propositions that Judge Douglas has put. He says, "Why can't this Union
endure permanently half slave and half free?" I have said that I supposed
it could not, and I will try, before this new audience, to give briefly
some of the reasons for entertaining that opinion. Another form of his
question is, "Why can't we let it stand as our fathers placed it?" That is
the exact difficulty between us. I say that Judge Douglas and his friends
have changed it from the position in which our fathers originally placed
it. I say, in the way our father's originally left the slavery question,
the institution was in the course of ultimate extinction, and the
public mind rested in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate
extinction. I say when this government was first established it was the
policy of its founders to prohibit the spread of slavery into the new
Territories of the United States, where it had not existed. But Judge
Douglas and his friends have broken up that policy, and placed it upon
a new basis, by which it is to become national and perpetual. All I have
asked or desired anywhere is that it should be placed back again upon the
basis that the fathers of our government originally placed it upon. I have
no doubt that it would become extinct, for all time to come, if we but
readopted the policy of the fathers, by restricting it to the limits it
has already covered, restricting it from the new Territories.
I do not wish to dwell at great length on this branch of the subject at
this time, but allow me to repeat one thing that I have stated before.
Brooks--the man who assaulted Senator Sumner on the floor of the
Senate, and who was complimented with dinners, and silver pitchers, and
gold-headed canes, and a good many other things for that feat--in one
of his speeches declared that when this government was originally
established, nobody expected that the institution of slavery would last
until this day. That was but the opinion of one man, but it was such an
opinion as we can never get from Judge Douglas or anybody in favor of
slavery, in the North, at all. You can sometimes get it from a Southern
man. He said at the same time that the framers of our government did not
have the knowledge that experience has taught us; that experience and
the invention of the cotton-gin have taught us that the perpetuation of
slavery is a necessity. He insisted, therefore, upon its being changed
from the basis upon which the fathers of the government left it to the
basis of its perpetuation and nationalization.
I insist that this is the difference between Judge Douglas and
myself,--that Judge Douglas is helping that change along. I insist upon
this government being placed where our fathers originally placed it.
I remember Judge Douglas once said that he saw the evidences on the
statute books of Congress of a policy in the origin of government
to divide slavery and freedom by a geographical line; that he saw an
indisposition to maintain that policy, and therefore he set about studying
up a way to settle the institution on the right basis,--the basis which he
thought it ought to have been placed upon at first; and in that speech he
confesses that he seeks to place it, not upon the basis that the fathers
placed it upon, but upon one gotten up on "original principles." When he
asks me why we cannot get along with it in the attitude where our fathers
placed it, he had better clear up the evidences that he has himself
changed it from that basis, that he has himself been chiefly instrumental
in changing the policy of the fathers. Any one who will read his speech
of the 22d of last March will see that he there makes an open confession,
showing that he set about fixing the institution upon an altogether
different set of principles. I think I have fully answered him when he
asks me why we cannot let it alone upon the basis where our fathers
left it, by showing that he has himself changed the whole policy of the
government in that regard.
Now, fellow-citizens, in regard to this matter about a contract that was
made between Judge Trumbull and myself, and all that long portion of Judge
Douglas's speech on this subject,--I wish simply to say what I have said
to him before, that he cannot know whether it is true or not, and I do
know that there is not a word of truth in it. And I have told him so
before. I don't want any harsh language indulged in, but I do not know
how to deal with this persistent insisting on a story that I know to be
utterly without truth. It used to be a fashion amongst men that when a
charge was made, some sort of proof was brought forward to establish it,
and if no proof was found to exist, the charge was dropped. I don't know
how to meet this kind of an argument. I don't want to have a fight
with Judge Douglas, and I have no way of making an argument up into the
consistency of a corn-cob and stopping his mouth with it. All I can do
is--good-humoredly--to say that, from the beginning to the end of all that
story about a bargain between Judge Trumbull and myself, there is not a
word of truth in it. I can only ask him to show some sort of evidence
of the truth of his story. He brings forward here and reads from what he
contends is a speech by James H. Matheny, charging such a bargain between
Trumbull and myself. My own opinion is that Matheny did do some such
immoral thing as to tell a story that he knew nothing about. I believe he
did. I contradicted it instantly, and it has been contradicted by Judge
Trumbull, while nobody has produced any proof, because there is none. Now,
whether the speech which the Judge brings forward here is really the
one Matheny made, I do not know, and I hope the Judge will pardon me for
doubting the genuineness of this document, since his production of those
Springfield resolutions at Ottawa. I do not wish to dwell at any great
length upon this matter. I can say nothing when a long story like this is
told, except it is not true, and demand that he who insists upon it shall
produce some proof. That is all any man can do, and I leave it in that
way, for I know of no other way of dealing with it.
