and has weathered many a hard blow, and "the stars in their courses,"
aye, an invisible power, greater than the puny efforts of men, will
fight for us. But we ourselves must not decline the burden of
responsibility, nor take counsel of unworthy passions. Whatever duty
urges us to do or to omit, must be done or omitted; and the recklessness
with which our adversaries break the laws, or counsel their violation,
should afford no example for us. Therefore, let us revere the
Declaration of Independence; let us continue to obey the Constitution
and the laws; let us keep step to the music of the Union. Let us draw a
cordon, so to speak, around the slave States, and the hateful
institution, like a reptile poisoning itself, will perish by its own
infamy. [Applause.]
But we cannot be free men if this is, by our national choice, to be a
land of slavery. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for
themselves; and, under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.
[Loud applause.]
Did you ever, my friends, seriously reflect upon the speed with which we
are tending downward? Within the memory of men now present the leading
statesmen of Virginia could make genuine, red-hot abolitionist speeches
in old Virginia; and, as I have said, now even in "free Kansas" it is a
crime to declare that it is "free Kansas." The very sentiments that I
and others have just uttered would entitle us, and each of us, to the
ignominy and seclusion of a dungeon; and yet I suppose that, like Paul,
we were "free born." But if this thing is allowed to continue, it will
be but one step further to impress the same rule in Illinois.
[Sensation.]
The conclusion of all is, that we must restore the Missouri Compromise.
We must highly resolve that _Kansas must be free_! [Great applause.] We
must reinstate the birthday promise of the Republic; we must reaffirm
the Declaration of Independence; we must make good in essence as well as
in form Madison's vowal that "the word _slave_ ought not to appear in
the Constitution;" and we must even go further, and decree that only
local law, and not that time-honoured instrument, shall shelter a
slave-holder. We must make this a land of liberty in fact, as it is in
name. But in seeking to attain these results--so indispensable if the
liberty which is our pride and boast shall endure--we will be loyal to
the Constitution and to the "flag of our Union," and no matter what our
grievance--even though Kansas shall come in as a slave State; and no
matter what theirs--even if we shall restore the Compromise--WE WILL SAY
TO THE SOUTHERN DISUNIONISTS, WE WON'T GO OUT OF THE UNION, AND YOU
SHAN'T!!! [This was the climax; the audience rose to its feet _en
masse_, applauded, stamped, waved handkerchiefs, threw hats in the air,
and ran riot for several minutes. The arch-enchanter who wrought this
transformation looked, meanwhile, like the personification of political
justice.]
But let us, meanwhile, appeal to the sense and patriotism of the people,
and not to their prejudices; let us spread the floods of enthusiasm here
aroused all over these vast prairies, so suggestive of freedom. Let us
commence by electing the gallant soldier Governor (Colonel) Bissell who
stood for the honour of our State alike on the plains and amidst the
chaparral of Mexico and on the floor of Congress, while he defied the
Southern Hotspur; and that will have a greater moral effect than all the
border ruffians can accomplish in all their raids on Kansas. There is
both a power and a magic in popular opinion. To that let us now appeal;
and while, in all probability, no resort to force will be needed, our
moderation and forbearance will stand us in good stead when, if ever, WE
MUST MAKE AN APPEAL TO BATTLE AND TO THE GOD OF HOSTS!! [Immense
applause and a rush for the orator.]
This speech has been called Lincoln's "Lost Speech," because all the
reporters present were so carried away by his eloquence that they one
and all forgot to take any notes. If it had not been for a young lawyer,
a Mr. H.C. Whitney, who kept his head sufficiently to take notes, we
would have no record of it. Mr. Whitney wrote out the speech for
McClure's Magazine in 1896. It was submitted to several people who were
present at the Bloomington Convention, and they said it was remarkably
accurate considering that it was not taken down stenographically.
_From his Speech on the Dred Scott Decision. Springfield, Illinois. June
26, 1857_
... And now as to the Dred Scott decision. That decision declares two
propositions,--first, that a negro cannot sue in the United States
courts; and secondly, that Congress cannot prohibit slavery in the
Territories. It was made by a divided court,--dividing differently on
the different points. Judge Douglas does not discuss the merits of the
decision, and in that respect I shall follow his example, believing I
could no more improve on McLean and Curtis than he could on Taney.
