beginning at the beginning: When the Nebraska Bill was introduced, or a
short time afterward, by an amendment, I believe, it was provided that
it must be considered "the true intent and meaning of this Act not to
legislate slavery into any State or Territory, or to exclude it therefrom,
but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate
their own domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the
Constitution of the United States." I have called his attention to the
fact that when he and some others began arguing that they were giving
an increased degree of liberty to the people in the Territories over and
above what they formerly had on the question of slavery, a question was
raised whether the law was enacted to give such unconditional liberty to
the people; and to test the sincerity of this mode of argument, Mr.
Chase, of Ohio, introduced an amendment, in which he made the law--if the
amendment were adopted--expressly declare that the people of the Territory
should have the power to exclude slavery if they saw fit. I have asked
attention also to the fact that Judge Douglas and those who acted with him
voted that amendment down, notwithstanding it expressed exactly the
thing they said was the true intent and meaning of the law. I have called
attention to the fact that in subsequent times a decision of the Supreme
Court has been made, in which it has been declared that a Territorial
Legislature has no constitutional right to exclude slavery. And I have
argued and said that for men who did, intend that the people of the
Territory should have the right to exclude slavery absolutely and
unconditionally, the voting down of Chase's amendment is wholly
inexplicable. It is a puzzle, a riddle. But I have said, that with men who
did look forward to such a decision, or who had it in contemplation that
such a decision of the Supreme Court would or might be made, the voting
down of that amendment would be perfectly rational and intelligible. It
would keep Congress from coming in collision with the decision when it was
made. Anybody can conceive that if there was an intention or expectation
that such a decision was to follow, it would not be a very desirable party
attitude to get into for the Supreme Court--all or nearly all its members
belonging to the same party--to decide one way, when the party in Congress
had decided the other way. Hence it would be very rational for men
expecting such a decision to keep the niche in that law clear for it.
After pointing this out, I tell Judge Douglas that it looks to me as
though here was the reason why Chase's amendment was voted down. I tell
him that, as he did it, and knows why he did it, if it was done for a
reason different from this, he knows what that reason was and can tell us
what it was. I tell him, also, it will be vastly more satisfactory to the
country for him to give some other plausible, intelligible reason why it
was voted down than to stand upon his dignity and call people liars. Well,
on Saturday he did make his answer; and what do you think it was? He
says if I had only taken upon myself to tell the whole truth about that
amendment of Chase's, no explanation would have been necessary on his part
or words to that effect. Now, I say here that I am quite unconscious of
having suppressed anything material to the case, and I am very frank to
admit if there is any sound reason other than that which appeared to me
material, it is quite fair for him to present it. What reason does
he propose? That when Chase came forward with his amendment expressly
authorizing the people to exclude slavery from the limits of every
Territory, General Cass proposed to Chase, if he (Chase) would add to his
amendment that the people should have the power to introduce or exclude,
they would let it go. This is substantially all of his reply. And because
Chase would not do that, they voted his amendment down. Well, it turns
out, I believe, upon examination, that General Cass took some part in the
little running debate upon that amendment, and then ran away and did not
vote on it at all. Is not that the fact? So confident, as I think, was
General Cass that there was a snake somewhere about, he chose to run away
from the whole thing. This is an inference I draw from the fact that,
though he took part in the debate, his name does not appear in the ayes
and noes. But does Judge Douglas's reply amount to a satisfactory answer?
[Cries of "Yes," "Yes," and "No," "No."]
There is some little difference of opinion here. But I ask attention to
a few more views bearing on the question of whether it amounts to a
satisfactory answer. The men who were determined that that amendment
should not get into the bill, and spoil the place where the Dred Scott
decision was to come in, sought an excuse to get rid of it somewhere.
One of these ways--one of these excuses--was to ask Chase to add to his
proposed amendment a provision that the people might introduce slavery if
they wanted to. They very well knew Chase would do no such thing, that Mr.
