Constitution of the United States guarantees property in slaves in the
Territories, if there is any infringement of the right of that property,
would not the United States courts, organized for the government of the
Territory, apply such remedy as might be necessary in that case? It is a
maxim held by the courts that there is no wrong without its remedy; and
the courts have a remedy for whatever is acknowledged and treated as a
wrong.
Again: I will ask you, my friends, if you were elected members of the
legislature, what would be the first thing you would have to do before
entering upon your duties? Swear to support the Constitution of the
United States. Suppose you believe as Judge Douglas does, that the
Constitution of the United States guarantees to your neighbour the right
to hold slaves in that Territory,--that they are his property,--how can
you clear your oaths unless you give him such legislation as is
necessary to enable him to enjoy that property? What do you understand
by supporting the Constitution of a State or of the United States? Is it
not to give such constitutional helps to the rights established by that
Constitution as may be practically needed? Can you, if you swear to
support the Constitution and believe that the Constitution establishes a
right, clear your oath without giving it support? Do you support the
Constitution if, knowing or believing there is a right established under
it which needs specific legislation, you withhold that legislation? Do
you not violate and disregard your oath? I can conceive of nothing
plainer in the world. There can be nothing in the words "support the
Constitution," if you may run counter to it by refusing support to any
right established under the Constitution. And what I say here will hold
with still more force against the Judge's doctrine of "unfriendly
legislation." How could you, having sworn to support the Constitution,
and believing that it guaranteed the right to hold slaves in the
Territories, assist in legislation intended to defeat that right? That
would be violating your own view of the Constitution. Not only so, but
if you were to do so, how long would it take the courts to hold your
votes unconstitutional and void? Not a moment.
Lastly, I would ask, is not Congress itself under obligation to give
legislative support to any right that is established under the United
States Constitution? I repeat the question, is not Congress itself bound
to give legislative support to any right that is established in the
United States Constitution? A member of Congress swears to support the
Constitution of the United States, and if he sees a right established by
that Constitution which needs specific legislative protection, can he
clear his oath without giving that protection? Let me ask you why many
of us, who are opposed to slavery upon principle, give our acquiescence
to a fugitive-slave law? Why do we hold ourselves under obligations to
pass such a law, and abide by it when passed? Because the Constitution
makes provision that the owners of slaves shall have the right to
reclaim them. It gives the right to reclaim slaves; and that right is,
as Judge Douglas says, a barren right, unless there is legislation that
will enforce it.
The mere declaration, "No person held to service or labour in one State,
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of
any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or
labour, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such
service or labour may be due," is powerless without specific legislation
to enforce it. Now, on what ground would a member of Congress who is
opposed to slavery in the abstract, vote for a fugitive law, as I would
deem it my duty to do? Because there is a constitutional right which
needs legislation to enforce it. And, although it is distasteful to me,
I have sworn to support the Constitution; and, having so sworn, I
cannot conceive that I do support it if I withhold from that right any
necessary legislation to make it practical. And if that is true in
regard to a fugitive-slave law, is the right to have fugitive slaves
reclaimed any better fixed in the Constitution than the right to hold
slaves in the Territories? For this decision is a just exposition of the
Constitution, as Judge Douglas thinks. Is the one right any better than
the other? If I wished to refuse to give legislative support to slave
property in the Territories, if a member of Congress, I could not do it,
holding the view that the Constitution establishes that right. If I did
it at all, it would be because I deny that this decision properly
construes the Constitution. But if I acknowledge with Judge Douglas that
this decision properly construes the Constitution, I cannot conceive
that I would be less than a perjured man if I should refuse in Congress
to give such protection to that property as in its nature it needed....
_From Lincoln's Reply to Judge Douglas at Charleston, Illinois.
September 18, 1858_
Judge Douglas has said to you that he has not been able to get from me
an answer to the question whether I am in favour of negro citizenship.
So far as I know, the Judge never asked me the question before. He shall
have no occasion ever to ask it again, for I tell him very frankly that
I am not in favour of negro citizenship.... Now my opinion is, that the
different States have the power to make a negro a citizen under the
Constitution of the United States, if they choose. The Dred Scott
decision decides that they have not that power. If the State of Illinois
had that power, I should be opposed to the exercise of it. That is all I
have to say about it.