He denounces all who question the correctness of that decision, as
offering violent resistance to it. But who resists it? Who has, in spite
of the decision, declared Dred Scott free, and resisted the authority of
his master over him?
Judicial decisions have two uses: first, to absolutely determine the
case decided; and secondly, to indicate to the public how other similar
cases will be decided when they arise. For the latter use, they are
called "precedents" and "authorities."
We believe as much as Judge Douglas (perhaps more) in obedience to and
respect for the judicial department of government. We think its
decisions on constitutional questions, when fully settled, should
control not only the particular cases decided, but the general policy of
the country, subject to be disturbed only by amendments of the
Constitution, as provided in that instrument itself. More than this
would be revolution. But we think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous.
We know the court that made it has often overruled its own decisions,
and we shall do what we can to have it overrule this. We offer no
resistance to it.
Judicial decisions are of greater or less authority as precedents
according to circumstances. That this should be so, accords both with
common-sense and the customary understanding of the legal profession.
If this important decision had been made by the unanimous concurrence of
the judges, and without any apparent partisan bias, and in accordance
with legal public expectation, and with the steady practice of the
departments throughout our history, and had been in no part based on
assumed historical facts, which are not really true; or if wanting in
some of these, it had been before the court more than once, and had
there been affirmed and reaffirmed through a course of years,--it then
might be, perhaps would be factious, nay, even revolutionary, not to
acquiesce in it as a precedent.
But when, as is true, we find it wanting in all these claims to the
public confidence, it is not resistance, it is not factious, it is not
even disrespectful to treat it as not having yet quite established a
settled doctrine for the country.
I have said in substance, that the Dred Scott decision was in part based
on assumed historical facts which were not really true, and I ought not
to leave the subject without giving some reasons for saying this, I
therefore give an instance or two, which I think fully sustain me. Chief
Justice Taney, in delivering the opinion of the majority of the court,
insists at great length that negroes were no part of the people who
made, or for whom was made, the Declaration of Independence, or the
Constitution of the United States.
On the contrary, Judge Curtis, in his dissenting opinion, shows that in
five of the then thirteen States--to wit, New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina--free negroes were voters, and
in proportion to their numbers had the same part in making the
Constitution that the white people had. He shows this with so much
particularity as to leave no doubt of its truth; and as a sort of
conclusion on that point, holds the following language:
"The Constitution was ordained and established by the people of the
United States, through the action, in each State, of those persons
who were qualified by its laws to act thereon in behalf of
themselves and all other citizens of the State. In some of the
States, as we have seen, coloured persons were among those
qualified by law to act on the subject. These coloured persons were
not only included in the body of 'the people of the United States'
by whom the Constitution was ordained and established; but in at
least five of the States they had the power to act, and doubtless
did act, by their suffrages, upon the question of its adoption."
Again, Chief Justice Taney says:
"It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public
opinion, in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in
the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of
the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the
United States was framed and adopted."
And again, after quoting from the Declaration, he says:
"The general words above quoted would seem to include the whole
human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this
day, would be so understood."
In these the Chief Justice does not directly assert, but plainly assumes
as a fact, that the public estimate of the black man is more favourable
now than it was in the days of the Revolution. This assumption is a
mistake. In some trifling particulars the condition of that race has
been ameliorated; but as a whole, in this country, the change between
then and now is decidedly the other way; and their ultimate destiny has
never appeared so hopeless as in the last three or four years. In two
of the five States--New Jersey and North Carolina--that then gave the
free negro the right of voting, the right has since been taken away; and
in a third--New York--it has been greatly abridged: while it has not
been extended, so far as I know, to a single additional State, though
the number of the States has more than doubled. In those days, as I
understand, masters could, at their own pleasure, emancipate their
slaves; but since then such legal restraints have been made upon
emancipation as to amount almost to prohibition. In those days
legislatures held the unquestioned power to abolish slavery in their
respective States; but now it is becoming quite fashionable for State
constitutions to withhold that power from the legislatures. In those
days, by common consent, the spread of the black man's bondage to the
new countries was prohibited; but now Congress decides that it will not
continue the prohibition, and the Supreme Court decides that it could
not if it would. In those days our Declaration of Independence was held
sacred by all, and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the
bondage of the negro universal and eternal, it is assailed and sneered
at, and construed, and hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could
rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it. All the
powers of earth seem rapidly combining against him. Mammon is after him;
ambition follows, philosophy follows, and the theology of the day is
fast joining in the cry. They have him in his prison-house; they have
searched his person, and left no prying instrument with him. One after
another they have closed the heavy iron doors upon him; and now they
have him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of a hundred keys, which can
never be unlocked without the concurrence of every key; the keys in the
hands of a hundred different men, and they scattered to a hundred
different and distant places; and they stand musing as to what
invention, in all the dominions of mind and matter, can be produced to
make the impossibility of escape more complete than it is. It is
grossly incorrect to say or assume that the public estimate of the negro
is more favourable now than it was at the origin of the government.
