as it was, secured. That was the second point gained. The indorsement,
however, fell short of a clear popular majority by nearly four hundred
thousand votes, and so, perhaps, was not overwhelmingly reliable and
satisfactory. The outgoing President, in his last annual message, as
impressively as possible echoed back upon the people the weight and
authority of the indorsement. The Supreme Court met again; did not
announce their decision, but ordered a reargument. The presidential
inauguration came, and still no decision of the Court; but the incoming
President in his inaugural address fervently exhorted the people to
abide by the forthcoming decision, whatever it might be. Then, in a few
days, came the decision.
The reputed author of the Nebraska bill finds an early occasion to make
a speech at this capitol, indorsing the Dred Scott decision, and
vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The new President, too,
seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter to indorse and strongly
construe that decision, and to express his astonishment that any
different view had ever been entertained!
At length a squabble springs up between the President and the author of
the Nebraska bill, on the mere question of _fact_ whether the Lecompton
constitution was, or was not, in any just sense, made by the people of
Kansas; and in that quarrel, the latter declares that all he wants is a
fair vote for the people, and that he cares not whether slavery be voted
_down_ or _voted up_. I do not understand his declaration that he cares
not whether slavery be voted down or voted up, to be intended by him
other than as an apt definition of the policy he would impress upon the
public mind,--the principle for which he declares he has suffered so
much, and is ready to suffer to the end. And well may he cling to that
principle. If he has any parental feeling, well may he cling to it. That
principle is the only shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine.
Under the Dred Scott decision, "squatter sovereignty" squatted out of
existence, tumbled down like temporary scaffolding; like the mould at
the foundry, it served through one blast, and fell back into loose
sand,--helped to carry an election, and then was kicked to the winds.
His late joint struggle with the Republicans against the Lecompton
constitution, involves nothing of the original Nebraska doctrine. That
struggle was made on a point--the right of the people to make their own
constitution--upon which he and the Republicans have never differed.
The several points of the Dred Scott decision in connection with Senator
Douglas's "care not" policy, constitute the piece of machinery in its
present state of advancement. This was the third point gained. The
working points of that machinery are:
_First._ That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no
descendant of such slave, can ever be a citizen of any State, in the
sense of that term as used in the Constitution of the United States.
This point is made in order to deprive the negro, in every possible
event, of the benefit of that provision of the United States
Constitution which declares that "citizens of each State shall be
entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several
States."
_Secondly._ That "subject to the Constitution of the United States,"
neither Congress nor a territorial legislature can exclude slavery from
any United States Territory. This point is made in order that individual
men may fill up the Territories with slaves, without danger of losing
them as property, and thus enhance the chances of permanency to the
institution through all the future.
_Thirdly._ That whether the holding a negro in actual slavery in a free
State makes him free as against the holder, the United States Courts
will not decide, but will leave to be decided by the courts of any slave
State the negro may be forced into by the master. This point is made,
not to be pressed immediately; but if acquiesced in for a while, and
apparently indorsed by the people at an election, then to sustain the
logical conclusion that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do with
Dred Scott in the free State of Illinois, every other master may
lawfully do, with any other one, or one thousand slaves in Illinois, or
in any other free State.
Auxiliary to all this, and working hand-in-hand with it, the Nebraska
doctrine, or what is left of it, is to educate and mould public opinion
not to care whether slavery is voted down or voted up. This shows
exactly where we now are, and partially, also, whither we are tending.
It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back, and run the
mind over the string of historical facts already stated. Several things
will now appear less dark and mysterious than they did when they were
transpiring. The people were to be left "perfectly free," "subject only
to the Constitution." What the Constitution had to do with it, outsiders
could not then see. Plainly enough now: it was an exactly fitted niche
for the Dred Scott decision to afterwards come in, and declare the
perfect freedom of the people to be just no freedom at all. Why was the
amendment expressly declaring the right of the people voted down?
Plainly enough now: the adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for
the Dred Scott decision. Why was the Court decision held up? Why even a
Senator's individual opinion withheld till after the presidential
election? Plainly enough now: the speaking out then would have damaged
the perfectly free argument upon which the election was to be carried.
