I understand it was in 1850, but I do not know it. I do not state a thing
and say I know it, when I do not. But I have the highest belief that this
is so. I know of no way to arrive at the conclusion that there is an error
in it. I mean to put a case no stronger than the truth will allow. But
what I was going to comment upon is an extract from a newspaper in De Kalb
County; and it strikes me as being rather singular, I confess, under the
circumstances. There is a Judge Mayo in that county, who is a candidate
for the Legislature, for the purpose, if he secures his election, of
helping to re-elect Judge Douglas. He is the editor of a newspaper [De
Kalb County Sentinel], and in that paper I find the extract I am going to
read. It is part of an editorial article in which he was electioneering
as fiercely as he could for Judge Douglas and against me. It was a curious
thing, I think, to be in such a paper. I will agree to that, and the Judge
may make the most of it:
"Our education has been such that we have been rather in favor of the
equality of the blacks; that is, that they should enjoy all the privileges
of the whites where they reside. We are aware that this is not a very
popular doctrine. We have had many a confab with some who are now strong
'Republicans' we taking the broad ground of equality, and they the
opposite ground.
"We were brought up in a State where blacks were voters, and we do not
know of any inconvenience resulting from it, though perhaps it would not
work as well where the blacks are more numerous. We have no doubt of
the right of the whites to guard against such an evil, if it is one. Our
opinion is that it would be best for all concerned to have the colored
population in a State by themselves [in this I agree with him]; but if
within the jurisdiction of the United States, we say by all means they
should have the right to have their Senators and Representatives in
Congress, and to vote for President. With us 'worth makes the man, and
want of it the fellow.' We have seen many a 'nigger' that we thought more
of than some white men."
That is one of Judge Douglas's friends. Now, I do not want to leave myself
in an attitude where I can be misrepresented, so I will say I do not think
the Judge is responsible for this article; but he is quite as responsible
for it as I would be if one of my friends had said it. I think that is
fair enough.
I have here also a set of resolutions passed by a Democratic State
Convention in Judge Douglas's own good State of Vermont, that I think
ought to be good for him too:
"Resolved, That liberty is a right inherent and inalienable in man, and
that herein all men are equal.
"Resolved, That we claim no authority in the Federal Government to abolish
slavery in the several States, but we do claim for it Constitutional power
perpetually to prohibit the introduction of slavery into territory now
free, and abolish it wherever, under the jurisdiction of Congress, it
exists.
"Resolved, That this power ought immediately to be exercised in
prohibiting the introduction and existence of slavery in New Mexico and
California, in abolishing slavery and the slave-trade in the District of
Columbia, on the high seas, and wherever else, under the Constitution, it
can be reached.
"Resolved, That no more Slave States should be admitted into the Federal
Union.
"Resolved, That the Government ought to return to its ancient policy,
not to extend, nationalize, or encourage, but to limit, localize, and
discourage slavery."
At Freeport I answered several interrogatories that had been propounded to
me by Judge Douglas at the Ottawa meeting. The Judge has not yet seen fit
to find any fault with the position that I took in regard to those seven
interrogatories, which were certainly broad enough, in all conscience, to
cover the entire ground. In my answers, which have been printed, and all
have had the opportunity of seeing, I take the ground that those who elect
me must expect that I will do nothing which will not be in accordance with
those answers. I have some right to assert that Judge Douglas has no fault
to find with them. But he chooses to still try to thrust me upon different
ground, without paying any attention to my answers, the obtaining of
which from me cost him so much trouble and concern. At the same time I
propounded four interrogatories to him, claiming it as a right that he
should answer as many interrogatories for me as I did for him, and I would
reserve myself for a future instalment when I got them ready. The Judge,
in answering me upon that occasion, put in what I suppose he intends
as answers to all four of my interrogatories. The first one of these
interrogatories I have before me, and it is in these words:
"Question 1.--If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely
unobjectionable in all other respects, adopt a State constitution, and ask
admission into the Union under it, before they have the requisite
number of inhabitants according to the English bill,"--some ninety-three
thousand,--"will you vote to admit them?"
