“But I must add, in regard to this, that if slavery shall be kept out of

the Territory during the Territorial existence of any one given

Territory, and then the people should, having a fair chance and a clear

field, when they come to adopt a constitution, if they should do the

extraordinary thing of adopting a slave constitution uninfluenced by the

actual presence of the institution among them, I see no alternative, if

we own the country, but we must admit it into the Union.”

That answer Mr. Lincoln supposed would satisfy the old line Whigs,

composed of Kentuckians and Virginians, down in the southern part of the

State. Now, what does it amount to? I desired to know whether he would

vote to allow Kansas to come into the Union with slavery or not, as her

people desired. He would not answer, but in a roundabout way said that

if slavery should be kept out of a Territory during the whole of its

Territorial existence, and then the people, when they adopted a State

Constitution, asked admission as a Slave State, he supposed he would

have to let the State come in. The case I put to him was an entirely

different one. I desired to know whether he would vote to admit a State

if Congress had not prohibited slavery in it during its Territorial

existence, as Congress never pretended to do under Clay’s Compromise

measures of 1850. He would not answer, and I have not yet been able to

get an answer from him. I have asked him whether he would vote to admit

Nebraska, if her people asked to come in as a State with a constitution

recognizing slavery, and he refused to answer. I have put the question

to him with reference to New Mexico, and he has not uttered a word in

answer. I have enumerated the Territories, one after another, putting

the same question to him with reference to each, and he has not said,

and will not say, whether, if elected to Congress, he will vote to admit

any Territory now in existence with such a constitution as her people

may adopt. He invents a case which does not exist, and cannot exist

under this government, and answers it; but he will not answer the

question I put to him in connection with any of the Territories now in

existence. The contract we entered into with Texas when she entered the

Union obliges us to allow four States to be formed out of the old State,

and admitted with or without slavery, as the respective inhabitants of

each may determine. I have asked Mr. Lincoln three times in our joint

discussions whether he would vote to redeem that pledge, and he has

never yet answered. He is as silent as the grave on the subject. He

would rather answer as to a state of the case which will never arise

than commit himself by telling what he would do in a case which would

come up for his action soon after his election to Congress. Why can he

not say whether he is willing to allow the people of each State to have

slavery or not as they please, and to come into the Union, when they

have the requisite population, as a Slave or a Free State as they

decide? I have no trouble in answering the question. I have said

everywhere, and now repeat it to you, that if the people of Kansas want

a Slave State they have a right, under the Constitution of the United

States, to form such a State, and I will let them come into the Union

with slavery or without, as they determine. If the people of any other

Territory desire slavery, let them have it. If they do not want it, let

them prohibit it. It is their business, not mine. It is none of our

business in Illinois whether Kansas is a Free State or a Slave State. It

is none of your business in Missouri whether Kansas shall adopt slavery

or reject it. It is the business of her people, and none of yours. The

people of Kansas have as much right to decide that question for

themselves as you have in Missouri to decide it for yourselves, or we in

Illinois to decide it for ourselves.

And here I may repeat what I have said in every speech I have made in

Illinois, that I fought the Lecompton Constitution to its death, not

because of the slavery clause in it, but because it was not the act and

deed of the people of Kansas. I said then in Congress, and I say now,

that if the people of Kansas want a Slave State, they have a right to

have it. If they wanted the Lecompton Constitution, they had a right to

have it. I was opposed to that constitution because I did not believe

that it was the act and deed of the people, but, on the contrary, the

act of a small, pitiful minority acting in the name of the majority.

When at last it was determined to send that constitution back to the

people, and, accordingly, in August last, the question of admission

under it was submitted to a popular vote, the citizens rejected it by

nearly ten to one, thus showing conclusively that I was right when I

said that the Lecompton Constitution was not the act and deed of the

people of Kansas, and did not embody their will.

I hold that there is no power on earth, under our system of government,

which has the right to force a constitution upon an unwilling people.

Suppose that there had been a majority of ten to one in favor of slavery

in Kansas, and suppose there had been an Abolition President and an

Abolition Administration, and by some means the Abolitionists succeeded

in forcing an Abolition Constitution upon those slaveholding people,

would the people of the South have submitted to that act for an instant?

Well, if you of the South would not have submitted to it a day, how can

you, as fair, honorable, and honest men, insist on putting a slave

constitution on a people who desire a Free State? Your safety and ours

depend upon both of us acting in good faith, and living up to that great

principle which asserts the right of every people to form and regulate

their domestic institutions to suit themselves, subject only to the

Constitution of the United States.

Most of the men who denounced my course on the Lecompton question

objected to it, not because I was not right, but because they thought it

expedient at that time, for the sake of keeping the party together, to

do wrong. I never knew the Democratic party to violate any one of its

principles, out of policy or expediency, that it did not pay the debt

with sorrow. There is no safety or success for our party unless we

always do right, and trust the consequences to God and the people. I

chose not to depart from principle for the sake of expediency on the

Lecompton question, and I never intend to do it on that or any other

question.

But I am told that I would have been all right if I had only voted for

the English bill after the Lecompton was killed. You know a general

pardon was granted to all political offenders on the Lecompton question,

provided they would only vote for the English bill. I did not accept the

benefits of that pardon for the reason that I had been right in the

course I had pursued, and hence did not require any forgiveness. Let us

see how the result has been worked out. English brought in his bill

referring the Lecompton Constitution back to the people, with the

provision that if it was rejected, Kansas should be kept out of the

Union until she had the full ratio of population required for member of

Congress,—thus in effect declaring that if the people of Kansas would

only consent to come into the Union under the Lecompton Constitution,

and have a Slave State when they did not want it, they should be

admitted with a population of 35,000; but that if they were so obstinate

as to insist upon having just such a constitution as they thought best,

and to desire admission as a free State, then they should be kept out

until they had 93,420 inhabitants. I then said, and I now repeat to you,

that whenever Kansas has people enough for a Slave State she has people

enough for a Free State. I was, and am willing to adopt the rule that no

State shall ever come into the Union until she has the full ratio of

population for a member of Congress, provided that rule is made uniform.

I made that proposition in the Senate last winter, but a majority of the

Senators would not agree to it; and I then said to them, If you will not

adopt the general rule, I will not consent to make an exception of

Kansas.

I hold that it is a violation of the fundamental principles of this

government to throw the weight of Federal power into the scale, either

in favor of the Free or the Slave States. Equality among all the States

of this Union is a fundamental principle in our political system. We

have no more right to throw the weight of the Federal Government into

the scale in favor of the slaveholding than the Free States, and last of

all should our friends in the South consent for a moment that Congress

should withhold its powers either way when they know that there is a

majority against them in both Houses of Congress.

Fellow-citizens, how have the supporters of the English bill stood up to

their pledges not to admit Kansas until she obtained a population of

93,420 in the event she rejected the Lecompton Constitution? How? The

newspapers inform us that English himself, whilst conducting his canvass

for re-election, and in order to secure it, pledged himself to his

constituents that if returned he would disregard his own bill and vote

to admit Kansas into the Union with such population as she might have

when she made application. We are informed that every Democratic

candidate for Congress in all the States where elections have recently

been held was pledged against the English bill, with perhaps one or two

exceptions. Now, if I had only done as these anti-Lecompton men who

voted for the English bill in Congress, pledging themselves to refuse to

admit Kansas if she refused to become a Slave State until she had a

population of 93,420 and then returned to their people, forfeited their

pledge, and made a new pledge to admit Kansas at any time she applied,

without regard to population, I would have had no trouble. You saw the

whole power and patronage of the Federal Government wielded in Indiana,

Ohio, and Pennsylvania to re-elect anti-Lecompton men to Congress who

voted against Lecompton, then voted for the English bill, and then

denounced the English bill, and pledged themselves to their people to

disregard it. My sin consists in not having given a pledge, and then in

not having afterward forfeited it. For that reason, in this State, every

postmaster, every route agent, every collector of the ports, and every

Federal officeholder forfeits his head the moment he expresses a

preference for the Democratic candidates against Lincoln and his

Abolition associates. A Democratic Administration which we helped to

bring into power deems it consistent with its fidelity to principle and

its regard to duty to wield its power in this State in behalf of the

Republican Abolition candidates in every county and every Congressional

District against the Democratic party. All I have to say in reference to

the matter is, that if that Administration have not regard enough for

principle, if they are not sufficiently attached to the creed of the

Democratic party, to bury forever their personal hostilities in order to

succeed in carrying out our glorious principles, I have. I have no

personal difficulty with Mr. Buchanan or his Cabinet. He chose to make

certain recommendations to Congress, as he had a right to do, on the

Lecompton question. I could not vote in favor of them. I had as much

right to judge for myself how I should vote as he had how he should

recommend. He undertook to say to me, “If you do not vote as I tell you,

I will take off the heads of your friends.” I replied to him, “You did

not elect me. I represent Illinois, and I am accountable to Illinois, as

my constituency, and to God; but not to the President or to any other

power on earth.”

And now this warfare is made on me because I would not surrender my

convictions of duty, because I would not abandon my constituency, and

receive the orders of the executive authorities as to how I should vote

in the Senate of the United States. I hold that an attempt to control

the Senate on the part of the Executive is subversive of the principles

of our Constitution. The Executive department is independent of the

Senate, and the Senate is independent of the President. In matters of

legislation the President has a veto on the action of the Senate, and in

appointments and treaties the Senate has a veto on the President. He has

no more right to tell me how I shall vote on his appointments than I

have to tell him whether he shall veto or approve a bill that the Senate

has passed. Whenever you recognize the right of the Executive to say to

a Senator, “Do this, or I will take off the heads of your friends,” you

convert this government from a republic into a despotism. Whenever you

recognize the right of a President to say to a member of Congress, “Vote

as I tell you, or I will bring a power to bear against you at home which

will crush you,” you destroy the independence of the representative and

convert him into a tool of Executive power. I resisted this invasion of

the constitutional rights of a Senator, and I intend to resist it as

long as I have a voice to speak or a vote to give. Yet Mr. Buchanan

cannot provoke me to abandon one iota of Democratic principles out of

revenge or hostility to his course. I stand by the platform of the

Democratic party, and by its organization, and support its nominees. If

there are any who choose to bolt, the fact only shows that they are not

as good Democrats as I am.

My friends, there never was a time when it was as important for the

Democratic party, for all national men, to rally and stand together, as

it is to-day. We find all sectional men giving up past differences and

continuing the one question of slavery; and when we find sectional men

thus uniting we should unite to resist them and their treasonable

designs. Such was the case in 1850, when Clay left the quiet and peace

of his home, and again entered upon public life to quell agitation and

restore peace to a distracted Union. Then we Democrats, with Cass at our

head, welcomed Henry Clay, whom the whole nation regarded as having been

preserved by God for the times. He became our leader in that great

fight, and we rallied around him the same as the Whigs rallied around

old Hickory in 1832 to put down nullification. Thus you see that whilst

Whigs and Democrats fought fearlessly in old times about banks, the

tariff, distribution, the specie circular, and the sub-treasury, all

united as a band of brothers when the peace, harmony, or integrity of

the Union was imperiled. It was so in 1850, when Abolitionism had even

so far divided this country, North and South, as to endanger the peace

of the Union; Whigs and Democrats united in establishing the Compromise

Measures of that year, and restoring tranquillity and good feeling.

