about my disposition to make negroes perfectly equal with white men in
social and political relations. He did not stop to show that I have said
any such thing, or that it legitimately follows from anything I have
said, but he rushes on with his assertions. I adhere to the Declaration of
Independence. If Judge Douglas and his friends are not willing to stand by
it, let them come up and amend it. Let them make it read that all men
are created equal except negroes. Let us have it decided whether the
Declaration of Independence, in this blessed year of 1858, shall be thus
amended. In his construction of the Declaration last year, he said it only
meant that Americans in America were equal to Englishmen in England. Then,
when I pointed out to him that by that rule he excludes the Germans, the
Irish, the Portuguese, and all the other people who have come among us
since the revolution, he reconstructs his construction. In his last speech
he tells us it meant Europeans.
I press him a little further, and ask if it meant to include the Russians
in Asia; or does he mean to exclude that vast population from the
principles of our Declaration of Independence? I expect ere long he
will introduce another amendment to his definition. He is not at all
particular. He is satisfied with anything which does not endanger the
nationalizing of negro slavery. It may draw white men down, but it must
not lift negroes up.
Who shall say, "I am the superior, and you are the inferior"?
My declarations upon this subject of negro slavery may be misrepresented,
but cannot be misunderstood. I have said that I do not understand the
Declaration to mean that all men were created equal in all respects. They
are not our equal in color; but I suppose that it does mean to declare
that all men are equal in some respects; they are equal in their right to
"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Certainly the negro is
not our equal in color, perhaps not in many other respects; still, in the
right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he
is the equal of every other man, white or black. In pointing out that
more has been given you, you cannot be justified in taking away the little
which has been given him. All I ask for the negro is that if you do not
like him, let him alone. If God gave him but little, that little let him
enjoy.
When our government was established we had the institution of slavery
among us. We were in a certain sense compelled to tolerate its existence.
It was a sort of necessity. We had gone through our struggle and
secured our own independence. The framers of the Constitution found the
institution of slavery amongst their own institutions at the time. They
found that by an effort to eradicate it they might lose much of what they
had already gained. They were obliged to bow to the necessity. They gave
power to Congress to abolish the slave trade at the end of twenty years.
They also prohibited it in the Territories where it did not exist. They
did what they could, and yielded to the necessity for the rest. I also
yield to all which follows from that necessity. What I would most desire
would be the separation of the white and black races.
One more point on this Springfield speech which Judge Douglas says he has
read so carefully. I expressed my belief in the existence of a conspiracy
to perpetuate and nationalize slavery. I did not profess to know it, nor
do I now. I showed the part Judge Douglas had played in the string of
facts constituting to my mind the proof of that conspiracy. I showed the
parts played by others.
I charged that the people had been deceived into carrying the last
Presidential election, by the impression that the people of the
Territories might exclude slavery if they chose, when it was known in
advance by the conspirators that the court was to decide that neither
Congress nor the people could so exclude slavery. These charges are more
distinctly made than anything else in the speech.
Judge Douglas has carefully read and reread that speech. He has not, so
far as I know, contradicted those charges. In the two speeches which I
heard he certainly did not. On this own tacit admission, I renew that
charge. I charge him with having been a party to that conspiracy and to
that deception for the sole purpose of nationalizing slavery.
CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS
[The following is the correspondence between the two rival candidates for
the United States Senate]
MR. LINCOLN TO MR. DOUGLAS.
CHICAGO, ILL., July 24, 1558.
HON. S. A. DOUGLAS:
My dear Sir,--Will it be agreeable to you to make an arrangement for you
and myself to divide time, and address the same audiences the present
canvass? Mr. Judd, who will hand you this, is authorized to receive
your answer; and, if agreeable to you, to enter into the terms of such
arrangement.
Your obedient servant,
A. LINCOLN.
Mr. DOUGLAS TO Mr. LINCOLN.
BEMENT, PLATT Co., ILL., July 30, 1858.
Dear Sir,--Your letter dated yesterday, accepting my proposition for a
joint discussion at one prominent point in each Congressional District, as
stated in my previous letter, was received this morning.
