reached and passed. ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’
I believe this government _cannot endure permanently half-slave and
half-free_. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved,--I do not expect
the house to fall,--_but I do expect it will cease to be divided_. It
will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of
slavery _will arrest the further spread of it_, and place it where
the public mind shall rest in the belief _that it is in the course of
ultimate extinction_, or its advocates _will push it forward till it
shall become alike lawful in all the States_,--old as well as new,
North as well as South.” [_“Good,” “Good,” and cheers._]
I am delighted to hear you Black Republicans say, “Good.” I have no
doubt that doctrine expresses your sentiments; and I will prove to you
now, if you will listen to me, that it is revolutionary and destructive
of the existence of this government. Mr. Lincoln, in the extract from
which I have read, says that this government cannot endure permanently
in the same condition in which it was made by its framers--divided
into free and slave States. He says that it has existed for about
seventy years thus divided, and yet he tells you that it cannot endure
permanently on the same principles and in the same relative condition
in which our fathers made it. Why can it not exist divided into free
and slave States? Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton,
Jay, and the great men of that day made this government divided into
free States and slave States, and left each State perfectly free to
do as it pleased on the subject of slavery. Why can it not exist on
the same principles on which our fathers made it? They knew when they
framed the Constitution that in a country as wide and broad as this,
with such a variety of climate, production, and interest, the people
necessarily required different laws and institutions in different
localities. They knew that the laws and regulations which would suit
the granite hills of New Hampshire would be unsuited to the rice
plantations of South Carolina; and they therefore provided that each
State should retain its own legislature and its own sovereignty, with
the full and complete power to do as it pleased within its own limits,
in all that was local and not national. One of the reserved rights
of the States was the right to regulate the relations between master
and servant, on the slavery question. At the time the Constitution
was framed there were thirteen States in the Union, twelve of which
were slaveholding States and one a free State. Suppose this doctrine
of uniformity preached by Mr. Lincoln, that the States should all
be free or all be slave, had prevailed; and what would have been
the result? Of course, the twelve slaveholding States would have
overruled the one free State; and slavery would have been fastened by
a constitutional provision on every inch of the American republic,
instead of being left, as our fathers wisely left it, to each State to
decide for itself. Here I assert that uniformity in the local laws and
institutions of the different States is neither possible nor desirable.
If uniformity had been adopted when the government was established, it
must inevitably have been the uniformity of slavery everywhere, or else
the uniformity of negro citizenship and negro equality everywhere.
We are told by Lincoln that he is utterly opposed to the Dred Scott
decision, and will not submit to it, for the reason that he says it
deprives the negro of the rights and privileges of citizenship. That
is the first and main reason which he assigns for his warfare on the
Supreme Court of the United States and its decision. I ask you, Are
you in favor of conferring upon the negro the rights and privileges
of citizenship? Do you desire to strike out of our State constitution
that clause which keeps slaves and free negroes out of the State,
and allow the free negroes to flow in, and cover your prairies with
black settlements? Do you desire to turn this beautiful State into a
free negro colony, in order that when Missouri abolishes slavery she
can send one hundred thousand emancipated slaves into Illinois, to
become citizens and voters, on an equality with yourselves? If you
desire negro citizenship, if you desire to allow them to come into the
State and settle with the white man, if you desire them to vote on an
equality with yourselves, and to make them eligible to office, to
serve on juries, and to adjudge your rights, then support Mr. Lincoln
and the Black Republican party, who are in favor of the citizenship of
the negro. For one, I am opposed to negro citizenship in any and every
form. I believe this government was made on the white basis. I believe
it was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their
posterity forever; and I am in favor of confining citizenship to white
men, men of European birth and descent, instead of conferring it upon
negroes, Indians, and other inferior races.
Mr. Lincoln, following the example and lead of all the little Abolition
orators who go around and lecture in the basements of schools and
churches, reads from the Declaration of Independence that all men were
created equal, and then asks, How can you deprive a negro of that
equality which God and the Declaration of Independence award to him?