Chase was one of the men differing from them on the broad principle of
his insisting that freedom was better than slavery,--a man who would not
consent to enact a law, penned with his own hand, by which he was made to
recognize slavery on the one hand, and liberty on the other, as precisely
equal; and when they insisted on his doing this, they very well knew they
insisted on that which he would not for a moment think of doing, and that
they were only bluffing him. I believe (I have not, since he made his
answer, had a chance to examine the journals or Congressional Globe and
therefore speak from memory)--I believe the state of the bill at that
time, according to parliamentary rules, was such that no member could
propose an additional amendment to Chase's amendment. I rather think this
is the truth,--the Judge shakes his head. Very well. I would like to know,
then, if they wanted Chase's amendment fixed over, why somebody else could
not have offered to do it? If they wanted it amended, why did they not
offer the amendment? Why did they not put it in themselves? But to put it
on the other ground: suppose that there was such an amendment offered,
and Chase's was an amendment to an amendment; until one is disposed of by
parliamentary law, you cannot pile another on. Then all these gentlemen
had to do was to vote Chase's on, and then, in the amended form in which
the whole stood, add their own amendment to it, if they wanted to put it
in that shape. This was all they were obliged to do, and the ayes and noes
show that there were thirty-six who voted it down, against ten who voted
in favor of it. The thirty-six held entire sway and control. They could in
some form or other have put that bill in the exact shape they wanted. If
there was a rule preventing their amending it at the time, they could pass
that, and then, Chase's amendment being merged, put it in the shape they
wanted. They did not choose to do so, but they went into a quibble with
Chase to get him to add what they knew he would not add, and because he
would not, they stand upon the flimsy pretext for voting down what they
argued was the meaning and intent of their own bill. They left room
thereby for this Dred Scott decision, which goes very far to make slavery
national throughout the United States.
I pass one or two points I have, because my time will very soon expire;
but I must be allowed to say that Judge Douglas recurs again, as he
did upon one or two other occasions, to the enormity of Lincoln, an
insignificant individual like Lincoln,--upon his ipse dixit charging a
conspiracy upon a large number of members of Congress, the Supreme Court,
and two Presidents, to nationalize slavery. I want to say that, in the
first place, I have made no charge of this sort upon my ipse dixit. I have
only arrayed the evidence tending to prove it, and presented it to the
understanding of others, saying what I think it proves, but giving you
the means of judging whether it proves it or not. This is precisely what
I have done. I have not placed it upon my ipse dixit at all. On this
occasion, I wish to recall his attention to a piece of evidence which
I brought forward at Ottawa on Saturday, showing that he had made
substantially the same charge against substantially the same persons,
excluding his dear self from the category. I ask him to give some
attention to the evidence which I brought forward that he himself had
discovered a "fatal blow being struck" against the right of the people
to exclude slavery from their limits, which fatal blow he assumed as in
evidence in an article in the Washington Union, published "by authority."
I ask by whose authority? He discovers a similar or identical provision
in the Lecompton Constitution. Made by whom? The framers of that
Constitution. Advocated by whom? By all the members of the party in the
nation, who advocated the introduction of Kansas into the Union under the
Lecompton Constitution. I have asked his attention to the evidence that he
arrayed to prove that such a fatal blow was being struck, and to the facts
which he brought forward in support of that charge,--being identical
with the one which he thinks so villainous in me. He pointed it, not at
a newspaper editor merely, but at the President and his Cabinet and
the members of Congress advocating the Lecompton Constitution and those
framing that instrument. I must again be permitted to remind him that
although my ipse dixit may not be as great as his, yet it somewhat reduces
the force of his calling my attention to the enormity of my making a like
charge against him.
Go on, Judge Douglas.
Mr. LINCOLN'S REJOINDER.
MY FRIENDS:--It will readily occur to you that I cannot, in half an hour,
notice all the things that so able a man as Judge Douglas can say in an
hour and a half; and I hope, therefore, if there be anything that he has
said upon which you would like to hear something from me, but which I
omit to comment upon, you will bear in mind that it would be expecting an
impossibility for me to go over his whole ground. I can but take up some
of the points that he has dwelt upon, and employ my half-hour specially on
them.
The first thing I have to say to you is a word in regard to Judge
Douglas's declaration about the "vulgarity and blackguardism" in the
audience, that no such thing, as he says, was shown by any Democrat while
I was speaking. Now, I only wish, by way of reply on this subject, to say
that while I was speaking, I used no "vulgarity or blackguardism" toward
any Democrat.
