who were the actors in the Revolution, which has taken the name of the
Ordinance of '87. Let me bring that history to your attention. In 1784, I
believe, this same Mr. Jefferson drew up an ordinance for the government
of the country upon which we now stand, or, rather, a frame or draft of an
ordinance for the government of this country, here in Ohio, our neighbors
in Indiana, us who live in Illinois, our neighbors in Wisconsin and
Michigan. In that ordinance, drawn up not only for the government of that
Territory, but for the Territories south of the Ohio River, Mr. Jefferson
expressly provided for the prohibition of slavery. Judge Douglas says,
and perhaps is right, that that provision was lost from that ordinance. I
believe that is true. When the vote was taken upon it, a majority of all
present in the Congress of the Confederation voted for it; but there were
so many absentees that those voting for it did not make the clear majority
necessary, and it was lost. But three years after that, the Congress of
the Confederation were together again, and they adopted a new ordinance
for the government of this Northwest Territory, not contemplating
territory south of the river, for the States owning that territory had
hitherto refrained from giving it to the General Government; hence they
made the ordinance to apply only to what the Government owned. In fact,
the provision excluding slavery was inserted aside, passed unanimously, or
at any rate it passed and became a part of the law of the land. Under
that ordinance we live. First here in Ohio you were a Territory; then an
enabling act was passed, authorizing you to form a constitution and
State Government, provided it was republican and not in conflict with the
Ordinance of '87. When you framed your constitution and presented it for
admission, I think you will find the legislation upon the subject will
show that, whereas you had formed a constitution that was republican, and
not in conflict with the Ordinance of '87, therefore you were admitted
upon equal footing with the original States. The same process in a few
years was gone through with in Indiana, and so with Illinois, and the same
substantially with Michigan and Wisconsin.
Not only did that Ordinance prevail, but it was constantly looked to
whenever a step was taken by a new Territory to become a State. Congress
always turned their attention to it, and in all their movements upon
this subject they traced their course by that Ordinance of '87. When they
admitted new States, they advertised them of this Ordinance, as a part of
the legislation of the country. They did so because they had traced the
Ordinance of '87 throughout the history of this country. Begin with the
men of the Revolution, and go down for sixty entire years, and until the
last scrap of that Territory comes into the Union in the form of the State
of Wisconsin, everything was made to conform with the Ordinance of '87,
excluding slavery from that vast extent of country.
I omitted to mention in the right place that the Constitution of the
United States was in process of being framed when that Ordinance was
made by the Congress of the Confederation; and one of the first Acts of
Congress itself, under the new Constitution itself, was to give force to
that Ordinance by putting power to carry it out in the hands of the new
officers under the Constitution, in the place of the old ones, who had
been legislated out of existence by the change in the Government from the
Confederation to the Constitution. Not only so, but I believe Indiana once
or twice, if not Ohio, petitioned the General Government for the privilege
of suspending that provision and allowing them to have slaves. A report
made by Mr. Randolph, of Virginia, himself a slaveholder, was directly
against it, and the action was to refuse them the privilege of violating
the Ordinance of '87.
This period of history, which I have run over briefly, is, I presume, as
familiar to most of this assembly as any other part of the history of our
country. I suppose that few of my hearers are not as familiar with that
part of history as I am, and I only mention it to recall your attention
to it at this time. And hence I ask how extraordinary a thing it is that a
man who has occupied a position upon the floor of the Senate of the United
States, who is now in his third term, and who looks to see the government
of this whole country fall into his own hands, pretending to give a
truthful and accurate history o the slavery question in this country,
should so entirely ignore the whole of that portion of our history--the
most important of all. Is it not a most extraordinary spectacle that a man
should stand up and ask for any confidence in his statements who sets out
as he does with portions of history, calling upon the people to believe
that it is a true and fair representation, when the leading part and
controlling feature of the whole history is carefully suppressed?
But the mere leaving out is not the most remarkable feature of this most
remarkable essay. His proposition is to establish that the leading men
of the Revolution were for his great principle of nonintervention by the
government in the question of slavery in the Territories, while history
shows that they decided, in the cases actually brought before them, in
exactly the contrary way, and he knows it. Not only did they so decide
at that time, but they stuck to it during sixty years, through thick and
thin, as long as there was one of the Revolutionary heroes upon the stage
of political action. Through their whole course, from first to last, they
clung to freedom. And now he asks the community to believe that the men
of the Revolution were in favor of his great principle, when we have the
naked history that they themselves dealt with this very subject matter
of his principle, and utterly repudiated his principle, acting upon
a precisely contrary ground. It is as impudent and absurd as if a
prosecuting attorney should stand up before a jury and ask them to convict
A as the murderer of B, while B was walking alive before them.
