this matter to a personal difficulty, to avoid the responsibility for the
enormity of my principles. I say to the Judge and this audience, now, that
I will again state our principles, as well as I hastily can, in all their
enormity, and if the Judge hereafter chooses to confine himself to a war
upon these principles, he will probably not find me departing from the
same course.
We have in this nation this element of domestic slavery. It is a matter of
absolute certainty that it is a disturbing element. It is the opinion
of all the great men who have expressed an opinion upon it, that it is
a dangerous element. We keep up a controversy in regard to it. That
controversy necessarily springs from difference of opinion; and if we can
learn exactly--can reduce to the lowest elements--what that difference
of opinion is, we perhaps shall be better prepared for discussing the
different systems of policy that we would propose in regard to that
disturbing element. I suggest that the difference of opinion, reduced to
its lowest of terms, is no other than the difference between the men who
think slavery a wrong and those who do not think it wrong. The Republican
party think it wrong; we think it is a moral, a social, and a political
wrong. We think it as a wrong not confining itself merely to the persons
or the States where it exists, but that it is a wrong in its tendency, to
say the least, that extends itself to the existence of the whole nation.
Because we think it wrong, we propose a course of policy that shall deal
with it as a wrong. We deal with it as with any other wrong, in so far as
we can prevent its growing any larger, and so deal with it that in the run
of time there may be some promise of an end to it. We have a due regard to
the actual presence of it amongst us, and the difficulties of getting
rid of it in any satisfactory way, and all the constitutional obligations
thrown about it. I suppose that in reference both to its actual existence
in the nation, and to our constitutional obligations, we have no right at
all to disturb it in the States where it exists, and we profess that we
have no more inclination to disturb it than we have the right to do it.
We go further than that: we don't propose to disturb it where, in
one instance, we think the Constitution would permit us. We think the
Constitution would permit us to disturb it in the District of Columbia.
Still, we do not propose to do that, unless it should be in terms which
I don't suppose the nation is very likely soon to agree to,--the terms of
making the emancipation gradual, and compensating the unwilling owners.
Where we suppose we have the constitutional right, we restrain ourselves
in reference to the actual existence of the institution and the
difficulties thrown about it. We also oppose it as an evil so far as it
seeks to spread itself. We insist on the policy that shall restrict it
to its present limits. We don't suppose that in doing this we violate
anything due to the actual presence of the institution, or anything due to
the constitutional guaranties thrown around it.
We oppose the Dred Scott decision in a certain way, upon which I ought
perhaps to address you a few words. We do not propose that when Dred Scott
has been decided to be a slave by the court, we, as a mob, will decide him
to be free. We do not propose that, when any other one, or one thousand,
shall be decided by that court to be slaves, we will in any violent way
disturb the rights of property thus settled; but we nevertheless do oppose
that decision as a political rule which shall be binding on the voter to
vote for nobody who thinks it wrong, which shall be binding on the members
of Congress or the President to favor no measure that does not actually
concur with the principles of that decision. We do not propose to be
bound by it as a political rule in that way, because we think it lays the
foundation, not merely of enlarging and spreading out what we consider an
evil, but it lays the foundation for spreading that evil into the States
themselves. We propose so resisting it as to have it reversed if we can,
and a new judicial rule established upon this subject.
I will add this: that if there be any man who does not believe that
slavery is wrong in the three aspects which I have mentioned, or in any
one of them, that man is misplaced, and ought to leave us; while on the
other hand, if there be any man in the Republican party who is impatient
over the necessity springing from its actual presence, and is impatient of
the constitutional guaranties thrown around it, and would act in disregard
of these, he too is misplaced, standing with us. He will find his place
somewhere else; for we have a due regard, so far as we are capable of
understanding them, for all these things. This, gentlemen, as well as I
can give it, is a plain statement of our principles in all their enormity.