These measures passed on the joint action of the two parties. They

rested on the great principle that the people of each State and each

Territory should be left perfectly free to form and regulate their

domestic institutions to suit themselves. You Whigs and we Democrats

justified them in that principle. In 1854, when it became necessary to

organize the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, I brought forward the

bill on the same principle. In the Kansas-Nebraska bill you find it

declared to be the true intent and meaning of the Act not to legislate

slavery into any State or Territory, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to

leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their

domestic institutions in their own way. I stand on that same platform in

1858 that I did in 1850, 1854, and 1856. The Washington “Union,”

pretending to be the organ of the Administration, in the number of the

5th of this month, devotes three columns and a half to establish these

propositions; first, that Douglas, in his Freeport speech, held the same

doctrine that he did in his Nebraska bill in 1854; second, that in 1854

Douglas justified the Nebraska bill upon the ground that it was based

upon the same principle as Clay’s Compromise Measures of 1850. The

“Union” thus proved that Douglas was the same in 1858 that he was in

1856, 1854, and 1850, and consequently argued that he was never a

Democrat. Is it not funny that I was never a Democrat? There is no

pretence that I have changed a hair’s breadth. The “Union” proves by my

speeches that I explained the Compromise Measures of 1850 just as I do

now, and that I explained the Kansas and Nebraska bill in 1854 just as I

did in my Freeport speech, and yet says that I am not a Democrat, and

cannot be trusted, because I have not changed during the whole of that

time. It has occurred to me that in 1854 the author of the Kansas and

Nebraska bill was considered a pretty good Democrat. It has occurred to

me that in 1856, when I was exerting every nerve and every energy for

James Buchanan, standing on the same platform then that I do now, that I

was a pretty good Democrat. They now tell me that I am not a Democrat,

because I assert that the people of a Territory, as well as those of a

State, have the right to decide for themselves whether slavery can or

cannot exist in such Territory. Let me read what James Buchanan said on

that point when he accepted the Democratic nomination for the Presidency

in 1856. In his letter of acceptance, he used the following language:

“The recent legislation of Congress respecting domestic slavery, derived

as it has been from the original and pure fountain of legitimate

political power, the will of the majority, promises ere long to allay

the dangerous excitement. This legislation is founded upon principles as

ancient as free government itself, and, in accordance with them, has

simply declared that the people of a Territory, like those of a State,

shall decide for themselves whether slavery shall or shall not exist

within their limits.”

Dr. Hope will there find my answer to the question he propounded to me

before I commenced speaking. Of course, no man will consider it an

answer who is outside of the Democratic organization, bolts Democratic

nominations, and indirectly aids to put Abolitionists into power over

Democrats. But whether Dr. Hope considers it an answer or not, every

fair-minded man will see that James Buchanan has answered the question,

and has asserted that the people of a Territory, like those of a State,

shall decide for themselves whether slavery shall or shall not exist

within their limits. I answer specifically if you want a further answer,

and say that while under the decision of the Supreme Court, as recorded

in the opinion of Chief Justice Taney, slaves are property like all

other property, and can be carried into any Territory of the United

States the same as any other description of property, yet when you get

them there they are subject to the local law of the Territory just like

all other property. You will find in a recent speech delivered by that

able and eloquent statesman, Hon. Jefferson Davis, at Bangor, Maine,

that he took the same view of this subject that I did in my Freeport

speech. He there said:

“If the inhabitants of any Territory should refuse to enact such laws

and police regulations as would give security to their property or to

his, it would be rendered more or less valueless in proportion to the

difficulties of holding it without such protection. In the case of

property in the labor of man, or what is usually called slave property,

the insecurity would be so great that the owner could not ordinarily

retain it. Therefore, though the right would remain, the remedy being

withheld, it would follow that the owner would be practically debarred,

by the circumstances of the case, from taking slave property into a

Territory where the sense of the inhabitants was opposed to its

introduction. So much for the oft-repeated fallacy of forcing slavery

upon any community.”

You will also find that the distinguished Speaker of the present House

of Representatives, Hon. Jas. L. Orr, construed the Kansas and Nebraska

bill in this same way in 1856, and also that great intellect of the

South, Alex. H. Stephens, put the same construction upon it in Congress

that I did in my Freeport speech. The whole South are rallying to the

support of the doctrine that if the people of a Territory want slavery,

they have a right to have it, and if they do not want it, that no power

on earth can force it upon them. I hold that there is no principle on

earth more sacred to all the friends of freedom than that which says

that no institution, no law, no constitution, should be forced on an

unwilling people contrary to their wishes; and I assert that the Kansas

and Nebraska bill contains that principle. It is the great principle

contained in that bill. It is the principle on which James Buchanan was

made President. Without that principle, he never would have been made

President of the United States. I will never violate or abandon that

doctrine, if I have to stand alone. I have resisted the blandishments

and threats of power on the one side, and seduction on the other, and

have stood immovably for that principle, fighting for it when assailed

by Northern mobs, or threatened by Southern hostility. I have defended

it against the North and the South, and I will defend it against whoever

assails it, and I will follow it wherever its logical conclusions lead

me. I say to you that there is but one hope, one safety for this

country, and that is to stand immovably by that principle which declares

the right of each State and each Territory to decide these questions for

themselves. This government was founded on that principle, and must be

administered in the same sense in which it was founded.

But the Abolition party really thinks that under the Declaration of

Independence the negro is equal to the white man, and that negro

equality is an inalienable right conferred by the Almighty, and hence

that all human laws in violation of it are null and void. With such men

it is no use for me to argue. I hold that the signers of the Declaration

of Independence had no reference to negroes at all when they declared

all men to be created equal. They did not mean negro, nor the savage

Indians, nor the Feejee Islanders, nor any other barbarous race. They

were speaking of white men. They alluded to men of European birth and

European descent,—to white men, and to none others,—when they declared

that doctrine. I hold that this government was established on the white

basis. It was established by white men for the benefit of white men and

their posterity forever, and should be administered by white men, and

none others. But it does not follow by any means, that merely because

the negro is not a citizen, and merely because he is not our equal,

that, therefore, he should be a slave. On the contrary, it does follow

that we ought to extend to the negro race, and to all other dependent

races, all the rights, all the privileges, and all the immunities which

they can exercise consistently with the safety of society. Humanity

requires that we should give them all these privileges; Christianity

commands that we should extend those privileges to them. The question

then arises, What are those privileges, and what is the nature and

extent of them? My answer is, that that is a question which each State

must answer for itself. We in Illinois have decided it for ourselves. We

tried slavery, kept it up for twelve years, and finding that it was not

profitable, we abolished it for that reason, and became a Free State. We

adopted in its stead the policy that a negro in this State shall not be

a slave and shall not be a citizen. We have a right to adopt that

policy. For my part, I think it is a wise and sound policy for us. You

in Missouri must judge for yourselves whether it is a wise policy for

you. If you choose to follow our example, very good; if you reject it,

still well,—it is your business, not ours. So with Kentucky. Let

Kentucky adopt a policy to suit herself. If we do not like it, we will

keep away from it; and if she does not like ours, let her stay at home,

mind her own business, and let us alone. If the people of all the States

will act on that great principle, and each State mind its own business,

attend to its own affairs, take care of its own negroes, and not meddle

with its neighbors, then there will be peace between the North and

South, the East and the West, throughout the whole Union.

Why can we not thus have peace? Why should we thus allow a sectional

party to agitate this country, to array the North against the South, and

convert us into enemies instead of friends, merely that a few ambitious

men may ride into power on a sectional hobby? How long is it since these

ambitious Northern men wished for a sectional organization? Did any one

of them dream of a sectional party as long as the North was the weaker

section and the South the stronger? Then all were opposed to sectional

parties; but the moment the North obtained the majority in the House and

Senate by the admission of California, and could elect a President

without the aid of Southern votes, that moment ambitious Northern men

formed a scheme to excite the North against the South, and make the

people be governed in their votes by geographical lines, thinking that

the North, being the stronger section, would outvote the South, and

consequently they, the leaders, would ride into office on a sectional

hobby. I am told that my hour is out. It was very short.

MR. LINCOLN’S REPLY

Ladies and Gentlemen: I have been somewhat, in my own mind, complimented

by a large portion of Judge Douglas’s speech,—I mean that portion which

he devotes to the controversy between himself and the present

Administration. This is the seventh time Judge Douglas and myself have

met in these joint discussions, and he has been gradually improving in

regard to his war with the Administration. At Quincy, day before

yesterday, he was a little more severe upon the Administration than I

had heard him upon any occasion, and I took pains to compliment him for

it. I then told him to “Give it to them with all the power he had”; and

as some of them were present, I told them I would be very much obliged

if they would _give it to him_ in about the same way. I take it he has

now vastly improved upon the attack he made then upon the

Administration. I flatter myself he has really taken my advice on this

subject. All I can say now is to recommend to him and to them what I

then commended,—to prosecute the war against one another in the most

vigorous manner. I say to them again: “Go it, husband!—Go it, bear!”

There is one other thing I will mention before I leave this branch of

the discussion,—although I do not consider it much of my business,

anyway. I refer to that part of the Judge’s remarks where he undertakes

to involve Mr. Buchanan in an inconsistency. He reads something from Mr.

Buchanan, from which he undertakes to involve him in an inconsistency;

and he gets something of a cheer for having done so. I would only remind

the Judge that while he is very valiantly fighting for the Nebraska bill

and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, it has been but a little

while since he was the _valiant advocate_ of the Missouri Compromise. I

want to know if Buchanan has not as much right to be inconsistent as

Douglas has? Has Douglas the _exclusive right_, in this country, of

being _on all sides of all questions?_ Is nobody allowed that high

privilege but himself? Is he to have an entire _monopoly_ on that

subject?

So far as Judge Douglas addressed his speech to me, or so far as it was

about me, it is my business to pay some attention to it. I have heard

the Judge state two or three times what he has stated to-day,—that in a

speech which I made at Springfield, Illinois, I had in a very especial

manner complained that the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case had

decided that a negro could never be a citizen of the United States. I

have omitted by some accident heretofore to analyze this statement, and

it is required of me to notice it now. In point of fact it is _untrue_.

I never have complained _especially_ of the Dred Scott decision because

it held that a negro could not be a citizen, and the Judge is always

wrong when he says I ever did so complain of it. I have the speech here,

and I will thank him or any of his friends to show where I said that a

negro should be a citizen, and complained especially of the Dred Scott

decision because it declared he could not be one. I have done no such

thing; and Judge Douglas, so persistently insisting that I have done so,

has strongly impressed me with the belief of a predetermination on his

part to misrepresent me. He could not get his foundation for insisting

that I was in favor of this negro equality anywhere else as well as he

could by assuming that untrue proposition. Let me tell this audience

what is true in regard to that matter; and the means by which they may

correct me if I do not tell them truly is by a recurrence to the speech

itself. I spoke of the Dred Scott decision in my Springfield speech, and

I was then endeavoring to prove that the Dred Scott decision was a

portion of a system or scheme to make slavery national in this country.