As I read the Judge's answer in the newspaper, and as I remember it as
pronounced at the time, he does not give any answer which is equivalent
to yes or no,--I will or I won't. He answers at very considerable length,
rather quarreling with me for asking the question, and insisting that
Judge Trumbull had done something that I ought to say something about, and
finally getting out such statements as induce me to infer that he means
to be understood he will, in that supposed case, vote for the admission of
Kansas. I only bring this forward now for the purpose of saying that if he
chooses to put a different construction upon his answer, he may do it. But
if he does not, I shall from this time forward assume that he will vote
for the admission of Kansas in disregard of the English bill. He has the
right to remove any misunderstanding I may have. I only mention it now,
that I may hereafter assume this to be the true construction of his
answer, if he does not now choose to correct me.
The second interrogatory that I propounded to him was this:
"Question 2.--Can the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful
way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery
from its limits prior to the formation of a State Constitution?"
To this Judge Douglas answered that they can lawfully exclude slavery from
the Territory prior to the formation of a constitution. He goes on to tell
us how it can be done. As I understand him, he holds that it can be done
by the Territorial Legislature refusing to make any enactments for
the protection of slavery in the Territory, and especially by adopting
unfriendly legislation to it. For the sake of clearness, I state it again:
that they can exclude slavery from the Territory, 1st, by withholding
what he assumes to be an indispensable assistance to it in the way of
legislation; and, 2d, by unfriendly legislation. If I rightly understand
him, I wish to ask your attention for a while to his position.
In the first place, the Supreme Court of the United States has decided
that any Congressional prohibition of slavery in the Territories is
unconstitutional; that they have reached this proposition as a conclusion
from their former proposition, that the Constitution of the United
States expressly recognizes property in slaves, and from that other
Constitutional provision, that no person shall be deprived of property
without due process of law. Hence they reach the conclusion that as the
Constitution of the United States expressly recognizes property in slaves,
and prohibits any person from being deprived of property without due
process of law, to pass an Act of Congress by which a man who owned a
slave on one side of a line would be deprived of him if he took him on the
other side, is depriving him of that property without due process of law.
That I understand to be the decision of the Supreme Court. I understand
also that Judge Douglas adheres most firmly to that decision; and the
difficulty is, how is it possible for any power to exclude slavery
from the Territory, unless in violation of that decision? That is the
difficulty.
In the Senate of the United States, in 1850, Judge Trumbull, in a speech
substantially, if not directly, put the same interrogatory to Judge
Douglas, as to whether the people of a Territory had the lawful power to
exclude slavery prior to the formation of a constitution. Judge Douglas
then answered at considerable length, and his answer will be found in the
Congressional Globe, under date of June 9th, 1856. The Judge said that
whether the people could exclude slavery prior to the formation of a
constitution or not was a question to be decided by the Supreme Court.
He put that proposition, as will be seen by the Congressional Globe, in a
variety of forms, all running to the same thing in substance,--that it was
a question for the Supreme Court. I maintain that when he says, after the
Supreme Court have decided the question, that the people may yet exclude
slavery by any means whatever, he does virtually say that it is not a
question for the Supreme Court. He shifts his ground. I appeal to you
whether he did not say it was a question for the Supreme Court? Has not
the Supreme Court decided that question? when he now says the people may
exclude slavery, does he not make it a question for the people? Does he
not virtually shift his ground and say that it is not a question for the
Court, but for the people? This is a very simple proposition,--a very
plain and naked one. It seems to me that there is no difficulty in
deciding it. In a variety of ways he said that it was a question for the
Supreme Court. He did not stop then to tell us that, whatever the
Supreme Court decides, the people can by withholding necessary "police
regulations" keep slavery out. He did not make any such answer I submit
to you now whether the new state of the case has not induced the Judge to
sheer away from his original ground. Would not this be the impression of
every fair-minded man?
I hold that the proposition that slavery cannot enter a new country
without police regulations is historically false. It is not true at all.
