saying something seriously. I know that the Judge may readily enough
agree with me that the maxim which was put forth by the Savior is
true, but he may allege that I misapply it; and the Judge has a right
to urge that in my application I do misapply it, and then I have a
right to show that I do _not_ misapply it. When he undertakes to say
that, because I think this nation so far as the question of slavery is
concerned will all become one thing or all the other, I am in favor of
bringing about a dead uniformity in the various States in all their
institutions, he argues erroneously. The great variety of the local
institutions in the States, springing from differences in the soil,
differences in the face of the country, and in the climate, are bonds
of union. They do not make “a house divided against itself,” but they
make a house united. If they produce in one section of the country what
is called for by the wants of another section, and this other section
can supply the wants of the first, they are not matters of discord,
but bonds of union,--true bonds of union. But can this question of
slavery be considered as among _these_ varieties in the institutions
of the country? I leave it to you to say whether, in the history of
our government, this institution of slavery has not always failed to
be a bond of union, and on the contrary been an apple of discord and
an element of division in the house. I ask you to consider whether,
so long as the moral constitution of men’s minds shall continue to be
the same, after this generation and assemblage shall sink into the
grave and another race shall arise with the same moral and intellectual
development we have,--whether, if that institution is standing in the
same irritating position in which is now is, it will not continue an
element of division?
If so, then I have a right to say that, in regard to this question, the
Union is a house divided against itself; and when the Judge reminds
me that I have often said to him that the institution of slavery has
existed for eighty years in some States, and yet it does not exist in
some others, I agree to the fact, and I account for it by looking at
the position in which our fathers originally placed it,--restricting
it from the new Territories where it had not gone, and legislating to
cut off its source by the abrogation of the slave trade, thus putting
the seal of legislation _against its spread_. The public mind _did_
rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction.
But lately, I think,--and in this I charge nothing on the Judge’s
motives,--lately, I think that he, and those acting with him, have
placed that institution on a new basis, which looks to the _perpetuity
and nationalization of slavery_. And while it is placed upon this new
basis, I say and I have said that I believe we shall not have peace
upon the question until the opponents of slavery 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, on the
other hand, that its advocates will push it forward until it shall
become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as
well as South. Now I believe, if we could arrest the spread and place
it where Washington and Jefferson and Madison placed it, it _would be_
in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind would, as
for eighty years past, believe that it was in the course of ultimate
extinction. The crisis would be past, and the institution might be let
alone for a hundred years--if it should live so long--in the States
where it exists, yet it would be going out of existence in the way best
for both the black and the white races.
[_A voice: “Then do you repudiate Popular Sovereignty?”_]
Well, then, let us talk about popular sovereignty. What is Popular
Sovereignty? Is it the right of the people to have slavery or not have
it, as they see fit, in the Territories? I will state--and I have an
able man to watch me--my understanding is that Popular Sovereignty,
as now applied to the question of slavery, does allow the people of a
Territory to _have_ slavery if they want to, but does not allow them
_not_ to have it if they do not want it. I do not mean that, if this
vast concourse of people were in a Territory of the United States, any
one of them would be obliged to have a slave if he did not want one;
but I do say that, as I understand the Dred Scott decision, if any one
man wants slaves all the rest have no way of keeping that one man from
holding them.
When I made my speech at Springfield, of which the Judge complains and
from which he quotes, I really was not thinking of the things which he
ascribes to me at all. I had no thought in the world that I was doing
anything to bring about a war between the Free and Slave States. I had
no thought in the world that I was doing anything to bring about a
political and social equality of the black and white races. It never
occurred to me that I was doing anything or favoring anything to
reduce to a dead uniformity all the local institutions of the various
States. But I must say, in all fairness to him, if he thinks I am doing
something which leads to these bad results, it is none the better that
I did not mean it. It is just as fatal to the country, if I have any
influence in producing it, whether I intend it or not. But can it be
true that placing this institution upon the original basis--the basis
upon which our fathers placed it--can have any tendency to set the
Northern and the Southern States at war with one another, or that it
can have any tendency to make the people of Vermont raise sugar-cane
because they raise it in Louisiana, or that it can compel the people
of Illinois to cut pine logs on the Grand Prairie, where they will not
grow, because they cut pine logs in Maine, where they do grow? The
Judge says this is a new principle started in regard to this question.
Does the Judge claim that he is working on the plan of the founders of
the government? I think he says in some of his speeches--indeed, I have
one here now--that he saw evidence of a policy to allow slavery to be
south of a certain line, while north of it it should be excluded; and
he saw an indisposition on the part of the country to stand upon that
policy, and therefore he set about studying the subject upon _original
principles_, and upon _original principles_ he got up the Nebraska
bill! I am fighting it upon these “original principles,”--fighting it
in the Jeffersonian, Washingtonian, and Madisonian fashion.