I pointed out what things had been decided by the court. I mentioned as

a fact that they had decided that a negro could not be a citizen; that

they had done so, as I supposed, to deprive the negro, under all

circumstances, of the remotest possibility of ever becoming a citizen

and claiming the rights of a citizen of the United States under a

certain clause of the Constitution. I stated that, without making any

complaint of it at all. I then went on and stated the other points

decided in the case; namely, that the bringing of a negro into the State

of Illinois and holding him in slavery for two years here was a matter

in regard to which they would not decide whether it would make him free

or not; that they decided the further point that taking him into a

United States Territory where slavery was prohibited by Act of Congress

did not make him free, because that Act of Congress, as they held, was

unconstitutional. I mentioned these three things as making up the points

decided in that case. I mentioned them in a lump, taken in connection

with the introduction of the Nebraska bill, and the amendment of Chase,

offered at the time, declaratory of the right of the people of the

Territories to _exclude slavery_, which was voted down by the friends of

the bill. I mentioned all these things together, as evidence tending to

prove a combination and conspiracy to make the institution of slavery

national. In that connection and in that way I mentioned the decision on

the point that a negro could not be a citizen, and in no other

connection.

Out of this Judge Douglas builds up his beautiful fabrication of my

purpose to introduce a perfect social and political equality between the

white and black races. His assertion that I made an “especial objection”

(that is his exact language) to the decision on this account, is untrue

in point of fact.

Now, while I am upon this subject, and as Henry Clay has been alluded

to, I desire to place myself, in connection with Mr. Clay, as nearly

right before this people as may be. I am quite aware what the Judge’s

object is here by all these allusions. He knows that we are before an

audience having strong sympathies southward, by relationship, place of

birth, and so on. He desires to place me in an extremely Abolition

attitude. He read upon a former occasion, and alludes, without reading,

to-day to a portion of a speech which I delivered in Chicago. In his

quotations from that speech, as he has made them upon former occasions,

the extracts were taken in such a way as, I suppose, brings them within

the definition of what is called _garbling_,—taking portions of a speech

which, when taken by themselves, do not present the entire sense of the

speaker as expressed at the time. I propose, therefore, out of that same

speech, to show how one portion of it which he skipped over (taking an

extract before and an extract after) will give a different idea, and the

true idea I intended to convey. It will take me some little time to read

it, but I believe I will occupy the time that way.

You have heard him frequently allude to my controversy with him in

regard to the Declaration of Independence. I confess that I have had a

struggle with Judge Douglas on that matter, and I will try briefly to

place myself right in regard to it on this occasion. I said—and it is

between the extracts Judge Douglas has taken from this speech, and put

in his published speeches:

“It may be argued that there are certain conditions that make

necessities and impose them upon us, and to the extent that a necessity

is imposed upon a man he must submit to it. I think that was the

condition in which we found ourselves when we established this

government. We had slaves among us, we could not get our Constitution

unless we permitted them to remain in slavery, we could not secure the

good we did secure if we grasped for more; and having by necessity

submitted to that much, it does not destroy the principle that is the

charter of our liberties. Let the charter remain as our standard.”

Now, I have upon all occasions declared as strongly as Judge Douglas

against the disposition to interfere with the existing institution of

slavery. You hear me read it from the same speech from which he takes

garbled extracts for the purpose of proving upon me a disposition to

interfere with the institution of slavery, and establish a perfect

social and political equality between negroes and white people.

Allow me while upon this subject briefly to present one other extract

from a speech of mine, more than a year ago, at Springfield, in

discussing this very same question, soon after Judge Douglas took his

ground that negroes were not included in the Declaration of

Independence:

“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 all men were equal in color, size,

intellect, moral development, or social capacity. They defined with

tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created

equal,—equal in 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, or 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,—constantly looked to, constantly labored 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 colors, everywhere.”

There again are the sentiments I have expressed in regard to the

Declaration of Independence upon a former occasion,—sentiments which

have been put in print and read wherever anybody cared to know what so

humble an individual as myself chose to say in regard to it.

At Galesburgh, the other day, I said, in answer to Judge Douglas, that

three years ago there never had been a man, so far as I knew or

believed, in the whole world, who had said that the Declaration of

Independence did not include negroes in the term “all men.” I reassert

it to-day. I assert that Judge Douglas and all his friends may search

the whole records of the country, and it will be a matter of great

astonishment to me if they shall be able to find that one human being

three years ago had ever uttered the astounding sentiment that the term

“all men” in the Declaration did not include the negro. Do not let me be

misunderstood. I know that more than three years ago there were men who,

finding this assertion constantly in the way of their schemes to bring

about the ascendency and perpetuation of slavery, _denied the truth of

it_. I know that Mr. Calhoun and all the politicians of his school

denied the truth of the Declaration. I know that it ran along in the

mouth of some Southern men for a period of years, ending at last in that

shameful, though rather forcible, declaration of Pettit of Indiana, upon

the floor of the United States Senate, that the Declaration of

Independence was in that respect “a self-evident lie,” rather than a

self-evident truth. But I say, with a perfect knowledge of all this

hawking at the Declaration without directly attacking it, that three

years ago there never had lived a man who had ventured to assail it in

the sneaking way of pretending to believe it, and then asserting it did

not include the negro. I believe the first man who ever said it was

Chief Justice Taney in the Dred Scott case, and the next to him was our

friend Stephen A. Douglas. And now it has become the catchword of the

entire party. I would like to call upon his friends everywhere to

consider how they have come in so short a time to view this matter in a

way so entirely different from their former belief; to ask whether they

are not being borne along by an irresistible current,—whither, they know

not.

In answer to my proposition at Galesburgh last week, I see that some man

in Chicago, has got up a letter, addressed to the Chicago “Times,” to

show, as he professes, that somebody _had_ said so before; and he signs

himself “An Old Line Whig,” if I remember correctly. In the first place,

I would say he _was not_ an old line Whig. I am somewhat acquainted with

old line Whigs from the origin to the end of that party; I became pretty

well acquainted with them, and I know they always had some sense,

whatever else you could ascribe to them. I know there never was one who

had not more sense than to try to show by the evidence he produces that

some man had, prior to the time I named, said that negroes were not

included in the term “all men” in the Declaration of Independence. What

is the evidence he produces? I will bring forward _his_ evidence, and

let you see what _he_ offers by way of showing that somebody more than

three years ago had said negroes were not included in the Declaration.

He brings forward part of a speech from Henry Clay,—_the_ part of _the_

speech of Henry Clay which I used to bring forward to prove precisely

the contrary. I guess we are surrounded to some extent to-day by the old

friends of Mr. Clay, and they will be glad to hear anything from that

authority. While he was in Indiana a man presented a petition to

liberate his negroes, and he (Mr. Clay) made a speech in answer to it,

which I suppose he carefully wrote out himself and caused to be

published. I have before me an extract from that speech which

constitutes the evidence this pretended “Old Line Whig” at Chicago

brought forward to show that Mr. Clay didn’t suppose the negro was

included in the Declaration of Independence. Hear what Mr. Clay said:

“And what is the foundation of this appeal to me in Indiana to liberate

the slaves under my care in Kentucky? It is a general declaration in the

act announcing to the world the independence of the thirteen American

colonies, that all men are created equal. Now, as an abstract principle,

_there is no doubt of the truth of that declaration_; and it is

desirable, _in the original construction of society and in organized

societies_, to keep it in view as a great fundamental principle. But,

then, I apprehend that in no society that ever did exist, or ever shall

be formed, was or can the equality asserted among the members of the

human race be practically enforced and carried out. There are portions,

large portions,—women, minors, insane, culprits, transient

sojourners,—that will always probably remain subject to the government

of another portion of the community.

“That declaration, whatever may be the extent of its import, was made by

the delegations of the thirteen States. In most of them slavery existed,

and had long existed, and was established by law. It was introduced and

forced upon the colonies by the paramount law of England. Do you believe

that in making that declaration the States that concurred in it intended

that it should be tortured into a virtual emancipation of all the slaves

within their respective limits? Would Virginia and other Southern States

have ever united in a declaration which was to be interpreted into an

abolition of slavery among them? Did any one of the thirteen colonies

entertain such a design or expectation? To impute such a secret and

unavowed purpose, would be to charge a political fraud upon the noblest

band of patriots that ever assembled in council,—a fraud upon the

Confederacy of the Revolution; a fraud upon the union of those States

whose Constitution not only recognized the lawfulness of slavery, but

permitted the importation of slaves from Africa until the year 1808.”

This is the entire quotation brought forward to prove that somebody

previous to three years ago had said the negro was not included in the

term “all men” in the Declaration. How does it do so? In what way has it

a tendency to prove that? Mr. Clay says _it is true as an abstract

principle_ that all men are created equal, but that we cannot

practically apply it in all cases. He illustrates this by bringing

forward the cases of females, minors, and insane persons, with whom it

cannot be enforced; but he says it is true as an abstract principle in

the organization of society as well as in organized society and it

should be kept in view as a fundamental principle. Let me read a few

words more before I add some comments of my own. Mr. Clay says, a little

further on:

“I desire no concealment of my opinions in regard to the institution of

slavery. I look upon it as a great evil, and deeply lament that we have

derived it from the parental government and from our ancestors. But here

they are, and the question is, How can they be best dealt with? If a

state of nature existed, and we were about to lay the foundations of

society, _no man would be more strongly opposed than I should be to

incorporate the institution of slavery among its elements_.”

Now, here in this same book, in this same speech, in this same extract,

brought forward to prove that Mr. Clay held that the negro was not

included in the Declaration of Independence, is no such statement on his

part, but the declaration _that it is a great fundamental truth_ which

should be constantly kept in view in the organization of society and in

societies already organized. But if I say a word about it; if I attempt,

as Mr. Clay said all good men ought to do, to keep it in view; if, in

this “organized society,” I ask to have the public eye turned upon it;

if I ask, in relation to the organization of new Territories, that the

public eye should be turned upon it,—forthwith I am vilified as you hear

me to-day. What have I done that I have not the license of Henry Clay’s

illustrious example here in doing? Have I done aught that I have not his

authority for, while maintaining that in organizing new Territories and

societies, this fundamental principle should be regarded, and in

organized society holding it up to the public view and recognizing what

_he_ recognized as the great principle of free government?

And when this new principle—this new proposition that no human being

ever thought of three years ago—is brought forward, _I combat it_ as

having an evil tendency, if not an evil design. I combat it as having a

tendency to dehumanize the negro, to take away from him the right of

ever striving to be a man. I combat it as being one of the thousand

things constantly done in these days to prepare the public mind to make

property, and nothing but property, of the _negro in all the States of

this Union_.

But there is a point that I wish, before leaving this part of the

discussion, to ask attention to. I have read and I repeat the words of

Henry Clay:

“I desire no concealment of my opinions in regard to the institution of

slavery. I look upon it as a great evil, and deeply lament that we have

derived it from the parental government and from our ancestors. I wish

every slave in the United States was in the country of his ancestors.

But there they are; the question is, How can they best be dealt with? If

a state of nature existed, and we were about to lay the foundations of

society, no man would be more strongly opposed than I should be to

incorporate the institution of slavery among its elements.”

The principle upon which I have insisted in this canvass is in relation

to laying the foundations of new societies. I have never sought to apply

these principles to the old States for the purpose of abolishing slavery

in those States. It is nothing but a miserable perversion of what I

_have_ said, to assume that I have declared Missouri, or any other Slave

State, shall emancipate her slaves; I have proposed no such thing. But

when Mr. Clay says that in laying the foundations of societies in our

Territories where it does not exist, he would be opposed to the

introduction of slavery as an element, I insist that we have _his

warrant_—his license—for insisting upon the exclusion of that element

which he declared in such strong and emphatic language _was most hateful

to him_.

