suppose we would; not quite so much, however, as you may think. You know
I dislike slavery, and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it. So far
there is no cause of difference. But you say that sooner than yield your
legal right to the slave, especially at the bidding of those who are not
themselves interested, you would see the Union dissolved. I am not aware
that any one is bidding you yield that right; very certainly I am not. I
leave that matter entirely to yourself. I also acknowledge your rights
and my obligations under the Constitution in regard to your slaves. I
confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down and caught and
carried back to their stripes and unrequited toil; but I bite my lips
and keep quiet. In 1841, you and I had together a tedious low-water trip
on a steamboat, from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I
well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio, there were on
board ten or a dozen slaves shackled together with irons. That sight was
a continued torment to me, and I see something like it every time I
touch the Ohio or any other slave border. It is not fair for you to
assume that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually
exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to
appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify
their feelings in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution
and the Union. I do oppose the extension of slavery, because my judgment
and feeling so prompt me, and I am under no obligations to the contrary.
If for this you and I must differ, differ we must. You say if you were
President, you would send an army and hang the leaders of the Missouri
outrages upon the Kansas elections; still, if Kansas fairly votes
herself a slave State she must be admitted, or the Union must be
dissolved. But how if she votes herself a slave State unfairly; that
is, by the very means for which you say you would hang men? Must she
still be admitted, or the Union dissolved? That will be the phase of the
question when it first becomes a practical one. In your assumption that
there may be a fair decision of the slavery question in Kansas, I
plainly see that you and I would differ about the Nebraska law. I look
upon that enactment, not as a law, but as a violence from the beginning.
It was conceived in violence, is maintained in violence, and is being
executed in violence. I say it was conceived in violence, because the
destruction of the Missouri Compromise, under the circumstances, was
nothing less than violence. It was passed in violence, because it could
not have passed at all but for the votes of many members in violence of
the known will of their constituents. It is maintained in violence,
because the elections since clearly demand its repeal, and the demand is
openly disregarded.
You say men ought to be hung for the way they are executing the law; I
say that the way it is being executed is quite as good as any of its
antecedents. It is being executed in the precise way which was intended
from the first, else why does no Nebraska man express astonishment or
condemnation? Poor Reeder is the only public man who has been silly
enough to believe that anything like fairness was ever intended, and he
has been bravely undeceived.
That Kansas will form a slave constitution, and with it ask to be
admitted into the Union, I take to be already a settled question, and so
settled by the very means you so pointedly condemn. By every principle
of law ever held by any court North or South, every negro taken to
Kansas _is_ free; yet in utter disregard of this--in the spirit of
violence merely--that beautiful Legislature gravely passes a law to hang
any man who shall venture to inform a negro of his legal rights. This is
the subject and real object of the law. If, like Haman, they should hang
upon the gallows of their own building, I shall not be among the
mourners for their fate. In my humble sphere, I shall advocate the
restoration of the Missouri Compromise so long as Kansas remains a
Territory; and when, by all these foul means, it seeks to come into the
Union as a slave State, I shall oppose it. I am very loath in any case
to withhold my assent to the enjoyment of property acquired or located
in good faith; but I do not admit that good faith in taking a negro to
Kansas to be held in slavery is a probability with any man. Any man who
has sense enough to be the controller of his own property has too much
sense to misunderstand the outrageous character of the whole Nebraska
business. But I digress. In my opposition to the admission of Kansas, I
shall have some company, but we may be beaten. If we are, I shall not,
on that account, attempt to dissolve the Union. I think it probable,
however, we shall be beaten. Standing as a unit among yourselves, you
can, directly and indirectly, bribe enough of our men to carry the day,
as you could on the open proposition to establish a monarchy. Get hold
of some man in the North whose position and ability are such that he can
make the support of your measure, whatever it may be, a Democratic-party
necessity, and the thing is done. Apropos of this, let me tell you an
anecdote. Douglas introduced the Nebraska Bill in January. In February
afterward, there was a called session of the Illinois Legislature. Of
the one hundred members composing the two branches of that body, about
seventy were Democrats. These latter held a caucus, in which the
Nebraska Bill was talked of, if not formally discussed. It was thereby
discovered that just three, and no more, were in favour of the measure.
In a day or two Douglas's orders came on to have resolutions passed
approving the bill; and they were passed by large majorities! The truth
of this is vouched for by a bolting Democratic member. The masses too,
Democratic as well as Whig, were even nearer unanimous against it; but
as soon as the party necessity of supporting it became apparent, the way
the Democrats began to see the wisdom and justice of it was perfectly
astonishing.