Now, my friends, I wish you to attend for a little while to one or two
other things in that Springfield speech. My main object was to show, so
far as my humble ability was capable of showing, to the people of this
country what I believed was the truth,--that there was a _tendency_,
if not a conspiracy, among those who have engineered this slavery
question for the last four or five years, to make slavery perpetual and
universal in this nation. Having made that speech principally for that
object, after arranging the evidences that I thought tended to prove my
proposition, I concluded with this bit of comment:
“We cannot absolutely know that these exact adaptations are the
results of pre-concert; 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
[Senator Douglas], Franklin [President Pierce], Roger [Chief
Justice Taney], and James [President Buchanan], for instance,--and
when we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly
make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises
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 the
scaffolding,--or if a single piece be lacking, we see the place
in the frame exactly fitted and prepared to yet bring such piece
in,--in such a case we feel 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 before the first blow was struck.”
When my friend, Judge Douglas, came to Chicago on the 9th of July, this
speech having been delivered on the 16th of June, he made an harangue
there in which he took hold of this speech of mine, showing that he had
carefully read it; and, while he paid no attention to _this_ matter at
all, but complimented me as being a “kind, amiable, and intelligent
gentleman,” notwithstanding I had said this, he goes on and deduces,
or draws out, from my speech this tendency of mine to set the States
at war with one another, to make all the institutions uniform, and set
the niggers and white people to marry together. Then, as the Judge
had complimented me with these pleasant titles, (I must confess to my
weakness) I was a little “taken”; for it came from a great man. I was
not very much accustomed to flattery, and it came the sweeter to me.
I was rather like the Hoosier with the gingerbread, when he said he
reckoned he loved it better than any other man, and got less of it.
As the Judge had so flattered me, I could not make up my mind that he
meant to deal unfairly with me. So I went to work to show him that he
misunderstood the whole scope of my speech, and that I really never
intended to set the people at war with one another. As an illustration,
the next time I met him, which was at Springfield, I used this
expression, that I claimed no right under the Constitution, nor had
I any inclination, to enter into the Slave States and interfere with
the institutions of slavery. He says upon that: Lincoln will not enter
into the Slave States, but will go to the banks of the Ohio, on this
side, and shoot over! He runs on, step by step, in the horse-chestnut
style of argument, until in the Springfield speech he says, “Unless
he shall be successful in firing his batteries until he shall have
extinguished slavery in all the States, the Union shall be dissolved.”
Now I don’t think that was exactly the way to treat “a kind, amiable,
intelligent gentleman.” I know if I had asked the Judge to show when or
where it was I had said that, if I didn’t succeed in firing into the
Slave States until slavery should be extinguished, the Union should
be dissolved, he could not have shown it. I understand what he would
do. He would say, “I don’t mean to quote from you, but this was the
_result_ of what you say.” But I have the right to ask, and I do ask
now, Did you not put it in such a form that an ordinary reader or
listener would take it as an expression _from me_?
In a speech at Springfield, on the night of the 17th, I thought I
might as well attend to my own business a little; and I recalled
his attention as well as I could to this charge of conspiracy to
nationalize slavery. I called his attention to the fact that he had
acknowledged in my hearing twice that he had carefully read the speech;
and, in the language of the lawyers, as he had twice read the speech
and still had put in no plea or answer, I took a default on him. I
insisted that I had a right then to renew that charge of conspiracy.
Ten days afterwards I met the Judge at Clinton,--that is to say, I
was on the ground, but not in the discussion,--and heard him make a
speech. Then he comes in with his plea to this charge, for the first
time; and his plea when put in, as well as I can recollect it, amounted
to this: That he never had any talk with Judge Taney or the President
of the United States with regard to the Dred Scott decision before it
was made; I (Lincoln) ought to know that the man who makes a charge
without knowing it to be true falsifies as much as he who knowingly
tells a falsehood; and, lastly, that he would pronounce the whole
thing a falsehood; but he would make no personal application of the
charge of falsehood, not because of any regard for the “kind, amiable,
intelligent gentleman,” but because of his own personal self-respect!
I have understood since then (but [turning to Judge Douglas] will not
hold the Judge to it if he is not willing) that he has broken through
the “self-respect,” and has got to saying the thing _out_. The Judge
nods to me that it is so. It is fortunate for me that I can keep as
good-humored as I do, when the Judge acknowledges that he has been
trying to make a question of veracity with me. I know the Judge is a
great man, while I am only a small man; but I feel that I have got him.
