men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects.
They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect,
moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable
distinctness in what respects they did consider all men created
equal--equal with "certain inalienable rights, among which are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This they said, and this they
meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were
then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet that they were about to
confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer
such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that enforcement
of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit.
They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be
familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly
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. The assertion that "all men are created equal"
was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain;
and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use.
Its authors meant it to be--as, thank God, it is now proving itself--a
stumbling-block to all those who in after times might seek to turn a
free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the
proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such
should reappear in this fair land and commence their vocation, they
should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack.
I have now briefly expressed my view of the meaning and object of that
part of the Declaration of Independence which declares that "all men are
created equal."
Now let us hear Judge Douglas's view of the same subject as I find it in
the printed report of his late speech. Here it is:
"No man can vindicate the character, motives, and conduct of the signers
of the Declaration of Independence, except upon the hypothesis that
they referred to the white race alone, and not to the African, when they
declared all men to have been created equal; that they were speaking of
British subjects on this continent being equal to British subjects
born and residing in Great Britain; that they were entitled to the same
inalienable rights, and among them were enumerated life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness. The Declaration was adopted for the purpose
of justifying the colonists in the eyes of the civilized world in
withdrawing their allegiance from the British crown, and dissolving
their connection with the mother country."
My good friends, read that carefully over in some leisure hour, and
ponder well upon it; see what a mere wreck--mangled ruin--it makes of
our once glorious Declaration.
"They were speaking of British subjects on this continent being equal to
British subjects born and residing in Great Britain." Why, according
to this, not only negroes but white people outside of Great Britain and
America were not spoken of in that instrument. The English, Irish, and
Scotch, along with white Americans, were included, to be sure, but the
French, Germans, and other white people of the world are all gone to pot
along with the Judge's inferior races.
I had thought the Declaration promised something better than the
condition of British subjects; but no, it only meant that we should be
equal to them in their own oppressed and unequal condition. According to
that, it gave no promise that, having kicked off the king and lords of
Great Britain, we should not at once be saddled with a king and lords of
our own.
I had thought the Declaration contemplated the progressive improvement
in the condition of all men everywhere; but no, it merely "was adopted
for the purpose of justifying the colonists in the eyes of the civilized
world, in withdrawing their allegiance from the British crown, and
dissolving their connection with the mother country." Why, that object
having been effected some eighty years ago, the Declaration is of
no practical use now--mere rubbish--old wadding left to rot on the
battle-field after the victory is won.
I understand you are preparing to celebrate the "Fourth," to-morrow
week. What for? The doings of that day had no reference to the present;
and quite half of you are not even descendants of those who were
referred to at that day. But I suppose you will celebrate, and will even
go so far as to read the Declaration. Suppose, after you read it once
in the old-fashioned way, you read it once more with Judge Douglas's
version. It will then run thus: "We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all British subjects who were on this continent
eighty-one years ago, were created equal to all British subjects born
and then residing in Great Britain."
And now I appeal to all--to Democrats as well as others--are you really
willing that the Declaration shall thus be frittered away?--thus left
no more, at most, than an interesting memorial of the dead past?--thus
shorn of its vitality and practical value, and left without the germ or
even the suggestion of the individual rights of man in it?
ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
OF ILLINOIS. (BORN 1809, DIED 1865.)
ON HIS NOMINATION TO THE UNITED STATES SENATE,
AT THE REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION, SPRINGFIELD, ILLS., JUNE 16, 1858.
MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION:
If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we
could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into
the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and
confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the
operation of that policy, that agitation not only has not ceased, but
has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a
crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against
itself cannot stand." I believe this Government cannot endure
permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be
dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect that
it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the
other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of
it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it
is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it
forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as
well as new, North as well as South. Have we no tendency to the latter
condition? Let any one who doubts carefully contemplate that now almost
complete legal combination piece of machinery, so to speak--compounded
of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider
not only what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted,
but also let him study the history of its construction, and trace, if
he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design and
concert of action among its chief architects from the beginning.