Now, my friends, I come to all this long portion of the Judge's
speech,--perhaps half of it,--which he has devoted to the various
resolutions and platforms that have been adopted in the different counties
in the different Congressional districts, and in the Illinois legislature,
which he supposes are at variance with the positions I have assumed before
you to-day. It is true that many of these resolutions are at variance
with the positions I have here assumed. All I have to ask is that we talk
reasonably and rationally about it. I happen to know, the Judge's opinion
to the contrary notwithstanding, that I have never tried to conceal my
opinions, nor tried to deceive any one in reference to them. He may go
and examine all the members who voted for me for United States Senator in
1855, after the election of 1854. They were pledged to certain things here
at home, and were determined to have pledges from me; and if he will find
any of these persons who will tell him anything inconsistent with what I
say now, I will resign, or rather retire from the race, and give him no
more trouble. The plain truth is this: At the introduction of the Nebraska
policy, we believed there was a new era being introduced in the history of
the Republic, which tended to the spread and perpetuation of slavery. But
in our opposition to that measure we did not agree with one another in
everything. The people in the north end of the State were for stronger
measures of opposition than we of the central and southern portions of the
State, but we were all opposed to the Nebraska doctrine. We had that one
feeling and that one sentiment in common. You at the north end met in your
conventions and passed your resolutions. We in the middle of the State and
farther south did not hold such conventions and pass the same resolutions,
although we had in general a common view and a common sentiment. So that
these meetings which the Judge has alluded to, and the resolutions he has
read from, were local, and did not spread over the whole State. We at last
met together in 1886, from all parts of the State, and we agreed upon a
common platform. You, who held more extreme notions, either yielded
those notions, or, if not wholly yielding them, agreed to yield them
practically, for the sake of embodying the opposition to the measures
which the opposite party were pushing forward at that time. We met you
then, and if there was anything yielded, it was for practical purposes. We
agreed then upon a platform for the party throughout the entire State of
Illinois, and now we are all bound, as a party, to that platform.
And I say here to you, if any one expects of me--in case of my
election--that I will do anything not signified by our Republican platform
and my answers here to-day, I tell you very frankly that person will be
deceived. I do not ask for the vote of any one who supposes that I have
secret purposes or pledges that I dare not speak out. Cannot the Judge be
satisfied? If he fears, in the unfortunate case of my election, that my
going to Washington will enable me to advocate sentiments contrary to
those which I expressed when you voted for and elected me, I assure him
that his fears are wholly needless and groundless. Is the Judge really
afraid of any such thing? I'll tell you what he is afraid of. He is afraid
we'll all pull together. This is what alarms him more than anything else.
For my part, I do hope that all of us, entertaining a common sentiment in
opposition to what appears to us a design to nationalize and perpetuate
slavery, will waive minor differences on questions which either belong
to the dead past or the distant future, and all pull together in this
struggle. What are your sentiments? If it be true that on the ground which
I occupy--ground which I occupy as frankly and boldly as Judge Douglas
does his,--my views, though partly coinciding with yours, are not as
perfectly in accordance with your feelings as his are, I do say to you
in all candor, go for him, and not for me. I hope to deal in all things
fairly with Judge Douglas, and with the people of the State, in this
contest. And if I should never be elected to any office, I trust I may go
down with no stain of falsehood upon my reputation, notwithstanding the
hard opinions Judge Douglas chooses to entertain of me.
The Judge has again addressed himself to the Abolition tendencies of a
speech of mine made at Springfield in June last. I have so often tried
to answer what he is always saying on that melancholy theme that I almost
turn with disgust from the discussion,--from the repetition of an answer
to it. I trust that nearly all of this intelligent audience have read
that speech. If you have, I may venture to leave it to you to inspect
it closely, and see whether it contains any of those "bugaboos" which
frighten Judge Douglas.
The Judge complains that I did not fully answer his questions. If I have
the sense to comprehend and answer those questions, I have done so fairly.
If it can be pointed out to me how I can more fully and fairly answer him,
I aver I have not the sense to see how it is to be done. He says I do not
declare I would in any event vote for the admission of a slave State into
the Union. If I have been fairly reported, he will see that I did give an
explicit answer to his interrogatories; I did not merely say that I would
dislike to be put to the test, but I said clearly, if I were put to the
test, and a Territory from which slavery had been excluded should
present herself with a State constitution sanctioning slavery,--a most
extraordinary thing, and wholly unlikely to happen,--I did not see how I
could avoid voting for her admission. But he refuses to understand that I
said so, and he wants this audience to understand that I did not say
so. Yet it will be so reported in the printed speech that he cannot help
seeing it.