I demur to that plea. I waive all objections that it was not filed
till after default was taken, and demur to it upon the merits. What if
Judge Douglas never did talk with Chief Justice Taney and the President
before the Dred Scott decision was made: does it follow that he could
not have had as perfect an understanding without talking as with it?
I am not disposed to stand upon my legal advantage. I am disposed to
take his denial as being like an answer in chancery, that he neither
had any knowledge, information, nor belief in the existence of such
a conspiracy. I am disposed to take his answer as being as broad as
though he had put it in these words. And now, I ask, even if he had
done so, have not I a right to _prove it on him_, and to offer the
evidence of more than two witnesses, by whom to prove it; and if the
evidence proves the existence of the conspiracy, does his broad answer
denying all knowledge, information, or belief, disturb the fact? It can
only show that he was _used_ by conspirators, and was not a _leader_ of
them.
Now, in regard to his reminding me of the moral rule that persons who
tell what they do not know to be true, falsify as much as those who
knowingly tell falsehoods. I remember the rule, and it must be borne in
mind that in what I have read to you, I do not say that I know such a
conspiracy to exist. To that I reply, I believe it. If the Judge says
that I do not believe it, then he says what he does not know, and falls
within his own rule that he who asserts a thing which he does not know
to be true, falsifies as much as he who knowingly tells a falsehood.
I want to call your attention to a little discussion on that branch
of the case, and the evidence which brought my mind to the conclusion
which I expressed as my belief. If, in arraying that evidence, I had
stated anything which was false or erroneous, it needed but that Judge
Douglas should point it out, and I would have taken it back with all
the kindness in the world. I do not deal in that way. If I have brought
forward anything not a fact, if he will point it out, it will not
even ruffle me to take it back. But if he will not point out anything
erroneous in the evidence, is it not rather for him to show by a
comparison of the evidence that I have reasoned falsely, than to call
the “kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman” a liar? If I have reasoned
to a false conclusion, it is the vocation of an able debater to show by
argument that I have wandered to an erroneous conclusion.
I want to ask your attention to a portion of the Nebraska bill which
Judge Douglas has quoted: “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.” Thereupon Judge Douglas
and others began to argue in favor of “Popular Sovereignty,”--the
right of the people to have slaves if they wanted them, and to exclude
slavery if they did not want them. “But,” said, in substance, a Senator
from Ohio (Mr. Chase, I believe), “we more than suspect that you do
not mean to allow the people to exclude slavery if they wish to; and
if you do mean it, accept an amendment which I propose expressly
authorizing the people to exclude slavery.” I believe I have the
amendment here before me which was offered, and under which the people
of the Territory, through their proper representatives, might, if they
saw fit, prohibit the existence of slavery therein. And now I state it
as a _fact_, to be taken back if there is any mistake about it, that
Judge Douglas and those acting with him _voted that amendment down_.
I now think that those men who voted it down had a _real reason_ for
doing so. They know what that reason was. It looks to us, since we
have seen the Dred Scott decision pronounced, holding that “under the
Constitution” the people cannot exclude slavery--I say it looks to
outsiders, poor, simple, “amiable, intelligent gentlemen,” as though
the niche was left as a place to put that Dred Scott decision in,--a
niche which would have been spoiled by adopting the amendment. And now
I say again, if _this_ was not the reason, it will avail the judge much
more to calmly and good-humoredly point out to these people what that
_other_ reason was for voting the amendment down than swelling himself
up to vociferate that he may be provoked to call somebody a liar.
Again, there is in that same quotation from the Nebraska bill this
clause: “It being the true intent and meaning of this bill not to
legislate slavery into any Territory or _State_.” I have always been
puzzled to know what business the word “State” had in that connection.
Judge Douglas knows. He put it there. He knows what he put it there
for. We outsiders cannot say what he put it there for. The law they
were passing was not about States, and was not making provision for
States. What was it placed there for? After seeing the Dred Scott
decision, which holds that the people cannot exclude slavery from a
_Territory_, if another Dred Scott decision shall come, holding that
they cannot exclude it from a _State_, we shall discover that when
the word was originally put there it was in view of something which
was to come in due time; we shall see that it was the _other half_
of something. I now say again, if there is any different reason for
putting it there, Judge Douglas, in a good-humored way, without calling
anybody a liar, _can tell what the reason was_.