I say, again, if judge Douglas asserts that the men of the Revolution
acted upon principles by which, to be consistent with themselves, they
ought to have adopted his popular sovereignty, then, upon a consideration
of his own argument, he had a right to make you believe that they
understood the principles of government, but misapplied them, that he
has arisen to enlighten the world as to the just application of this
principle. He has a right to try to persuade you that he understands their
principles better than they did, and, therefore, he will apply them now,
not as they did, but as they ought to have done. He has a right to go
before the community and try to convince them of this, but he has no right
to attempt to impose upon any one the belief that these men themselves
approved of his great principle. There are two ways of establishing a
proposition. One is by trying to demonstrate it upon reason, and the other
is, to show that great men in former times have thought so and so, and
thus to pass it by the weight of pure authority. Now, if Judge Douglas
will demonstrate somehow that this is popular sovereignty,--the right of
one man to make a slave of another, without any right in that other or
any one else to object,--demonstrate it as Euclid demonstrated
propositions,--there is no objection. But when he comes forward, seeking
to carry a principle by bringing to it the authority of men who themselves
utterly repudiate that principle, I ask that he shall not be permitted to
do it.
I see, in the judge's speech here, a short sentence in these words: "Our
fathers, when they formed this government under which we live, understood
this question just as well, and even better than, we do now." That is
true; I stick to that. I will stand by Judge Douglas in that to the bitter
end. And now, Judge Douglas, come and stand by me, and truthfully show how
they acted, understanding it better than we do. All I ask of you, Judge
Douglas, is to stick to the proposition that the men of the Revolution
understood this subject better than we do now, and with that better
understanding they acted better than you are trying to act now.
I wish to say something now in regard to the Dred Scott decision, as dealt
with by Judge Douglas. In that "memorable debate" between Judge Douglas
and myself, last year, the judge thought fit to commence a process of
catechising me, and at Freeport I answered his questions, and propounded
some to him. Among others propounded to him was one that I have here now.
The substance, as I remember it, is, "Can the people of a United States
Territory, under the Dred Scott decision, 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?" He answered that they
could lawfully exclude slavery from the United States Territories,
notwithstanding the Dred Scot decision. There was something about that
answer that has probably been a trouble to the judge ever since.
The Dred Scott decision expressly gives every citizen of the United States
a right to carry his slaves into the United States Territories. And now
there was some inconsistency in saying that the decision was right, and
saying, too, that the people of the Territory could lawfully drive slavery
out again. When all the trash, the words, the collateral matter, was
cleared away from it, all the chaff was fanned out of it, it was a bare
absurdity,--no less than that a thing may be lawfully driven away from
where it has a lawful right to be. Clear it of all the verbiage, and
that is the naked truth of his proposition,--that a thing may be lawfully
driven from the place where it has a lawful right to stay. Well, it was
because the judge could n't help seeing this that he has had so much
trouble with it; and what I want to ask your especial attention to, just
now, is to remind you, if you have not noticed the fact, that the judge
does not any longer say that the people can exclude slavery. He does not
say so in the copyright essay; he did not say so in the speech that he
made here; and, so far as I know, since his re-election to the Senate he
has never said, as he did at Freeport, that the people of the Territories
can exclude slavery. He desires that you, who wish the Territories to
remain free, should believe that he stands by that position; but he does
not say it himself. He escapes to some extent the absurd position I have
stated, by changing his language entirely. What he says now is something
different in language, and we will consider whether it is not different
in sense too. It is now that the Dred Scott decision, or rather the
Constitution under that decision, does not carry slavery into the
Territories beyond the power of the people of the Territories to control
it as other property. He does not say the people can drive it out, but
they can control it as other property. The language is different; we
should consider whether the sense is different. Driving a horse out of
this lot is too plain a proposition to be mistaken about; it is putting
him on the other side of the fence. Or it might be a sort of exclusion of
him from the lot if you were to kill him and let the worms devour him;
but neither of these things is the same as "controlling him as other
property." That would be to feed him, to pamper him, to ride him, to use
and abuse him, to make the most money out of him, "as other property";
but, please you, what do the men who are in favor of slavery want more
than this? What do they really want, other than that slavery, being in the
Territories, shall be controlled as other property? If they want anything
else, I do not comprehend it. I ask your attention to this, first, for the
purpose of pointing out the change of ground the judge has made; and, in
the second place, the importance of the change,--that that change is not
such as to give you gentlemen who want his popular sovereignty the power
to exclude the institution or drive it out at all. I know the judge
sometimes squints at the argument that in controlling it as other property
by unfriendly legislation they may control it to death; as you might, in
the case of a horse, perhaps, feed him so lightly and ride him so much
that he would die. But when you come to legislative control, there is
something more to be attended to. I have no doubt, myself, that if the
Territories should undertake to control slave property as other property
that is, control it in such a way that it would be the most valuable as
property, and make it bear its just proportion in the way of burdens
as property, really deal with it as property,--the Supreme Court of the
United States will say, "God speed you, and amen." But I undertake to
give the opinion, at least, that if the Territories attempt by any direct
legislation to drive the man with his slave out of the Territory, or to
decide that his slave is free because of his being taken in there, or to
tax him to such an extent that he cannot keep him there, the Supreme Court
will unhesitatingly decide all such legislation unconstitutional, as long
as that Supreme Court is constructed as the Dred Scott Supreme Court is.