Why the outgoing President's felicitation on the indorsement? Why the
delay of a reargument? Why the incoming President's advance exhortation
in favour of the decision? These things look like the cautious patting
and petting of a spirited horse, preparatory to mounting him, when it is
dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And why the hasty
after-indorsement of the decision by the President and others?
We cannot absolutely know that all these adaptations are the result of
preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions
of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places, and
by different workmen--Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance
(Douglas, Pierce, Taney, Buchanan),--and when we see those timbers
joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a
mill, all the tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths
and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their
respective places, and not a piece too many or too few, not omitting
even scaffolding--or if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in
the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in,--in
such a case, we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and
Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the
beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft, drawn up before
the first blow was struck.
It should not be overlooked that by the Nebraska bill the people of a
State as well as Territory were to be left "perfectly free," "subject
only to the Constitution." Why mention a State? They were legislating
for Territories, and not for or about States. Certainly the people of a
State are and ought to be subject to the Constitution of the United
States; but why is mention of this lugged into this merely territorial
law? Why are the people of a Territory and the people of a State therein
lumped together, and their relation to the Constitution therein treated
as being precisely the same? While the opinion of the Court by Chief
Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case, and the separate opinions of all
the concurring judges, expressly declare that the Constitution of the
United States neither permits Congress nor a territorial legislature to
exclude slavery from any United States Territory, they all omit to
declare whether or not the same Constitution permits a State or the
people of a State to exclude it. _Possibly_ this is a mere omission; but
who can be quite sure if McLean or Curtis had sought to get into the
opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the people of a State to
exclude slavery from their limits,--just as Chase and Mace sought to get
such declaration in behalf of the people of a Territory, into the
Nebraska Bill,--I ask, who can be quite sure that it would not have been
voted down in the one case as it had been in the other? The nearest
approach to the point of declaring the power of a State over slavery is
made by Judge Nelson. He approaches it more than once, using the precise
idea, and almost the language too, of the Nebraska act. On one occasion
his exact language is "except in cases where the power is restrained by
the Constitution of the United States, the law of the State is supreme
over the subject of slavery within its jurisdiction." In what cases the
power of the State is so restrained by the United States Constitution is
left an open question, precisely as the same question, as to the
restraint on the power of the Territories, was left open in the Nebraska
act. Put this and that together, and we have another nice little niche,
which we may, ere long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision,
declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not permit _a
State_ to exclude slavery from its limits. And this may especially be
expected if the doctrine of "care not whether slavery be voted down or
voted up" shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give promise
that such a decision can be maintained when made.
Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in
all the States. Welcome or unwelcome, such decision is probably coming,
and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present political
dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie down, pleasantly
dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their
State free, and we shall awake to the reality instead, that the Supreme
Court has made Illinois a slave State. To meet and overthrow the power
of that dynasty is the work now before all those who would prevent that
consummation. That is what we have to do. How can we best do it?
There are those who denounce us openly to their own friends, and yet
whisper to us softly that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there
is with which to effect that object. They wish us to _infer_ all from
the fact that he now has a little quarrel with the present head of that
dynasty, and that he has regularly voted with us on a single point, upon
which he and we have never differed. They remind us that he is a great
man and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted.
But "a living dog is better than a dead lion." Judge Douglas, if not a
dead lion, for this work is at least a caged and toothless one. How can
he oppose the advances of slavery? He don't care anything about it. His
avowed mission is impressing the "public heart" to _care nothing about
it_. A leading Douglas Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas's superior
talent will be needed to resist the revival of the African slave-trade.
Does Douglas believe an effort to revive that trade is approaching? He
has not said so. Does he really think so? But if it is, how can he
resist it? For years he has laboured to prove it a sacred right of white
men to take negro slaves into the new territories. Can he possibly show
that it is a less sacred right to buy them where they can be bought
cheapest? And unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than
in Virginia. He has done all in his power to reduce the whole question
of slavery to one of a mere right of property: and, as such, how can he
oppose the foreign slave-trade?--how can he refuse that trade in that
property shall be "perfectly free," unless he does it as a protection to
home production? And as the home producers will probably not ask the
protection, he will be wholly without a ground of opposition.
Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser
to-day than he was yesterday--that he may rightfully change when he
finds himself wrong. But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and infer
that he will make any particular change, of which he himself has given
no intimation? Can we safely base our action upon any such vague
inference?
Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge Douglas's position,
question his motives, or do aught that can be personally offensive to
him. Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on principle, so
that our cause may have assistance from his great ability, I hope to
have interposed no adventitious obstacle. But, clearly, he is not now
with us--he does not pretend to be--he does not promise ever to be.
Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own
undoubted friends--those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the
work, who do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the
nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under
the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external
circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile
elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the
battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and
pampered enemy. Did we brave all then to falter now?--now, when that
same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? The result is not
doubtful. We shall not fail. If we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise
counsels may accelerate or mistakes delay it; but sooner or later the
victory is sure to come.
_Lincoln's Reply to Judge Douglas at Chicago on Popular Sovereignty, the
Nebraska Bill, etc. July 10, 1858_
... Popular sovereignty! everlasting popular sovereignty! Let us for a
moment inquire into this vast matter of popular sovereignty. What is
popular sovereignty? We recollect that at an early period in the history
of this struggle, there was another name for the same thing,--_squatter
sovereignty_. It was not exactly popular sovereignty, but squatter
sovereignty. What do these terms mean? What do those terms mean when
used now? And vast credit is taken by our friend, the Judge, in regard
to his support of it, when he declares the last years of his life have
been, and all the future years of his life shall be, devoted to this
matter of popular sovereignty. What is it? Why, it is the sovereignty of
the people! What was squatter sovereignty? I suppose, if it had any
signification at all, it was the right of the people to govern
themselves, to be sovereign in their own affairs, while they were
squatted down in a country not their own,--while they had squatted on a
territory that did not belong to them, in the sense that a State belongs
to the people who inhabit it,--when it belonged to the nation; such
right to govern themselves was called "squatter sovereignty."
Now, I wish you to mark, What has become of that squatter sovereignty?
What has become of it? Can you get anybody to tell you now that the
people of a Territory have any authority to govern themselves, in regard
to this mooted question of slavery, before they form a State
constitution? No such thing at all, although there is a general running
fire, and although there has been a hurrah made in every speech on that
side, assuming that policy had given to the people of a Territory the
right to govern themselves upon this question; yet the point is dodged.
To-day it has been decided--no more than a year ago it was decided by
the Supreme Court of the United States, and is insisted upon
to-day--that the people of a Territory have no right to exclude slavery
from a Territory; that if any one man chooses to take slaves into a
Territory, all the rest of the people have no right to keep them out.
This being so, and this decision being made, one of the points that the
Judge approved, and one in the approval of which he says he means to
keep me down,--_put_ me down I should not say, for I have never been up!
He says he is in favour of it, and sticks to it, and expects to win his
battle on that decision, which says that there is no such thing as
squatter sovereignty, but that any one man may take slaves into a
Territory, and all the other men in the Territory may be opposed to it,
and yet by reason of the Constitution they cannot prohibit it. When that
is so, how much is left of this vast matter of squatter sovereignty, I
should like to know?
When we get back, we get to the point of the right of the people to make
a constitution. Kansas was settled, for example, in 1854. It was a
Territory yet, without having formed a constitution, in a very regular
way, for three years. All this time negro slavery could be taken in by
any few individuals, and by that decision of the Supreme Court, which
the Judge approves, all the rest of the people cannot keep it out; but
when they come to make a constitution they may say they will not have
slavery. But it is there; they are obliged to tolerate it in some way,
and all experience shows it will be so,--for they will not take the
negro slaves and absolutely deprive the owners of them. All experience
shows this to be so. All that space of time that runs from the beginning
of the settlement of the Territory until there is a sufficiency of
people to make a State constitution,--all that portion of time popular
sovereignty is given up. The seal is absolutely put down upon it by the
court decision, and Judge Douglas puts his own upon the top of that; yet
he is appealing to the people to give him vast credit for his devotion
to popular sovereignty.