The times and places designated are as follows:
Ottawa, La Salle County August 21st, 1858.
Freeport, Stephenson County " 27th,
Jonesboro, Union County, September 15th,
Charleston, Coles County " 18th,
Galesburgh, Knox County October 7th,
Quincy, Adams County " 13th,
Alton, Madison County " 15th,
I agree to your suggestion that we shall alternately open and close the
discussion. I will speak at Ottawa one hour, you can reply, occupying an
hour and a half, and I will then follow for half an hour. At Freeport, you
shall open the discussion and speak one hour; I will follow for an hour
and a half, and you can then reply for half an hour. We will alternate in
like manner in each successive place.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
S. A. DOUGLAS.
Mr. LINCOLN TO Mr. DOUGLAS.
SPRINGFIELD, July 31, 1858. HON. S. A. DOUGLAS:
Dear Sir,--Yours of yesterday, naming places, times, and terms for joint
discussions between us, was received this morning. Although, by the terms,
as you propose, you take four openings and closes, to my three, I accede,
and thus close the arrangement. I direct this to you at Hillsborough,
and shall try to have both your letter and this appear in the Journal and
Register of Monday morning.
Your obedient servant,
A. LINCOLN.
FIRST JOINT DEBATE, AT OTTAWA,
AUGUST 21, 1858
Mr. LINCOLN'S REPLY
MY FELLOW-CITIZENS:--When a man hears himself somewhat misrepresented,
it provokes him, at least, I find it so with myself; but when
misrepresentation becomes very gross and palpable, it is more apt to amuse
him. The first thing I see fit to notice is the fact that Judge Douglas
alleges, after running through the history of the old Democratic and the
old Whig parties, that Judge Trumbull and myself made an arrangement in
1854, by which I was to have the place of General Shields in the United
States Senate, and Judge Trumbull was to have the place of Judge Douglas.
Now, all I have to say upon that subject is that I think no man not even
Judge Douglas can prove it, because it is not true. I have no doubt he is
"conscientious" in saying it. As to those resolutions that he took such a
length of time to read, as being the platform of the Republican party in
1854, I say I never had anything to do with them, and I think Trumbull
never had. Judge Douglas cannot show that either of us ever did have
anything to do with them.
I believe this is true about those resolutions: There was a call for a
convention to form a Republican party at Springfield, and I think that my
friend Mr. Lovejoy, who is here upon this stand, had a hand in it. I think
this is true, and I think if he will remember accurately he will be able
to recollect that he tried to get me into it, and I would not go in.
I believe it is also true that I went away from Springfield when the
convention was in session, to attend court in Tazewell county. It is true
they did place my name, though without authority, upon the committee, and
afterward wrote me to attend the meeting of the committee; but I refused
to do so, and I never had anything to do with that organization. This is
the plain truth about all that matter of the resolutions.
Now, about this story that Judge Douglas tells of Trumbull bargaining to
sell out the old Democratic party, and Lincoln agreeing to sell out the
old Whig party, I have the means of knowing about that: Judge Douglas
cannot have; and I know there is no substance to it whatever. Yet I have
no doubt he is "conscientious" about it. I know that after Mr. Lovejoy got
into the Legislature that winter, he complained of me that I had told all
the old Whigs of his district that the old Whig party was good enough for
them, and some of them voted against him because I told them so. Now, I
have no means of totally disproving such charges as this which the Judge
makes. A man cannot prove a negative; but he has a right to claim that
when a man makes an affirmative charge, he must offer some proof to show
the truth of what he says. I certainly cannot introduce testimony to show
the negative about things, but I have a right to claim that if a man says
he knows a thing, then he must show how he knows it. I always have a
right to claim this, and it is not satisfactory to me that he may be
"conscientious" on the subject.
Now, gentlemen, I hate to waste my time on such things; but in regard to
that general Abolition tilt that Judge Douglas makes, when he says that
I was engaged at that time in selling out and Abolitionizing the old Whig
party, I hope you will permit me to read a part of a printed speech that
I made then at Peoria, which will show altogether a different view of the
position I took in that contest of 1854.
[Voice: "Put on your specs."]