You say that if Kansas fairly votes herself a free State, as a Christian
you will rejoice at it. All decent slaveholders talk that way, and I do
not doubt their candour; but they never vote that way. Although in a
private letter or conversation you will express your preference that
Kansas should be free, you would vote for no man for Congress who would
say the same thing publicly. No such man could be elected from any
district in a slave State. You think Stringfellow and company ought to
be hung.... The slave-breeders and slave-traders are a small, odious,
and detested class among you; and yet in politics they dictate the
course of all of you, and are as completely your masters as you are the
master of your own negroes. You inquire where I now stand. That is a
disputed point. I think I am a Whig; but others say there are no Whigs,
and that I am an Abolitionist. When I was at Washington, I voted for the
Wilmot Proviso as good as forty times; and I never heard of any one
attempting to unwhig me for that. I now do no more than oppose the
extension of slavery. I am not a Know-nothing; that is certain. How
could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes be in
favour of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy
appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring
that _all men are created equal_. We now practically read it, _all men
are created equal except negroes_. When the Know-nothings get control,
it will read, _all men are created equal except negroes_ and foreigners
and Catholics. When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some
country where they make no pretence of loving liberty--to Russia, for
instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy
of hypocrisy.... My kindest regards to Mrs. Speed. On the leading
subject of this letter I have more of her sympathy than I have of yours;
and yet let me say I am your friend for ever.
A. LINCOLN.
_Mr. Lincoln's Speech. May 19, 1856_
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, I was over at [cries of "Platform!" "Take
the platform!"]--I say, that while I was at Danville Court, some of our
friends of anti-Nebraska got together in Springfield and elected me as
one delegate to represent old Sangamon with them in this convention, and
I am here certainly as a sympathizer in this movement and by virtue of
that meeting and selection. But we can hardly be called delegates
strictly, inasmuch as, properly speaking, we represent nobody but
ourselves. I think it altogether fair to say that we have no
anti-Nebraska party in Sangamon, although there is a good deal of
anti-Nebraska feeling there; but I say for myself, and I think I may
speak also for my colleagues, that we who are here fully approve of the
platform and of all that has been done [A voice: "Yes!"]; and even if we
are not regularly delegates, it will be right for me to answer your call
to speak. I suppose we truly stand for the public sentiment of Sangamon
on the great question of the repeal, although we do not yet represent
many numbers who have taken a distinct position on the question.
We are in a trying time--it ranges above mere party--and this movement
to call a halt and turn our steps backward needs all the help and good
counsels it can get; for unless popular opinion makes itself very
strongly felt, and a change is made in our present course, _blood will
flow on account of Nebraska, and brother's hand will be raised against
brother_! [The last sentence was uttered in such an earnest, impressive,
if not, indeed, tragic, manner, as to make a cold chill creep over me.
Others gave a similar experience.]
I have listened with great interest to the earnest appeal made to
Illinois men by the gentleman from Lawrence [James S. Emery] who has
just addressed us so eloquently and forcibly. I was deeply moved by his
statement of the wrongs done to free-State men out there. I think it
just to say that all true men North should sympathize with them, and
ought to be willing to do any possible and needful thing to right their
wrongs. But we must not promise what we ought not, lest we be called on
to perform what we cannot; we must be calm and moderate, and consider
the whole difficulty, and determine what is possible and just. We must
not be led by excitement and passion to do that which our sober
judgments would not approve in our cooler moments. We have higher aims;
we will have more serious business than to dally with temporary
measures.
We are here to stand firmly for a principle--to stand firmly for a
right. We know that great political and moral wrongs are done, and
outrages committed, and we denounce those wrongs and outrages, although
we cannot, at present, do much more. But we desire to reach out beyond
those personal outrages and establish a rule that will apply to all, and
so prevent any future outrages.
We have seen to-day that every shade of popular opinion is represented
here, with _Freedom_ or rather _Free-Soil_ as the basis. We have come
together as in some sort representatives of popular opinion against the
extension of slavery into territory now free in fact as well as by law,
and the pledged word of the statesmen of the nation who are now no more.