Judge Douglas has again referred to a Springfield speech in which I said

“a house divided against itself cannot stand.” The Judge has so often

made the entire quotation from that speech that I can make it from

memory. I used this language:

“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 the slavery

agitation. Under the operation of this 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 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.”

That extract and the sentiments expressed in it have been extremely

offensive to Judge Douglas. He has warred upon them as Satan wars upon

the Bible. His perversions upon it are endless. Here now are my views

upon it in brief.

I said we were now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated

with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to the

slavery agitation. Is it not so? When that Nebraska bill was brought

forward four years ago last January, was it not for the “avowed object”

of putting an end to the slavery agitation? We were to have no more

agitation in Congress; it was all to be banished to the Territories. By

the way, I will remark here that, as Judge Douglas is very fond of

complimenting Mr. Crittenden in these days, Mr. Crittenden has said

there was a falsehood in that whole business, for there was _no slavery

agitation at that time to allay_. We were for a little while _quiet_ on

the troublesome thing, and that very allaying plaster of Judge Douglas

stirred it up again. But was it not understood or intimated with the

“confident promise” of putting an end to the slavery agitation? Surely

it was. In every speech you heard Judge Douglas make, until he got into

this “imbroglio,” as they call it, with the Administration about the

Lecompton Constitution, every speech on that Nebraska bill was full of

his felicitations that we were _just at the end_ of the slavery

agitation. The last tip of the last joint of the old serpent’s tail was

just drawing out of view. But has it proved so? I have asserted that

under that policy that agitation “has not only not ceased, but has

constantly augmented.” When was there ever a greater agitation in

Congress than last winter? When was it as great in the country as

to-day?

There was a collateral object in the introduction of that Nebraska

policy, which was to clothe the people of the Territories with a

superior degree of self-government, beyond what they had ever had

before. The first object and the main one of conferring upon the people

a higher degree of “self-government” is a question of fact to be

determined by you in answer to a single question. Have you ever heard or

known of a people anywhere on earth who had as little to do as, in the

first instance of its use, the people of Kansas had with this same right

of “self-government”? In its main policy and in its collateral object,

_it has been nothing but a living, creeping lie from the time of its

introduction till to-day_.

_I have intimated that I thought the agitation would not cease until a

crisis should have been reached and passed._ I have stated in what way I

thought it would be reached and passed. I have said that it might go one

way or the other. We might, by arresting the further spread of it, and

placing it where the fathers originally placed it, put it where the

public mind should rest in the belief that it was in the course of

ultimate extinction. Thus the agitation may cease. It may be pushed

forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as

well as new, North as well as South. I have said, and I repeat, my wish

is that the further spread of it may be arrested, and that it may be

placed where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the

course of ultimate extinction. I have expressed that as my wish. I

entertain the opinion, upon evidence sufficient to my mind, that the

fathers of this government placed that institution where the public mind

did rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction.

Let me ask why they made provision that the source of slavery—the

African slave-trade—should be cut off at the end of twenty years? Why

did they make provision that in all the new territory we owned at that

time slavery should be forever inhibited? Why stop its spread in one

direction, and cut off its source in another, if they did not look to

its being placed in the course of its ultimate extinction?

Again: the institution of slavery is only mentioned in the Constitution

of the United States two or three times, and in neither of these cases

does the word “slavery” or “negro race” occur; but covert language is

used each time, and for a purpose full of significance. What is the

language in regard to the prohibition of the African slave-trade? It

runs in about this way: “The migration or importation of such persons as

any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be

prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred

and eight.”

The next allusion in the Constitution to the question of slavery and the

black race is on the subject of the basis of representation, and there

the language used is:

“Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several

States which may be included within this Union, according to their

respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole

number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of

years, and excluding Indians not taxed,—three-fifths of all other

persons.”

It says “persons,” not slaves, not negroes; but this “three-fifths” can

be applied to no other class among us than the negroes.

Lastly, in the provision for the reclamation of fugitive slaves, it is

said: “No person held to service or labor 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 labor, but shall

be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may

be due.” There again there is no mention of the word “negro” or of

slavery. In all three of these places, being the only allusions to

slavery in the instrument, covert language is used. Language is used not

suggesting that slavery existed or that the black race were among us.

And I understand the contemporaneous history of those times to be that

covert language was used with a purpose, and that purpose was that in

our Constitution, which it was hoped and is still hoped will endure

forever,—when it should be read by intelligent and patriotic men, after

the institution of slavery had passed from amongst us,—there should be

nothing on the face of the great charter of liberty suggesting that such

a thing as negro slavery had ever existed among us. This is part of the

evidence that the fathers of the government expected and intended the

institution of slavery to come to an end. They expected and intended

that it should be in the course of ultimate extinction. And when I say

that I desire to see the further spread of it arrested, I only say I

desire to see that done which the fathers have first done. When I say I

desire to see it placed where the public mind will rest in the belief

that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, I only say I desire to

see it placed where they placed it. It is not true that our fathers, as

Judge Douglas assumes, made this government part slave and part free.

Understand the sense in which he puts it. He assumes that slavery is a

rightful thing within itself,—was introduced by the framers of the

Constitution. The exact truth is, that they found the institution

existing among us, and they left it as they found it. But in making the

government they left this institution with many clear marks of

disapprobation upon it. They found slavery among them, and they left it

among them because of the difficulty—the absolute impossibility—of its

immediate removal. And when Judge Douglas asks me why we cannot let it

remain part slave and part free, as the fathers of the government made

it, he asks a question based upon an assumption which is itself a

falsehood; and I turn upon him and ask him the question, when the policy

that the fathers of the government had adopted in relation to this

element among us was the best policy in the world, the only wise policy,

the only policy that we can ever safely continue upon, that will ever

give us peace, unless this dangerous element masters us all and becomes

a national institution,—_I turn upon him and ask him why he could not

leave it alone_. I turn and ask him why he was driven to the necessity

of introducing a _new policy_ in regard to it. He has himself said he

introduced a new policy. He said so in his speech on the 22d of March of

the present year, 1858. I ask him why he could not let it remain where

our fathers placed it. I ask, too, of Judge Douglas and his friends why

we shall not again place this institution upon the basis on which the

fathers left it. I ask you, when he infers that I am in favor of setting

the Free and Slave States at war, when the institution was placed in

that attitude by those who made the Constitution, _did they make any

war?_ If we had no war out of it when thus placed, wherein is the ground

of belief that we shall have war out of it if we return to that policy?

Have we had any peace upon this matter springing from any other basis? I

maintain that we have not. I have proposed nothing more than a return to

the policy of the fathers.

I confess, when I propose a certain measure of policy, it is not enough

for me that I do not intend anything evil in the result, but it is

incumbent on me to show that it has not a _tendency_ to that result. I

have met Judge Douglas in that point of view. I have not only made the

declaration that I do not _mean_ to produce a conflict between the

States, but I have tried to show by fair reasoning, and I think I have

shown to the minds of fair men, that I propose nothing but what has a

most peaceful tendency. The quotation that I happened to make in that

Springfield speech, that “a house divided against itself cannot stand,”

and which has proved so offensive to the Judge, was part and parcel of

the same thing. He tries to show that variety in the domestic

institutions of the different States is necessary and indispensable. I

do not dispute it. I have no controversy with Judge Douglas about that.

I shall very readily agree with him that it would be foolish for us to

insist upon having a cranberry law here in Illinois, where we have no

cranberries, because they have a cranberry law in Indiana, where they

have cranberries. I should insist that it would be exceedingly wrong in

us to deny to Virginia the right to enact oyster laws, where they have

oysters, because we want no such laws here. I understand, I hope, quite

as well as Judge Douglas or anybody else, that the variety in the soil

and climate and face of the country, and consequent variety in the

industrial pursuits and productions of a country, require systems of law

conforming to this variety in the natural features of the country. I

understand quite as well as Judge Douglas that if we here raise a barrel

of flour more than we want, and the Louisianians raise a barrel of sugar

more than they want, it is of mutual advantage to exchange. That

produces commerce, brings us together, and makes us better friends. We

like one another the more for it. And I understand as well as Judge

Douglas, or anybody else, that these mutual accommodations are the

cements which bind together the different parts of this Union; that

instead of being a thing to “divide the house,”—figuratively expressing

the Union,—they tend to sustain it; they are the props of the house,

tending always to hold it up.

But when I have admitted all this, I ask if there is any parallel

between these things and this institution of slavery? I do not see that

there is any parallel at all between them. Consider it. When have we had

any difficulty or quarrel amongst ourselves about the cranberry laws of

Indiana, or the oyster laws of Virginia, or the pine-lumber laws of

Maine, or the fact that Louisiana produces sugar, and Illinois flour?

When have we had any quarrels over these things? When have we had

perfect peace in regard to this thing which I say is an element of

discord in this Union? We have sometimes had peace, but when was it? It

was when the institution of slavery remained quiet where it was. We have

had difficulty and turmoil whenever it has made a struggle to spread

itself where it was not. I ask, then, if experience does not speak in

thunder-tones, telling us that the policy which has given peace to the

country heretofore, being returned to, gives the greatest promise of

peace again. You may say, and Judge Douglas has intimated the same

thing, that all this difficulty in regard to the institution of slavery

is the mere agitation of office-seekers and ambitious Northern

politicians. He thinks we want to get “his place,” I suppose. I agree

that there are office-seekers amongst us. The Bible says somewhere that

we are desperately selfish. I think we would have discovered that fact

without the Bible. I do not claim that I am any less so than the average

of men, but I do claim that I am not more selfish than Judge Douglas.

But is it true that all the difficulty and agitation we have in regard

to this institution of slavery springs from office-seeking, from the

mere ambition of politicians? Is that the truth? How many times have we

had danger from this question? Go back to the day of the Missouri

Compromise. Go back to the Nullification question, at the bottom of

which lay this same slavery question. Go back to the time of the

Annexation of Texas. Go back to the troubles that led to the Compromise

of 1850. You will find that every time, with the single exception of the

Nullification question, they sprung from an endeavor to spread this

institution. There never was a party in the history of this country, and

there probably never will be, of sufficient strength to disturb the

general peace of the country. Parties themselves may be divided and

quarrel on minor questions, yet it extends not beyond the parties

themselves. But does _not_ this question make a disturbance outside of

political circles? Does it not enter into the churches and rend them

asunder? What divided the great Methodist Church into two parts, North

and South? What has raised this constant disturbance in every

Presbyterian General Assembly that meets? What disturbed the Unitarian

Church in this very city two years ago? What has jarred and shaken the

great American Tract Society recently, not yet splitting it, but sure to

divide it in the end? Is it not this same mighty, deep-seated power that

somehow operates on the minds of men, exciting and stirring them up in

every avenue of society,—in politics, in religion, in literature, in

morals, in all the manifold relations of life? Is this the work of

politicians? Is that irresistible power, which for fifty years has

shaken the government and agitated the people, to be stilled and subdued

by pretending that it is an exceedingly simple thing, and we ought not

to talk about it? If you will get everybody else to stop talking about

it, I assure you I will quit before they have half done so. But where is

the philosophy or statesmanship which assumes that you can quiet that

disturbing element in our society which has disturbed us for more than

half a century, which has been the only serious danger that has

threatened our institutions,—I say, where is the philosophy or the

statesmanship based on the assumption that we are to quit talking about

it, and that the public mind is all at once to cease being agitated by

it? Yet this is the policy here in the North that Douglas is

advocating,—that we are to care nothing about it! I ask you if it is not

a false philosophy. Is it not a false statesmanship that undertakes to

build up a system of policy upon the basis of caring nothing about the

_very thing that everybody does care the most about?_—a thing which all

experience has shown we care a very great deal about?