I hold that the history of this country shows that the institution of
slavery was originally planted upon this continent without these "police
regulations," which the Judge now thinks necessary for the actual
establishment of it. Not only so, but is there not another fact: how came
this Dred Scott decision to be made? It was made upon the case of a negro
being taken and actually held in slavery in Minnesota Territory, claiming
his freedom because the Act of Congress prohibited his being so held
there. Will the Judge pretend that Dred Scott was not held there without
police regulations? There is at least one matter of record as to his
having been held in slavery in the Territory, not only without police
regulations, but in the teeth of Congressional legislation supposed to
be valid at the time. This shows that there is vigor enough in slavery
to plant itself in a new country even against unfriendly legislation. It
takes not only law, but the enforcement of law to keep it out. That is the
history of this country upon the subject.
I wish to ask one other question. It being understood that the
Constitution of the United States guarantees property in slaves in the
Territories, if there is any infringement of the right of that property,
would not the United States courts, organized for the government of the
Territory, apply such remedy as might be necessary in that case? It is a
maxim held by the courts that there is no wrong without its remedy; and
the courts have a remedy for whatever is acknowledged and treated as a
wrong.
Again: I will ask you, my friends, if you were elected members of the
Legislature, what would be the first thing you would have to do before
entering upon your duties? Swear to support the Constitution of the United
States. Suppose you believe, as Judge Douglas does, that the Constitution
of the United States guarantees to your neighbor the right to hold slaves
in that Territory; that they are his property: how can you clear your
oaths unless you give him such legislation as is necessary to enable
him to enjoy that property? What do you understand by supporting the
Constitution of a State, or of the United States? Is it not to give such
constitutional helps to the rights established by that Constitution as may
be practically needed? Can you, if you swear to support the Constitution,
and believe that the Constitution establishes a right, clear your oath,
without giving it support? Do you support the Constitution if, knowing
or believing there is a right established under it which needs specific
legislation, you withhold that legislation? Do you not violate and
disregard your oath? I can conceive of nothing plainer in the world. There
can be nothing in the words "support the Constitution," if you may run
counter to it by refusing support to any right established under the
Constitution. And what I say here will hold with still more force against
the Judge's doctrine of "unfriendly legislation." How could you, having
sworn to support the Constitution, and believing it guaranteed the right
to hold slaves in the Territories, assist in legislation intended
to defeat that right? That would be violating your own view of the
Constitution. Not only so, but if you were to do so, how long would
it take the courts to hold your votes unconstitutional and void? Not a
moment.
Lastly, I would ask: Is not Congress itself under obligation to give
legislative support to any right that is established under the United
States Constitution? I repeat the question: Is not Congress itself bound
to give legislative support to any right that is established in the
United States Constitution? A member of Congress swears to support the
Constitution of the United States: and if he sees a right established
by that Constitution which needs specific legislative protection, can he
clear his oath without giving that protection? Let me ask you why many of
us who are opposed to slavery upon principle give our acquiescence to a
Fugitive Slave law? Why do we hold ourselves under obligations to pass
such a law, and abide by it when it is passed? Because the Constitution
makes provision that the owners of slaves shall have the right to reclaim
them. It gives the right to reclaim slaves; and that right is, as Judge
Douglas says, a barren right, unless there is legislation that will
enforce it.
The mere declaration, "No person held to service or labor in one State
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any
law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but
shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor
may be due," is powerless without specific legislation to enforce it. Now,
on what ground would a member of Congress, who is opposed to slavery in
the abstract, vote for a Fugitive law, as I would deem it my duty to do?
Because there is a constitutional right which needs legislation to enforce
it. And although it is distasteful to me, I have sworn to support the
Constitution; and having so sworn, I cannot conceive that I do support
it if I withhold from that right any necessary legislation to make it
practical. And if that is true in regard to a Fugitive Slave law, is
the right to have fugitive slaves reclaimed any better fixed in the
Constitution than the right to hold slaves in the Territories? For this
decision is a just exposition of the Constitution, as Judge Douglas
thinks. Is the one right any better than the other? Is there any man who,
while a member of Congress, would give support to the one any more than
the other? If I wished to refuse to give legislative support to slave
property in the Territories, if a member of Congress, I could not do it,
holding the view that the Constitution establishes that right. If I did it
at all, it would be because I deny that this decision properly construes
the Constitution. But if I acknowledge, with Judge Douglas, that this
decision properly construes the Constitution, I cannot conceive that I
would be less than a perjured man if I should refuse in Congress to give
such protection to that property as in its nature it needed.
