once, or ever afterward, actually place all white people on an equality
with one another. And this is the staple argument of both the Chief
Justice and the Senator for doing this obvious violence to the plain,
unmistakable language of the Declaration.
I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all
men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects.
They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral
developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness
in what respects they did consider all men created equal--equal with
"certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness." This they said, and this they meant. They did not
mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying
that equality, nor yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon
them. In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply
to declare the right, so that enforcement of it might follow as fast as
circumstances should permit.
They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be
familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly
labored for, and, even though never perfectly attained, constantly
approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence
and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors
everywhere. The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no
practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was
placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use. Its authors
meant it to be--as thank God, it is now proving itself--stumbling-block
to all those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into
the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to
breed tyrants, and they meant when such should reappear in this fair land
and commence their vocation, they should find left for them at least one
hard nut to crack.
I have now briefly expressed my view of the meaning and object of that
part of the Declaration of Independence which declares that "all men are
created equal."
Now let us hear Judge Douglas's view of the same subject, as I find it in
the printed report of his late speech. Here it is:
"No man can vindicate the character, motives, and conduct of the signers
of the Declaration of Independence, except upon the hypothesis that
they referred to the white race alone, and not to the African, when they
declared all men to have been created equal; that they were speaking of
British subjects on this continent being equal to British subjects
born and residing in Great Britain; that they were entitled to the same
inalienable rights, and among them were enumerated life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness. The Declaration was adopted for the purpose of
justifying the colonists in the eyes of the civilized world in withdrawing
their allegiance from the British crown, and dissolving their connection
with the mother country."
My good friends, read that carefully over some leisure hour, and ponder
well upon it; see what a mere wreck--mangled ruin--it makes of our once
glorious Declaration.
"They were speaking of British subjects on this continent being equal to
British subjects born and residing in Great Britain"! Why, according
to this, not only negroes but white people outside of Great Britain and
America were not spoken of in that instrument. The English, Irish, and
Scotch, along with white Americans, were included, to be sure, but the
French, Germans, and other white people of the world are all gone to pot
along with the Judge's inferior races!
I had thought the Declaration promised something better than the condition
of British subjects; but no, it only meant that we should be equal to them
in their own oppressed and unequal condition. According to that, it gave
no promise that, having kicked off the king and lords of Great Britain, we
should not at once be saddled with a king and lords of our own.
I had thought the Declaration contemplated the progressive improvement in
the condition of all men everywhere; but no, it merely "was adopted for
the purpose of justifying the colonists in the eyes of the civilized world
in withdrawing their allegiance from the British crown, and dissolving
their connection with the mother country." Why, that object having been
effected some eighty years ago, the Declaration is of no practical use
now--mere rubbish--old wadding left to rot on the battlefield after the
victory is won.
I understand you are preparing to celebrate the "Fourth," to-morrow week.
What for? The doings of that day had no reference to the present; and
quite half of you are not even descendants of those who were referred to
at that day. But I suppose you will celebrate, and will even go so far
as to read the Declaration. Suppose, after you read it once in the
old-fashioned way, you read it once more with Judge Douglas's version. It
will then run thus:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all British subjects who
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.