The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more than half the
States by State constitutions, and from most of the national territory
by Congressional prohibition. Four days later commenced the struggle
which ended in repealing that Congressional prohibition. This opened all
the national territory to slavery, and was the first point gained. But,
so far, Congress only had acted, and an indorsement, by the people, real
or apparent, was indispensable, to save the point already gained and
give chance for more. This necessity had not been overlooked, but had
been provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argument
of "squatter sovereignty," otherwise called "sacred right of
self-government";--which latter phrase though expressive of the only
rightful basis of any government, was so perverted in this attempted use
of it as to amount to just this: That, if any one man choose to enslave
another, no third man shall be allowed to object. That argument was
incorporated with the Nebraska bill itself, in the language which
follows: "It being the true intent and meaning of this act, not to
legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it
therefrom; but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and
regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to
the Constitution of the United States." Then opened the roar of loose
declamation in favor of "squatter sovereignty," and "sacred right of
self-government." "But," said opposition members, "let us amend the bill
so as to expressly declare that the people of the Territory may exclude
slavery." "Not we," said the friends of the measure; and down they voted
the amendment.
While the Nebraska bill was passing through Congress, a law-case,
involving the question of a negro's freedom, by reason of his owner
having voluntarily taken him first into a free State, and then into a
Territory covered by the Congressional prohibition, and held him as a
slave for a long time in each, was passing through the United States
Circuit Court for the District of Missouri; and both Nebraska bill and
lawsuit were brought to a decision in the same month of May, 1854. The
negro's name was Dred Scott, which name now designates the decision
finally made in the case. Before the then next Presidential election,
the law-case came to, and was argued in, the Supreme Court of the United
States; but the decision of it was deferred until after the election.
Still, before the election, Senator Trumbull, on the floor of the
Senate, requested the leading advocate of the Nebraska bill to state his
opinion whether the people of a Territory can constitutionally exclude
slavery from their limits; and the latter answers: "That is a question
for the Supreme Court."
The election came, Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorsement, such
as it was, secured. That was the second point gained. The indorsement,
however, fell short of a clear popular majority by nearly four hundred
thousand votes, and so, perhaps, was not overwhelmingly reliable and
satisfactory. The outgoing President, in his last annual message, as
impressively as possible, echoed back upon the people the weight and
authority of the indorsement. The Supreme Court met again, did not
announce their decision, but ordered a re-argument. The Presidential
inauguration came, and still no decision of the court; but the incoming
President, in his inaugural address, fervently exhorted the people to
abide by the forthcoming decision, whatever it might be. Then, in a few
days, came the decision. The reputed author of the Nebraska bill finds
an early occasion to make a speech at this capital, indorsing the Dred
Scott decision, and vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The
new President, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter
to indorse and strongly construe that decision, and to express his
astonishment that any different view had ever been entertained.
At length a squabble springs up between the President and the author of
the Nebraska bill, on the mere question of fact, whether the Lecompton
constitution was, or was not, in any just sense, made by the people of
Kansas; and in that quarrel the latter declares that all he wants is a
fair vote for the people, and that he cares not whether slavery be voted
down or voted up.' I do not understand his declaration, that he cares
not whether slavery be voted _down_ or voted _up_, to be intended by him
other than as an apt definition of the policy he would impress upon
the public mind--the principle for which he declares he has suffered so
much, and is ready to suffer to the end. And well may he cling to that
principle. If he has any parental feeling, well may he cling to it.
That principle is the only shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine.
Under the Dred Scott decision, squatter sovereignty squatted out of
existence--tumbled down like temporary scaffolding--like the mould
at the foundry, served through one blast, and fell back into loose
sand,--helped to carry an election, and then was kicked to the winds.
His late joint struggle with the Republicans against the Lecompton
constitution involves nothing of the original Nebraska doctrine. That
struggle was made on a point--the right of a people to make their own
constitution--upon which he and the Republicans have never differed.