[In an argument on the lines of: "Yes, you did.--No, I did not." It bears
on the former to prove his point, not on the negative to "prove" that he
did not--even if he easily can do so.]
The Judge has gone over a long account of the old Whig and Democratic
parties, and it connects itself with this charge against Trumbull and
myself. He says that they agreed upon a compromise in regard to the
slavery question in 1850; that in a National Democratic Convention
resolutions were passed to abide by that compromise as a finality upon the
slavery question. He also says that the Whig party in National Convention
agreed to abide by and regard as a finality the Compromise of 1850. I
understand the Judge to be altogether right about that; I understand
that part of the history of the country as stated by him to be correct
I recollect that I, as a member of that party, acquiesced in that
compromise. I recollect in the Presidential election which followed,
when we had General Scott up for the presidency, Judge Douglas was around
berating us Whigs as Abolitionists, precisely as he does to-day,--not a
bit of difference. I have often heard him. We could do nothing when the
old Whig party was alive that was not Abolitionism, but it has got an
extremely good name since it has passed away.
[It almost a natural law that, when dead--no matter how bad we were--we
are automatically beatified.]
When that Compromise was made it did not repeal the old Missouri
Compromise. It left a region of United States territory half as large
as the present territory of the United States, north of the line of 36
degrees 30 minutes, in which slavery was prohibited by Act of Congress.
This Compromise did not repeal that one. It did not affect or propose to
repeal it. But at last it became Judge Douglas's duty, as he thought (and
I find no fault with him), as Chairman of the Committee on Territories, to
bring in a bill for the organization of a territorial government,--first
of one, then of two Territories north of that line. When he did so, it
ended in his inserting a provision substantially repealing the Missouri
Compromise. That was because the Compromise of 1850 had not repealed it.
And now I ask why he could not have let that Compromise alone? We were
quiet from the agitation of the slavery question. We were making no fuss
about it. All had acquiesced in the Compromise measures of 1850. We
never had been seriously disturbed by any Abolition agitation before that
period. When he came to form governments for the Territories north of the
line of 36 degrees 30 minutes, why could he not have let that matter stand
as it was standing? Was it necessary to the organization of a Territory?
Not at all. Iowa lay north of the line, and had been organized as a
Territory and come into the Union as a State without disturbing that
Compromise. There was no sort of necessity for destroying it to organize
these Territories. But, gentlemen, it would take up all my time to meet
all the little quibbling arguments of Judge Douglas to show that the
Missouri Compromise was repealed by the Compromise of 1850. My own opinion
is, that a careful investigation of all the arguments to sustain the
position that that Compromise was virtually repealed by the Compromise of
1850 would show that they are the merest fallacies. I have the report that
Judge Douglas first brought into Congress at the time of the introduction
of the Nebraska Bill, which in its original form did not repeal the
Missouri Compromise, and he there expressly stated that he had forborne to
do so because it had not been done by the Compromise of 1850. I close this
part of the discussion on my part by asking him the question again, "Why,
when we had peace under the Missouri Compromise, could you not have let it
alone?"
In complaining of what I said in my speech at Springfield, in which he
says I accepted my nomination for the senatorship (where, by the way, he
is at fault, for if he will examine it, he will find no acceptance in it),
he again quotes that portion in which I said that "a house divided against
itself cannot stand." Let me say a word in regard to that matter.