Mr. LINCOLN: Yes, sir, I am obliged to do so; I am no longer a young man.
"This is the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The foregoing history
may not be precisely accurate in every particular, but I am sure it is
sufficiently so for all the uses I shall attempt to make of it, and in
it we have before us the chief materials enabling us to correctly judge
whether the repeal of the Missouri Compromise is right or wrong.
"I think, and shall try to show, that it is wrong--wrong in its direct
effect, letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska, and wrong in its
prospective principle, allowing it to spread to every other part of the
wide world where men can be found inclined to take it.
"This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert real zeal
for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the
monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives
our republican example of its just influence in the world,--enables
the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as
hypocrites; causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity,
and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves
into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty,
criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is
no right principle of action but self-interest.
"Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice against the
Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation. If
slavery did not now exist among them, they would not introduce it. If it
did now exist among us, we should not instantly give it up. This I believe
of the masses north and south. Doubtless there are individuals on both
sides who would not hold slaves under any circumstances; and others who
would gladly introduce slavery anew, if it were out of existence. We know
that some Southern men do free their slaves, go north, and become tip-top
Abolitionists; while some Northern ones go south and become most cruel
slave-masters.
"When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin
of slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the
institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it, in any
satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I will not
blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If
all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the
existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves and
send them to Liberia,--to their own native land. But a moment's reflection
would convince me that whatever of high hope (as I think there is) there
may be in this in the long term, its sudden execution is impossible. If
they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten
days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough in the
world to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free them
all and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this
betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery, at any
rate; yet the point is not clear enough to me to denounce people upon.
What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals?
My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know
that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this
feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question,
if, indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill
founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We cannot, then, make them equals.
It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted;
but for their tardiness in this I will not undertake to judge our brethren
of the South.
"When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknowledge
them, not grudgingly, but fully and fairly; and I would give them any
legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives, which should not, in
its stringency, be more likely to carry a free man into slavery than Our
ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one.
"But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more excuse for permitting
slavery to go into our own free territory than it would for reviving the
African slave-trade by law. The law which forbids the bringing of slaves
from Africa, and that which has so long forbid the taking of them to
Nebraska, can hardly be distinguished on any moral principle; and the
repeal of the former could find quite as plausible excuses as that of the
latter."
I have reason to know that Judge Douglas knows that I said this. I think
he has the answer here to one of the questions he put to me. I do not mean
to allow him to catechize me unless he pays back for it in kind. I will
not answer questions one after another, unless he reciprocates; but as
he has made this inquiry, and I have answered it before, he has got
it without my getting anything in return. He has got my answer on the
Fugitive Slave law.
Now, gentlemen, I don't want to read at any greater length; but this is
the true complexion of all I have ever said in regard to the institution
of slavery and the black race. This is the whole of it; and anything that
argues me into his idea of perfect social and political equality with the
negro is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man
can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse. I will say here, while
upon this subject, that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to
interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists.
I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do
so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between
the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between
the two which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living
together upon the footing of perfect equality; and inasmuch as it becomes
a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas,
am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I
have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that, notwithstanding
all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to
all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the
right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as
much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he
is not my equal in many respects, certainly not in color, perhaps not
in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread,
without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my
equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man.
Now I pass on to consider one or two more of these little follies.
The Judge is woefully at fault about his early friend Lincoln being a
"grocery-keeper." I don't know as it would be a great sin, if I had been;
but he is mistaken. Lincoln never kept a grocery anywhere in the world.
It is true that Lincoln did work the latter part of one winter in a little
stillhouse, up at the head of a hollow. And so I think my friend the Judge
is equally at fault when he charges me at the time when I was in Congress
of having opposed our soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican war. The
Judge did not make his charge very distinctly, but I can tell you what he
can prove, by referring to the record. You remember I was an old Whig,
and whenever the Democratic party tried to get me to vote that the war had
been righteously begun by the President, I would not do it. But whenever
they asked for any money, or landwarrants, or anything to pay the soldiers
there, during all that time, I gave the same vote that Judge Douglas did.