At the end of what I have said here I propose to give the Judge my fifth
interrogatory, which he may take and answer at his leisure. My fifth
interrogatory is this:
If the slaveholding citizens of a United States Territory should need
and demand Congressional legislation for the protection of their slave
property in such Territory, would you, as a member of Congress, vote for
or against such legislation?
[Judge DOUGLAS: Will you repeat that? I want to answer that question.]
If the slaveholding citizens of a United States Territory should need
and demand Congressional legislation for the protection of their slave
property in such Territory, would you, as a member of Congress, vote for
or against such legislation?
I am aware that in some of the speeches Judge Douglas has made, he has
spoken as if he did not know or think that the Supreme Court had decided
that a Territorial Legislature cannot exclude slavery. Precisely what the
Judge would say upon the subject--whether he would say definitely that he
does not understand they have so decided, or whether he would say he does
understand that the court have so decided,--I do not know; but I know
that in his speech at Springfield he spoke of it as a thing they had not
decided yet; and in his answer to me at Freeport, he spoke of it, so far,
again, as I can comprehend it, as a thing that had not yet been decided.
Now, I hold that if the Judge does entertain that view, I think that he
is not mistaken in so far as it can be said that the court has not
decided anything save the mere question of jurisdiction. I know the legal
arguments that can be made,--that after a court has decided that it cannot
take jurisdiction in a case, it then has decided all that is before it,
and that is the end of it. A plausible argument can be made in favor of
that proposition; but I know that Judge Douglas has said in one of his
speeches that the court went forward, like honest men as they were,
and decided all the points in the case. If any points are really
extra-judicially decided, because not necessarily before them, then this
one as to the power of the Territorial Legislature, to exclude slavery
is one of them, as also the one that the Missouri Compromise was null and
void. They are both extra-judicial, or neither is, according as the
court held that they had no jurisdiction in the case between the parties,
because of want of capacity of one party to maintain a suit in that court.
I want, if I have sufficient time, to show that the court did pass its
opinion; but that is the only thing actually done in the case. If they did
not decide, they showed what they were ready to decide whenever the matter
was before them. What is that opinion? After having argued that Congress
had no power to pass a law excluding slavery from a United States
Territory, they then used language to this effect: That inasmuch as
Congress itself could not exercise such a power, it followed as a matter
of course that it could not authorize a Territorial government to exercise
it; for the Territorial Legislature can do no more than Congress could
do. Thus it expressed its opinion emphatically against the power of a
Territorial Legislature to exclude slavery, leaving us in just as little
doubt on that point as upon any other point they really decided.
Now, my fellow-citizens, I will detain you only a little while longer; my
time is nearly out. I find a report of a speech made by Judge Douglas
at Joliet, since we last met at Freeport,--published, I believe, in the
Missouri Republican, on the 9th of this month, in which Judge Douglas
says:
"You know at Ottawa I read this platform, and asked him if he concurred in
each and all of the principles set forth in it. He would not answer these
questions. At last I said frankly, I wish you to answer them, because when
I get them up here where the color of your principles are a little darker
than in Egypt, I intend to trot you down to Jonesboro. The very notice
that I was going to take him down to Egypt made him tremble in his knees
so that he had to be carried from the platform. He laid up seven days, and
in the meantime held a consultation with his political physicians; they
had Lovejoy and Farnsworth and all the leaders of the Abolition party,
they consulted it all over, and at last Lincoln came to the conclusion
that he would answer, so he came up to Freeport last Friday."
Now, that statement altogether furnishes a subject for philosophical
contemplation. I have been treating it in that way, and I have really come
to the conclusion that I can explain it in no other way than by believing
the Judge is crazy. If he was in his right mind I cannot conceive how he
would have risked disgusting the four or five thousand of his own friends
who stood there and knew, as to my having been carried from the platform,
that there was not a word of truth in it.
[Judge DOUGLAS: Did n't they carry you off?]