He tries to persuade us that there must be a variety in the different
institutions of the States of the Union; that that variety necessarily
proceeds from the variety of soil, climate, of the face of the country,
and the difference in the natural features of the States. I agree to all
that. Have these very matters ever produced any difficulty amongst us? Not
at all. Have we ever had any quarrel over the fact that they have laws
in Louisiana designed to regulate the commerce that springs from the
production of sugar? Or because we have a different class relative to the
production of flour in this State? Have they produced any differences? Not
at all. They are the very cements of this Union. They don't make the house
a house divided against itself. They are the props that hold up the house
and sustain the Union.
But has it been so with this element of slavery? Have we not always had
quarrels and difficulties over it? And when will we cease to have quarrels
over it? Like causes produce like effects. It is worth while to observe
that we have generally had comparative peace upon the slavery question,
and that there has been no cause for alarm until it was excited by the
effort to spread it into new territory. Whenever it has been limited to
its present bounds, and there has been no effort to spread it, there has
been peace. All the trouble and convulsion has proceeded from efforts to
spread it over more territory. It was thus at the date of the Missouri
Compromise. It was so again with the annexation of Texas; so with the
territory acquired by the Mexican war; and it is so now. Whenever there
has been an effort to spread it, there has been agitation and resistance.
Now, I appeal to this audience (very few of whom are my political
friends), as national men, whether we have reason to expect that the
agitation in regard to this subject will cease while the causes that tend
to reproduce agitation are actively at work? Will not the same cause that
produced agitation in 1820, when the Missouri Compromise was formed, that
which produced the agitation upon the annexation of Texas, and at other
times, work out the same results always? Do you think that the nature of
man will be changed, that the same causes that produced agitation at one
time will not have the same effect at another?
This has been the result so far as my observation of the slavery question
and my reading in history extends. What right have we then to hope that
the trouble will cease,--that the agitation will come to an end,--until
it shall either be placed back where it originally stood, and where
the fathers originally placed it, or, on the other hand, until it shall
entirely master all opposition? This is the view I entertain, and this
is the reason why I entertained it, as Judge Douglas has read from my
Springfield speech.
Now, my friends, there is one other thing that I feel myself under some
sort of obligation to mention. Judge Douglas has here to-day--in a very
rambling way, I was about saying--spoken of the platforms for which he
seeks to hold me responsible. He says, "Why can't you come out and make
an open avowal of principles in all places alike?" and he reads from an
advertisement that he says was used to notify the people of a speech to be
made by Judge Trumbull at Waterloo. In commenting on it he desires to know
whether we cannot speak frankly and manfully, as he and his friends do.
How, I ask, do his friends speak out their own sentiments? A Convention
of his party in this State met on the 21st of April at Springfield, and
passed a set of resolutions which they proclaim to the country as their
platform. This does constitute their platform, and it is because Judge
Douglas claims it is his platform--that these are his principles and
purposes--that he has a right to declare he speaks his sentiments "frankly
and manfully." On the 9th of June Colonel John Dougherty, Governor
Reynolds, and others, calling themselves National Democrats, met
in Springfield and adopted a set of resolutions which are as easily
understood, as plain and as definite in stating to the country and to
the world what they believed in and would stand upon, as Judge Douglas's
platform Now, what is the reason that Judge Douglas is not willing that
Colonel Dougherty and Governor Reynolds should stand upon their own
written and printed platform as well as he upon his? Why must he look
farther than their platform when he claims himself to stand by his
platform?
Again, in reference to our platform: On the 16th of June the Republicans
had their Convention and published their platform, which is as clear and
distinct as Judge Douglas's. In it they spoke their principles as plainly
and as definitely to the world. What is the reason that Judge Douglas
is not willing I should stand upon that platform? Why must he go around
hunting for some one who is supporting me or has supported me at some
time in his life, and who has said something at some time contrary to that
platform? Does the Judge regard that rule as a good one? If it turn out
that the rule is a good one for me--that I am responsible for any and
every opinion that any man has expressed who is my friend,--then it is a
good rule for him. I ask, is it not as good a rule for him as it is for
me? In my opinion, it is not a good rule for either of us. Do you think
differently, Judge?
[Mr. DOUGLAS: I do not.]