He says if I should vote for the admission of a slave State I would be
voting for a dissolution of the Union, because I hold that the Union
cannot permanently exist half slave and half free. I repeat that I do not
believe this government can endure permanently half slave and half free;
yet I do not admit, nor does it at all follow, that the admission of a
single slave State will permanently fix the character and establish this
as a universal slave nation. The Judge is very happy indeed at working up
these quibbles. Before leaving the subject of answering questions, I aver
as my confident belief, when you come to see our speeches in print, that
you will find every question which he has asked me more fairly and boldly
and fully answered than he has answered those which I put to him. Is not
that so? The two speeches may be placed side by side, and I will venture
to leave it to impartial judges whether his questions have not been more
directly and circumstantially answered than mine.
Judge Douglas says he made a charge upon the editor of the Washington
Union, alone, of entertaining a purpose to rob the States of their power
to exclude slavery from their limits. I undertake to say, and I make the
direct issue, that he did not make his charge against the editor of the
Union alone. I will undertake to prove by the record here that he made
that charge against more and higher dignitaries than the editor of the
Washington Union. I am quite aware that he was shirking and dodging around
the form in which he put it, but I can make it manifest that he leveled
his "fatal blow" against more persons than this Washington editor. Will he
dodge it now by alleging that I am trying to defend Mr. Buchanan against
the charge? Not at all. Am I not making the same charge myself? I am
trying to show that you, Judge Douglas, are a witness on my side. I am not
defending Buchanan, and I will tell Judge Douglas that in my opinion, when
he made that charge, he had an eye farther north than he has to-day. He
was then fighting against people who called him a Black Republican and
an Abolitionist. It is mixed all through his speech, and it is tolerably
manifest that his eye was a great deal farther north than it is to-day.
The Judge says that though he made this charge, Toombs got up and declared
there was not a man in the United States, except the editor of the Union,
who was in favor of the doctrines put forth in that article. And thereupon
I understand that the Judge withdrew the charge. Although he had taken
extracts from the newspaper, and then from the Lecompton Constitution, to
show the existence of a conspiracy to bring about a "fatal blow," by which
the States were to be deprived of the right of excluding slavery, it all
went to pot as soon as Toombs got up and told him it was not true.
It reminds me of the story that John Phoenix, the California railroad
surveyor, tells. He says they started out from the Plaza to the Mission
of Dolores. They had two ways of determining distances. One was by a chain
and pins taken over the ground. The other was by a "go-it-ometer,"--an
invention of his own,--a three-legged instrument, with which he computed
a series of triangles between the points. At night he turned to the
chain-man to ascertain what distance they had come, and found that by some
mistake he had merely dragged the chain over the ground, without keeping
any record. By the "go-it-ometer," he found he had made ten miles. Being
skeptical about this, he asked a drayman who was passing how far it was to
the Plaza. The drayman replied it was just half a mile; and the surveyor
put it down in his book,--just as Judge Douglas says, after he had made
his calculations and computations, he took Toombs's statement. I have
no doubt that after Judge Douglas had made his charge, he was as easily
satisfied about its truth as the surveyor was of the drayman's statement
of the distance to the Plaza. Yet it is a fact that the man who put forth
all that matter which Douglas deemed a "fatal blow" at State sovereignty
was elected by the Democrats as public printer.
Now, gentlemen, you may take Judge Douglas's speech of March 22, 1858,
beginning about the middle of page 21, and reading to the bottom of page
24, and you will find the evidence on which I say that he did not make his
charge against the editor of the Union alone. I cannot stop to read it,
but I will give it to the reporters. Judge Douglas said:
"Mr. President, you here find several distinct propositions
advanced boldly by the Washington Union editorially, and apparently
authoritatively, and every man who questions any of them is denounced as
an Abolitionist, a Free-soiler, a fanatic. The propositions are, first,
that the primary object of all government at its original institution is
the protection of persons and property; second, that the Constitution
of the United States declares that the citizens of each State shall be
entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several
States; and that, therefore, thirdly, all State laws, whether organic
or otherwise, which prohibit the citizens of one State from settling in
another with their slave property, and especially declaring it forfeited,
are direct violations of the original intention of the Government and
Constitution of the United States; and, fourth, that the emancipation of
the slaves of the Northern States was a gross outrage on the rights of
property, in as much as it was involuntarily done on the part of the
owner.