Again, when we get to the question of the right of the people to form a
State constitution as they please, to form it with slavery or without
slavery,--if that is anything new I confess I don't know it. Has there
ever been a time when anybody said that any other than the people of a
Territory itself should form a constitution? What is now in it that
Judge Douglas should have fought several years of his life, and pledge
himself to fight all the remaining years of his life for? Can Judge
Douglas find anybody on earth that said that anybody else should form a
constitution for a people?... It is enough for my purpose to ask,
whenever a Republican said anything against it? They never said anything
against it, but they have constantly spoken for it; and whosoever will
undertake to examine the platform and the speeches of responsible men of
the party, and of irresponsible men, too, if you please, will be unable
to find one word from anybody in the Republican ranks opposed to that
popular sovereignty which Judge Douglas thinks he has invented. I
suppose that Judge Douglas will claim in a little while that he is the
inventor of the idea that the people should govern themselves; that
nobody ever thought of such a thing until he brought it forward. We do
not remember that in that old Declaration of Independence it is said
that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among
men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." There
is the origin of popular sovereignty. Who, then, shall come in at this
day and claim that he invented it? The Lecompton constitution connects
itself with this question, for it is in this matter of the Lecompton
constitution that our friend Judge Douglas claims such vast credit. I
agree that in opposing the Lecompton constitution, so far as I can
perceive, he was right. I do not deny that at all; and, gentlemen, you
will readily see why I could not deny it, even if I wanted to. But I do
not wish to, for all the Republicans in the nation opposed it, and they
would have opposed it just as much without Judge Douglas's aid as with
it. They had all taken ground against it long before he did. Why, the
reason that he urges against that constitution I urged against him a
year before. I have the printed speech in my hand. The argument that he
makes why that constitution should not be adopted, that the people were
not fairly represented nor allowed to vote, I pointed out in a speech a
year ago, which I hold in my hand now, that no fair chance was to be
given to the people.
... A little more now as to this matter of popular sovereignty and the
Lecompton constitution. The Lecompton constitution, as the Judge tells
us, was defeated. The defeat of it was a good thing, or it was not. He
thinks the defeat of it was a good thing, and so do I; and we agree in
that. Who defeated it? [A voice: "Judge Douglas."] Yes, he furnished
himself; and if you suppose he controlled the other Democrats that went
with him, he furnished three votes, while the Republicans furnished
twenty.
That is what he did to defeat it. In the House of Representatives he and
his friends furnished some twenty votes, and the Republicans furnished
ninety odd. Now, who was it that did the work? [A voice: "Douglas."]
Why, yes, Douglas did it? To be sure he did!
Let us, however, put that proposition another way. The Republicans could
not have done it without Judge Douglas. Could he have done it without
them? Which could have come the nearest to doing it without the other?
Ground was taken against it by the Republicans long before Douglas did
it. The proposition of opposition to that measure is about five to one.
[A voice: "Why don't they come out on it?"] You don't know what you are
talking about, my friend; I am quite willing to answer any gentleman in
the crowd who asks an intelligent question.
Now, who in all this country has ever found any of our friends of Judge
Douglas's way of thinking, and who have acted upon this main question,
that have ever thought of uttering a word in behalf of Judge Trumbull? I
defy you to show a printed resolution passed in a Democratic meeting. I
take it upon myself to defy any man to show a printed resolution, large
or small, of a Democratic meeting in favour of Judge Trumbull, or any of
the five to one Republicans who beat that bill. Everything must be for
the Democrats! They did everything, and the five to the one that really
did the thing, they snub over, and they do not seem to remember that
they have an existence upon the face of the earth.
Gentlemen, I fear that I shall become tedious. I leave this branch of
the subject to take hold of another. I take up that part of Judge
Douglas's speech in which he respectfully attended to me.
Judge Douglas made two points upon my recent speech at Springfield. He
says they are to be the issues of this campaign. The first one of these
points he bases upon the language in a speech which I delivered at
Springfield, which I believe I can quote correctly from memory. I said
that "we are now far into the fifth year since a policy was instituted
for the avowed object and with the 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. I believe 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 am quoting from my speech,--"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 until it shall become
alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new; North as well as
South."