The Judge alludes very often in the course of his remarks to the

exclusive right which the States have to decide the whole thing for

themselves. I agree with him very readily that the different States have

that right. He is but fighting a man of straw when he assumes that I am

contending against the right of the States to do as they please about

it. Our controversy with him is in regard to the new Territories. We

agree that when the States come in as States they have the right and the

power to do as they please. We have no power as citizens of the Free

States, or in our Federal capacity as members of the Federal Union

through the General Government, to disturb slavery in the States where

it exists. We profess constantly that we have no more inclination than

belief in the power of the government to disturb it; yet we are driven

constantly to defend ourselves from the assumption that we are warring

upon the rights of the _States_. What I insist upon is, that the new

Territories shall be kept free from it while in the Territorial

condition. Judge Douglas assumes that we have no interest in them,—that

we have no right whatever to interfere. I think we have some interest. I

think that as white men we have. Do we not wish for an outlet for our

surplus population, if I may so express myself? Do we not feel an

interest in getting to that outlet with such institutions as we would

like to have prevail there? If _you_ go to the Territory opposed to

slavery, and another man comes upon the same ground with his slave, upon

the assumption that the things are equal, it turns out that he has the

equal right all his way, and you have no part of it your way. If he goes

in and makes it a Slave Territory, and by consequence a Slave State, is

it not time that those who desire to have it a Free State were on equal

ground? Let me suggest it in a different way. How many Democrats are

there about here [“A thousand”] who have left Slave States and come into

the Free State of Illinois to get rid of the institution of slavery?

[Another voice: “A thousand and one.”] I reckon there are a thousand and

one. I will ask you, if the policy you are now advocating had prevailed

when this country was in a Territorial condition, where would you have

gone to get rid of it? Where would you have found your Free State or

Territory to go to? And when hereafter, for any cause, the people in

this place shall desire to find new homes, if they wish to be rid of the

institution, where will they find the place to go to?

Now, irrespective of the moral aspect of this question as to whether

there is a right or wrong in enslaving a negro, I am still in favor of

our new Territories being in such a condition that white men may find a

home,—may find some spot where they can better their condition; where

they can settle upon new soil and better their condition in life. I am

in favor of this, not merely (I must say it here as I have elsewhere)

for our own people who are born amongst us, but as an outlet for _free

white people everywhere_, the world over,—in which Hans, and Baptiste,

and Patrick, and all other men from all the world, may find new homes

and better their conditions in life.

I have stated upon former occasions, and I may as well state again, what

I understand to be the real issue in this controversy between Judge

Douglas and myself. On the point of my wanting to make war between the

Free and the Slave States, there has been no issue between us. So, too,

when he assumes that I am in favor of introducing a perfect social and

political equality between the white and black races. These are false

issues, upon which Judge Douglas has tried to force the controversy.

There is no foundation in truth for the charge that I maintain either of

these propositions. The real issue in this controversy—the one pressing

upon every mind—is the sentiment on the part of one class that looks

upon the institution of slavery _as a wrong_, and of another class that

_does not_ look upon it as a wrong. The sentiment that contemplates the

institution of slavery in this country as a wrong is the sentiment of

the Republican party. It is the sentiment around which all their

actions, all their arguments, circle, from which all their propositions

radiate. They look upon it as a being a moral, social, and political

wrong; and while they contemplate it as such, they nevertheless have due

regard for its actual existence among us, and the difficulties of

getting rid of it in any satisfactory way and to all the constitutional

obligations thrown about it. Yet, having a due regard for these, they

desire a policy in regard to it that looks to its not creating any more

danger. They insist that it should, as far as may be, _be treated_ as a

wrong; and one of the methods of treating it as a wrong is to _make

provision that it shall grow no larger_. They also desire a policy that

looks to a peaceful end of slavery at some time, as being wrong. These

are the views they entertain in regard to it as I understand them; and

all their sentiments, all their arguments and propositions, are brought

within this range. I have said, and I repeat it here, that if there be a

man amongst us who does not think that the institution of slavery is

wrong in any one of the aspects of which I have spoken, he is misplaced,

and ought not to be with us. And if there be a man amongst us who is so

impatient of it as a wrong as to disregard its actual presence amongst

us and the difficulty of getting rid of it suddenly in a satisfactory

way, and to disregard the constitutional obligations thrown about it,

that man is misplaced if he is on our platform. We disclaim sympathy

with him in practical action. He is not placed properly with us.

On this subject of treating it as a wrong, and limiting its spread, let

me say a word. Has anything ever threatened the existence of this Union

save and except this very institution of slavery? What is it that we

hold most dear amongst us? Our own liberty and prosperity. What has ever

threatened our liberty and prosperity, save and except this institution

of slavery? If this is true, how do you propose to improve the condition

of things by enlarging slavery,—by spreading it out and making it

bigger? You may have a wen or cancer upon your person, and not be able

to cut it out, lest you bleed to death; but surely it is no way to cure

it, to engraft it and spread it over your whole body. That is no proper

way of treating what you regard a wrong. You see this peaceful way of

dealing with it as a wrong,—restricting the spread of it, and not

allowing it to go into new countries where it has not already existed.

That is the peaceful way, the old-fashioned way, the way in which the

fathers themselves set us the example.

On the other hand, I have said there is a sentiment which treats it as

_not_ being wrong. That is the Democratic sentiment of this day. I do

not mean to say that every man who stands within that range positively

asserts that it is right. That class will include all who positively

assert that it is right, and all who, like Judge Douglas, treat it as

indifferent, and do not say it is either right or wrong. These two

classes of men fall within the general class of those who do not look

upon it as a wrong. And if there be among you anybody who supposes that

he, as a Democrat, can consider himself “as much opposed to slavery as

anybody,” I would like to reason with him. You never treat it as a

wrong. What other thing that you consider as a wrong do you deal with as

you deal with that? Perhaps you _say_ it is wrong, _but your leader

never does, and you quarrel with anybody who says it is wrong_. Although

you pretend to say so yourself, you can find no fit place to deal with

it as a wrong. You must not say anything about it in the Free States,

_because it is not here_. You must not say anything about it in the

Slave States, _because it is there_. You must not say anything about it

in the pulpit, because that is religion, and has nothing to do with it.

You must not say anything about it in politics, _because that will

disturb the security of “my place.”_ There is no place to talk about it

as being a wrong, although you say yourself it is a wrong. But, finally,

you will screw yourself up to the belief that if the people of the Slave

States should adopt a system of gradual emancipation on the slavery

question, you would be in favor of it. You would be in favor of it. You

say that is getting it in the right place, and you would be glad to see

it succeed. But you are deceiving yourself. You all know that Frank

Blair and Gratz Brown, down there in St. Louis, undertook to introduce

that system in Missouri. They fought as valiantly as they could for the

system of gradual emancipation which you pretend you would be glad to

see succeed. Now, I will bring you to the test. After a hard fight they

were beaten, and when the news came over here, you threw up your hats

and _hurrahed for Democracy_. More than that, take all the argument made

in favor of the system you have proposed, and it carefully excludes the

idea that there is anything wrong in the institution of slavery. The

arguments to sustain that policy carefully excluded it. Even here to-day

you heard Judge Douglas quarrel with me because I uttered a wish that it

might some time come to an end. Although Henry Clay could say he wished

every slave in the United States was in the country of his ancestors, I

am denounced by those pretending to respect Henry Clay for uttering a

wish that it might some time, in some peaceful way, come to an end. The

Democratic policy in regard to that institution will not tolerate the

merest breath, the slightest hint, of the least degree of wrong about

it. Try it by some of Judge Douglas’s arguments. He says he “don’t care

whether it is voted up or voted down” in the Territories. I do not care

myself, in dealing with that expression, whether it is intended to be

expressive of his individual sentiments on the subject, or only of the

national policy he desires to have established. It is alike valuable for

my purpose. Any man can say that who does not see anything wrong in

slavery; but no man can logically say it who does see a wrong in it,

because no man can logically say he don’t care whether a wrong is voted

up or voted down. He may say he don’t care whether an indifferent thing

is voted up or down, but he must logically have a choice between a right

thing and a wrong thing. He contends that whatever community wants

slaves has a right to have them. So they have, if it is not a wrong. But

if it is a wrong, he cannot say people have a right to do wrong. He says

that upon the score of equality, slaves should be allowed to go in a new

Territory, like other property. This is strictly logical if there is no

difference between it and other property. If it and other property are

equal, his argument is entirely logical. But if you insist that one is

wrong and the other right, there is no use to institute a comparison

between right and wrong. You may turn over everything in the Democratic

policy from beginning to end, whether in the shape it takes on the

statute book, in the shape it takes in the Dred Scott decision, in the

shape it takes in conversation, or the shape it takes in short

maxim-like arguments,—it everywhere carefully excludes the idea that

there is anything wrong in it.

That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this

country, when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be

silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles—right

and wrong—throughout the world. They are the two principles that have

stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to

struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the

divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it

develops itself. It is the same spirit that says: “You work and toil and

earn bread, and I’ll eat it.” No matter in what shape it comes, whether

from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own

nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as

an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical

principle. I was glad to express my gratitude at Quincy, and I

re-express it here, to Judge Douglas,—_that he looks to no end of the

institution of slavery_. That will help the people to see where the

struggle really is. It will hereafter place with us all men who really

do wish the wrong may have an end. And whenever we can get rid of the

fog which obscures the real question, when we can get Judge Douglas and

his friends to avow a policy looking to its perpetuation,—we can get out

from among that class of men and bring them to the side of those who

treat it as a wrong. Then there will soon be an end of it, and that end

will be its “ultimate extinction.” Whenever the issue can be distinctly

made, and all extraneous matter thrown out so that men can fairly see

the real difference between the parties, this controversy will soon be

settled, and it will be done peaceably, too. There will be no war, no

violence. It will be placed again where the wisest and best men of the

world placed it. Brooks, of South Carolina, once declared that when this

Constitution was framed its framers did not look to the institution

existing until his day. When he said this, I think he stated a fact that

is fully borne out by the history of the times. But he also said they

were better and wiser men than the men of these days; yet the men of

these days had experience which they had not, and by the invention of

the cotton-gin it became a necessity in this country that slavery should

be perpetual. I now say that, willingly or unwillingly, purposely or

without purpose, Judge Douglas has been the most prominent instrument in

changing the position of the institution of slavery which the fathers of

the government expected to come to an end ere this,—_and putting it upon

Brooks’s cotton-gin basis_; placing it where he openly confesses he has

no desire there shall ever be an end of it.