The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connection with
Senator Douglas's "care-not" policy, constitute the piece of machinery
in its present state of advancement. This was the third point gained.
The working points of that machinery are: (1) That no negro slave,
imported as such from Africa, and no descendant of such slave, can ever
be a citizen of any State, in the sense of that term as used in the
Constitution of the United States. This point is made in order to
deprive the negro, in every possible event, of the benefit of that
provision of the United States Constitution, which declares that
"the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and
immunities of citizens in the several States." (2) That, "subject to the
Constitution of the United States," neither Congress nor a Territorial
Legislature can exclude slavery from any United States Territory. This
point is made in order that individual men may fill up the Territories
with slaves, without danger of losing them as property, and thus to
enhance the chances of permanency to the institution through all the
future. (3) That whether the holding a negro in actual slavery in a free
State makes him free, as against the holder, the United States courts
will not decide, but will leave to be decided by the courts of any slave
State the negro may be forced into by the master. This point is made,
not to be pressed immediately; but, if acquiesced in for a while, and
apparently indorsed by the people at an election, then to sustain the
logical conclusion that what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do with
Dred Scott, in the State of Illinois, every other master may lawfully do
with any other one or one thousand slaves, in Illinois, or in any other
free State.
Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with it, the Nebraska
doctrine, or what is left of it, is to educate and mould public opinion,
at least Northern public opinion, not to care whether slavery is voted
down or voted up. This shows exactly where we now are, and partially,
also, whither we are tending.
It will throw additional light on the latter to go back, and run the
mind over the string of historical facts already stated. Several things
will now appear less dark and mysterious than they did when they were
transpiring. The people were to be left "perfectly free," "subject only
to the Constitution." What the Constitution had to do with it, outsiders
could not then see. Plainly enough now, it was an exactly fitted niche
for the Dred Scott decision to come in afterward, and declare the
perfect freedom of the people to be just no freedom at all. Why was
the amendment expressly declaring the right of the people voted down?
Plainly enough now, the adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for
the Dred Scott decision. Why was the court decision held up? Why even
a Senator's individual opinion withheld till after the Presidential
election? Plainly enough now: the speaking out then would have damaged
the "perfectly free" argument upon which the election was to be carried.
Why the outgoing President's felicitation on the indorsement? Why the
delay of a re-argument? Why the incoming President's advance exhortation
in favor of the decision? These things look like the cautious patting
and petting of a spirited horse preparatory to mounting him, when it
is dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And why the hasty after
indorsement of the decision by the President and others?
We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the
result of preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different
portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and
places, and by different workmen--Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James,
for instance,--and when we see these timbers joined together, and see
that they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons
and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the
different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not
a piece too many or too few--not omitting even scaffolding,--or, if a
single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted
and prepared yet to bring such piece in,--in such a case, we find it
impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James
all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a
common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck.
It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska bill, the people of a
State, as well as Territory, were to be left "perfectly free," "subject
only to the Constitution." Why mention a State? They were legislating
for Territories, and not for or about States. Certainly, the people of
a State are and ought to be subject to the Constitution of the United
States; but why is mention of this lugged into this merely Territorial
law? Why are the people of a Territory and the people of a State therein
lumped together, and their relation to the Constitution therein
treated as being precisely the same? While the opinion of the court, by
Chief-Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case, and the separate opinions
of all the concurring judges, expressly declare that the Constitution of
the United States permits neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature
to exclude slavery from any United States Territory, they all omit to
declare whether or not the same Constitution permits a State, or the
people of a State, to exclude it. Possibly, this is a mere omission; but
who can be quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had sought to get into the
opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the people of a State to
exclude slavery from their limits, just as Chase and Mace sought to
get such declaration, in behalf of the people of a territory, into the
Nebraska bill--I ask, who can be quite sure that it would not have been
voted down in the one case as it had been in the other? The nearest
approach to the point of declaring the power of a State over slavery is
made by Judge Nelson. He approaches it more than once, using the
precise idea, and almost the language, too, of the Nebraska act. On
one occasion, his exact language is: "Except in cases when the power
is restrained by the Constitution of the United States, the law of the
State is supreme over the subjects of slavery within its jurisdiction."