You can think as you please as to whether that was consistent. Such is the
truth, and the Judge has the right to make all he can out of it. But when
he, by a general charge, conveys the idea that I withheld supplies from
the soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican war, or did anything else
to hinder the soldiers, he is, to say the least, grossly and altogether
mistaken, as a consultation of the records will prove to him.
As I have not used up so much of my time as I had supposed, I will dwell
a little longer upon one or two of these minor topics upon which the Judge
has spoken. He has read from my speech in Springfield, in which I say that
"a house divided against itself cannot stand" Does the Judge say it can
stand? I don't know whether he does or not. The Judge does not seem to be
attending to me just now, but I would like to know if it is his opinion
that a house divided against itself can stand. If he does, then there is a
question of veracity, not between him and me, but between the Judge and an
Authority of a somewhat higher character.
Now, my friends, I ask your attention to this matter for the purpose of
saying something seriously. I know that the Judge may readily enough agree
with me that the maxim which was put forth by the Savior is true, but he
may allege that I misapply it; and the Judge has a right to urge that, in
my application, I do misapply it, and then I have a right to show that I
do not misapply it, When he undertakes to say that because I think this
nation, so far as the question of slavery is concerned, will all become
one thing or all the other, I am in favor of bringing about a dead
uniformity in the various States, in all their institutions, he argues
erroneously. The great variety of the local institutions in the States,
springing from differences in the soil, differences in the face of the
country, and in the climate, are bonds of Union. They do not make "a house
divided against itself," but they make a house united. If they produce
in one section of the country what is called for, by the wants of another
section, and this other section can supply the wants of the first, they
are not matters of discord, but bonds of union, true bonds of union. But
can this question of slavery be considered as among these varieties in
the institutions of the country? I leave it to you to say whether, in
the history of our government, this institution of slavery has not always
failed to be a bond of union, and, on the contrary, been an apple of
discord and an element of division in the house. I ask you to consider
whether, so long as the moral constitution of men's minds shall continue
to be the same, after this generation and assemblage shall sink into the
grave, and another race shall arise, with the same moral and intellectual
development we have, whether, if that institution is standing in the same
irritating position in which it now is, it will not continue an element
of division? If so, then I have a right to say that, in regard to this
question, the Union is a house divided against itself; and when the Judge
reminds me that I have often said to him that the institution of slavery
has existed for eighty years in some States, and yet it does not exist in
some others, I agree to the fact, and I account for it by looking at the
position in which our fathers originally placed it--restricting it from
the new Territories where it had not gone, and legislating to cut off
its source by the abrogation of the slave trade, thus putting the seal
of legislation against its spread. The public mind did rest in the belief
that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. But lately, I think--and
in this I charge nothing on the Judge's motives--lately, I think that he,
and those acting with him, have placed that institution on a new basis,
which looks to the perpetuity and nationalization of slavery. And while it
is placed upon this new basis, I say, and I have said, that I believe
we shall not have peace upon the question until the opponents of slavery
arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall
rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or,
on the other hand, that its advocates will push it forward until it shall
become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well
as South. Now, I believe if we could arrest the spread, and place it where
Washington and Jefferson and Madison placed it, it would be in the course
of ultimate extinction, and the public mind would, as for eighty years
past, believe that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. The crisis
would be past, and the institution might be let alone for a hundred years,
if it should live so long, in the States where it exists; yet it would be
going out of existence in the way best for both the black and the white
races.
[A voice: "Then do you repudiate popular sovereignty?"]
Well, then, let us talk about popular sovereignty! what is popular
sovereignty? Is it the right of the people to have slavery or not have it,
as they see fit, in the Territories? I will state--and I have an able man
to watch me--my understanding is that popular sovereignty, as now applied
to the question of slavery, does allow the people of a Territory to have
slavery if they want to, but does not allow them not to have it if they do
not want it. I do not mean that if this vast concourse of people were in a
Territory of the United States, any one of them would be obliged to have a
slave if he did not want one; but I do say that, as I understand the Dred
Scott decision, if any one man wants slaves, all the rest have no way of
keeping that one man from holding them.