I will say now that there is a sentiment in the country contrary to me,--a
sentiment which holds that slavery is not wrong, and therefore it goes for
the policy that does not propose dealing with it as a wrong. That policy
is the Democratic policy, and that sentiment is the Democratic sentiment.
If there be a doubt in the mind of any one of this vast audience that this
is really the central idea of the Democratic party in relation to this
subject, I ask him to bear with me while I state a few things tending, as
I think, to prove that proposition. In the first place, the leading man--I
think I may do my friend Judge Douglas the honor of calling him such
advocating the present Democratic policy never himself says it is wrong.
He has the high distinction, so far as I know, of never having said
slavery is either right or wrong. Almost everybody else says one or the
other, but the Judge never does. If there be a man in the Democratic party
who thinks it is wrong, and yet clings to that party, I suggest to him, in
the first place, that his leader don't talk as he does, for he never says
that it is wrong. In the second place, I suggest to him that if he will
examine the policy proposed to be carried forward, he will find that he
carefully excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in it. If you
will examine the arguments that are made on it, you will find that every
one carefully excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in slavery.
Perhaps that Democrat who says he is as much opposed to slavery as I am
will tell me that I am wrong about this. I wish him to examine his own
course in regard to this matter a moment, and then see if his opinion will
not be changed a little. You say it is wrong; but don't you constantly
object to anybody else saying so? Do you not constantly argue that this
is not the right place to oppose it? You say it must not be opposed in the
free States, because slavery is not here; it must not be opposed in the
slave States, because it is there; it must not be opposed in politics,
because that will make a fuss; it must not be opposed in the pulpit,
because it is not religion. Then where is the place to oppose it? There is
no suitable place to oppose it. There is no place in the country to oppose
this evil overspreading the continent, which you say yourself is
coming. Frank Blair and Gratz Brown tried to get up a system of gradual
emancipation in Missouri, had an election in August, and got beat, and
you, Mr. Democrat, threw up your hat, and hallooed "Hurrah for Democracy!"
So I say, again, that in regard to the arguments that are made, when Judge
Douglas Says he "don't care whether slavery is voted up or voted down,"
whether he means that as an individual expression of sentiment, or only as
a sort of statement of his views on national policy, it is alike true to
say that he can thus argue logically if he don't see anything wrong in
it; but he cannot say so logically if he admits that slavery is wrong. He
cannot say that he would as soon see a wrong voted up as voted down. When
Judge Douglas says that whoever or whatever community wants slaves, they
have a right to have them, he is perfectly logical, if there is nothing
wrong in the institution; but if you admit that it is wrong, he cannot
logically say that anybody has a right to do wrong. When he says that
slave property and horse and hog property are alike to be allowed to go
into the Territories, upon the principles of equality, he is reasoning
truly, if there is no difference between them as property; but if the
one is property held rightfully, and the other is wrong, then there is no
equality between the right and wrong; so that, turn it in anyway you can,
in all the arguments sustaining the Democratic policy, and in that policy
itself, there is a careful, studied exclusion of the idea that there is
anything wrong in slavery. Let us understand this. I am not, just here,
trying to prove that we are right, and they are wrong. I have been stating
where we and they stand, and trying to show what is the real difference
between us; and I now say that whenever we can get the question distinctly
stated, can get all these men who believe that slavery is in some of these
respects wrong to stand and act with us in treating it as a wrong,--then,
and not till then, I think we will in some way come to an end of this
slavery agitation.
Mr. LINCOLN'S REJOINDER.
MY FRIENDS:--Since Judge Douglas has said to you in his conclusion that he
had not time in an hour and a half to answer all I had said in an hour,
it follows of course that I will not be able to answer in half an hour all
that he said in an hour and a half.
