adhere to the Democratic party, who have always belonged to that
party, and are only looking about for some excuse to stick to it, but
nevertheless hate slavery, that Douglas's popular sovereignty is as good
a way as any to oppose slavery. They allow themselves to be persuaded
easily, in accordance with their previous dispositions, into this belief,
that it is about as good a way of opposing slavery as any, and we can do
that without straining our old party ties or breaking up old political
associations. We can do so without being called negro-worshipers. We
can do that without being subjected to the jibes and sneers that are so
readily thrown out in place of argument where no argument can be found.
So let us stick to this popular sovereignty,--this insidious popular
sovereignty.
Now let me call your attention to one thing that has really happened,
which shows this gradual and steady debauching of public opinion,
this course of preparation for the revival of the slave trade, for the
Territorial slave code, and the new Dred Scott decision that is to carry
slavery into the Free States. Did you ever, five years ago, hear of
anybody in the world saying that the negro had no share in the Declaration
of National Independence; that it does not mean negroes at all; and when
"all men" were spoken of, negroes were not included?
I am satisfied that five years ago that proposition was not put upon paper
by any living being anywhere. I have been unable at any time to find a man
in an audience who would declare that he had ever known of anybody saying
so five years ago. But last year there was not a Douglas popular sovereign
in Illinois who did not say it. Is there one in Ohio but declares his firm
belief that the Declaration of Independence did not mean negroes at all? I
do not know how this is; I have not been here much; but I presume you are
very much alike everywhere. Then I suppose that all now express the belief
that the Declaration of Independence never did mean negroes. I call upon
one of them to say that he said it five years ago.
If you think that now, and did not think it then, the next thing that
strikes me is to remark that there has been a change wrought in you,--and
a very significant change it is, being no less than changing the negro,
in your estimation, from the rank of a man to that of a brute. They
are taking him down and placing him, when spoken of, among reptiles and
crocodiles, as Judge Douglas himself expresses it.
Is not this change wrought in your minds a very important change? Public
opinion in this country is everything. In a nation like ours, this popular
sovereignty and squatter sovereignty have already wrought a change in the
public mind to the extent I have stated. There is no man in this crowd who
can contradict it.
Now, if you are opposed to slavery honestly, as much as anybody, I ask you
to note that fact, and the like of which is to follow, to be plastered on,
layer after layer, until very soon you are prepared to deal with the negro
every where as with the brute. If public sentiment has not been debauched
already to this point, a new turn of the screw in that direction is all
that is wanting; and this is constantly being done by the teachers of
this insidious popular sovereignty. You need but one or two turns further,
until your minds, now ripening under these teachings, will be ready for
all these things, and you will receive and support, or submit to, the
slave trade, revived with all its horrors, a slave code enforced in our
Territories, and a new Dred Scott decision to bring slavery up into the
very heart of the free North. This, I must say, is but carrying out those
words prophetically spoken by Mr. Clay,--many, many years ago,--I believe
more than thirty years, when he told an audience that if they would
repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation they must go
back to the era of our independence, and muzzle the cannon which thundered
its annual joyous return on the Fourth of July; they must blow out the
moral lights around us; they must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate
the love of liberty: but until they did these things, and others
eloquently enumerated by him, they could not repress all tendencies to
ultimate emancipation.
I ask attention to the fact that in a pre-eminent degree these popular
sovereigns are at this work: blowing out the moral lights around us;
teaching that the negro is no longer a man, but a brute; that the
Declaration has nothing to do with him; that he ranks with the crocodile
and the reptile; that man, with body and soul, is a matter of dollars and
cents. I suggest to this portion of the Ohio Republicans, or Democrats, if
there be any present, the serious consideration of this fact that there
is now going on among you a steady process of debauching public opinion on
this subject. With this, my friends, I bid you adieu.