I understand I have ten minutes yet. I will employ it in saying

something about this argument Judge Douglas uses, while he sustains the

Dred Scott decision, that the people of the Territories can still

somehow exclude slavery. The first thing I ask attention to is the fact

that Judge Douglas constantly said, before the decision, that whether

they could or not, _was a question for the Supreme Court_. But after the

court had made the decision he virtually says it is _not_ a question for

the Supreme Court, but for the people. And how is it he tells us they

can exclude it? He says it needs “police regulation,” and that admits of

“unfriendly legislation.” Although it is a right established by the

Constitution of the United States to take a slave into a Territory of

the United States and hold him as property, yet unless the Territorial

Legislature will give friendly legislation, and, more especially, if

they adopt unfriendly legislation, they can practically exclude him.

Now, without meeting this proposition as a matter of fact, I pass to

consider the real constitutional obligation. Let me take the gentleman

who looks me in the face before me, and let us suppose that he is a

member of the Territorial Legislature. The first thing he will do will

be to swear that he will support the Constitution of the United States.

His neighbor by his side in the Territory has slaves and needs

Territorial legislation to enable him to enjoy that constitutional

right. Can he withhold the legislation which his neighbor needs for the

enjoyment of a right which is fixed in his favor in the Constitution of

the United States which he has sworn to support? Can he withhold it

without violating his oath? And, more especially, can he pass unfriendly

legislation to violate his oath? Why, this is a _monstrous_ sort of talk

about the Constitution of the United States! _There has never been as

outlandish or lawless a doctrine from the mouth of any respectable man

on earth._ I do not believe it is a constitutional right to hold slaves

in a Territory of the United States. I believe the decision was

improperly made and I go for reversing it. Judge Douglas is furious

against those who go for reversing a decision. But he is for legislating

it out of all force while the law itself stands. I repeat that there has

never been so monstrous a doctrine uttered from the mouth of a

respectable man.

I suppose most of us (I know it of myself) believe that people of the

Southern States are entitled to a Congressional Fugitive Slave law,—that

is a right fixed in the Constitution. But it cannot be made available to

them without Congressional legislation. In the Judge’s language, it is a

“barren right,” which needs legislation before it can become efficient

and valuable to the persons to whom it is guaranteed. And as the right

is constitutional, I agree that the legislation shall be granted to

it,—and that not that we like the institution of slavery. We profess to

have no taste for running and catching niggers,—at least, I profess no

taste for that job at all. Why then do I yield support to a Fugitive

Slave law? Because I do not understand that the Constitution, which

guarantees that right, can be supported without it. And if I believed

that the right to hold a slave in a Territory was equally fixed in the

Constitution with the right to reclaim fugitives, I should be bound to

give it the legislation necessary to support it. I say that no man can

deny his obligation to give the necessary legislation to support slavery

in a Territory, who believes it is a constitutional right to have it

there. No man can, who does not give the Abolitionists an argument to

deny the obligation enjoined by the Constitution to enact a Fugitive

State law. Try it now. It is the strongest Abolition argument ever made.

I say if that Dred Scott decision is correct, then the right to hold

slaves in a Territory is equally a constitutional right with the right

of a slaveholder to have his runaway returned. No one can show the

distinction between them. The one is express, so that we cannot deny it.

The other is construed to be in the Constitution, so that he who

believes the decision to be correct believes in the right. And the man

who argues that by unfriendly legislation, in spite of that

constitutional right, slavery may be driven from the Territories, cannot

avoid furnishing an argument by which Abolitionists may deny the

obligation to return fugitives, and claim the power to pass laws

unfriendly to the right of the slaveholder to reclaim his fugitive. I do

not know how such an argument may strike a popular assembly like this,

but I defy anybody to go before a body of men whose minds are educated

to estimating evidence and reasoning, and show that there is an iota of

difference between the constitutional right to reclaim a fugitive, and

the constitutional right to hold a slave, in a Territory, provided this

Dred Scott decision is correct. I defy any man to make an argument that

will justify unfriendly legislation to deprive a slaveholder of his

right to hold a slave in a Territory, that will not equally, in all its

length, breadth, and thickness, furnish an argument for nullifying the

Fugitive Slave law. Why, there is not such an Abolitionist in the nation

as Douglas, after all.

MR. DOUGLAS’S REJOINDER

Mr. Lincoln has concluded his remarks by saying that there is not such

an Abolitionist as I am in all America. If he could make the

Abolitionists of Illinois believe that, he would not have much show for

the Senate. Let him make the Abolitionists believe the truth of that

statement, and his political back is broken.

His first criticism upon me is the expression of his hope that the war

of the Administration will be prosecuted against me and the Democratic

party of this State with vigor. He wants that war prosecuted with vigor;

I have no doubt of it. His hopes of success and the hopes of his party

depend solely upon it. They have no chance of destroying the Democracy

of this State except by the aid of Federal patronage. He has all the

Federal officeholders here as his allies, running separate tickets

against the Democracy to divide the party, although the leaders all

intend to vote directly the Abolition ticket, and only leave the

greenhorns to vote this separate ticket who refuse to go into the

Abolition camp. There is something really refreshing in the thought that

Mr. Lincoln is in favor of prosecuting one war vigorously. It is the

first war that I ever knew him to be in favor of prosecuting. It is the

first war that I ever knew him to believe to be just or constitutional.

When the Mexican war was being waged, and the American army was

surrounded by the enemy in Mexico, he thought that war was

unconstitutional, unnecessary, and unjust. He thought it was not

commenced on the right _spot_.

When I made an incidental allusion of that kind in the joint discussion

over at Charleston some weeks ago, Lincoln, in replying, said that I,

Douglas, had charged him with voting against supplies for the Mexican

war, and then he reared up, full length, and swore that he never voted

against the supplies; that it was a slander; and caught hold of Ficklin,

who sat on the stand, and said, “Here, Ficklin, tell the people that it

is a lie.” Well, Ficklin, who had served in Congress with him, stood up

and told them all that he recollected about it. It was that when George

Ashmun, of Massachusetts, brought forward a resolution declaring the war

unconstitutional, unnecessary, and unjust, that Lincoln had voted for

it. “Yes,” said Lincoln, “I did.” Thus he confessed that he voted that

the war was wrong, that our country was in the wrong, and consequently

that the Mexicans were in the right; but charged that I had slandered

him by saying that he voted against the supplies. I never charged him

with voting against the supplies in my life, because I knew that he was

not in Congress when they were voted. The war was commenced on the 13th

day of May, 1846, and on that day we appropriated in Congress ten

millions of dollars and fifty thousand men to prosecute it. During the

same session we voted more men and more money, and at the next session

we voted more men and more money, so that by the time Mr. Lincoln

entered Congress we had enough men and enough money to carry on the war,

and had no occasion to vote for any more. When he got into the House,

being opposed to the war, and not being able to stop the supplies,

because they had all gone forward, all he could do was to follow the

lead of Corwin of Ohio, and prove that the war was not begun on the

right spot, and that it was unconstitutional, unnecessary, and wrong.

Remember, too, that this he did after the war had been begun. It is one

thing to be opposed to the declaration of a war, another and very

different thing to take sides with the enemy against your own country

after the war has been commenced. Our army was in Mexico at the time,

many battles had been fought; our citizens, who were defending the honor

of their country’s flag, were surrounded by the daggers, the guns, and

the poison of the enemy. Then it was that Corwin made his speech in

which he declared that the American soldiers ought to be welcomed by the

Mexicans with bloody hands and hospitable graves; then it was that

Ashmun and Lincoln voted in the House of Representatives that the war

was unconstitutional and unjust; and Ashmun’s resolution, Corwin’s

speech, and Lincoln’s vote were sent to Mexico and read at the head of

the Mexican army, to prove to them that there was a Mexican party in the

Congress of the United States who were doing all in their power to aid

them. That a man who takes sides with the common enemy against his own

country in time of war should rejoice in a war being made on me now, is

very natural. And, in my opinion, no other kind of a man would rejoice

in it.

Mr. Lincoln has told you a great deal to-day about his being an old line

Clay Whig. Bear in mind that there are a great many old Clay Whigs down

in this region. It is more agreeable, therefore, for him to talk about

the old Clay Whig party than it is for him to talk Abolitionism. We did

not hear much about the old Clay Whig party up in the Abolition

districts. How much of an old line Henry Clay Whig was he? Have you read

General Singleton’s speech at Jacksonville? You know that General

Singleton was for twenty-five years the confidential friend of Henry

Clay in Illinois, and he testified that in 1847, when the Constitutional

Convention of this State was in session, the Whig members were invited

to a Whig caucus at the house of Mr. Lincoln’s brother-in-law, where Mr.

Lincoln proposed to throw Henry Clay overboard and take up General

Taylor in his place, giving as his reason that, if the Whigs did not

take up General Taylor, the Democrats would. Singleton testifies that

Lincoln in that speech urged as another reason for throwing Henry Clay

overboard, that the Whigs had fought long enough for principle, and

ought to begin to fight for success. Singleton also testified that

Lincoln’s speech did not have the effect of cutting Clay’s throat, and

that he (Singleton) and others withdrew from the caucus in indignation.

He further states that when they got to Philadelphia to attend the

National Convention of the Whig party, that Lincoln was there, the

bitter and deadly enemy of Clay, and that he tried to keep him

(Singleton) out of the Convention because he insisted on voting for

Clay, and Lincoln was determined to have Taylor. Singleton says that

Lincoln rejoiced with very great joy when he found the mangled remains

of the murdered Whig statesman lying cold before him. Now, Mr. Lincoln

tells you that he is an old line Clay Whig! General Singleton testifies

to the facts I have narrated, in a public speech which has been printed

and circulated broadcast over the State for weeks, yet not a lisp have

we heard from Mr. Lincoln on the subject, except that he is an old Clay

Whig.

What part of Henry Clay’s policy did Lincoln ever advocate. He was in

Congress in 1848–9, when the Wilmot Proviso warfare disturbed the peace

and harmony of the country, until it shook the foundation of the

Republic from its centre to its circumference. It was that agitation

that brought Clay forth from his retirement at Ashland again to occupy

his seat in the Senate of the United States, to see if he could not, by

his great wisdom and experience, and the renown of his name, do

something to restore peace and quiet to a disturbed country. Who got up

that sectional strife that Clay had to be called upon to quell? I have

heard Lincoln boast that he voted forty-two times for the Wilmot

Proviso, and that he would have voted as many times more if he could.

Lincoln is the man, in connection with Seward, Chase, Giddings, and

other Abolitionists, who got up that strife that I helped Clay to put

down. Henry Clay came back to the Senate in 1849, and saw that he must

do something to restore peace to the country. The Union Whigs and the

Union Democrats welcomed him, the moment he arrived, as the man for the

occasion. We believed that he, of all men on earth, had been preserved

by Divine Providence to guide us out of our difficulties, and we

Democrats rallied under Clay then, as you Whigs in Nullification time

rallied under the banner of old Jackson, forgetting party when the

country was in danger, in order that we might have a country first, and

parties afterward.

And this reminds me that Mr. Lincoln told you that the slavery question

was the only thing that ever disturbed the peace and harmony of the

Union. Did not Nullification once raise its head and disturb the peace

of this Union in 1832? Was that the slavery question, Mr. Lincoln? Did

not disunion raise its monster head during the last war with Great

Britain? Was that the slavery question, Mr. Lincoln? The peace of this

country has been disturbed three times, once during the war with Great

Britain, once on the tariff question, and once on the slavery question.