Judge Douglas has told me that he heard my speeches north and my
speeches south, ... and there was a very different cast of sentiment in
the speeches made at the different points. I will not charge upon Judge
Douglas that he wilfully misrepresents me, but I call upon every
fair-minded man to take these speeches and read them, and I dare him to
point out any difference between my speeches north and south. While I am
here, perhaps I ought to say a word, if I have the time, in regard to
the latter portion of the Judge's speech, which was a sort of
declamation in reference to my having said that I entertained the belief
that this government would not endure, half slave and half free. I have
said so, and I did not say it without what seemed to me good reasons. It
perhaps would require more time than I have now to set forth those
reasons in detail; but let me ask you a few questions. Have we ever had
any peace on this slavery question? When are we to have peace upon it if
it is kept in the position it now occupies? How are we ever to have
peace upon it? That is an important question. To be sure, if we will all
stop and allow Judge Douglas and his friends to march on in their
present career until they plant the institution all over the nation,
here and wherever else our flag waves, and we acquiesce in it, there
will be peace. But let me ask Judge Douglas how he is going to get the
people to do that? They have been wrangling over this question for forty
years. This was the cause of the agitation resulting in the Missouri
Compromise; this produced the troubles at the annexation of Texas, in
the acquisition of the territory acquired in the Mexican War. Again,
this was the trouble quieted by the Compromise of 1850, when it was
settled "for ever," as both the great political parties declared in
their national conventions. That "for ever" turned out to be just four
years, when Judge Douglas himself reopened it.
When is it likely to come to an end? He introduced the Nebraska bill in
1854, to put another end to the slavery agitation. He promised that it
would finish it all up immediately, and he has never made a speech
since, until he got into a quarrel with the President about the
Lecompton constitution, in which he has not declared that we are just at
the end of the slavery agitation. But in one speech, I think last
winter, he did say that he didn't quite see when the end of the slavery
agitation would come. Now he tells us again that it is all over, and the
people of Kansas have voted down the Lecompton constitution. How is it
over? That was only one of the attempts to put an end to the slavery
agitation,--one of these "final settlements." Is Kansas in the Union?
Has she formed a constitution that she is likely to come in under? Is
not the slavery agitation still an open question in that Territory?...
If Kansas should sink to-day, and leave a great vacant space in the
earth's surface, this vexed question would still be among us. I say,
then, there is no way of putting an end to the slavery agitation amongst
us, but to put it back upon the basis where our fathers placed it; no
way but to keep it out of our new Territories,--to restrict it for ever
to the old States where it now exists. Then the public mind will rest in
the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction. That is one
way of putting an end to the slavery agitation.
The other way is for us to surrender, and let Judge Douglas and his
friends have their way, and plant slavery over all the States,--cease
speaking of it as in any way a wrong--regard slavery as one of the
common matters of property, and speak of our negroes as we do of our
horse and cattle.
_From Lincoln's Reply to Judge Douglas at Galesburg, Illinois. October
7, 1858_
... The Judge has alluded to the Declaration of Independence, and
insisted that negroes are not included in that Declaration; and that it
is a slander on the framers of that instrument to suppose that negroes
were meant therein; and he asks you, Is it possible to believe that Mr.
Jefferson, who penned that immortal paper, could have supposed himself
applying the language of that instrument to the negro race, and yet held
a portion of that race in slavery? Would he not at once have freed
them? I only have to remark upon this part of his speech (and that too,
very briefly, for I shall not detain myself or you upon that point for
any great length of time), that I believe the entire records of the
world, from the date of the Declaration of Independence up to within
three years ago, may be searched in vain for one single affirmation from
one single man, that the negro was not included in the Declaration of
Independence; I think I may defy Judge Douglas to show that he ever said
so, that Washington ever said so, that any President ever said so, that
any member of Congress ever said so, or that any living man upon the
whole earth ever said so, until the necessities of the present policy of
the Democratic party in regard to slavery had to invent that
affirmation. And I will remind Judge Douglas and this audience, that
while Mr. Jefferson was the owner of slaves, as undoubtedly he was, in
speaking on this very subject, he used the strong language that "he
trembled for his country when he remembered that God was just;" and I
will offer the highest premium in my power to Judge Douglas if he will
show that he, in all his life, ever uttered a sentiment at all akin to
that of Jefferson.
... I want to call to the Judge's attention an attack he made upon me in
the first one of these debates.... In order to fix extreme Abolitionism
upon me, Judge Douglas read a set of resolutions which he declared had
been passed by a Republican State Convention, in October 1854, held at
Springfield, Illinois, and he declared that I had taken a part in that
convention. It turned out that although a few men calling themselves an
anti-Nebraska State Convention had sat at Springfield about that time,
yet neither did I take any part in it, nor did it pass the resolutions
or any such resolutions as Judge Douglas read. So apparent had it become
that the resolutions that he read had not been passed at Springfield at
all, nor by any State Convention in which I had taken part, that seven
days later at Freeport ... Judge Douglas declared that he had been
misled ... and promised ... that when he went to Springfield he would
investigate the matter.... I have waited as I think a sufficient time
for the report of that investigation.