We come--we are here assembled together--to protest as well as we can
against a great wrong, and to take measures, as well as we now can, to
make that wrong right; to place the nation, as far as it may be possible
now, as it was before the repeal of the Missouri Compromise; and the
plain way to do this is to restore the Compromise, and to demand and
determine that _Kansas shall be free!_ [Immense applause.] While we
affirm, and reaffirm, if necessary, our devotion to the principles of
the Declaration of Independence, let our practical work here be limited
to the above. We know that there is not a perfect agreement of sentiment
here on the public questions which might be rightfully considered in
this convention, and that the indignation which we all must feel cannot
be helped; but all of us must give up something for the good of the
cause. There is one desire which is uppermost in the mind, one wish
common to us all--to which no dissent will be made; and I counsel you
earnestly to bury all resentment, to sink all personal feeling, make all
things work to a common purpose in which we are united and agreed about,
and which all present will agree is absolutely necessary--which _must_
be done by any rightful mode if there be such: _Slavery must be kept out
of Kansas_! [Applause.] The test--the pinch--is right there. If we lose
Kansas to freedom, an example will be set which will prove fatal to
freedom in the end. We, therefore, in the language of the _Bible_, must
"lay the axe to the root of the tree." Temporizing will not do longer;
now is the time for decision--for firm, persistent, resolute action.
[Applause.]
The Nebraska bill, or rather Nebraska law, is not one of wholesome
legislation, but was and is an act of legislative usurpation, whose
result, if not indeed intention, is to make slavery national; and unless
headed off in some effective way, we are in a fair way to see this land
of boasted freedom converted into a land of slavery in fact.
[Sensation.] Just open your two eyes, and see if this be not so. I need
do no more than state, to command universal approval, that almost the
entire North, as well as a large following in the border States, is
radically opposed to the planting of slavery in free territory. Probably
in a popular vote throughout the nation nine-tenths of the voters in the
free States, and at least one-half in the border States, if they could
express their sentiments freely, would vote NO on such an issue; and it
is safe to say that two-thirds of the votes of the entire nation would
be opposed to it. And yet, in spite of this overbalancing of sentiment
in this free country, we are in a fair way to see Kansas present itself
for admission as a slave State. Indeed, it is a felony, by the local law
of Kansas, to deny that slavery exists there even now. By every
principle of law, a negro in Kansas is free; yet the _bogus_
legislature makes it an infamous crime to tell him that he is free!
The party lash and the fear of ridicule will overawe justice and
liberty; for it is a singular fact, but none the less a fact, and well
known by the most common experience, that men will do things under the
terror of the party lash that they would not on any account or for any
consideration do otherwise; while men who will march up to the mouth of
a loaded cannon without shrinking, will run from the terrible name of
"Abolitionist," even when pronounced by a worthless creature whom they,
with good reason, despise. For instance--to press this point a
little--Judge Douglas introduced his anti-Nebraska bill in January; and
we had an extra session of our legislature in the succeeding February,
in which were seventy-five Democrats; and at a party caucus, fully
attended, there were just three votes out of the whole seventy-five, for
the measure. But in a few days orders came on from Washington,
commanding them to approve the measure; the party lash was applied, and
it was brought up again in caucus, and passed by a large majority. The
masses were against it, but party necessity carried it; and it was
passed through the lower house of Congress against the will of the
people, for the same reason. Here is where the greatest danger
lies--that, while we profess to be a government of law and reason, law
will give way to violence on demand of this awful and crushing power.
Like the great Juggernaut--I think that is the name--the great idol, it
crushes everything that comes in its way, and makes a--or as I read
once, in a black-letter law book, "a slave is a human being who is
legally not a _person_, but a _thing_." And if the safeguards to liberty
are broken down, as is now attempted, when they have made _things_ of
all the free negroes, how long, think you, before they will begin to
make _things_ of poor white men? [Applause.] Be not deceived.
Revolutions do not go backward. The founder of the Democratic party
declared that _all_ men were created equal. His successor in the
leadership has written the word "white" before men, making it read "all
_white_ men are created equal." Pray, will or may not the Know-nothings,
if they should get in power, add the word "protestant," making it read
"_all protestant white men_"?
Meanwhile the hapless negro is the fruitful subject of reprisals in
other quarters. John Pettit, whom Tom Benton paid his respects to, you
will recollect, calls the immortal Declaration "a self-evident lie;"
while at the birth-place of freedom--in the shadow of Bunker Hill and of
the "cradle of liberty," at the home of the Adamses and Warren and
Otis--Choate, from our side of the house, dares to fritter away the
birthday promise of liberty by proclaiming the Declaration to be "a
string of glittering generalities;" and the Southern Whigs, working hand
in hand with pro-slavery Democrats, are making Choate's theories
practical. Thomas Jefferson, a slaveholder, mindful of the moral element
in slavery, solemnly declared that he "trembled for his country when he
remembered that God is just;" while Judge Douglas, with an insignificant
wave of the hand, "don't care whether slavery is voted up or voted
down." Now, if slavery is right, or even negative, he has a right to
treat it in this trifling manner. But if it is a moral and political
wrong, as all Christendom considers it to be, how can he answer to God
for this attempt to spread and fortify it? [Applause.]