"Remember that this article was published in the Union on the 17th of
November, and on the 18th appeared the first article giving the adhesion
of the Union to the Lecompton Constitution. It was in these words:
"'KANSAS AND HER CONSTITUTION.--The vexed question is settled. The problem
is solved. The dead point of danger is passed. All serious trouble to
Kansas affairs is over and gone...."
"And a column, nearly, of the same sort. Then, when you come to look into
the Lecompton Constitution, you find the same doctrine incorporated in it
which was put forth editorially in the Union. What is it?
"'ARTICLE 7, Section i. The right of property is before and higher than
any constitutional sanction; and the right of the owner of a slave to such
slave and its increase is the same and as invariable as the right of the
owner of any property whatever.'
"Then in the schedule is a provision that the Constitution may be amended
after 1864 by a two-thirds vote.
"'But no alteration shall be made to affect the right of property in the
ownership of slaves.'
"It will be seen by these clauses in the Lecompton Constitution that they
are identical in spirit with this authoritative article in the Washington
Union of the day previous to its indorsement of this Constitution.
"When I saw that article in the Union of the 17th of November, followed by
the glorification of the Lecompton Constitution on the 18th of November,
and this clause in the Constitution asserting the doctrine that a State
has no right to prohibit slavery within its limits, I saw that there was a
fatal blow being struck at the sovereignty of the States of this Union."
Here he says, "Mr. President, you here find several distinct propositions
advanced boldly, and apparently authoritatively." By whose authority,
Judge Douglas? Again, he says in another place, "It will be seen by these
clauses in the Lecompton Constitution that they are identical in spirit
with this authoritative article." By whose authority,--who do you mean
to say authorized the publication of these articles? He knows that the
Washington Union is considered the organ of the Administration. I demand
of Judge Douglas by whose authority he meant to say those articles were
published, if not by the authority of the President of the United States
and his Cabinet? I defy him to show whom he referred to, if not to these
high functionaries in the Federal Government. More than this, he says the
articles in that paper and the provisions of the Lecompton Constitution
are "identical," and, being identical, he argues that the authors
are co-operating and conspiring together. He does not use the word
"conspiring," but what other construction can you put upon it? He winds
up:
"When I saw that article in the Union of the 17th of November, followed by
the glorification of the Lecompton Constitution on the 18th of November,
and this clause in the Constitution asserting the doctrine that a State
has no right to prohibit slavery within its limits, I saw that there was a
fatal blow being struck at the sovereignty of the States of this Union."
I ask him if all this fuss was made over the editor of this newspaper. It
would be a terribly "fatal blow" indeed which a single man could strike,
when no President, no Cabinet officer, no member of Congress, was giving
strength and efficiency to the movement. Out of respect to Judge Douglas's
good sense I must believe he did n't manufacture his idea of the "fatal"
character of that blow out of such a miserable scapegrace as he represents
that editor to be. But the Judge's eye is farther south now. Then, it
was very peculiarly and decidedly north. His hope rested on the idea of
visiting the great "Black Republican" party, and making it the tail of
his new kite. He knows he was then expecting from day to day to turn
Republican, and place himself at the head of our organization. He has
found that these despised "Black Republicans" estimate him by a standard
which he has taught them none too well. Hence he is crawling back into his
old camp, and you will find him eventually installed in full fellowship
among those whom he was then battling, and with whom he now pretends to be
at such fearful variance.
THIRD JOINT DEBATE, AT JONESBORO,
SEPTEMBER 15, 1858
Mr. LINCOLN'S REPLY.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--There is very much in the principles that Judge
Douglas has here enunciated that I most cordially approve, and over which
I shall have no controversy with him. In so far as he has insisted that
all the States have the right to do exactly as they please about all their
domestic relations, including that of slavery, I agree entirely with him.
He places me wrong in spite of all I can tell him, though I repeat it
again and again, insisting that I have no difference with him upon this
subject. I have made a great many speeches, some of which have been
printed, and it will be utterly impossible for him to find anything that
I have ever put in print contrary to what I now say upon this subject. I
hold myself under constitutional obligations to allow the people in all
the States, without interference, direct or indirect, to do exactly as
they please; and I deny that I have any inclination to interfere with
them, even if there were no such constitutional obligation. I can only say
again that I am placed improperly--altogether improperly, in spite of all
I can say--when it is insisted that I entertain any other view or purposes
in regard to that matter.