... A fraud, an absolute forgery, was committed, and the perpetration of
it was traced to the three,--Lanphier, Harris, and Douglas.... Whether
it can be narrowed in any way, so as to exonerate any one of them, is
what Judge Douglas's report would probably show. The main object of that
forgery at that time was to beat Yates and elect Harris to Congress, and
that object was known to be exceedingly dear to Judge Douglas at that
time.
... The fraud having been apparently successful upon that occasion, both
Harris and Douglas have more than once since then been attempting to put
it to new uses. As the fisherman's wife, whose drowned husband was
brought home with his body full of eels, said, when she was asked what
was to be done with him, 'Take out the eels and set him again,' so
Harris and Douglas have shown a disposition to take the eels out of that
stale fraud by which they gained Harris's election, and set the fraud
again, more than once.... And now that it has been discovered publicly
to be a fraud, we find that Judge Douglas manifests no surprise at
all.... But meanwhile the three are agreed that each is a most
honourable man.
_Notes for Speeches. October 1858_
Suppose it is true that the negro is inferior to the white in the gifts
of nature; is it not the exact reverse of justice that the white should
for that reason take from the negro any part of the little which he has
had given him? "Give to him that is needy" is the Christian rule of
charity; but "Take from him that is needy" is the rule of slavery.
The sum of pro-slavery theology seems to be this: "Slavery is not
universally right, nor yet universally wrong; it is better for some
people to be slaves; and, in such cases, it is the will of God that they
be such."
Certainly there is no contending against the will of God; but still
there is some difficulty in ascertaining and applying it to particular
cases. For instance, we will suppose the Rev. Dr. Ross has a slave named
Sambo, and the question is, "Is it the will of God that Sambo shall
remain a slave, or be set free?" The Almighty gives no audible answer to
the question, and his revelation, the Bible, gives none--or at most none
but such as admits of a squabble as to its meaning; no one thinks of
asking Sambo's opinion on it. So at last it comes to this, that Dr. Ross
is to decide the question; and while he considers it, he sits in the
shade, with gloves on his hands, and subsists on the bread that Sambo is
earning in the burning sun. If he decides that God wills Sambo to
continue a slave, he thereby retains his own comfortable position; but
if he decides that God wills Sambo to be free, he thereby has to walk
out of the shade, throw off his gloves, and delve for his own bread.
Will Dr. Ross be actuated by the perfect impartiality which has ever
been considered most favourable to correct decisions?
We have in this nation the element of domestic slavery. It is a matter
of absolute certainty that it is a disturbing element. It is the opinion
of all the great men who have expressed an opinion upon it, that it is a
dangerous element. We keep up a controversy in regard to it. That
controversy necessarily springs from difference of opinion, and if we
can learn exactly--can reduce to the lowest elements--what that
difference of opinion is, we perhaps shall be better prepared for
discussing the different systems of policy that we would propose in
regard to that disturbing element.
I suggest that the difference of opinion, reduced to its lowest terms,
is no other than the difference between the men who think slavery a
wrong and those who do not think it wrong. The Republican party think it
wrong--we think it is a moral, a social, and a political wrong. We think
it is a wrong not confining itself merely to the persons or the States
where it exists, but that it is a wrong which in its tendency, to say
the least, affects the existence of the whole nation. Because we think
it wrong, we propose a course of policy that shall deal with it as a
wrong.
We deal with it as with any other wrong, in so far as we can prevent its
growing any larger, and so deal with it that in the run of time there
may be some promise of an end to it We have a due regard to the actual
presence of it amongst us, and the difficulties of getting rid of it in
any satisfactory way, and all the constitutional obligations thrown
about it. I suppose that in reference both to its actual existence in
the nation, and to our constitutional obligations, we have no right at
all to disturb it in the States where it exists, and we profess that we
have no more inclination to disturb it than we have the right to do it.
We go further than that: we don't propose to disturb it where, in one
instance, we think the Constitution would permit us. We think the
Constitution would permit us to disturb it in the District of Columbia.
Still we do not propose to do that, unless it should be in terms which I
don't suppose the nation is very likely soon to agree to--the terms of
making the emancipation gradual and compensating the unwilling owners.
Where we suppose we have the constitutional right, we restrain ourselves
in reference to the actual existence of the institution and the
difficulties thrown about it. We also oppose it as an evil so far as it
seeks to spread itself. We insist on the policy that shall restrict it
to its present limits. We don't suppose that in doing this we violate
anything due to the actual presence of the institution, or anything due
to the constitutional guaranties thrown around it.