The first two things they have already decided, except that there is a
little quibble among lawyers between the words "dicta" and "decision."
They have already decided a negro cannot be made free by Territorial
legislation.
What is the Dred Scott decision? Judge Douglas labors to show that it is
one thing, while I think it is altogether different. It is a long opinion,
but it is all embodied in this short statement: "The Constitution of the
United States forbids Congress to deprive a man of his property, without
due process of law; the right of property in slaves is distinctly and
expressly affirmed in that Constitution: therefore, if Congress shall
undertake to say that a man's slave is no longer his slave when he crosses
a certain line into a Territory, that is depriving him of his property
without due process of law, and is unconstitutional." There is the whole
Dred Scott decision. They add that if Congress cannot do so itself,
Congress cannot confer any power to do so; and hence any effort by the
Territorial Legislature to do either of these things is absolutely decided
against. It is a foregone conclusion by that court.
Now, as to this indirect mode by "unfriendly legislation," all lawyers
here will readily understand that such a proposition cannot be tolerated
for a moment, because a legislature cannot indirectly do that which it
cannot accomplish directly. Then I say any legislation to control this
property, as property, for its benefit as property, would be hailed by
this Dred Scott Supreme Court, and fully sustained; but any legislation
driving slave property out, or destroying it as property, directly or
indirectly, will most assuredly, by that court, be held unconstitutional.
Judge Douglas says if the Constitution carries slavery into the
Territories, beyond the power of the people of the Territories to control
it as other property; then it follows logically that every one who swears
to support the Constitution of the United States must give that support
to that property which it needs. And, if the Constitution carries slavery
into the Territories, beyond the power of the people, to control it as
other property, then it also carries it into the States, because the
Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Now, gentlemen, if it were
not for my excessive modesty, I would say that I told that very thing to
Judge Douglas quite a year ago. This argument is here in print, and if it
were not for my modesty, as I said, I might call your attention to it. If
you read it, you will find that I not only made that argument, but made it
better than he has made it since.
There is, however, this difference: I say now, and said then, there is no
sort of question that the Supreme Court has decided that it is the right
of the slave holder to take his slave and hold him in the Territory; and
saying this, judge Douglas himself admits the conclusion. He says if that
is so, this consequence will follow; and because this consequence
would follow, his argument is, the decision cannot, therefore, be that
way,--"that would spoil my popular sovereignty; and it cannot be possible
that this great principle has been squelched out in this extraordinary
way. It might be, if it were not for the extraordinary consequences of
spoiling my humbug."
Another feature of the judge's argument about the Dred Scott case is,
an effort to show that that decision deals altogether in declarations of
negatives; that the Constitution does not affirm anything as expounded
by the Dred Scott decision, but it only declares a want of power a total
absence of power, in reference to the Territories. It seems to be his
purpose to make the whole of that decision to result in a mere negative
declaration of a want of power in Congress to do anything in relation to
this matter in the Territories. I know the opinion of the Judges states
that there is a total absence of power; but that is, unfortunately; not
all it states: for the judges add that the right of property in a slave is
distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. It does not stop
at saying that the right of property in a slave is recognized in the
Constitution, is declared to exist somewhere in the Constitution, but says
it is affirmed in the Constitution. Its language is equivalent to saying
that it is embodied and so woven in that instrument that it cannot be
detached without breaking the Constitution itself. In a word, it is part
of the Constitution.
Douglas is singularly unfortunate in his effort to make out that decision
to be altogether negative, when the express language at the vital part is
that this is distinctly affirmed in the Constitution. I think myself, and
I repeat it here, that this decision does not merely carry slavery into
the Territories, but by its logical conclusion it carries it into the
States in which we live. One provision of that Constitution is, that it
shall be the supreme law of the land,--I do not quote the language,--any
constitution or law of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. This
Dred Scott decision says that the right of property in a slave is affirmed
in that Constitution which is the supreme law of the land, any State
constitution or law notwithstanding. Then I say that to destroy a thing
which is distinctly affirmed and supported by the supreme law of the land,
even by a State constitution or law, is a violation of that supreme law,
and there is no escape from it. In my judgment there is no avoiding that
result, save that the American people shall see that constitutions are
better construed than our Constitution is construed in that decision. They
must take care that it is more faithfully and truly carried out than it is
there expounded.