* * * * *
Now, my friends, I have but one branch of the subject, in the little
time I have left, to which to call your attention; and, as I shall come
to a close at the end of that branch, it is probable that I shall not
occupy quite all the time allotted to me. Although on these questions
I would like to talk twice as long as I have, I could not enter upon
another head and discuss it properly without running over my time. I
ask the attention of the people here assembled and elsewhere to the
course that Judge Douglas is pursuing every day as bearing upon this
question of making slavery national. Not going back to the records,
but taking the speeches he makes, the speeches he made yesterday and
day before, and makes constantly all over the country,--I ask your
attention to them. In the first place, what is necessary to make the
institution national? Not war. There is no danger that the people of
Kentucky will shoulder their muskets, and, with a young nigger stuck
on every bayonet, march into Illinois and force them upon us. There is
no danger of our going over there and making war upon them. Then what
is necessary for the nationalization of slavery? It is simply the next
Dred Scott decision. It is merely for the Supreme Court to decide that
no _State_ under the Constitution can exclude it, just as they have
already decided that under the Constitution neither Congress nor the
Territorial legislature can do it. When that is decided and acquiesced
in, the whole thing is done. This being true, and this being the way,
as I think, that slavery is to be made national, let us consider
what Judge Douglas is doing every day to that end. In the first
place, let us see what influence he is exerting on public sentiment.
In this and like communities, public sentiment is everything. With
public sentiment, nothing can fail: without it, nothing can succeed.
Consequently, he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he
who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and
decisions possible or impossible to be executed. This must be borne
in mind, as also the additional fact that Judge Douglas is a man of
vast influence, so great that it is enough for many men to profess to
believe anything when they once find out that Judge Douglas professes
to believe it. Consider also the attitude he occupies at the head of a
large party,--a party which he claims has a majority of all the voters
in the country.
This man sticks to a decision which forbids the people of a Territory
to exclude slavery, and he does so not because he says it is right in
itself,--he does not give any opinion on that,--but because it has been
_decided by the court_; and, being decided by the court, he is, and
you are, bound to take it in your political action as law,--not that
he judges at all of its merits, but because a decision of the court
is to him a “Thus saith the Lord.” He places it on that ground alone,
and you will bear in mind that thus committing himself unreservedly
to this decision _commits him to the next one_ just as firmly as to
this. He did not commit himself on account of the merit or demerit of
the decision, but it is a “Thus saith the Lord.” The next decision, as
much as this, will be a “Thus saith the Lord.” There is nothing that
can divert or turn him away from this decision. It is nothing that I
point out to him that his great prototype, General Jackson, did not
believe in the binding force of decisions. It is nothing to him that
Jefferson did not so believe. I have said that I have often heard
him approve of Jackson’s course in disregarding the decision of the
Supreme Court pronouncing a national bank constitutional. He says I
did not hear him say so. He denies the accuracy of my recollection.
I say he ought to know better than I; but I will make no question
about this thing, though it still seems to me that I heard him say it
twenty times. I will tell him, though, that he now claims to stand on
the Cincinnati platform, which affirms that Congress cannot charter a
national bank, in the teeth of that old standing decision that Congress
can charter a bank. And I remind him of another piece of history on
the question of respect for judicial decisions, and it is a piece of
Illinois history, belonging to a time when a large party to which Judge
Douglas belonged were displeased with a decision of the Supreme Court
of Illinois because they had decided that a Governor could not remove
a Secretary of State. You will find the whole story in Ford’s _History
of Illinois_, and I know that Judge Douglas will not deny that he was
then in favor of overslaughing that decision by the mode of adding five
new judges, so as to vote down the four old ones. Not only so, but
it ended in the Judge’s sitting down on the very bench as one of the
five new Judges to break down the four old ones. It was in this way
precisely that he got his title of judge. Now, when the Judge tells
me that men appointed conditionally to sit as members of a court will
have to be catechised beforehand upon some subject, I say, “You know,
Judge; you have tried it.” When he says a court of this kind will lose
the confidence of all men, will be prostituted and disgraced by such
a proceeding, I say, “You know best, Judge; you have been through the
mill.”
But I cannot shake Judge Douglas’s teeth loose from the Dred Scott
decision. Like some obstinate animal (I mean no disrespect) that will
hang on when he has once got his teeth fixed, you may cut off a leg or
you may tear away an arm, still he will not relax his hold. And so I
may point out to the Judge, and say that he is bespattered all over,
from the beginning of his political life to the present time, with
attacks upon judicial decisions; I may cut off limb after limb of his
public record, and strive to wrench from him a single dictum of the
court,--yet I cannot divert him from it. He hangs to the last to the
Dred Scott decision. These things show there is a purpose strong as
death and eternity for which he adheres to this decision, and for which
he will adhere to all other decisions of the same court. [_A voice:
“Give us something besides Dred Scott.”_] Yes; no doubt you want to
hear something that don’t hurt.