I wish to return to Judge Douglas my profound thanks for his public
annunciation here to-day, to be put on record, that his system of policy
in regard to the institution of slavery contemplates that it shall
last forever. We are getting a little nearer the true issue of this
controversy, and I am profoundly grateful for this one sentence. Judge
Douglas asks you, Why cannot the institution of slavery, or rather, why
cannot the nation, part slave and part free, continue as our fathers made
it, forever? In the first place, I insist that our fathers did not make
this nation half slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I
insist that they found the institution of slavery existing here. They did
not make it so but they left it so because they knew of no way to get rid
of it at that time. When Judge Douglas undertakes to say that, as a matter
of choice, the fathers of the government made this nation part slave and
part free, he assumes what is historically a falsehood. More than that:
when the fathers of the government cut off the source of slavery by the
abolition of the slave-trade, and adopted a system of restricting it from
the new Territories where it had not existed, I maintain that they placed
it where they understood, and all sensible men understood, it was in
the course of ultimate extinction; and when Judge Douglas asks me why it
cannot continue as our fathers made it, I ask him why he and his friends
could not let it remain as our fathers made it?
It is precisely all I ask of him in relation to the institution of
slavery, that it shall be placed upon the basis that our fathers placed it
upon. Mr. Brooks, of South Carolina, once said, and truly said, that
when this government was established, no one expected the institution
of slavery to last until this day, and that the men who formed this
government were wiser and better than the men of these days; but the
men of these days had experience which the fathers had not, and that
experience had taught them the invention of the cotton-gin, and this had
made the perpetuation of the institution of slavery a necessity in this
country. Judge Douglas could not let it stand upon the basis which our
fathers placed it, but removed it, and put it upon the cotton-gin basis.
It is a question, therefore, for him and his friends to answer, why they
could not let it remain where the fathers of the government originally
placed it. I hope nobody has understood me as trying to sustain the
doctrine that we have a right to quarrel with Kentucky, or Virginia, or
any of the slave States, about the institution of slavery,--thus giving
the Judge an opportunity to be eloquent and valiant against us in fighting
for their rights. I expressly declared in my opening speech that I had
neither the inclination to exercise, nor the belief in the existence of,
the right to interfere with the States of Kentucky or Virginia in doing
as they pleased with slavery Or any other existing institution. Then what
becomes of all his eloquence in behalf of the rights of States, which are
assailed by no living man?
But I have to hurry on, for I have but a half hour. The Judge has informed
me, or informed this audience, that the Washington Union is laboring for
my election to the United States Senate. This is news to me,--not very
ungrateful news either. [Turning to Mr. W. H. Carlin, who was on the
stand]--I hope that Carlin will be elected to the State Senate, and
will vote for me. [Mr. Carlin shook his head.] Carlin don't fall in, I
perceive, and I suppose he will not do much for me; but I am glad of all
the support I can get, anywhere, if I can get it without practicing
any deception to obtain it. In respect to this large portion of Judge
Douglas's speech in which he tries to show that in the controversy between
himself and the Administration party he is in the right, I do not feel
myself at all competent or inclined to answer him. I say to him, "Give it
to them,--give it to them just all you can!" and, on the other hand, I
say to Carlin, and Jake Davis, and to this man Wogley up here in Hancock,
"Give it to Douglas, just pour it into him!"
Now, in regard to this matter of the Dred Scott decision, I wish to say a
word or two. After all, the Judge will not say whether, if a decision is
made holding that the people of the States cannot exclude slavery, he will
support it or not. He obstinately refuses to say what he will do in that
case. The judges of the Supreme Court as obstinately refused to say
what they would do on this subject. Before this I reminded him that at
Galesburgh he said the judges had expressly declared the contrary, and you
remember that in my Opening speech I told him I had the book containing
that decision here, and I would thank him to lay his finger on the place
where any such thing was said. He has occupied his hour and a half, and he
has not ventured to try to sustain his assertion. He never will. But he is
desirous of knowing how we are going to reverse that Dred Scott decision.
Judge Douglas ought to know how. Did not he and his political friends
find a way to reverse the decision of that same court in favor of the
constitutionality of the National Bank? Didn't they find a way to do it so
effectually that they have reversed it as completely as any decision ever
was reversed, so far as its practical operation is concerned?