He and they maintain that negro equality is guaranteed by the laws of
God, and that it is asserted in the Declaration of Independence. If
they think so, of course they have a right to say so, and so vote. I do
not question Mr. Lincoln’s conscientious belief that the negro was made
his equal, and hence is his brother; but, for my own part, I do not
regard the negro as my equal, and positively deny that he is my brother
or any kin to me whatever.... I do not believe that the Almighty ever
intended the negro to be the equal of the white man. If he did, he has
been a long time demonstrating the fact. For thousands of years the
negro has been a race upon the earth; and during all that time, in all
latitudes and climates, wherever he has wandered or been taken, he
has been inferior to the race which he has there met. He belongs to
an inferior race, and must always occupy an inferior position. I do
not hold that, because the negro is our inferior, therefore he ought
to be a slave. By no means can such a conclusion be drawn from what
I have said. On the contrary, I hold that humanity and Christianity
both require that the negro shall have and enjoy every right, every
privilege, and every immunity consistent with the safety of the
society in which he lives. On that point, I presume, there can be no
diversity of opinion. You and I are bound to extend to our inferior
and dependent beings every right, every privilege, every facility and
immunity consistent with the public good. The question then arises,
What rights and privileges are consistent with the public good? This is
a question which each State and each Territory must decide for itself.
Illinois has decided it for herself. We have provided that the negro
shall not be a slave; and we have also provided that he shall not
be a citizen, but protect him in his civil rights, in his life, his
person, and his property, only depriving him of all political rights
whatsoever and refusing to put him on an equality with the white man.
That policy of Illinois is satisfactory to the Democratic party and to
me, and if it were to the Republicans there would then be no question
upon the subject; but the Republicans say that he ought to be made a
citizen, and when he becomes a citizen he becomes your equal, with all
your rights and privileges. They assert the Dred Scott decision to be
monstrous because it denies that the negro is or can be a citizen under
the Constitution.
Now, I hold that Illinois had a right to abolish and prohibit slavery
as she did, and I hold that Kentucky has the same right to continue
and protect slavery that Illinois had to abolish it. I hold that New
York had as much right to abolish slavery as Virginia has to continue
it, and that each and every State of this Union is a sovereign power,
with the right to do as it pleases upon this question of slavery and
upon all its domestic institutions. Slavery is not the only question
which comes up in this controversy. There is a far more important one
to you, and that is, What shall be done with the free negro?... In
relation to the policy to be pursued toward the free negroes, we have
said that they shall not vote; whilst Maine, on the other hand, has
said that they shall vote. Maine is a sovereign State, and has the
power to regulate the qualifications of voters within her limits. I
would never consent to confer the right of voting and of citizenship
upon a negro, but still I am not going to quarrel with Maine for
differing from me in opinion. Let Maine take care of her own negroes,
and fix the qualifications of her own voters to suit herself, without
interfering with Illinois; and Illinois will not interfere with Maine.
So with the State of New York. She allows the negro to vote provided
he owns two hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of property, but not
otherwise. While I would not make any distinction whatever between a
negro who held property and one who did not, yet if the sovereign State
of New York chooses to make that distinction it is her business, and
not mine; and I will not quarrel with her for it. She can do as she
pleases on this question if she minds her own business, and we will do
the same thing. Now, my friends, if we will only act conscientiously
and rigidly upon this great principle of popular sovereignty, which
guarantees to each State and Territory the right to do as it pleases
on all things local and domestic instead of Congress interfering, we
will continue at peace one with another. Why should Illinois be at
war with Missouri, or Kentucky with Ohio, or Virginia with New York,
merely because their institutions differ? Our fathers intended that
our institutions should differ. They knew that the North and the
South, having different climates, productions, and interests, required
different institutions. This doctrine of Mr. Lincoln, of uniformity
among the institutions of the different States, is a new doctrine never
dreamed of by Washington, Madison, or the framers of this government.
Mr. Lincoln and the Republican party set themselves up as wiser than
these men who made this government, which has flourished for seventy
years under the principle of popular sovereignty, recognizing the right
of each State to do as it pleased. Under that principle, we have grown
from a nation of three or four millions to a nation of about thirty
millions of people. We have crossed the Alleghany mountains and filled
up the whole Northwest, turning the prairie into a garden, and building
up churches and schools, thus spreading civilization and Christianity
where before there was nothing but savage barbarism. Under that
principle we have become, from a feeble nation, the most powerful on
the face of the earth; and, if we only adhere to that principle, we can
go forward increasing in territory, in power, in strength, and in glory
until the Republic of America shall be the north star that shall guide
the friends of freedom throughout the civilized world. And why can we
not adhere to the great principle of self-government upon which our
institutions were originally based? I believe that this new doctrine
preached by Mr. Lincoln and his party will dissolve the Union if it
succeeds. They are trying to array all the Northern States in one body
against the South, to excite a sectional war between the Free States
and the Slave States, in order that the one or the other may be driven
to the wall.
LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE
FIRST JOINT DEBATE, DELIVERED AT OTTAWA, ILL., AUGUST 21, 1858
_Lincoln’s Reply_
MY FELLOW-CITIZENS:--When a man hears himself somewhat misrepresented,
it provokes him,--at least I find it so with myself; but when
misrepresentation becomes very gross and palpable it is more apt
to amuse him. The first thing I see fit to notice is the fact that
Judge Douglas alleges, after running through the history of the old
Democratic and the old Whig parties, that Judge Trumbull and myself
made an arrangement in 1854 by which I was to have the place of General
Shields in the United States Senate, and Judge Trumbull was to have
the place of Judge Douglas. Now all I have to say upon that subject is
that I think no man--not even Judge Douglas--can prove it, _because it
is not true_. I have no doubt he is “conscientious” in saying it. As
to those resolutions that he took such a length of time to read, as
being the platform of the Republican party in 1854, I say I never had
anything to do with them; and I think Trumbull never had. Judge Douglas
cannot show that either of us ever did have anything to do with them.
I believe this is true about those resolutions: There was a call for a
convention to form a Republican party at Springfield; and I think that
my friend, Mr. Lovejoy, who is here upon this stand, had a hand in it.
I think this is true; and I think, if he will remember accurately, he
will be able to recollect that he tried to get me into it and I would
not go in. I believe it is also true that I went away from Springfield,
when the convention was in session, to attend court in Tazewell County.
It is true they did place my name, though without authority, upon
the committee, and afterward wrote me to attend the meeting of the
committee; but I refused to do so, and I never had anything to do with
that organization. This is the plain truth about all that matter of the
resolutions.
Now, about this story that Judge Douglas tells of Trumbull bargaining
to sell out the old Democratic party, and Lincoln agreeing to sell out
the old Whig party, I have the means of _knowing_ about that; Judge
Douglas cannot have; and I know there is no substance to it whatever.
Yet I have no doubt he is “conscientious” about it. I know that after
Mr. Lovejoy got into the legislature that winter he complained to me
that I had told all the old Whigs of his district that the old Whig
party was good enough for them, and some of them voted against him
because I told them so. Now, I have no means of totally disproving such
charges as this which the Judge makes. A man cannot prove a negative;
but he has a right to claim that, when a man makes an affirmative
charge, he must offer some proof to show the truth of what he says. I
certainly cannot introduce testimony to show the negative about things;
but I have a right to claim that, if a man says he _knows_ a thing,
then he must show _how he knows it_. I always have a right to claim
this, and it is not satisfactory to me that he may be “conscientious”
on the subject.
Now, gentlemen, I hate to waste my time on such things, but in regard
to that general Abolition tilt that Judge Douglas makes when he says
that I was engaged at that time in selling out and Abolitionizing the
old Whig party, I hope you will permit me to read a part of a printed
speech that I made then at Peoria, which will show altogether a
different view of the position I took in that contest of 1854. [_Voice:
“Put on your specs.”_] Yes, sir, I am obliged to do so; I am no longer
a young man:
“This is the _repeal_ of the Missouri Compromise. The foregoing
history may not be precisely accurate in every particular; but
I am sure it is sufficiently so for all the uses I shall attempt
to make of it, and in it we have before us the chief materials
enabling us to correctly judge whether the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise is right or wrong.
“I think, and shall try to show, that it is wrong,--wrong in its
direct effect, letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska,--and wrong
in its prospective principle, allowing it to spread to every other
part of the wide world where men can be found inclined to take it.
“This _declared_ indifference, but as I must think covert real
_zeal_ for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it
because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it
because it deprives our republican example of its just influence
in the world; enables the enemies of free institutions, with
plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites; causes the real friends of
freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces
so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with
the very fundamental principles of civil liberty,--criticising the
Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right
principle of action but _self-interest_.
“Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice against
the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their
situation. If slavery did not now exist among them, they would not
introduce it. If it did now exist among us, we should not instantly
give it up. This I believe of the masses North and South. Doubtless
there are individuals on both sides who would not hold slaves under
any circumstances; and others who would gladly introduce slavery
anew, if it were out of existence. We know that some Southern men
do free their slaves, go North, and become tip-top Abolitionists;
while some Northern ones go South, and become most cruel
slavemasters.
“When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the
origin of slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said
that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get
rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate
the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I
should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given
me, I should not know what to do as to the existing institution.
My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them
to Liberia,--to their own native land. But a moment’s reflection
would convince me that, whatever of high hope (as I think there
is) there may be in this in the long run, its sudden execution is
impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they would all
perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping
and surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in many
times ten days. What then? Free them all, and keep them among us as
underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition?
I think I would not hold one in slavery, at any rate; yet the point
is not clear enough to me to denounce people upon. What next? Free
them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own
feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know
that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this
feeling accords with justice and sound judgment is not the sole
question, if indeed it is any part of it. A universal feeling,
whether well or ill-founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We
cannot make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual
emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this I
will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South.
“When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknowledge
them, not grudgingly, but fully and fairly; and I would give them
any legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives which should
not, in its stringency, be more likely to carry a free man into
slavery than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one.
“But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more excuse for
permitting slavery to go into our own free territory than it
would for reviving the African slave-trade by law. The law which
forbids the bringing of slaves from Africa, and that which has
so long forbidden the taking of them to Nebraska, can hardly be
distinguished on any moral principle; and the repeal of the former
could find quite as plausible excuses as that of the latter.”
I have reason to know that Judge Douglas _knows_ that I said this. I
think he has the answer here to one of the questions he put to me.
I do not mean to allow him to catechize me unless he pays back for
it in kind. I will not answer questions one after another, unless he
reciprocates; but as he has made this inquiry, and I have answered it
before, he has got it without my getting anything in return. He has got
my answer on the fugitive-slave law.
Now, gentlemen, I don’t want to read at any great length; but this
is the true complexion of all I have ever said in regard to the
institution of slavery and the black race. This is the whole of it;
and anything that argues me into his idea of perfect social and
political equality with the negro is but a specious and fantastic
arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to
be a chestnut horse. I will say here, while upon this subject, that
I have no purpose, either directly or indirectly, to interfere with
the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe
I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.
I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between
the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between
the two which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their
living together upon the footing of perfect equality; and, inasmuch
as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I as well
as Judge Douglas am in favor of the race to which I belong having the
superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I
hold that, notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world
why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in
the Declaration of Independence,--the right to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as
the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many
respects,--certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual
endowment. But _in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of
anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of
Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man_.
Now I pass on to consider one or two more of these little follies.
The Judge is wofully at fault about his early friend Lincoln being a
“grocery-keeper.” I don’t think that it would be a great sin if I had
been; but he is mistaken. Lincoln never kept a grocery anywhere in the
world. It is true that Lincoln did work the latter part of one winter
in a little still-house up at the head of a hollow. And so I think my
friend, the Judge, is equally at fault when he charges me at the time
when I was in Congress of having opposed our soldiers who were fighting
in the Mexican War. The Judge did not make his charge very distinctly;
but I tell you what he can prove, by referring to the record. You
remember I was an Old Whig; and whenever the Democratic party tried
to get me to vote that the war had been righteously begun by the
President, I would not do it. But whenever they asked for any money or
land-warrants or anything to pay the soldiers there, during all that
time, I gave the same vote that Judge Douglas did. You can think as
you please as to whether that was consistent. Such is the truth; and
the Judge has the right to make all he can out of it. But when he, by
a general charge, conveys the idea that I withheld supplies from the
soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican War, or did anything else to
hinder the soldiers, he is, to say the least, grossly and altogether
mistaken, as a consultation of the records will prove to him.
As I have not used up so much of my time as I had supposed, I will
dwell a little longer upon one or two of these minor topics upon which
the Judge has spoken. He has read from my speech in Springfield in
which I say that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” Does
the Judge say it _can_ stand? I don’t know whether he does or not. The
Judge does not seem to be attending to me just now, but I would like
to know if it is his opinion that a house divided against itself _can
stand_. If he does, then there is a question of veracity, not between
him and me, but between the Judge and an authority of a somewhat higher
character.