But no man, and Judge Douglas no more than any other, can maintain a
negative, or merely neutral, position on this question; and,
accordingly, he avows that the Union was made _by_ white men and _for_
white men and their descendants. As matter of fact, the first branch of
the proposition is historically true; the government was made by white
men, and they were and are the superior race. This I admit. But the
corner-stone of the government, so to speak, was the declaration that
"_all_ men are created equal," and all entitled to "life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness." [Applause.]
And not only so, but the framers of the Constitution were particular to
keep out of that instrument the word "slave," the reason being that
slavery would ultimately come to an end, and they did not wish to have
any reminder that in this free country human beings were ever
prostituted to slavery. [Applause.] Nor is it any argument that we are
superior and the negro inferior--that he has but one talent while we
have ten. Let the negro possess the little he has in independence; if he
has but one talent, he should be permitted to keep the little he has.
[Applause.] But slavery will endure no test of reason or logic; and yet
its advocates, like Douglas, use a sort of bastard logic, or noisy
assumption, it might better be termed, like the above, in order to
prepare the mind for the gradual, but none the less certain,
encroachments of the Moloch of slavery upon, the fair domain of freedom.
But however much you may argue upon it, or smother it in soft phrases,
slavery can only be maintained by force--by violence. The repeal of the
Missouri Compromise was by violence. It was a violation of both law and
the sacred obligations of honour, to overthrow and trample underfoot a
solemn compromise, obtained by the fearful loss to freedom of one of the
fairest of our Western domains. Congress violated the will and
confidence of its constituents in voting for the bill; and while public
sentiment, as shown by the elections of 1854, demanded the restoration
of this compromise, Congress violated its trust by refusing, simply
because it had the force of numbers to hold on to it. And murderous
violence is being used now, in order to force slavery on to Kansas; for
it cannot be done in any other way. [Sensation.]
The necessary result was to establish the rule of violence--force,
instead of the rule of law and reason; to perpetuate and spread slavery,
and, in time, to make it general. We see it at both ends of the line. In
Washington, on the very spot where the outrage was started, the fearless
Sumner is beaten to insensibility, and is now slowly dying; while
senators who claim to be gentlemen and Christians stood by,
countenancing the act, and even applauding it afterward in their places
in the Senate. Even Douglas, our man, saw it all and was within helping
distance, yet let the murderous blows fall unopposed. Then, at the other
end of the line, at the very time Sumner was being murdered, Lawrence
was being destroyed for the crime of Freedom. It was the most prominent
stronghold of liberty in Kansas, and must give way to the all-dominating
power of slavery. Only two days ago, Judge Trumbull found it necessary
to propose a bill in the Senate to prevent a general civil war and to
restore peace in Kansas.
We live in the midst of alarms; anxiety beclouds the future; we expect
some new disaster with each newspaper we read. Are we in a healthful
political state? Are not the tendencies plain? Do not the signs of the
times point plainly the way in which we are going? [Sensation.]
In the early days of the Constitution slavery was recognized, by South
and North alike, as an evil, and the division of sentiment about it was
not controlled by geographical lines or considerations of climate, but
by moral and philanthropic views. Petitions for the abolition of slavery
were presented to the very first Congress by Virginia and Massachusetts
alike. To show the harmony which prevailed, I will state that a fugitive
slave law was passed in 1793, with no dissenting voice in the Senate,
and but seven dissenting votes in the House. It was, however, a wise
law, moderate, and, under the Constitution, a just one. Twenty-five
years later, a more stringent law was proposed and defeated; and
thirty-five years after that, the present law, drafted by Mason of
Virginia, was passed by Northern votes. I am not, just now, complaining
of this law, but I am trying to show how the current sets; for the
proposed law of 1817 was far less offensive than the present one. In
1774 the Continental Congress pledged itself, without a dissenting vote,
to wholly discontinue the slave trade, and to neither purchase nor
import any slave: and less than three months before the passage of the
Declaration of Independence, the same Congress which adopted that
declaration unanimously resolved "that _no slave be imported into any of
the thirteen United Colonies_." [Great applause.]