And let me ask you, did n't Judge Douglas find a way to reverse the
decision of our Supreme Court when it decided that Carlin's father--old
Governor Carlin had not the constitutional power to remove a Secretary of
State? Did he not appeal to the "MOBS," as he calls them? Did he not make
speeches in the lobby to show how villainous that decision was, and how it
ought to be overthrown? Did he not succeed, too, in getting an act passed
by the Legislature to have it overthrown? And did n't he himself sit down
on that bench as one of the five added judges, who were to overslaugh the
four old ones, getting his name of "judge" in that way, and no other? If
there is a villainy in using disrespect or making opposition to Supreme
Court decisions, I commend it to Judge Douglas's earnest consideration.
I know of no man in the State of Illinois who ought to know so well about
how much villainy it takes to oppose a decision of the Supreme Court as
our honorable friend Stephen A. Douglas.
Judge Douglas also makes the declaration that I say the Democrats are
bound by the Dred Scott decision, while the Republicans are not. In the
sense in which he argues, I never said it; but I will tell you what I have
said and what I do not hesitate to repeat to-day. I have said that as the
Democrats believe that decision to be correct, and that the extension
of slavery is affirmed in the National Constitution, they are bound to
support it as such; and I will tell you here that General Jackson once
said each man was bound to support the Constitution "as he understood
it." Now, Judge Douglas understands the Constitution according to the
Dred Scott decision, and he is bound to support it as he understands it.
I understand it another way, and therefore I am bound to support it in the
way in which I understand it. And as Judge Douglas believes that decision
to be correct, I will remake that argument if I have time to do so. Let me
talk to some gentleman down there among you who looks me in the face. We
will say you are a member of the Territorial Legislature, and, like Judge
Douglas, you believe that the right to take and hold slaves there is a
constitutional right The first thing you do is to swear you will support
the Constitution, and all rights guaranteed therein; that you
will, whenever your neighbor needs your legislation to support his
constitutional rights, not withhold that legislation. If you withhold
that necessary legislation for the support of the Constitution and
constitutional rights, do you not commit perjury? I ask every sensible man
if that is not so? That is undoubtedly just so, say what you please. Now,
that is precisely what Judge Douglas says, that this is a constitutional
right. Does the Judge mean to say that the Territorial Legislature in
legislating may, by withholding necessary laws, or by passing unfriendly
laws, nullify that constitutional right? Does he mean to say that? Does he
mean to ignore the proposition so long and well established in law, that
what you cannot do directly, you cannot do indirectly? Does he mean that?
The truth about the matter is this: Judge Douglas has sung paeans to his
"Popular Sovereignty" doctrine until his Supreme Court, co-operating with
him, has squatted his Squatter Sovereignty out. But he will keep up this
species of humbuggery about Squatter Sovereignty. He has at last invented
this sort of do-nothing sovereignty,--that the people may exclude slavery
by a sort of "sovereignty" that is exercised by doing nothing at all. Is
not that running his Popular Sovereignty down awfully? Has it not got down
as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a
pigeon that had starved to death? But at last, when it is brought to the
test of close reasoning, there is not even that thin decoction of it left.
It is a presumption impossible in the domain of thought. It is precisely
no other than the putting of that most unphilosophical proposition, that
two bodies can occupy the same space at the same time. The Dred Scott
decision covers the whole ground, and while it occupies it, there is no
room even for the shadow of a starved pigeon to occupy the same ground.
Judge Douglas, in reply to what I have said about having upon a previous
occasion made the speech at Ottawa as the one he took an extract from at
Charleston, says it only shows that I practiced the deception twice. Now,
my friends, are any of you obtuse enough to swallow that? Judge Douglas
had said I had made a speech at Charleston that I would not make up north,
and I turned around and answered him by showing I had made that same
speech up north,--had made it at Ottawa; made it in his hearing; made
it in the Abolition District,--in Lovejoy's District,--in the personal
presence of Lovejoy himself,--in the same atmosphere exactly in which I
had made my Chicago speech, of which he complains so much.