His argument therefore that slavery is the only question that has ever

created dissension in the Union falls to the ground. It is true that

agitators are enabled now to use this slavery question for the purpose

of sectional strife. He admits that in regard to all things else, the

principle that I advocate, making each State and Territory free to

decide for itself, ought to prevail. He instances the cranberry laws and

the oyster laws, and he might have gone through the whole list with the

same effect. I say that all these laws are local and domestic, and that

local and domestic concerns should be left to each State and each

Territory to manage for itself. If agitators would acquiesce in that

principle, there never would be any danger to the peace and harmony of

the Union.

Mr. Lincoln tries to avoid the main issue by attacking the truth of my

proposition, that our fathers made this government divided into Free and

Slave States, recognizing the right of each to decide all its local

questions for itself. Did they not thus make it? It is true that they

did not establish slavery in any of the States, or abolish it in any of

them; but finding thirteen States, twelve of which were slave and one

free, they agreed to form a government uniting them together as they

stood, divided into Free and Slave States, and to guarantee forever to

each State the right to do as it pleased on the slavery question. Having

thus made the government, and conferred this right upon each State

forever, I assert that this government can exist as they made it,

divided into Free and Slave States, if any one State chooses to retain

slavery. He says that he looks forward to a time when slavery shall be

abolished everywhere. I look forward to a time when each State shall be

allowed to do as it pleases. If it chooses to keep slavery forever, it

is not my business, but its own; if it chooses to abolish slavery, it is

its own business,—not mine. I care more for the great principle of

self-government, the right of the people to rule, than I do for all the

negroes in Christendom. I would not endanger the perpetuity of this

Union, I would not blot out the great inalienable rights of the white

men, for all the negroes that ever existed. Hence, I say, let us

maintain this government on the principles that our fathers made it on,

recognizing the right of each State to keep slavery as long as its

people determine, or to abolish it when they please. But Mr. Lincoln

says that when our fathers made this government they did not look

forward to the state of things now existing, and therefore he thinks the

doctrine was wrong; and he quotes Brooks, of South Carolina, to prove

that our fathers then thought that probably slavery would be abolished

by each State acting for itself before this time. Suppose they did;

suppose they did not foresee what has occurred,—does that change the

principles of our government? They did not probably foresee the

telegraph that transmits intelligence by lightning, nor did they foresee

the railroads that now form the bonds of union between the different

States, or the thousand mechanical inventions that have elevated

mankind. But do these things change the principles of the government?

Our fathers, I say, made this government on the principle of the right

of each State to do as it pleases in its own domestic affairs, subject

to the Constitution, and allowed the people of each to apply to every

new change of circumstances such remedy as they may see fit to improve

their condition. This right they have for all time to come.

Mr. Lincoln went on to tell you that he does not at all desire to

interfere with slavery in the States where it exists, nor does his

party. I expected him to say that down here. Let me ask him, then, how

he expects to put slavery in the course of ultimate extinction

everywhere, if he does not intend to interfere with it in the States

where it exists? He says that he will prohibit it in all Territories,

and the inference is, then, that unless they make Free States out of

them he will keep them out of the Union; for, mark you, he did not say

whether or not he would vote to admit Kansas with slavery or not, as her

people might apply (he forgot that, as usual, etc.); he did not say

whether or not he was in favor of bringing the Territories now in

existence into the Union on the principle of Clay’s Compromise Measures

on the slavery question. I told you that he would not. His idea is that

he will prohibit slavery in all the Territories, and thus force them all

to become Free States, surrounding the Slave States with a cordon of

Free States, and hemming them in, keeping the slaves confined to their

present limits whilst they go on multiplying, until the soil on which

they live will no longer feed them, and he will thus be able to put

slavery in a course of ultimate extinction by starvation. He will

extinguish slavery in the Southern States as the French general

exterminated the Algerines when he smoked them out. He is going to

extinguish slavery by surrounding the Slave States, hemming in the

slaves, and starving them out of existence, as you smoke a fox out of

his hole. He intends to do that in the name of humanity and

Christianity, in order that we may get rid of the terrible crime and sin

entailed upon our fathers of holding slaves. Mr. Lincoln makes out that

line of policy, and appeals to the moral sense of justice and to the

Christian feeling of the community to sustain him. He says that any man

who holds to the contrary doctrine is in the position of the king who

claimed to govern by divine right. Let us examine for a moment and see

what principle it was that overthrew the divine right of George the

Third to govern us. Did not these Colonies rebel because the British

Parliament had no right to pass laws concerning our property and

domestic and private institutions without our consent? We demanded that

the British Government should not pass such laws unless they gave us

representation in the body passing them; and this the British Government

insisting on doing, we went to war, on the principle that the Home

Government should not control and govern distant colonies without giving

them a representation. Now, Mr. Lincoln proposes to govern the

Territories without giving them a representation, and calls on Congress

to pass laws controlling their property and domestic concerns without

their consent and against their will. Thus, he asserts for his party the

identical principle asserted by George III. and the Tories of the

Revolution.

I ask you to look into these things and then tell me whether the

Democracy or the Abolitionists are right. I hold that the people of a

Territory, like those of a State (I use the language of Mr. Buchanan in

his Letter of Acceptance), have the right to decide for themselves

whether slavery shall or shall not exist within their limits. The point

upon which Chief Justice Taney expresses his opinion is simply this,

that slaves, being property, stand on an equal footing with other

property, and consequently that the owner has the same right to carry

that property into a Territory that he has any other, subject to the

same conditions. Suppose that one of your merchants was to take fifty or

one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of liquors to Kansas. He has a right

to go there, under that decision; but when he gets there he finds the

Maine liquor law in force, and what can he do with his property after he

gets it there? He cannot sell it, he cannot use it; it is subject to the

local law, and that law is against him, and the best thing he can do

with it is to bring it back into Missouri or Illinois and sell it. If

you take negroes to Kansas, as Colonel Jefferson Davis said in his

Bangor speech, from which I have quoted to-day, you must take them there

subject to the local law. If the people want the institution of slavery,

they will protect and encourage it; but if they do not want it they will

withhold that protection, and the absence of local legislation

protecting slavery excludes it as completely as a positive prohibition.

You slaveholders of Missouri might as well understand what you know

practically, that you cannot carry slavery where the people do not want

it. All you have a right to ask is that the people shall do as they

please: if they want slavery, let them have it; if they do not want it,

allow them to refuse to encourage it.

My friends, if, as I have said before, we will only live up to this

great fundamental principle, there will be peace between the North and

the South. Mr. Lincoln admits that, under the Constitution, on all

domestic questions, except slavery, we ought not to interfere with the

people of each State. What right have we to interfere with the people of

each State? What right have we to interfere with slavery any more than

we have to interfere with any other question? He says that this slavery

question is now the bone of contention. Why? Simply because agitators

have combined in all the Free States to make war upon it. Suppose the

agitators in the States should combine in one half of the Union to make

war upon the railroad system of the other half? They would thus be

driven to the same sectional strife. Suppose one section makes war upon

any other particular institution of the opposite section, and the same

strife is produced. The only remedy and safety is that we shall stand by

the Constitution as our fathers made it, obey the laws as they are

passed, while they stand the proper test, and sustain the decisions of

the Supreme Court and the constituted authorities.

APPENDIX B

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE AT ALTON

(Prepared as an exercise in briefing by a class in written

argumentation)

_Senator Douglas’s Speech_

Proposition: Vote for Douglas and the Democratic Party

_Introduction_

Douglas states that there are three points at issue between Lincoln and

himself:

1. Whether the Union can exist half slave and half free.

2. Whether the Supreme Court was in error in the Dred Scott Decision.

3. Whether the Declaration of Independence included the negroes.

_Proof_

Proposition: (Repeated) Vote for Douglas and the Democratic Party,

because

A. The Republican creed is wrong for the reason that it cannot be

advocated everywhere, for

I. Any creed is radically wrong that cannot be proclaimed alike in

every state in the Union.

B. Refutation: The argument that this government cannot exist half

slave and half free is unsound, for

I. Each state decides upon its own institutions, for

a. Each state is sovereign.

II. If the makers of the Constitution had believed Lincoln’s

doctrine, they would have made a provision establishing

slavery, for

a. At that time twelve out of thirteen states were slave

holding states.

III. It would be unjust for the Northern states to attack slavery

in the slave states, for

a. When the free states were in the minority the slave states

did not interfere with them.

b. It would violate the sovereignty of the states which is

guaranteed them in the Constitution.

C. Lincoln is undecided about the admission of more slave states, for

I. He would not answer at Ottawa.

II. At Freeport he said he would be very sorry to be put in a

position to decide that question.

III. He has not answered my question directly, for

a. His answer depended upon whether slavery had been kept out

during the state’s whole territorial existence, etc.

IV. He has not said, and will not say, whether, if elected to

Congress, he will vote to admit any territory now in existence

with such a Constitution as her people may provide.

V. He will not say whether he will redeem our pledge with Texas.

D. Douglas takes a clear and just stand on these questions, for

I. He plainly states that he will let the people of any territory

come into the Union slave or free as they decide.

E. Douglas has stood by the principles he advocated, for

I. He opposed the Lecompton Constitution because it did not

represent the will of the people, for

a. When it was submitted to the people of Kansas last August

it was rejected by a vote of ten to one.

II. He refused to support the English bill, for

a. He was right and honest in his opposition to the Lecompton

Constitution.

b. He believed that whenever Kansas had enough people for a

slave state she had enough people for a free state but the

English bill was directly opposed to this principle, for

1. The bill provided that if Kansas came in as a slave

state it would be admitted with a population of 35,000,

but if it desired admission as a free state it must

have 93,420 inhabitants.

III. He opposes the attempt on the part of the Executive to

control the Senate, for

a. It will lead to despotism.

IV. He stands on the same platform now that he stood on in 1850,

1854, and 1856, for

a. Even the Washington Union admits this.

F. The principle of letting the people of each state decide for

themselves about slavery is the right principle, for

I. It is the principle advocated by our leading statesmen and

patriots, for

a. James Buchanan advocates it, for

1. He said so in his letter of acceptance after he

received the Democratic nomination for the Presidency

in 1856.

b. Chief Justice Taney does not deny this principle.

c. The Honorable Jefferson Davis took the same view in his

speech at Bangor, Maine.

d. The Speaker of the House, Mr. Orr, holds the same view.

e. Alex. H. Stephens puts the same construction upon it that

Douglas does.

II. The people believe it is right, for

a. The people made James Buchanan president on this same

principle.

III. It is the principle that can bring peace to the Union, for

a. If the people of all the states will act on this great

principle, and each state mind its own business, take care

of its own negroes, and not meddle with its neighbors,

there will be no cause for dissension.

_Conclusion_

A. A plea for peace by adopting the principles presented in the proof.

B. A denunciation of those who seek to turn this public controversy to

their own personal advantage.

MR. LINCOLN’S REPLY

Proposition: Vote for Lincoln and the Republican party.

_Introduction_

A. Lincoln advises Judge Douglas to continue the war upon the other

wing of his party.

B. Douglas should not make too much of Buchanan’s inconsistency

because he is inconsistent himself, for he once championed the

Missouri Compromise but now he opposes it.