SPEECH AT CINCINNATI OHIO, SEPTEMBER 17, 1859
My Fellow-Citizens of the State of Ohio: This is the first time in my
life that I have appeared before an audience in so great a city as this:
I therefore--though I am no longer a young man--make this appearance
under some degree of embarrassment. But I have found that when one is
embarrassed, usually the shortest way to get through with it is to quit
talking or thinking about it, and go at something else.
I understand that you have had recently with you my very distinguished
friend Judge Douglas, of Illinois; and I understand, without having had
an opportunity (not greatly sought, to be sure) of seeing a report of the
speech that he made here, that he did me the honor to mention my humble
name. I suppose that he did so for the purpose of making some objection to
some sentiment at some time expressed by me. I should expect, it is true,
that judge Douglas had reminded you, or informed you, if you had never
before heard it, that I had once in my life declared it as my opinion that
this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free; that
a house divided against itself cannot stand, and, as I had expressed it,
I did not expect the house to fall, that I did not expect the Union to be
dissolved, but that I did expect that it would cease to be divided, that
it would become all one thing, or all the other; that either the opponents
of slavery would arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the
public mind would rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate
extinction, or the friends of slavery will push it forward until it
becomes alike lawful in all the States, old or new, free as well as slave.
I did, fifteen months ago, express that opinion, and upon many occasions
Judge Douglas has denounced it, and has greatly, intentionally or
unintentionally, misrepresented my purpose in the expression of that
opinion.
I presume, without having seen a report of his speech, that he did
so here. I presume that he alluded also to that opinion, in different
language, having been expressed at a subsequent time by Governor Seward of
New York, and that he took the two in a lump and denounced them; that he
tried to point out that there was something couched in this opinion which
led to the making of an entire uniformity of the local institutions of the
various States of the Union, in utter disregard of the different States,
which in their nature would seem to require a variety of institutions
and a variety of laws, conforming to the differences in the nature of the
different States.
Not only so: I presume he insisted that this was a declaration of war
between the free and slave States, that it was the sounding to the onset
of continual war between the different States, the slave and free States.
This charge, in this form, was made by Judge Douglas on, I believe, the
9th of July, 1858, in Chicago, in my hearing. On the next evening, I made
some reply to it. I informed him that many of the inferences he drew from
that expression of mine were altogether foreign to any purpose entertained
by me, and in so far as he should ascribe these inferences to me, as my
purpose, he was entirely mistaken; and in so far as he might argue that,
whatever might be my purpose, actions conforming to my views would lead
to these results, he might argue and establish if he could; but, so far as
purposes were concerned, he was totally mistaken as to me.
When I made that reply to him, I told him, on the question of declaring
war between the different States of the Union, that I had not said that
I did not expect any peace upon this question until slavery was
exterminated; that I had only said I expected peace when that institution
was put where the public mind should rest in the belief that it was in
course of ultimate extinction; that I believed, from the organization of
our government until a very recent period of time, the institution had
been placed and continued upon such a basis; that we had had comparative
peace upon that question through a portion of that period of time, only
because the public mind rested in that belief in regard to it, and that
when we returned to that position in relation to that matter, I supposed
we should again have peace as we previously had. I assured him, as I now,
assure you, that I neither then had, nor have, or ever had, any purpose in
any way of interfering with the institution of slavery, where it exists. I
believe we have no power, under the Constitution of the United States, or
rather under the form of government under which we live, to interfere with
the institution of slavery, or any other of the institutions of our
sister States, be they free or slave States. I declared then, and I
now re-declare, that I have as little inclination to interfere with the
institution of slavery where it now exists, through the instrumentality of
the General Government, or any other instrumentality, as I believe we have
no power to do so. I accidentally used this expression: I had no purpose
of entering into the slave States to disturb the institution of slavery.