Judge Douglas says he does not think differently. I am glad of it. Then
can he tell me why he is looking up resolutions of five or six years ago,
and insisting that they were my platform, notwithstanding my protest that
they are not, and never were my platform, and my pointing out the platform
of the State Convention which he delights to say nominated me for the
Senate? I cannot see what he means by parading these resolutions, if it
is not to hold me responsible for them in some way. If he says to me here
that he does not hold the rule to be good, one way or the other, I do not
comprehend how he could answer me more fully if he answered me at greater
length. I will therefore put in as my answer to the resolutions that he
has hunted up against me, what I, as a lawyer, would call a good plea to a
bad declaration. I understand that it is an axiom of law that a poor plea
may be a good plea to a bad declaration. I think that the opinions the
Judge brings from those who support me, yet differ from me, is a bad
declaration against me; but if I can bring the same things against him, I
am putting in a good plea to that kind of declaration, and now I propose
to try it.
At Freeport, Judge Douglas occupied a large part of his time in producing
resolutions and documents of various sorts, as I understood, to make me
somehow responsible for them; and I propose now doing a little of the
same sort of thing for him. In 1850 a very clever gentleman by the name
of Thompson Campbell, a personal friend of Judge Douglas and myself, a
political friend of Judge Douglas and opponent of mine, was a candidate
for Congress in the Galena District. He was interrogated as to his views
on this same slavery question. I have here before me the interrogatories,
and Campbell's answers to them--I will read them:
INTERROGATORIES:
"1st. Will you, if elected, vote for and cordially support a bill
prohibiting slavery in the Territories of the United States?
"2d. Will you vote for and support a bill abolishing slavery in the
District of Columbia?
"3d. Will you oppose the admission of any Slave States which may be formed
out of Texas or the Territories?
"4th. Will you vote for and advocate the repeal of the Fugitive Slave law
passed at the recent session of Congress?
"5th. Will you advocate and vote for the election of a Speaker of the
House of Representatives who shall be willing to organize the committees
of that House so as to give the Free States their just influence in the
business of legislation?
"6th. What are your views, not only as to the constitutional right of
Congress to prohibit the slave-trade between the States, but also as to
the expediency of exercising that right immediately?"
CAMPBELL'S REPLY.
"To the first and second interrogatories, I answer unequivocally in the
affirmative.
"To the third interrogatory I reply, that I am opposed to the admission of
any more Slave States into the Union, that may be formed out of Texas or
any other Territory.
"To the fourth and fifth interrogatories I unhesitatingly answer in the
affirmative.
"To the sixth interrogatory I reply, that so long as the Slave States
continue to treat slaves as articles of commerce, the Constitution confers
power on Congress to pass laws regulating that peculiar COMMERCE, and that
the protection of Human Rights imperatively demands the interposition of
every constitutional means to prevent this most inhuman and iniquitous
traffic.
"T. CAMPBELL."
I want to say here that Thompson Campbell was elected to Congress on that
platform, as the Democratic candidate in the Galena District, against
Martin P. Sweet.
[Judge DOUGLAS: Give me the date of the letter.]
The time Campbell ran was in 1850. I have not the exact date here. It
was some time in 1850 that these interrogatories were put and the answer
given. Campbell was elected to Congress, and served out his term. I think
a second election came up before he served out his term, and he was
not re-elected. Whether defeated or not nominated, I do not know. [Mr.
Campbell was nominated for re-election by the Democratic party, by
acclamation.] At the end of his term his very good friend Judge Douglas
got him a high office from President Pierce, and sent him off to
California. Is not that the fact? Just at the end of his term in Congress
it appears that our mutual friend Judge Douglas got our mutual friend
Campbell a good office, and sent him to California upon it. And not only
so, but on the 27th of last month, when Judge Douglas and myself spoke at
Freeport in joint discussion, there was his same friend Campbell, come
all the way from California, to help the Judge beat me; and there was poor
Martin P. Sweet standing on the platform, trying to help poor me to be
elected. That is true of one of Judge Douglas's friends.
So again, in that same race of 1850, there was a Congressional Convention
assembled at Joliet, and it nominated R. S. Molony for Congress, and
unanimously adopted the following resolution:
"Resolved, That we are uncompromisingly opposed to the extension
of slavery; and while we would not make such opposition a ground of
interference with the interests of the States where it exists, yet we
moderately but firmly insist that it is the duty of Congress to oppose
its extension into Territory now free, by all means compatible with the
obligations of the Constitution, and with good faith to our sister States;
that these principles were recognized by the Ordinance of 1787, which
received the sanction of Thomas Jefferson, who is acknowledged by all to
be the great oracle and expounder of our faith."