_Proof_

Proposition: (Repeated) Vote for Lincoln and the Republican party,

because

A. Refutation: The statement that I have complained that the Supreme

Court in the Dred Scott case had decided that a negro could never

be a citizen of the United States is untrue, for

I. No such idea can be found in my speech.

II. The truth is that I mentioned the Dred Scott Decision only as

part of a conspiracy to make slavery national.

B. Douglas misrepresents my position on the Declaration of

Independence, for

I. He has garbled my Chicago speech, for

a. He omitted between two quotations four sentences necessary

to my meaning.

II. Douglas has taken no notice of an extract from my Springfield

speech in which my views are clearly expressed.

III. My position is the same as that of Henry Clay, for

a. Clay declared the Declaration as an abstract principle is

true and the new proposition of the Dred Scott Decision is

intended to make the negro nothing but property in all the

states.

b. Refutation: The statement that Henry Clay held that the

negro was not included in the Declaration of Independence

is untrue, for

1. He never expressed this belief.

2. The speech referred to in the Chicago Times as showing

that this was Mr. Clay’s view shows precisely the

opposite view, for

(a) He says that it is true as an abstract principle

that all men are created equal, but that we cannot

practically apply it in all cases.

C. Lincoln still says that the proposition that “A house divided

against itself cannot stand” is true, for

I. The agitation over slavery will not cease, for

a. Douglas’ Kansas-Nebraska bill has stirred up the whole

discussion again, for

1. Although the Kansas-Nebraska bill was declared to be

the end it has stirred up strife in the last Congress

and throughout the entire country.

b. In its pretense to confer local self-government the

Kansas-Nebraska bill proved to be a lie.

II. The framers of the Constitution hoped to put slavery in a

course of extinction, for

a. They provided that the slave trade should cease after

twenty years.

b. The Constitution does not contain the words “slavery” or

“negro race,” for

1. Its framers thought slavery a temporary thing.

2. Fugitive slaves are not mentioned.

3. The representation clause avoids using these words.

III. Refutation: The statement that the framers of the

Constitution introduced slavery is not true, for

a. They found it but marked it with their disapproval.

IV. Lincoln wishes to return to the policy of the framers of the

Constitution, for

a. Refutation: The charge that the Constitution has stirred up

this agitation over slavery is false, for

1. The agitation has been stirred up by Judge Douglas and

his friends.

b. Other local laws have not caused strife, for

1. The cranberry laws of Indiana caused no strife.

2. The oyster laws of Virginia have not caused strife.

c. The slave traffic has caused trouble whenever it has

attempted to extend itself, for

1. The Missouri Compromise and the Annexation of Texas

prove this.

2. Slavery has divided political parties and churches.

D. The real issue between Lincoln and Douglas is not as to states, it

is whether Congress shall exclude slavery from the territories

while in a territorial condition, for

I. I agree with Douglas that the states have a right to determine

for themselves about slavery.

II. I differ from Douglas as to the right of the people to take

slaves into the territories of the United States, for

a. We must preserve the territories for free white people the

world over.

E. Fundamentally this controversy means that the Republicans believe

slavery to be wrong and the Democrats believe it to be right, for

I. The Republicans insist that slavery shall grow no larger.

II. The Democrats never treat slavery as wrong, for

a. When the proposition to abolish slavery in Missouri failed

the Democrats rejoiced.

b. Douglas, unlike Clay, does not care whether slavery is

voted up or down.

c. Douglas looks to no end of the institution of slavery.

d. Douglas has been the most prominent instrument in placing

slavery upon “Brooks’ cotton-gin basis” where he openly

confesses he has no desire to see it ended.

F. Judge Douglas’ position on the Dred Scott Decision is a doctrine of

lawlessness, for

I. Before the Dred Scott decision Douglas said constantly, that

whether or not the people of the territories could exclude

slavery was a question for the Supreme Court to decide. Now he

says it is not a question for the Supreme Court, but for the

people.

II. Douglas’s doctrine of local police regulation is contrary to

the Constitution, for

a. The territories cannot withhold the legislation which a man

needs for the enjoyment of a right fixed in his favor by

the Constitution.

III. If such a right as Judge Douglas holds to be a right really

exists then the fugitive slave law can be made of no effect by

the same kind of action.

MR. DOUGLAS’S REJOINDER

Proposition: Vote for Douglas and the Democratic party, because

A. Mr. Lincoln’s tendency is toward abolitionism.

B. Lincoln’s course in Congress with reference to the Mexican War was

unpatriotic, for

I. He voted that it was unnecessary, unconstitutional, and unjust,

after it had been begun.

C. Refutation: Lincoln’s claim to be an old line Clay Whig is false,

for

I. In a caucus in 1847 Lincoln wanted to throw Henry Clay

overboard and take up General Taylor in his place.

II. Lincoln was the bitter enemy of Clay in the National

Convention at Philadelphia.

III. Singleton says that Lincoln rejoiced greatly at Clay’s

defeat.

IV. Lincoln never supported any of Clay’s policies, for

a. Lincoln voted forty-two times for the Wilmot Proviso,

whereas Clay opposed it.

D. Refutation: Lincoln’s statement that the slavery question is the

only thing that ever threatened the Union is false, for

I. Nullification threatened the Union in 1832.

II. In 1813 the Hartford Convention threatened the Union.

E. The fathers made this government divided into free and slave

states, recognizing the right of each to decide all its local

questions for itself, for

I. They did not abolish or establish slavery in any of the states.

II. Refutation: The statement that conditions have changed does

not affect the question, for

a. Changed conditions do not change the principles of the

government.

F. Lincoln advocates the identical principle asserted by George III

and the Tories of the Revolution, for

I. He wants Congress to pass laws controlling the property and

domestic concerns of the people in the territories, without

their consent and against their will.

G. Douglas’s principle of local option on the slavery question is

sufficient to preserve peace, for

I. It preserves peace on all other local questions.

_Conclusion_

The only remedy and safety is that we stand by the Constitution as our

fathers made it, obey the laws as they are passed, while they stand the

proper test, and sustain the decisions of the Supreme Court and the

constituted authorities.

APPENDIX C

LINCOLN’S ADDRESS AT COOPER INSTITUTE

[FEBRUARY 27, 1860]

MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF NEW YORK: The facts with which I

shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there

anything new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall be

any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and the

inferences and observations following that presentation. In his speech

last Autumn at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New York “Times,”

Senator Douglas said:

“Our fathers, when they framed the government under which we live,

understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now.”

I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I so

adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed starting-point for

a discussion between Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed

by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry: What was the

understanding those fathers had of the question mentioned?

What is the frame of government under which we live? The answer must be,

“The Constitution of the United States.” That Constitution consists of

the original, framed in 1787, and under which the present government

first went into operation, and twelve subsequently framed amendments,

the first ten of which were framed in 1789.

Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution? I suppose the

“thirty-nine” who signed the original instrument may be fairly called

our fathers who framed that part of the present government. It is almost

exactly true to say they framed it, and it is altogether true to say

they fairly represented the opinion and sentiment of the whole nation at

that time. Their names, being familiar to nearly all, and accessible to

quite all, need not now be repeated.

I take these “thirty-nine,” for the present, as being “our fathers who

framed the government under which we live.” What is the question which,

according to the text, those fathers understood “just as well, and even

better, than we do now”?

It is this: Does the proper division of local from Federal authority, or

anything in the Constitution, _forbid_ our Federal Government to control

as to slavery in our Federal Territories?

Upon this, Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and Republicans the

negative. This affirmation and denial form an issue; and this issue—this

question—is precisely what the text declares our fathers understood

“better than we”. Let us now inquire whether the “thirty-nine,” or any

of them, ever acted upon this question; and if they did, how they acted

upon it—_how they expressed that better understanding_. In 1784, three

years before the Constitution, the United States then owning the

Northwestern Territory, and no other, the Congress of the Confederation

had before them the question of prohibiting slavery in that Territory,

and four of the “thirty-nine” who afterward framed the Constitution were

in that Congress, and voted on that question. Of these, Roger Sherman,

Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh Williamson voted for the prohibition, thus

showing that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from

Federal authority, nor anything else, properly forbade the Federal

Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory. The other of

the four, James McHenry, voted against the prohibition, showing that for

some cause he thought it improper to vote for it.

In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the convention was in

session framing it, and while the Northwestern Territory still was the

only Territory owned by the United States, the same question of

prohibiting slavery in the Territory again came before the Congress of

the Confederation; and two more of the “thirty-nine” who afterward

signed the Constitution were in that Congress, and voted on the

question. They were William Blount and William Few; and they both voted

for the prohibition—thus showing that in their understanding no line

dividing local from Federal authority, nor anything else, properly

forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in Federal

territory. This time the prohibition became a law, being part of what is

now well known as the Ordinance of ’87.

The question of Federal control of slavery in the Territories seems not

to have been directly before the convention which framed the original

Constitution; and hence it is not recorded that the “thirty-nine,” or

any of them, while engaged on that instrument, expressed any opinion on

that precise question.

In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under the Constitution, an act

was passed to enforce the ordinance of ’87, including the prohibition of

slavery in the Northwestern Territory. The bill for this act was

reported by one of the “thirty-nine”—Thomas Fitzsimmons, then a member

of the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. It went through all

its stages without a word of opposition, and finally passed both

branches without ayes and nays, which is equivalent to a unanimous

passage. In this Congress there were sixteen of the thirty-nine fathers

who framed the original Constitution. They were John Langdon, Nicholas

Gilman, Wm. S. Johnson, Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, Thos. Fitzsimmons,

William Few, Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William Patterson, George

Clymer, Richard Bassett, George Read, Pierce Butler, Daniel Carroll, and

James Madison.

This shows that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from

Federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, properly forbade

Congress to prohibit slavery in the Federal territory; else both their

fidelity to correct principle, and their oath to support the

Constitution, would have constrained them to oppose the prohibition.

Again, George Washington, another of the “thirty-nine,” was then

President of the United States, and as such approved and signed the

bill, thus completing its validity as a law, and thus showing that, in

his understanding, no line dividing local from Federal authority, nor

anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control

as to slavery in Federal territory.

No great while after the adoption of the original Constitution, North

Carolina ceded to the Federal Government the country now constituting

the State of Tennessee; and a few years later Georgia ceded that which

now constitutes the States of Mississippi and Alabama. In both deeds of

cession it was made a condition by the ceding States that the Federal

government should not prohibit slavery in the ceded country. Besides

this, slavery was then actually in the ceded country. Under these

circumstances, Congress, on taking charge of these countries, did not

absolutely prohibit slavery within them. But they did interfere with

it—take control of it—even there, to a certain extent. In 1798 Congress

organized the Territory of Mississippi. In the act of organization they

prohibited the bringing of slaves into the Territory from any place

without the United States, by fine, and giving freedom to slaves so

brought. This act passed both branches of Congress without yeas and

nays. In that Congress were three of the “thirty-nine” who framed the

original Constitution. They were John Langdon, George Read, and Abraham

Baldwin. They all probably voted for it. Certainly they would have

placed their opposition to it upon record if, in their understanding,

any line dividing local from Federal authority, or anything in the

Constitution, properly forbade the Federal Government to control as to

slavery in Federal Territory.