I must hasten to a conclusion. Near the beginning of my remarks I said
that this insidious Douglas popular sovereignty is the measure that now
threatens the purpose of the Republican party to prevent slavery from
being nationalized in the United States. I propose to ask your attention
for a little while to some propositions in affirmance of that statement.
Take it just as it stands, and apply it as a principle; extend and apply
that principle elsewhere; and consider where it will lead you. I now put
this proposition, that Judge Douglas's popular sovereignty applied will
reopen the African slave trade; and I will demonstrate it by any variety
of ways in which you can turn the subject or look at it.
The Judge says that the people of the Territories have the right, by his
principle, to have slaves, if they want them. Then I say that the people
in Georgia have the right to buy slaves in Africa, if they want them;
and I defy any man on earth to show any distinction between the two
things,--to show that the one is either more wicked or more unlawful; to
show, on original principles, that one is better or worse than the other;
or to show, by the Constitution, that one differs a whit from the other.
He will tell me, doubtless, that there is no constitutional provision
against people taking slaves into the new Territories, and I tell him
that there is equally no constitutional provision against buying slaves
in Africa. He will tell you that a people, in the exercise of popular
sovereignty, ought to do as they please about that thing, and have slaves
if they want them; and I tell you that the people of Georgia are as much
entitled to popular sovereignty and to buy slaves in Africa, if they want
them, as the people of the Territory are to have slaves if they want them.
I ask any man, dealing honestly with himself, to point out a distinction.
I have recently seen a letter of Judge Douglas's in which, without stating
that to be the object, he doubtless endeavors to make a distinction
between the two. He says he is unalterably opposed to the repeal of the
laws against the African slave trade. And why? He then seeks to give a
reason that would not apply to his popular sovereignty in the Territories.
What is that reason? "The abolition of the African slave trade is a
compromise of the Constitution!" I deny it. There is no truth in the
proposition that the abolition of the African slave trade is a compromise
of the Constitution. No man can put his finger on anything in the
Constitution, or on the line of history, which shows it. It is a mere
barren assertion, made simply for the purpose of getting up a distinction
between the revival of the African slave trade and his "great principle."
At the time the Constitution of the United States was adopted, it was
expected that the slave trade would be abolished. I should assert and
insist upon that, if judge Douglas denied it. But I know that it was
equally expected that slavery would be excluded from the Territories, and
I can show by history that in regard to these two things public opinion
was exactly alike, while in regard to positive action, there was more done
in the Ordinance of '87 to resist the spread of slavery than was ever done
to abolish the foreign slave trade. Lest I be misunderstood, I say again
that at the time of the formation of the Constitution, public expectation
was that the slave trade would be abolished, but no more so than the
spread of slavery in the Territories should be restrained. They stand
alike, except that in the Ordinance of '87 there was a mark left by public
opinion, showing that it was more committed against the spread of slavery
in the Territories than against the foreign slave trade.
Compromise! What word of compromise was there about it? Why, the public
sense was then in favor of the abolition of the slave trade; but there was
at the time a very great commercial interest involved in it, and extensive
capital in that branch of trade. There were doubtless the incipient stages
of improvement in the South in the way of farming, dependent on the slave
trade, and they made a proposition to Congress to abolish the trade after
allowing it twenty years,--a sufficient time for the capital and commerce
engaged in it to be transferred to other channel. They made no provision
that it should be abolished in twenty years; I do not doubt that they
expected it would be, but they made no bargain about it. The public
sentiment left no doubt in the minds of any that it would be done away.
I repeat, there is nothing in the history of those times in favor of
that matter being a compromise of the constitution. It was the public
expectation at the time, manifested in a thousand ways, that the spread of
slavery should also be restricted.
Then I say, if this principle is established, that there is no wrong
in slavery, and whoever wants it has a right to have it, is a matter
of dollars and cents, a sort of question as to how they shall deal with
brutes, that between us and the negro here there is no sort of question,
but that at the South the question is between the negro and the crocodile,
that is all, it is a mere matter of policy, there is a perfect right,
according to interest, to do just as you please,--when this is done, where
this doctrine prevails, the miners and sappers will have formed public
opinion for the slave trade. They will be ready for Jeff. Davis and
Stephens and other leaders of that company to sound the bugle for the
revival of the slave trade, for the second Dred Scott decision, for the
flood of slavery to be poured over the free States, while we shall be here
tied down and helpless and run over like sheep.