Subsequently the same interrogatories were propounded to Dr. Molony which
had been addressed to Campbell as above, with the exception of the 6th,
respecting the interstate slave trade, to which Dr. Molony, the Democratic
nominee for Congress, replied as follows:
"I received the written interrogatories this day, and, as you will see by
the La Salle Democrat and Ottawa Free Trader, I took at Peru on the 5th,
and at Ottawa on the 7th, the affirmative side of interrogatories 1st and
2d; and in relation to the admission of any more Slave States from Free
Territory, my position taken at these meetings, as correctly reported in
said papers, was emphatically and distinctly opposed to it. In relation
to the admission of any more Slave States from Texas, whether I shall go
against it or not will depend upon the opinion that I may hereafter form
of the true meaning and nature of the resolutions of annexation. If, by
said resolutions, the honor and good faith of the nation is pledged to
admit more Slave States from Texas when she (Texas) may apply for the
admission of such State, then I should, if in Congress, vote for their
admission. But if not so PLEDGED and bound by sacred contract, then a bill
for the admission of more Slave States from Texas would never receive my
vote.
"To your fourth interrogatory I answer most decidedly in the affirmative,
and for reasons set forth in my reported remarks at Ottawa last Monday.
"To your fifth interrogatory I also reply in the affirmative most
cordially, and that I will use my utmost exertions to secure the
nomination and election of a man who will accomplish the objects of said
interrogatories. I most cordially approve of the resolutions adopted at
the Union meeting held at Princeton on the 27th September ult.
"Yours, etc., R. S. MOLONY."
All I have to say in regard to Dr. Molony is that he was the regularly
nominated Democratic candidate for Congress in his district; was elected
at that time; at the end of his term was appointed to a land-office at
Danville. (I never heard anything of Judge Douglas's instrumentality
in this.) He held this office a considerable time, and when we were at
Freeport the other day there were handbills scattered about notifying the
public that after our debate was over R. S. Molony would make a Democratic
speech in favor of Judge Douglas. That is all I know of my own personal
knowledge. It is added here to this resolution, and truly I believe, that
among those who participated in the Joliet Convention, and who supported
its nominee, with his platform as laid down in the resolution of the
Convention and in his reply as above given, we call at random the
following names, all of which are recognized at this day as leading
Democrats:
"Cook County,--E. B. Williams, Charles McDonell, Arno Voss, Thomas Hoyne,
Isaac Cook."
I reckon we ought to except Cook.
"F. C. Sherman.
"Will,--Joel A. Matteson, S. W. Bowen.
"Kane,--B. F. Hall, G. W. Renwick, A. M. Herrington, Elijah Wilcox.
"McHenry,--W. M. Jackson, Enos W. Smith, Neil Donnelly.
La Salle,--John Hise, William Reddick."
William Reddick! another one of Judge Douglas's friends that stood on the
stand with him at Ottawa, at the time the Judge says my knees trembled so
that I had to be carried away. The names are all here:
"Du Page,--Nathan Allen.
"De Kalb,--Z. B. Mayo."
Here is another set of resolutions which I think are apposite to the
matter in hand.
On the 28th of February of the same year a Democratic District Convention
was held at Naperville to nominate a candidate for Circuit Judge. Among
the delegates were Bowen and Kelly of Will; Captain Naper, H. H. Cody,
Nathan Allen, of Du Page; W. M. Jackson, J. M. Strode, P. W. Platt, and
Enos W. Smith of McHenry; J. Horssnan and others of Winnebago. Colonel
Strode presided over the Convention. The following resolutions were
unanimously adopted,--the first on motion of P. W. Platt, the second on
motion of William M. Jackson:
"Resolved, That this Convention is in favor of the Wilmot Proviso, both in
Principle and Practice, and that we know of no good reason why any person
should oppose the largest latitude in Free Soil, Free Territory and Free
speech.
"Resolved, That in the opinion of this Convention, the time has arrived
when all men should be free, whites as well as others."