So, upon the first occasion that Judge Douglas got an opportunity to reply
to me, he passed by the whole body of what I had said upon that subject,
and seized upon the particular expression of mine that I had no purpose of
entering into the slave States to disturb the institution of slavery. "Oh,
no," said he, "he [Lincoln] won't enter into the slave States to disturb
the institution of slavery, he is too prudent a man to do such a thing as
that; he only means that he will go on to the line between the free and
slave States, and shoot over at them. This is all he means to do. He means
to do them all the harm he can, to disturb them all he can, in such a way
as to keep his own hide in perfect safety."
Well, now, I did not think, at that time, that that was either a very
dignified or very logical argument but so it was, I had to get along with
it as well as I could.
It has occurred to-me here to-night that if I ever do shoot over the
line at the people on the other side of the line into a slave State, and
purpose to do so, keeping my skin safe, that I have now about the
best chance I shall ever have. I should not wonder if there are some
Kentuckians about this audience--we are close to Kentucky; and whether
that be so or not, we are on elevated ground, and, by speaking distinctly,
I should not wonder if some of the Kentuckians would hear me on the other
side of the river. For that reason I propose to address a portion of what
I have to say to the Kentuckians.
I say, then, in the first place, to the Kentuckians, that I am what they
call, as I understand it, a "Black Republican." I think slavery is wrong,
morally and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread
in--these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually
terminate in the whole Union. While I say this for myself, I say to you
Kentuckians that I understand you differ radically with me upon this
proposition; that you believe slavery is a good thing; that slavery is
right; that it ought to be extended and perpetuated in this Union.
Now, there being this broad difference between us, I do not pretend, in
addressing myself to you Kentuckians, to attempt proselyting you; that
would be a vain effort. I do not enter upon it. I only propose to try
to show you that you ought to nominate for the next Presidency, at
Charleston, my distinguished friend Judge Douglas. In all that there is a
difference between you and him, I understand he is sincerely for you, and
more wisely for you than you are for yourselves. I will try to demonstrate
that proposition. Understand, now, I say that I believe he is as sincerely
for you, and more wisely for you, than you are for yourselves.
What do you want more than anything else to make successful your views of
slavery,--to advance the outspread of it, and to secure and perpetuate
the nationality of it? What do you want more than anything else? What--is
needed absolutely? What is indispensable to you? Why, if I may, be allowed
to answer the question, it is to retain a hold upon the North, it is to
retain support and strength from the free States. If you can get this
support and strength from the free States, you can succeed. If you do not
get this support and this strength from the free States, you are in the
minority, and you are beaten at once.
If that proposition be admitted,--and it is undeniable,--then the next
thing I say to you is, that Douglas, of all the men in this nation, is the
only man that affords you any hold upon the free States; that no other man
can give you any strength in the free States. This being so, if you doubt
the other branch of the proposition, whether he is for you--whether he is
really for you, as I have expressed it,--I propose asking your attention
for a while to a few facts.
The issue between you and me, understand, is, that I think slavery is
wrong, and ought not to be outspread; and you think it is right, and
ought to be extended and perpetuated. [A voice, "Oh, Lord!"] That is my
Kentuckian I am talking to now.
I now proceed to try to show you that Douglas is as sincerely for you and
more wisely for you than you are for yourselves.
In the first place, we know that in a government like this, in a
government of the people, where the voice of all the men of the country,
substantially, enters into the execution--or administration, rather--of
the government, in such a government, what lies at the bottom of all of it
is public opinion. I lay down the proposition, that Judge Douglas is
not only the man that promises you in advance a hold upon the North, and
support in the North, but he constantly moulds public opinion to your
ends; that in every possible way he can he constantly moulds the public
opinion of the North to your ends; and if there are a few things in which
he seems to be against you,--a few things which he says that appear to
be against you, and a few that he forbears to say which you would like
to have him say you ought to remember that the saying of the one, or the
forbearing to say the other, would lose his hold upon the North, and, by
consequence, would lose his capacity to serve you.