In what cases the power of the States is so restrained by the United
States Constitution is left an open question, precisely as the same
question, as to the restraint on the power of the Territories, was
left open in the Nebraska act. Put this and that together, and we have
another nice little niche, which we may, ere long, see filled with
another Supreme Court decision, declaring that the Constitution of
the United States does not permit a State to exclude slavery from its
limits. And this may especially be expected if the doctrine of "care not
whether slavery be voted down or voted up," shall gain upon the public
mind sufficiently to give promise that such a decision can be maintained
when made.
Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in
all the States. Welcome or unwelcome, such decision is probably coming,
and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present political
dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie down pleasantly
dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their
State free, and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme
Court has made Illinois a slave State. To meet and overthrow
that dynasty is the work before all those who would prevent that
consummation. That is what we have to do. How can we best do it?
There are those who denounce us openly to their own friends, and yet
whisper us softly that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there
is with which to effect that object. They wish us to infer all, from
the fact that he now has a little quarrel with the present head of the
dynasty; and that he has regularly voted with us on a single point, upon
which he and we have never differed. They remind us that he is a
great man, and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be
granted. "But a living dog is better than a dead lion." Judge Douglas,
if not a dead lion, for this work, is at least a caged and toothless
one. How can he oppose the advances of slavery? He don't care anything
about it. His avowed mission is impressing the "public heart" to
care nothing about it. A leading Douglas Democratic newspaper thinks
Douglas's superior talent will be needed to resist the revival of the
African slave-trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to revive that trade
is approaching? He has not said so. Does he really think so? But if it
is, how can he resist it? For years he has labored to prove it a sacred
right of white men to take negro slaves into the new Territories. Can he
possibly show that it is less a sacred right to buy them where they can
be bought cheapest? And unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in
Africa than in Virginia. He has done all in his power to reduce the
whole question of slavery to one of a mere right of property; and as
such, how can he oppose the foreign slave-trade? How can he refuse that
trade in that "property" shall be "perfectly free," unless he does it
as a protection to the home production? And as the home producers will
probably ask the protection, he will be wholly without a ground of
opposition. Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be
wiser to-day than he was yesterday--that he may rightfully change when
he finds himself wrong. But can we, for that reason, run ahead, and
infer that he will make any particular change, of which he himself has
given no intimation? Can we safely base our action upon any such vague
inference? Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge Douglas's
position, question his motives, or do aught that can be personally
offensive to him. Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on
principle, so that our cause may have assistance from his great ability,
I hope to have interposed no adventitious obstacle. But, clearly, he is
not now with us--he does not pretend to be, he does not promise ever to
be.
Our cause, then, must be entrusted to, and conducted by its own
undoubted friends--those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the
work--who do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the
nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under
the single impulse of resistance to a common danger. With every external
circumstance against us, of strange, discordant, and even hostile
elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the
battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and
pampered enemy. Did we brave all then, to falter now?--now, when that
same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent! The result is not
doubtful. We shall not fail--if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise
counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it; but, sooner or later, the
victory is sure to come.
STEPHEN ARNOLD DOUGLAS,
OF ILLINOIS. (BORN 1813, DIED 1861.)
IN REPLY TO MR. LINCOLN;
FREEPORT, ILLS., AUGUST 27, 1858.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:
I am glad that at last I have brought Mr. Lincoln to the conclusion
that he had better define his position on certain political questions
to which I called his attention at Ottawa. * * * In a few moments I
will proceed to review the answers which he has given to these
interrogatories; but, in order to relieve his anxiety, I will first
respond to those which he has presented to me. Mark you, he has not
presented interrogatories which have ever received the sanction of the
party with which I am acting, and hence he has no other foundation for
them than his own curiosity.