We oppose the Dred Scott decision in a certain way, upon which I ought
perhaps to address you in a few words. We do not propose that when Dred
Scott has been decided to be a slave by the court, we, as a mob, will
decide him to be free. We do not propose that, when any other one, or
one thousand, shall be decided by that court to be slaves, we will in
any violent way disturb the rights of property thus settled; but we
nevertheless do oppose that decision as a political rule, which shall be
binding on the voter to vote for nobody who thinks it wrong, which shall
be binding on the members of Congress or the President to favour no
measure that does not actually concur with the principles of that
decision. We do not propose to be bound by it as a political rule in
that way, because we think it lays the foundation not merely of
enlarging and spreading out what we consider an evil, but it lays the
foundation for spreading that evil into the States themselves. We
propose so resisting it as to have it reversed if we can, and a new
judicial rule established upon this subject.
I will add this, that if there be any man who does not believe that
slavery is wrong in the three aspects which I have mentioned, or in any
one of them, that man is misplaced and ought to leave us. While, on the
other hand, if there be any man in the Republican party who is impatient
over the necessity springing from its actual presence, and is impatient
of the constitutional guaranties thrown around it, and would act in
disregard of these, he too is misplaced, standing with us. He will find
his place somewhere else; for we have a due regard, so far as we are
capable of understanding them, for all these things. This, gentlemen, as
well as I can give it, is a plain statement of our principles in all
their enormity.
I will say now that there is a sentiment in the country contrary to
me--a sentiment which holds that slavery is not wrong, and therefore
goes for the policy that does not propose dealing with it as a wrong.
That policy is the Democratic policy, and that sentiment is the
Democratic sentiment. If there be a doubt in the mind of any one of this
vast audience that this is really the central idea of the Democratic
party, in relation to this subject, I ask him to bear with me while I
state a few things tending, as I think, to prove that proposition.
In the first place, the leading man,--I think I may do my friend Judge
Douglas the honour of calling him such,--advocating the present
Democratic policy, never himself says it is wrong. He has the high
distinction, so far as I know, of never having said slavery is either
right or wrong. Almost everybody else says one or the other, but the
Judge never does. If there be a man in the Democratic party who thinks
it is wrong, and yet clings to that party, I suggest to him in the first
place that his leader don't talk as he does, for he never says that it
is wrong.
In the second place, I suggest to him that if he will examine the policy
proposed to be carried forward, he will find that he carefully excludes
the idea that there is anything wrong in it. If you will examine the
arguments that are made on it, you will find that every one carefully
excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in slavery.
Perhaps that Democrat who says he is as much opposed to slavery as I am
will tell me that I am wrong about this. I wish him to examine his own
course in regard to this matter a moment, and then see if his opinion
will not be changed a little. You say it is wrong; but don't you
constantly object to anybody else saying so? Do you not constantly argue
that this is not the right place to oppose it? You say it must not be
opposed in the free States, because slavery is not there; it must not be
opposed in the slave States, because it is there; it must not be opposed
in politics, because that will make a fuss; it must not be opposed in
the pulpit, because it is not religion. Then where is the place to
oppose it? There is no suitable place to oppose it. There is no plan in
the country to oppose this evil overspreading the continent, which you
say yourself is coming. Frank Blair and Gratz Brown tried to get up a
system of gradual emancipation in Missouri, had an election in August,
and got beat; and you, Mr. Democrat, threw up your hat and hallooed,
"Hurrah for Democracy!"
So I say again, that in regard to the arguments that are made, when
Judge Douglas says he "don't care whether slavery is voted up or voted
down," whether he means that as an individual expression of sentiment,
or only as a sort of statement of his views on national policy, it is
alike true to say that he can thus argue logically if he don't see
anything wrong in it; but he cannot say so logically if he admits that
slavery is wrong. He cannot say that he would as soon see a wrong voted
up as voted down. When Judge Douglas says that whoever or whatever
community wants slaves, they have a right to have them, he is perfectly
logical if there is nothing wrong in the institution; but if you admit
that it is wrong, he cannot logically say that anybody has a right to do
wrong. When he says that slave property and horse and hog property are
alike to be allowed to go into the Territories, upon the principles of
equality, he is reasoning truly if there is no difference between them
as property; but if the one is property, held rightfully, and the other
is wrong, then there is no equality between the right and wrong; so
that, turn it in any way you can, in all the arguments sustaining the
Democratic policy, and in that policy itself, there is a careful,
studied exclusion of the idea that there is anything wrong in slavery.
Let us understand this. I am not, just here, trying to prove that we are
right and they are wrong. I have been stating where we and they stand,
and trying to show what is the real difference between us; and I now say
that whenever we can get the question distinctly stated,--can get all
these men who believe that slavery is in some of these respects wrong,
to stand and act with us in treating it as a wrong,--then, and not till
then, I think, will we in some way come to an end of this slavery
agitation.
_Mr. Lincoln's Reply to Judge Douglas in the Seventh and Last Debate.
Alton, Illinois. October 15, 1858_