Upon this subject of moulding public opinion I call your attention to the
fact--for a well established fact it is--that the Judge never says your
institution of slavery is wrong. There is not a public man in the United
States, I believe, with the exception of Senator Douglas, who has not, at
some time in his life, declared his opinion whether the thing is right or
wrong; but Senator Douglas never declares it is wrong. He leaves himself
at perfect liberty to do all in your favor which he would be hindered from
doing if he were to declare the thing to be wrong. On the contrary, he
takes all the chances that he has for inveigling the sentiment of the
North, opposed to slavery, into your support, by never saying it is right.
This you ought to set down to his credit: You ought to give him full
credit for this much; little though it be, in comparison to the whole
which he does for you.
Some other, things I will ask your attention to. He said upon the floor of
the United States Senate, and he has repeated it, as I understand, a great
many times, that he does not care whether slavery is "voted up or voted
down." This again shows you, or ought to show you, if you would reason
upon it, that he does not believe it to be wrong; for a man may say when
he sees nothing wrong in a thing; that he, dues not care whether it be
voted up or voted down but no man can logically say that he cares not
whether a thing goes up or goes down which to him appears to be wrong. You
therefore have a demonstration in this that to Judge Douglas's mind your
favorite institution, which you would have spread out and made perpetual,
is no wrong.
Another thing he tells you, in a speech made at Memphis in Tennessee,
shortly after the canvass in Illinois, last year. He there distinctly
told the people that there was a "line drawn by the Almighty across this
continent, on the one side of which the soil must always be cultivated by
slaves"; that he did not pretend to know exactly where that line was,
but that there was such a line. I want to ask your attention to that
proposition again; that there is one portion of this continent where the
Almighty has signed the soil shall always be cultivated by slaves; that
its being cultivated by slaves at that place is right; that it has the
direct sympathy and authority of the Almighty. Whenever you can get these
Northern audiences to adopt the opinion that slavery is right on the other
side of the Ohio, whenever you can get them, in pursuance of Douglas's
views, to adopt that sentiment, they will very readily make the other
argument, which is perfectly logical, that that which is right on that
side of the Ohio cannot be wrong on this, and that if you have that
property on that side of the Ohio, under the seal and stamp of the
Almighty, when by any means it escapes over here it is wrong to have
constitutions and laws "to devil" you about it. So Douglas is moulding the
public opinion of the North, first to say that the thing is right in your
State over the Ohio River, and hence to say that that which is right there
is not wrong here, and that all laws and constitutions here recognizing
it as being wrong are themselves wrong, and ought to be repealed and
abrogated. He will tell you, men of Ohio, that if you choose here to have
laws against slavery, it is in conformity to the idea that your climate
is not suited to it, that your climate is not suited to slave labor, and
therefore you have constitutions and laws against it.
Let us attend to that argument for a little while and see if it be sound.
You do not raise sugar-cane (except the new-fashioned sugar-cane, and you
won't raise that long), but they do raise it in Louisiana. You don't raise
it in Ohio, because you can't raise it profitably, because the climate
don't suit it. They do raise it in Louisiana, because there it is
profitable. Now, Douglas will tell you that is precisely the slavery
question: that they do have slaves there because they are profitable, and
you don't have them here because they are not profitable. If that is so,
then it leads to dealing with the one precisely as with the other. Is
there, then, anything in the constitution or laws of Ohio against raising
sugar-cane? Have you found it necessary to put any such provision in your
law? Surely not! No man desires to raise sugar-cane in Ohio, but if
any man did desire to do so, you would say it was a tyrannical law that
forbids his doing so; and whenever you shall agree with Douglas, whenever
your minds are brought to adopt his argument, as surely you will have
reached the conclusion that although it is not profitable in Ohio, if any
man wants it, is wrong to him not to let him have it.
In this matter Judge Douglas is preparing the public mind for you of
Kentucky to make perpetual that good thing in your estimation, about which
you and I differ.