Now, in relation to my not having said anything about the quotation from
the Chicago speech: he thinks that is a terrible subject for me to handle.
Why, gentlemen, I can show you that the substance of the Chicago speech
I delivered two years ago in "Egypt," as he calls it. It was down at
Springfield. That speech is here in this book, and I could turn to it and
read it to you but for the lack of time. I have not now the time to read
it. ["Read it, read it."] No, gentlemen, I am obliged to use discretion in
disposing most advantageously of my brief time. The Judge has taken great
exception to my adopting the heretical statement in the Declaration of
Independence, that "all men are created equal," and he has a great deal to
say about negro equality. I want to say that in sometimes alluding to the
Declaration of Independence, I have only uttered the sentiments that Henry
Clay used to hold. Allow me to occupy your time a moment with what he
said. Mr. Clay was at one time called upon in Indiana, and in a way that I
suppose was very insulting, to liberate his slaves; and he made a written
reply to that application, and one portion of it is in these words:
"What is the foundation of this appeal to me in Indiana to liberate the
slaves under my care in Kentucky? It is a general declaration in the
act announcing to the world the independence of the thirteen American
colonies, that men are created equal. Now, as an abstract principle, there
is no doubt of the truth of that declaration, and it is desirable in the
original construction of society, and in organized societies, to keep it
in view as a great fundamental principle."
When I sometimes, in relation to the organization of new societies in new
countries, where the soil is clean and clear, insisted that we should keep
that principle in view, Judge Douglas will have it that I want a negro
wife. He never can be brought to understand that there is any middle
ground on this subject. I have lived until my fiftieth year, and have
never had a negro woman either for a slave or a wife, and I think I can
live fifty centuries, for that matter, without having had one for either.
I maintain that you may take Judge Douglas's quotations from my Chicago
speech, and from my Charleston speech, and the Galesburgh speech,--in his
speech of to-day,--and compare them over, and I am willing to trust them
with you upon his proposition that they show rascality or double-dealing.
I deny that they do.
The Judge does not seem at all disposed to have peace, but I find he is
disposed to have a personal warfare with me. He says that my oath would
not be taken against the bare word of Charles H. Lanphier or Thomas L.
Harris. Well, that is altogether a matter of opinion. It is certainly not
for me to vaunt my word against oaths of these gentlemen, but I will tell
Judge Douglas again the facts upon which I "dared" to say they proved
a forgery. I pointed out at Galesburgh that the publication of these
resolutions in the Illinois State Register could not have been the result
of accident, as the proceedings of that meeting bore unmistakable
evidence of being done by a man who knew it was a forgery; that it was a
publication partly taken from the real proceedings of the Convention, and
partly from the proceedings of a convention at another place, which showed
that he had the real proceedings before him, and taking one part of
the resolutions, he threw out another part, and substituted false and
fraudulent ones in their stead. I pointed that out to him, and also that
his friend Lanphier, who was editor of the Register at that time and now
is, must have known how it was done. Now, whether he did it, or got some
friend to do it for him, I could not tell, but he certainly knew all about
it. I pointed out to Judge Douglas that in his Freeport speech he had
promised to investigate that matter. Does he now say that he did not make
that promise? I have a right to ask why he did not keep it. I call upon
him to tell here to-day why he did not keep that promise? That fraud has
been traced up so that it lies between him, Harris, and Lanphier. There
is little room for escape for Lanphier. Lanphier is doing the Judge
good service, and Douglas desires his word to be taken for the truth.
He desires Lanphier to be taken as authority in what he states in his
newspaper. He desires Harris to be taken as a man of vast credibility; and
when this thing lies among them, they will not press it to show where the
guilt really belongs. Now, as he has said that he would investigate it,
and implied that he would tell us the result of his investigation, I
demand of him to tell why he did not investigate it, if he did not; and if
he did, why he won't tell the result. I call upon him for that.