... There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people
at the idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black
races; and Judge Douglas evidently is basing his chief hope upon the
chances of his being able to appropriate the benefit of this disgust to
himself. If he can, by much drumming and repeating, fasten the odium of
that idea upon his adversaries, he thinks he can struggle through the
storm. He therefore clings to this hope as a drowning man to the last
plank. He makes an occasion for lugging it in from the opposition to the
Dred Scott decision. He finds the Republicans insisting that the
Declaration of Independence includes _all_ men, black as well as white;
and forthwith he boldly denies that it includes negroes at all, and
proceeds to argue gravely that all who contend it does, do so only
because they want to vote, and eat, and sleep, and marry with negroes!
He will have it that they cannot be consistent else. Now I protest
against the counterfeit logic which concludes that because I do not want
a black woman for a slave, I must necessarily want her for a wife. I
need not have her for either. I can just leave her alone. In some
respects she certainly is not my equal; but in her natural right to eat
the bread she earns with her own hands without asking leave of any one
else, she is my equal, and the equal of all others.
Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the Dred Scott case, admits that
the language of the Declaration is broad enough to include the whole
human family; but he and Judge Douglas argue that the authors of that
instrument did not intend to include negroes, by the fact that they did
not at once actually place them on an equality with the whites. Now this
grave argument comes to just nothing at all, by the other fact that they
did not at once, nor ever afterward, actually place all white people on
an equality with one another. And this is the staple argument of both
the Chief Justice and the senator, for doing this obvious violence to
the plain, unmistakable language of the Declaration.
I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include _all_
men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal _in all respects_.
They did not mean to say that all were equal in colour, size, intellect,
moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable
distinctness in what respects they did consider all men created
equal,--equal with "certain inalienable rights, among which are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This they said, and this they
meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were
then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet that they were about to
confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer
such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the
enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit.
They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be
familiar to all and revered by all,--constantly looked to, constantly
laboured for, and, even though never perfectly attained, constantly
approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its
influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people
of all colours everywhere. The assertion that "all men are created
equal," was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great
Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration, not for that, but for
future use. Its authors meant it to be as, thank God, it is now proving
itself, a stumbling-block to all those who in after times might seek to
turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew
the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant, when such
should reappear in this fair land and commence their vocation, that they
should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack.
I have now briefly expressed my view of the meaning and object of that
part of the Declaration of Independence which declares that all men are
created equal. Now let us hear Judge Douglas's view of the same
subject, as I find it in the printed report of his late speech. Here it
is:
"No man can vindicate the character, motives and conduct of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence except upon the
hypothesis that they referred to the white race alone, and not to
the African, when they declared all men to have been created equal;
that they were speaking of British subjects on this continent being
equal to British subjects born and residing in Great Britain; that
they were entitled to the same inalienable rights, and among them
were enumerated life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The
Declaration was adopted for the purpose of justifying the colonists
in the eyes of the civilized world in withdrawing their allegiance
from the British crown, and dissolving their connection with the
mother-country."
My good friends, read that carefully over some leisure hour, and ponder
well upon it; see what a mere wreck and mangled ruin Judge Douglas makes
of our once glorious Declaration. He says "they were speaking of British
subjects on this continent being equal to British subjects born and
residing in Great Britain!" Why, according to this, not only negroes but
white people outside of Great Britain and America were not spoken of in
that instrument. The English, Irish, and Scotch, along with white
Americans, were included, to be sure; but the French, Germans, and other
white people of the world are all gone to pot along with the Judge's
inferior races!
I had thought that the Declaration promised something better than the
condition of British subjects; but no, it only meant that we should be
equal to them in their own oppressed and unequal condition. According to
that, it gave no promise that, having kicked off the king and lords of
Great Britain, we should not at once be saddled with a king and lords of
our own.