In this connection, let me ask your attention to another thing. I believe
it is safe to assert that five years ago no living man had expressed the
opinion that the negro had no share in the Declaration of Independence.
Let me state that again: five years ago no living man had expressed the
opinion that the negro had no share in the Declaration of Independence.
If there is in this large audience any man who ever knew of that opinion
being put upon paper as much as five years ago, I will be obliged to him
now or at a subsequent time to show it.
If that be true I wish you then to note the next fact: that within the
space of five years Senator Douglas, in the argument of this question, has
got his entire party, so far as I know, without exception, in saying that
the negro has no share in the Declaration of Independence. If there be now
in all these United States one Douglas man that does not say this, I have
been unable upon any occasion to scare him up. Now, if none of you said
this five years ago, and all of you say it now, that is a matter that you
Kentuckians ought to note. That is a vast change in the Northern public
sentiment upon that question.
Of what tendency is that change? The tendency of that change is to bring
the public mind to the conclusion that when men are spoken of, the
negro is not meant; that when negroes are spoken of, brutes alone are
contemplated. That change in public sentiment has already degraded
the black man in the estimation of Douglas and his followers from the
condition of a man of some sort, and assigned him to the condition of a
brute. Now, you Kentuckians ought to give Douglas credit for this. That is
the largest possible stride that can be made in regard to the perpetuation
of your thing of slavery.
A voice: Speak to Ohio men, and not to Kentuckians!
Mr. LINCOLN: I beg permission to speak as I please.
In Kentucky perhaps, in many of the slave States certainly, you are trying
to establish the rightfulness of slavery by reference to the Bible. You
are trying to show that slavery existed in the Bible times by divine
ordinance. Now, Douglas is wiser than you, for your own benefit, upon that
subject. Douglas knows that whenever you establish that slavery was--right
by the Bible, it will occur that that slavery was the slavery of the white
man, of men without reference to color; and he knows very well that you
may entertain that idea in Kentucky as much as you please, but you will
never win any Northern support upon it. He makes a wiser argument for you:
he makes the argument that the slavery of the black man; the slavery of
the man who has a skin of a different color from your own, is right. He
thereby brings to your support Northern voters who could not for a moment
be brought by your own argument of the Bible right of slavery. Will you
give him credit for that? Will you not say that in this matter he is more
wisely for you than you are for yourselves?
Now, having established with his entire party this doctrine, having been
entirely successful in that branch of his efforts in your behalf, he is
ready for another.
At this same meeting at Memphis he declared that in all contests between
the negro and the white man he was for the white man, but that in all
questions between the negro and the crocodile he was for the negro. He did
not make that declaration accidentally at Memphis. He made it a great many
times in the canvass in Illinois last year (though I don't know that it
was reported in any of his speeches there, but he frequently made it). I
believe he repeated it at Columbus, and I should not wonder if he repeated
it here. It is, then, a deliberate way of expressing himself upon that
subject. It is a matter of mature deliberation with him thus to express
himself upon that point of his case. It therefore requires deliberate
attention.
The first inference seems to be that if you do not enslave the negro,
you are wronging the white man in some way or other, and that whoever is
opposed to the negro being enslaved, is, in some way or other, against
the white man. Is not that a falsehood? If there was a necessary conflict
between the white man and the negro, I should be for the white man as much
as Judge Douglas; but I say there is no such necessary conflict. I say
that there is room enough for us all to be free, and that it not only does
not wrong the white man that the negro should be free, but it positively
wrongs the mass of the white men that the negro should be enslaved; that
the mass of white men are really injured by the effects of slave labor in
the vicinity of the fields of their own labor.
But I do not desire to dwell upon this branch of the question more than to
say that this assumption of his is false, and I do hope that that fallacy
will not long prevail in the minds of intelligent white men. At all
events, you ought to thank Judge Douglas for it; it is for your benefit it
is made.