I had thought the Declaration contemplated the progressive improvement
in the condition of all men, everywhere; but no, it merely "was adopted
for the purpose of justifying the colonists in the eyes of the
civilized world in withdrawing their allegiance from the British crown,
and dissolving their connection with the mother-country." Why, that
object having been effected some eighty years ago, the Declaration is of
no practical use now--mere rubbish--old wadding, left to rot on the
battle-field after the victory is won.
I understand you are preparing to celebrate the "Fourth," to-morrow
week. What for? The doings of that day had no reference to the present;
and quite half of you are not even descendants of those who were
referred to at that day. But I suppose you will celebrate, and will even
go so far as to read the Declaration. Suppose, after you read it once in
the old-fashioned way, you read it once more with Judge Douglas's
version. It will then run thus: "We told these truths to be
self-evident, that all British subjects who were on this continent
eighty-one years ago, were created equal to all British subjects born
and then residing in Great Britain!"
... The very Dred Scott case affords a strong test as to which party
most favours amalgamation, the Republicans or the dear Union-saving
Democracy. Dred Scott, his wife and two daughters, were all involved in
the suit. We desired the court to have held that they were citizens, so
far at least as to entitle them to a hearing as to whether they were
free or not; and then also, that they were in fact and in law really
free. Could we have had our way, the chances of these black girls ever
mixing their blood with that of white people would have been diminished
at least to the extent that it could not have been without their
consent. But Judge Douglas is delighted to have them decided to be
slaves, and not human enough to have a hearing, even if they were free,
and thus left subject to the forced concubinage of their masters, and
liable to become the mothers of mulattoes in spite of themselves,--the
very state of the case that produces nine-tenths of all the mulattoes,
all the mixing of the blood of the nation.
_"A house divided against itself cannot stand." On Lincoln's Nomination
to the United States Senate. Springfield, Illinois. June 17, 1858_
If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we
could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the
fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and
confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the
operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but
has constantly augmented. In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis
shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself
cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half
slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved,--I do
not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be
divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the
opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it
where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course
of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it
shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North
as well as South.
Have we no tendency to the latter condition? Let any one who doubts,
carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination--piece
of machinery, so to speak--compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the
Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not only what work the machinery
is adapted to do, and how well adapted; but also let him study the
history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he
can, to trace the evidences of design and concert of action among its
chief architects from the beginning.
The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more than half the
States by State constitutions, and from most of the national territory
by congressional prohibition. Four days later commenced the struggle
which ended in repealing that congressional prohibition. This opened all
the national territory to slavery, and was the first point gained.
But so far, Congress only had acted; and an indorsement by the people,
real or apparent, was indispensable to save the point already gained and
give chance for more.
This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been provided for, as
well as might be, in the notable argument of _Squatter Sovereignty_,
otherwise called _sacred right of self-government_, which latter phrase,
though expressive of the only rightful basis of any government, was so
perverted in this attempted use of it, as to amount to just this: That
if any one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed
to object. That argument was incorporated into the Nebraska bill itself,
in the language which follows: "It being the true intent and meaning of
this act, not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to
exclude it therefrom; but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to
form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject
only to the Constitution of the United States." Then opened the roar of
loose declamation in favour of _Squatter Sovereignty_ and _sacred right
of self-government_. "But," said opposition members, "let us amend the
bill so as to expressly declare that the people of the Territory may
exclude slavery." "Not we," said the friends of the measure, and down
they voted the amendment.
While the Nebraska bill was passing through Congress, a _law case_,
involving the question of a negro's freedom, by reason of his owner
having voluntarily taken him first into a free State and then into a
Territory covered by the congressional prohibition, and held him as a
slave for a long time in each, was passing through the United States
Circuit Court for the District of Missouri; and both Nebraska bill and
law-suit were brought to a decision, in the same month of May, 1854. The
negro's name was "Dred Scott," which name now designates the decision
finally rendered in the case. Before the then next presidential
election, the law case came to, and was argued, in the Supreme Court of
the United States; but the decision of it was deferred until after the
election. Still, before the election, Senator Trumbull, on the floor of
the Senate, requested the leading advocate of the Nebraska bill to state
_his opinion_ whether the people of a Territory can constitutionally
exclude slavery from their limits, and the latter answers: "That is a
question for the Supreme Court."